Academic Scholars, Practicing Professionals, and Engaged Scholarship: A Content Analysis of Collaborative and Informed Research in Tourism Journals

This study examines the existence of engaged scholarship through a content analysis of 442 articles published in tourism journals. The importance of the analysis is based on arguments from the literature that research quality improves when academic scholars and practicing professionals collaborate. However, confirmation that engaged scholarship is taking place is a necessary first step before one can evaluate and compare the quality of the research. The results of the analysis reveal that engaged scholarship is modestly practiced. Collaborative research represents approximately 10 percent of the total while informed research represents about 22 percent (for external funding) and 9 percent (for access to data and other support). Now that the presence of engaged scholarship has been confirmed, future investigations should examine whether or not such engagement results in higher quality research. If so, it will have potentially important implications for both scholarship and practice

Crowdsourcing for rangeland conditions—Process innovation and beyond

National Science FoundationAtkinson Center for a Sustainable Futur

Improving Transit Predictions of Known Exoplanets with TERMS

Transiting planet discoveries have largely been restricted to the short-period or low-periastron distance regimes due to the bias inherent in the geometric transit probability. Through the refinement of planetary orbital parameters, and hence reducing the size of transit windows, long-period planets become feasible targets for photometric follow-up. Here we describe the TERMS project that is monitoring these host stars at predicted transit times.Comment: 3 pages, 2 figures, to be published in ASP Conf. Proceedings: "Detection and dynamics of transiting exoplanets" 2010, OHP, France (eds.: F. Bouchy, R.F. D{\i}az, C. Moutou

The effect of HOCl-induced modifications on phosphatase and tensin homolog (PTEN) structure and function

Oxidation by reactive species can cause changes in protein function and affect cell signaling pathways. Phosphatase and tensin homolog (PTEN) is a negative regulator of the PI3K/AKT pathway and is known to be inhibited by oxidation, but its oxidation by the myeloperoxidase-derived oxidant hypochlorous acid (HOCl) has not previously been investigated. PTEN-GST was treated with HOCl:protein ratios from 15:1 to 300:1. Decreases in PTEN phosphatase activity were observed at treatment ratios of 60:1 and higher, which correlated with the loss of the intact protein band and appearance of high molecular weight aggregates in SDS-PAGE. LC-MSMS was used to map oxidative modifications (oxPTMs) in PTEN-GST tryptic peptides and label-free quantitative proteomics used to determine their relative abundance. Twenty different oxPTMs of PTEN were identified, of which 14 were significantly elevated upon HOCl treatment in a dose-dependent manner. Methionine and cysteine residues were the most heavily oxidized; the percentage modification depended on their location in the sequence, reflecting differences in susceptibility. Other modifications included tyrosine chlorination and dichlorination, and hydroxylations of tyrosine, tryptophan, and proline. Much higher levels of oxidation occurred in the protein aggregates compared to the monomeric protein for certain methionine and tyrosine residues located in the C2 and C-terminal domains, suggesting that their oxidation promoted protein destabilization and aggregation; many of the residues modified were classified as buried according to their solvent accessibility. This study provides novel information on the susceptibility of PTEN to the inflammatory oxidant HOCl and its effects on the structure and activity of the protein

Ring-Contraction Strategy for the Practical, Scalable, Catalytic Asymmetric Synthesis of Versatile γ-Quaternary Acylcyclopentenes

Contraction action! A simple protocol for the catalytic asymmetric synthesis of highly functionalized γ-quaternary acylcyclopentenes (see schematic) in up to 91 % overall yield and 92 % ee has been developed. The reaction sequence employs a palladium-catalyzed enantioselective alkylation reaction and exploits the unusual stability of β-hydroxy cycloheptanones to achieve a general and robust method for performing two-carbon ring contractions

Evaluation of the anisotropic mechanical properties of reinforced polyurethane foams

The mechanical impact of adding milled glass fibers and nanoparticles at different mass fractions to low-density (relative density < 0.2) polyurethane (PU) foams is investigated. Tensile, compressive, and shear stress–strain curves are measured in the plane parallel to the foam-rise direction and the in-plane components of the elastic modulus are determined in order to assess the mechanical anisotropy of the foams. Power-law relationships between the moduli and apparent density are established for pure PU foams and used as a baseline to which the properties of composite foams are compared. Cellular mechanics models based on both rectangular and Kelvin unit-cell geometries are employed to estimate changes in the cell shape based on the mechanical anisotropy of composite foams, and the model results are compared with direct observations of the cellular structure from microscopy. A single measure of foam stiffness reinforcement is defined that excludes the effects of the apparent foam density and cell shape. The analysis reveals the large impact of cell shape on the moduli of the glass-fiber and nanocomposite foams. Nanocomposite foams exhibit up to an 11.1% degree of reinforcement, and glass-fiber foams up to 18.7% using this method for quantifying foam reinforcement, whereas a simple normalization to the in-plane modulus components of the pure PU foam would indicate from ?40.5% to 25.9% reinforcement in nanocomposite foams, and ?7.5 to 20.2% in glass-fiber foams

How does tephra deposit thickness change over time? A calibration exercise based on the 1980 Mount St Helens tephra deposit

Tephra layers are frequently used to reconstruct past volcanic activity. Inferences made from tephra layers rely on the assumption that the preserved tephra layer is representative of the initial deposit. However, a great deal can happen to tephra after it is deposited; thus, tephra layer taphonomy is a crucial but poorly understood process. The overall goal of this research was to gain greater insight into the taphonomy of terrestrial tephra layers. We approached this by a) conducting a new survey of the tephra layer from the recent, well-studied eruption of Mount St Helens on May 18th, 1980 (MSH1980); b) modelling the tephra layer thickness using an objective mathematical technique and c) comparing our results with an equivalent model based on measurements taken immediately after the eruption. In this way, we aimed to quantify any losses and transformations that have occurred. During our study, we collected measurements of tephra layer thickness from 86 locations ranging from 600 km from the vent. Geochemical analysis was used to verify the identity of tephra of uncertain origin. Our results indicated that the extant tephra layer at undisturbed sites was representative of the original deposit: overall, preservation in these locations (in terms of thickness, stratigraphy and geochemistry) had been remarkably good. However, isopach maps generated from our measurements diverged from isopachs derived from the original survey data. Furthermore, our estimate of the quantity of tephra produced during eruption greatly exceeded previous estimates of the fallout volume. In this case, inaccuracies in the modelled fallout arose from issues of sampling strategy, rather than taphonomy. Our results demonstrate the sensitivity of volcanological reconstructions to measurement location, and the great importance of reliably measured low/zero values in reconstructing tephra deposits

Quantifying Wildlife Use of Escape Ramps Along a Fenced Highway

Wildlife exclusion fencing can significantly reduce wildlife–vehicle collisions. However, some animals breach the fence and become trapped in the highway corridor, thereby increasing risk of a wildlife–vehicle collision. An emerging solution to this problem is the installation of earthen escape ramps (i.e., jumpouts), which allow trapped animals to escape the highway corridor. Few studies have quantified wildlife use of jumpouts, and none have investigated intraspecific differences in use. We used camera traps to document wildlife use of 4 2m-high jumpouts associated with wildlife exclusion fencing along Highway 101 near San Luis Obispo, California, USA, from 2012 to 2017. We surveyed for 7,361 nights across all 4 jumpouts, yielding 1,015 visitation events by 10 different species of large- and medium-sized mammals. Mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus) accounted for 895 (88%) detections; they jumped out 20% of the time when detected at the top of the ramp and were never detected using the jumpout to enter the highway corridor. We differentiated male and female deer using the presence of antlers and found that they jumped out at similar rates, but females were detected 6 times more often and were more likely to return to the same jumpout. Two groups of 2–3 deer accounted for ~41% of deer detections, which allowed us to investigate their behavior over time. These results indicate that individual variation could influence jumpout use, which should be considered when quantifying their use. To increase the overall jumpout rate, we recommend a jumpout height between 1.75 and 2 m