Modeling black bear-vehicle collision zones in Yosemite National Park

The purpose of this study was to identify road and habitat characteristics associated with black bear-vehicle collisions in Yosemite National Park and to suggest proper mitigations to reduce their occurrence. Black bear-vehicle collision data collected by Yosemite National Park staff between 1995 and 2011 were used to identify variables associated with collisions. Geographic Information System (GIS) mapping software was used to map and split Yosemite roads into 1 km segments. After measuring road and bear habitat-related variables along each road segment, logistic regression analyses showed that segments with collisions were associated with crossing sites, understory vegetation, curves, close proximity to meadows, and a flat outbound shoulder slope. GIS spatial pattern and hot spot analysis were then used to group segments by their relative frequency of collisions: zero, low, moderate, and high. Logistic regression analyses of those same road segments, now grouped by their collision frequency, showed that segments with high frequencies of collisions were associated with a lack of visibility, fewer crossing sites, high understory cover, steep shoulder slopes, and close proximity to human development and meadows. The findings of this study were used to suggest effective and appropriate mitigation strategies for reducing collisions between bears and vehicles

NASA GIBS and Worldview: Visualizing NASA's Earth Science Data for All to Explore

For more than 20 years, the NASA Earth Observing System (EOS) has operated dozens of remote sensing satellites collecting nearly 15 Petabytes of data that span thousands of science parameters. Within these observations are keys the Earth Scientists have used to unlock many discoveries that we now understand about our planet. Also contained within these observations are a myriad of opportunities for learning and education. The challenge is making them accessible to educators and students in intuitive and simple ways so that effort can be spent on lesson enrichment and not overcoming technical hurdles.The NASA Global Imagery Browse Services (GIBS) system and NASA Worldview interactive mapping site provide a unique view into EOS data through daily full resolution visualizations of hundreds of Earth science parameters. For many of these parameters, visualizations are available within hours of acquisition from the satellite. For others, visualizations are available for the entire mission of the satellite. Accompanying the visualizations are visual aids such as color legends, place names, and orbit tracks. By using these visualizations, educators and students can observe natural phenomena that enrich a scientific education.This presentation will provide an overview of the visualizations available in NASA GIBS and Worldview and how they are accessed. Specific attention will be given to the newer capabilities and accomplishments, including: Support for geostationary sub-daily visualizations, Enhanced support for vector-based visualizations, Improved Worldview tour and snapshot capabilities, New imagery products across a growing set of scientific areas

Informing Practice through Collaborative Partnerships

This paper focuses on students and their teacher engaging in authentic tasks and materials couched in problem-oriented formats within meaningful learning contexts that foster thinking and learning. Authentic in that students construct meaning from real data and are asked to make sense of the world around them. Students pursue individual paths of inquiry using critical and imaginative thinking, and engage in social and solitary contexts that involve them in writing, intervening, and reflecting on ideas gleaned from conversations and readings (electronic and conventional) with a university educator and NASA science educator. The process engages students in formal skills such as written communication, literacy, logic, and calculation using an innovative electronic interactive network. Evaluations of timed writings, concept maps, and Vee diagrams are presente

Morphological signatures of mergers in the TNG50 simulation and the Kilo-Degree Survey: the merger fraction from dwarfs to Milky Way-like galaxies

Using the TNG50 cosmological simulation and observations from the Kilo-Degree Survey (KiDS), we investigate the connection between galaxy mergers and optical morphology in the local Universe over a wide range of galaxy stellar masses ($8.5\leqslant\log(M_\ast/\text{M}_\odot)\leqslant11$). To this end, we have generated over 16,000 synthetic images of TNG50 galaxies designed to match KiDS observations, including the effects of dust attenuation and scattering, and used the $\mathrm{\mathtt{statmorph}}$ code to measure various image-based morphological diagnostics in the $r$-band for both data sets. Such measurements include the Gini-$M_{20}$ and concentration-asymmetry-smoothness statistics. Overall, we find good agreement between the optical morphologies of TNG50 and KiDS galaxies, although the former are slightly more concentrated and asymmetric than their observational counterparts. Afterwards, we trained a random forest classifier to identify merging galaxies in the simulation (including major and minor mergers) using the morphological diagnostics as the model features, along with merger statistics from the merger trees as the ground truth. We find that the asymmetry statistic exhibits the highest feature importance of all the morphological parameters considered. Thus, the performance of our algorithm is comparable to that of the more traditional method of selecting highly asymmetric galaxies. Finally, using our trained model, we estimate the galaxy merger fraction in both our synthetic and observational galaxy samples, finding in both cases that the galaxy merger fraction increases steadily as a function of stellar mass.Comment: 18 pages, 12 figures. Accepted for publication in MNRA

College students’ perceptions of alcohol’s role in disclosures of sexual assault and intimate partner violence

Objective: Much is known about how alcohol increases the risk of sexual assault or intimate partner violence victimization during college. This research qualitatively explores perceptions about how alcohol influences disclosures about these events to informal supports. Participants: Participants included college students who received a disclosure wherein they or the survivor were drinking during the disclosure (n = 81). Methods: Responses were coded with regard to who was drinking and whether the effect of drinking during the disclosure was perceived as positive, negative, mixed, or neutral/none. Results: Participants perceived alcohol to have both positive (e.g., increasing the likelihood of discussing difficult topics) and negative (e.g., cognitive impairment increased negative emotions) effects on disclosures. Conclusion: Prevention and intervention efforts should identify targeted strategies (e.g., remembering one or two easy and helpful phrases; revisiting the topic again while sober) to help survivors and disclosure recipients have constructive conversations in the presence of alcohol

Municipal investment in off-road trails and changes in bicycle commuting in Minneapolis, Minnesota over 10 years: a longitudinal repeated cross-sectional study

Abstract Background We studied the effect of key development and expansion of an off-road multipurpose trail system in Minneapolis, Minnesota between 2000 and 2007 to understand whether infrastructure investments are associated with increases in commuting by bicycle. Methods We used repeated measures regression on tract-level (N = 116 tracts) data to examine changes in bicycle commuting between 2000 and 2008–2012. We investigated: 1) trail proximity measured as distance from the trail system and 2) trail potential use measured as the proportion of commuting trips to destinations that might traverse the trail system. All analyses (performed 2015–2016) adjusted for tract-level sociodemographic covariates and contemporaneous cycling infrastructure changes (e.g., bicycle lanes). Results Tracts that were both closer to the new trail system and had a higher proportion of trips to destinations across the trail system experienced greater 10-year increases in commuting by bicycle. Conclusions Proximity to off-road infrastructure and travel patterns are relevant to increased bicycle commuting, an important contributor to overall physical activity. Municipal investment in bicycle facilities, especially off-road trails that connect a city’s population and its employment centers, is likely to lead to increases in commuting by bicycle

A physically motivated framework for measuring the mass and redshift dependence of galaxy pair fractions across cosmic time

Low mass galaxy pair fractions are under-studied across cosmic time. In the era of JWST, Roman, and Rubin, a self-consistent framework is needed to select both low and high mass galaxy pairs to connect observed pair fractions to cosmological merger rates across all mass scales and redshifts. We use the Illustris TNG100 simulation to identify physically associated pairs between $z=0-4.2$. Our sample includes low mass ($\rm 10^8<M_*<5\times10^9\,M_{\odot}$) and high mass ($\rm 5\times10^9<M_*<10^{11}\,M_\odot$) isolated subhalo pairs, with stellar masses from abundance matching. The low mass pair fraction, i.e. the fraction of galaxies in pairs, increases from $z=0-2.5$, while the high mass pair fraction peaks at $z=0$ and is constant or slightly decreasing at $z>1$. At $z=0$ the low mass major (1:4 mass ratio) pair fraction is 4$\times$ lower than high mass pairs, consistent with findings for cosmological merger rates. Our results indicate that pair fractions can faithfully reproduce trends in merger rates if galaxy pairs are selected appropriately. Specifically, static pair separation limits applied equivalently to all galaxy pairs do not recover the evolution of low and high mass pair fractions. Instead, we advocate for separation limits that vary with the mass and redshift of the system, such as separation limits scaled by the virial radius of the host halo ($r_{\mathrm{sep}}< 1 R_{\rm vir}$). Finally, we place isolated mass-analogs of Local Group galaxy pairs (i.e., MW--M31, MW--LMC, LMC--SMC) in a cosmological context, showing that isolated analogs of LMC--SMC-mass pairs, and low separation ($<50$kpc) MW--LMC-mass pairs, are $2-3\times$ more common at $z\gtrsim2-3$.Comment: 17 pages, 5 figured, submitted to ApJ, comments welcom

Elizabeth Koch, oboe and John Warren, clarinet

Kennnesaw State University School of Music presents Faculty Recital: Elizabeth Koch, oboe and John Warren, clarinet.https://digitalcommons.kennesaw.edu/musicprograms/1546/thumbnail.jp

Metagenomic Analysis Indicates that Stressors Induce Production of Herpes-Like Viruses in Coral \u3cem\u3ePorites compressa\u3c/em\u3e

During the last several decades corals have been in decline and at least one-third of all coral species are now threatened by extinction. Coral disease has been a major contributor to this threat, but little is known about the responsible pathogens. To date most research has focused on bacterial and fungal diseases; however, viruses may also be important for coral health. Using a combination of empirical viral metagenomics and real-time PCR, we show that Porites compressa corals contain a suite of eukaryotic viruses, many related to the Herpesviridae. This coral-associated viral consortium was found to shift in response to abiotic stressors. In particular, when exposed to reduced pH, elevated nutrients, and thermal stress, the abundance of herpes-like viral sequences rapidly increased in 2 separate experiments. Herpes-like viral sequences were rarely detected in apparently healthy corals, but were abundant in a majority of stressed samples. In addition, surveys of the Nematostella and Hydra genomic projects demonstrate that even distantly related Cnidarians contain numerous herpes-like viral genes, likely as a result of latent or endogenous viral infection. These data support the hypotheses that corals experience viral infections, which are exacerbated by stress, and that herpes-like viruses are common in Cnidarians