Assessment of Carbon Storage and Biomass on Minelands Reclaimed to Grassland Environments Using Landsat Spectral Indices

This study investigated carbon (C) storage and biomass in grasslands of West Virginia reclaimed surface minesites. Mine-related disturbance and subsequent reclamation may be an important component of C cycling. Biomass and C storage generally increased for the first five years after reclamation, but then declined, suggesting a nonlinear pattern to vegetation recovery. Three 2007 Landsat 5 Thematic Mapper and Landsat 7 Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus images were used to assess the potential to predict biomass from raw red and near infrared radiance, the tasseled cap transformation (TC), and four vegetation indices [normalized difference vegetation index, enhanced vegetation index (EVI), triangular vegetation index, and the soil adjusted vegetation index]. TC greenness and EVI were most strongly correlated with biomass and illustrate a modest potential for monitoring vegetation recovery in reclaimed minelands. Additionally, a number of regression models that included age since reclamation and spectral indices were statistically significant suggesting a temporal recovery pattern amongst minesites in this study

Seeing the Forest of Information for the Trees of Papers: An Information Literacy Case Study in a Geography/Geology Class

After receiving a mini-grant for developing integrated information literacy programs, a Geography/Geology Department faculty member worked with the Science Librarian to embed information literacy in a cross-listed geology and geography course, Geog/Geol 455, Introduction to Remote Sensing. Planning for the revisions to the class started with identification of five key literacy standards for the discipline of remote sensing. Each standard was addressed through a combination of teaching, assignments and measurements. From this planning exercise, two lectures and two laboratory exercises on information literacy were developed. Student response to the information literacy material, as measured through pre- and post-course surveys, was overwhelmingly positive. The project also provided an important opportunity for collaboration between the scientist and librarian

Senior Recital

List of performers and performances

Psychosis and Human Rights: Conflicts in Mental Health Policy and Practice

This paper examines conflicts in polices in England and Wales pertaining to the demand for alternative, non-medical crisis support for those experiencing ‘psychosis’. We examine the limitations of current treatment, policy and legislative frameworks in supporting these demands. In particular, we focus on the limitations of prevailing conceptualisations of ‘human rights’, ‘social inclusion’ and ‘recovery’. These concepts, we argue, are embedded within a broader treatment framework which renders medication as mandatory and all other treatment modalities as inherently subsidiary, and a broader policy framework which is complicit with bio-medical orthodoxies of ‘mental illness’ and prioritises treatment compliance and compulsion. Therefore, in order to advance a ‘human rights’ approach to mental health policy, we argue that reigning orthodoxies inherent within policy and practice must be explicitly challenged to open up spaces for the availability of alternatives

Minimal-medication approaches to treating schizophrenia

UK guidelines for treating people diagnosed with schizo phrenia currently emphasise the primacy of antipsychotic medication, with or without psycho-socially based interventions as circumstances dictate. We now see increasing calls, most notably from mental health service users, for the provision of ‘whole-person-based’, minimal-medication approaches to treating people with this diagnosis. This article is intended to locate the development of such approaches within the history of modern and pre-modern psychiatry and, in doing so, summarise the available evidence base that underpins their efficacy

Balanced carbohydrate ratios are associated with improved diet quality in Australia: A nationally representative cross-sectional study

BACKGROUND: Carbohydrate quality influences major health outcomes; however, the best criteria to assess carbohydrate quality remain unknown. OBJECTIVE: The objectives were to: i) evaluate whether a diet that meets a carbohydrate ratio (simple, modified or dual ratio) is associated with higher nutrient intakes and diet quality, and ii) model the impact of substituting carbohydrate foods that meet the proposed ratios in place of foods that do not, on nutrient intakes. DESIGN: A secondary analysis of cross-sectional data from the 2011–12 Australian National Nutrition and Physical Activity Survey. PARTICIPANTS/SETTING: National data from participants aged 2 years and older (n = 12,153). MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Ratios were defined as (i) simple ratio, 10:1 (10g carbohydrate:≥1g dietary fiber); (ii) modified ratio, 10:1:2 (10g carbohydrate:≥1g dietary fiber:≤2g free sugars); and (iii) dual ratio, 10:1 & 1:2 (10g carbohydrate:≥1g dietary fiber & ≤2g free sugars per 1g dietary fiber). Ratios were compared to nutrient intakes obtained via automated multiple-pass 24-hour dietary recall and diet quality calculated using the Australian Healthy Eating Index. STATISTICAL ANALYSES PERFORMED: Substitution dietary modelling was performed. Data were analyzed using paired and independent sample t-tests. RESULTS: Ratio adherence was highest for simple (50.2% adults; 28.6% children), followed by dual (40.6% adults; 21.7% children), then modified (32.7% adults; 18.6% children) ratios. Participants who met any ratio reported higher nutrient intake and diet quality compared to those who failed to meet the respective ratio (P < .001 for all), with the greatest nutrient intakes found for those who met modified or dual ratios. Dietary modelling improved nutrient intakes for all ratios, with the greatest improvement found for the dual ratio. CONCLUSIONS: All carbohydrate ratios were associated with higher diet quality, with a free sugars constraint in the dual ratio providing the greatest improvements

High Speed Intensified Video Observations of TLEs in Support of PhOCAL

The third observing season of PhOCAL (Physical Origins of Coupling to the upper Atmosphere by Lightning) was conducted over the U.S. High Plains during the late spring and summer of 2013. The goal was to capture using an intensified high-speed camera, a transient luminous event (TLE), especially a sprite, as well as its parent cloud-to-ground (SP+CG) lightning discharge, preferably within the domain of a 3-D lightning mapping array (LMA). The co-capture of sprite and its SP+CG was achieved within useful range of an interferometer operating near Rapid City. Other high-speed sprite video sequences were captured above the West Texas LMA. On several occasions the large mesoscale convective complexes (MCSs) producing the TLE-class lightning were also generating vertically propagating convectively generated gravity waves (CGGWs) at the mesopause which were easily visible using NIR-sensitive color cameras. These were captured concurrent with sprites. These observations were follow-ons to a case on 15 April 2012 in which CGGWs were also imaged by the new Day/Night Band on the Suomi NPP satellite system. The relationship between the CGGW and sprite initiation are being investigated. The past year was notable for a large number of elve+halo+sprite sequences sequences generated by the same parent CG. And on several occasions there appear to be prominent banded modulations of the elves' luminosity imaged at >3000 ips. These stripes appear coincident with the banded CGGW structure, and presumably its density variations. Several elves and a sprite from negative CGs were also noted. New color imaging systems have been tested and found capable of capturing sprites. Two cases of sprites with an aurora as a backdrop were also recorded. High speed imaging was also provided in support of the UPLIGHTS program near Rapid City, SD and the USAFA SPRITES II airborne campaign over the Great Plains

The effectiveness of the Inspiring Futures parenting programme in improving behavioural and emotional outcomes in primary school children with behavioural or emotional difficulties: study protocol for a randomised controlled trial.

textabstractBackground: There is a need to build the evidence base of early interventions promoting children's health and development in the UK. Malachi Specialist Family Support Services ('Malachi') is a voluntary sector organisation based in the UK that delivers a therapeutic parenting group programme called Inspiring Futures to parents of children identified as having behavioural and emotional difficulties. The programme comprises two parts, delivered sequentially: (1) a group-based programme for all parents for 10-12 weeks, and (2) one-to-one sessions with selected parents from the group-based element for up to 12 weeks. Methods/design: A randomised controlled trial will be conducted to evaluate Malachi's Inspiring Futures parenting programme. Participants will be allocated to one of two possible arms, with follow-up measures at 16 weeks (post-parent group programme) and at 32 weeks (post-one-to-one sessions with selected parents). The sample size is 248 participants with a randomisation allocation ratio of 1:1. The intervention arm will be offered the Inspiring Futures programme. The control group will receive services as usual. The aim is to determine the effectiveness of the Inspiring Futures programme on the primary outcome of behavioural and emotional difficulties of primary school children identified as having behavioural or emotional difficulties. Discussion: This study will further enhance the evidence for early intervention parenting programmes for child behavioural and emotional problems in the UK

Storm-induced inner-continental shelf circulation and sediment transport : Long Bay, South Carolina

This paper is not subject to U.S. copyright. The definitive version was published in Continental Shelf Research 42 (2012): 51–63, doi:10.1016/j.csr.2012.05.001.Long Bay is a sediment-starved, arcuate embayment located along the US East Coast connecting both South and North Carolina. In this region the rates and pathways of sediment transport are important because they determine the availability of sediments for beach nourishment, seafloor habitat, and navigation. The impact of storms on sediment transport magnitude and direction were investigated during the period October 2003–April 2004 using bottom mounted flow meters, acoustic backscatter sensors and rotary sonars deployed at eight sites offshore of Myrtle Beach, SC, to measure currents, water levels, surface waves, salinity, temperature, suspended sediment concentrations, and bedform morphology. Measurements identify that sediment mobility is caused by waves and wind driven currents from three predominant types of storm patterns that pass through this region: (1) cold fronts, (2) warm fronts and (3) low-pressure storms. The passage of a cold front is accompanied by a rapid change in wind direction from primarily northeastward to southwestward. The passage of a warm front is accompanied by an opposite change in wind direction from mainly southwestward to northeastward. Low-pressure systems passing offshore are accompanied by a change in wind direction from southwestward to southeastward as the offshore storm moves from south to north. During the passage of cold fronts more sediment is transported when winds are northeastward and directed onshore than when the winds are directed offshore, creating a net sediment flux to the north–east. Likewise, even though the warm front has an opposite wind pattern, net sediment flux is typically to the north–east due to the larger fetch when the winds are northeastward and directed onshore. During the passage of low-pressure systems strong winds, waves, and currents to the south are sustained creating a net sediment flux southwestward. During the 3-month deployment a total of 8 cold fronts, 10 warm fronts, and 10 low-pressure systems drove a net sediment flux southwestward. Analysis of a 12-year data record from a local buoy shows an average of 41 cold fronts, 32 warm fronts, and 26 low-pressure systems per year. The culmination of these events would yield a cumulative net inner-continental shelf transport to the south–west, a trend that is further verified by sediment textural analysis and bedform morphology on the inner-continental shelf.This research was funded by the South Carolina Coastal Erosion Project(http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2005/3041/), a cooperative study supported by the US Geological Survey and the South Carolina Sea Grant Consortium(Sea Grant Project no:R/CP-11)