Digital Commons Network^™

Habitat Suitability Estimated By Niche Models Is Largely Unrelated To Species Abundance, Tad A. Dallas, Alan Hastings

Faculty Publications

© 2018 John Wiley & Sons Ltd Aim: Data on species occurrences are far more common than data on species abundances. However, a central goal of large-scale ecology is to understand the spatial distribution of abundance. It has been proposed that species distribution models trained on species occurrence records may capture variation in species abundance. Here, we gauge support for relationships between species abundance and predicted climatic suitability from species distribution models, and relate the slope of this relationship to species traits, evolutionary relationships and sampling completeness. Location: USA. Time period: 1658–2017. Major taxa studied: Mammal and tree species. Methods, …

Abstracts By Kenneth Atkinson Of The Josephus Between The Bible And The Mishnah: An Interdisciplinary Seminar, Kenneth Atkinson

Faculty Publications

The “Humanities and Social Sciences Fund Seminar on Josephus between the Bible and the Mishnah: An interdisciplinary Seminar” was held at the Hotel Neve Ilan in the hill country outside Jerusalem from April 7 to 11, 2019. Organized by Professor Michael Avioz, Chair of the Department of Bible at Bar-Ilan University in Ramat Gan, the event consisted of papers delivered by a variety of experts on Josephus and Second Temple Judaism from Israel, Europe and the United States. The following abstracts offer a brief summary of all the papers presented at the conference.

A Comparison Of Machine Learning Techniques For Taxonomic Classification Of Teeth From The Family Bovidae, Gregory J. Matthews, Juliet K. Brophy, Maxwell Luetkemeier, Hongie Gu, George K. Thiruvathukal

Faculty Publications

This study explores the performance of machine learning algorithms on the classification of fossil teeth in the Family Bovidae. Isolated bovid teeth are typically the most common fossils found in southern Africa and they often constitute the basis for paleoenvironmental reconstructions. Taxonomic identification of fossil bovid teeth, however, is often imprecise and subjective. Using modern teeth with known taxons, machine learning algorithms can be trained to classify fossils. Previous work by Brophy et al. [Quantitative morphological analysis of bovid teeth and implications for paleoenvironmental reconstruction of plovers lake, Gauteng Province, South Africa, J. Archaeol. Sci. 41 (2014), pp. 376–388] uses …

Response To Turner 2017, Amy M. Schueller, Robert T. Leaf, Raymond M. Mroch Iii, Geneviève M. Nesslage

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Mapping Soil Alkalinity And Salinity In Northern Songnen Plain, China With The Hj-1 Hyperspectral Imager Data And Partial Least Squares Regression, Lin Bai, Cuizhen Wang, Shuying Zang, Changshan Wu, Jinming Luo, Yuexiang Wu

Faculty Publications

In arid and semi-arid regions, identifying and monitoring of soil alkalinity and salinity are in urgently need for preventing land degradation and maintaining ecological balances. In this study, physicochemical, statistical, and spectral analysis revealed that potential of hydrogen (pH) and electrical conductivity (EC) characterized the saline-alkali soils and were sensitive to the visible and near infrared (VIS-NIR) wavelengths. On the basis of soil pH, EC, and spectral data, the partial least squares regression (PLSR) models for estimating soil alkalinity and salinity were constructed. The R² values for soil pH and EC models were 0.77 and 0.48, and the root …

Return To The Repressive: Re-Thinking Nature- Culture In Contemporary Feminist Theory, Deborah Goldgaber

Faculty Publications

In "History of Sexuality"(Vol I.) Foucault argued that repression is the wrong model of power, understanding it in exclusively negative terms, as external to the body it constrains and inhibits. Power may also be positive, productive, and constitutive of the body and its possibilities. Thus, an adequate account of the relation between cultural forces and the body, Foucault argues, must challenge the "repressive hypothesis"(RH). Contemporary feminist accounts of the body are structured by this same oppositional view of power Foucault assumed: to call on Rosi Braidotti's distinction, discursive (cultural) forces are either negative or repressive (potestas) or positive and empowering …

The Gut Microbiome And Aquatic Toxicology: An Emerging Concept For Environmental Health, Ondrej Adamovsky, Amanda Buerger, Alexis M. Wormington, Naomi Ector, Robert J. Griffitt, Joseph H. Bisesi Jr., Christopher J. Martyniuk

Faculty Publications

The microbiome plays an essential role in the health and onset of diseases in all animals, including humans. The microbiome has emerged as a central theme in environmental toxicology, as microbes interact with the host immune system in addition to its role in chemical detoxification. Pathophysiological changes in the gastrointestinal tissue caused by ingested chemicals, and metabolites generated from microbial biodegradation, can lead to systemic adverse effects. This critical review dissects what we know about the impacts of environmental contaminants on the microbiome of aquatic species, with special emphasis on the gut microbiome. We highlight some of the known major …

Estimation Of Atmospheric Turbulence Using Differential Motion Of Extended Features In Time-Lapse Imagery, Santasri R. Bose-Pillai, Jack E. Mccrae, Christopher A. Rice, Ryan A. Wood, Conner E. Murphy, Steven T. Fiorino

Faculty Publications

We address the design, development, and testing of a pointer/tracker as a probe beam for the purpose of making high-speed, aero-optical measurements of the flow over a scaled beam director turret. The tracker uses retro-reflection of the probe beam off of a Reflexite annulus surrounding the turret. The constraints of the design required a near-total-commercial off the shelf system that could be quickly installed and removed in a rented aircraft. Baseline measurements of environmental vibrations are used to predict pointing performance; mitigation of line-of-sight jitter on the probe beam is achieved through passive isolation and the design of relay optics. …

A Note On The Knot Floer Homology Of Fibered Knots, John A. Baldwin, David Shea Vela-Vick

Faculty Publications

We prove that the knot Floer homology of a fibered knot is nontrivial in its next-to-top Alexander grading. Immediate applications include new proofs of Krcatovich’s result that knots with L–space surgeries are prime and Hedden and Watson’s result that the rank of knot Floer homology detects the trefoil among knots in the 3–sphere. We also generalize the latter result, proving a similar theorem for nullhomologous knots in any 3–manifold. We note that our method of proof inspired Baldwin and Sivek’s recent proof that Khovanov homology detects the trefoil. As part of this work, we also introduce a numerical refinement of …

A Mobile Smoking Cessation Intervention For Mexico (Vive Sin Tabaco... ¡Decídete!): Single-Arm Pilot Study, Ana Paula Cupertino, Francisco Cartujano-Barrera, Mariana Ramírez, Rosibel Rodríguez-Bolaños, James F. Thrasher, Gloria Pérez-Rubio, Ramcés Falfán-Valencia, Edward F. Ellerbeck, Luz Myriam Reynales-Shigematsu

Faculty Publications

Background: Of the 14.3 million Mexicans who smoke, only a minority take advantage of evidence-based approaches to smoking cessation. Mobile health interventions have the potential to increase the reach of effective cessation interventions in Mexico.

Objective: This study aimed to assess the feasibility and acceptability of an innovative, personalized, and interactive smoking cessation mobile intervention developed for Mexican smokers.

Methods: We recruited 40 Mexican smokers to participate in Vive sin Tabaco... ¡Decídete!, a smoking cessation program that uses a tablet-based decision support software to drive a 12-week text messaging smoking cessation program and pharmacotherapy support. Outcome measures included participant text …

Calvin S. Smith: 'Utah’S Fighting Chaplain', Kenneth L. Alford Ph.D.

Faculty Publications

This article shares the World War I experiences of Chaplain Calvin S. Smith, son of Latter-day Saint Church President Joseph F. Smith. From 1910-1913 he served as a missionary from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Chaplain Smith was one of three Latter-day Saint chaplains who served in WWI. After commissioning, he reported for service to Camp Lewis, Washington. He saw extensive combat during three major offensives: St. Mihiel, Meuse-Argonne, and Lys-Scheldt with service in France and Belgium. He was wounded twice. This article portrays the daily combat life of an American division chaplain, burial duty, support operations, …

Community Phylogeny Of The Globally Critically Imperiled Pine Rockland Ecosystem, Lauren B. Trotta, Benjamin Baiser, Jennifer Possley, Daijiang Li, James Lange, Sarah Martin, Emily B. Sessa

Faculty Publications

© 2018 Botanical Society of America Premise of the Study: Community phylogenetic methods incorporate information on evolutionary relationships into studies of organismal assemblages. We used a community phylogenetic framework to investigate relationships and biogeographic affinities and to calculate phylogenetic signal of endemism and invasiveness for the flora of the pine rocklands—a globally critically imperiled ecosystem with a significant portion of its distribution in South Florida, United States. Methods: We reconstructed phylogenetic relationships of 538 vascular plant taxa, which represent 92.28% of the vascular flora of the pine rocklands. We estimated phylogenetic signal for endemism and invasiveness using phylogenetic generalized linear …

An Overview Of Factors Affecting Distribution Of The Atlantic Surfclam (Spisula Solidissima), A Continental Shelf Biomass Dominant, During A Period Of Climate Change, Eileen E. Hoffman, Eric N. Powell, John M. Klink, Daphne M. Munroe, Roger Mann, Dale B. Haidvogel, Diego A. Narváez, Xinzhong Zhang, Kelsey M. Kuykendall

Faculty Publications

The Atlantic surfclam (Spisula solidissima) is a dominant member of the biological community of the Middle Atlantic Bight continental shelf and a commercially harvested species. Climate warming is affecting the biology and distribution of this species, which provides an opportunity to investigate the processes and conditions that are restructuring this fishery and the implications for ecological and socioeconomic systems. A Management Strategy Evaluation (MSE) developed for the surfclam fishery provides a mechanistic description of the surfclam's response to climate change and understanding of the cascade of effects initiated by changes in oceanographic conditions that ultimately appear as social and economic …

Measurement And Modeling Of The Spatiotemporal Dynamics Of Beach Surface Moisture Content, Phillip P. Schmutz, Steven L. Namikas

Faculty Publications

The spatiotemporal dynamics of surface moisture exert a significant influence on the operation of aeolian transport systems at many beaches. However, we currently lack the detailed understanding of variability in surface moisture required to incorporate it into aeolian models. This problem is addressed here through direct measurements and simulation modeling of beach surface moisture over a twelve-day period, and through quantification of the relative contributions of evaporation, condensation and groundwater inputs to surface moisture. It was found that the beach surface can be characterized spatially in terms of three moisture zones: a consistently dry zone (40%). The relative influence of …

The New Gospel Of Wealth: On Social Impact Bonds And The Privatization Of Public Good, Etienne C. Toussaint

Faculty Publications

Since Andrew Carnegie penned his famous Gospel of Wealth in 1889, corporate philanthropists have championed considerable public good around the world, investing in a wide range of social programs addressing a diversity of public issues, from poverty to healthcare to criminal justice. Nevertheless, the problem of “the Rich and the Poor,” as termed by Andrew Carnegie in his famous essay, remains unsolved. Socially conscious investors have recently called for America to reimagine a new “gospel of wealth”, one that not only grapples with the what of social injustice, but also explores the how and the why of systemic social and …

Isolation By Marine Barriers And Climate Explain Areas Of Endemism In An Island Rodent, Thomas C. Giarla, Sean P. Maher, Anang S. Achmadi, Meagan K. Moore, Mark T. Swanson, Kevin C. Rowe, Jacob A. Esselstyn

Faculty Publications

Aim: The Indonesian island of Sulawesi is home to thousands of endemic terrestrial animal species. Phylogeographical studies of some of these taxa revealed concordant distribution patterns (areas of endemism; AoEs), suggestive of a shared evolutionary or ecological mechanism driving divergence among various terrestrial taxa. Generally, AoEs have been attributed to Pleistocene marine incursions, geological fault zones and Sulawesi's history as an archipelago. We test, for the first time, the hypothesis that population divergences are associated with unsuitable climate spaces at the boundaries between these areas. Location: Sulawesi, Indonesia. Taxon: Maxomys musschenbroekii, a common murid rodent endemic to Sulawesi. Methods: We …

Ants Alter Molecular Characteristics Of Soil Organic Carbon Determined By Pyrolysis-Chromatography/Mass Spectrometry, Zhongsheng Zhang, Zhuo Wei, Jim Jian Wang, Ran Xiao, Yili Meng, Haitao Wu, Xianguo Lyu

Faculty Publications

Colonization by ecosystem engineers, such as ants, have important but occasionally unnoticed roles in regulating soil carbon cycles. However, little information is available pertaining to ant effects on changing molecular features of soil organic matter. In this study, we characterized total soil organic carbon (SOC), total nitrogen, water extractable organic carbon (WEOC) as well as molecular characteristics of humic acids (HAs) of ant mound soils (SoilAnt) and the surrounding soils (SoilCon) using pyrolysis-chromatography/mass (py-GC/MS). SOC, total nitrogen and WEOC contents of SoilAnt were significantly lower than those of SoilCon. SoilAnt samples had significant higher nitrogen containing compounds proportions in pyrolysis …

Seasonal Variations In The Siliciclastic Fluxes To The Western Philippine Sea And Their Impacts On Seawater ΕNd Values Inferred From 1 Year Of In Situ Observations Above Benham Rise, Zhaokai Xu, Tiegang Li, Christophe Colin, Peter D. Clift, Rongtao Sun, Zhaojie Yu, Shiming Wan, Dhongil Lim

Faculty Publications

©2018. The Authors. The Sr and Nd isotopic compositions of siliciclastic sediments and the Nd isotopic compositions of planktonic foraminifera are investigated in sediment trap samples collected in 2015 at water depths of 500 and 2,800 m to (1) track the seasonal changes in the sources and transport patterns of siliciclastic sediments to Benham Rise, (2) constrain the Nd isotopic compositions of the planktonic foraminifera throughout the water column, and (3) assess the influences of lithogenic inputs on the Nd isotopic compositions of the water masses. We demonstrate that volcanic matter and eolian dust are derived primarily from Luzon Island …

Miocene Volcaniclastic Sequence Within The Xiyu Formation From Source To Sink: Implications For Drainage Development And Tectonic Evolution In Eastern Pamir, Nw Tibetan Plateau, Xiaochun Wei, Hongbo Zheng, Ping Wang, Ryuji Tada, Peter D. Clift, Fred Jourdan, Chao Luo, Hanlin Chen

Faculty Publications

©2018. American Geophysical Union. All Rights Reserved. The formation of the Pamir salient and the Tashkorgan-Yarkand River is highly debated with the ages ranging from pre-Cenozoic to late Miocene. One approach to resolve these issues is to draw support from the sedimentary record in the surrounding basins. A volcaniclastic sequence, which divides into Lower and Upper Members, was identified in the southwestern Tarim Basin. The Lower Member was transported by dilute streamflows, which likely flowed during or soon after eruptions, while the Upper Member was formed by a syneruptive volcanic debris flow. Chronological, petrologic, and geochemical data consistently indicate that …

Integrating Climate Forecasts With The Soil And Water Assessment Tool (Swat) For High-Resolution Hydrologic Simulations And Forecasts In The Southeastern U.S., Vinit Sehgal, Venkataramana Sridhar, Luke Juran, Jactone Arogo Ogejo

Faculty Publications

This study provides high-resolution modeling of daily water budget components at Hydrologic Unit Code (HUC)-12 resolution for 50 watersheds of the South Atlantic Gulf (SAG) region in the southeastern U.S. (SEUS) by implementing the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model in the form of a near real-time, semi-automated framework. A near real-time hydrologic simulation framework is implemented with a lead time of nine months (March-December 2017) by integrating the calibrated SWAT model with National Centers for Environmental Prediction coupled forecast system model version 2 (CFSv2) weather data to forecast daily water balance components. The modeling exercise is conducted as …

Fishing Pressure And Species Traits Affect Stream Fish Invasions Both Directly And Indirectly, Brandon K. Peoples, Stephen R. Midway, Brian Leung

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Effects Of Specific Language Impairment On A Contrastive Dialect Structure: The Case Of Infinitival To Across Various Nonmainstream Dialects Of English, Andrew M. Rivière, Janna B. Oetting, Joseph Roy

Faculty Publications

Purpose: Using data from children who spoke various nonmainstream dialects of English and who were classified as either children with specific language impairment (SLI) or typically developing (TD) children, we examined children’s marking of infinitival TO by their dialect and clinical status. Method: The data came from 180 kindergartners (91 speakers of African American English, 60 speakers of Southern White English, 29 speakers of +Cajun); 53 were children with SLI, and 127 were TD children. Data included 4,537 infinitival TO contexts extracted from language samples; each was coded as zero or overtly marked and by preceding verb context (i.e., verbs …

Dissolved Carbon In A Large Variety Of Lakes Across Five Limnetic Regions In China, Kaishan Song, Zhidan Wen, Yijun Xu, Hong Yang, Lili Lyu, Ying Zhao, Chong Fang, Yingxin Shang, Jia Du

Faculty Publications

Dissolved carbon in lakes play a vital role in the global carbon cycling. The concentration and dynamics of lake dissolved carbon can be influenced by both the surrounding landscape and a combination of physical, chemical and biological processes within the lakes themselves. From 2009 to 2016, we conducted a large-scale assessment of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) and dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) in 249 lakes across a diverse range of climatic, geopedologic, topographical and hydrological conditions in five Chinese limnetic regions: the East Limnetic Region (ELR), the Northeast Limnetic Region (NLR), the Inner Mongolia-Xinjiang Limnetic Region (MXR), the Yungui Limnetic Region …

Impacts Of Agricultural Expansion (1910s-2010s) On Water Cycle In The Songneng Plain, Northeast China, Lijuan Zhang, Cuizhen Wang, Xiaxiang Li, Hongwen Zhang, Wenliang Li, Lanqi Jiang

Faculty Publications

Agricultural expansion is one of the primary land use changes on the Earth’s surface. The Songnen Plain in Northeast China is renowned for its Black Soil and is one of the most important agricultural regions of this country. In the last century, its population increased 20-fold and excessive areas of grassland were cultivated. Based on a series of decadal land use/land cover data sets in the plain (1910s–2010s), this study simulated the water balance in each decade using the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model and assessed the water effects of centurial agricultural expansion. Six variables were simulated to explain …

Sediment Characteristics And Methane Ebullition In Three Subarctic Lakes, Martin Wik, Joel E. Johnson, Patrick M. Crill, Joel P. Destasio, Lance Erickson, Madison J. Halloran, Maria Florencia Fahnestock, Maurice K. Crawford, Stephen C. Phillips, Ruth K. Varner

Faculty Publications

Ebullition (bubbling) from climate‐sensitive northern lakes remains an unconstrained source of atmospheric methane (CH4). Although the focus of many recent studies, ebullition is rarely linked to the physical characteristics of lakes. In this study we analyze the sediments of subarctic postglacial lakes and investigate how sediment properties relate to the large spatial variation in CH4 bubble flux, quantified over multiple years using bubble traps. The results show that the sediments from our lakes are rich in total organic carbon, containing 37 kg/m3 on average. This number is roughly 40% higher than the average for yedoma deposits, which have been identified …

Non-Gnss Smartphone Pedestrian Navigation Using Barometric Elevation And Digital Map-Matching, Daniel J. Broyles, Kyle J. Kauffman, John F. Raquet, Piotr Smagowski

Faculty Publications

Pedestrian navigation in outdoor environments where global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) are unavailable is a challenging problem. Existing technologies that have attempted to address this problemoften require external reference signals or specialized hardware, the extra size,weight, power, and cost of which are unsuitable for many applications. This article presents a real-time, self-contained outdoor navigation application that uses only the existing sensors on a smartphone in conjunction with a preloaded digital elevation map. The core algorithm implements a particle filter, which fuses sensor data with a stochastic pedestrian motion model to predict the user’s position. The smartphone’s barometric elevation is then …

Socioeconomic Determinants Of Broadband Non-Adoption Among Consumer Households In South Carolina, Usa, Lori Dickes, Elizabeth L. Crouch, Thomas Walker

Faculty Publications

he policy environment around broadband technology in the United States is shifting again and there are concerns about the impact these proposed changes will have on the future of rural bro- adband deployment and access. Similar to the Obama administration’s discussion of net neutrality, reclas- sifying high-speed internet is again receiving growing media and policy attention at the federal and state level in the United States. Globally, it is argued that affordable high-speed internet access is imperative to rural and regional economic development success. The global digital divide and challenges of non-adoption impact both developing and developed nations. While many …

Knowledge Diffusion And Utilization Within A System Of Care Model: Success And Challenges, Betty Walton, Isaac Karikari, Christine Marie Bishop, Erin Tock

Faculty Publications

•Transitioning from required collection & reporting of grant data to routinely using information for planning and quality improvement processes at direct service, program, and system levels •Explores necessary conditions for the successful use of information to plan and monitor progress •Highlights tips •Applying tips to your practice

Book Review: Street Style In America: An Exploration, Todd J. Wiebe

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Spatial Assessment Of Water Quality With Urbanization In 2007-2015, Shanghai, China, Huixuan Li, Cuizhen Wang, Xiao Huang, Andrew Hug

Faculty Publications

Shanghai, as one of the megacities and economic centers of China, is facing critical water quality challenges. This study analyzed the impact of urbanization on the water quality in Shanghai, from 2007 to 2015, using remote sensing (RS) and geographic information system (GIS) techniques. Five measurements of water quality were employed: total discharged wastewater volume, general water quality levels, dissolved oxygen (DO), permanganate, and ammonia nitrogen. The impacts of urban land-use changes on water quality were examined. An urban index was extracted from satellite image classification and was used to quantify the anthropogenic activities. In the watershed level, unit watersheds …