The Engaged University: Providing a Platform for Research That Transforms Society

Despite a growing recognition that the solutions to current environmental problems will be developed through collaborations between scientists and stakeholders, substantial challenges stifle such cooperation and slow the transfer of knowledge. Challenges occur at several levels, including individual, disciplinary, and institutional. All of these have implications for scholars working at academic and research institutions. Fortunately, creative ideas and tested models exist that provide opportunities for conversation and serious consideration about how such institutions can facilitate the dialogue between scientists and societ

Overwintering survival of nymphal Ixodes scapularis (Acari: Ixodidae) under natural conditions

Blacklegged ticks (Ixodes scapularis Say) are exquisitely sensitive to very cold and dry conditions. For this reason it has long been assumed that climatic differences among locations and within microhabitats have a strong influence on variation in their survival over winter. This assumption, however, rests largely on laboratory exposures and on broad-scale associations between climatic variables and the observed distributions of ticks. We present the results of a study of the overwintering survival of I. scapularis nymphs in their natural environment from October through May in two locations in New York State using a repeated sampling strategy to determine when mortality occurred, and whether those events coincide with extreme conditions. We then fit these data to a simple, flexible statistical model in which the hazard of mortality varies with measurable conditions, here minimum daily temperature and mean daily relative humidity. Regardless of winter conditions, > 80% of ticks survived at both sites. A model with constant hazard (i.e., independent of temperature and humidity) was best supported by the data. Although models with hazard increasing at temperatures below 0 deg C and at > 90% relative humidity provided slightly better fits to the data, these models were less parsimonious. These results weaken the expectation that cold-related overwintering mortality necessarily plays a major role in restricting populations of these ticks and thus, risk of tick-borne zoonoses

Real-Time Social Data Collection in Rural Bangladesh via a 'Microtasks for Micropayments' Platform on Android Smartphones.

The advent of cheap smartphones in rural areas across the globe presents an opportunity to change the mode with which researchers engage hard-to-reach populations. In particular, smartphones allow researchers to connect with respondents more frequently than standard household surveys, opening a new window into important short-term variability in key measures of household and community wellbeing. In this paper, we present early results from a pilot study in rural Bangladesh using a 'microtasks for micropayments' model to collect a range of community and household living standards data using Android smartphones. We find that more frequent task repetition with shorter recall periods leads to more inclusive reporting, improved capture of intra-seasonal variability, and earlier signals of events such as illness. Payments in the form of mobile talk time and data provide a positive development externality in the form of expanded access to mobile internet and social networks. Taken to scale, programs such as this have potential to transform data collection in rural areas, providing near-real-time windows into the development of markets, the spread of illnesses, or the diffusion of ideas and innovations

An Experimental Test of Competition among Mice, Chipmunks, and Squirrels in Deciduous Forest Fragments

Mixed hardwood forests of the northeast United States support a guild of granivorous/omnivorous rodents including gray squirrels (Sciurus carolinensis), eastern chipmunks (Tamias striatus), and white-footed mice (Peromyscus leucopus). These species coincide geographically, co-occur locally, and consume similar food resources. Despite their idiosyncratic responses to landscape and patch variables, patch occupancy models suggest that competition may influence their respective distributions and abundances, and accordingly their influence on the rest of the forest community. Experimental studies, however, are wanting. We present the result of a large-scale experiment in which we removed white-footed mice or gray squirrels from small, isolated forest fragments in Dutchess County, New York, and added these mammals to other fragments in order to alter the abundance of these two species. We then used mark-recapture analyses to quantify the population-level and individual-level effects on resident mice, squirrels, and chipmunks. Overall, we found little evidence of competition. There were essentially no within-season numerical responses to changes in the abundance of putative competitors. Moreover, while individual-level responses (apparent survival and capture probability) did vary with competitor densities in some models, these effects were often better explained by site-specific parameters and were restricted to few of the 19 sites we studied. With only weak or nonexistent competition among these three common rodent species, we expect their patterns of habitat occupancy and population dynamics to be largely independent of one another

Sample selection pathway.

<p>Sample selection pathway.</p

Custom interface presents tasks to participants.

<p>Selecting an available task (at left) launches the task in ODK (at right).</p

Study Area.

<p>Study Area.</p

Sample characteristics, compared against a representative Rangpur Sample, and the Bangladesh average.

<p>Sample characteristics, compared against a representative Rangpur Sample, and the Bangladesh average.</p

Box-whisker plot showing quartile distribution of years of education by week in the crowdsourced sample, as well as weekly average and best-fit (Tobit) regression, through week 15 of data collection.

<p>Best fit line from Tobit regression has a slope of -0.078 (years education per week), significant at p = 0.001.</p

Real-Time Social Data Collection in Rural Bangladesh via a ‘Microtasks for Micropayments’ Platform on Android Smartphones - Fig 6

<p>Response rate to tasks as function of a) task value and b) week. Tasks are valued on a scale of 1 to 5, with each increment worth an additional 10MB of data and 5 Taka (0.06 USD) in talk time.</p