Home Swede Home: The Archaeology of Swedish Cultural Identity at a Western Homestead

In the summer of 2003, the University of Idaho conducted an archaeological field school at the Nora Creek site under the direction of Dr. Mark Warner at a Swedish homestead just east of Troy, Idaho. The field school unearthed a plethora of historical artifacts including metal, glass, ceramic, and faunal items left behind by the inhabitants of the Johanson homestead in Nora, Idaho. Historical documentation indicates that the Johansons immigrated to America from Sweden in 1882 and they arrived in Nora in 1891. The research goal of this thesis is to determine whether and how a signature of Swedish identity may be manifested in the material culture of the Nora Creek site. The glass and ceramic assemblages, as well as the faunal collection, are integrated with historical research to examine this topic. In order to pursue an archaeology of Swedish identity, it is essential to consider the ways in which class, gender, and cultural identity contributed to a Swedish identity in the Nora Creek assemblage versus general homesteading assemblages contemporary to the time frame of the site

The Ecology and Genetics of Schoenoplectus maritimus, an Important Emergent Macrophyte, Across Diverse Hydrologic Conditions--Implications for Restoration

Revegetation projects in wetlands are challenging due to questions surrounding where to obtain plant materials and how hydrologic conditions, which are often unpredictable at restoration sites, may impact restoration success. We used a two-pronged approach to inform decisions on seed sourcing. Our study species, Schoenoplectus maritimus (alkali bulrush), is a widely distributed wetland plant. First, we investigated how genetic diversity was partitioned within and among populations of S. maritimus. We found five weakly differentiated populations and one distinct population. We found high levels of genetic diversity with the majority (92%) of diversity found within rather than among sites (8%). Also, the proportion of viable seed produced was surprisingly high within stands (mean = 0.64 ± 0.02) given the supposed prevalence of asexual reproduction in the species. Second, we conducted two studies to look at the influence of hydrology, population of origin, and genetic diversity of seeds on the productivity of S. maritimus. In a field survey we measured environmental variables and productivity within established S. maritimus stands. In a greenhouse experiment we determined how source population identity and the genetic diversity of seeds impacted emergence and productivity under different hydrologic conditions. We found that stands of S. maritimus differed in proportion of time with water present, mean water level, and soil conditions. Productivity also differed, with 3-fold differences in stem density and biomass among sites. In the greenhouse experiment, we found that water treatment impacted all productivity measures; source population impacted seedling emergence and biomass allocation; and, number of source populations impacted sensitivity to drought. Advice for future restoration projects includes (1) limiting translocation of seeds among populations to conserve historic lineages, (2) when it is necessary to translocate seeds, collect seeds from many parent plants within populations that are in close geographic proximity to the restoration site, and (3) water level management is extremely important at all life stages of S. maritimus and should be an important consideration in wetland restoration and management in this water-limited region

A website supporting sensitive religious and cultural advance care planning (ACPTalk): Formative and summative evaluation

Background: Advance care planning (ACP) promotes conversations about future health care needs, enacted if a person is incapable of making decisions at end-of-life that may be communicated through written documentation such as advance care directives. To meet the needs of multicultural and multifaith populations in Australia, an advance care planning website, ACPTalk, was funded to support health professionals in conducting conversations within diverse religious and cultural populations. ACPTalk aimed to provide religion-specific advance care planning content and complement existing resources. Objective: The purpose of this paper was to utilize the context, input, process, and product (CIPP) framework to conduct a formative and summative evaluation of ACPTalk. Methods: The CIPP framework was used, which revolves around 4 aspects of evaluation: context, input, process, and product. Context: health professionals’ solutions for the website were determined through thematic analysis of exploratory key stakeholder interviews. Included religions were determined through an environmental scan, Australian population statistics, and documentary analysis of project steering committee meeting minutes. Input: Project implementation and challenges were examined through documentary analysis of project protocols and meeting minutes. Process: To ensure religion-specific content was accurate and appropriate, a website prototype was built with content review and functionality testing by representatives from religious and cultural organizations and other interested health care organizations who completed a Web-based survey. Product: Website analytics were used to report utilization, and stakeholder perceptions were captured through interviews and a website survey. Results: Context: A total of 16 key stakeholder health professional (7 general practitioners, 2 primary health nurses, and 7 palliative care nurses) interviews were analyzed. Website solutions included religious and cultural information, communication ideas, legal information, downloadable content, and Web-based accessibility. Christian and non-Christian faiths were to be included in the religion-specific content. Input: Difficulties gaining consensus on religion-specific content were overcome by further state and national religious organizations providing feedback. Process: A total of 37 content reviewers included representatives of religious and cultural organizations (n=29), health care (n=5), and community organizations (n=3). The majority strongly agree or agree that the content used appropriate language and tone (92%, 34/37), would support health professionals (89%, 33/37), and was accurate (83%, 24/29). Product: Resource usage within the first 9 months was 12,957 page views in 4260 sessions; majority were (83.45%, 3555/4260) from Australia. A total of 107 Australian-based users completed the website survey; most felt information was accurate (77.6%, 83/107), easy to understand (82.2%, 88/107), useful (86.0%, 92/107), and appropriate (86.0%, 92/107). A total of 20 nurses (general practice n=10, palliative care n=8, and both disciplines n=2) participated in stakeholder interviews. Qualitative findings indicated overall positivity in relation to accessibility, functionality, usefulness, design, and increased knowledge of advance care planning. Recommended improvements included shortened content, a comparable website for patients and families, and multilingual translations. Conclusions: The CIPP framework was effectively applied to evaluate the development and end product of an advance care planning website. Although overall findings were positive, further advance care planning website development should consider the recommendations derived from this study

Enhanced string factoring from alphabet orderings

In this note we consider the concept of alphabet ordering in the context of string factoring. We propose a greedy-type algorithm which produces Lyndon factorizations with small numbers of factors along with a modification for large numbers of factors. For the technique we introduce the Exponent Parikh vector. Applications and research directions derived from circ-UMFFs are discussed.Comment: 9 page

From TV to tablets – how the BBC’s onscreen journalism is changing

“I used to say what I did and people would understand. Now people say, ‘what’s that?’” said Amanda Farnsworth, editor of visual journalism at the BBC, during the latest Polis Media Agenda Talk. This article by Polis intern Emma Goodman @EmmaMayAle

Hierarchical Multi-classification with Predictive Clustering Trees in Functional Genomics

This paper investigates how predictive clustering trees can be used to predict gene function in the genome of the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. We consider the MIPS FunCat classification scheme, in which each gene is annotated with one or more classes selected from a given functional class hierarchy. This setting presents two important challenges to machine learning: (1) each instance is labeled with a set of classes instead of just one class, and (2) the classes are structured in a hierarchy; ideally the learning algorithm should also take this hierarchical information into account. Predictive clustering trees generalize decision trees and can be applied to a wide range of prediction tasks by plugging in a suitable distance metric. We define an appropriate distance metric for hierarchical multi-classification and present experiments evaluating this approach on a number of data sets that are available for yeast

Editorial: sedimentology and society

Earth surface processes are increasingly affected by human activities, often resulting in complex, or unexpected consequences for society. The on-going effects of land-use changes and release of pollutants to the natural environment are of growing concern. Societal awareness of these environmental changes has grown rapidly over the past decade, prompting a need to better understand and predict the implications of future changes, and to inform adaptation and mitigation policies and strategies. Sedimentology is critical in understanding complex interplays between human activities and earth-surface processes by characterizing and quantifying the response of nature to human impact and vice versa, the impact of natural processes on society. Thus, while key challenges exist, there are many opportunities for sedimentologists to advance the understanding of the human-nature relationship (Hodgson et al., 2018) and thereby contribute to achieving the UN sustainability goals (United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, 2015). Research Topics of this contribution include natural hazards, pollutant dispersal, carbon transfer and storage, and Earth's surface response to changing climate and sea level. This Frontiers in Earth Science special issue brings together a collection of papers that bridge key knowledge gaps in these critical areas, and document the challenges and opportunities within the theme “Sedimentology and Society.

HarriGT:A Tool for Linking News to Science

Being able to reliably link scientific works to the newspaper articles that discuss them could provide a breakthrough in the way we rationalise and measure the impact of science on our society. Linking these articles is challenging because the language used in the two domains is very different, and the gathering of online resources to align the two is a substantial information retrieval endeavour. We present HarriGT, a semi-automated tool for building corpora of news articles linked to the scientific papers that they discuss. Our aim is to facilitate future development of information-retrieval tools for newspaper/scientific work citation linking. HarriGT retrieves newspaper articles from an archive containing 17 years of UK web content. It also integrates with 3 large external citation networks, leveraging named entity extraction, and document classification to surface relevant examples of scientific literature to the user. We also provide a tuned candidate ranking algorithm to highlight potential links between scientific papers and newspaper articles to the user, in order of likelihood. HarriGT is provided as an open source tool (http://harrigt.xyz).preprintPeer reviewe