The Chasm Between Two Parallel Worlds

In much of the research conducted on military issues, problems are identified years, sometimes decades, before the military publicly acknowledges these concerns; an example of this is sexual assault, which scholars discussed for over thirty years before the military acknowledged the issue. In this paper, I study the value differences between the military leadership and the scholars who study military topics and how these different values may hinder effective communication between the two groups. The method I use in identifying the standards by which the two groups identify problems is content analysis on articles published by the two communities, calculating the percentage of time spent addressing different aspects of concerns regarding the military, including the effects of military culture on the rest of American society, the well-being of individual service members and mission accomplishment, or any combination of these categories. I find the military and the academic community have different priorities in assessing problems and, therefore, their appreciation of these problems is at odds with each other. I conclude with the proposition that scholars would improve the chances their research would reach the audiences able to instigate the changes if the scholars placed more emphasis on those things the military values, namely mission accomplishment and unit integrity

Landscape context mediates the relationship between plant functional traits and decomposition

Aims: It has been well demonstrated that several interacting endogenous and exogenous factors influence decomposition. However, teasing apart the direct and indirect effects of these factors to predict decomposition patterns in heterogenous landscapes remains a key challenge. Methods: At 157 locations in a temperate forest, we measured decomposition of a standard substrate (filter paper) over two years, the landscape context in which decomposition took place, and the functional composition of the woody species that contributed leaf litter to the forest floor where litter bags were placed. We tested for direct and indirect effects of landscape context and direct effects of forest functional composition on decay using structural equation modelling. Results: We found that landscape context had direct effects on decay and indirect effects on decay via its influence on the functional composition of the surrounding forest. Forest functional composition also had direct effects on decay, but these effects decreased or disappeared completely over time. Moreover, community weighted mean trait values were better predictors of decay than functional dispersion of leaf traits, and leaf nitrogen content and carbon content were better predictors of decay than leaf dry matter content or leaf toughness. Conclusions: Our results highlight the importance of an integrative approach that examines the direct and indirect effects of multiple factors for understanding and predicting decomposition patterns across heterogenous landscapes

Can We Make Them Obey? U.S. Reporting Companies, Their Foreign Suppliers, and the Conflict Minerals Disclosure Requirements of Dodd-Frank

§ 1502 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act targets human rights abuses abroad, rather than financial reforms at home. It requires certain reporting companies to make disclosures about the conflict minerals necessary in the production or function of their products. After repeated delays, the SEC finalized a conflict minerals disclosure rule, outlining the process companies must follow to satisfy their disclosure obligations. This comment discusses that process, as well as the costs imposed on the companies required to make conflict minerals disclosures. It also highlights an important effect of those costs: reporting companies will seek to improve their supply chains and pass some of the mandated due diligence burden to other supply chain businesses through contracts. But enforcement of these contracts, breaches, and litigation in foreign jurisdictions will all increase the total costs of the conflict minerals disclosure regime, including on foreign suppliers themselves. This comment concludes that until the international community collectively commits to end the conflict minerals trade, § 1502 and the SEC conflict minerals rule will not effectively achieve their intended benefits. The costs of compliance are simply too high

The Impact of Traffic Images on Mode Choice in Stated-Preference Surveys

A difficult aspect of using stated-preference choice experiments to predict travel behavior is properly presenting attributes and characteristics of hypothetical trips to respondents. With the growing in number of transportation choices recently, the task of concisely and accurately communicating trip attributes in the stated-preference setting become increasingly more important. Recent attempts to introduce innovative strategies to the stated-preference setting have yielded techniques to more efficiently summarize trip attributes to respondents. One technique is to use images of traffic conditions as a supplemental means of summarizing average trip speed, travel time reliability, or degree of congestion. However, little research has been performed testing the effect that the use of traffic images has on models of mode choice built from this kind of stated-preference data. In this research, a stated-preference setting was developed in which the influence that images of traffic conditions was measured. Pictures of traffic conditions that correlated to average trip speed were either shown or withheld depending on random assignment to a survey population from Austin, Texas. From the significant differences in respondent preferences across mode choice, a mixed-logit model was built to describe the respondent's choice behavior. Overall model parameters discovered no evidence to support the assertion that traffic image presentation has a statistically significant effect on mode choice with respect to Value of Travel Time Savings, or Value of Travel Time Reliability

From This Day Forward

Photograph of Joan Fontaine as she appeared in the film From This Day Forward.https://scholarsjunction.msstate.edu/cht-sheet-music/2853/thumbnail.jp

Spare Ribs? Early Modern Female Monasticism in the East Slavic Lands

In contrast to the robust state of research on female Catholic monasticism in Central and Western Europe, Italy and the Iberian Peninsula, the history of Orthodox and Greek Catholic convents in the Balkans and Eastern Europe remains a largely uncharted field of study. Although historical archives in those parts of Europe offer rich pickings of first-class documentary material, the lack of up-to-date research methodologies in post-Socialist countries, the current stunted condition of pre-modern Slavic studies in Western Europe, and occasional problems of archival access create obstacles against the development of this promising area of research. However, characteristic of a strong element of human interest, research on early modern women's monasticism of the Eastern Rite has the potential to broaden the awareness of the place women held in European societies and cultures of the past and contribute to a more nuanced understanding of it at present

Viral Etiology of Influenza-Like Illnesses in Antananarivo, Madagascar, July 2008 to June 2009

In Madagascar, despite an influenza surveillance established since 1978, little is known about the etiology and prevalence of viruses other than influenza causing influenza-like illnesses (ILIs).From July 2008 to June 2009, we collected respiratory specimens from patients who presented ILIs symptoms in public and private clinics in Antananarivo (the capital city of Madagascar). ILIs were defined as body temperature ≥38°C and cough and at least two of the following symptoms: sore throat, rhinorrhea, headache and muscular pain, for a maximum duration of 3 days. We screened these specimens using five multiplex real time Reverse Transcription and/or Polymerase Chain Reaction assays for detection of 14 respiratory viruses. We detected respiratory viruses in 235/313 (75.1%) samples. Overall influenza virus A (27.3%) was the most common virus followed by rhinovirus (24.8%), RSV (21.2%), adenovirus (6.1%), coronavirus OC43 (6.1%), influenza virus B (3.9%), parainfluenza virus-3 (2.9%), and parainfluenza virus-1 (2.3%). Co-infections occurred in 29.4% (69/235) of infected patients and rhinovirus was the most detected virus (27.5%). Children under 5 years were more likely to have one or more detectable virus associated with their ILI. In this age group, compared to those ≥5 years, the risk of detecting more than one virus was higher (OR = 1.9), as was the risk of detecting of RSV (OR = 10.1) and adenovirus (OR = 4.7). While rhinovirus and adenovirus infections occurred year round, RSV, influenza virus A and coronavirus OC43 had defined period of circulation.In our study, we found that respiratory viruses play an important role in ILIs in the Malagasy community, particularly in children under 5 years old. These data provide a better understanding of the viral etiology of outpatients with ILI and describe for the first time importance of these viruses in different age group and their period of circulation