Native Americans in the San Francisco Bay Area: Patterns in Ancient Teeth, Palimpsests of Behavior

NATIVE AMERICANS IN THE SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA: PATTERNS IN ANCIENT TEETH; PALIMPSESTS OF BEHAVIOR by Dave Grant In analyzing burial populations from seven sites in the Santa Clara Valley, patterns on teeth were found that did not conform to the flat normative wear explanation. This study attempts to expand upon the seminal work of Molnar (1968), Hinton (1981), and Keiser (2001a, 2001b) and to propose a definitional refinement of wear patterns found on teeth from populations in Central California. Flat normative wear was present. In addition, four additional distinct wear patterns were found. Wear patterns include slants and scoops on posterior teeth and rounding and grooving on anterior teeth. Statistically significant differences were identified between an older (4,000-2930BP) northern population and younger (2200BP-250BP) populations from the Santa Clara Valley. Analysis of the southern population suggests that these individuals did not utilize their teeth as frequently to produce patterned wear and suggests an elite class that was exempt from normal processing activities. The percentage of slants, rounding, and scoops all increased through time from the older, northern population to the younger, southern populations. Males exhibited more flat wear and more slant wear than females. Southern males had more slant wear than females and were evenly split on the rounding pattern. Scoops, which may be related to arrow shaft processing or peeling, are overwhelmingly found in the southern population after the adoption of the bow and arrow in this area. Further research is called for to further refine and define these processes

Improving the availability of biopesticides : an interdisciplinary research project

There is a need for new, biologically-based crop protection products to serve as alternatives to or to complement synthetic chemical pesticides. An interdisciplinary research team from the natural and social sciences considered whether regulatory barriers were preventing more biopesticides reaching the market. The research coincided with a realisation by policy makers that more needed to be done to facilitate biopesticide registration, exemplified by the UK's Biopesticides Scheme. However, important differences remain between the UK and other countries such as the USA. Changes in regulatory arrangements need careful handling. The scientific work undertaken in the project provided a better understanding of the population biology of microbial control agents. Interdisciplinary work permitted a contribution to the policy debate

Immiseration Capitalism

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Quantifying methane and nitrous oxide emissions from the UK and Ireland using a national-scale monitoring network

The UK is one of several countries around the world that has enacted legislation to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions. In this study, we present top-down emissions of methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O) for the UK and Ireland over the period August 2012 to August 2014. These emissions were inferred using measurements from a network of four sites around the two countries. We used a hierarchical Bayesian inverse framework to infer fluxes as well as a set of covariance parameters that describe uncertainties in the system. We inferred average UK total emissions of 2.09 (1.65–2.67) Tg yr−1 CH4 and 0.101 (0.068–0.150) Tg yr−1 N2O and found our derived UK estimates to be generally lower than the a priori emissions, which consisted primarily of anthropogenic sources and with a smaller contribution from natural sources. We used sectoral distributions from the UK National Atmospheric Emissions Inventory (NAEI) to determine whether these discrepancies can be attributed to specific source sectors. Because of the distinct distributions of the two dominant CH4 emissions sectors in the UK, agriculture and waste, we found that the inventory may be overestimated in agricultural CH4 emissions. We found that annual mean N2O emissions were consistent with both the prior and the anthropogenic inventory but we derived a significant seasonal cycle in emissions. This seasonality is likely due to seasonality in fertilizer application and in environmental drivers such as temperature and rainfall, which are not reflected in the annual resolution inventory. Through the hierarchical Bayesian inverse framework, we quantified uncertainty covariance parameters and emphasized their importance for high-resolution emissions estimation. We inferred average model errors of approximately 20 and 0.4 ppb and correlation timescales of 1.0 (0.72–1.43) and 2.6 (1.9–20 3.9) days for CH4 and N2O, respectively. These errors are a combination of transport model errors as well as errors due to unresolved emissions processes in the inventory. We found the largest CH4 errors at the Tacolneston station in eastern England, which may be due to sporadic emissions from landfills and offshore gas in the North Sea

Social media in manufacturing workplaces

This research study and dissertation was designed to evaluate any connection between the use of social media for learning, communication and collaboration in a manufacturing environment and improved performance in quality and delivery metrics in those organizations. As the competition throughout the world becomes more challenging, organizations, small and large, are changing the way they conduct business to remain competitive in the growing and changing marketplace. Many of these organizations are experiencing a continually growing sector of their employees working remotely or in, in some cases, other areas of the world. Many of these organizations are finding that the ways to perform and improve processes that had been relied upon for many years simply do not work in the current workplace. One way that has been discovered to improve performance with consideration to these challenges is through the use of social media. Social media is becoming increasingly more commonplace in the workplace in recent years. For several years, social media has been used by organizations to collect feedback from customers, employees and others to help refine their processes and products to improve their product or service to help make more satisfied customers. Coupled with increasing demands of Just In Time (JIT) manufacturing and increasingly rigorous quality requirements, social media is now being examined to be a means to help better equip and empower these workforces. Effective and consistent training can be a considerable challenge in many manufacturing organizations and many of those businesses are beginning to more fully understand the true impact of training. While the ROI may not always be easily quantifiable in many instances, training and development is becoming a cornerstone of many organizations. Although most employee development / training departments desire to make training better, barriers such as off shifts, departmental budgets and remote working employees can challenge even the best plans or intentions. Because of the inconsistent training that occurs as a result of these factors, organizations can experience varied outcomes that can dramatically impact customer satisfaction, employee engagement and organizational profitability. Training through the use of social media can help reduce the burden placed upon these organizations and lead to a more positive financial performance. It can also allow organizations to use a web based venue that is accessible nearly anywhere in the world and be accessed nearly instantaneously. In addition, many of these social media sites can be used from little to no cost, helping to better control costs that are associated with employee development. Although the use of social media for employee development is new, the results of this research study shows promising results. This research study shows a correlation between the use of social media for learning, communication and collaboration and the organization’s improved performance in quality and delivery metrics. While the Pilot Study produced positive results, the scope of this earlier study was broad, using a number of social media venues, and there was no way to completely understand where the positive effects came from. In an attempt to better control the variables in the empirical research study, the number of forms of social media used in that study was reduced to only the use of Twitter. The results of the research study were also positive yet did not show as large of an impact as the Pilot Study. This could be due to the many factors and allows for significant opportunity for future research using other forms of social media alone or in combination with one another. In addition, the results from the anonymous online survey showed that the majority of the participants found value through the use of Twitter for communication and collaboration within their workplace. Although these results are promising, there is a great deal of opportunity to explore this relationship in much closer detail opening up a venue for future research

Conclusion: Capitalism, Resistance and What is to be Done?

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Preparing Post-Secondary Learners for Indiana's leading Industries

poster abstractThe Advanced Manufacturing Industry in Indiana has increased nearly twice as rapidly as most other States. While the demand for higher skilled workers increases, the production of trained employees has not. The STEM Education Research Institute (SERI) has collaborated with Employ Indy, Project Lead the Way (PLTW), and the Excel Center to facilitate a 16-week pilot. This pilot connects competencies from PLTW with five Industry Certifications desired by businesses and colleges surveyed throughout the state. The eighteen week pilot begins the second week of April and has a four week job shadowing component at the eight week mark. The target population is disconnected/discouraged adult learners that have no training in manufacturing. Industry Certifications include: OSHA 10, Certified Logistic Associate, Certified Logistics Technician, Autodesk Inventor and National Career Readiness Certification. This program also offers the opportunity for students to complete a PLTW course and receive duel credit through Ivy Tech or IUPUI. A mixed methods research/evaluation design has been constructed and reviewed. It will be implemented throughout the duration of this pilot. The results will be used formatively to refine the pilot before running a second pilot in the late Fall of 2015

Experiences of Homelessness and Brain Injury

Keywords: brain injury, homelessness, co-productio