124,761 research outputs found
Maximizing the effectiveness of grassland management for a grasshopper sparrow (Ammodramus savannarum) metapopulation
No full textGrassland bird population declines have been attributed to habitat loss and fragmentation and the intensification of agricultural practices. Hayfields are being cut earlier and more frequently during the breeding season resulting in low reproductive success. Grassland bird conservation efforts generally focus on enrolling farmland into landowner incentive programs that require mowing to be delayed until after July 15. Delayed mowing improves grassland bird reproductive success by enabling breeding pairs to fledge at least one brood during the breeding season. This dissertation examines the effect of hayfield management on population viability of a grasshopper sparrow metapopulation in a fragmented landscape in New Jersey and uses statistical power analysis to assess the cost-effectiveness of grasshopper sparrow metapopulation monitoring programs.
I built a spatially-explicit, stage-structured, stochastic model of a grasshopper sparrow metapopulation to determine how probability of extinction (POE) is affected by: (1) total hayfield area enrolled, (2) size of enrolled hayfields, (3) number of hayfield patches enrolled, and (4) isolation of enrolled hayfields. I found that POE decreased quickly with increasing amounts of enrolled hayfield area. After 31 to 48% of hayfield area in the landscape was enrolled, POE decreased minimally with further enrollment. The number of grassland parcels enrolled was also negatively related to POE. When I incorporated a patch size effect (fecundity was directly related to hayfield size) into the model, POE increased within each enrollment category but still decreased with increasing amounts of enrolled grassland (Chapter 2). POE was directly related to the degree of isolation of enrolled hayfields.
Of the monitoring programs we evaluated, the most cost-effective program to detect a 7% population decline included 18 hayfields surveyed six times annually over five years. Additional survey effort would be necessary to detect a smaller population decline and to overcome observer variability in density estimates due to sampling error.
Hayfield management for grassland birds will be most effective when there is not only a focus on the amount of managed habitat, but also on local and landscape scale variables such as patch size and configuration. Cost-effective population monitoring is critical to evaluating the success of management decisions.Ph.D.Includes bibliographical referencesby Alison B. Seige
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
No full textThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
No full textWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
A Novel 183GHz Subharmonic Schottky Diode Mixer
No full textPhDThe technique of microwave .
limb sounding -from space
represents a very powerful tool for determining the atmospheric
processes involved in ozone depletion, the greenhouse effect, acid
rain, etc.. Unfortunately, the technology involved in producing
millimetric and submillimetric devices is highly complex, and
miniature. The power levels and environmental conditions
existing aboard spacecraft in present 'use, 5 differ from those
required by the low noise heterodyne receivers employed by the
Radio Astronomy community. Therefore, great effort has been
spent in the design of radiometers with limited power and weight
requirements, so that they can withstand the rigours of launch
and operation in space.
This thesis describes the design and construction of a
subharmonically pumped, double diode mixer which is now used
in an airborne atmospheric radiometer. The mixer power
requirement and rugged nature make it an ideal option for space
operation. The assembly of the millimetric circuit required the
development, of novel techniques which enabled the incorporation
of discrete circuit elements onto a single quartz substrate. This
allowed the physical testing of the millimetric circuit
independently of the RF block.
A detailed investigation into the `whiskering' technique was
carried out. It was thus possible to pinpoint errors that had
previously occurred in assembly and which had resulted in the
failure of a space flight device. With the adoption of quantified
procedures, devices constructed using the `whiskering' technique
were shown to be considerably more resilient than had previously
been thought.
The performance of the mixer is comparable with other
designs using Schottky diodes at room temperature (-1200K DSB)
and the local oscillator power requirement is easily met with a
single solid state source.
A simple theoretical analysis using the Seigel and Kerr
program was undertaken in conjunction with RF measurements
performed on a 65X scale model to determine steps required for
further improvement.Marconi Space Systems.
United Kingdom Meteorological Office and the SER
Motor speech rating tutorial (Iuzzini-Seigel et al., 2022)
No full textPurpose: While there has been mounting research centered on the diagnosis of childhood apraxia of speech (CAS), little has focused on differentiating CAS from pediatric dysarthria. Because CAS and dysarthria share overlapping speech symptoms and some children have both motor speech disorders, differential diagnosis can be challenging. There is a need for clinical tools that facilitate assessment of both CAS and dysarthria symptoms in children. The goals of this tutorial are to (a) determine confidence levels of clinicians in differentially diagnosing dysarthria and CAS and (b) provide a systematic procedure for differentiating CAS and pediatric dysarthria in children.
Method: Evidence related to differential diagnosis of CAS and dysarthria is reviewed. Next, a web-based survey of 359 pediatric speech-language pathologists is used to determine clinical confidence levels in diagnosing CAS and dysarthria. Finally, a checklist of pediatric auditory–perceptual motor speech features is presented along with a procedure to identify CAS and dysarthria in children with suspected motor speech impairments. Case studies illustrate application of this protocol, and treatment implications for complex cases are discussed.
Results: The majority (60%) of clinician respondents reported low or no confidence in diagnosing dysarthria in children, and 40% reported they tend not to make this diagnosis as a result. Going forward, clinicians can use the feature checklist and protocol in this tutorial to support the differential diagnosis of CAS and dysarthria in clinical practice.
Conclusions: Incorporating this diagnostic protocol into clinical practice should help increase confidence and accuracy in diagnosing motor speech disorders in children. Future research should test the sensitivity and specificity of this protocol in a large sample of children with varying speech sound disorders. Graduate programs and continuing education trainings should provide opportunities to practice rating speech features for children with dysarthria and CAS.
Supplemental Material S1. Survey methodology, questions, flier and demographic summary of participants.
Supplemental Material S2. Auditory-perceptual feature list template and decision-making flowchart to support clinical application.
Supplemental Material S3. Video example of Case 1.
Supplemental Material S4. Additional case study descriptions, diagnoses, and treatment considerations.
Iuzzini-Seigel, J., Allison, K. M., & Stoeckel, R. (2022). A tool for differential diagnosis of childhood apraxia of speech and dysarthria in children: A tutorial. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1044/2022_LSHSS-21-00164
Publisher Note: This article is part of the Forum: Care of the Whole Child: Key Considerations When Working With Children With Childhood Apraxia of Speech.</p
Pragmatic Case Studies as a Source of Unity in Applied Psychology
No full textTo unify or not to unify applied psychology: that is the question. In this article we review pendulum swings in the historical efforts to answer this question—from a comprehensive, positivist, “top-down,” deductive yes between the 1930s and the early 60s, to a postmodern no since then. A rationale and proposal for a limited, “bottom-up,” inductive yes in applied psychology is then presented, employing a case-based paradigm that integrates both positivist and postmodern themes and components. This paradigm is labeled “pragmatic psychology” and, its specific use of case studies, the “Pragmatic Case Study Method” (“PCS Method”). We call for the creation of peer-reviewed journal-databases of pragmatic case studies as a foundational source of unifying applied knowledge in our discipline. As one example, the potential of the PCS Method for unifying different angles of theoretical regard is illustrated in an area of applied psychology, psychotherapy, via the case of Mrs. B. The article then turns to the broader historical and epistemological arguments for the unifying nature of the PCS Method in both applied and basic psychology.Peer reviewe
Dr. Edwin Wright Collection: Author Unknown
No full textNotes - The author relates several short stories about his neighbours including Alex McDonell, homesteading and life around Meanook and Athabasca (1 page
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
No full textWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Good answers from bad data : a data management strategy
No full textCover title.Includes bibliographical references (p. 16).Supported in part by ARPA and USAF/Rome Laboratories. F30602-93-C-0160Henry B. Kon, Stuart E. Madnick, Michael D. Seigel
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