Amphibian Species Richness and Distribution in Vernal Pools at Glover’s Ledge, Langdon, NH

Vernal pools are important breeding grounds for forest amphibians and vital habitat for many populations of species. With the goal of better managing Glover’s Ledge (GL) for its amphibian communities, the objectives of this study were to assess the current hydrologic profile of the GL vernal pools over the duration of the breeding season, identify richness and distribution of amphibian species utilizing vernal pools, and provide baseline amphibian data for future monitoring and management at GL. Egg masses of Lithobates sylvaticus (wood frogs) and Ambystoma maculatum (Spotted salamanders) in three pools on the site (SWP, LL, and SW) were monitored weekly over 20 weeks from March through August of 2020. Hydrological data on the trends of pool depth, extent, temperature, and pH were also sampled. All pools contained egg masses for 7 weeks before larvae hatched (except for SW, which dried up prior to larval emergence). The LL pool supported the greatest number of A. maculatum egg masses with a maximum number of 63 egg masses counted. This study is only a single-year snapshot of the GL vernal pool system, so it is too early to draw conclusions about population health or trends from these data alone. However, these baseline data may prove important in beginning to understand the GL amphibian community and reveal areas where we can focus our efforts to improve future studies and management efforts

Identifiable Risk Factors Associated with Congestive Heart Failure Hospital Readmissions

It is important to analyze patterns of risk factors associated with congestive heart failure (CHF) readmission rates. Today, if a CHF patient is readmitted within 30 days of their initial discharge the hospital will not be reimbursed for the stay. The aims of this study are to see if there is an association between patients readmitted within 30, 60, and 90 days of the initial discharge and to identify patterns of risk factors associated with CHF readmissions. A search of the CINAHL research database was conducted, using the key words “heart failure”, “signs and symptoms”, “readmission rates” and “comorbidities”. The study was a retrospective chart review that consisted of a randomized sample of 52 patients readmitted from 2012-2014 with a primary diagnosis of congestive heart failure. Results showed there was a significant association between 30 and 60 day readmissions, but not 30 and 90 day readmissions. Identified risk factors included sex, overt clinical symptoms (dyspnea, fatigue and weakness, edema) and ejection fractions

The Relationship of Formative Assessment to the Professional Development and Perspective Transformation of Teachers

This study uses practitioner research to explore teacher perspectives about formative assessment. The researcher engaged in a four-month-long series of professional development sessions with one middle school and two high school English-Language Arts teachers from the Capital View School District. Understanding formative assessment as a process to monitor student learning and then customizing instruction based on the data gathered from the formative assessment is a complex skill in which teachers need practice and even coaching to become adroit. The sessions were intended to help early-career teachers better understand formative assessment and incorporate it as a strategy in their teaching praxis. Using notes from interviews and observation of the six professional development sessions, this study provides insight into the thought processes of teachers as they navigate through new information about formative assessment and attempt to fuse their new knowledge with district policies. This study also provides insight into the relationship between professional development and perspective change in teachers, which in turn informs the relationship between the researcher in this study and the districts with which she supports in the area of formative assessment. A detailed review of how teachers work through new information provides valuable information for teachers and administrators to consider when seeking to maximize professional development efficiency and teacher success. Adviser: Edmund T. Haman

The Relationship of Formative Assessment to the Professional Development and Perspective Transformation of Teachers

This study uses practitioner research to explore teacher perspectives about formative assessment. The researcher engaged in a four-month-long series of professional development sessions with one middle school and two high school English-Language Arts teachers from the Capital View School District. Understanding formative assessment as a process to monitor student learning and then customizing instruction based on the data gathered from the formative assessment is a complex skill in which teachers need practice and even coaching to become adroit. The sessions were intended to help early-career teachers better understand formative assessment and incorporate it as a strategy in their teaching praxis. Using notes from interviews and observation of the six professional development sessions, this study provides insight into the thought processes of teachers as they navigate through new information about formative assessment and attempt to fuse their new knowledge with district policies. This study also provides insight into the relationship between professional development and perspective change in teachers, which in turn informs the relationship between the researcher in this study and the districts with which she supports in the area of formative assessment. A detailed review of how teachers work through new information provides valuable information for teachers and administrators to consider when seeking to maximize professional development efficiency and teacher success. Adviser: Edmund T. Haman

Perspectives of infant active play: a qualitative comparison of working versus stay-at-home parents

Background: Parents play a key role in infant’s development through their interactions and the type of environment they provide to promote active play. The amount of time parents are able to spend with their infant is dependent on their working status, yet few studies have explored parent perception of their infant’s active play by working status. The purpose of this study was to explore parent perception of active play and compare responses between working and stay-at-home parents. Methods: Twenty-nine parents participated in this qualitative study by completing a one-time, in-person semistructured interview based on the Theory of Planned Behavior. Themes were developed and compared based on parental working status using a directed content analysis approach. Results: All parents believed active play could have a positive effect on their child’s development through physical, social and emotional, cognitive, and/or language and communication development. However, stay-at-home parents reported a broader impact of active play across these domains; whereas working parents most often referenced active play as impacting infant’s physical development. Social and emotional interactions were the highest reported form of active play among all parents. Additionally, all parents described similar barriers to increasing the time for active play. The most commonly reported barrier for all parents was time or schedule followed by care needs of the infant, environmental concerns, and need for restrictive devices (e.g., car seats). More stay-at-home parents than working parents reported the care needs of the infant as being a barrier. Recommendations for active play were not widely known amongst all parents, with a higher percentage of working parents reporting they would desire advice from a healthcare provider. Conclusions: Working status of parents appears to have implications on perceptions of active play which in turn may influence infants’ development. Future studies should objectively assess the impact of parents’ working status on infant development and explore how gender of the parent may serve as a confounding variable

Road Weather Severity Based on Environmental Energy

Effective and efficient removal of snow and ice from public roadways is a key outcome for winter road maintenance operations. This outcome depends on the severity of the wintry weather as well as the quality and quantity of resources used to treat the roadways. Wintry weather conditions vary substantially from hour-to-hour, storm-to-storm, and season-to-season. Many different transportation departments have used empirical statistical models and machine learning methods based upon weather parameters to develop indices to estimate the severity of winter weather. Many of these previous studies used summary statistics, such as the number of days with certain events (snowfall, freezing rain, frost), to provide a seasonal index of winter severity. While summarizing the winter severity for the entire season is quite useful, providing information over shorter time periods will allow for more precise evaluation of maintenance performance during a winter season. A winter weather severity index has been developed that can be used to evaluate the performance of winter weather maintenance. This project involves the development of a physically-based analysis of winter severity, using estimates of the hourly rate of deposition of new snow/ice and the energy required melt it. The “Road Weather Severity Based on Environmental Energy” (RWSBEE) index can be considered an accumulation of energy, beyond that which is available from the environment, needed to melt snow/ice that has been deposited on the road surface on an hourly basis. The energy not provided by the environment that would be required to melt new snow can be thought of as a measure of the work required to remove the new snow from the road surface. We expect that RWSBEE will provide a clearer understanding of the severity of the weather, allowing INDOT to better evaluate their performance, assist with after-action review of recent storms, and improve the reaction to future weather events. Measurable improvements in the winter maintenance decision-making process are expected as a result. Winter weather conditions that occur across different regions vary substantially from hour-to-hour, storm-to-storm, and season-to-season. The methods of road maintenance for fighting snow and ice can also vary between different maintenance units. It is important for organizations that perform road maintenance to be able to quantify the severity of the winter weather conditions, for purposes of monitoring, planning, and evaluating their performance. The Indiana Department of Transportation (INDOT) currently uses estimates of winter weather hours to quantify the severity of winter weather. The definition of a “weather hour” is fairly straightforward: any hour when wintry precipitation (snow, ice pellets, freezing rain) is falling with air temperatures below 35 °F. While this definition is reasonable, it does not take into account numerous factors that can strongly affect road conditions and subsequent efforts needed for road treatment, such as: precipitation rate, wind speed, and availability of sunshine. Consequently, INDOT has determined that the information provided by the weather hour estimates result in wide variations in roadway treatment expenses across Indiana. In order to more accurately and effectively evaluate the performance of winter maintenance, it is important to have detailed data related to winter weather conditions that provide useful information regarding the impact of winter weather on road conditions. State-of-the-art weather information can provide a clearer understanding of the severity of the weather, allowing INDOT to better evaluate their performance, assist with after-action review of recent storms, and improve the reaction to future weather events

Monitoring harm perceptions of smokeless tobacco products among U.S. adults: Health Information National Trends Survey 2012, 2014, 2015

Introduction: Changes to the U.S. smokeless tobacco landscape in recent years include a change to health warnings on packages, the implementation of bans in some stadiums, and the launch of a federal youth pre- vention campaign. It is unclear whether such changes have impacted consumer beliefs about smokeless tobacco. This study examines relative harm perceptions of smokeless tobacco compared to cigarettes among adults and assesses changes in smokeless tobacco harm perceptions over time. Methods: We analyzed data from three cycles (2012, 2014, 2015) of the Health Information National Trends Survey (HINTS). Using 2015 data, we assessed bivariate associations between smokeless tobacco harm per- ceptions and tobacco use, beliefs, information seeking, and demographics. Using 2012, 2014, and 2015 data, we assessed whether smokeless tobacco harm perceptions changed over time within demographic groups using chi- square tests. We then used a weighted multinomial logistic regression to assess the association between smo- keless tobacco perceptions and survey year, adjusting for covariates. Results: When asked whether smokeless tobacco products are less harmful than cigarettes, the majority of re- spondents across cycles said “no.” The percent of respondents who selected this response option decreased over time. Findings showed significant differences in relative harm perceptions of smokeless tobacco versus cigarettes for specific demographic subgroups. Among subgroups, these shifts did not occur with a discernible pattern. Conclusions: Understanding factors associated with perceptions of smokeless tobacco can inform tobacco control efforts. Additional monitoring of these trends may provide researchers with a deeper understanding of how and why smokeless tobacco harm perceptions change

Early impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on promotion of infant activity, strength and communication: A qualitative exploration

Introduction Fostering physical activity, muscle strengthening and communication skills in diverse environments are vital to ensuring healthy infant development; however, promotion of these skills may be impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to explore healthcare workers, parents and childcare providers\u27 perceptions of the pandemic\u27s influence on how they engage with infants to promote physical activity, muscle strength and communication. Methods 37 subjects (12 = parents; 12 = childcare providers, 13 = healthcare workers) participated in a semi-structured interview. Data were analyzed via an inductive content analysis. Results The majority of caregivers identified concerns related to: limitations in social interactions (especially masks impacting communication), lack of access to peer modeling, fewer opportunities for physical exploration, and a need for creative activities in diverse environments (e.g., home/childcare) for infant development during and after the pandemic. Conclusions Caregivers are concerned about the role COVID-19 is having on infant development. Additional resources on how to promote infant physical activity, muscle strength and communication despite challenges associated with the COVID-19 pandemic are needed

Lifetime of flying particles in canonical Doubly Special Relativity

We discuss the corrections to the lifetime of unstable elementary particles in some models of doubly special relativity. We assume that the speed of light is invariant and that the position coordinates transform in such a way to ensure the invariance of the deformed symplectic structure of phase space.Comment: The previous submission was wrong: it contained the file of a differnt pape

Are Pfiesteria species toxicogenic? Evidence against production of ichthyotoxins by Pfiesteria shumwayae

The estuarine genus Pfiesteria has received considerable attention since it was first identified and proposed to be the causative agent of fish kills along the mid-Atlantic coast in 1992. The presumption has been that the mechanism of fish death is by release of one or more toxins by the dinoflagellate. In this report, we challenge the notion that Pfiesteria species produce ichthyotoxins. Specifically, we show that (i) simple centrifugation, with and without ultrasonication, is sufficient to detoxify water of actively fish-killing cultures of Pfiesteria shumwayae, (ii) organic extracts of lyophilized cultures are not toxic to fish, (fit) degenerate primers that amplify PKS genes from several polyketide-producing dinoflagellates failed to yield a product with A shumwayae DNA or cDNA, and (iv) degenerate primers for NRPS genes failed to amplify any NRPS genes but (unexpectedly) yielded a band (among several) that corresponded to known or putative PKSs and fatty acid synthases. We conclude that P. shumwayae is able to kill fish by means other than releasing a toxin into bulk water. Alternative explanations of the effects attributed to Pfiesteria are suggested