The Reproductive Behaviour And Ecology Of Smallmouth Bass (micropterus Dolomieui) In Long Point Bay, Lake Erie

The reproductive behaviour and ecology of smallmouth bass, Micropterus dolomieui, was studied during the 1981 to 1983 spawning seasons at Long Point Bay, Lake Erie. SCUBA was used to find a observe nesting males. My observations of these fish revealed some behaviours that were not previously described. Other activities, e.g. parental guarding, were segregated into discrete behaviour patterns. These units were organized into an ethogram of reproductive behaviour. A mating system involving selectivity by males in choosing mates was discussed.;Reproductive success of individual male smallmouth was measured by collecting new black-fry from nests. Thirteen variables reflecting differences in biological characteristics of the male, time in the season and particular habitat features in or near the nest were measured. The significant influences on reproductive success were evaluated through a sequence of statistical analyses. Principal components analysis on the 13 predictor variables provided a subset of 5 independent component variables containing 95% of the original variation. A multivariate analysis of variance on the PC scores of the variables indicated differences between years. Discriminant function analysis using data from different years as groups, identified that the physical environmental component (primarily the accumulated hours of wind greater than Beaufort force 4 during offspring development) was responsible for these differences. Multiple regressions of the component variables with reproductive success demonstrated that windy hours and the material in the bottom of the nests significantly influenced the numbers of black-fry in nests.;Renesting by male smallmouth that prematurely lost their brood was studied in 54 marked fish. Nest mortality was simulated by removing black-fry . Twelve males (22%) undertook a second reproductive effort in their same territory. Renesting males were older and larger than those males that nested only once in a territory. Numbers of black-fry on both efforts did not differ significantly. All renesting males reared offspring to the black-fry stage a second time. Renesting effectively mitigated the failure of a first reproductive effort in one season

The Invisible Student: Benefits and Challenges of Part-time Doctoral Studies

This autoethnographic study explores the experiences of two part-time doctoral students as we document our journey of balancing our multiple competing roles. As we reflected and consulted the literature, we began to identify many benefits and challenges that part-time candidature brings to students, universities and employers. Through our autoethnographic analysis, considered in the context of research, we hope to shed light on the part-time doctoral student experience and raise awareness of the benefits that part-time students can bring to universities and to society.Cette étude auto-ethnographique explore les expériences de deux étudiants au doctorat à temps partiel qui documentent leur parcours alors qu’ils tentent d’équilibrer leurs divers rôles concurrents. Au cours de réflexions personnelles et de consultation de la littérature, nous avons commencé à identifier plusieurs avantages et défis que présentent aux étudiants, aux universités et aux employeurs les études doctorales à temps partiel. Nous espérons que cette analyse auto-ethnographique, considérée dans le contexte de la recherche, mettra en lumière l’expérience d’étudiants au doctorat à temps partiel, et fera mieux connaitre les avantages qu’apportent aux universités et à la société les étudiants à temps partiel

Querying Large Physics Data Sets Over an Information Grid

Optimising use of the Web (WWW) for LHC data analysis is a complex problem and illustrates the challenges arising from the integration of and computation across massive amounts of information distributed worldwide. Finding the right piece of information can, at times, be extremely time-consuming, if not impossible. So-called Grids have been proposed to facilitate LHC computing and many groups have embarked on studies of data replication, data migration and networking philosophies. Other aspects such as the role of 'middleware' for Grids are emerging as requiring research. This paper positions the need for appropriate middleware that enables users to resolve physics queries across massive data sets. It identifies the role of meta-data for query resolution and the importance of Information Grids for high-energy physics analysis rather than just Computational or Data Grids. This paper identifies software that is being implemented at CERN to enable the querying of very large collaborating HEP data-sets, initially being employed for the construction of CMS detectors.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

Changing Principals\u27 Leadership through Feedback and Coaching

Researchers Leonard Bickman, Ellen Goldring, Peter Goff, and J. Edward Guthrie conducted a randomized experiment of principals in a large urban school district to explore if coaching, when combined with feedback from teachers, changes principals’ leadership practices. This brief summarizes the research findings regarding the impact of the feedback and coaching intervention on principals’ leadership behaviors

Towards a generic research data management infrastructure

Until recent years, a focused and centralized strategy for the annotation, storage and curation of research data is something that has not been widely considered within academic communities. The majority of research data sits, fragmented, on a variety of disk structures (Desktops, network & external hard drives) and is usually managed locally, with little interest paid to policies governing how it is backed up, disseminated and organized for short or long term reuse. Recognition of how current practices and infrastructure present a barrier to research, has resulted in several recent academic programmes which have focused on developing comprehensive frameworks for the management and curation of research data1-3. Many of these frameworks (such as the Archer suite of e- Research tools1), however, are large and complex, and have an overreliance on new and novel technologies making them unwieldy and difficult to support. The paper discusses the development of a simpler framework for the management of research data through its full lifecycle, allowing users to annotate and structure their research in a secure and backed up environment. The infrastructure is being developed as a pilot system and is expected to work with data from approximately a dozen researchers and manage several Terabytes of data. The technical work is a strand of the MaDAM (Manchester Data Management) project at The University of Manchester which is funded by the JISC Managing Research Data Programme.

Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture

poster abstractThe NEH Summer Institute for Teachers will support the studies of twenty-five talented teachers from across the nation as they join with nationally renowned scholars to explore how religion has shaped, and been shaped by, the American experience. The institute directors, Philip Goff, Arthur Farnsley, and Rachel Wheeler, are all noted scholars in their field, whose work encompasses a wide range of subject matter and methodologies. The institute will enable participants from many different fields to develop new materials on American religion that can be incorporated into their current curricula. An English teacher introducing Uncle Tom’s Cabin, or The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, for instance, will be better prepared to discuss the nexus of religion and race in the context of nineteenth-century America. A civics teacher focusing on the origins of the American government will be able to incorporate discussion about the religion of the founders and the ways in which the First Amendment has shaped American society. The prime goal of The Bible in American Life project is to gain insight for clergy and scholars on Bible-reading as a religious practice. We are particularly interested in how people use the Bible in their personal lives, how religious communities and even the internet shape individuals’ comprehension of scripture, and how individual and communal understandings of scripture influence American public life. Employing both quantitative methods (the General Social Survey and a local survey) and qualitative research (focus-group interviews, historical analysis, and other means), we hope to provide an unprecedented perspective on the Bible’s role outside the context of worship, in the lived religion of a broad cross-section of Americans both now and in the past. Such data will be invaluable to clergy and seminar professors seeking more effective ways to teach and preach scripture in an age saturated with information and technology. The results of the project also will help scholars seeking to understand recent changes in American Christianity

Sγ3 switch sequences function in place of endogenous Sγ1 to mediate antibody class switching

Immunoglobulin heavy chain (IgH) class switch recombination (CSR) replaces the initially expressed IgH Cμ exons with a set of downstream IgH constant region (CH) exons. Individual sets of CH exons are flanked upstream by long (1–10-kb) repetitive switch (S) regions, with CSR involving a deletional recombination event between the donor Sμ region and a downstream S region. Targeting CSR to specific S regions might be mediated by S region–specific factors. To test the role of endogenous S region sequences in targeting specific CSR events, we generated mutant B cells in which the endogenous 10-kb Sγ1 region was replaced with wild-type (WT) or synthetic 2-kb Sγ3 sequences or a synthetic 2-kb Sγ1 sequence. We found that both the inserted endogenous and synthetic Sγ3 sequences functioned similarly to a size-matched synthetic Sγ1 sequence to mediate substantial CSR to IgG1 in mutant B cells activated under conditions that stimulate IgG1 switching in WT B cells. We conclude that Sγ3 can function similarly to Sγ1 in mediating endogenous CSR to IgG1. The approach that we have developed will facilitate assays for IgH isotype–specific functions of other endogenous S regions

A Component Based Approach to Scientific Workflow Management

CRISTAL is a distributed scientific workflow system used in the manufacturing and production phases of HEP experiment construction at CERN. The CRISTAL project has studied the use of a description driven approach, using meta- modelling techniques, to manage the evolving needs of a large physics community. Interest from such diverse communities as bio-informatics and manufacturing has motivated the CRISTAL team to re-engineer the system to customize functionality according to end user requirements but maximize software reuse in the process. The next generation CRISTAL vision is to build a generic component architecture from which a complete software product line can be generated according to the particular needs of the target enterprise. This paper discusses the issues of adopting a component product line based approach and our experiences of software reuse

Isthmus

The purpose of this thesis paper is to describe the sculptural series Isthmus. This project was a direct result of my endeavor with social encounter through the exploration of factors such as place, material and process. The physical landscape between my studio and home was utilized as "place" designated for the purpose of collecting material while connecting with people and nature