Bourdieuian Analysis on African Americans’ Under-representation at Parks and Outdoor Recreation

This study used Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of practice and analyzed African Americans’ under-representation at parks and in outdoor recreation. It focused on Cedar Hill State Park (CHSP) located in Cedar Hill, Texas and investigated local African Americans’ non-visitation to the park. The study also explored how fear of racism impacts middle class African Americans’ travel choices and how they negotiate constraints associated with racism. This study is guided by four research questions: (1) What factors prevent local African Americans’ visitation to CHSP? (2) How does Bourdieu’s concepts and theory explain African Americans’ non-visitation to CHSP and other outdoor recreation sites? (3) How does racism impact middle class African Americans’ travel choices? and (4) How do they negotiate fear of racism when they travel? A qualitative research approach was employed in this study. Archival method, site visits, and fact-to-face interview with 13 local African Americans were conducted. Data collection was implemented from October 2012 to March 2013. The collected data provided rich information related to the phenomenon under investigation. First, racism was interwoven with the history of local community and Texas state parks. There has been a rapid increase of Black populations and white flight at cities around CHSP. Many incidents of racial discrimination were found in the history of the community and Texas state parks. Second, this study identified that (1) lack of information and encouragement, (2) lack of interest/cultural irrelevance, (3) lack of attraction, and (4) fear of racism were four main reasons African Americans do not visit CHSP or other state and national parks. These four reasons were closely interrelated with each other and commonly held racism as an underlying theme. The findings illustrated that racism is a foundation of the under-representation issue

Maximum size of black holes in our accelerating Universe

In accordance with current models of the accelerating Universe as a spacetime with a positive cosmological constant, new results about a cosmological upper bound for the area of stable marginally outer trapped surfaces are found taking into account angular momentum, gravitational waves and matter. Compared to previous results which take into account only some of the aforementioned variables, the bound is found to be tighter, giving a concrete limit to the size of black holes especially relevant in the early Universe.Comment: 8 pages, minor corrections, to apper in PR

Four types of attractive gravity probe surfaces

We reexamine the concept of the attractive gravity probe surface recently proposed as an indicator for strength of gravity. Then, we propose three new variant concepts and show refined inequalities for the four types of the AGPSs by taking account of the angular momentum, gravitational waves and matters.Comment: 25 pages, 2 figure

Place attachment mediates links between pro-environmental attitudes and behaviors among visitors to Mt. Bukhan National Park, South Korea

IntroductionEfforts to understand visitors’ participation in pro-environmental behaviors (PEB) are important for protected area management. Previous research in nature-based recreation settings suggests environmental attitudes may affect PEB, and that these relationships might be mediated by different dimensions of place attachment (place identity and place dependence).MethodsWe used structural equation modeling to test the mediating effect of hikers’ place attachment in the relationship between environmental attitudes and PEBs that occur within (on-site) and outside a protected area (off-site): Mt. Bukhan National Park in South Korea.ResultsResults showed that cognitive (environmental knowledge) and affective (environmental sensitivity) components of environmental attitudes were significant predictors for place attachment. Place identity was linked to off-site PEB, while place dependence was a key antecedent for both off-site and on-site PEBs.DiscussionOur findings could help researchers and practitioners better understand how place attachment forms and how it can impact outdoor recreationists’ behavior, ultimately helping to promote PEBs and facilitate sustainable management goals

Oxidation kinetics of La and Yb incorporated Zr-doped ceria for solar thermochemical fuel production in the context of dopant ionic radius and valence

The influence of ionic radii and valence of dopants in Ce0.9LaxYbyZr0.1−x−yO2−δ (x = 0, 0.05, 0.1, y = 0, 0.05, 0.1) on the oxidation kinetics were investigated by thermogravimetric analysis in synthetic air and were compared to undoped ceria. Samples co-doped with Zr–La and Zr–Yb exhibited moderate oxidation kinetics that were slower than undoped ceria, but much faster than 10mol% Zr-doped ceria. The extrinsic oxygen vacancy induced by the trivalent dopants improves the kinetics at oxidation temperatures below 700 °C, where the diffusion, and not the surface exchange reaction is the limiting factor. A smaller ionic radius of the substituent (i.e. r(Yb3+) r(La3+)) in the co-doped ceria tends to facilitate lower activation energy resulting in slightly faster oxidation kinetics at temperatures below 700 °C. In contrast, additional extrinsic vacancies are rather obstructive at high temperatures (i.e. T 700 °C) due to a change of rate limiting mechanism from bulk oxygen diffusion to surface exchange reaction. Overall, the valence of the dopant rather than the ionic radius seems to determine the oxidation kinetics primarily, and additional La or Yb doping on Zr-doped ceria is appealing especially when the applications are focused on low temperature reactions

The future of wildlife conservation funding: What options do U.S. college students support?

Insufficient funding is a major impediment to conservation efforts around the world. In the United States, a decline in hunting participation threatens sustainability of the “user-pay, public benefit” model that has supported wildlife conservation for nearly 100 years, forcing wildlife management agencies to contemplate alternative funding strategies. We investigated support for potential funding options among diverse college students, a rapidly expanding and politically active voting bloc with a potentially powerful influence on the future of conservation. From 2018 to 2020, we surveyed 17,203 undergraduate students at public universities across 22 states. Students preferred innovative approaches to conservation funding, with 72% supporting funding derived from industry sources (e.g., natural resource extraction companies), 63% supporting state sources (e.g., general sales tax), and 43% supporting conventional user-based sources such as license fees and excise taxes associated with outdoor recreation activities (e.g., hunting). Findings emphasize the need to broaden the base of support for conservation funding and highlight the importance of considering the preferences and perspectives of young adults and other diverse beneficiaries of wildlife conservation

An Integrated Individual Environmental Exposure Assessment System for Real-Time Mobile Sensing in Environmental Health Studies

The effects of environmental exposure on human health have been widely explored by scholars in health geography for decades. However, recent advances in geospatial technologies, especially the development of mobile approaches to collecting real-time and high-resolution individual data, have enabled sophisticated methods for assessing people’s environmental exposure. This study proposes an individual environmental exposure assessment system (IEEAS) that integrates objective real-time monitoring devices and subjective sensing tools to provide a composite way for individual-based environmental exposure data collection. With field test data collected in Chicago and Beijing, we illustrate and discuss the advantages of the proposed IEEAS and the composite analysis that could be applied. Data collected with the proposed IEEAS yield relatively accurate measurements of individual exposure in a composite way, and offer new opportunities for developing more sophisticated ways to measure individual environmental exposure. With the capability to consider both the variations in environmental risks and human mobility in high spatial and temporal resolutions, the IEEAS also helps mitigate some uncertainties in environmental exposure assessment and thus enables a better understanding of the relationship between individual environmental exposure and health outcomes