Predation by Amphibians and Small Mammals on the Spruce Budworm (Lepidoptera: Tortricidae)

Stomach-content analyses of pitfall-trapped amphibians and small mammals showed that the eastern American toad, Bujo americanus americanus, and the wood frog, Rana sylvatica, preyed on late instars and moths of the spruce budworm, Choristoneura fumiferana. The spotted salamander, Ambystoma maculatum, and the masked shrew, Sorex cinereus, also preyed on late instars of the spruce budworm

United We Ride National Dialogue

The Coordinating Council on Access and Mobility (CCAM) asked the National Academy of Public Administration and Easter Seals Project ACTION to develop and host the first United We Ride (UWR) National Dialogue. The goal of the Dialogue was to help shape future policy direction and provide input to the next CCAM strategic plan. The National Academy also assembled a small work group with representatives of the Federal Interagency Coordinating Council on Access and Mobility, Easter Seals Project ACTION, and the National Resource Center on Human Service Transportation to help guide the process of design and implementation.The CCAM includes 11 federal departments, nine of which are responsible for providing transportation for people with disabilities, older adults, and people with limited incomes. CCAM officially launched United We Ride in 2004 to (1) provide more rides for target populations while using the same or fewer assets, (2) simplify access, and (3) increase customer satisfaction.Key FindingsThe process used to create coordinated transportation plans needs improvement. Significant federal policy barriers still exist to strategies that would facilitate access to transportation services. Mobility management strategies are underutilized in communities across the country, and missed opportunities to bridge gaps between transportation and other community services still need to be addressed

A theory of planning horizons (1): market design in a post-neoclassical world

The neoclassical case supporting competitive frames and market solutions has failed to promote stable world-wide economic development. Other approaches in economics incorporate social culture, increasing returns, market power, ecological limits and complementarity, yielding broader applications for development theory. In this paper a theory of planning horizons is introduced to raise some meaningful questions about the traditional view with respect to its substitution, decreasing returns and independence assumptions. Suppositions of complementarity, increasing returns and interdependence suggest that competition is inefficient by upholding a myopic culture resistant to learning. Growth – though long believed to rise from markets and competitive values – may not derive from these sources. Instead, as civilizations advance, shifting from material wants to higher-order intangible output, they evolve from market tradeoffs (substitution and scarcity) into realms of common need (complementarity and abundance). The policy implications of horizonal theory are explored, with respect to regulatory aims and economic concerns. Such an approach emphasizes strict constraints against entry barriers, ecological harm, market power abuse and ethical lapses. Social cohesion – not competition – is sought as a means to extend horizons and thereby increase efficiency, equity and ecological health. The overriding importance of horizon effects for regulatory assessment dominates other orthodox standards in economics and law. Reframing economics along horizonal lines suggests some meaningful insight on the proper design of economic systems

LIFESTYLE CHOICES RELATED TO FOOD CONSUMPTION AND THEIR RELATIONSHIP TO DEPRESSION

Dieting, or the act of restricting oneself to small amounts or particular kinds of foods on the basis of health, spirituality, lifestyle, and moral decisions, is a practice that dates to 1066 A.D. However, with social media being as influential as it is, one might believe dieting is a new obsession or at least an obsession to which popular culture is returning. Despite this, it is only in recent years that researchers have begun to focus on the health benefits of such behaviors. The present study was designed to take this focus a step further by exploring the potential risks and benefits of dieting on mental health. A self-report survey that contained a food frequency questionnaire and the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory–2 Depression scale was used to assess participants’ dietary style over a year and their depressive symptoms. A total of 28 completed questionnaires (14 men and 14 women) were received for analysis. The multivariate linear regression that was intended could not be undertaken due to sample limitations. It was anticipated that large samples would be gathered across the three dietary styles. Due to COVID-19 and given the inability to acquire an adequate sample size, valid analysis was precluded, and the researcher was unable to conduct the study as anticipated. Thus, the reported findings are not significant. Suggestions for addressing the limitations of this study are offered for future research

The case for increasing returns (2): the methods of planning horizons

In neoclassical economics, substitution assumptions support equilibrium models in closed systems shunning interdependence. On these grounds an array of frames show outcomes as stable, efficient, unique and determinate. Heterodox economists say equilibrium models sidestep practical knowledge and the rich reality of economic behavior. Rigor or realism, mainstream or radical, ecological, institutional, socio-cultural: economics invites a wide diversity of assumptions, once short-term models of substitution are opened to question. The answers are blurred by applications; there is clarity in a simplicity shielded from mundane detail. This paper addresses the methodological impact of planning horizons, increasing returns and complementarity, and their proper representation in economic constructions. Horizonal economics can be construed as extending orthodox standards into a realm of time, but for its subtler ramifications. Increasing returns make our relations complementary and not substitutional, loosening the tight deductions from mainstream models of choice.The horizonal extension of our received theory of price applies time to cost and demand curves, showing Marshallian scissors (supply and demand) cut outward and downward with expanded horizons. Static conceptions appear in horizonal groups, suggesting complete theories of price should specify agents’ horizons, with no further radical impact: the trouble emerges with increasing returns and complementarity. Horizons stem from unbounded causality; if all we do ripples outward forever in nature and society, the relevant field of inquiry for economics is interdependent: this is the case for bounded rationality as an analytical limit to economic conceptions. In turn, interdependence suggests a use of network constructs to frame complex systemic cascades, and networks open a door to complementarity and increasing returns in transport and information exchange. The gaping maw of increasing returns and complementarity opens, swallowing down neat traditions such as stability, equilibrium, marginalism, partial analysis, supply and demand depictions of price, etc. The methodological lesson of this shift to network contexts and dynamic complex systems supersedes some of our favored doctrines and the analyses on which they stand. Without decreasing returns and substitution, neoclassical arguments simply do not work. Heterodox approaches – and their intelligent application – are required in this setting. The paper offers a few guidelines to an unexplored domain of fundamental departures

Low Temperature Physics

Contains research objectives and reports on one research project