Pedagogy: training, a guide to stand by

The People’s Manual on the Guidelines on Governance of Land, Fisheries and Forests is a useful tool for civil society organizations

Evaluation of Geo-Social Networking Application Use Among Young Adults

Background: Since 2009 geosocial networking applications (GNAs) have rapidly emerged as a new technological platform for users to communicate, date, and meet for sex. Popular GNAs include Tinder, Grindr, Bumble, Plenty of Fish, and many more. GNA’s are unique to traditional dating websites in that they allow users to connect with each other based on geographic proximity of their mobile phones. Given the pervasiveness of technology usage among young adults, it is important to understand the potential risks and benefits that GNA-facilitated communication poses on sexual health, emotional well-being, and safety. Popular GNA’s, like Tinder, estimate the majority of users are 16 to 34 years-old. Coincidentally the CDC reports half of the 20 million new sexually transmitted infections each year are among 15 to 24 year-olds. Examination of GNA use and its association with high-risk behaviors and sexual health outcomes among heterosexual young adults is warranted. Methods: A focus-group was held with Western Connecticut State University’s (WCSU) Collegiate Health Service Corps Club (CHSCC) in an effort to create a survey for undergraduate and graduate students on campus. WCSU Institutional review board granted an exempt review status for the project. Through a collaborative effort, a 26-question survey was developed and administered to WCSU students ranging from 18 to 25 years-old. The number of surveys distributed was stratified based on three age groupings: 18-20 years-old (n = 19), 21-23 years-old (n = 20), and 24-25 years-old (n = 20). The survey contained questions regarding GNA’s usage and practice, student sexual health and practice, and overall safety and wellness. Results: A total of 26/60 (43.3%) young adults surveyed reported using geo-social dating applications. The distribution of GNA use among the three age groupings did not differ significantly. The most popular applications used: Tinder (58%), Plenty of Fish (15%), OkCupid (12%), and Bumble (6%). The vast majority of students report using the apps for 11 months or less. A total of 80% of students stated they were sexually active, however over half reported either inconsistent or none-existent barrier method contraceptive use. The primary reasons for using GNAs was “curiosity/fun” and “companionship,” however a smaller minority reported seeking either romantic relationship, casual hook-ups, or sexual intercourse. Of the GNA users, a total of 48% reported they meet-up with other users either “sometimes” (29%), “somewhat often” (15%), or “often” (4%). The nature of these encounters included mostly conversation, texting, social activity, and a smaller minority reported dating, ‘hooking-up,’ oral sex, and sexual intercourse. Interestingly, over half the GNA users have worried about their safety at some point. Conclusion: Survey results cannot directly equate GNAs with STD risk or prevalence, however they do encourage app-users to think about whether their own app-use places them at a sexual, emotional, and/or safety risk. Given the demonstrated prevalence of GNA use among young adults, it is important for the general public, health care providers, and app-users to understand the potential risks and benefits of this type of social networking platform.https://scholarworks.uvm.edu/fmclerk/1172/thumbnail.jp

High-Performance Reachability Query Processing under Index Size Restrictions

In this paper, we propose a scalable and highly efficient index structure for the reachability problem over graphs. We build on the well-known node interval labeling scheme where the set of vertices reachable from a particular node is compactly encoded as a collection of node identifier ranges. We impose an explicit bound on the size of the index and flexibly assign approximate reachability ranges to nodes of the graph such that the number of index probes to answer a query is minimized. The resulting tunable index structure generates a better range labeling if the space budget is increased, thus providing a direct control over the trade off between index size and the query processing performance. By using a fast recursive querying method in conjunction with our index structure, we show that in practice, reachability queries can be answered in the order of microseconds on an off-the-shelf computer - even for the case of massive-scale real world graphs. Our claims are supported by an extensive set of experimental results using a multitude of benchmark and real-world web-scale graph datasets.Comment: 30 page

Oral Health Intervention: A Multifaceted Approach to Improve Oral Health Care during Pregnancy

Introduction: Early Childhood Caries (ECC) is the most common chronic disease of childhood Mothers’ oral health status is a strong predictor of the oral health status of their children 2009: Vermont spends $2.7 million treating children ages 0-5 with Early Childhood Caries 2012: Vermont lifts the$495 Medicaid cap on reimbursement for a woman’s dental care during pregnancy and up to 60 days after delivery American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology (ACOG) Guidelines on prenatal dental care are published 2013: 74% of surveyed Vermont providers treating pregnant women are unaware of the Medicaid change 82% of these providers are not using guidelines to assess oral health during pregnancy Objective: To improve prenatal dental referral rates from obstetric providers by facilitating Vermont-specific implementation of ACOG guidelineshttps://scholarworks.uvm.edu/comphp_gallery/1212/thumbnail.jp

Tri-Frequency Synthetic Aperture Radar for the Measurements of Snow Water Equivalent

SWESARR (Snow Water Equivalent Synthetic Aperture Radar and Radiometer) is an airborne instrument developed at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center for the retrieval of Snow Water Equivalent. SWESARR was specifically designed to measure co-located active and passive signals using a high resolution and multi-frequency Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) and a multifrequency radiometer. SWESARRs Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) system is made up of three independent radar units that operate in the X, Ku-Low, and Ku-High bands with bandwidths up to 200 MHz, and acquires data in two polarizations (dual-polarization radar). The difference in sensitivity of the backscatter signals to snow microstructure, in conjunctions with radiometer measurements, permits an accurate estimation of the snow water equivalent (SWE)

Nachhaltigkeit von E-Learning-Innovationen: Von der Pionierphase zur nachhaltigen Implementierung

In den letzten Jahren wurden an den meisten Hochschulen im In- und Ausland E-Learning-Projekte in die Wege geleitet. Nach den Projekt- und Impulsprogrammen folgen die Konsolidierungsphasen. Schon während der Projektphasen zeigen sich Problemgruppen, die darauf verweisen, dass E-Learning nicht «nur» eine Angelegenheit der Pädagogik und Didaktik ist. Der erste Teil des Aufsatzes benennt einzelne dieser Problemfelder. Der zweite Teil zeigt auf, dass E-Learning die Hochschulen als Ganzes betrifft, und unterbreitet ein Rahmenkonzept, in dem gezeigt wird, wie die benannten Probleme bei der Implementierung von E-Learning vermieden werden können

‘What if technology worked in harmony with nature?’: imagining climate change through Prius advertisements

[Review of article with same title by Garland, J., Huising, R., and Struben, J. In: Organization, 2013, 20 (5), pp. 679–704