Doing Well and Doing Good: Pioneer Employers Discover Profits and Deliver Opportunity for Frontline Workers

A new study of business practices reveals powerful ways to create strategic and financial gains. Lower-wage workers, when supported by effective policies, boost productivity, quality, innovation, and revenues from new markets. In the process, the value added by frontline employees rises and they garner significant and sustained wage gains and career advancement. The successful formulas of these firms are models adoptable by thousands of similar businesses

Integrating the TI-83 Plus calculator into the classroom: a workshop for teachers

The purpose of the study was to evaluate the impact of a technology workshop involving the TI-83 Plus graphing calculator on an existing math curriculum and on teaching methodology. The workshop was developed with three goals in mind: 1) to inform teachers of the many functions of the TI-83 Plus, 2) to inform the teachers of how it could be integrated into their classroom, and 3) to promote student-based classrooms instead of teacher-based classrooms. The entire math department was used as a sample for this project. The intern administered surveys both before and after the workshop was implemented to see if these three goals were accomplished. The survey included both open ended questions and a closed-ended section, which used a Likert scale. The before surveys were compared with the after surveys using their averages and T-tests. The intern also conducted a one-on-one interview with each workshop participant after the implementation of the workshops. This allowed the intern to ask further questions about the workshops and about the teachers\u27 perceptions of using the TI-83 Plus in the math classroom. The statistical results showed that there was no significant change in curriculum or teaching style after the implementation of the workshops. However, the teachers were more aware of the functions and uses of the TI-83 Plus in the math classroom

The use of small-Unmanned Aerial Systems for high resolution analysis for intertidal wetland restoration schemes

Coastal and estuarine wetlands provide a range of important ecosystem services, but are currently being damaged and degraded due to human activities, reduced sediment supply and sea level rise. Managed realignment (MR) is one approach used to compensate for the loss of intertidal habitat, however saltmarshes in MR sites have been recognised to have lower biodiversity than natural environments. This has been associated with differences in the physical functioning including the sediment structure, reduced hydraulic connectivity, and lower topographic variability such as the abundance of intertidal creek networks. Intertidal morphology, including creek networks, play an important role in supporting and regulating saltmarsh environments through the supply of sediment, nutrients and water, and in draining intertidal marshes. However, there is a lack of empirical data on the formation and evolution of topographic features and variability in saltmarsh environments. This is likely to be due to creek networks in natural marshes already being in a state of quasi-equilibrium, making MR sites an ideal environment to investigate creek development. However, traditional remote sensing techniques (such as LiDAR) tend to be relatively expensive, infrequent and at a coarse resolution meaning small, but important (cm-scale), changes are often missed. This study advances the ability to detect these small scale changes by demonstrating the suitability and potential applications of using the emerging photogrammetric method Structure-from-Motion (SfM) on images taken using a small-Unmanned Aerial System (sUAS). Three surveys from a rapidly changing, near-breach site were taken at the Medmerry Managed Realignment Site in July 2016, September 2017 and July 2018. A suitable degree of confidence was found between the modelled surface and independent check points (vertical root-mean-square-errors of 0.0245, 0.0704 and 0.1571 for 2016, 2017 and 2018 respectively). DSMs of Difference (DoD) analysis was performed to evaluate elevation change, with areas experiencing up to 85 cm of accretion between 2016 and 2018. However, when considering the error associated with both surveys, between 2016 and 2017, only 34.39% of the survey area experienced change above the level of detection (LoD). In contrast, 76.97% experienced change greater than the LoD between 2017 and 2018. Stream order analysis classified the creek networks into five orders in 2016 and four orders in 2017 and 2018, with 2016 having a higher abundance (291 in 2016 compared to 117 (2017) and 112 (2018)) and density (0.44 m/m2 in 2016 compared to 0.27 m/m2 in both 2017 and 2018) of creek networks. These results provide an innovative high resolution insight into the evolution of restored intertidal wetlands, and suggest that SfM analysis of images taken using a sUAS can be a useful tool with the potential to be incorporated into studies of MR and natural saltmarsh sites. sUAS analysis can, therefore, advance the management of these environments to ensure the provision of ecosystem services and to protect against future anthropogenic activity, sea level rise and climate change

The Don Edwards San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge: A Natural Laboratory for Federal Agencies and Partners

The Don Edwards San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge encompasses a rich mosaic of habitats and is a fecund and convenient field site for Earth science research, comprised of tidal salt marsh, open ponds, shallow water, mudflat habitat and encompassing a variety of tide, salinity, elevation, slope, and other conditions. Proximity to the NASA Ames Research Center and overlap with the center's UAS (unmanned aircraft systems) test area presents the opportunity to create a unique natural laboratory that can incubate and support a variety of research and benefit the Refuge in monitoring wildlife changes and habitat evolution over time

The Use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles to Determine Differences in Vegetation Cover: A Tool for Monitoring Coastal Wetland Restoration Schemes

Managed realignment (MR) sites are being implemented to compensate for the loss of natural saltmarsh habitat due to sea level rise and anthropogenic pressures. However, MR sites have been recognised to have lower morphological variability and coverage of saltmarsh vegetation than natural saltmarsh sites, which have been linked with the legacy of the historic (terrestrial) land use. This study assesses the relationship between the morphology and vegetation coverage in three separate zones, associated with the legacy of historic reclamation, of a non-engineered MR site. The site was selected due to the phased historical reclamation, and because no pre-breaching landscaping or engineering works were carried out prior to the more recent and contemporary breaching of the site. Four vegetation indices (Excess Green Index, Green Chromatic Coordinate, Green-Red Vegetation Index, and Visible Atmospherically Resistant Index) were calculated from unmanned aerial vehicle imagery; elevation, slope, and curvature surface models were calculated from a digital surface model (DSM) generated from the same imagery captured at the MR site. The imagery and DSM summarised the three zones present within the MR site and the adjacent external natural marsh, and were used to examine the site for areas of differing vegetation cover. Results indicated statistically significant differences between the vegetation indices across the three zones. Statistically significant differences in the vegetation indices were also found between the three zones and the external natural saltmarsh. However, it was only in the zone nearest the breach, and for three of the four indices, that a moderate to strong correlation was found between elevation and the vegetation indices (r = 0.53 to 0.70). This zone was also the lowest in elevation and exhibited the lowest average value for all indices. No relationship was found between the vegetation indices and either the slope or curvature in any of the zones. The approach outlined in this paper provides coastal managers with a relatively low-cost, low-field time method of assessing the areas of vegetation development in MR sites. Moreover, the findings indicate the potential importance of considering the historic morphological and sedimentological changes in the MR sites. By combining data on the areas of saltmarsh colonisation with a consideration of the site’s morphological and reclamation history, the areas likely to support saltmarsh vegetation can be remotely identified in the design of larger engineered MR sites maximising the compensation for the loss of saltmarsh habitat elsewhere

What can we really learn from positron flux 'anomalies'?

We present a critical analysis of the observational constraints on, and of the theoretical modeling of, aspects of cosmic ray (CR) generation and propagation in the Galaxy, which are relevant for the interpretation of recent positron and anti-proton measurements. We give simple, analytic, model independent expressions for the secondary pbar flux, and an upper limit for the secondary e+ flux, obtained by neglecting e+ radiative losses, e+/(e+ + e-)<0.2\pm0.1 up to ~300 GeV. These expressions are completely determined by the rigidity dependent grammage, which is measured from stable CR secondaries up to ~150 GeV/nuc, and by nuclear cross sections measured in the laboratory. pbar and e+ measurements, available up to ~100 GeV, are consistent with these estimates, implying that there is no need for new, non-secondary, pbar or e+ sources. The radiative loss suppression factor f_{s,e+} of the e+ flux depends on the e+ propagation in the Galaxy, which is not understood theoretically. A rough, model independent estimate of f_{s,e+} 1/3 can be obtained at a single energy, E\sim20 GeV, from unstable secondary decay and is found to be consistent with e+ measurements, including the positron fraction measured by PAMELA. We show that specific detailed models, that agree with compositional CR data, agree with our simple expressions for the e+ and pbar flux, and that the claims that the positron fraction measured by PAMELA requires new primary e+ sources are based on assumptions, that are not supported by observations. If PAMELA results are correct, they suggest that f_{s,e+} is slightly increasing with energy, which provides an interesting constraint on CR propagation models. We argue that measurements of the e+ to pbar ratio are more useful for challenging secondary production models than the positron fraction.Comment: 16 pages, 10 figures, minor revisions, accepted for publication in MNRA