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Playing for a Purpose? A Qualitative Exploration of How Individuals Develop Purpose in Life Through Sport
No full textPurpose is a personally meaningful aim that one ascribes to their life. Given the long term mental and physical benefits associated with purpose, youth should be supported as they explore what is personally meaningful to them. While youth describe sport as purposeful, it is unknown how individuals come to develop purpose through sport. The aim of this study was to determine how, and under what circumstances, sport helps cultivate purpose. This study utilized a narrative inquiry methodology. Twelve participants (men = 6; women = 6) were committed to their respective purposeful youth sport based work (e.g., coaching, physical education). Each participant shared their life story via two in-depth interviews. A narrative analysis was conducted of the data. Results indicate that the development of purpose through sport is a function of how one views their future self in relation to their sport environment. Themes developed in the current study include the following: (1) Participants only began to develop purpose through sport when they had access to the sport environment. (2) Participants cultivated a sense of agency, identified as an athlete, and imagined their future self in sport. (3) Participants derived personal meaning while obtaining further access to sport-based opportunities. (4) Participants’ respective purposes in sport evolved over time as they gained more knowledge. These findings elucidate how sport can be utilized to facilitate the cultivation of purpose
Advancing Social Justice in Afghanistan: Learning from the Past to Decolonize the Future
No full textAfter the terrorist attack of 9/11, the U.S.-led Western military operation launched the “war on terror” in Afghanistan to defeat Al-Qaeda and its terrorist network in the name of liberating Afghan women. Justifying the occupation, Afghan women were seen, spoken for, categorized, and presented as an oppressed, powerless, voiceless, helpless, and undifferentiated population in need of saving (Abu-Lughod 2002; Mehta, 2002). Their different lived experiences, social realities, socio-cultural positionalities, and visions for the future, as well as the ways in which their experiences have been informed, shaped, reshaped, reinforced, and perpetuated, were ignored.
Unlike the current imperial body of knowledge, which generalizes Afghan women’s experiences, this research gives voice to the differences and diversity of Afghan women under the occupation. Acknowledging that, like women worldwide, Afghan women with real lived experiences are the experts and creators of knowledge, enabled this study to examine social injustice in Afghanistan, while contributing to the de- and reconstruction of the existing body of knowledge about Afghan women as a framework for understanding Afghan feminist decoloniality.
To realize the research goal, this study asks three main questions: (i) how do Afghan women define the two decades of the post-Taliban era (2001-2021) in terms of their social realities and lived experiences?; (ii) how do Afghan women resist patriarchal systems and structures in West-backed Afghanistan?; and (iii) how do Afghan women envision equity and social transformation in Afghanistan? Informed by transnational feminist decolonial methodology, three core themes were identified by the study: a) Afghan women’s experiences and lived realities of social injustice during the West-occupied era; b) Afghan women’s varied resistance and activist strategies during the invasion; and c) Afghan women’s visions for equity and social justice in Afghanistan.
While acknowledging the regression on the rights of women in Afghanistan since August 2021, this study was conducted with the hopes of contributing to social justice in Afghanistan by centering Afghan women’s voices to understand the complexity of gender equity and justice and contribute to decolonial knowledge building and praxis of transnational women of color, particularly Muslim, feminist movements and discourses worldwide. The study also paves the way for further decolonial feminist research and the impacts of colonial policy decisions on Afghan women linked to geopolitical imperialism, political Islamization, and gender relations
Independent science reviews for natural resources in the state of Oregon. Final report
No full textThrough Senate Bill 202 (SB202), the Oregon Legislature established the Task Force on Independent Scientific Reviews for Natural Resources to evaluate and assess the need for independent science reviews (ISRs) in Oregon and to make recommendations to the Governor and appropriate legislative committees no later than September 15, 2016. SB202 specifically charged the Task Force to: (1) assess the need for ISRs in Oregon; (2) make recommendations on one or more entities that are best situated to conduct or coordinate ISRs, if the Task Force determines that there is a need for ISRs in the state; (3) make recommendations on whether the entities identified would need legislative authority to act as ISR bodies for Oregon; and, (4) make recommendations regarding the structure and function of the process to be used by the recommended entities in the course of the ISRs
Exploring a Systems Engineering Approach to Modeling Human Communication
No full textCommunication is a crucial element of any purposeful human activity system (PHAS), as it mediates the relationships between a system’s parts, purpose, and boundary. For a PHAS to commensurately pursue its goal, it must not only have the capability to evaluate the efficacy of its communication, which includes identifying any hindrances to the success of its communication, which includes any interferences to its communication, otherwise said, noise. To provide better conceptual clarity about its communication, a PHAS may utilize a communication model. Numerous communication models exist, which may depict communication linearly, transactionally, and/or from a systems perspective. However, the existing communication models tend to model noise relatively generally. As identified in interpersonal communication studies, there are four types of noise in human communication: environmental noise, physiological noise, psychological noise, and linguistic noise. However, the different types of noise are not explicitly included in the existing communication models. Hence, this research explores whether the different types of noise have a unique impact on human communication, thus, necessitating a delineation of the general modeling of noise. Through an exploratory study, this research proposes a mixed methods approach to systemically evaluate the unique impacts of the four types of noise. Through a quantitative phase, an experiment was conducted to evaluate the impacts of the presence of psychological noise and linguistic noise on subject performance in estimating a probability problem. Additionally, through a qualitative phase, semi-structured interviews were conducted to determine how many of the four types of noise may be present in a human communication system. This research’s exploratory results provide evidence to validate the claim that the different types of noise have unique impacts on human communication, thus, necessitating the delineation of the general modeling of noise to incorporate the four different types of noise. The exploratory results also provide the foundation to systemically evaluate the impacts of noise, and how similar methodologies could be applied in other contexts
PFAS Sorption in a Saturated Soil System: The Impact of Mineral-Organic Interactions and AFFF Exposure History
No full textPer- and polyfluorinated substances (PFAS) are anthropogenic organic surfactants that have been listed as persistent organic pollutants with known toxic endpoints. Having earned the moniker “forever chemicals”, PFAS have been detected in environmental matrices, at times decades past their last known application, on the global scale due to their use in a wide variety of industries, consumer products, and aqueous film forming foams (AFFFs). Aqueous film forming foams, stored and used anywhere there is risk of a hydrocarbon fuel fire, can contain multiple PFAS with various chemistries and at environmental pH, various charge states. Due to the variable chemistry of PFAS, their widespread use, and their persistence in soil and ground water sources, forming a generalizable, mechanistic understanding of PFAS interaction with soil is of paramount concern.
In Chapter Two, a comprehensive, generalized approach to predict the retention of PFAS from a complex AFFF by a soil matrix was developed. An electrochemically fluorinated AFFF with 34 major PFAS (12 anions and 22 zwitterions) was added to uncontaminated soil in one-dimensional saturated column experiments and PFAS mass retained was measured. We tested the hypotheses that 1) Organic carbon is a single predictor value for the retention of PFAS from AFFF source zones, 2) Soil matrix properties have greater explanatory power for retention than PFAS molecular properties, and 3) The retention of PFAS by soil follows generalizable principles, and is, therefore fundamentally predictable.
Subsequently, PFAS mass retention was described using a brute force statistical approach to generate a poly-parameter quantitative structure-property relationship (ppQSPR) between PFAS molecular and soil physiochemical properties. The molecular properties predictive for retention were PFAS molar mass, mass fluorine, and the number of nitrogens in the PFAS structure. Relevant soil parameters were oxalate extractable iron, percent organic carbon, and specific BET-N2 surface area. Results indicated that the environmental fate of anionic PFAS is nearly independent of soil properties and largely a function of molecular hydrophobicity, driven by the size of the carbon-fluorine tail. Retention of nitrogen-containing zwitterionic PFAS was most related to poorly crystalline metal oxides and organic carbon content.
In Chapter Three, one-dimensional saturated column experiments were performed to better understand the impacts of multiple, successive additions of AFFF have on PFAS retention. Given the historical practice of repeated AFFF applications, PFAS likely interacted with increasingly altered soil surfaces, potentially characterized by previously sorbed PFAS and other AFFF components. We hypothesized that after initial exposure to PFAS, increasing PFAS mass would be retained with each subsequent AFFF application event due to PFAS-PFAS interactions.
Results indicate that overall PFAS mass retained increased with each successive AFFF application, eventually reaching a saturation point after the third to fourth application. First order data analysis suggest that, after the first AFFF application, PFAS in subsequent applications are likely undergoing surfactant-surfactant interactions as opposed to interacting with soil surfaces directly. Application of the ppQSPR model developed in Chapter One revealed that the presence of PFAS micelles can also significantly increase overall retention of PFAS
Ocean Mixing near Topography: Quantifying the Mechanisms and Impacts from Long-Duration Observations
No full textAbrupt topography enhances the turbulent cascade of motions that remove energy from the wind, tides, and large-scale circulation ultimately leading to irreversible mixing. Most observational studies of mixing use data from short-duration ship- board surveys. Here, we use two very different datasets that span longer records than a few week long shipboard survey to provide insight into the mixing generated near topography and the impacts on the distribution of water column properties and energy.
The first part of this dissertation describes the computation of turbulent mixing rates from slow-sampling moored, sensors that resolve part of the inertial subrange. The inertial subrange of turbulence connects the scales of production to the cen- timeter scales where molecular processes diffuse gradients. This method relies on using the characteristics of the universal spectral shape to compute the dissipation rates of temperature variance, χ, and turbulent kinetic energy, ε. We compare the χ and ε estimates with estimates made from fast-sampling instruments to demon- strate the effectiveness of our quality control procedure. This allows us to produce dissipation records over a long duration with high temporal and spatial resolution. Using five moorings that were deployed for 10 months, we quantify the turbulent mixing rates at the north end of Velasco Reef, Palau.
The second part of this thesis focuses on the energetic pathways that lead to mixing in the topographic wake as currents impinge on Velasco Reef, Palau. We describe how internal tides and near-inertial energy lead to deep mixing in the wake. We demonstrate that the mixing is related to shear generated by high mode internal tides and near-inertial internal waves and eddies shed from flow-separation point. Up to 40% of the mixing is generated by tides while 15% is generated by near-inertial motions, dependent on proximity to the topography. The strength of the mixing also scales with the large-scale current which varies from weeks to months, emphasizing the many scales that lead to enhanced oceanic mixing in the topographic wake.
The third part of this thesis examines the glacially influenced nearshore physical oceanographic environments across the Gulf of Alaska using a dataset compiled from previously collected data spanning the last 60 years. Morainal sills along with subglacial discharge plumes from tidewater glaciers are the primary mechanisms for vertical mixing in these areas. We show that fjords with active, tidewater glaciers are cooler and fresher than fjords fed by surface land runoff in summer months. They also have weaker stratification and greater variability in the temperature and
salinity distribution compared to fjords without tidewater glaciers. We also show that fjords with shallow sills have the coldest surface temperatures while fjords with deep sills have the warmest surface temperatures. The findings suggest that as tidewater glaciers retreat onto land, the distribution of the physical properties will change, impacting the stratification, mixing of nutrients and the ecosystems in these fjords
Application of a Consistent Nonlinear Mild-Slope Equation Model to Random Wave Propagation and Dissipation
No full textIn the context of actual surface wave conditions, the wave field is represented as a set of complex fluctuations that randomly change in both time and space, commonly known as “random waves.” These random waves can be expressed mathematically as a combination of multiple monochromatic waves, each having unique phases, directions, and amplitudes. Frequency-domain phase-resolving wave models have been shown to be robust predictors of random wave propagation provided the dispersive characteristics are valid for the range of water depths considered. Recently, a new dispersive nonlinear mild-slope equation model was developed by establishing a closer correspondence between the scaling of nonlinearity, horizontal depth variation, and modulation scale during the derivation process. In this work, this new model is augmented with a wave-breaking dissipation model using frequency-squared dissipation weighting over the wave spectrum. The new model and previous models are compared with laboratory data for accuracy in modeling the evolution of the random wave spectrum. Overall, the new model demonstrates improved agreement with results compared with the previously derived models. The additional nonlinear terms of the model, indicating the interaction effects between amplitude and amplitude change, correct the overprediction of wave spectral energy from prior models, especially at the lower frequencies of the shallowest gauges. Furthermore, the predictions of free surface elevation by the newly derived model are in excellent agreement with the observations at the shallowest gauge, primarily due to the alleviation of phase mismatch caused by the additional terms. Lastly, we provide the nonlinear modification to linear wavenumber on the basis of the additional nonlinearity
A traits-based approach to assess aquaculture’s contributions to food, climate change and biodiversity goals [extended abstract]
No full textAquaculture is expected to play a large role in achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), particularly those related to food security, climate change and biodiversity (FCB). Biological diversity amongst aquaculture organisms can drive diverse contributions to such goals, yet most trait-based aquaculture studies focus on maximizing production rather than on FCB. Using a systematic literature review we identify traits associated with FCB and integrate them into a fuzzy logic model to evaluate the potential of aquaculture to contribute to FCB goals. FCB scores from the model were weighted using global production data to analyze spatial and temporal trends in FCB potential. While mean scores across 54 highly farmed aquaculture species are low, algae and molluscs tend to perform well across FCB indices, revealing the importance of non-fish species in achieving FCB goals and potential synergies through co-culture. We find declines in aquaculture’s potential to contribute to FCB goals since 1980 driven by an increasing proportion of finfish and decreasing proportion of algae in the total production, especially in China. Our results highlight the large scope and opportunities to improve the contributions of aquaculture to FCB goals by selecting farmed species with traits that can better support such goals. This trait-based approach can help identify the opportunities and barriers for aquaculture transitions to develop equitable pathways toward FCB-positive aquaculture across nuanced regional contexts
Long-Term Effects of Deforestation on Biodiversity and Carbon in Paraguayan Forests
No full textParaguay is an immensely biodiverse country that lost a significant share of its forests in recent decades due to soy farming and cattle ranching. This project aims to understand the relationship between aboveground carbon stocks and trends in species' habitat amount for mammal and bird species over time (1985-2020). To achieve this, I applied the Continuous Change Detection and Classification algorithm (CCDC) on Google Earth Engine (GEE) from 1985 to 2020 using Landsat satellite data, from which I generated coefficients (54 variables). Secondly, I developed Species Distribution Models for selected species using the CCDC coefficients as environmental variables. I selected species to represent four categories of the IUCN Red List: Least Concern (LC), Near Threatened (NT), Vulnerable (VU), and Endangered (EN), and their relationship with forest cover (i.e., forest-dependent species versus forest-independent species). In addition, the species selected had the highest number of occurrences in their categories and =>20 occurrences. Habitat declines occurred for 2 out of 3 mammal species during 1985-2020. Artibeus lituratus showed the most significant decrease (- 48.4%). Tolypeutes matacus, which is associated with Savanna and Shrubland, showed a slight increase in habitat (1.93 %). Regarding bird species, 3 out of 7 showed habitat declines, and 4 showed habitat increases. The species that showed the greatest decrease was Penelope superciliaris (- 30.6 %), and the bird species showing the highest increase in habitat area was Pitangus sulphuratus (21.7%). I also found strong positive correlations between above-ground biomass carbon and habitat amount for Sturnira lilium, Artibeus lituratus, and Penelope superciliaris. My results indicate that there may be a mismatch between IUCN Red List categories and on-the-ground habitat loss for Paraguayan species. Further, for some species, habitat conservation is likely to have the co-benefit of amplifying carbon storage. International policy directed at carbon storage would be improved if it also specified the need to conserve habitat for declining tropical species. This study will be helpful as a baseline for land-use planning and reducing biodiversity loss because the effects of deforestation on biodiversity and the carbon co-benefits in Paraguayan forests have not been studied extensively
