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Digital curation and complex decision making: A school district’s literacy initiative
Get PDFSchools are in the process of incorporating professional development activities to prepare technology-proficient educators to utilize information and communication tools to meet the pedagogical needs of 21st-century students and learners. This research addresses the challenges of and preservation possibilities for the digital work of learning communities across instructional domains and levels. The digital curation efforts that support a school district’s literacy and curriculum initiatives are examined. We conclude with suggestions for future research, professional development, and practice
The U.S. Shipbuilding and Repair Industry’s Considerations of Coastal Hazards Resilience: A Baseline Survey
Get PDFClimate change and associated coastal hazards can disrupt the United States shipbuilding and repair industry’s operations. These disruptions present risks to military and commercial ship orders, ship maintenance and repairs, and the nation’s overall shipbuilding strength. Through an online survey of representatives from 45 shipbuilding parent companies, individual shipyards, and ship repair and maintenance facilities, this research gauges how the industry considers coastal hazard resilience and addresses the possible impacts on shipbuilding and repair contracts and deliverables. Survey results suggest that the industry is ill-prepared for future coastal hazard events and that critical measures are needed to ensure a resilient shipbuilding and repair environment
Introduction to \u3ci\u3eThe Tragedy of Ukraine: What Classical Greek Tragedy Can Teach Us About Conflict Resolution\u3c/i\u3e
Get PDFIntroduction and table of contents to The Tragedy of Ukraine: What Classical Greek Tragedy Can Teach Us About Conflict Resolution by Nicolai N. Petro. Forthcoming, 2023
Putting the Coronavirus to Work: Developing a Global Engineering Program during a Pandemic
Get PDFIn the aftermath of COVID-19 shutdowns at campuses across the U.S. in the spring of 2020, student enrollments have fallen and budgets have been severely constrained. To counteract the current and long-term repercussions of the pandemic on institutions of higher education, administrators have called for innovative program development and strategic transformation. In the past, many engineering and world languages departments may have considered the task of creating a collaborative degree program insurmountable or undesirable despite existing models that are successful (e.g. University of Rhode Island’s IEP program). In the era of COVID-19, however, innovative programs combining language with disciplines outside the humanities may not only attract students to study a language, but also pursue a university degree in general.
This study examines how conditions created by the COVID-19 pandemic led to the support of administrators for new program initiatives, improved cross-campus communication, and establishment of in-person and virtual study and internship abroad experiences. The following describes the experiences of two faculty members in German and Engineering engaged in the early stages of development of a dual degree program in Global Engineering and German. After years of gestation, the program reached a critical point of initiation in the spring and fall of 2020, during campus closures and the shutting of international borders. Precisely the need for innovation brought on by the pandemic led to the collaboration and final acceptance by administrators necessary to bring the program to fruition
The weather affects air conditioner purchases to fill the energy efficiency gap
Get PDFEnergy efficiency improvement is often hindered by the energy efficiency gap. This paper examines the effect of short-run temperature fluctuations on the Energy Star air conditioner purchases in the United States from 2006 to 2019 using transaction-level data. Results show that the probability of purchasing an Energy Star air conditioner increases as the weekly temperature before the transaction deviates from 20–22 °C. A larger response is related to fewer cooling degree days in the previous years, higher electricity prices/income/educational levels/age/rate of owners, more common use of electricity, and stronger concern about climate change. 1 °C increase and decrease from 21 °C would lead to a reduction of total energy expenditure by 35.46 and 17.73 million dollars nationwide (0.13% and 0.06% of the annual total energy expenditure on air conditioning), respectively. Our findings have important policy implications for demand-end interventions to incorporate the potential impact of the ambient physical environment
Valuation of Wetland Restoration: Evidence from the Housing Market in Arkansas
No full textThis paper investigates the impact of the Wetland Reserve Program utilizing the residential housing and wetland easement data to estimate the benefit of wetland restoration in Arkansas. The environmental benefits of alternative agricultural management practices are underestimated and largely ignored by agriculture producers and beneficiaries. Governments at various levels have developed programs to provide appropriate economic incentives to optimize agricultural production and environmental benefits. Based on a quasi-experimental approach and an event study design, our results indicated that there is a statistically significant increase in property values near the wetland restoration sites and the estimated increase ranges from 6% to 10%
Assurance payments on the coordination of threshold public goods provision: An experimental investigation
No full textWe investigate the assurance payment mechanism (APM) in a single-unit threshold public good game. APM offers an assurance payment ((Formula presented.)) as compensation to would-be contributors if the group fails to provide the good and individual contributions reach a pre-determined price. We characterize the set of pure-strategy Nash equilibria for APM under complete information and show that assurance payments substantially reduce the multiplicity of equilibria and eliminate the set of non-provision equilibria in a general setup. We find strong evidence that APM improves upon the baseline provision point mechanism without assurance in lab experiments. Assurance payments act as a coordination device and induce more contributions concentrated on (Formula presented.), especially for agents with values above (Formula presented.), leading to more frequent successful provision, higher group contributions, and an overall welfare improvement. Our experimental findings highlight the non-equilibrium mis-coordination as the main reason for the non-provision of threshold public goods and indicate that the format of assurance payments plays a key role in successful coordination even when provision is the unique equilibrium outcome
Diversity and distribution of Symbiodiniaceae detected on coral reefs of Lombok, Indonesia using environmental DNA metabarcoding
Get PDFBackground
Dinoflagellates of family Symbiodiniaceae are important to coral reef ecosystems because of their contribution to coral health and growth; however, only a few studies have investigated the function and distribution of Symbiodiniaceae in Indonesia. Understanding the distribution of different kinds of Symbiodiniaceae can improve forecasting of future responses of various coral reef systems to climate change. This study aimed to determine the diversity of Symbiodiniaceae around Lombok using environmental DNA (eDNA).
Methods
Seawater and sediment samples were collected from 18 locations and filtered to obtain fractions of 0.4–12 and \u3e12 µm. After extraction, molecular barcoding polymerase chain reaction was conducted to amplify the primary V9-SSU 18S rRNA gene, followed by sequencing (Illumina MiSeq). BLAST, Naïve-fit-Bayes, and maximum likelihood routines were used for classification and phylogenetic reconstruction. We compared results across sampling sites, sample types (seawater/sediment), and filter pore sizes (fraction).
Results
Phylogenetic analyses resolved the amplicon sequence variants into 16 subclades comprising six Symbiodiniaceae genera (or genera-equivalent clades) as follows: Symbiodinium, Breviolum, Cladocopium, Durusdinium, Foraminifera Clade G, and Halluxium. Comparative analyses showed that the three distinct lineages within Cladocopium, Durusdinium, and Foraminifera Clade G were the most common. Most of the recovered sequences appeared to be distinctive of different sampling locations, supporting the possibility that eDNA may resolve regional and local differences among Symbiodiniaceae genera and species.
Conclusions
eDNA surveys offer a rapid proxy for evaluating Symbiodiniaceae species on coral reefs and are a potentially useful approach to revealing diversity and relative ecological dominance of certain Symbiodiniaceae organisms. Moreover, Symbiodiniaceae eDNA analysis shows potential in monitoring the local and regional stability of coral–algal mutualisms