University at Albany, State University of New York
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The Post-Alert Lexicon: A Multiphased Study to Develop Content for Post-Alert Messages
Get PDFUsing a multi-phased, mixed methods approach, grounded in theory on alerts and warnings, the Post-Alert Lexicon serves as a companion to the Warning Lexicon to provide evidence-based guidance on how to construct a post-alert message for 45 hazards and missing person events. We draw from the results of quantitative content analyses of a census of post-alert messages issued as Wireless Emergency Alerts from 2012-2022, and public message testing experiments for three hazard types (wildfire, earthquake, and bomb threat), to find that a focus on hazard resolution and public action, rather than the commonly employed language of “all clear,” increases message understanding, personalization, and decision making, and positively affects public trust in the message sender. The Post-Alert Lexicon incorporates the language used by alerting authorities into consistent and simplified word-sets used to convey hazard resolution and provide new safety instructions. Lexicon contents were reviewed by subject matter experts and developed into message templates that provide the contents necessary to relay that a hazardous situation has been resolved, and that people may conclude, resume, or return to their former activities. The template workflow for each post-alert message offers editable content to design consistent, behavioral-driven messages with a focus on resolution and action (i.e., information that is usable by message receivers). By using the Post Alert Lexicon, public safety communicators can help to reduce the uncertainty that comes with an initial alert and close the communication loop, thereby increasing organizational credibility and transparency
Betti Numbers of Generic Ideals
Get PDFWe present results related to Betti numbers of so called generic ideals over a polynomial ring . For each define and for a homogeneous ideal we use the notation . Also we set , and . The first main result is Theorem \ref{Long Exact Sequence} where we produce the following long exact sequence \begin{align*} \cdots \rightarrow &Tor_{k+1,j}^{T(m-1)}(Q(m-1),\Bbbk) \rightarrow Tor_{k-1,j+1}^{T(m-1)}(L(m),\Bbbk)_{j-1} \rightarrow Tor_{k,j}^{T(m)}(Q(m),\Bbbk) \rightarrow \\ &Tor_{k,j}^{T(m-1)}(Q(m-1),\Bbbk) \rightarrow Tor_{k-2,j-1}^{T(m-1)}(L(m),\Bbbk) \rightarrow \cdots. \end{align*} The second main result is Theorem \ref{Theorem F(j,m) equiv k(j,m)} where we explicitly describe a small chain complex such that H_k\mathcal{F}(j,m) \cong \Tor_{k,j}^{T(m)}(Q(m),\Bbbk). The third main result is Theorem \ref{Theorem new pure cases} which proves several new cases of the Migliore and Mir{\\u27o}-Roig Conjecture \ref{conj migl and mir}. Macaulay 2 code used for these computations is found at the end of Chapter 7. Also in Chapter 7 is Macaulay 2 code that can compute Betti diagrams in our examples faster than the standard Macaulay 2 commands
The Rights of Nature Meaning-Making Experiments in Ecuador: A Pragmatist Inquiry
Get PDFEcuador is the first and only country in the world to recognize nature as a subject of rights in its national Constitution, with the most court cases to date, and with a vibrant moral imagination regarding the more-than-human world. Building on the pragmatist tradition, my research examines three questions: What are the rights of nature in Ecuador? How is nature politically represented in Ecuadorian legal forums? And how can collective problem-solving experiments around the rights of nature in Ecuador inform moral inquiry? To answer these questions, I bring sociology in conversation with philosophy. My theoretical and methodological tools as a Sociologist help me to describe and analyze empirical evidence of rights of nature case law in Ecuador including how different social groups conceive of nature and who makes claims for nature. However, since the rights of nature are deeply rooted in value judgements about the human and the natural, I borrow tools from pragmatist philosophy to explore the normative dimension of these rights. While I reference several rights of nature cases, my empirical chapters focus in-depth on the Los Cedros forest (2021), the A’I Kofan of Sinangoe indigenous territory (2022), and the Machángara River (2024). In addition to reviewing lawsuits, amicus briefs and rulings, I conducted 20 in depth semi-structed interviews with key stakeholders involved in rights of nature advocacy and litigation, including indigenous and rights of nature activists, scientists, artists, Constitutional Court judges, lawyers, and government officials. My research has three main contributions. The first is conceptual suggesting that a promising way to think about rights of nature involves blurring the nature-human dichotomy in important ways. The second one is political showing that the rights of nature in Ecuador are a tool in negotiations concerning authority, sovereignty, representation, and governance. The rights of nature are used in an effort to shift the existing balance of power by creating authoritative spaces for previously unheard voices to speak on behalf of marginalized humans and Earth Others. The third is evaluative, suggesting that the collective problem-solving model, which emphasizes participation and inclusivity to define and represent nature, is a better alternative to hierarchical politics and context-free forms of knowledge production. There is not a single expert in nature and for this reason the best solutions to complex problems like climate change, biodiversity loss and widespread social inequalities emerge from a community of inquiry that allows various stakeholders to present and negotiate their claims while maintaining the epistemic values of science and law
The Impact of a Creativity-Focused Course Design on the Development of Pedagogical Creativity in Preservice Teachers
Get PDFCurrent preservice teachers have been apprenticed within an educational system that favors standardization which has limited their experiences with creative teaching and learning. The field of teacher education is currently lacking in frameworks to support the creative development of preservice teachers. The aim of this practitioner research, multiple-case study was to examine the impact of a creativity-focused course design on the beliefs of preservice teachers enrolled in a Secondary English Methods course in regards to the nature of creativity, the role of creativity in teaching and learning, their personal creative strengths and weaknesses, and creativity in lesson planning. Data was collected in the forms of observations, course assignments, lesson plans, a post-course survey, and creative artifacts. Findings showed development in participants’ views of creativity as being personally meaningful, recognizing the affordances of creative teaching and learning, and an understanding of strategies for implementing creativity into planned learning experiences. These findings offered theoretical implications, demonstrating the impact that creativity can have in disrupting the apprenticeship of observation (Lortie, 1975). Practical implications for teacher educators highlight the importance of providing opportunities for preservice teachers to be creative with coursework, introducing preservice teachers to research-based truths about creativity, and modeling creative instructional strategies. As a result of this research, a four-part framework is proposed that can be implemented into the design of teacher education courses in order to support the development of pedagogical creativity in preservice teachers
“A ‘Normal’ Life”: Red Dwarf, Temporality, and the Neuroqueer Absurd
Get PDFThe science fiction series Red Dwarf, beginning in 1988 and broadcasting sporadically over the past nearly four decades, takes place more than three million years in the future where human beings have gone extinct. All, that is, except one; the show’s central character, Dave Lister, is the last known living human being in the universe, outliving humanity by remaining in stasis during a radiation leak that killed the rest of the crew of the titular mining ship. Besides Lister, the narrative also focuses on the nonhuman beings that keep him company. Besides residing in the genre of science fiction, Red Dwarf is also a sitcom. A frequently very silly one, at that.
In a move inspired by Jack Halberstam’s concept of the “silly object,” in which can be discovered queer, anticapitalist logics, I examine Red Dwarf for similar potential, and do so through the lens of different modes of temporality. These modes, each discussed over the three chapters, are the line, the loop, and the break. While the modes act primarily as the way time is viewed/experienced in the show, I expand them by connecting these structures to other themes and concepts found in queer and disability theory
Heterogeneous Being: The Inhumanities and the Creative-Scientific Aesthetic
Get PDFHeterogeneous Being attempts to set the often-disunited aspects of the sciences and humanities in congruence and to extol and advance a hybrid creative-scientific aesthetic that moves beyond any restricted dimensions of its previously segregated fields of study. It likewise expresses the need to perpetuate that hybrid form of inquiry and representation to successfully address or convey the precarious realities of Earth’s ecological and environmental conditions. Heterogeneous Being asks readers to observe the inexhaustible proofs of our pluralized configurations with the nonhuman world, to recognize the agentic potentialities nonhuman subjects may hold both in and outside of those inhuman enmeshments, and to appreciate the varied temporospatial subjectivities and influences of the nonhuman character while doing so. For these inhuman examinations not only provide the nonhuman with a comparable or more profound existence alongside our own, but they also illustrate the immense and consequential scope of our collective realities
A Dynamically Adapting Forecast Cone Based on Ensemble Spread
Get PDFDynamically based ensemble prediction systems have gained considerable attention because they can provide a greater range of possible forecast outcomes and quantify the uncertainty in forecasts. In turn, forecasters can convey clearer messages to the public on the range of forecast scenarios and display inherent uncertainty in weather forecasts, which can be difficult to do with deterministic forecasts. Although global ensemble prediction systems have demonstrated skill in their probabilistic track predictions, the information contained within them is not always fully utilized beyond the mean forecast and standard deviation (i.e., spread). One way that these ensembles could be better employed is in the creation of the “Tropical Cyclone (TC) Forecast Track Cone”, which has been used by the National Hurricane Center (NHC) to convey the potential track forecast uncertainty. Currently, the forecast cone is based on the 66.7% of all Official Forecast errors averaged over the last five years; therefore, it does not reflect the confidence and uncertainty that NHC forecasters have in any individual forecast. Given the skill of global EPS’s, there is an opportunity to retain the current cone definition but dynamically adjust the size and shape based on the uncertainty of that individual forecast.
This study evaluates a dynamic cone that adjusts its size based on ensemble spread, creating different cone sizes for low, medium, and high spread forecasts while maintaining the 66.7% definition. An elliptical cone further refines this approach by extending the shape in the direction of greatest ensemble spread to better capture directional uncertainty. During the 2023 Atlantic hurricane season, which was characterized by large forecast errors, the dynamic and elliptical cones outperform the static cone; however, these approaches had a smaller advantage during the 2024 season, which had lower forecast errors. Randomly sampling forecasts from the 2018–2024 seasons confirmed that both dynamic and elliptical cones had the best track fall closer to the 66.7% benchmark compared to the static cone. In the eastern Pacific basin, there are smaller differences in forecast errors between all training bins, which in turn lead to mixed testing results for the dynamic and elliptical cones. Nevertheless, when taking a random sample, both dynamic and elliptical cones still consistently performed closer to the 66.7% benchmark compared to the static cone. The frequency of the low and high spread cones displayed distinct geographic and intensity patterns. In the Atlantic basin, low spread cases are more common in tropical regions with more intense TCs, while high spread cases are more likely north of 35°N and with weaker TCs. In the eastern Pacific basin, low spread cases are more frequent in the eastern portion of the basin and with stronger storms, while high spread cases predominate in the western portion and with weaker systems. These findings demonstrate that it is possible to utilize this dynamic uncertainty approach while maintaining the current NHC cone definition
Relational Mechanisms in Residential Eating Disorder Treatment: A Moderated Mediation Analysis
Get PDFBackground. Eating Disorders (ED), previously described as a “disease of disconnection,” appear to have differing trajectories of treatment and behavior change based, in part, on feelings of connectedness to others during and outside of treatment. Patient experience of Relational Connectedness is not well-explored in ED treatment compared to other diagnoses but may be a valuable mechanism of change. Interpersonal problems are also known to impact outcome trajectories. Patients high in interpersonal and relational difficulties exhibit negative compensatory behaviors such as avoidance and hostility, which can deleteriously affect building a trusting relationship. Individual difference variables likely play a role in relationship-outcome associations; hence, we sought to understand how the rate of change in Relational Connectedness impacts outcomes, and how interpersonal problems further impact this association. This study explored the impact of Relational Connectedness on symptom outcomes in residential ED treatment, and furthermore, assessed how initial interpersonal functioning of patients impacts their ability to form relationships during treatment. Method. Participants were adolescent and adult females diagnosed with a range of severe EDs who attended residential ED treatment between 2017-2018 (N = 1054). Measures included the Eating Disorder Examination Questionnaire (EDE-Q), Progress Monitoring Tool for Eating Disorders (PMED), and Inventory of Interpersonal Problems (IIP). A confirmatory factor analysis supported differentiation among the constructs, and two sets of parallel multilevel structural equation models evaluated the impact of rate of change in Relational Connectedness (mediation) as well as the added influence of baseline IIP (moderated mediation) on outcomes at discharge and follow-up. Results. All models demonstrated a statistically significant effect of baseline eating symptoms on subsequent symptom outcomes (p \u3c 0.001). Rate of change in Relational Connectedness evidenced a partial indirect effect on 6-month follow-up ED severity (indirect effect, ab = -0.253, p = 0.004); however, the relationship was no longer statistically significant when the impact of interpersonal problems was included as a moderator. Additionally, interpersonal problems at baseline were statistically significantly associated with discharge symptom outcomes (b2 = 0.034, p = 0.017). Conclusion. Interpersonal factors play a role in ED treatment outcomes at both discharge and 6-month follow-up. Enhancing efforts for identifying individuals experiencing limited or worsening Relational Connectedness and building relational skills during treatment may be a valuable buffer against poorer long-term treatment outcomes
The Theoretical and Practical Limits of Kolmogorov-Zurbenko Periodograms with Dynamic Smoothing in the Spectral Analysis of Time Series Data
Get PDFThe purpose of this Dissertation was to establish the theoretical and practical limits of Kolmogorov-Zurbenko periodograms with dynamic smoothing in contrast to standard periodograms with static smoothing, along with a practical application of Kolmogorov-Zurbenko time series analysis methods. It was determined that Kolmogorov-Zurbenko periodograms with dynamic smoothing were superior to standard periodograms with static smoothing in estimating signal frequencies with respect to sensitivity, accuracy, and resolution, and that they are robust in the face of missing data. However, their precision in estimating signal strength exceeds that of standard periodograms with static smoothing in only the most extreme circumstances and, thus, precision is conditional. In a practical application assessing the impact of climate change on coastal water levels for Virginia Key, Florida, a full complement of Kolmogorov-Zurbenko time series analysis methods found total water levels could rise as high as 4.18 feet between 1994 and 2050 using a linear model and could rise as high as 8.07 feet over the same time period using a quadratic model; given their magnitude, these findings have implications for both emergency preparedness and governmental policies. This Dissertation also led to a set of innovative developments including identification of criteria to systematically evaluate periodograms and their smoothing algorithms, formulation of a new protocol for conducting spectral analysis, and construction of a methodological template to study changes in coastal water levels associated with climate change
Hippocampal Insulin Exists! In Vivo Sampling Methods, Basal Concentrations, Recurrent Hypoglycemia, and Behavioral Extracellular Insulin Responses
Get PDFInsulin has widespread actions within the brain, including energy homeostasis, modulation of feeding, and as a key component of memory processes. Further, brain insulin dysfunction correlates with Alzheimer\u27s disease and other neurodegenerative disorders. To this point, measurement of hippocampal insulin has been limited. Determining in vivo hippocampal insulin levels both at a healthy baseline and after, e.g., induction of a disease state or in response to cognitive challenge, is essential to advance our understanding of both insulin\u27s procognitive actions and to guide potential therapeutic interventions.
We first sought to establish a sampling technique for insulin within awake and moving rats that would minimize tissue damage and maximize the accuracy of measurements by comparing microdialysis and cerebral open flow microperfusion in dual-cannulated 15-week-old male and female Sprague Dawley rats, taking simultaneous measurements counterbalanced across the hippocampi. Insulin sampling was comparable between probe types. Gliosis was measured using immunohistochemical markers for GFAP, TMEM-119, and CD68, and neither probe consistently resulted in more gliosis. Hence, we used MD for subsequent experiments. Basal extracellular hippocampal insulin was 0.3 ng/mL +/- 0.02 ng/mL. We showed that both a disease state (recurrent hypoglycemia) and a cognitive task (spontaneous alternation) altered hippocampal insulin in male and female 15-week-old Sprague Dawley rats. Further, these changes were associated with changes in Akt and its phosphorylation. For the first time, we confirmed that hippocampal insulin levels fluctuate acutely and chronically across conditions. Our data contains mechanisms by which insulin can modulate hippocampal function and offer guidance for future clinical approaches