The Female Engagement Team at Operation Allies Welcome

In 2021, 1st Lieutenant Morgan Fleming Served with Task Force Bliss in Operation Allies Welcome at the Dona Ana Range Complex, New Mexico. The operation hosted thousands of Afghan refugees and provided housing and immigration assistance to these guests for just over six months. As part of the operation, Task Force Bliss created the first domestically operational Female Engagement Team (FET) in the U.S. Army. The FET, initially intended to gather soft data within the Afghan population, evolved in nature and scope over the duration of the operation. 1st LT Fleming’s experiences on the FET provide a case study on the nuances of leading an all-female unit within an Armored Brigade Comat Team (ABCT), successes and failures in the operation at a tactical level, and with ideas for improvement to integration of the FET model for use in future operations as the U.S. Army transitions from Counterinsurgency (COIN) to Large Scale Combat Operations (LSCO).https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/wps/1017/thumbnail.jp

Reducing Costs to Compliance with Falls Lake and Jordan Lake Rules

Durham County Manager’s Office should consider a combination of an education campaign, a business license and one or more fertilizer ordinances to try to reduce the amount of nitrogen and phosphorus pollution coming from lawn fertilizer application. The education campaign will help increase homeowner knowledge and awareness around proper fertilizer application. The business license will double as a certification program for commercial applicators, ensuring the applicators are well informed of County policy and applicable guidelines. The fertilizer ordinances will give added weight to the messages conveyed in the education and certification programs by codifying the most important practices in law

Durham County Homeowner Fertilizer Behaviors Survey: Summary and Analysis of Results

Durham County must comply with State mandated nutrient reduction rules by 2021. Current management plans will prove costly. Residential and commercial fertilize application is not included in those current plans; however, these sources of nutrient inputs are poorly understood. Thus, a survey was administered to fill in information gaps about Durham County homeowners’ fertilizer behaviors. The two key areas of interest to the County are Best Management Practices (BMPs) and fertilizer application rates. BMP’s include sweeping impervious surfaces, not fertilizing before it rains, and not fertilizing in buffer zones for streams and lakes. 1,000 single-occupancy households were surveyed from March to April of 2013. Participants were selected randomly via a double-randomization process. The survey was administered using mixed methods. Findings indicate that few homeowners know how to determine the correct amount of fertilizer to apply to the lawn, resulting in higher risk of over-application among do-it-yourself homeowners. Mean nitrogen (N) application rates are between 1.8 and 3.1 lbs N/1,000 sqft/year, with between 1/4 and 1/2 of homeowners at risk of over-applying. While most homeowners report practicing best management practices (BMPs), misapplication due to not practicing BMPs is also a common problem. Roughly 2/3 of homeowners or their lawn care companies practice fewer than 1/2 of the BMPs they are responsible for. For both misapplication and over-application, the problems primarily seem to be knowledge-based ones and not motivation-based ones. Thus, public education may do much to correct the issues found by the survey. Please direct questions to Morgan Fleming at [email protected] with subject heading "2013 Fertilizer MEM MP Report Questions"

Tools That Teach Too: Exploring the Role of Interaction in the Development of Useful Cognitive Residuals

Tools help us perform tasks. But they also change the way we think. In five studies, I explored the lasting effects — the cognitive residuals — of using two common forms of automated spelling assistance, spell-checking and autocorrect. These different spelling assistance systems aim to provide similar spelling outcomes, but users interact quite differently with each. By comparing differences in spelling skills after using these different types of spelling assistance, I assessed differences in the cognitive residuals that arise from direct interaction (spell-checking) and passive support (autocorrect). Results suggest that the passive support provided by autocorrect is just as good as for the development of spelling skill as the direct interaction offered by traditional forms of spell-checking. However, I also demonstrate a new type of direct-interaction spell-checking that outperforms traditional approaches in creating cognitive residuals for users that help improve their spelling skills

On Measuring the Difficulty of Scrabble-like Problems

Scrabble-like tasks have increased in popularity as a means of exploring cognitive phenomena, such as embodiedproblem solving, mastery, and creativity. Many of these tasks make assumptions about the key factors driving relative difficultyof word-finding problems; these factors include average frequency of words produced, number of words produced, and numberof readily apparent bi-grams in the initial presentation of the letters. This study measures the effects of each of these factors oncognitive load by systematically and empirically exploring such factors, comparing how these various attributes influence thenumber of words participants produce in different circumstances

Prospectus, November 15. 2018

From Isolation to Academia: The educational journey of a home-schooled student; Humans of Parkland (Joseph Omo-Osagie); Stay Tuned for Radio Dramas on WPCD; Fight Hunber and Feed Hope; Peer Tutors\u27 new CRLA Certification; Humane Society: Bios of 5 Pets up for Adoption; Letters to the editor;https://spark.parkland.edu/prospectus_2018/1027/thumbnail.jp

Biosecurity and invasive animal research

Murdoch University prides itself on its fundamental and applied research, as demonstrated by our work in biosecurity and invasive animals. Our researchers work across terrestrial and aquatic systems directly with industry and community partners

Changes in work habits of lifeguards in relation to Florida red tide

Author Posting. © The Author(s), 2010. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of Elsevier B.V. for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Harmful Algae 9 (2010): 419-425, doi:10.1016/j.hal.2010.02.005.The marine dinoflagellate, Karenia brevis, is responsible for Florida red tides. Brevetoxins, the neurotoxins produced by K. brevis blooms, can cause fish kills, contaminate shellfish, and lead to respiratory illness in humans. Although several studies have assessed different economic impacts from Florida red tide blooms, no studies to date have considered the impact on beach lifeguard work performance. Sarasota County experiences frequent Florida red tides and staffs lifeguards at its beaches 365 days a year. This study examined lifeguard attendance records during the time periods of March 1 to September 30 in 2004 (no bloom) and March 1 to September 30 in 2005 (bloom). The lifeguard attendance data demonstrated statistically significant absenteeism during a Florida red tide bloom. The potential economic costs resulting from red tide blooms were comprised of both lifeguard absenteeism and presenteeism. Our estimate of the costs of absenteeism due to the 2005 red tide in Sarasota County is about $3,000. On average, the capitalized costs of lifeguard absenteeism in Sarasota County may be on the order of$100,000 at Sarasota County beaches alone. When surveyed, lifeguards reported not only that they experienced adverse health effects of exposure to Florida red tide but also that their attentiveness and abilities to take preventative actions decrease when they worked during a bloom, implying presenteeism effects. The costs of presenteeism, which imply increased risks to beachgoers, arguably could exceed those of absenteeism by an order of magnitude. Due to the lack of data, however, we are unable to provide credible estimates of the costs of presenteeism or the potential increased risks to bathers.This research was supported by the National Science Foundation under The Research Experience for Undergraduate Program, grant number 0453955; the P01 ES 10594, DHHS NIH of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences; the Center for Oceans and Human Health at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution [National Science Foundation (NSF) OCE-0430724; National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) P50 ES012742]; and the Ocean and Human Health Center at the University of Miami Rosenstiel School (NSF 0CE0432368; NIEHS 1 P50 ES12736)

Ambiversion of X(3872)

An analysis including most recent Belle data on X(3872) is performed, using coupled channel Flatt\'e formula. A third sheet pole close to but \textit{below} $D^0D^{*0}$ threshold is found, besides the bound state/virtual state pole discussed in previous literature. The co-existence of two poles near the $D^0D^{*0}$ threshold indicates that the X(3872) may be of ordinary $c\bar c$ $2 ^3P_1$ state origin, distorted by strong coupled channel effects. The latter manifests itself as a molecular bound state (or a virtual state).Comment: Slightly revised version accepted for publication in Physics Letter

Pasture Production and Grazing System in ASSIST Project: Outcome and Replication Viability in Nigeria for Sustainable Ruminant Production

As important as pasture is to productive management of cattle, sheep and goats, intensive development of grassland for ruminant animals is rare in Nigeria largely due to no conscious effort at pasture cultivation in the country. Consequently, nomadic and free grazing systems remain a practice in the country, with resultant poor animal productivity and agro-related conflicts between ruminant keepers and crop farmers and/or agro-processors. The need to revert this situation underscored the exploration of the potential value of the innovative pasture production and grazing management system tested under the Achieving Sustainable Agricultural Systems (ASSIST) programmme in Rothamsted Research, United Kingdom, for application in Nigeria. The project, which cultivated swards of different species such as permanent pasture, grass mix (“soft fibre” cultivars) and multispecies swards, was managed as continuous stocking orcell-rotational grazing systems under drained and undrained soil conditions. Conscientious management and weekly monitoring of the pasture, using calibrated plate-meter, not only made it possible to ensure adequate herbage availability to the reared ruminants but also enhanced productive performance of the farm animals. Although, the common types of swards in Nigeria differ from that of ASSIST project, a modified application of the paddock development model could enhance quality paddock development in the country for sustainable grazing and productive ruminant management