It\u27s Time to Get It Right: Problem-Solving in the First-Year Curriculum

In the Fall of 2010, two of the authors taught a newly required first-year course: Practice, Problem-Solving and Professionalism, or P3 as it has come to be known at Hamline University School of Law (HUSL). In this Article, we will use the P3 course as a case study in legal education curricular reform. We contend that the problem-solving emphasis of the course and its placement in the first-year curriculum responds elegantly to the various calls for legal education reform over the last few decades. Moreover, the course is fairly easily replicated, even in large first-year classes. Most importantly, we believe it should replace separate Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) courses which have proliferated in law school curricula. We do not advocate for the original Missouri model of total integration of ADR concepts into all first-year courses for both pedagogical and practical reasons. First, we believe that model is viable only for law schools with someone on the faculty as singularly focused as Riskin, and with grant money available to implement the model. Second, the pedagogies of using simulations and even ―adventure learning appropriate to a problem-solving course are not a good fit for most doctrinal professors. Third, the amount of coordination among and between very independent law faculty members required by a fully integrated model is simply too overwhelming. Even Missouri has moved to requiring Lawyering: Problem-Solving and Dispute Resolution as a first-year course, instead of its original path-breaking approach in the nineties. Part II of this Article briefly reviews some reforms in legal practice and legal education as they relate to ADR and problem-solving. Part III details the institutional genesis of the P3 course at Hamline. Part IV explains the actual design and implementation of the P3 course. In Part V, we critique the course and provide details for the revised spring 2012 iteration. Finally, in Part VI, we reiterate our support for a problem-solving course in the first-year legal curriculum

Efficacy of a Workbook to Promote Forgiveness: A Randomized Controlled Trial with University Students

Objective The present study investigated the efficacy of a 6-hour self-directed workbook adapted from the REACH Forgiveness intervention. Method Undergraduates (N = 41) were randomly assigned to either an immediate treatment or waitlist control condition. Participants were assessed across 3 time periods using a variety of forgiveness outcome measures. Results The 6-hour workbook intervention increased forgiveness, as indicated by positive changes in participants’ forgiveness ratings that differed by condition. In addition, benchmarking analysis showed that the self-directed workbook intervention is at least as efficacious as the delivery of the REACH Forgiveness model via group therapy. Conclusion A self-directed workbook intervention adapted from the REACH Forgiveness intervention provides an adjunct to traditional psychotherapy that could assist the mental health community to manage the burden of unforgiveness among victims of interpersonal harm

F, G, K, M Spectral Standards in the Y Band (0.95-1.11 um)

We take advantage of good atmospheric transparency and the availability of high quality instrumentation in the 1 um near-infrared atmospheric window to present a grid of F, G, K, and M spectral standards observed at high spectral resolution (R ~ 25,000). In addition to a spectral atlas, we present a catalog of atomic line absorption features in the 0.95-1.11 um range. The catalog includes a wide range of line excitation potentials, from 0-13 eV, arising from neutral and singly ionized species, most frequently those of Fe I and Ti I at low excitation, Cr I, Fe I, and Si I at moderate excitation, and C I, S I, and Si I having relatively high excitation. The spectra also include several prominent molecular bands from CN and FeH. For the atomic species, we analyze trends in the excitation potential, line depth, and equivalent width across the grid of spectroscopic standards to identify temperature and surface gravity diagnostics near 1 um. We identify the line ratios that appear especially useful for spectral typing as those involving Ti I and C I or S I, which are temperature sensitive in opposite directions, and Sr II, which is gravity sensitive at all spectral types. Ascii versions of all spectra are available to download with the electronic version of the journal.Comment: 40 pages, 21 figures, 4 tables, spectra available for download with source file, updated to mirror published versio

Efficacy of REACH Forgiveness across Cultures

Across cultures, most people agree that forgiveness is a virtue. However, culture may influence how willing one should be to forgive and how one might express forgiveness. At a university in the United States, we recruited both foreign-extraction students and domestic students (N = 102) to participate in a six-hour REACH Forgiveness intervention. We investigated the efficacy of the intervention overall as well as whether foreign-extraction and domestic students responded differently to treatment. Forgiveness was assessed using two measures—decisional forgiveness and emotional forgiveness. The six-hour REACH Forgiveness intervention improved participants’ ratings of emotional forgiveness, but not decisional forgiveness, regardless of their culture. Thus, the REACH Forgiveness intervention appears equally efficacious for participants from different cultural backgrounds when conducted in the United States with college students

The Effects of a Prescribed Burn on Small Mammals in an Ohio Tallgrass Prairie

Prescribed burning is used on prairies for increased prairie health and to manage the communities of organisms that rely on the prairie’s natural resources. Small mammals are also affected by the burning of prairies. Previous research by Chance in 1986 and Cook in 1950 has established that burning decreases the small mammal capture rates in the burned area because of the habitat loss and rapid change of habitat post-burn that stresses the animals and leads to lower reproductive levels (Chance, 1986). Other studies by Francl and Small also showed that small mammal populations did not return to pre-burn numbers even after 16 months of evaluation (Francl, K. E., & Small, C. J., 2013). We hypothesize that small mammal populations will decrease in the prairie after burning because of a lack of habitat and food source and that they will emigrate from the burning site to nearby prairie or similar habitat. We will use baited Sherman live traps placed at 25 meter intervals in order to estimate the various small mammal populations in each of the observed habitats. We will plot the capture locations on a map of the area in order to track how stress affects the shift of population density

Aridity drives clinal patterns in leaf traits and responsiveness to precipitation in a broadly distributed Australian tree species

Aridity shapes species distributions and plant growth and function worldwide. Yet, plant traits often show complex relationships with aridity, challenging our understanding of aridity as a driver of evolutionary adaptation. We grew nine genotypes of Eucalyptus camaldulensis subsp. camaldulensis sourced from an aridity gradient together in the field for ~650 days under low and high precipitation treatments. Eucalyptus camaldulesis is considered a phreatophyte (deep-rooted species that utilizes groundwater), so we hypothesized that genotypes from more arid environments would show lower aboveground productivity, higher leaf gas-exchange rates, and greater tolerance/avoidance of dry surface soils (indicated by lower responsiveness) than genotypes from less arid environments. Aridity predicted genotype responses to precipitation, with more arid genotypes showing lower responsiveness to reduced precipitation and dry surface conditions than less arid genotypes. Under low precipitation, genotype net photosynthesis and stomatal conductance increased with home-climate aridity. Across treatments, genotype intrinsic water-use efficiency and osmotic potential declined with increasing aridity while photosynthetic capacity (Rubisco carboxylation and RuBP regeneration) increased with aridity. The observed clinal patterns indicate that E. camaldulensis genotypes from extremely arid environments possess a unique strategy defined by lower responsiveness to dry surface soils, low water-use efficiency, and high photosynthetic capacity. This strategy could be underpinned by deep rooting and could be adaptive under arid conditions where heat avoidance is critical and water demand is high

Flute Studio Recital

Caine College of the Arts Department of Music presents Flute Studio Recital featuring the USU Flute Choir.https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/music_programs/1096/thumbnail.jp

Inflammatory responses to dietary and surgical weight loss in male and female mice

Abstract Background Weight loss by surgery or lifestyle changes is strongly recommended for obese individuals to improve metabolic health, but the underlying impairments that persist from a history of obesity remain unclear. Recent investigations demonstrate a persistent inflammatory state with weight loss and bariatric surgery, but the mechanism and impact are not fully understood. Additionally, these studies have not been performed in females although women are the majority of individuals undergoing weight loss interventions. Methods The goal of this study was to determine the sex differences in metabolically induced inflammation after dietary weight loss (WL) or bariatric surgery. Following a 60% high-fat diet (HFD) for 12 weeks, C57Bl/6j mice underwent either a dietary switch to normal chow for WL or vertical sleeve gastrectomy (VSG) and were evaluated 8 weeks after intervention. WL effects on myelopoiesis were further evaluated with bone marrow chimeras. Results Both sexes had a decrease in adiposity and total weight following WL or VSG intervention. With HFD, females had very little inflammation and no further increase with WL, but males had persistent inflammation even after WL despite metabolic improvement. Interestingly, after VSG, myeloid inflammation was increased in the livers of males and to a lesser extent in females. Conclusions These studies demonstrate that regardless of sex, it is critical to assess an individuals’ history of obesity rather than just rely on current weight status in medical decision-making. There are long-lasting effects on tissue inflammation in both sexes especially with surgical weight loss. Dietary change is overall most effective to improve meta-inflammation in obese males on its own or in combination with surgical weight loss.https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/148527/1/13293_2019_Article_229.pd

The tundra phenology database: more than two decades of tundra phenology responses to climate change

Observations of changes in phenology have provided some of the strongest signals of the effects of climate change on terrestrial ecosystems. The International Tundra Experiment (ITEX), initiated in the early 1990s, established a common protocol to measure plant phenology in tundra study areas across the globe. Today, this valuable collection of phenology measurements depicts the responses of plants at the colder extremes of our planet to experimental and ambient changes in temperature over the past decades. The database contains 150 434 phenology observations of 278 plant species taken at 28 study areas for periods of 1\u201326 years. Here we describe the full data set to increase the visibility and use of these data in global analyses and to invite phenology data contributions from underrepresented tundra locations. Portions of this tundra phenology database have been used in three recent syntheses, some data sets are expanded, others are from entirely new study areas, and the entirety of these data are now available at the Polar Data Catalogue (https://doi.org/10.21963/13215)