370 research outputs found
Ambler Flatwoods: Invasive Species Control
The poster will cover topics of our daily work at Shirley Heinze Land Trust, mainly invasive species control in the area and the techniques used to control the number of these plants. I would also like to cover the topic of herbicides because we use them on a daily basis. In addition I would like to present some of our research techniques that we use while evaluating areas and performing pre- and post-treatment on them
Changes in Indiana Water Usage Rates Related to Population from 1990-2005, Using GIS Analysis
Water is arguably our most important resource and the issue of its sustainability arises with our ever expanding population. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has five accessible data sets on their website regarding the water usage rates of each county in Indiana from 1985 to 2005. It does not provide any comparison among these years or display any maps regarding this data. Because this analysis is missing, I will focus on the correlation between water usage rates and population averages in each county of Indiana during the same years. I will then create a series of maps that display this data. My methodology for this research begins with an investigation into the problem, gathering of data records from USGS and the U.S Census Bureau, the creation of the maps, and finally an analysis of the results. The results will then provide information regarding the correlation between water usage rates and population per county for the state of Indiana as well as various maps that can highlight the changes that have occurred
Changes in Indiana Water Usage Rates Related to Population from 1990-2005, Using GIS Analysis
Water is arguably our most important resource and the issue of its sustainability arises with our ever expanding population. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has five accessible data sets on their website regarding the water usage rates of each county in Indiana from 1985 to 2005. It does not provide any comparison among these years or display any maps regarding this data. Because this analysis is missing, I will focus on the correlation between water usage rates and population averages in each county of Indiana during the same years. I will then create a series of maps that display this data. My methodology for this research begins with an investigation into the problem, gathering of data records from USGS and the U.S Census Bureau, the creation of the maps, and finally an analysis of the results. The results will then provide information regarding the correlation between water usage rates and population per county for the state of Indiana as well as various maps that can highlight the changes that have occurred
Treading Murky Waters: The Third Circuit\u27s Search for When a Claim Arises in \u3cem\u3eIn re Grossman\u27s, Inc.\u3c/em\u3e
On June 2, 2010, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in In re Grossman’s, Inc. held that despite a post-petition manifestation of injury, the tort claims of a woman allegedly exposed to a Chapter Eleven debtor’s asbestos-containing products arose pre-petition. In so holding, the court reasoned that a claim arises when an individual is exposed pre-petition to a debtor’s product giving rise to an injury, thus overruling its 1984 decision in In re M. Frenville Co. This Comment argues that although the court examined two tests before determining when a claim arises under the Bankruptcy Code, it left the state of claim accrual law in the contingent tort claims context unclear
The Feeding Patterns of Sally Lightfoot Crabs in Comparison with the Tides in the Galápagos Islands.
During our ecology course in the Galápagos Islands (2019), we became curious about the feeding patterns of the sally lightfoot crabs (SLC). We hypothesized that a relationship existed between crab feeding patterns and the tide levels. Our research was conducted on the shores of Puerto Baquerizo Moreno, San Cristóbal, in the Galápagos Islands. Between June 12th, 2019 and June 22nd, 2019, we observed crabs during both high and low tide. The crabs were placed into three different age groups based on their coloring: juvenile, intermediate, and adult. We collected the number of crabs observed eating at each given time from each age group. We expected there to be a greater amount of crabs eating during low tides due to the larger amount of rocks being exposed which house the algae and nutrients that the crabs eat. Our results yielded a chi squared value of 0.42 which did not support our hypothesis that crabs favor low tide for feeding. With this being said, the results did exhibit a trend that indicated crabs favor eating during low tide as opposed to high tide. We also documented that adult crabs exhibited aggressive behaviors toward other age classes. This caused many of the smaller and younger individuals to hide or move to a different area disrupting their feeding and potentially reducing total intake of daily nutrients. Our study gives more insight as to the behaviors and feeding patterns of the SLC. To better understand the feeding patterns of the SLC in the Galápagos Islands, more studies need to be conducted on the species in general about their behaviors and feeding habits
Boosting Confidence in Hearing Loss Services Through an Interprofessional Simulation led by Peer Instructors
Speech-language pathologists have an ethical responsibility to work with clients with hearing loss. Therefore, speech-language pathology (SLP) students must receive specific education and training in working with this population. SLP students may have low self-efficacy about their ability to work with clients with hearing loss if they haven’t participated in specific training. Interprofessional education utilizing peer teaching by doctor of audiology (AuD) students is one method for helping SLP students learn specific skills to address hearing loss in a clinical setting. The purpose of this study was to investigate SLP graduate students\u27 self-efficacy with working with individuals with hearing loss; SLP student perception of an interprofessional, peer-taught, experiential learning day (ELD) focused on skills related to serving individuals with hearing loss; and AuD peer teacher experiences. The ELD focused on developing skills and knowledge related to the insertion, troubleshooting, and maintenance of hearing aids. It also involved the exploration of hearing assistive technology, as well as information on hearing aids and hearing protection. The learning experience included multiple stations utilizing simulation, experiential learning, and AuD peer teaching. Results from this investigation suggest that an ELD benefits both SLP and AuD students. Specifically, SLP students reported increased self-efficacy for all tasks practiced, and AuD peer teachers reported increased confidence with teaching and a desire to teach again. Student questionnaire ratings suggested that SLP students enjoyed learning from AuD peer teachers, felt the ELD was beneficial to their learning, and thought they were gaining crucial skills for future practice. It appears that using an ELD with AuD peer teachers is a beneficial way to teach SLP students skills for working with clients with hearing loss
Fairness Testing: Testing Software for Discrimination
This paper defines software fairness and discrimination and develops a
testing-based method for measuring if and how much software discriminates,
focusing on causality in discriminatory behavior. Evidence of software
discrimination has been found in modern software systems that recommend
criminal sentences, grant access to financial products, and determine who is
allowed to participate in promotions. Our approach, Themis, generates efficient
test suites to measure discrimination. Given a schema describing valid system
inputs, Themis generates discrimination tests automatically and does not
require an oracle. We evaluate Themis on 20 software systems, 12 of which come
from prior work with explicit focus on avoiding discrimination. We find that
(1) Themis is effective at discovering software discrimination, (2)
state-of-the-art techniques for removing discrimination from algorithms fail in
many situations, at times discriminating against as much as 98% of an input
subdomain, (3) Themis optimizations are effective at producing efficient test
suites for measuring discrimination, and (4) Themis is more efficient on
systems that exhibit more discrimination. We thus demonstrate that fairness
testing is a critical aspect of the software development cycle in domains with
possible discrimination and provide initial tools for measuring software
discrimination.Comment: Sainyam Galhotra, Yuriy Brun, and Alexandra Meliou. 2017. Fairness
Testing: Testing Software for Discrimination. In Proceedings of 2017 11th
Joint Meeting of the European Software Engineering Conference and the ACM
SIGSOFT Symposium on the Foundations of Software Engineering (ESEC/FSE),
Paderborn, Germany, September 4-8, 2017 (ESEC/FSE'17).
https://doi.org/10.1145/3106237.3106277, ESEC/FSE, 201
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Triple oxygen isotope insight into terrestrial pyrite oxidation.
The mass-independent minor oxygen isotope compositions (Δ'17O) of atmospheric O2 and [Formula: see text] are primarily regulated by their relative partial pressures, [Formula: see text]/[Formula: see text] Pyrite oxidation during chemical weathering on land consumes [Formula: see text] and generates sulfate that is carried to the ocean by rivers. The Δ'17O values of marine sulfate deposits have thus been proposed to quantitatively track ancient atmospheric conditions. This proxy assumes direct [Formula: see text] incorporation into terrestrial pyrite oxidation-derived sulfate, but a mechanistic understanding of pyrite oxidation-including oxygen sources-in weathering environments remains elusive. To address this issue, we present sulfate source estimates and Δ'17O measurements from modern rivers transecting the Annapurna Himalaya, Nepal. Sulfate in high-elevation headwaters is quantitatively sourced by pyrite oxidation, but resulting Δ'17O values imply no direct tropospheric [Formula: see text] incorporation. Rather, our results necessitate incorporation of oxygen atoms from alternative, 17O-enriched sources such as reactive oxygen species. Sulfate Δ'17O decreases significantly when moving into warm, low-elevation tributaries draining the same bedrock lithology. We interpret this to reflect overprinting of the pyrite oxidation-derived Δ'17O anomaly by microbial sulfate reduction and reoxidation, consistent with previously described major sulfur and oxygen isotope relationships. The geologic application of sulfate Δ'17O as a proxy for past [Formula: see text]/[Formula: see text] should consider both 1) alternative oxygen sources during pyrite oxidation and 2) secondary overprinting by microbial recycling
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