Rescue, rehabilitation, and release of marine mammals: An analysis of current views and practices.

Stranded marine mammals have long attracted public attention. Those that wash up dead are, for all their value to science, seldom seen by the public as more than curiosities. Animals that are sick, injured, orphaned or abandoned ignite a different response. Generally, public sentiment supports any effort to rescue, treat and return them to sea. Institutions displaying marine mammals showed an early interest in live-stranded animals as a source of specimens -- in 1948, Marine Studios in St. Augustine, Florida, rescued a young short-finned pilot whale (Globicephala macrorhynchus), the first ever in captivity (Kritzler 1952). Eventually, the public as well as government agencies looked to these institutions for their recognized expertise in marine mammal care and medicine. More recently, facilities have been established for the sole purpose of rehabilitating marine mammals and preparing them for return to the wild. Four such institutions are the Marine Mammal Center (Sausalito, CA), the Research Institute for Nature Management (Pieterburen, The Netherlands), the RSPCA, Norfolk Wildlife Hospital (Norfolk, United Kingdom) and the Institute for Wildlife Biology of Christian-Albrects University (Kiel, Germany).(PDF contains 68 pages.

The Role of Internalized Homonegativity in the Faith and Psychological Health of Lesbians

Among lesbians, faith-based beliefs and behaviors may be associated with negative psychological health due to the interplay between religious and sexual identities. The present study examined health outcomes, faith-based beliefs (views of God as loving and controlling), faith-based behaviors (personal spiritual practices, religious activities), and internalized homonegativity in a sample of 225 self-identified lesbians. We hypothesized that internalized homonegativity would moderate the relationship between health outcomes and faith-based beliefs and behaviors among lesbians. Generally, results indicated that some faith-based beliefs and behaviors were related to negative health outcomes among lesbians with higher levels of internalized homonegativity, but among those with lower levels of internalized homonegativity, the negative associations with health were mitigated

Generative Roles: Assessing Sustained Involvement in Generativity

Abstract Generative roles refer to observable, behavioral community positions that embody aspects of teaching and nurturing that are central to the concept of generativity. Two studies are presented that describe generative roles in a community sample and provide psychometric data for a short index of generative roles. The first study also provides reliability and validity data from a second informant. The second study examines generative roles at different stages of adolescence and adulthood. Participants were asked 8 yes/no questions about a variety of community roles. The validity of the GRI was supported by significant correlations with the Loyola Generativity Scale, a widely used measure of generative concern (r=.33), and measures of related constructs. The correlations were similar across age categories. The Generative Roles Index has good psychometric qualities and complements existing measures of generativity by providing behavioral, observable data on roles

Effect of venting range hood flow rate on size-resolved ultrafine particle concentrations from gas stove cooking

Cooking is the main source of ultrafine particles (UFP) in homes. This study investigated the effect of venting range hood flow rate on size-resolved UFP concentrations from gas stove cooking. The same cooking protocol was conducted 60 times using three venting range hoods operated at six flow rates in twin research houses. Size-resolved particle (10–420 nm) concentrations were monitored using a NanoScan scanning mobility particle sizer (SMPS) from 15 min before cooking to 3 h after the cooking had stopped. Cooking increased the background total UFP number concentrations to 1.3 × 103 particles/cm3 on average, with a mean exposure-relevant source strength of 1.8 × 1012 particles/min. Total particle peak reductions ranged from 25% at the lowest fan flow rate of 36 L/s to 98% at the highest rate of 146 L/s. During the operation of a venting range hood, particle removal by deposition was less significant compared to the increasing air exchange rate driven by exhaust ventilation. Exposure to total particles due to cooking varied from 0.9 to 5.8 × 104 particles/cm3·h, 3 h after cooking ended. Compared to the 36 L/s range hood, higher flow rates of 120 and 146 L/s reduced the first-hour post-cooking exposure by 76% and 85%, respectively. © 2018 Crown Copyright. Published with license by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

The resilience of verbal sequence learning:Evidence from the Hebb repetition effect

In a single large-scale study, we demonstrate that verbal sequence learning as studied using the classic Hebb repetition effect (Hebb, 1961)—the improvement in the serial recall of a repeating sequence compared to non-repeated sequences—is resilient to both wide and irregular spacing between sequence repetitions. Learning of a repeated sequence of letters was evident to a comparable degree with three, five, and eight intervening non-repeated sequences and regardless of whether the spacing between repetitions was regular or irregular. Importantly, this resilience of verbal sequence learning was observed despite the fact that there was complete item-set overlap between repeated and non-repeated sequences. The findings are consistent with the conceptualization of the Hebb repetition effect as a laboratory analogue of natural phonological word-form learning. The results also have implications for the two leading models of Hebb sequence learning: Whereas the results are incompatible with the model of Page and Norris (2009), they can be handled readily by the model of Burgess and Hitch (2006) through the abandonment of its assumption of long-term (across-trial level) decay

Using microscopic video data measures for driver behavior analysis during adverse winter weather: opportunities and challenges

ABSTRACT: This paper presents a driver behavior analysis using microscopic video data measures including vehicle speed, lane-changing ratio, and time to collision. An analytical framework was developed to evaluate the effect of adverse winter weather conditions on highway driving behavior based on automated (computer) and manual methods. The research was conducted through two case studies. The first case study was conducted to evaluate the feasibility of applying an automated approach to extracting driver behavior data based on 15 video recordings obtained in the winter 2013 at three different locations on the Don Valley Parkway in Toronto, Canada. A comparison was made between the automated approach and manual approach, and issues in collecting data using the automated approach under winter conditions were identified. The second case study was based on high quality data collected in the winter 2014, at a location on Highway 25 in Montreal, Canada. The results demonstrate the effectiveness of the automated analytical framework in analyzing driver behavior, as well as evaluating the impact of adverse winter weather conditions on driver behavior. This approach could be applied to evaluate winter maintenance strategies and crash risk on highways during adverse winter weather conditions

Hermite Interpolation in the Treecode Algorithm

In this thesis, a treecode implementing Hermite interpolation is constructed to approximate a summation of pairwise interactions on large data sets. Points are divided into a hierarchical tree structure and the interactions between points and well-separated clusters are approximated by interpolating the kernel function over the cluster. Performing the direct summation takes O(N^2) time for system size N, and evidence is presented to show the method presented in this paper scales with O(N logN) time. Comparisons between this method and existing ones are made, highlighting the relative simplicity and adaptability of this process. Parallelization of the computational step is implemented by splitting the data set into pieces whose interactions are independently calculated on separate CPU cores. Additionally, steps are taken to make this approximation more efficient, allowing greater precision to be achieved without increasing completion time. Results are presented for the 3D 1/r and Screened Coulomb Potential exp(-kr)/r kernels on random data sets in size up to 10^7

Hermite Interpolation in the Treecode Algorithm

In this thesis, a treecode implementing Hermite interpolation is constructed to approximate a summation of pairwise interactions on large data sets. Points are divided into a hierarchical tree structure and the interactions between points and well-separated clusters are approximated by interpolating the kernel function over the cluster. Performing the direct summation takes O(N^2) time for system size N, and evidence is presented to show the method presented in this paper scales with O(N logN) time. Comparisons between this method and existing ones are made, highlighting the relative simplicity and adaptability of this process. Parallelization of the computational step is implemented by splitting the data set into pieces whose interactions are independently calculated on separate CPU cores. Additionally, steps are taken to make this approximation more efficient, allowing greater precision to be achieved without increasing completion time. Results are presented for the 3D 1/r and Screened Coulomb Potential exp(-kr)/r kernels on random data sets in size up to 10^7

Arctic Seas: Currents of Change, An International Symposium

The International Year of the Ocean (IYO), declared for 1998 by UNESCO and the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC), was a call to the world to examine the state of the planet's oceans, evaluate our collective impact on these critical environments, and take steps to protect them to ensure the quality of life for future generations. While the initiative was successful in rallying the attention of a large segment of the population, interest in the Arctic seas was disproportionately low compared with that in areas with large human coastal populations. To redress this imbalance, a symposium was held on 21-24 October 1998 in Mystic, Connecticut, USA, convened by the Sea Research Foundation and Mystic Aquarium, to bring attention to the issues, both scientific and sociopolitical, that bear on the status and future of the Arctic Ocean and adjacent waters. The IOC endorsed the symposium as an event in support of the IYO initiative. The papers comprising this special issue of Arctic represent some of the scientific program presented over those three days. ... The program consisted of five thematic sessions: Climate, Ice, and Ocean; Productivity; Ecology of Marine Mammals; Contaminants; and Human Resources and Development. The thematic undercurrent linking these topics was the examination of changing conditions in the Arctic seas. Change in itself is not necessarily alarming. It shapes the diversity of life on this planet and gives us insight into the balance of natural processes. But what can we predict about the consequences of the changes we are observing: Are the changes due to human presence and activity, local or more distant? And are their consequences something that we must attempt to redress? ..