Behavioral and Population Ecology of Swift Foxes in Northeastern Montana

Swift foxes are endemic to the Great Plains of North America, but they were extirpated from the northern portion of their range by the mid-1900s. Despite several reintroductions to the Northern Great Plains, there is still a large range gap between the swift fox population along the Montana and Canada border, and the population in northeastern Wyoming and northwestern South Dakota. A better understanding of the resources swift foxes use and demography of the population at the edge of this range gap in northern Montana might help to managers to facilitate connectivity among populations. In Chapter 1, we collected fine-scale locational data from swift foxes fitted with Global Positioning System collars to examine movement and resource use patterns during winter of 2016-2017 in northeastern Montana. Our results suggest that swift foxes displayed three distinct movement patterns (i.e., resting, foraging, and travelling) during the winter. Distance to road decreased relative probability of use by 39-46% per kilometer across all movement states and individuals, whereas the influence of topographic roughness and distance to crop field varied among movement states and individuals. Overall, while our findings are based on data from three individuals, our study suggests that across movement states during the critical winter season, swift foxes are likely using topography and areas near roads to increase their ability to detect predators. In Chapter 2, we estimated the home range size and evaluated third order resource selection of 22 swift foxes equipped with Global Positioning System tracking collars in northeastern Montana. Swift fox home ranges in our study were some of the largest ever recorded averaging (+/-SE) 42.0 km2 +/- 4.7. Our results indicate that both environmental and anthropogenic factors influenced resource use. At the population level, relative probability of use increased by 3.3% for every 5.0% increase in percent grasslands. Relative probability of use decreased by 7.9% and 7.4% for every kilometer away from nonpaved roads and gas well sites, respectively, and decreased by 2.9% and 11.3% for every one-unit increase in topographic roughness and every 0.05 increase in normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI). Overall, to reestablish connectivity among swift fox populations in Montana, our study suggests that managers should aim to maintain large corridors of contiguous grasslands a landscape-scale, a process that will likely require having to work with multiple property owners. In the Northern Great Plains, a suite of carnivores has experienced a large decline in distribution and abundance since the 1800s. In Chapter 3, our objective was to estimate survival and reproductive rates of swift foxes in Montana and assess population viability. In addition, we evaluated support for nine different hypotheses of how several demographic and environmental factors influence survival. We found that adult and juvenile annual survival rates were 54% and 74%, respectively, and fecundity was 0.85. We found the most support for the hypothesis that the percentage of native grassland at the 1 km scale influenced survival and found that survival increased, on average, 2.1% for every 5% increase in grassland. The estimated population growth rate of this population was estimated to be 1.002, indicating that the population was likely to be stable. Our results suggest that this population is currently not likely acting as a source population (i.e. not producing a sufficient number of dispersers), which might be contributing to the lack of range expansion. The long-term success of swift fox recovery will likely be dependent on maintaining large tracts of contiguous grassland with abundant prey, which would be benefit not only the swift fox, but a suite of recovering carnivores

No funny business: precarious work and emotional labour in stand-up comedy

Freelance creative work is a labour of love where opportunities for self-expression are combined with exploitative working conditions. This article explores this dynamic by showing how a group of freelance creative labourers navigate employment while coping with the pressures associated with economic precarity. Drawing on semi-structured interviews, we argue that full-time stand-up comedians engage in ‘pecuniary’ forms of emotion management in an occupational field where social networks and professional relationships play a prominent role. First, comedians project an image of positivity to demonstrate a willingness to work for little or no pay in order to curry favour with comedy club promoters. Second, comedians suppress feelings of anxiety and frustration that arise from financial insecurity in order to keep their relationships with promoters on an even keel – even when the rate of pay and promptness of remuneration fall below acceptable standards. Our study thus has implications for other creative sectors in which precarity is the norm, since it suggests that emotional labour is a resource not only for engaging with customers and clients but also for engaging with multiple employers, negotiating pay and dealing with conditions of insecurity in freelance settings – often with unintended, paradoxical, results

The Afterschool Leadership Landscape: Supporting and Strengthening Racial Equity

In 2019, the National AfterSchool Association (NAA) convened a series of leadership conversations focused on creating a culture of professionalization in afterschool, which included a discussion of the need to build a leadership pipeline and to foster more diverse leadership, starting with a focus on supporting and retaining leaders from minoritized racial and ethnic backgrounds. These leader-focused discussions were a natural next step in NAA's long track record of commitment to equity and advocacy for the professionalization of the afterschool field, including through the development of Core Knowledge and Competencies for Afterschool and Youth Development Professionals, and by annually honoring the Next Generation of Afterschool Leaders. NAA is now elevating the importance of building a diverse leadership pipeline through the launch of a Professional Learning Community (PLC) in spring 2020, with grant support from the S.D. Bechtel, Jr. Foundation and in partnership with the California School-Age Consortium (CalSAC) and Development Without Limits (DWL). NAA also engaged Policy Studies Associates (PSA) and Public Profit as learning and research partners. This brief, researched and authored by PSA and leveraging interview and survey data from Public Profit, results from a collaborative effort intended to frame efforts to embrace, support, and retain afterschool leaders of color.

VIRTUAL TEACHING CASES?AN EXPLORATORY STUDY

This research, when complete, will represent a prototype of the development of a virtual teaching case and the use and assessment of the initial versions of research instruments whose aim is the assessment of this new form of teaching case, or any type of teaching case, with regards to learning efficacy, gains, satisfaction, and environment. The purpose of this virtual teaching case (that is, a teaching case, embedded within a virtual world) is to leverage the rich heritage of casebased teaching while helping today’s students to learn by providing a more engaging environment where these students (experienced with multiplayer computer games and the Internet) can collaboratively practice project management skills such as planning scopes of work, schedules, and budgets—skills they have already learnt in class. In a virtual teaching case, students can experience the challenges of discovering problems; collaboratively creating, judging, and transforming resolutions; and reacting to changing circumstances

Casting Stones: The Role of Fault in Virginia Divorce Proceedings

The national trend is toward eliminating fault as a factor in many aspects of divorce, and in some states it plays virtually no role at all. However, Virginia is among those few remaining states where fault is potentially involved in every aspect of a divorce case

Selecting a Virtual World Platform for Learning

Like any infrastructure technology, Virtual World (VW) platforms provide affordances that facilitate some activities and hinder others. Although it is theoretically possible for a VW platform to support all types of activities, designers make choices that lead technologies to be more or less suited for different learning objectives. Virtual World platforms’ capabilities can be characterized in terms of the extent to which they are multiple or special purpose and the degree to which they support incorporation of few or many knowledge resources. Matching these capabilities with a framework for characterizing instructional approach and learning objectives provides a basis for selecting, piloting, and advocating use of particular VW platforms in specific educational contexts

Teaching and Learning Collaboratively and Virtually

In this paper we describe five knowledge areas for IS educational activities called for in the MSIS 2006 Model Curriculum. The knowledge areas are business processes, emerging technologies, globalization, human–computer interactions, and the impacts of digitization. We then describe two graduate-level courses which pursue these activities — each from a different perspective. One perspective focuses on students learning concepts about virtual teams and collaboration technologies. Another perspective centers on students finding, implementing, and evaluating virtual team and collaboration technologies. We describe the results of educational activities we embedded within these courses that purportedly helped students learn about the five knowledge areas. Next, we share feedback from students. We close the paper by encapsulating our lessons learned

A way to communicate: A new signage system for the Mah Meri Indigenous community

Today, designers use a diverse range of alternative media to have a more efficient form of communication. This research is to investigate the potential of traditionally-inspired contemporary communication design to bridge cultural understandings between and among Malaysians of diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds. Specifically, I propose to design a new signage system in the Mah Meri indigenous community in Malaysia. This is in view that despite the development of the latest media alternatives in use today, the Mah Meri community still lags behind in terms of utilization of these new communication facilities. This project aims to improve social interactions between this community and visitors. The signage system that I propose will help outsiders to navigate in and around the Mah Meri settlements easier and faster because the system provides relevant information in a simple and easy to understand method. Without this signage system visitors will have difficulty in finding the right directions. This work also endeavours, through the notion of creating a new signage system to enrich the cultural identity of the Mah Meri community based on their beliefs in the elements of nature. This, in turn, will create a niche for the community to promote the uniqueness of their culture and identity to outsiders

Effect of soccer footwear on landing mechanics

Lower-extremity injury is common in soccer. A number of studies have begun to assess why specific lower-extremity injuries occur. However, currently few studies have examined how footwear affects lower-extremity mechanics. In order to address this question, 14 male (age: 22.1±3.9 years, height: 1.77±0.06m, and mass: 73.3±11.5kg) and 14 female (age: 22.8±3.1 years, height: 1.68±0.07m and mass: 64.4±9.2kg) competitive soccer players underwent a motion analysis assessment while performing a jump heading task. Each subject performed the task in three different footwear conditions (running shoe, bladed cleat, and turf shoe). Two-way analyses of variance were used to examine statistical differences in landing mechanics between the footwear conditions while controlling for gender differences. These comparisons were made during two different parts (prior to and following) of a soccer-specific jump heading task. A statistically significant interaction for the peak dorsiflexion angle (P=0.02) and peak knee flexion angle (P=0.05) was observed. Male soccer players exhibited a degree increase in dorsiflexion in the bladed cleat while female soccer players exhibited a three-degree reduction in peak knee flexion in the bladed cleat condition. Other main effects for gender and footwear were also observed. The results suggest that landing mechanics differ based upon gender, footwear, and the type of landing. Therefore, training interventions aimed at reducing lower-extremity injury should consider utilizing sport-specific footwear when assessing movement patterns. © 2012 John Wiley & Sons A/S. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd