A REVIEW OF APPEALS AND LITIGATION OVER TIMBER SALES BETWEEN 1999 AND 2008 ON THE LOLO NATIONAL FOREST

A review of litigation and appeals over timber sales on the Lolo National Forest for the years 1999 thru 2008 revealed that of the 157 timber sales that could have been appealed or litigated, 27%, representing 55% of the timber volume in all the reviewed sales, had some form of appeal or litigation.. The categories of timber sales with the highest percentage of appeals and/or litigation in relation to their representation within the population as a whole were those that were performed to improve forest health or to meet stewardship goals. The silvicultural prescription that had the highest percentage of appeals and/or litigation in relation to their representation within the population as a whole were thin from above prescriptions while the least frequent was a clear cut. This study intends to serve as a source of information about appeals and litigation on the Lolo National Forest over timber sales by discussing reasons why environmental groups litigate and appeal timber sales. Additionally, this study hopes to give individuals, the Forest Service, private interest groups, or citizen groups involved with attempting to decrease the number of timber sales appealed or litigated as well as the volume of wood appealed or litigated, a point of comparison to evaluate the effectiveness of their efforts

High Performance Computing Markov Models using Hadoop MapReduce

In this paper, I will explain how I used the probability modeling tool, Markov Models, in combination with Hadoop MapReduce parallel programming platform in order to quickly and efficiently analyses documents and create a probability model of them. I will explain what Markov Models are, give a brief overview of what MapReduce is, explain why Markov models can be used for document analysis, explain my code of the modeling program, and examine the performance of various MapReduce platforms and techniques in analyzing documents

Trade Blocs, Interstate Conflict, and the Collective Impact of Economic Integration

Economic integration agreements – also called preferential trade agreements or regional trade agreements – have dramatically expanded in scope since World War II. While the proximate goal of economic integration is to increase commercial exchange between member states, there are strong reasons to believe integration influences relations across economic agreements as well. I argue that economic agreements foster enclaves of regional interdependence at the expense of multilateral, global interdependence. As a result, highly central economic agreements are partially insulated from the ill-effects of militarized conflict with other agreement areas. Furthermore, the coveted markets of highly central trade blocs afford them a degree of economic leverage that increases the effectiveness of non-violent conflict resolution mechanisms. Ultimately, these dynamics suggest highly central agreements will tend to engage in conflict with other central agreements due to the mutual isolation of said agreements. Relations between central and marginalized agreements, however, will be more peaceful given the latter’s dependence on access to central agreement markets. Using eigenvector centrality scores as my primary measure of agreement centrality, I test my theory using a large-N statistical analysis. I ultimately find support for the notion that dyads with more central agreements are more conflict prone other types of dyads

Leader-Member Exchange as a Predictor of Leaders’ Positive Work Outcomes: A Field Study

Prior research found that the quality of the working relationships between leaders and their followers, or Leader-Member Exchange (LMX) quality in leader-member dyads, predicts positive work outcomes for followers, including job satisfaction, engagement, and performance. Though leaders might be expected to receive similar benefits from high quality LMX with their followers, almost no published, empirical research to-date has reported benefits of LMX for leaders. The current study tested the relationships of LMX and positive work outcomes for leaders among middle managers and their direct supervisees in a large manufacturing company. Hypotheses predicted that average leader-rated LMX and average follower-rated LMX would positively correlate with three beneficial outcomes for leaders: job satisfaction, engagement, and their own performance as rated by their supervisors, while leader-follower deviance on ratings of LMX would negatively correlate with these three variables. The study used an archival dataset that included questionnaire-based measures of LMX quality and the three work outcomes among 25 middle managers and 84 of their supervisees. The supervisors of the 25 managers (17 senior managers) also provided ratings of the managers’ individual performance. All measures were collected the same week; all had good reliability (coefficient alpha ≥0.80). Contrary to hypotheses, leader outcomes were unrelated to average leader-rated LMX or average follower-rated LMX. In the only significant finding involving leader outcomes, leader-follower LMX deviance correlated positively with leader engagement (r =.42 – opposite the hypothesis.) Leaders’ LMX ratings were also unexpectedly lower than their followers’ ratings of LMX, so leaders’ engagement trended higher the further their followers’ perceptions of the quality of their relationships exceeded the leaders’ own perceptions of LMX. Implications for theory, research, and application of LMX are discussed

Trade Centrality and the Process of Economic Sanctions

Some scholars have suggested that sanctions are doing more than meets the eye (Drezner 2003). Sanctions may indeed be a signaling mechanism that states use to indicate where they stand on an issue or the foreign policy of another state. We agree with this analysis, but find current explanations of sanctions episodes inadequate. In order to make the argument that states use sanctions as a signaling mechanism it is necessary to know something about the states and their position in the international community. We employ network analysis to understand what international trade networks look like and to determine which actors in the network are utilizing sanctions and who they are sanctioning. This helps us to get a better handle on what exactly it is that states are trying to do when they impose sanctions. We argue that sanctions more than simply signals of states\u27 policy preferences. Indeed, sanctions are a tool that central states use to promote regimes and enforce norms within those regimes. A sanction against a partner state within a trade regime, for example, flags a violation of norms and thereby strengthens the norm and the regime. We test our explanation using a logistic regression on thirty years of sanctions episodes. In support of our theory, we find that the most economically central states are threatening and imposing as well as receiving sanctions at an exponential rate compared to non-central states

Drosophila Muller F Elements Maintain a Distinct Set of Genomic Properties Over 40 Million Years of Evolution

The Muller F element (4.2 Mb, similar to 80 protein-coding genes) is an unusual autosome of Drosophila melanogaster; it is mostly heterochromatic with a low recombination rate. To investigate how these properties impact the evolution of repeats and genes, we manually improved the sequence and annotated the genes on the D. erecta, D. mojavensis, and D. grimshawi F elements and euchromatic domains from the Muller D element. We find that F elements have greater transposon density (25-50%) than euchromatic reference regions (3-11%). Among the F elements, D. grimshawi has the lowest transposon density (particularly DINE-1: 2% vs. 11-27%). F element genes have larger coding spans, more coding exons, larger introns, and lower codon bias. Comparison of the Effective Number of Codons with the Codon Adaptation Index shows that, in contrast to the other species, codon bias in D. grimshawi F element genes can be attributed primarily to selection instead of mutational biases, suggesting that density and types of transposons affect the degree of local heterochromatin formation. F element genes have lower estimated DNA melting temperatures than D element genes, potentially facilitating transcription through heterochromatin. Most F element genes (similar to 90%) have remained on that element, but the F element has smaller syntenic blocks than genome averages (3.4-3.6 vs. 8.4-8.8 genes per block), indicating greater rates of inversion despite lower rates of recombination. Overall, the F element has maintained characteristics that are distinct from other autosomes in the Drosophila lineage, illuminating the constraints imposed by a heterochromatic milieu

A Course-Based Research Experience: How Benefits Change with Increased Investment in Instructional Time

There is widespread agreement that science, technology, engineering, and mathematics programs should provide undergraduates with research experience. Practical issues and limited resources, however, make this a challenge. We have developed a bioinformatics project that provides a course-based research experience for students at a diverse group of schools and offers the opportunity to tailor this experience to local curriculum and institution-specific student needs. We assessed both attitude and knowledge gains, looking for insights into how students respond given this wide range of curricular and institutional variables. While different approaches all appear to result in learning gains, we find that a significant investment of course time is required to enable students to show gains commensurate to a summer research experience. An alumni survey revealed that time spent on a research project is also a significant factor in the value former students assign to the experience one or more years later. We conclude: 1) implementation of a bioinformatics project within the biology curriculum provides a mechanism for successfully engaging large numbers of students in undergraduate research; 2) benefits to students are achievable at a wide variety of academic institutions; and 3) successful implementation of course-based research experiences requires significant investment of instructional time for students to gain full benefit

Speed and Surface Speed and Magnitude of Knee Adduction

Frontal plane knee biomechanics, in particular speed and magnitude of knee adduction motion, are implicated in knee osteoarthritis development. Although individuals are between 50% to 90% more likely to develop knee osteoarthritis after anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction (ACL-R), it is unknown if ACL-R individuals exhibit knee adduction biomechanics related to OA development. This study sought to quantify speed and magnitude of knee adduction for knee OA and ACL-R individuals. We hypothesize that OA will exhibit larger, faster knee adduction biomechanics than ACL-R, which will increase at great walk speed and over a challenging surface. Six individuals with ACL-R and 8 individuals with knee OA had knee adduction quantified as they walked 1.3 m/s and at a self-selected speed over a flat and an uneven surface. Peak of stance, and average and maximum velocity of knee adduction joint angle and moment between heel strike and peak of stance were submitted to repeated measures ANOVA to compare main and interaction effects between group, speed and surface. There was a walk speed by group interaction for peak knee adduction moment (p = 0.048). Walk speed impacted maximum knee adduction joint angle (p=0.004) and moment velocity (p=0.041), while surface impacted peak knee adduction joint angle (p=0.035) and maximum knee adduction joint moment velocity (p=0.007). In partial agreement with our hypothesis, speed and magnitude knee adduction biomechanics increased with walk speed and surface, but OA did not consistently exhibit larger knee adduction biomechanics than ACL-R