Breeding Behavior and Reproductive Success of Chipping Sparrows in Northwestern Minnesota

The reproductive biology of Chipping Sparrows (Spizella passerina) was studied during 2 breeding seasons at the University of Minnesota Forestry and Biology Station, Itasca State Park, Minnesota. Reproductive success was determined primarily by the incidence of nest predation. Parasitism by Brown-headed Cowbirds (Molothrus ater) caused a comparatively smaller loss in reproductive success. Four pairs raised two broods in one season. Males assumed nearly all care of first brood fledglings, freeing the female to build a second nest. This strategy of parental care may improve the chances of a pair having a second brood. Pair relationships were typically monogamous. One of 32 males was polygynous. Increased male singing during the first half of incubation appeared to be advertisement for second mates. Males increased the opportunity for additional copulations by visiting other territories containing receptive females. One male obtained a copulation in this manner. Chipping Sparrows showed considerable flexibility in their use of space. Males with older fledglings commonly foraged outside the territory. This may have lowered competition for food between first and second broods, or allowed foraging in areas with higher concentrations of food. Territorial defense was highest during pair formation, largely because of frequent use of areas near territorial borders by pairing adults. Territories shifted frequently after nest predation. Changes in territory location after nest predation may have improved renest success by avoidance of the previous predator

An Analysis of Urban School Leaders\u27 Role in Community Support and Involvement

While school systems have the arduous task of educating a plethora of diverse students from different backgrounds and social economic status, the task is multifaceted. Epstein (1995) argued that to successfully meet the goal of improving education for all children, there must be considerably more involvement from parents, the community, and other stakeholders working together to promote the success of all students. That is, students learn more and succeed at higher levels when home, school, and community work together to support students\u27 learning and development (Epstein & Sanders, 2006, p. 87). To meet the needs of such diverse students, their families, other administrators, and faculty (i.e., school community), school leaders, according to Green (2013, p. 14), must engage in several processes: (1) have knowledge of the emerging issues and trends that can potentially impact the school community; (2) be able to recognize the need to involve stakeholders in school decision-making; (3) assess whether they are highly visible; (4) assess whether they are actively involved; (5) assess their effectiveness in communicating with the larger community; (6) assess whether they give credence to individuals and groups whose values and opinions may conflict with theirs; and (7) assess whether they are recognizing and valuing diversity. In essence, these factors have an impact on the organizational structure of the school, influencing a collaborative culture of student, faculty, parental, and stakeholder decision-making processes (Wagner, 2007)

User interface development and software environments : the Chiron-1 system

User interface development systems for software environments have to cope with the broad, extensible and dynamic character of such environments, must support internal and external integration, and should enable various software development strategies. The Chiron-1 system adapts and extends key ideas from current research in user interface development systems to address the particular demands of software environments. Important Chiron-1 concepts are: separation of concerns, dynamism, and open architecture. We discuss the requirements on such user interface development systems, present the Chiron-1 architecture and a scenario of its usage, detail the concepts it embodies, and report on its design and prototype implementation

A Characterization of Optimal-Rate Linear Homomorphic Secret Sharing Schemes, and Applications

A Homomorphic Secret Sharing (HSS) scheme is a secret-sharing scheme that shares a secret $x$ among $s$ servers, and additionally allows an output client to reconstruct some function $f(x)$, using information that can be locally computed by each server. A key parameter in HSS schemes is download rate, which quantifies how much information the output client needs to download from each server. Recent work (Fosli, Ishai, Kolobov, and Wootters, ITCS 2022) established a fundamental limitation on the download rate of linear HSS schemes for computing low-degree polynomials, and gave an example of HSS schemes that meet this limit. In this paper, we further explore optimal-rate linear HSS schemes for polynomials. Our main result is a complete characterization of such schemes, in terms of a coding-theoretic notion that we introduce, termed optimal labelweight codes. We use this characterization to answer open questions about the amortization required by HSS schemes that achieve optimal download rate. In more detail, the construction of Fosli et al. required amortization over $\ell$ instances of the problem, and only worked for particular values of $\ell$. We show that -- perhaps surprisingly -- the set of $\ell$'s for which their construction works is in fact nearly optimal, possibly leaving out only one additional value of $\ell$. We show this by using our coding-theoretic characterization to prove a necessary condition on the $\ell$'s admitting optimal-rate linear HSS schemes. We then provide a slightly improved construction of optimal-rate linear HSS schemes, where the set of allowable $\ell$'s is optimal in even more parameter settings. Moreover, based on a connection to the MDS conjecture, we conjecture that our construction is optimal for all parameter regimes

The Penal Model of Juvenile Justice: Is Juvenile Court Delinquency Jurisdiction Obsolete?

An inability to reconcile society\u27s need for protection from juvenile crime with the use of nonpunitive measures has troubled the juvenile justice system since its inception. Society long ago adopted a paternalistic attitude toward juvenile crime, treating such behavior not as a question of law enforcement, but as a social and psychological problem requiring therapeutic interventions and state assumption of parental rights and duties. The juvenile court was conceived as a kind of social welfare agency rather than as an instrument for the enforcement of the criminal laws. With the mantle of benevolence bestowed and in the name of individualized treatment, the juvenile courts were given broad jurisdiction over both criminal and non-criminal misbehavior and were vested with virtually unlimited discretion to impose limitations and sanctions on a child\u27s conduct. They were to operate a no fault process, geared to providing treatment and rehabilitation to children whose overt misbehavior manifested underlying problems. Juvenile court procedures were to be informal and nonadversarial, and the court was to make dispositions based on the best interests of the child

Interview with Hilda Keller Yung

An interview with Hilda Yung regarding her experiences in a one-room school house.https://scholars.fhsu.edu/ors/1200/thumbnail.jp

Oceanographic drivers of deep-sea coral species distribution and community assembly on seamounts, islands, atolls, and reefs within the Phoenix Islands Protected Area

© The Author(s), 2020. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Auscavitch, S. R., Deere, M. C., Keller, A. G., Rotjan, R. D., Shank, T. M., & Cordes, E. E. Oceanographic drivers of deep-sea coral species distribution and community assembly on seamounts, islands, atolls, and reefs within the Phoenix Islands Protected Area. Frontiers in Marine Science, 7, (2020): 42, doi:10.3389/fmars.2020.00042.The Phoenix Islands Protected Area, in the central Pacific waters of the Republic of Kiribati, is a model for large marine protected area (MPA) development and maintenance, but baseline records of the protected biodiversity in its largest environment, the deep sea (>200 m), have not yet been determined. In general, the equatorial central Pacific lacks biogeographic perspective on deep-sea benthic communities compared to more well-studied regions of the North and South Pacific Ocean. In 2017, explorations by the NOAA ship Okeanos Explorer and R/V Falkor were among the first to document the diversity and distribution of deep-water benthic megafauna on numerous seamounts, islands, shallow coral reef banks, and atolls in the region. Here, we present baseline deep-sea coral species distribution and community assembly patterns within the Scleractinia, Octocorallia, Antipatharia, and Zoantharia with respect to different seafloor features and abiotic environmental variables across bathyal depths (200–2500 m). Remotely operated vehicle (ROV) transects were performed on 17 features throughout the Phoenix Islands and Tokelau Ridge Seamounts resulting in the observation of 12,828 deep-water corals and 167 identifiable morphospecies. Anthozoan assemblages were largely octocoral-dominated consisting of 78% of all observations with seamounts having a greater number of observed morphospecies compared to other feature types. Overlying water masses were observed to have significant effects on community assembly across bathyal depths. Revised species inventories further suggest that the protected area it is an area of biogeographic overlap for Pacific deep-water corals, containing species observed across bathyal provinces in the North Pacific, Southwest Pacific, and Western Pacific. These results underscore significant geographic and environmental complexity associated with deep-sea coral communities that remain in under-characterized in the equatorial central Pacific, but also highlight the additional efforts that need to be brought forth to effectively establish baseline ecological metrics in data deficient bathyal provinces.Funding for this work was provided by NOAA Office of Ocean Exploration and Research (Grant No. NA17OAR0110083) to RR, EC, TS, and David Gruber

Strategies to support engagement and continuity of activity during mealtimes for families living with dementia; a qualitative study

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Keller, H. H., Martin, L. S., Dupuis, S., Reimer, H., & Genoe, R. (2015). Strategies to support engagement and continuity of activity during mealtimes for families living with dementia; a qualitative study. BMC Geriatrics, 15(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12877-015-0120-2Background Mealtimes are an essential part of living and quality of life for everyone, including persons living with dementia. A longitudinal qualitative study provided understanding of the meaning of mealtimes for persons with dementia and their family care partners. Strategies were specifically described by families to support meaningful mealtimes. The purpose of this manuscript is to describe the strategies devised and used by these families living with dementia. Methods A longitudinal qualitative study was undertaken to explore the meaning and experience of mealtimes for families living with dementia over a three-year period. 27 families [older person with dementia and at least one family care partner] were originally recruited from the community of South-Western Ontario. Individual and dyad interviews were conducted each year. Digitally recorded transcripts were analyzed using grounded theory methodology. Strategies were identified and categorized. Results Strategies to support quality mealtimes were devised by families as they adapted to their evolving lives. General strategies such as living in the moment, as well as strategies specific to maintaining social engagement and continuity of mealtime activities were reported. Conclusions In addition to nutritional benefit, family mealtimes provide important opportunities for persons with dementia and their family care partners to socially engage and continue meaningful roles. Strategies identified by participants provide a basis for further education and support to families living with dementia.Research funding support was provided by the Alzheimer Society of Canada and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council

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