Biotic and abiotic factors contributing to the invasion success of microstegium vimineum in eastern deciduous forests.

Forest managers face multiple challenges in maintaining woodland systems, including climate change, habitat destruction and fragmentation, and the invasion of novel species. Invaders can change microclimates, alter nutrient cycling and understory habitat, and outcompete native species, leading to native species population declines and reduction in species richness. To effectively combat plant invasions it is necessary to first understand factors contributing to invasive species spread, including the complex interactions between invaders and native biota. This dissertation investigates the abiotic conditions and biotic interactions associated with invasion success of the non-native grass Microstegium vimineum, which is a species of great concern for forest managers throughout the eastern US. My initial study identified the most important abiotic elements associated with Microstegium presence. I found light availability and soil moisture to be the strongest predictors of Microstegium cover, followed by soil nitrogen and soil phosphorous. In this study I also examined the relationship between Microstegium and soil arbuscular mycorrhizae. I found no differences in abundance of soil mycorrhizae between invaded and noninvaded areas, and no difference in root colonization of Microstegium across abiotic gradients. My second study analyzed the germination and growth of Microstegium, native grasses, and native woody species in field soils associated with Microstegium invasion. I found that Microstegium-associated soils enhanced Microstegium seed germination, while inhibiting the germination of native grass species. Surprisingly, I found greater aboveground biomass and stem height of native woody species in Microstegium-associated soils; however, I also found increased seedling mortality in Microstegium-associated soils. For my final study, I surveyed Microstegium invasion at the landscape scale in seven local nature reserves to create a habitat suitability analysis using Geographic Information System (GIS) processing. I combined various habitat variables indicative of Microstegium presence to identify areas of greatest habitat suitability. These findings can inform best practices for prevention and eradication of Microstegium. For example, the creation of a habitat suitability analysis for a nature reserve, coupled with the knowledge of the importance of various abiotic factors to Microstegium presence, can assist land managers to direct limited resources to areas of highest susceptibility to invasion or to mitigate population spread

The Gendered Profession: Resuscitating the Value of the Male Nurse in the Pre-Health Undergraduate Eye

Background Gender Gap: Women represent 88.5% of registered nurses in the U.S. (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2021) Nurses have been devalued and degraded socially, professionally, and economically, especially with COVID-19 (National Nurses United, 2020). Reflects gender roles and societal perceptions of women as “lesser” and thus nursing is avoided by men. Role/Goal Congruence Theory According to role congruence theory, social roles direct individuals on their life path, most notably in their career choices (Diekman & Eagly, 2008). Goal congruence theory suggests men and women tend to chase careers that align with agentic or communal goals, respectively (Diekman et al., 2010). Misconceptions of Nursing People generally perceive nursing as feminine and low in status. But the responsibilities of a nurse are as equally rooted in management and medical competence as they are in interpersonal care (Oldland et al., 2020). If people perceive nursing as more agentic based on the legitimate role nurses play on a day-to-day basis, given role and goal congruency theories, perhaps male students would be more interested in pursuing the career. Stigma or Nursing itself ? Objective: Will removing the potentially biasing label of “nurse” and reframing nursing in agentic language increase men’s interest in the nursing profession

How Gender Affects Perception of Safety Following Information of Sexual Assault

Abstract: The topic of sexual assault is a prevailing social issue and this study focuses on gender differences in how USD students perceive their safety when they are informed about the crime rates of sexual assault. In particular, we compared how safe men and women feel in general, as well as after reading information about sexual assault or general crime rates in a 3 (crime information: sexual assault, general, control) x 2 (participant gender: male, female) between-subjects design. Participants who were randomly assigned to read about sexual assault, for example, learned about the definitions and rates of crimes such as rape and domestic violence at USD and in San Diego in the past few years. We hypothesized that women will feel more wary of going out at night and will feel the need to be safer after reading about sexual assault information compared to men. They may also feel less safe after general crime information because of the shadow of sexual assault in which other crimes create fear because of a potential link to sexual assault. Men, on the other hand, were expected to feel less safe after reading about general crime than sexual assault. Although women may naturally be more hyper-aware of their surroundings in certain situations than men, it is important for men to understand how unsafe women feel in such situations. The results of this study will have implications for finding ways to promote safety and awareness among our community

Time-domain reflectance diffuse optical tomography with Mellin-Laplace transform for experimental detection and depth localization of a single absorbing inclusion.

International audienceWe show how to apply the Mellin-Laplace transform to process time-resolved reflectance measurements for diffuse optical tomography. We illustrate this method on simulated signals incorporating the main sources of experimental noise and suggest how to fine-tune the method in order to detect the deepest absorbing inclusions and optimize their localization in depth, depending on the dynamic range of the measurement. To finish, we apply this method to measurements acquired with a setup including a femtosecond laser, photomultipliers and a time-correlated single photon counting board. Simulations and experiments are illustrated for a probe featuring the interfiber distance of 1.5 cm and show the potential of time-resolved techniques for imaging absorption contrast in depth with this geometry

Comparing Prescriptive and Descriptive Gender Stereotypes About Children, Adults, and the Elderly

Gender stereotypes have descriptive components, or beliefs about how males and females typically act, as well as prescriptive components, or beliefs about how males and females should act. For example, women are supposed to be nurturing and avoid dominance, and men are supposed to be agentic and avoid weakness. However, it is not clear whether people hold prescriptive gender stereotypes about children of different age groups. In addition, research has not addressed prescriptive gender stereotypes for the elderly. The current research measured prescriptive gender stereotypes for children, adults, and elderly men and women in 3 studies to (a) compare how prescriptive gender stereotypes change across age groups and (b) address whether stereotypes of males are more restrictive than stereotypes of females. Students (Studies 1 and 2) and community members (Study 3), which were all U.S. and majority White samples, rated how desirable it was for different target groups to possess a list of characteristics from 1 (very undesirable) to 9 (very desirable). The target age groups included toddlers, elementary-aged, adolescent, young adult, adult, and elderly males and females. The list of 21 characteristics was created to encompass traits and behaviors relevant across a wide age range. In a meta-analysis across studies, prescriptive stereotypes were defined as characteristics displaying a sex difference of d > 0.40 and an average rating as desirable for positive prescriptive stereotypes (PPS) or undesirable for negative proscriptive stereotypes (NPS) for male or females of each age group. Results replicated previous research on prescriptive stereotypes for adults: Women should be communal and avoid being dominant. Men should be agentic, independent, masculine in appearance, and interested in science and technology, but avoid being weak, emotional, shy, and feminine in appearance. Stereotypes of boys and girls from elementary-aged to young adults still included these components, but stereotypes of toddlers involved mainly physical appearance and play behaviors. Prescriptive stereotypes of elderly men and women were weaker. Overall, boys and men had more restrictive prescriptive stereotypes than girls and women in terms of strength and number. These findings demonstrate the applicability of prescriptive stereotypes to different age groups

Does fish oil during pregnancy help prevent asthma in kids?

Does fish oil during pregnancy help prevent asthma in kids? The evidence on fish oil has been mixed, but this study affirms its benefits--in certain women. PRACTICE CHANGER: Fish oil supplementation taken by women in the third trimester of pregnancy can reduce the risk of persistent wheeze, asthma, and infections of the lower respiratory tract in their children.Authors: Dana Neutze, MD, PhD; Kelly Lacy Evans, MD; Marianne Koenig, PharmD, BCPS; Gregory Castelli, PharmD, BCPS, BC-ADM; Anne Mounsey, MD Department of Family Medicine, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (Drs. Neutze, Evans, and Mounsey); UPMC St. Margaret Family Medicine Residency Program, Pittsburgh, Pa (Drs. Koenig and Castelli)

Multipath study on the airport surface

International audienceAirport Navigation will require more stringent localization performance requirements than in-flight navigation [1]. GNSS signals (Global Navigation Satellites Systems) can be envisaged to elaborate the aircraft estimate position on the airport surface. To improve the performance of localization on the airport, the errors on GNSS signals particular to the airport environment must be characterized. Most of these errors are well known such as ionosphere error, troposphere error, etc, and do not depend on the airport environment. But to achieve the expected sub-metric performance, it is necessary to better model multipath error for which a model already exists but is valid for operations from en-route down to CAT I only. In this paper, an analysis of real GPS measurements (using code pseudo range measurement, carrier phase measurement, Doppler measurement and the estimate C/N0 ratio measurement) during taxiing operation on the airport surface is conducted. The goal of this paper is to evaluate when multipath occurs and to compare the multipath model (elaborated from the standard deviation of the measurement errors due to multipath) based on those collected measurements in the airport with different models proposed in the literature (not necessary proposed for airport navigation)