Here today, gone next week: some lessons for the delivery of itinerant primary schooling of a distance education program designed for the children of the Showmen's Guild of Australasia

This paper presents initial results of research on a distance education program developed in 1989 for the children of the Showmen's Guild of Australasia. The program accommodates the mobility of children and their parents who are rarely in any town for more than a week during the show circuit. The children complete correspondence lessons in various subjects and are assisted by their parents or home tutors. Several times a year, distance education teachers join the children during the show circuit and work intensively with them for several weeks. Unlike many other groups involved in the distance education program, the Showmen's Guild is well organized. It has a very supportive parent base and has campaigned over the years to establish favorable political support for a program to meet the special needs of its children. A literature review reveals that high mobility can place students at an educational disadvantage while placing an enormous burden on those providing the education for the mobile group. Interviews conducted with parents, children, home tutors, and teachers revealed close and trusting relationships between parents and distance education teachers and between students and distance education teachers. In addition, there is typically an intimate relationship between the mother and her children as it is the mother who takes on the responsibility for organizing and managing her children's education during a hectic working day. This paper concludes that the uniqueness of each mobile group must be taken into account when implementing an educational program, and delivery must respond to the socioeconomic and cultural attributes of each group. (LP

Degradation of Wood in Standing Lodgepole Pine Killed by Mountain Pine Beetle

Lodgepole pine is widely distributed throughout the Pacific Northwest and is an important commercial species. Although outbreaks of mountain pine beetle can kill extensive areas of pine stands, little attention was paid to postmortality rate of wood quality and quantity deterioration until the most recent outbreak, which because of its unprecedented size has resulted in extensive salvage harvesting. We used dendrochronology to determine the exact year of mortality and destructive sampling to quantify change in wood characteristics with time. We also estimated the fall-down rate of dead trees. Most trees did not start to fall until 8 yr postmortality. We found that change in wood moisture content was the main driver behind changes in wood properties. Dependent variables included checking (number and depth), blue-stain depth, saprot, and damage caused by wood borers and were explained by a small collection of biophysical variables. Biogeoclimatic unit and soil moisture regime were not important predictors of decay and degrade, except for development of saprot at the base of trees. Wood quality significantly changed within the first 1-2 yr postmortality and varied with position along the stem followed by a period of relative stability

Unmasking the linear behaviour of slow motor adaptation to prolonged convergence

This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Erkelens, I. M., Thompson, B., & Bobier, W. R. (2016). Unmasking the linear behaviour of slow motor adaptation to prolonged convergence. European Journal of Neuroscience, 43(12), 1553–1560, which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1111/ejn.13240 This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Self-Archiving.Adaptation to changing environmental demands is central to maintaining optimal motor system function. Current theories suggest that adaptation in both the skeletal-motor and oculomotor systems involves a combination of fast (reflexive) and slow (recalibration) mechanisms. Here we used the oculomotor vergence system as a model to investigate the mechanisms underlying slow motor adaptation. Unlike reaching with the upper limbs, vergence is less susceptible to changes in cognitive strategy that can affect the behaviour of motor adaptation. We tested the hypothesis that mechanisms of slow motor adaptation reflect early neural processing by assessing the linearity of adaptive responses over a large range of stimuli. Using varied disparity stimuli in conflict with accommodation, the slow adaptation of tonic vergence was found to exhibit a linear response whereby the rate (R2 = 0.85, P < 0.0001) and amplitude (R2 = 0.65, P < 0.0001) of the adaptive effects increased proportionally with stimulus amplitude. These results suggest that this slow adaptive mechanism is an early neural process, implying a fundamental physiological nature that is potentially dominated by subcortical and cerebellar substrates.University of Waterloo, NSERC, Canadian Optometric Education Trust Fund (COETF), Ontario QE II GSST Awar

Water Integration for Squamscott Exeter (WISE): Preliminary Integrated Plan, Final Technical Report

This document introduces the goals, background and primary elements of an Integrated Plan for the Lower Exeter and Squamscott River in the Great Bay estuary in southern New Hampshire. This Plan will support management of point (wastewater treatment plant) and nonpoint sources in the communities of Exeter, Stratham and Newfields. The Plan also identifies and quantifies the advantages of the use of green infrastructure as a critical tool for nitrogen management and describes how collaboration between those communities could form the basis for an integrated plan. The Plan will help communities meet new wastewater and proposed stormwater permit requirements. Critical next steps are need before this Plan will fulfill the 2018 Nitrogen Control Plan requirements for Exeter and proposed draft MS4 requirements for both Stratham and Exeter. These next steps include conducting a financial capability assessment, development of an implementation schedule and development of a detailed implementation plan. The collaborative process used to develop this Plan was designed to provide decision makers at the local, state and federal levels with the knowledge they need to trust the Plan’s findings and recommendations, and to enable discussions between stakeholders to continue the collaborative process. This Plan includes the following information to guide local response to new federal permit requirements for treating and discharging stormwater and wastewater: Sources of annual pollutant load quantified by type and community; Assessment and evaluation of different treatment control strategies for each type of pollutant load; Assessment and evaluation of nutrient control strategies designed to reduce specific types of pollutants; Evaluation of a range of point source controls at the wastewater treatment facility based on regulatory requirements; Costs associated with a range of potential control strategies to achieve reduction of nitrogen and other pollutants of concern; and A preliminary implementation schedule with milestones for target load reductions using specific practices for specific land uses at points in time; Recommendations on how to implement a tracking and accounting program to document implementation; Design tools such as BMP performance curves for crediting the use of structural practices to support nitrogen accounting requirements; and Next Steps for how to complete this Plan

Complexity as Fitness for Evolved Cellular Automata Update Rules

We investigate the state change behavior of one-dimensional cellular automata during the solution of the binary density-classification task. Update rules of high, low and un- known fitness are applied to cellular au- tomata, thereby providing examples of high and low rates of successful classification. A spread factor, ω, is introduced and investi- gated as a numerical marker of state change behavior. The nature of ω describes complex or particle-like behavior on the part of the cellular automata over the middle region of initial configuration density-distribution, but breaks down at the ends. Because of the lim- itation on ω, a related jump-out term, jot, is selected for incorporation into the finess func- tion for genetic algorithm evolution of update rules. The inclusion of jot in the fitness func- tion significantly reduces the number of gen- erations required to reach high rates of suc- cessful classification (≥90%)

Complexity as Fitness for Evolved Cellular Automata Update Rules

We investigate the state change behavior of one-dimensional cellular automata during the solution of the binary density-classification task. Update rules of high, low and un- known fitness are applied to cellular au- tomata, thereby providing examples of high and low rates of successful classification. A spread factor, ω, is introduced and investi- gated as a numerical marker of state change behavior. The nature of ω describes complex or particle-like behavior on the part of the cellular automata over the middle region of initial configuration density-distribution, but breaks down at the ends. Because of the lim- itation on ω, a related jump-out term, jot, is selected for incorporation into the finess func- tion for genetic algorithm evolution of update rules. The inclusion of jot in the fitness func- tion significantly reduces the number of gen- erations required to reach high rates of suc- cessful classification (≥90%)

Complexity as Fitness for Evolved Cellular Automata Update Rules

We investigate the state change behavior of one-dimensional cellular automata during the solution of the binary density-classification task. Update rules of high, low and un- known fitness are applied to cellular au- tomata, thereby providing examples of high and low rates of successful classification. A spread factor, ω, is introduced and investi- gated as a numerical marker of state change behavior. The nature of ω describes complex or particle-like behavior on the part of the cellular automata over the middle region of initial configuration density-distribution, but breaks down at the ends. Because of the lim- itation on ω, a related jump-out term, jot, is selected for incorporation into the finess func- tion for genetic algorithm evolution of update rules. The inclusion of jot in the fitness func- tion significantly reduces the number of gen- erations required to reach high rates of suc- cessful classification (≥90%)

Concert recording 2022-03-17

[Track 1]. Piece in E♭ minor / J. Guy Ropartz -- [Track 2]. Varietals. Opening, Barolo ; Intermezzo, Toscana ; Tarantella, Verduzzo / Andrew J. Skaggs -- [Track 3]. A song for Japan / Steven Verhelst -- [Track 4]. Trombumba / George W. Lotzenhiser -- [Track 5]. Thoughts of love / Arthur Pryor

The Red Tape Divide: State-by-State Guide to Food Stamp Applications

This review of food stamp applications from the 50 states and the District of Columbia exposes some of the many obstacles low-income Americans face when accessing the food stamp program

A time-Frequency Application with the Stokes-Woodward technique

In a recent paper, we have generalized Woodward's theorem and applied it to the case of random signals jointly modulated in amplitude and frequency. This generalization yields a new spectral technique to estimate the amount of energy due to mode coupling without calling for higher-order statistics. Two power spectra are detected; the first is related to the independent modes and the second contains extra energy caused by mode coupling. This detection is now extended from frequency to timefrequency domain. A comparison between a wavelet transform and our time-frequency technique shows good agreement along with new insight into the time occurrence of the nonlinearities or mode coupling. Application to water surface waves is given in this letter as an example