Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Evidence-Based Or Biased? The Quality Of Published Reviews Of Evidence-Based Practices, Julia H. Littell

Graduate School of Social Work and Social Research Faculty Research and Scholarship

Objective

To assess methods used to identify, analyze, and synthesize results of empirical research on intervention effects, and determine whether published reviews are vulnerable to various sources and types of bias.

Methods

Study 1 examined the methods, sources, and conclusions of 37 published reviews of research on effects of a model program. Study 2 compared findings of one published trial with summaries of results of that trial that appeared in published reviews.

Results

Study 1: Published reviews varied in terms of the transparency of inclusion criteria, strategies for locating relevant published and unpublished data, standards used to evaluate evidence, and …

From Differentiated Coffee Markets Towards Alternative Trade And Knowledge Networks, Roberta Jaffe, Christopher M. Bacon

Environmental Studies and Sciences

This chapter presents a case study focusing on the Community Agroecology Network (CAN), an organization started by the United States and Mesoamerica’s activists, whose effort is to create an alternative trade and knowledge network. The basic aim behind CAN is to benefit conservation and social development efforts by linking producers, consumers, and producer organizations. CAN is a response to the problems arising out of the dominance of certification processes in Fair Trade and organic coffee networks, and the chapter discusses the organization’s main goals of intercommunity relationship development, direct coffee marketing, and ecological sustainability. It moots a comparison between alternative …

Prairie Pothole Regional Studies, Robert A. Gleason

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

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) conducted a comprehensive, stratified survey of 204 wetland catchments in 1997 and 270 catchments in 2004, a subset of more than 2 million hectares of wetland and grassland systems established on Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) and Wetlands Reserve Program (WRP) lands. The purpose of the survey was to gather data for estimating a variety of ecosystem services provided by prairie pothole wetland catchments. In early 2008, USGS published a preliminary findings report as a result of these studies.

Demographic Effects Of Canine Parvovirus On A Free-Ranging Wolf Population Over 30 Years, L. David Mech, Sagar M. Goyal, William J. Paul, Wesley E. Newton

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

We followed the course of canine parvovirus (CPV) antibody prevalence in a subpopulation of wolves (Canis lupus) in northeastern Minnesota from 1973, when antibodies were first detected, through 2004. Annual early pup survival was reduced by 70%, and wolf population change was related to CPV antibody prevalence. In the greater Minnesota population of 3,000 wolves, pup survival was reduced by 40–60%. This reduction limited the Minnesota wolf population rate of increase to about 4% per year compared with increases of 16–58% in other populations. Because it is young wolves that disperse, reduced pup survival may have caused reduced …

Weight Changes In Wild Wolves, Canis Lupus, From Ages 2 To 24 Months, L. David Mech

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

Weights of 118 female and 141 male Minnesota Wolves (Canis lupus) aged 2-24 months increased almost linearly from about 8 kg for females and 10 kg for males at 3 months to 30 kg for females and 32 kg for males at 10-12 months and then tended to increase much more slowly in an overall curvilinear trend. Considerable variation was apparent for both sexes during their first year.

Spatial And Temporal Differences In Giant Kidney Worm, Dictophyma Renale, Prevalence In Minnesota Mink, Mustela Vison, L. David Mech

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

Examination of 110 Mink (Mustela vison) carcasses from 1998 through 2007 indicated that the giant kidney worm, Dioctophyma renale, occurred in Pine and Kanabec Counties of eastern Minnesota with annual prevalences of 0-92%. Worm prevalence increased from 20% in 1999 to 92% in 2001 and decreased to 6% in 2005. During 2000 to 2007, no worms were found in Mink from Anoka and Chisago Counties (n = 54), and in 2000, none in 107 Mink from LeSeur, Freeborn, Redwood, Brown and Watonwan Counties. Changes in kidney worm prevalence were positively related to trapping success, considered an index …

Precision Of Descriptors For Percent Marrow Fat Content For Whitetailed Deer, Odocoileus Viriginianus, L. David Mech

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

Based on 168 records of both verbal descriptors of White-tailed Deer (Odocoileus virginianus) femur-marrow fat and percentage of fat measured later, “gelatinous” served well to distinguish fat < 46% from higher percentages. “Waxy” distinguished fat > 56%.

Elk Calf Survival And Mortality Following Wolf Restoration To Yellowstone National Park La Supervivencia Y La Mortalidad De Las Crı´As De Wapiti Tras La Restauracio´ N Del Lobo Al Parque Nacional De Yellowstone La Survie Et La Mortalite´ Des Faons De Wapitis Qui A Suivi La Re´Introduction Du Loup Au Parc De Yellowstone, S. M. Barber-Meyer, L. David Mech, P. J. White

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

We conducted a 3-year study (May 2003–Apr 2006) of mortality of northern Yellowstone elk (Cervus elaphus) calves to determine the cause for the recruitment decline (i.e., 33 calves to 13 calves/100 adult F) following the restoration of wolves (Canis lupus). We captured, fit with radiotransmitters, and evaluated blood characteristics and disease antibody seroprevalence in 151 calves ≤ 6 days old (68M:83F). Concentrations (x, SE) of potential condition indicators were as follows: thyroxine (T4; 13.8 µg/dL, 0.43), serum urea nitrogen (SUN; 17.4 mg/dL, 0.57), c-glutamyltransferase (GGT; 66.4 IU/L, 4.36), gamma globulins (GG; 1.5 g/dL, 0.07), and insulin-like …

Factors Influencing Predation On Juvenile Ungulates And Natural Selection Implications, S. M. Barber-Meyer, L. D. Mech

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

Juvenile ungulates are generally more vulnerable to predation than are adult ungulates other than senescent individuals, not only because of their relative youth, fragility, and inexperience, but also because of congenital factors. Linnell et al.’s (Wildl. Biol. 1: 209-223) extensive review of predation on juvenile ungulates concluded that research was needed to determine the predisposition of these juveniles to predation. Since then, various characteristics that potentially predispose juvenile ungulates have emerged including blood characteristics, morphometric and other condition factors, and other factors such as birth period, the mother’s experience, and spatial and habitat aspects. To the extent that any of …

Diets Of Lesser Scaup During Spring Migration Throughout The Upper-Midwest Are Consistent With The Spring Condition Hypothesis, Michael J. Anteau, Alan Afton

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

The spring condition hypothesis (SCH) states that the current decline of the North American scaup population (Lesser [Aythya affinis] and Greater Scaup [A. marila] combined) is due to a decline in quality or availability of scaup foods on wintering, spring migration, or breeding areas that has caused a reduction in female body condition and subsequent reproductive success. Our previous research indicated that forage quality in diets of Lesser Scaup (hereafter scaup) at two sites in Northwestern Minnesota was lower in springs 2000-2001 than that reported for springs 1986-1988, consistent with the SCH. Accordingly, we further tested …

Using Plasma-Lipid Metabolites To Index Changes In Lipid Reserves Of Free-Living Lesser Scaup (Aythya Affinis), Michael Anteau, Alan Afton

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

Understanding daily lipid-reserve changes in migrating wild birds is important for habitat assessment and species conservation. Plasma-lipid metabolites have been used to estimate rates of lipid accumulation or catabolism in small-bodied wild birds(<75 g), but this has not been validated for larger-bodied wild birds such as waterfowl. We developed an index for detecting whether individual birds accumulate or catabolize lipid reserves by regressing plasma-lipid metabolite levels(triglyceride and β-hydroxybutyrate) and known one-day mass changes(daily mass change) of 22 free-living Lesser Scaup (Aythya affinis; a larger-bodied species with typical mass range 600–1,000 g). Triglyceride and β-hydroxybutyrate predicted 75% of the variation in daily mass change (F = 28.85, df = 2 and 19, P < 0.001). Triglyceride was positively correlated (P = 0.029) with mass change, and β-hydroxybutyrate was negatively cor¬related (P < 0.001) with mass change (daily mass change = –54.49+ 11.82 [triglyceride] – 28.65 [β-hydroxybutyrate log]). Our results in¬dicate that triglyceride and β-hydroxybutyrate can estimate one-day changes in mass of free-living wild Lesser Scaup, which provides an index to daily changes in lipid reserves and should be useful for assessing quality of migration habitat.

Restoration Of Mangrove Plantations And Colonisation By Native Species In Leizhou Bay, South China, Hai Ren, Shuguang Jian, Hongfang Lu, Qianmei Zhang, Weijun Shen, Weidong Han, Zuoyun Yin, Qinfeng Guo

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

To examine the natural colonization of native mangrove species into remediated exotic mangrove stands in Leizhou Bay, South China, we compared soil physical–chemical properties, community structure and recruitments of barren mangrove areas, native mangrove species plantations, and exotic mangrove species—Sonneratia apetala Buch.Ham—between plantations and natural forest. We found that severely degraded mangrove stands could not regenerate naturally without human intervention due to severely altered local environments, whereas some native species had been recruited into the 4–10 year S. apetala plantations. In the first 10 years, the exotic species S. apetala grew better than native species such as Rhizophora stylosa …

A Two-Part Measure Of Degree Of Invasion For Cross-Community Comparisons, Qinfeng Guo, Amy Symstad

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

Invasibility is a critical feature of ecological communities, especially for management decisions. To date, invasibility has been measured in numerous ways. Although most researchers have used the richness (or number) of exotic species as a direct or indirect measure of community invasibility, others have used alternative measures such as the survival, density, or biomass of either a single or all exotic species. These different measures, even when obtained from the same communities, have produced inconsistent results and have made comparisons among communities difficult. Here, we propose a measure of the degree of invasion (DI) of a community as a surrogate …

Comparing Local Vs. Global Visible And Near-Infrared (Visnir) Diffuse Reflectance Spectroscopy (Drs) Calibrations For The Prediction Of Soil Clay, Organic C And Inorganic C, Joel B. Sankey, David J. Brown, Melisa L. Bernard, Rick L. Lawrence

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

Local, field-scale, VisNIR-DRS soil calibrations generally yield the most accurate predictions but require a substantial number of local calibration samples at every application site. Global to regional calibrations are more economically efficient, but don't provide sufficient accuracy for many applications. In this study, we quantified the value of augmenting a large global spectral library with relatively few local calibration samples for VisNIR-DRS predictions of soil clay content (clay), organic carbon content (SOC), and inorganic carbon content (IC). VisNIR models were constructed with boosted regression trees employing global, local+global, and local spectral data, using local samples from two low-relief, sedimentary bedrock …

Crying Wolf: Concluding That Wolves Were Not Restored, L. David Mech

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

In 2007, the USA removed (delisted) the grey wolf (Canis lupus) in the upper Midwest from the Endangered Species List. After 35 years of being considered endangered, these wolves had increased from 750 in 38 400 km2 of Minnesota (Fuller et al. 1992) to over 4100 inhabiting 110 000 km² of Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan. Conservationists celebrated this event as a most significant success. Suddenly, however, this milestone was challenged by Leonard & Wayne (2007) based on preliminary genetic findings that wolves of the upper Midwest 100 years ago were different from 69 per cent of the …

Long-Term Dynamics Of Leafy Spurge (Euphorbia Esula) And Its Biocontrol Agent, Flea Beetles In The Genus Aphthona, Diane L. Larson, James B. Grace, Jennifer L. Larson

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

Three flea beetle species (Aphthona spp.), first introduced into North America in 1988, have come to be regarded as effective biological control organisms for leafy spurge (Euphorbia esula). The black flea beetles (Aphthona lacertosa and A. czwalinae) in particular have been shown to cause reductions in leafy spurge stem counts in the northern Great Plains, while the brown flea beetle (A. nigriscutis) has persisted and spread, but has not been found to be as effective at controlling leafy spurge. The ability of black flea beetles to control leafy spurge in any given year, …

Effectiveness Of Lethal, Directed Wolf-Depredation Control In Minnesota, Elizabeth Harper, William J. Paul, L. David Mech, Sanford Weisberg

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

Wolf (Canis lupus) depredations on livestock in Minnesota, USA, are an economic problem for many livestock producers, and depredating wolves are lethally controlled. We sought to determine the effectiveness of lethal control through the analysis of data from 923 government-verified wolf depredations from 1979 to 1998. We analyzed the data by 1) assessing the correlations between the number of wolves killed in response to depredations with number of depredations the following year at state and local levels, and 2) the time to the next depredation. No analysis indicated that trapping wolves substantially reduced the following year’s depredations at …

Ecosystem Services Derived From Wetland Conservation Practices In The United States Prairie Pothole Region With An Emphasis On The U.S. Department Of Agriculture Conservation Reserve And Wetlands Reserve Programs, Robert A. Gleason, Murray K. Laubhan, Brian A. Tangen, Kevin E. Kermes

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

Contents:

Chapter A Background and Approach to Quantification of Ecosystem Services By Robert A. Gleason and Murray K. Laubhan

Chapter B Plant Community Quality and Richness By Murray K. Laubhan and Robert A. Gleason

Chapter C Carbon Sequestration By Robert A. Gleason, Brian A. Tangen, and Murray K. Laubhan

Chapter D Floodwater Storage By Robert A. Gleason and Brian A. Tangen

Chapter E Reduction of Sedimentation and Nutrient Loading By Brian A. Tangen and Robert A. Gleason

Chapter F Proposed Approach to Assess Potential Wildlife Habitat Suitability on Program Lands By Murray K. Laubhan, Kevin E. Kermes, and Robert A. …

Impact Of West Nile Virus And Other Mortality Factors On American White Pelicans At Breeding Colonies In The Northern Plains Of North America, Marsha A. Sovada, Pamela J. Pietz, Kathryn A. Converse, D. Tommy King, Erik K. Hofmeister, Paulette Scherr, Hon S. Ip

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

American white pelicans (Pelecanus erythrorhynchos) are colonial-nesting birds and their breeding sites are concentrated in a few small areas, making this species especially vulnerable to factors that can influence productivity, such as disease, disturbance, predation, weather events and loss of nesting habitat. Nearly half of the American white pelican population breeds at four colonies in the northern plains: Chase Lake National Wildlife Refuge (NWR) in North Dakota, Bitter Lake (Waubay NWR) in South Dakota, Medicine Lake NWR in Montana, and Marsh Lake in Minnesota. Thus, sustained productivity at these colonies is crucial to the health of the entire …

Wolf Body Mass Cline Across Minnesota Related To Taxonomy?, L. David Mech, William J. Paul

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

Recent genetic studies suggest that in northern Minnesota two species of wolves (Canis lupus L., 1758 or western wolf and Canis lycaon Schreber, 1775 (= Canis rufus Audubon and Bachman, 1851) or eastern wolf) meet and hybridize. However, little morphological information is available about these two types of wolves in Minnesota. We analyzed the mass of 950 female wolves and 1006 males older than 1 year from across northern Minnesota and found that it increased from 26.30 ± 0.56 kg (mean ± SE) for females and 30.60 ± 0.72 kg for males in northeastern Minnesota to 30.01 ± 0.43 …

The Ethical Lacunae In Friedman's Concept Of The Manager, Jonathan B. Wight, Martin Calkins

Economics Faculty Publications

This article challenges along two lines Milton Friedman's injunction that the sole role of the business manager is to maximize profits for shareholders using all legal and ethical means. First, it shows how Friedman overly narrows the manager's moral duties to consequentialist profit maximization and thereby fails to account for a wide range of values and virtues necessary for good management. Second, it illustrates how more oblique approaches to management as well as Adam Smith's virtue-based model better capture the moral imagination and relational aspects of leadership that are critical to good management today. In the end, this article suggests …

Poverty, Diet And Health Behaviours: A Quantitative And Qualitative Study Among Young Urbanised Women., Daniel Mccartney

Doctoral

Demographic, socio-economic, attitudinal, dietary, health behavioural and anthropometric data were collected from 221 “disadvantaged” and 74 “advantaged” women aged 18-35 years across Dublin, according to the provisions of a novel socio-economic sampling frame. Internal and external validation techniques established the dietary assessment method of choice and identified “valid” dietary reporters (n=216, 153 disadvantaged, 63 advantaged) among this sample. Five qualitative focus groups (n=5-8 per group) were also conducted among disadvantaged women to examine their diet and health behaviour choices. Lower intakes of fruit and vegetables (172g/d vs. 405g/d, p

“Cabhair Is Cairde Is Grásta Ó Dhia Chugainn" : A Study Of The "Saíocht" Of A Parish In Co. Clare., Flan Garvey

Theses

This research is based on a rural parish, Inagh-Kilnamona, in mid North Clare. It deals with its physical hinterland, its people, past and present, its history and folklore. Over the centuries, its people have moulded the land. The buildings and infrastructure represent man-made heritage and although the area would have been described as ‘wild’ some hundreds of years ago, it has been transformed by man into being what it is today, a modem place with a modem society, a changed society but still deeply rooted in its past.

The time has come to excavate the past by research to give …

Referring Expression Generation Challenge 2008 Dit System Descriptions (Dit-Fbi, Dit-Tvas, Dit-Cbsr, Dit-Rbr, Dit-Fbi-Cbsr, Dit-Tvas-Rbr), John D. Kelleher, Brian Mac Namee

Conference papers

This papers desibes a set of systems developed at DIT for the Referring Expression Generation challenage at INLG 2008.In Proceedings of the 5th International Natural Language Generation Conference (INLG-08)

Cultural Factors Affecting Smoking Intentions In Sri Lankan Immigrant Adolescents: An Exploratory Study, Raguragavan Ganeshasundaram, Nadine Henley

Research outputs pre 2011

This paper reports a small exploratory investigation into smoking intentions amongst Sri Lankan immigrant adolescents living in Perth, Western Australia. Four focus group discussions were conducted to explore how cultural values are expressed in this group's beliefs and attitudes towards smoking and non-smoking and how these values may influence their smoking-related behaviour. Females and males attached similar negative values to smoking per se. However, generally, males saw peers' smoking as a way to be cool and popular while females saw peers' smoking as a way to solve stress and other personal problems. Males had strong positive associations with their favourite …

Is It Meaningless To Talk About 'The Internet'?, Lelia Rosalind Green

Research outputs pre 2011

This paper suggests that there is no longer any fixed meaning to the term 'Internet'. Instead, the Internet is created anew in the hands of each individual user and reflects their prioritie!i and interests. At the same time, the dynamism of Internet innovation and development is such that a burgeoning range of options has become available, allowing Internet users to customise and create their online environment to approxima.te a personal manifestation of what we might call, in a generic sense, 'their Internet'. In part, this shift has been reflected in something as mundane as the everyday usage of the word. …

The Australian School Libraries Research Project : A Snapshot Of Australian School Libraries, Report 1, Barbara Combes

Research outputs pre 2011

No abstract provided.

Perception Of Drought Hazard And Its Sociological Impacts In South-Central Nebraska, Donna L. Woudenberg, Donald A. Wilhite, Michael Hayes

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences

The lion's share of financial losses caused by drought is shouldered by crop and livestock producers. Producers' perceptions of and responses to drought were studied in the mid-1960s, the mid-1980s, and again in this study. Direct and indirect impacts are experienced by nonfarm businesses, communities, and individuals as well; some of those impacts have not been well researched and were integral to this project. Interviews with crop producers, livestock producers, and community members were conducted in Frontier County, NE, in late summer 2006. Producers are very perceptive of the drought hazard, a result found in the two previous studies. Adoption …

Review Of The Grasslands Of The United States: An Environmental History. By James E. Sherow, Francis Moul

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences

Environmental history is a fairly new and complex method of study. It is, according to historian Richard White, the history of consequences of human actions on the environment, and the reciprocal consequences of an altered nature on human society. This interaction thus combines natural history with social, economic, and political history, along with many more subspecies of study.

James Sherow's environmental history of America's grasslands is quite welcome. Although grass covers much of the earth's surface (12 billion of29 billion acres), it may be the least studied or popularized of plants. The National Grasslands of the U.S. are among the …

Stated Preferences For Ecotourism Alternatives On Standing Rock Sioux Indian Reservation, Robert R. Hearne, Sheldon Tuscherer

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences

Despite favorable locations and the potential for economic development, Native American tribes have not developed their ecotourism markets substantially. In this paper we present a choice experiments analysis of potential tourists' and local residents' preferences for alternative ecotourism development scenarios for the Standing Rock Sioux Indian Reservation. The choice experiments' elicitation featured attributes of both cultural and nature-based tourist attractions. Survey results demonstrated that visitors interviewed at powwows had significantly different preferences from those interviewed at local tourist attractions. Results from all samples showed positive preferences toward an amphitheater, a nature trail, and a bison meal, and no preference toward …