An Examination of Confirmatory Factor Analytic Models of the Spiritual Well-Being Scale

The Spiritual Well-Being Scale (SWBS) is a commonly used overall measure of perceived spiritual quality of life. The SWBS has been demonstrated as a valid and reliable measure, however questions and concerns exist regarding its construct validity. Further, a paucity of empirical literature exists examining the construct of spiritual well-being within the counseling profession. Using data from a study with 415 master’s level counseling students, the authors examined goodness-of-fit for the SWBS of one, two, three, and five-factor models identified in the literature. Results indicated no model yielded good fit. Implications and future research are discussed

Zinc Phosphide Residues in Gray-Tailed Voles (\u3ci\u3eMicrotus canicaudus\u3c/i\u3e) Fed Fixed Particles of a 2% Grain Bait

This study measured depelted-carcass residues of zinc phosphide (Zn3P2, CAS # 1314-84-7) in 8 (4 males and 4 females) gray-tailed voles (Microtus canicaudus). Six (3 males and 3 females) voles were confined individually in 1.89 dkl (5 gal) plastic pails that contained 5,2% Zn3P2 steamrolled- oat (SRO) groats; 2 voles (1 male and 1 female) served as analytical (unbaited) controls. Four test voles (3 males and 1female) died within 7.5 h after bait exposure; whereas, 2 test voles showed no signs of toxicosis and were euthanized 7.0 h after bait exposure. Whole carcasses were stored frozen and depelted carcasses were analyzed within 31 days for Zn3P2 residues using a acid-hydrolyzation, gas-chromatographic (GC) method. Analytical controls were euthanized, with carcasses stored and analyzed the same as test voles. A mean (± SD) 4.7 (±0.8) SRO groats were consumed by the test voles; this converted to a mean (±SD) intake of 2.15 (±0.38) mg Zn3P2 and dose of 73.25 mg/kg ( ± 22.95) Zn3P2. The mean (± SD) Zn3P2 residue in the 6 test vole carcasses was 0.42 mg (± 0.68); control carcasses contained \u3c0.009 mg Zn3P2- 3P2 in voles are variable, but typically \u3c 50% of ingested rodenticide and (2) risks of secondary poisoning posed by Zn3P2-baited voles to avian and mammalian predators/scavengers are low due to the relatively high toxic thresholds (\u3e 20 mg/kg) required to affect these species

Impacts of Wildlife Diseases In Urban Environments

Approximately 60% of diseases causing pathogenic illness in humans originate in animals. Emergence and re-emergence of zoonotic and vector-borne diseases pose considerable public health, environmental, and economic impacts in the U.S. There are over 250 urban areas in the U.S. with populations \u3e 100,000. These densely populated centers, with concomitant development of natural areas, greenbelts, and walking trails, are viewed to exacerbate the potential for human-wildlife, pet-wildlife, and pet-human interactions leading to greater risks of zoonotic disease transmission. Wildlife rabies, West Nile virus (WNV), and bovine tuberculosis (bTB) offer illustrations of potential impacts from zoo noses in urban areas. Prevention of wildlife variants of the rabies virus are estimated to cost \u3e $250 million annually; probable transmission in urban environments can involve direct human exposure to rabid coyotes (Canis latrans), raccoons (Procyon lotor), skunks (Mephitis mephitis, Spilogale putoris), and red foxes (Vulpes vulpes) or indirect exposure to the virus via pet-wildlife contacts with these animals. West Nile virus is a mosquito-borne illness that has killed \u3e785 people in the U.S.; hospitalization costs associated with the outbreak of this disease in Colorado\u27s densely populated Front Range averaged$33,980/admitted patient. The re-emergence of bovine tuberculosis (bTB) in cattle (Bovidae spp.) of Michigan\u27s northern Lower Peninsula has resulted in a loss of the State\u27s TB-accredited free status costing the state an estimated $22-74 million in five years. Monitoring, preventing, and treating zoonotic diseases pose new challenges for public health, veterinary, and wildlife professionals, with densely populated urban environments likely to exacerbate transmission and impacts

Community implementation dynamics: Nutrient management in the New York City and Chesapeake Bay Watersheds

The creation of natural resource management and conservation strategies can be affected by engagement with local citizens and competing interests between agencies and stakeholders at the varying levels of governance. This paper examines the role of local engagement and the interaction between governance levels on the outcomes of nutrient management policy, a specific area of natural resource conservation and management. Presented are two case studies of the New York City and Chesapeake Bay Watersheds in the US. These case studies touch upon the themes of local citizen engagement and governance stakeholder interaction in changing nutrient management to improve water quality. An analysis of these cases leads to several key considerations for the creation and implementation of nutrient management and natural resource management more broadly, including the importance of: local citizen engagement, government brokering and cost sharing; and the need of all stakeholders to respect each other in the policy creation and implementation process

Overview of the spectrometer optical fiber feed for the Habitable-zone Planet Finder

The Habitable-zone Planet Finder (HPF) is a highly stabilized fiber fed precision radial velocity (RV) spectrograph working in the Near Infrared (NIR): 810 - 1280 nm . In this paper we present an overview of the preparation of the optical fibers for HPF. The entire fiber train from the telescope focus down to the cryostat is detailed. We also discuss the fiber polishing, splicing and its integration into the instrument using a fused silica puck. HPF was designed to be able to operate in two modes, High Resolution (HR- the only mode mode currently commissioned) and High Efficiency (HE). We discuss these fiber heads and the procedure we adopted to attach the slit on to the HR fibers.Comment: Presented at 2018 SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation, Austin, Texas, USA. 18 pages, 25 figures, and 2 table

Quantifying chaos for ecological stoichiometry

The theory of ecological stoichiometry considers ecological interactions among species with different chemical compositions. Both experimental and theoretical investigations have shown the importance of species composition in the outcome of the population dynamics. A recent study of a theoretical three-species food chain model considering stoichiometry [B. Deng and I. Loladze, Chaos 17, 033108 (2007)] shows that coexistence between two consumers predating on the same prey is possible via chaos. In this work we study the topological and dynamical measures of the chaotic attractors found in such a model under ecological relevant parameters. By using the theory of symbolic dynamics, we first compute the topological entropy associated with unimodal Poincareacute return maps obtained by Deng and Loladze from a dimension reduction. With this measure we numerically prove chaotic competitive coexistence, which is characterized by positive topological entropy and positive Lyapunov exponents, achieved when the first predator reduces its maximum growth rate, as happens at increasing delta(1). However, for higher values of delta(1) the dynamics become again stable due to an asymmetric bubble-like bifurcation scenario. We also show that a decrease in the efficiency of the predator sensitive to prey's quality (increasing parameter zeta) stabilizes the dynamics. Finally, we estimate the fractal dimension of the chaotic attractors for the stoichiometric ecological model

Predator water balance alters intraguild predation in a streamsidefood web

Previous work suggests that animal water balance can influence trophic interactions, with predators increasing their consumption of water-laden prey to meet water demands.But it is unclear how the need for water interacts with the need for energy to drive trophic interactions under shifting conditions. Using manipulative field experiments, we show that water balance influences the effects of top predators on prey with contrasting ratios of water and energy, altering the frequency of intraguild predation. Water-stressed top predators (large spiders) negatively affect water-laden basal prey (crickets), especially male prey with higher water content, whereas alleviation of water limitation causes top predators to switch to negatively affecting energy-rich midlevel predators (small spiders). Thus, the relative water and energy content of multiple prey, combined with the water demand of the top predator, influences trophic interactions in ways that can alter the strength of intraguild predation. These findings underscore the need for integration of multi resource approaches for understanding implications of global change for food webs

Synergistic and antagonistic effects of land use and non‐native species on community responses to climate change

Climate change, land‐use change and introductions of non‐native species are key determinants of biodiversity change worldwide. However, the extent to which anthropogenic drivers of environmental change interact to affect biological communities is largely unknown, especially over longer time periods. Here, we show that plant community composition in 996 Swedish landscapes has consistently shifted to reflect the warmer and wetter climate that the region has experienced during the second half of the 20th century. Using community climatic indices, which reflect the average climatic associations of the species within each landscape at each time period, we found that species compositions in 74% of landscapes now have a higher representation of warm‐associated species than they did previously, while 84% of landscapes now host more species associated with higher levels of precipitation. In addition to a warmer and wetter climate, there have also been large shifts in land use across the region, while the fraction of non‐native species has increased in the majority of landscapes. Climatic warming at the landscape level appeared to favour the colonization of warm‐associated species, while also potentially driving losses in cool‐associated species. However, the resulting increases in community thermal means were apparently buffered by landscape simplification (reduction in habitat heterogeneity within landscapes) in the form of increased forest cover. Increases in non‐native species, which generally originate from warmer climates than Sweden, were a strong driver of community‐level warming. In terms of precipitation, both landscape simplification and increases in non‐natives appeared to favour species associated with drier climatic conditions, to some extent counteracting the climate‐driven shift towards wetter communities. Anthropogenic drivers can act both synergistically and antagonistically to determine trajectories of change in biological communities over time. Therefore, it is important to consider multiple drivers of global change when trying to understand, manage and predict biodiversity in the future