Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Nutria: An Invasive Rodent Pest Or Valued Resource?, Susan Jojola, Gary W. Witmer, Dale Nolte

Wildlife Damage Management Conference Proceedings

Nutria or coypu (Myocastor coypus), semi-aquatic rodents native to southern South America, are an invasive species having detrimental impacts mainly in the southern and eastern United States. Nutria were introduced into the U.S. in 1899 for fur farming and became established in several states. Nutria dispersals resulted primarily from releases by fur farmers, escapes during hurricanes or rising floodwaters, or as translocations in an attempt to control nuisance aquatic vegetation. The ravenous appetite of these herbivores can cause damage to agricultural crops and aquatic vegetation, and can alter aquatic ecosystems. Their burrowing habits can weaken irrigation structures and …

The Eleventh Wildlife Damage Management Conference: Title Page

Wildlife Damage Management Conference Proceedings

No abstract provided.

The Eleventh Wildlife Damage Management Conference: Table Of Contents

Wildlife Damage Management Conference Proceedings

Table of Contents

Assessment Of Texas Medical Providers Concerning Rabies Vaccines, Denise Ruffino, Scott Henke

Wildlife Damage Management Conference Proceedings

Rabies is an important zoonotic disease in Texas and thousands of people each year either request or require rabies prophylaxis because they have ‘high risk’ jobs or are exposed to the disease. After experiencing difficulty in receiving rabies prophylaxis from physicians, we conducted a survey of Texas medical providers to assess their knowledge of rabies vaccine procedures and their experience with rabies vaccines. Most providers in Texas (>95% of 297) rarely saw patients for rabies prophylaxis; therefore, providers have minimal, if any, experience with the procedures of acquiring and administering the vaccine. Providers varied greatly in their responses to …

Situational And Driver Characteristics Associated With Deervehicle Collisions In Southeastern Michigan, Alix Marcoux, Graham Hickling, Shawn Riley, Scott Winterstein

Wildlife Damage Management Conference Proceedings

Deer-vehicle collisions (DVCs) create societal impacts throughout the range of white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginanus). In Michigan reported DVCs increased by nearly 60% between 1992-2003, with current estimates at more than 65,000 DVCs per year and a mean of $2,300 vehicle damage. To better understand where to direct education and information programs, we used Office of Highway Safety Planning (OHSP) data, 2001-2003, to profile driver characteristics and accident situations of DVCs in Washtenaw, Oakland, and Monroe Counties in Michigan. Each county varies in intensity of land use, human and deer densities, and available deer habitat. Deer density in Washtenaw, …

Conditioning Beaver To Avoid Desirable Plants, Julie Harper, Dale L. Nolte, Thomas J. Deliberto, David Bergman

Wildlife Damage Management Conference Proceedings

Conditioned food aversion can be used to train animals to avoid select foods. Generally, aversive conditioning is best applied when animals first encounter a food item. However, almost by definition damage is inflicted to desirable plants very familiar to the culprit. We assessed the potential for training beaver to avoid a known preferred food. During a 5 day day treatment period beavers were offered only corn at 1600 hours. Six hours later, animals that had ingested corn were injected with 150 mg/kg lithium chloride (LiCl), with a control group receiving sodium chloride (NaCl). Alternate foods were then offered with corn …

In-Burrow Application Of Rozol To Manage Black-Tailed Prairie Dogs, Charles D. Lee, Philip Gibson, Jeff Wilson

Wildlife Damage Management Conference Proceedings

Our experiment demonstrated that black-tailed prairie dogs (Cynomys ludovicianus) will consume rodenticide underground in their burrows. We demonstrated the efficacy of Rozol Pocket Gopher Bait containing the active ingredient chlorophacione (0.005%) 21 days post treatment for managing black-tailed prairie dogs in their burrows in Kansas. Active prairie dog burrows were reduced 90% when 54 grams of Rozol was placed in the burrow without prebaiting. Results indicate use of this toxicant when placed in the burrow can be an effective means of managing prairie dogs. In-burrow application of rodenticides for black-tailed prairie dog management should markedly reduce exposure of …

Economic Impacts Of Blackbird Damage To The Rice Industry, John Cummings, Stephanie A. Shwiff, Shelagh Tupper

Wildlife Damage Management Conference Proceedings

In cooperation with the Louisiana Rice Research Board, the Louisiana State University Rice Research Station and the USA Rice Federation, we conducted a questionnaire survey in 2002 to estimate the economic impacts of blackbirds on the rice industry in Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, California, and Missouri. Survey areas in rice producing states were identified based on the 2001 National Agricultural Statistic Service’s rice harvest records. The Farm Service Agency (FSA) offices in each state provided a mailing list of farm operators growing rice and approximately one third of the rice farm operators were randomly selected to be surveyed. The questionnaire was …

Decoy Cropping Methods For Luring Blackbirds Away From Commercial Sunflower: Usda Wildlife Conservation Sunflower Plots, Heath Hagy, Jonathan Raetzman, George Linz, William Bleier

Wildlife Damage Management Conference Proceedings

In an effort to reduce blackbird damage to commercial sunflower, which can range from $4-11 million annually in North Dakota and South Dakota, we evaluated Wildlife Conservation Sunflower Plots (WCSP) for efficacy and wildlife benefits. Blackbird depredation has caused some producers to reduce sunflower acreages and seek alternative crops in this optimal sunflower growing region. USDA’s Wildlife Services funded 8-ha units of oil sunflower (WCSP) to lure migrating blackbirds away from commercial sunflower fields. Vegetative data, habitat variables, GIS-analyzed land-use data, weekly blackbird surveys, sunflower damage surveys, and avian point counts will be used to evaluate the effectiveness of the …

Predator Control For The Protection Of The Federally Endangered Great Lakes Piping Plover (Charadrius Melodus) At Dimmick’S Point, North Manitou Island, Kimberly Struthers, Patrick Ryan

Wildlife Damage Management Conference Proceedings

The recovery plan for the federally endangered Great Lakes Piping Plover (Charadrius melodus) identifies the need for predator control/removal to increase Piping Plover chick fledging success. The U.S. Department of Agriculture, Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, Wildlife Services entered into an interagency agreement with the National Park Service to conduct predator management on North Manitou Island (NMI), Dimmick’s Point, located in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, during the 2003-2005 field seasons. Six control methods were used to remove American Crow (Corvus brachyrhynchos), Common Raven (Corvus corax), Ring-billed Gull (Larus delawarensis), and …

Dogs For Reducing Wildlife Damage To Organic Crops: A Case Study, Kurt C. Vercauteren, Nathan Seward, Daniel Hirchert, Michael Jones, Scott F. Beckerman

Wildlife Damage Management Conference Proceedings

Deer (Odocoileus spp.) damage millions of dollars in agricultural crops each year in the United States. A variety of frightening devices and repellants have been developed to reduce crop depredation, however most are effective temporarily (months). Several types of fences are available, but the most effective are expensive, time consuming to install, and may be considered aesthetically displeasing. Additional means to control wildlife damage to agriculture are needed. We evaluated the efficacy of dogs (Canis familiaris) over a several year period for preventing crop damage caused by white-tailed deer (O. virginianus) and other wildlife at …

The Use Of Digital Motion-Sensor Cameras To Capture Coyote Presence In Western Georgia, Lauren Billodeaux, Jim Armstrong

Wildlife Damage Management Conference Proceedings

Because of their learned avoidance of humans and the dense cover provided by forested areas, observation of coyote activity is often very limited in the Southeast. In this study we used digital motion-sensor cameras to detect activity among coyote populations in various urban and rural habitats. Camera stations were placed adjacent to regenerating clear cuts, forest trails and roads, agriculture fields, residential areas, and within city parks to determine activity and presence of coyotes in these various areas. Cameras were successful in detecting coyotes in all study sites throughout the year. Coyotes appear to show no avoidance of camera stations. …

Modifying Fences To Prevent Ungulate Use Of Cropland And High-Value Pastures, James E. Knight, Roy Fenster, Carolyn Nistler

Wildlife Damage Management Conference Proceedings

Big game can damage crops and compete with livestock for valuable forage. Ranchers have reported their tolerance for big game would increase if the animals could be prevented from using key areas critical for spring livestock use. Likewise, some farmers have high value areas that must be protected. Fences provide the most consistent long term control compared to other deterrent methods, but are costly to erect. Many designs of woven wire and electric fences are currently used. Costs of erecting deer proof fencing could be greatly reduced if an existing fence could be modified instead of being replaced entirely. This …

Effectiveness Of A White-Tailed Deer Exclusion Fence Based On Traction Limitations Of The Hoof: The Slippery Fence, George Gallagher, Heidi Keen, Robert Prince

Wildlife Damage Management Conference Proceedings

We hypothesized that an exclusion fence could be devised to capitalize on traction limitations of the hooves of white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus). Hexagonal plots (9.8 m wide) enclosed by a 2.4 m field fence with two openings (4.9 m) were established. Data were collected daily on consumption of corn provided (2.27 kg) and events recorded by infrared monitors (IR) for treatment and control sites. Five-day treatment periods consisted of test panels (4.9 m x 2.4 m) placed in plot openings at 0°, 5° and 10° slopes, and lubricant applied at the 10° slope. Deer consumed all corn provided …

Wildlife Master Volunteers: A Multi-County Approach To Resolving Human-Wildlife Conflicts, Daniel Einarsen, Tom Mason, Deryl Waldren, Ray T. Sterner

Wildlife Damage Management Conference Proceedings

The Wildlife Master (WM) Program in Colorado was modeled after the highly successful Master Gardener volunteer program. In 10 highly populated suburban counties with large rural areas surrounding the Denver Metro Area, Colorado State University (CSU) Cooperative Extension Natural Resources agents train, supervise and manage these volunteers in the identification, referral, and resolution of wildlife damage issues. High quality, research-based training is provided by university faculty and other professionals in public health, animal damage control, wildlife management and animal behavior. Inquiries are responded to mainly via telephone. Calls by concerned residents are forwarded to WMs who provide general information about …

Elk In Nebraska: Opportunity Or Another Private-Public Land Conundrum, Scott Hygnstrom, Michael Cover, Bruce Stillings, R. Daniel Crank, Justin Fischer, James W. Merchant, Seth Korte

Wildlife Damage Management Conference Proceedings

We conducted a comprehensive research project on elk in the Pine Ridge region of northwestern Nebraska from 1995 to 2002 to determine ecological factors that could be used to improve management and reduce damage. The population ranged from 120 to 150 animals, with an average calf:cow ratio of 0.5:1 and bull:cow ratio of 0.4:1. We located 21 radio-collared female elk 6,311 times during 1995 to 1997. Seasonal home ranges of 2 herds were 10 and 44 km², while average annual home ranges of the herds were much larger (483 and 440 km², respectively). All wintering areas …

Compressed Air, Wooden Clappers, And Other Non-Traditional Methods For Dispersing European Starlings From An Urban Roost, Randolph White, Richard Dolbeer, Craig Hicks

Wildlife Damage Management Conference Proceedings

During autumn 2003, several thousand European starlings (Sturnus vulgaris) began roosting on exposed I-beams in a newly constructed, decorative glass canopy that covered the passenger pick-up area at the terminal building for Cleveland Hopkins International Airport, Ohio. The use of lethal control or conventional dispersal techniques, such as pyrotechnics and fire hoses, were not feasible in the airport terminal area. The design and aesthetics of the structure precluded the use of netting and other exclusion materials. In January 2004, an attempt was made to disperse the birds using recorded predator and distress calls broadcast from speakers installed in …

The Relative Growth On Information In Two-Dimensional Partitions, K. Dajani, M. De Vries, Aimee S.A. Johnson

Mathematics & Statistics Faculty Works

Let ... ∈ [0, 1)^sup 2^. In this paper we find the rate at which knowledge about the partition elements ... lies in for one sequence of partitions determines the partition elements it lies in for another sequence of partitions. This rate depends on the entropy of these partitions and the geometry of their shapes, and gives a two-dimensional version of Lochs' theorem.

On Finding Consecutive Test Vectors In A Random Sequence For Energy-Aware Bist Design, Sheng Zhang, Sharad C. Seth, Bhargab B. Bhattacharya

CSE Conference and Workshop Papers

During pseudorandom testing, a significant amount of energy and test application time is wasted for generating and for applying “useless” test vectors that do not contribute to fault dropping. For low-power testing, modification logic/ROM may be used to skip the LFSR states that generate useless test patterns. The overhead of extra logic increases rapidly with the number of such jumps. Since identification of useless patterns strongly depends on the order in which incremental fault simulation is performed, an elegant solution to this problem would be to find a minimum set of segments in the LFSR sequence, where each segment corresponds …

Exploiting The Advantages Of Object-Based Dsm In A Heterogeneous Cluster Environment, Xuli Liu, Hong Jiang, Leen-Kiat Soh

CSE Conference and Workshop Papers

In recent years, increasing effort has been made by the cluster and grid computing community to build object- based Distributed Shared Memory systems (DSM) in a cluster environment. In most of these systems, a shared object is simply used as a data-exchanging unit so as to alleviate the false-sharing problem, and the advantages of sharing objects remain to be fully exploited. Thus, this paper is motivated to investigate the potential advantages of object-based DSM. For example, the performance of a distributed application may be significantly improved by adaptively and judiciously setting the size of the shared objects, i.e., granularity. This …

Face Recognition Using Landmark-Based Bidimensional Regression, Jiazheng Shi, Ashok Samal, David Marx

CSE Conference and Workshop Papers

This paper studies how biologically meaningful landmarks extracted from face images can be exploited for face recognition using the bidimensional regression. Incorporating the correlation statistics of landmarks, this paper also proposes a new approach called eigenvalue weighted bidimensional regression. Complex principal component analysis is used for computing eigenvalues and removing correlation among landmarks. We evaluate our approach using two standard face databases: the Purdue AR and the NIST FERET. Experimental results show that the bidimensional regression is an efficient method to exploit geometry information of face images.

Dgkd: Distributed Group Key Distribution With Authentication Capability, Pratima Adusumilli, Xukai Zou, Byrav Ramamurthy

CSE Conference and Workshop Papers

Group key management (GKM} is the most important issue in secure group communication (SCC). The existing GKM protocols fall into three typical classes: centralized group key distribution (CGKD), decentralized group key management (DGKM), and distributed/contributory group key agreement (CGKA). Serious problems remains in these protocols, as they require existence of central trusted entities (such as group controller or subgroup controllers), relaying of messages (by subgroup controllers), or strict member synchronization (JOT multiple round stepwise key agreement), thus suffering from the single point of failure and attack, performance bottleneck, or mis-operations in the situation of transmission delay or network failure. In …

A Heuristic With Bounded Guarantee To Compute Diverse Paths Under Shared Protection In Wdm Mesh Networks, Ajay Todimala, Byrav Ramamurthy

CSE Conference and Workshop Papers

Establishing a fault-tolerant connection in a network involves computation of diverse working and protection paths. The Shared Risk Link Group (SRLG) [1] concept is used to model several types of failure conditions such as link, node, fiber conduit, etc. In this work we focus on the problem of computing optimal SRLG/link diverse paths under shared protection. Shared protection technique improves network resource utilization by allowing protection paths of multiple connections to share resources. In this work we propose an iterative heuristic for computing SRLG/link diverse paths. We present a method to calculate a quantitative measure that provides a bounded guarantee …

Least-Cost Disjoint Paths With Dependent Cost Structure In Wavelength Continuous Optical Wdm Networks, Ajay Todimala, Byrav Ramamurthy

CSE Conference and Workshop Papers

One of the important issues in establishing a fault tolerant connection in a wavelength division multiplexing optical network is computing a pair of disjoint working and protection paths and a free wavelength along the paths. While most of the earlier research focused only on computing disjoint paths, in this work we consider computing both disjoint paths and a free wavelength along the paths.

The concept of dependent cost structure (DCS) of protection paths to enhance their resource sharing ability was proposed in our earlier work. In this work we extend the concept of DCS of protection paths to wavelength continuous …

Helping End-Users “Engineer” Dependable Web Applications, Sebastian Elbaum, Kalyan-Ram Chilakamarri, Bhuvana Gopal, Gregg Rothermel

CSE Conference and Workshop Papers

End-user programmers are increasingly relying on web authoring environments to create web applications. Although often consisting primarily of web pages, such applications are increasingly going further, harnessing the content available on the web through “programs” that query other web applications for information to drive other tasks. Unfortunately, errors can be pervasive in web applications, impacting their dependability. This paper reports the results of an exploratory study of end-user web application developers, performed with the aim of exposing prevalent classes of errors. The results suggest that end-users struggle the most with the identification and manipulation of variables when structuring requests to …

Balancing Exploration And Exploitation: A New Algorithm For Active Machine Learning, Thomas Osugi, Deng Kun, Stephen Scott

CSE Conference and Workshop Papers

Active machine learning algorithms are used when large numbers of unlabeled examples are available and getting labels for them is costly (e.g. requiring consulting a human expert). Many conventional active learning algorithms focus on refining the decision boundary, at the expense of exploring new regions that the current hypothesis misclassifies. We propose a new active learning algorithm that balances such exploration with refining of the decision boundary by dynamically adjusting the probability to explore at each step. Our experimental results demonstrate improved performance on data sets that require extensive exploration while remaining competitive on data sets that do not. Our …

Neighborhood Interchangeability And Dynamic Bundling For Non-Binary Csps, Anagh Lal, Berthe Y. Choueiry, Eugene C. Freuder

CSE Conference and Workshop Papers

1. Interchangeability: An algorithm for computing interchangeability in non-binary CSPs.

2. Dynamic bundling: Integration of the above with backtrack search for solving non-binary CSPs.

3. Experiments demonstrating the benefits of dynamic bundling

·Finding multiple, robust solutions.

·Decreasing computational cost of search.

Geotectonic Setting And Origin Of The Youngest Kula Volcanics (Western Anatolia), With A New Emplacement Model, Murat Tokçaer, Samuele Agostini, Mehmet Yilmaz Savaşçin

Turkish Journal of Earth Sciences

The Quaternary Kula volcanics are Na-dominant in character while all the older volcanic rocks of western Anatolia are generally definitive K-dominant rocks. As a unique example in western Anatolia, the existence of a huge amount of plateau basalts at Kula indicates rapid uplift of mantle material, as confirmed by new geochemical data. Based on our field observations, the oldest Kula volcanics are the plateau basalts with more than one main lava flow. At the beginning of volcanic activity (first-period plateau basalts), this plateau was vast. Subsequently, parts of the first-period plateau basalts were uplifted and partly eroded while other parts …

Evolution Of And Factors Controlling Eocene Sedimentation In The Darende-Balaban Basin, Malatya (Eastern Turkey), Kemal Gürbüz, Murat Gül

Turkish Journal of Earth Sciences

Collision of the Arabian and Anatolian plates affected evolution of basins located along the southern flank of the Anatolian Plate. The Darende-Balaban foreland basin is one such basin – a basin filled with Upper Cretaceous and Eocene sediments, accumulated unconformably and transgressively above ophiolitic and carbonate basement rocks. This basin is locally surrounded, to the north and south, by Late Jurassic–Early Cretaceous structural highs created by tectonic elements during the collision of Arabia and Anatolia. This paper aims to describe the factors controlling and evolution of the Eocene sedimentation in the Darende-Balaban basin. The basin fill comprises two distinct sequences …

Development Of An Upper Level Undergraduate Research Based Laboratory: The Purification, Analysis, And Dinetic Study Of Cytochrome B5, Mary Mcphail

Senior Honors Theses and Projects

The purpose of this project was to develop an upper level undergraduate biochemistry laboratory (CHEM 453) based upon a novel research project, designed to replace an existing instructional laboratory that employs ‘cookbook’ exercises. Methods for the expression, purification, spectral analysis of structural integrity, and electron transfer capability of rabbit cyt b₅ were adapted from published work done by Dr. Lucy Waskell of the University of Michigan and Dr. Mansuy of the University of Paris. In our hands, rabbit liver cyt b₅ expressed in E. coli was purified to 45% specific content of the theoretical content. Additionally, 37 nmol …