Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Fat Dynamics Of Arctic-Nesting Sandpipers During Spring In Mid-Continental North America, Gary Krapu, Jan Eldridge, Cherri Grato-Trevor, Deborah Buhl

United States Geological Survey, Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center: Publications

We measured fresh body mass, total body fat, and fat-free dry mass (FFDM) of three species of Arctic-nesting calidrid sandpipers (Baird’s Sandpiper [Calidris bairdii], hereafter “BASA”; Semipalmated Sandpiper [C. pusilla], hereafter “SESA”; and White-rumped Sandpiper [C. fuscicollis], hereafter “WRSA”) during spring stopovers in the Prairie Pothole Region (PPR) of North Dakota, and evaluated the contribution of stored fat to (1) energy requirements for migration to their Arctic-breeding grounds and (2) nutrient needs for reproduction. All spring migrant WRSA (n = 124) and BASA (n = 111), and all but 2 of 99 SESA we …

Evidence Of A Decline In Fat Storage By Midcontinental Sandhill Cranes In Nebraska During Spring: A Preliminary Assessment, Gary L. Krapu, David A. Brandt, Deborah A. Buhl, Gary Lingle

United States Geological Survey, Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center: Publications

When an ice storm killed an estimated 2,000 sandhill cranes (Grus canadensis) in the Central Platte River Valley (CPRV) in Nebraska on 24 March 1996, we retrieved the fresh carcasses of 118 adults to test for a decline in the condition of spring-staging cranes from that date in 1978 and 1979. We first conducted a principle component analysis on 3 morphological variables (tarsus, exposed culmen, and wing chord [flattened]) and used the first principal component (PC1) as an index of body size. Then, to account for variation in body mass due to size, we regressed body mass on …

Mallard Brood Movements, Wetland Use, And Duckling Survival During And Following A Prairie Drought, Gary L. Krapu, Pamela J. Pietz, David A. Brandt, Robert R. Cox Jr.

United States Geological Survey, Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center: Publications

We used radiotelemetry to study mallard (Anas platyrhynchos) brood movements, wetland use, and duckling survival during a major drought (1988–1992) and during the first 2 years of the subsequent wet period (1993–1994) at 4 51-km² sites in prairie pothole landscapes in eastern North Dakota, USA. About two-thirds of 69 radiomarked mallard broods initiated moves from the nest to water before noon, and all left the nest during daylight. On average, broods used fewer wetlands, but moved greater distances during the dry period than the wet period. Broods of all ages were more likely to make inter-wetland moves …

A 3-Decade Dearth Of Deer (Odocoileus Virginianus) In A Wolf (Canis Lupus)–Dominated Ecosystem, Michael Nelson, L. David Mech

United States Geological Survey, Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center: Publications

Some 30 y after wolves (Canis lupus) were implicated in decimating wintering white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) in a 3000-km² area of northeastern Minnesota, wintering deer still have not recolonized the area. From 1976 to 2004, we aerially radio-tracked wolves there during 250 h and recorded 2 deer (in 1985 and 2000) killed or eaten by wolves during February and March. We observed no other deer or deer sign, but regularly observed deer, deer sign and wolf-killed deer in adjacent wolf-pack territories. Although habitat in the study area generally remains poor, some regeneration has taken place, …

Insect Visitation And Pollen Deposition In An Invaded Prairie Plant Community, Diane L. Larson, Ronald A. Royer, Margaret R. Royer

United States Geological Survey, Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center: Publications

Invasive plants with large flowering displays have been shown to compete with native plants for pollinator services, often to the detriment of native plant fitness. In this study, we compare the pollinator communities and pollen deposited on stigmas of native plant species within and away from stands of the invasive alien plant, leafy spurge (Euphorbia esula) at a large natural area in North Dakota, USA. Specifically, we ask if infestation influences (1) visitation rates and taxonomic composition of visitors to native flowers, and (2) the amount of conspecific pollen, number of pollen species, and proportion of heterospecific pollen on stigmas …

A Preliminary Biological Assessment Of Long Lake National Wildlife Refuge Complex, North Dakota, Murray K. Laubhan, Robert A. Gleason, Gregory A. Knutsen, Rachel A. Laubhan, N. H. Euliss Jr.

United States Geological Survey, Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center: Publications

This report represents an initial biological assessment of wetland conditions on Long Lake National Wildlife Refuge (NWR), Slade NWR, and Florence Lake NWR that was conducted as part of the pre-planning phase for development of a Comprehensive Conservation Plan (CCP). According to the 1997 National Wildlife Refuge System Improvement Act (NWRSIA), decisions guiding NWR management should be based on the best available scientific information. Therefore, this report attempts to integrate relevant information from many different scientific disciplines (e.g., geology, hydrology, biology) to assist the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) in identifying ecological constraints and opportunities imposed by the land …

Prediction Failure Of A Wolf Landscape Model, L. David Mech

United States Geological Survey, Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center: Publications

I compared 101 wolf (Canis lupus) pack territories formed in Wisconsin during 1993–2004 to the logistic regression predictive model of Mladenoff et al. (1995, 1997, 1999). Of these, 60% were located in putative habitat suitabilities 50% remained unoccupied by known packs after 24 years of recolonization. This model was a poor predictor of wolf re-colonizing locations in Wisconsin, apparently because it failed to consider the adaptability of wolves. Such models should be used cautiously in wolf-management or restoration plans.

Survival Of Adult Female Elk In Yellowstone Following Wolf Restoration, Shaney Evans, L. David Mech, P. J. White, Glen A. Sergeant

United States Geological Survey, Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center: Publications

Counts of northern Yellowstone elk (Cervus elaphus) in northwestern Wyoming and adjacent Montana, USA, have decreased at an average rate of 6–8% per year since wolves (Canis lupus) were reintroduced in 1995. Population growth rates of elk are typically sensitive to variations in adult female survival; populations that are stable or increasing exhibit high adult female survival. We used survival records for 85 radio-collared adult female elk 1–19 years old to estimate annual survival from March 2000 to February 2004. Weighted average annual survival rates were approximately 0.83 (95% CI=0.77–0.89) for females 1–15 years old and …

Estimated Age Structure Of Wolves In Northeastern Minnesota, L. David Mech

United States Geological Survey, Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center: Publications

Information about population age structures is useful to understand survival rates, longevity, and population turnover. However, little such information is available about wolf (Canis lupus) populations. Mech (1970) estimated age structures of wolf-population age structure from pup:adult ratios applying various demographic assumptions, but no direct information has been published to test his estimate. Mech et al. (1998) aged 94 live wolves darted in Denali National Park and Preserve, Alaska, USA, but the estimates of wolf ages were based on educated guesses because no technique was available for aging live wolves. Since then, Gipson et al. (2000) published criteria …

Age-Related Body Mass And Reproductive Measurements Of Gray Wolves In Minnesota, L. David Mech

United States Geological Survey, Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center: Publications

Based on 65 free-ranging gray wolves (Canis lupus) of known age and 25 of estimated age examined during summers of 1970–2004 in northeastern Minnesota, body mass of both males and females peaked at 5 or 6 years of age, with mean masses of 40.8 kg and 31.2 kg, respectively. Testis size varied as a function of age and month through at least 8 years of age, with length plus width ranging from 1.9 to 7.8 cm. Most females aged 4–9 years bred based on assessment of nipple sizes; those that had not bred had average lower body mass …

Teaching The Ethical Foundations Of Economics: The Principles Course, Jonathan B. Wight

Economics Faculty Publications

When we analyze the source of humor, one ingredient is surely incongruity, the juxtaposition of opposites. So when Tom Lehrer, the consummate Harvard mathematician, openly calls for plagiarism, this is funny because it is exactly the opposite of what we expect - it is absurd. And yet, from the viewpoint of modern economics, is plagiarism really so absurd? We teach our students to maximize short-term profits (in a moral vacuum). We drill them that producers minimize private costs of production (without reference to ethical codes of conduct). We expect economic agents to operate with atomistic selfishness, assuring them that this …

Incremental Generation Of Spatial Referring Expressions In Situated Dialogue, John D. Kelleher, Geert-Jan Kruijff

Conference papers

This paper presents an approach to incrementally generating locative expressions. It addresses the issue of combinatorial explosion inherent in the construction of relational context models by: (a) contextually defining the set of objects in the context that may function as a landmark, and (b) sequencing the order in which spatial relations are considered using a cognitively motivated hierarchy of relations, and visual and discourse salience.

Free To Be Obese In A 'Super Nanny State'?, Nadine Henley

Research outputs pre 2011

Should individuals be free to make lifestyle decisions (such as what, when and how much to eat and how much physical activity to take), without undue interference from the state, even when their decisions may lead to negative consequences (obesity, heart disease, diabetes)?

Communication On A Health-Related Website Offering Therapeutic Support: Phase 1 Of The Heartnet Website, Leesa N. Bonniface, Lelia Rosalind Green, Maurice G. Swanson

Research outputs pre 2011

This paper investigates the usefulness of a modest-budget website set up to support people recovering from heart-related incidents through a combination of all or some of the following: surgery, drugs, and lifestyle change. Online communities have been shown to offer support for their members. Ideally, the members of this experimental site would eventually constitute an online community. Effective interaction and personal communication indicate that an online community is developing. The opposite is also true: declining and aborted exchanges might indicate a failure to establish community. This paper reports on the first eight weeks of the experimental website HeartNET. As a …

Show Me What You Mean! Exploiting Domain Semantics In Ontology Visualization, Ravi Pavagada, Christopher Thomas, Amit P. Sheth, William S. York

Kno.e.sis Publications

Ontologies build the backbone for many life-sciences applications. These ontologies, however, are represented in XML based languages that are meant for machine-consumption and hence are difficult for humans to comprehend. For a meaningful visualization of these ontologies, it is important that the display of entities and relationships captures the cognitive representation of the domain as perceived by the domain experts. In this paper we present OntoVista, an ontology visualization tool that is adaptable to the needs of different domains, especially in the life sciences. While keeping the graph structures as the predominant model, we provide a semantically enhanced graph display …

Taxaminer: Improving Taxonomy Label Quality Using Latent Semantic Indexing, Cartic Ramakrishnan, Christopher Thomas, Vipul Kashyap, Amit P. Sheth

Kno.e.sis Publications

The development of taxonomies/ontologies is a human intensive process requiring prohibitively large resource commitments in terms of time and cost. In our previous work we have identified an experimentation framework for semi-automatic taxonomy/hierarchy generation from unstructured text. In the preliminary results presented, the taxonomy/hierarchy quality was lower than we had anticipated. In this paper, we present two variations of our experimentation framework, viz. Latent semantic Indexing (LSI) for document indexing and the use of term vectors to prune labels assigned to nodes in the final taxonomy/hierarchy. Using our previous results of taxonomy/hierarchy quality as the baseline we present results that …

Data Processing In Space, Time, And Semantics Dimensions, Farshad Hakimpour, Boanerges Aleman-Meza, Matthew Perry, Amit P. Sheth

Kno.e.sis Publications

This work presents an experimental system for data processing in space, time and semantics dimensions using current Semantic Web technologies. The paper describes how we obtain geographic and event data from Internet sources and also how we integrate them into an RDF store. We briefly introduce a set of functionalities in space, time and semantics dimensions. These functionalities are implemented based on our existing technology for main-memory based RDF data processing developed in the LSDIS Lab. A number of these functionalities are exposed as REST Web services. We present two sample client side applications that are developed using a combination …

An Investigation Of Codon Usage Bias Including Visualization And Quantification In Organisms Exhibiting Multiple Biases, Douglas W. Raiford, Travis E. Doom, Dan E. Krane, Michael L. Raymer

Kno.e.sis Publications

Prokaryotic genomic sequence data provides a rich resource for bioinformatic analytic algorithms. Information can be extracted in many ways from the sequence data. One often overlooked process involves investigating an organism’s codon usage. Degeneracy in the genetic code leads to multiple codons coding for the same amino acids. Organism’s often preferentially utilize specific codons when coding for an amino acid. This biased codon usage can be a useful trait when predicting a gene’s expressivity or whether the gene originated from horizontal transfer. There can be multiple biases at play in a genome causing errors in the predictive process. For this …

How To Improve Critical Thinking Skills In The Media Tsrategy Course By Implementing An Online Peer Learning Component, Frauke Hachtmann

College of Journalism and Mass Communications: Faculty Publications

This study addresses how a specific teaching standard set forth by the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communications (ACEJMC) can be measured in one of the core courses in an accredited advertising program at a large Midwestern university. Specifically, it focuses on how critical thinking skills can be improved using online peer learning in the advertising media strategy course. This study is the result of an inquiry course portfolio the author developed as a fellow of the "Peer Review of Teaching Project."

Science-Based Organic Farming 2006: Toward Local And Secure Food Systems, Charles A. Francis, Katja Koehler-Cole, Twyla Hansen, Peter Skelton

Publications from the Center for Applied Rural Innovation (CARI)

Organic farming includes growing food and fiber—animals, agronomic crops, horticultural fruits and vegetables, related products—as one dynamic and rapidly evolving component of our complex U.S. food system. Even as more farmers are moving toward organic certification and participation in an environmentally sound and economically lucrative market, questions arise about the long-term social impacts and sustainability of a set of practices that has gone from a movement to an industry. Consolidations in the organic trade have brought multinational corporations to the table, as they have observed a grassroots activity that has grown by 20% per year for the past two decades, …

Human Trafficking: Better Data, Strategy, And Reporting Needed To Enhance U.S. Antitrafficking Efforts Abroad, United States Government Accountability Office

Human Trafficking: Data and Documents

The U.S. government estimates that 600,000 to 800,000 persons are trafficked across international borders annually. However, such estimates of global human trafficking are questionable. The accuracy of the estimates is in doubt because of methodological weaknesses, gaps in data, and numerical discrepancies. For example, the U.S. government’s estimate was developed by one person who did not document all his work, so the estimate may not be replicable, casting doubt on its reliability. Moreover, country data are not available, reliable, or comparable. There is also a considerable discrepancy between the numbers of observed and estimated victims of human trafficking. The U.S. …

Combating Human Trafficking In China: Domestic And Internatinal Efforts, Congressional-Executive Commission On China

Human Trafficking: Data and Documents

Human trafficking in China is a serious problem. According to a 2002 UNICEF estimate, there are approximately 250,000 victims of trafficking in China. Traffickers are increasingly linked to organized crime, and specialize in abducting girls and women, both for the bridal market in China’s poorest areas, and for sale as prostitutes in urban areas. North Korean refugees are an especially vulnerable group.

Trafficking In Persons, U.S. House Of Representatives Committee On Armed Services And Committee On International Relations

Human Trafficking: Data and Documents

And it is a pleasure for us to join with the Subcommittee on Africa, Global Human Rights and International Operations to hear testimony on the Department of Defense efforts to implement a zero tolerance policy for human trafficking. Let me just very briefly, I hope, say that as a way of background, in December 2002, President Bush issued a national security Presidential directive which established a zero tolerance policy for United States government employees and contractor personnel representing the United States overseas who engage in trafficking of human persons. Subsequently, the Department of Defense (DOD) issued policy directives that make …

2006 Trafficking In Persons Report, U.S. Department Of State

Human Trafficking: Data and Documents

The Department of State is required by law to submit a Report each year to the U.S. Congress on foreign governments’ efforts to eliminate severe forms of trafficking in persons. This Report is the sixth annual TIP Report. It is intended to raise global awareness, to highlight the growing efforts of the international community to combat human trafficking, and to encourage foreign governments to take effective actions to counter all forms of trafficking in persons. The Report has increasingly focused the efforts of a growing community of nations on sharing information and partnering in new and important ways.

A country …

Attorney General’S Annual Report To Congress On U.S. Government Activities To Combat Trafficking In Persons Fiscal Year 2005, U.S. Department Of Justice

Human Trafficking: Data and Documents

Trafficking in persons (“TIP”) is a regrettably widespread form of modern-day slavery. An estimated 600,000 to 800,000 human beings are trafficked across international borders each year. More than 80 percent of these victims are women and girls, and 70 percent of them are forced into sexual servitude. Furthermore, one estimate claims that between 14,500 and 17,500 victims may be trafficked into the United States each year, although that figure may be overstated. In response, the United States has led the world in the fight against this terrible crime.

Federal Prosecution Of Human Trafficking, 2001-2005, U.S. Department Of Justice

Human Trafficking: Data and Documents

Between 2001 and 2005, U.S. attorneys investigated 555 suspects in matters involving violations of Federal human trafficking statutes. Over half of the matters (58%) opened during this period were for offenses created under the Trafficking in Victims Protection Act (TVPA) of 2000.

A Landscape Approach To Bighorn Sheep Rock Art In The Dolores River Valley, Amanda M. Davey

Nebraska Anthropologist

This paper attempts to analyze the location of bighorn sheep rock art in the Dolores River Valley in relation to projected areas of bighorn sheep habitat. A landscape approach is applied in order to gain a better understanding of the reasons behind the placement of bighorn rock art presently found on the current landscape. Twenty six rock art sites recorded by Gay Ives in the Dolores River Valley of Southwestern Colorado will be analyzed in the current study. Eleven bighorn sheep elements were identified by Ives at four separate rock art sites. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) is employed to conduct …

Clovis Macro Blades From The Topper Site, 38al23, Allendale County, South Carolina, Kenn Steffy, Albert C. Goodyear

Faculty & Staff Publications

No abstract provided.

The Story Of A Picture Book: A Process Analysis, Christy Evans

Honors Theses

Creating a successful picture book is neither an easy nor simple process. The illustrations must-harmonize with the text, move the reader smoothly through a story, and be, as Burningham puts it, "verdant." To achieve this, an author/illustrator must be prepared for constant revision. In my story The Fantastic Transformation of Frog the main character experiences some bizarre changes, but reverts to his normal state in the end. Through my process of creating a picture book, my story also went through numerous changes, but, unlike the main character's changes, these changes were not reversed. They led to other changes.

Online Counseling : Effectiveness, Benefits, Roadblocks, And Ethical Dilemmas, Julia Aguilar Reyes

Graduate Research Papers

This paper provides an overview of online counseling and new technologies in the counseling field. Online counseling is defined. Forms of online counseling are analyzed finding that email and instant messaging have become the most widely used methods for counseling purposes. A review of computer technologies and counseling history from the 1950s to today is also examined. Finally, the author presents an overview of the current literature regarding effectiveness studies and the ethical and moral dilemmas that new technologies pose for the future.

Sufficient research is lacking, but a variety of studies provide evidence of the effectiveness of online counseling. …