Alterations in Stream Flow Associated with Gypsy Moth Outbreaks: A Remote Sensing Water Balance Approach

Background/Question/Methods The quality and quantity of water resources in the Northeastern United States are reliant upon forested watersheds. In this area, water resources are sourced from shallow aquifers and groundwater storage, which are both closely tied to surface ecosystems. Rates of evapotranspiration are specifically determined by environmental conditions and plant traits of a particular ecosystem. The interconnected nature of water resources to surfaces processes in southern New England makes understanding interactions between ecosystem disturbance and hydrology particularly important. The gypsy moth is a forest insect whose larvae consume leaves of broad-leaved trees. Outbreaks of this insect cause regional decrease in leaf area, which is related to rates of evapotranspiration. This study directly compares seasonal stream discharge during the 2015-2017 gypsy moth outbreak and defoliation to periods of non-defoliation. I hypothesized that decreased evapotranspiration associated with reduced leaf area from would increase flow intensity and discharge produced in proportion to defoliation. To test these hypotheses, this research integrated remotely sensed imagery of gypsy moth defoliation severity with data from USGS stream gages and Daymet precipitation data to understand and quantify the impact of the 2015-2018 gypsy moth outbreak on water resources in southern New England. Results/Conclusions I found the intensity of defoliation varied greatly annually and over the southern New England hydrologic landscape. Additionally, I found that there was a strong association between increased defoliation and an increased proportion of precipitation exiting a watershed as discharge. By definition of the water balance equation, this increased discharge supports changes in evapotranspiration associated with defoliation are measurable at downstream locations. The magnitude of discharge increase was most apparent at normal and low flow conditions. Discharge increase associated with defoliation is a consistent increase in the amount of water measured at the stream gage. In the context of broader literature, the intense defoliation of 2016-2018 raises important questions for the stability of the forest community and spread of gypsy moth. Increased discharge rates similarly alter the sedimentation and nutrient loading in a watershed. This study recommends future work to focus on how discharge, sedimentation, and nutrient flux are altered by a disturbance, particularly in areas newly affected by gypsy moth outbreaks

The Self-Illuminating Pen

This body of work is made up of a series of letters that describe the process of writing a sole-authored book, Guitar! (Book Works, 2020). Supported by funding from Creative Scotland, The Arts Council, England, and The Glasgow School of Art, Sarah Tripp composed these letters during the night hours, while her child slept. The texts were formed into a selection of five letters to the Editor of MAP Magazine, Alice Bain, and published online by MAP Magazine between 11th July and the 8th August, 2020. Tripp purchased a ‘Self-Illuminating Pen’ which meant she could write in silence and darkness; the experience of doing so affected her habits of writing, shaping and adapting her practice.  Alongside these published texts, Tripp collaborated with the artist Isobel Lutz-Smith to produce five 10-minute films that correspond to the published letters. The films record Tripp’s nocturnal writing from moment to moment, illuminating her handwritten script, one word at a time. As such, the letters and films represent Tripp’s research enquiry, which asks: how can our relationships, between mother and child in this instance, be celebrated or revealed publicly as critical to relational conditions in which practice happens?  Importantly, The Self-Illuminating Pen contributes to emerging research within art writing, particularly the kinds of self-reflective and subjective writings of women practitioners, originating in works such as Mary Kelly’s Postpartum Document (1973-79) to more recent practice-led writings by Maria Fusco and Katrina Palmer, where the intimate, personal and individual voice of the narrator, as woman, is foregrounded. Tripp’s art writing, in this sense, offers an inventive articulation of practice-based, reflections on self, in parallel with feminist auto-ethnography, acknowledging that women continue to exist without autobiography (Felman, 1993)

Making people up

This thesis is a process of writing characters using a cyclical methodology to turn the writer into a reader of their own work, then back into a writer again. The components of this thesis both practice and propose writing as research and develop a concept of character that is ‘relational’. Taking Donald Barthelme’s assertion, ‘Writing is a process of dealing with not-knowing, a forcing of what and how,’ this thesis is attentive to the uncertainty of process: a process that has accreted knowledge in the form of characters and methods. Making People Up is chronologically structured in order to make visible how its form was discovered through practice. The first component is a book of character studies You are of vital importance written in the first year of the PhD. This is followed by a reflective manuscript of essays which use a method of redescription to render a generative moment between the completion of one book and the beginning of the next. The third component is a second book Social Script which is a character study and a conclusion to the thesis. Building on Adam Phillips’ assertion, ‘Being misrepresented is simply being presented with a version of ourselves – an invention – that we cannot agree with. But we are daunted by other people making us up, by the number of people we seem to be,’ this thesis starts from the premise that in the everyday we make each other up and then goes on to use the form of the character study to explore unresolvable tensions around this process. Building four parallel propositions: that character is fiction; that a relational concept of character is a critique of the extent to which we can know each other; that constituting the writer as a reader of their own characters renders a generative moment and critical reflection; that oscillating the proximity to and distance from a character provokes you, the reader, to imagine character as a relationally contingent concept. The thesis will draw on key concepts by Christopher Bollas and Adam Phillips, literary discourse on character, reader-response criticism and a selection of literary and artistic works that have informed this process of writing characters. Research Questions: 1. Does a relational concept of character critique claims to ‘know’ each other? 2. Does replacing interpretation with redescription make a reflective methodology critical and generative? 3. What kind of narrative structure will constitute a ‘relational’ character study

Reflections on the Evolving Triad Tutorial in a Postgraduate Art Studio

This article traces the evolution of the ‘triad tutorial’. The triad model, predominantly used in the training of counsellors and psychotherapists, was originally combined with the art school tutorial model in the context of the Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop to enhance critical discourse between studio holders. The resulting hybrid, the ‘triad tutorial’, was then adapted with postgraduate students on a Master’s Fine Art course at a Scottish art school. Drawing on questionnaires from a small pilot study with students, the triad tutorial is described as an evolving model that has enhanced critical discourse between students, increased student confidence and introduced students to a new reciprocal structure of critique. Links are drawn between critical self-reflection, reciprocity and the sustainability of artistic practice. The development of the triad tutorial is described frankly using the autobiographic timeline of the author to present the model as evolving by trial and error and born of contingency rather than design

The Edge of the Land

The Edge of Land was written to accompany Louise Hopkins exhibition Double Flower at Cove Park. The Edge of Land uses an epistolary form reflecting ‘Double Flower Performance’, a limited edition postcard offered to visitors in the exhibition. The text is composed from letters written to Louise Hopkins following a visit to her studio in Glasgow. The letters directly address Louise, her habits of practice, the emotional range of her works and the relationship of Double Flower to the Rosneath Peninsula where Cove Park is situated, and where the exhibited works evolved in residence

Retro-fallback: retrosynthetic planning in an uncertain world

Retrosynthesis is the task of proposing a series of chemical reactions to create a desired molecule from simpler, buyable molecules. While previous works have proposed algorithms to find optimal solutions for a range of metrics (e.g. shortest, lowest-cost), these works generally overlook the fact that we have imperfect knowledge of the space of possible reactions, meaning plans created by the algorithm may not work in a laboratory. In this paper we propose a novel formulation of retrosynthesis in terms of stochastic processes to account for this uncertainty. We then propose a novel greedy algorithm called retro-fallback which maximizes the probability that at least one synthesis plan can be executed in the lab. Using in-silico benchmarks we demonstrate that retro-fallback generally produces better sets of synthesis plans than the popular MCTS and retro* algorithms.Comment: 39 pages (including appendices). Currently undergoing peer revie

Family and Consumer Sciences Extension Agent Receptiveness to Innovative Caregiving Programming

Communities can adapt to residents\u27 needs through innovative citizen-led initiatives. Extension can facilitate these innovation initiatives, but are Extension agents always receptive to such change? We conducted a study to examine the association between organizational change and personal factors and Extension family and consumer sciences agents\u27 innovativeness regarding caregiving programming. Respondents rated their receptiveness to change and answered questions regarding psychosocial health factors. We found that years in current position, leadership self-efficacy, interoffice support, and social support were significant predictors of innovativeness. Results suggest that personal factors rather than organizational change factors may be the more crucial mechanisms for driving agents\u27 innovativeness