Closing the Gap: A Research Agenda for the Study of Health Needs among American Indian/Native Hawaiian Transgender Individuals

Objectives: To explore health research needs of American Indian and Native Hawaiian (AIINH) transgender individuals. Methods: This qualitative study is composed of four focus groups and one informal meeting, totaling 42 AIINH transgender individuals in four major cities. The theoretical and methodological approaches combined grounded theory with the principles of community based participatory research. Results: Healthcare and resiliency are two main themes that emerged as research needs with important subcategories within them. Access to quality care from medical professionals and access to care that is unique to their trans gender status were subcategories within healthcare. Lived experiences, culture, and history were factors found to contribute to their resiliency. Conclusions: There are a number of factors that lead to health disparities among AIINH people. They include the lack of quality care due to the negative encounters with health providers, health care providers\u27 limited knowledge of trans gender issues, and lack of transgender specific services. This must be researched further along with health provider care, attitudes, beliefs, and education. Understanding the lived lives of AIINH trans gender individuals and utilizing their culture and history in health interventions may improve their health and overall wellbeing

Prediction of health levels by remote sensing

Measures of the environment derived from remote sensing were compared to census population/housing measures in their ability to discriminate among health status areas in two urban communities. Three hypotheses were developed to explore the relationships between environmental and health data. Univariate and multiple step-wise linear regression analyses were performed on data from two sample areas in Houston and Galveston, Texas. Environmental data gathered by remote sensing were found to equal or surpass census data in predicting rates of health outcomes. Remote sensing offers the advantages of data collection for any chosen area or time interval, flexibilities not allowed by the decennial census

Root Weevil (Coleoptera: Curculionidae) and Ground Beetle (Coleoptera: Carabidae) Immigration into Strawberry Plots Protected by Fence or Portable Trench Barriers

Physical exclusion shows some potential as a novel root weevil control strategy, but barriers to root weevil immigration may also exclude beneficial insects, such as ground beetles. A field study was undertaken in 1997 to assess the impact of two physical barriers—portable plastic trenches and aluminum fences with Teflon tape—on root weevil and ground beetle immigration into plots of strawberry, Fragaria x ananassa (Duchesne). Barypeithes pellucidus (Boheman) and Nemocestes incomptus (Horn), each comprised 43% of the root weevils caught at the site. Most (86%) of the ground beetles caught in control plots were longer than 1 cm, the width of the gap in the portable trench top. Trenches excluded 75 and 63% of B. pellucidus and N. incomptus, respectively, without significantly reducing immigration of large (<1 cm) ground beetles. Fences excluded 65, 84, and 99% of B. pellucidus, N. incomptus, and large ground beetles, respectively. Adding diatomaceous earth to trenches did not increase their efficacy, and fences without Teflon tape excluded ground beetles but not root weevils. The reduction in the population of root weevils and other strawberry pests caused by the use of barriers reduced damage to strawberry plant leaves and increased strawberry plant survival relative to unprotected control plots. Advantages and disadvantages of these physical control tools are discussed with a view to creating superior tools for root weevil exclusion, compatible with an integrated pest management approach. Portable trenches may offer a means of selectively excluding root weevils but not ground beetles

Evaluation of the NAS-ILAB Matrix for Monitoring International Labor Standards: Project Report

The Bureau of International Labor Affairs (ILAB) engaged the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) to recommend a method to monitor and evaluate labor conditions in a given country. The method focuses on 5 labor standards: freedom of association and collective bargaining, forced or compulsory labor, child labor, discrimination, and acceptable conditions of work

Moisture tempers impairment of adult Otiorhynchus sulcatus (Coleoptera: Curculionidae) climbing ability by fluoropolymer, talc dust, and lithium grease

As part of a project to develop tools for the physical exclusion of flightless root weevils, adult black vine weevils (BVW), Otiorhynchus sulcatus (F.), were placed in open enclosures with smooth walls of glass, plastic or aluminum to test their ability to escape by climbing. Enclosure walls were left untreated or were treated with substances known to reduce insect climbing ability: fluoropolymer, powdered talc and lithium grease. No BVW escapes were observed under dry conditions, but all treatments allowed some escapes under wet conditions, suggesting that moisture helps BVW adults scale treated surfaces. The results help explain the ability of root weevils to overcome physical barriers under field conditions

Evaluating Drought Vulnerability of Small Community Surface Water Supply Systems in the Midwest

This report presents approaches and data availability for evaluating the drought vulnerability of small community water supply systems in the Midwest that obtain water from surface water bodies, such as rivers, streams, natural lakes, and man-made reservoirs. A description is provided of the various types of surface water sources from which 320 small community systems in the Midwest, each serving 10,000 or fewer people, obtain their water. The small community surface water system most commonly obtains its supply from one or two small impounding reservoirs. However, a substantial number of communities instead obtain their water from either direct river withdrawals or off-channel storage of water withdrawn from streams and rivers. Sixty of these 320 small community surface water systems were interviewed to gather information on the availability of data to determine the drought vulnerability of these systems. Although hydrologic and physical data exist for evaluating many of these systems, relatively few of the interviewed system managers could provide such pertinent information. A summary of selected hydrologic data is provided that can be used to determine the relative severity of major historical drought periods for various portions of the Midwest. Focus is given to historical droughts and available data for the southern portion of the Midwest where most surface water supply systems are located, comprising parts of Kansas, Missouri, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio. Geographic differences in drought severity are described, as is the influence of the physical characteristics of a water supply on the “critical” drought duration that a community must consider. Basic water budget analyses of water supplies and data needs are presented. Reservoir capacity measurements and estimates of inflow are the most critical data in reliable assessment of water supply adequacy. Depending on data availability, estimation of inflows may be straightforward to highly uncertain. For water supply systems that withdraw directly from a stream or river, the existence of long-term stream gage data on that river is particularly crucial to evaluate supply adequacy, and such data for larger streams and rivers are often available. With impounding reservoirs, which are typically located on smaller streams, data for that stream may often not exist; however, data from a “surrogate” gage that is considered to be hydrologically similar are often sufficient to estimate water supply yield. Systems that use off-channel reservoirs often withdraw water from smaller streams that do not have data for accurate depiction of their yield, and these systems also appear to be the most vulnerable to severe drought conditions. Case studies are presented to provide examples of yield calculations and innovative approaches that selected small communities have undertaken for addressing drought vulnerability. The role of demand management (drought response and water conservation) in evaluating drought vulnerability is also presented. If hydrologic data and basic physical data such as storage capacity are lacking, it may be difficult for either system managers or experienced professionals to estimate a community system’s yield and potential drought impacts, particularly for off-channel reservoir and low channel dam systems. However, managers should attempt to understand the type of drought period likely to test the adequacy of the available supply and can begin recording basic system observations, such as daily withdrawal records and reservoir drawdown, in a readily-accessible form that will be useful for future evaluations.published or submitted for publicationis peer reviewe

Early visitors to the Eastern Cape : inaugural lecture delivered at Rhodes University

Inaugural lecture delivered at Rhodes UniversityRhodes University Libraries (Digitisation

Potential role of remote sensing in disaster relief management

Baseline or predisaster data which would be useful to decision making in the immediate postdisaster period were suggested for the six areas of public health concern along with guidelines for organizing these data. Potential sources of these data are identified. In order to fully assess the impact of a disaster on an area, information about its predisaster status must be known. Aerial photography is one way of acquiring and recording such data