211 research outputs found

    Simulating Demography, Monitoring, and Management Decisions to Evaluate Adaptive Management Strategies for Endangered Species

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    ABSTRACT Adaptive management (AM) remains underused in conservation, partly because optimization‐based approaches require real‐world problems to be substantially simplified. We present an approach to AM based in management strategy evaluation, a method used largely in fisheries. Managers define objectives and nominate alternative adaptive strategies, whose future performance is simulated by integrating ecological, learning and decision processes. We applied this approach to conservation of hihi (Notiomystis cincta) across Aotearoa‐New Zealand. For multiple extant and prospective hihi populations, we jointly simulated demographic trends, monitoring, estimation, and decisions including translocations and supplementary feeding. Results confirmed that food supplementation assisted recovery, but was more intensive and expensive. Over 20 years, actively pursuing learning, for example by removing food from populations, provided little benefit. Recovery group members supported continuing current management or increasing priority on existing populations before reintroducing new populations. Our simulation‐based approach can complement formal optimization‐based approaches and improve AM uptake, particularly for programs involving many complex and coordinated decisions

    Austin also must be remembered. The Augustinian legacy in Milton's work

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    When I started working on this project, with a limited knowledge of Augustine, but determined to spot his presence in Miltonâs poetry, I was little aware of the intricacy of the relationship between the two authors. At this stage of my research, I do subscribe to Savoyeâs opinion, that this relationship is pervasive. However, one could safely add, it is as pervasive as it is hidden, primarily because of changed cultural paradigms, so that Miltonâs references are no longer familiar to the reader. As I have pointed out in my presentation of the state of the art, these articulations are hardly made explicit in Miltonâs Oeuvre and also in critical literature they are hardly brought to the surface. My objective has been to make them a little more visible. I have started my own process of discovery from the works where Milton more openly (but not completely) acknowledges his Augustinian sources, although arguably mediated. As concerns Samson Agonistes, I have presented a reading through Augustinian lenses. I am by no means claiming that mine is the best of all possible readings, but through those lenses I have been able to see a coherence, in Miltonâs dramatic poem, that is not generally recognized. On the other hand, I thoroughly agree that âone cannot simply take any English poet and turn the post-structuralist critical machine loose on him or her in good faithâ. In particular, I am aware that I have read Miltonâs works against the current critical grain which, with a powerful turn impressed by Empsonâs Miltonâs God, is continually surfacing Miltonâs idiosyncrasies in order to cancel the received picture of a Christian author. Rather, I agree with Cirillo that Miltonâs perspective is that of âa professed Christian poet whose Christian consciousness, no matter how heterodox, colored virtually everything he wrote.â.We may ask, echoing Febvre on Rabelais, âMais de quel christianisme? In accordance with very traditional, even traditionalist Milton Criticism, I think it can safely be stated that Milton is a post-Reformation religious author, and one whose endeavour to âjustify the ways of God to menâ had to come to terms with the difficult task to find signs of providential history in the aftermath of a civil war and in the adverse context of the Restoration. His last published poems deal with this problem in different terms. As readers, we can come to different conclusions as to the texts. Behind them there is the man, âest abyssus humanae conscientiae,â in front of which, after Augustine, I can only say: "nescio"

    "All of you are one" : the social vision of Gal 3:28, 1 Cor 12:13 and Col 3:11

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    Paul's citation of an early baptismal tradition in Gal 3:28, 1 Cor 12:13 and Col 3:11 is as notable for its prominence in the Pauline corpus as it is for its ambiguity. A survey of the variety of views as to what Paul is denying and, conversely, affirming by this formula highlights the importance of identifying both the broad mythic vision into which Paul has set it as well as the social arrangements he advocates by means of it. This attention to how cultural symbols and stories correlate with social praxis is prompted by insights from the sociology of knowledge. This thesis argues that in each instance Paul deploys the formula to support his vision for social unity in his churches that are composed of members from various social strata and subcultures who in Christ gain a new social identity that they are to express as family-like solidarity. The predominance of kinship terminology and expectations in Paul's exhortations to ecclesial unity lead me to propose a model of ethnic identity construction as appropriate for assessing the role of the baptismal unity formula in its Pauline usage. A reading of each epistle in which the formula occurs demonstrates how the formula serves in each case to epitomize Paul's vision for social unity. Furthermore, the proposed model of ethnic identity formation serves to highlight how Paul warrants that social solidarity by appeal to the believers' fictive, genealogical connectedness and presumed shared origins and essence. Such contextualization of the formula within the social vision expressed in each epistle highlights how Paul patterns the believers' identity on Israel as reconfigured through the story of Christ Jesus' death and resurrection. This assessment of Pauline social identity formation depends on and contributes to apocalyptic understandings of Paul's gospel as well as the social emphasis of the so-called new perspective on Paul

    Pain Self-Management Behaviors in Breast Cancer Survivors Six Months Post-Primary Treatment: A Mixed-Methods, Descriptive Study

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    Background/Objectives: One-third of breast cancer (BC) survivors experience chronic treatment-related pain (CTP) that requires multimodal management strategies, which may include pain self-management behaviors (PSMBs). Most studies exploring PSMBs focus on patients with advanced cancer, who may differ from survivors in their pain management needs and access to resources. This mixed-methods study explored PSMBs of survivors of BC, referral sources, and goals for pain relief, and examined the relationship between PSMB engagement and pain intensity/interference. Methods: Survivors of BC who were six months post-treatment completed measures assessing their pain intensity/interference and PSMB engagement. Purposive sampling identified a subset of participants who completed interviews, which were analyzed using thematic analysis. Results: Participants (n = 60) were 60 ± 10 years old. Worst Pain Intensity and Pain Interference were 3.93 ± 2.36 and 2.09 ± 2.11, respectively. Participants engaged in 7 ± 3.5 PSMBs. The most common were walking (76%) and distraction (76%). PSMBs described in the interviews (n = 10) were arm stretching and strengthening exercises, seeking specialized pain management services, and avoidance. Most PSMBs were self-directed or suggested by friends. All pain relief goals were to minimize pain interference. PSMB engagement was not associated with Worst, Least, or Average Pain Intensity (all rs ≤ −0.2, p ≥ 0.05) but was associated with Pain Interference (rs = 0.3, p ≤ 0.01). Conclusions: The survivors of BC engaged in many PSMBs, with varying levels of effectiveness and a varying quality of supporting evidence. Most PSMBs were self-directed and some required intervention from healthcare providers or other people, while others required access to limited specialized pain management services

    Young Adults\u27 Experiences with Cannabis Retailer Marketing and Related Practices: Differences Among Sociodemographic Groups and Associations with Cannabis Use-related Outcomes

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    OBJECTIVES: Limited cannabis retail surveillance has been conducted, particularly assessing retailer practices in relation to consumer sociodemographic factors or use-related outcomes. This study examined young adults\u27: exposure to promotions, health claims, warnings, and age restrictions at cannabis retailers; demographic correlates of retail exposures; and retail exposures in relation to use-related outcomes. STUDY DESIGN: This study used the cross-sectional quantitative analysis. METHODS: We analyzed 2023 survey data among 876 young adults in states with legal non-medical cannabis, reporting past-month cannabis use and past-year retailer visits. RESULTS: In this sample (M = 27.1, 44.1% male, 31.7% sexual minority, 17.7% Black, 11.2% Asian, 25.1% Hispanic), 46.7% at least sometimes noticed free samples, 76.5% price promotions, 37.4% subpopulation-targeted promotions; 72.5% health claims on products/ads, 63.1% signage, and 70.5% from budtenders; 72.5% warnings on labels, 65.5% signage, and 38.9% from budtenders; and \u3e 80% age verifications. Multivariable analyses identified sociodemographic correlates of exposure outcomes: greater promotion exposure was associated with Black race; greater health claim exposure with being heterosexual, Black, and less educated; less warning exposure with less education; and less age restriction exposure with being younger, male, and Black. Retail exposures were associated with use-related outcomes: more frequent cannabis use was associated with less health claim exposure; greater perceived social acceptability with greater promotion and age restriction exposure; greater perceived risk with greater warning and less age restriction exposure; more problematic use and driving after use with greater promotion and less age restriction exposure. CONCLUSIONS: Cannabis retail exposure disparities and their associations with use-related outcomes highlight the importance of regulatory and prevention efforts
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