Implications of Body Size and Habitat Distribution of Carcinus Maenas for Predation on Mytilus Edulis in the Gulf of Maine

The blue mussel, Mytilus edulis, is a commercially important species along the Gulf of Maine. Its rapid decline in population size over the last forty years has led many researchers to question if the invasive green crab, Carcinus maenas, is affecting its distribution. The increase in annual mean water temperature, due to global climate change, has led many to fear an expansion of the green crab’s range and an increase in population density among areas they currently inhabit. The Damariscotta River in Walpole, Maine offers a unique thermal gradient to study the effects of temperature on green crab distribution, abundance, and size. I conducted field surveys to measure the abundance and size of both Carcinus maenas and Mytilus edulis within the intertidal zone of ten sites along the river. Results showed the highest abundance of both species occurred along the outer coast at sites dominated by cobblestone habitat. Sites with the highest abundance of green crab recruits also had the highest sample size and population density. In addition to intertidal surveys, green crabs were caught off the dock at the Darling Marine Center. Size frequency data from these traps suggest larger adult green crabs can be found both within the intertidal zone and in shallow subtidal waters. Green crabs caught within the subtidal and intertidal zone at the Darling Marine Center were used to conduct feeding trials to study the feeding capabilities, rates, and limitations of green crabs on blue mussels. Results showed that mussels 25 mm or greater are immune to green crab predation from crabs with a carapace width \u3c50 mm. Size frequency data collected on the blue mussels show that despite large mussels being relatively immune to green crab predation, they are found in historically low numbers. The increased demand of blue mussels by humans over the last century could offer one explanation for the lack of large adult mussels along the Damariscotta River

Family Reflections on the District of Columbia Opportunity Scholarship Program: Final Summary Report

During the spring of 2004, the first federally funded voucher program – the District of Columbia Opportunity Scholarship Program (OSP) - was established. The School Choice Demonstration Project (SCDP) recognized that publicly-funded school vouchers represent a relatively new and unstudied approach to school choice and education reform. To address this need, the SCDP requested and received funding from the Annie E. Casey Foundation to capture the “Parent and Student Voices on the OSP.” A total of 110 families, representing 180 students, that applied during the first two years of the Program volunteered to participate in this study. As the last installment in a four-part annual series that began in 2005, this report summarizes key findings from the previous reports and provides a general overview of the respondents’ “reflections” upon their three or four years in the Program. Using a phenomenological approach, which includes focus groups, personal interviews and keypad polling information gathering techniques, participants were given multiple opportunities to share or describe their experiences. A consumer framework was often used to contextualize the families’ experiences. Their insights continue to shape the scope and direction of the OSP, and they will help inform other efforts to provide low income families with access to quality school options

Epistemic landscapes, optimal search and the division of cognitive labor

This paper examines two questions about scientists’ search for knowledge. First, which search strategies generate discoveries effectively? Second, is it advantageous to diversify search strategies? We argue pace Weisberg and Muldoon (2009) that, on the first question, a search strategy that deliberately seeks novel research approaches need not be optimal. On the second question, we argue they have not shown epistemic reasons exist for the division of cognitive labor, identifying the errors that led to their conclusions. Furthermore, we generalize the epistemic landscape model, showing that one should be skeptical about the benefits of social learning in epistemically complex environments

Mixed metal nanoparticle assembly and the effect on surface enhanced raman scattering

Here we report the assembly of mixed metal nanoparticles using an oligonucleotide-templated approach. Substitution of one of the gold nanoparticle probes with an analagous silver probe to produce a hetero-metal duplex permitted surface enhanced Raman scattering of the dye label, exploiting the improved surface enhancement properties of silver nanoparticles whilst maintaining the surface chemistry benefits of gold nanoaprticle

Minimum Distance and Parameter Ranges of Locally Recoverable Codes with Availability from Fiber Products of Curves

We construct families of locally recoverable codes with availability $t\geq 2$ using fiber products of curves, determine the exact minimum distance of many families, and prove a general theorem for minimum distance of such codes. The paper concludes with an exploration of parameters of codes from these families and the fiber product construction more generally. We show that fiber product codes can achieve arbitrarily large rate and arbitrarily small relative defect, and compare to known bounds and important constructions from the literature

The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001: The Politics of Accountability and Building Civic Capacity in Four Schools in Maryland

The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, a reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, ushered in a new level of accountability to all public schools that accept federal funding under this Act. Inclusive of requiring that schools meet adequately yearly progress (AYP), there is a set of recommendations in the legislation for building the capacity of the community to assist in school reform and success. This qualitative study examined four school-communities in Maryland to ascertain the degree to which building civic capacity comprised a part of the schools' reform and academic success strategies. Schools were selected to match three AYP categories: Actively making AYP, rebounding from failing to make AYP, and actively failing to make AYP. Four schools in two counties in Maryland participated in the study. In addition to school staff, interviews were also conducted with parents and members of community groups. The findings suggest that schools with strong community resources are able to maintain adequately yearly progress or utilize those resources to meet it if they have failed to do so in the past. However, in a school that is failing to make AYP, building both internal and external capacity is very challenging without a strong civic capacity history. External resources were especially marshaled in the school that rebounded from failure to make AYP

Satisfied, Optimistic, yet Concerned: Parent Voices on the Third Year of the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program

On January 23, 2004, President Bush signed the DC School Choice Incentive Act into law. This landmark piece of legislation included $14 million in funding for what would become the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program (OSP). The OSP is the first federally-funded K-12 scholarship program in the country and was designed to provide approximately 1,700 children from low income families with tuition scholarships worth up to$7,500. The scholarships cover the costs of attending nonpublic schools within the District of Columbia that agreed to participate in the Program. In December of 2006, Congress amended the DC School Choice Incentive Act to increase the continuing eligibility requirements from 200 percent of poverty line to 300 percent for families already enrolled in the Program.2 As a pilot program, the OSP is authorized to operate for five years and is being implemented by the Washington Scholarship Fund (WSF)

The Camden African-American Heritage Project

This report is divided into six sections that present a history of African Americans in Camden, South Carolina from the perspective of historic preservation. The first three sections constitute the historical narrative, organized into three general time periods: the colonial period through the Civil War, emancipation and Reconstruction through the civil rights movement, and a short section on the recent past since about 1970. Within each of these sections, the report assesses political participation, economic life, the impact of war, education, religion, and the built environment. Section four offers a set of recommendations for how the information in this report can be used to encourage public education about black Camden and preservation of the city‘s African-American historic resources. The primary and secondary sources consulted in this study are listed in the bibliography in section five. The appendix in section six contains a map and database of black Camden in 1941, based on the treasure trove of information in the city directory of that year.https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/pubhist_books/1001/thumbnail.jp

The analysis of future flood risk in the UK using the Future Flood Explorer

The assessment of future flood risk presented considers three climate change scenarios (a 2°C and 4°C change in Global Mean Temperature by the 2050s and 2080s and a more extreme, but plausible future, the so-called H++ future), and three population growth projections (low, high and no growth). The analysis covers the whole of the UK (England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland) and the risks associated with coastal, fluvial, surface water and groundwater flooding. Eight individual Adaptation Measures (including spatial planning, flood defence, catchment storage) are used to construct five Adaptation Scenarios (including enhanced and reduced levels of adaptation ambition in comparison to present day). Future flood risks for a range of climate, population and adaptation combinations are assessed using the UK Future Flood Explorer. The analysis highlights that significant increases in flood risk are projected to occur as early as the 2020s; a finding that reinforces the need for urgent action. The analysis also highlights that to manage risk effectively under a 2 or 4°C future an enhanced whole system approach to adaptation is needed. This will require action by a broad range of stakeholders, from national level down to individual households and businesses