University of New Hampshire

About: University of New Hampshire is a education organization based out in Durham, New Hampshire, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Solar wind. The organization has 9379 authors who have published 24025 publications receiving 1020112 citations. The organization is also known as: UNH.

An Exploration of Helping Processes in an Online Self-Help Group Focusing on Issues of Disability

Abstract: The number of US citizens with temporary or lifetime disabilities constitutes a large segment of the population It is estimated that there are as many as 24 million people with a severe disabling condition (International Center for Disability Information, 1999), including 7,500 people with spinal chord injuries per year, 750,000 people with cerebral palsy, 200,000 with muscular dystrophy, and more than 5 million with severe arthritis Nationally, there are an estimated 17 million people with disabilities who are homebound and an additional 125 million who are temporarily homebound There also are many caretakers of disabled and elderly people who are essentially homebound as a result of their responsibilities at home In addition to the physical and emotional difficulties directly associated with disability, a number of social and emotional difficulties result from being alienated or "socially quarantined" from the larger society: depression, loneliness, alienation, lack of social interaction, lack of information, and lack of access to employment (Braithwaite, 1996; Coleman, 1997; Shworles, 1983) Online groups - self-help and mutual aid groups - found on Internet newsgroups, commercial information networks, and computer bulletin boards are potential resources to this large population because they combine the advantages of self-help and the accessibility of computer networks Given the limited number of trained leaders and the relative scarcity of services, online groups could provide an important adjunct to in-person services as part of a wait-list condition, as a source of concurrent support, and as follow-up to time-limited groups (Finn, 1995) Although the existence of online groups has been documented, there are very limited research and anecdotal reports about the types of help offered or the content of the information shared among members Self-Help and Mutual Aid Groups Self-help groups have been described as an essential human resource and a permanent social utility (Katz, 1992) The groups are an attempt by people with a mutual problem to take control over circumstances that affect their lives In general, self-help groups are based on principles of empowerment, inclusion, nonhierarchical decision making, shared responsibility, and a holistic approach to people's cultural, economic, and social needs Their values include cooperative self-organization, nonbureaucratic mutual helping methods, social support, and free services (Schopler & Galinsky, 1993; Segal, Silverman, & Ternkin, 1993) It has been estimated that there are 400 distinct types of self-help groups, comprising 500,000 groups in the United States, attended by more than 15 million people The number of groups has quadrupled in past the 15 years (Boreman, Brock, Hess, & Pasquale, 1982; Kessler, Mickelson, & Zhao, 1997; Leechsen, Lewis, Pomer, Davenport, & Nelson, 1990) The health care arena has seen exponential growth in self-help groups since the early 1980s Group membership includes people and their families suffering from chronic disease, people requiring long-term rehabilitation, people experiencing terminal illness and bereavement, and people recovering from addiction Factors that have promoted the development of self-help groups include insufficient health care resources for some populations, rising cost of health care, lack of support within the medical system for chronic conditions, growing distrust of medical professionals, increased interest in alternative medicine, a new emphasis on prevention, and a rise in consumer consciousness (Riessman & Carroll, 1995) The research evidence points to the positive outcomes of self-help participation (Ayers, 1989; Furlong, 1989; Gottlieb, 1982; Gottlieb, 1985; Kyrouz & Humphreys, 1998; Lipson, 1982; Yalom, 1985) A considerable amount of research has been undertaken in defining the kind of help that self-help groups can provide and the theoretical reasons for their success …

Perpendicular ion heating by low-frequency Alfven-wave turbulence in the solar wind

Abstract: We consider ion heating by turbulent Alfv?n waves (AWs) and kinetic Alfv?n waves (KAWs) with wavelengths (measured perpendicular to the magnetic field) that are comparable to the ion gyroradius and frequencies ? smaller than the ion cyclotron frequency ?. We focus on plasmas in which ? 1, where ? is the ratio of plasma pressure to magnetic pressure. As in previous studies, we find that when the turbulence amplitude exceeds a certain threshold, an ion's orbit becomes chaotic. The ion then interacts stochastically with the time-varying electrostatic potential, and the ion's energy undergoes a random walk. Using phenomenological arguments, we derive an analytic expression for the rates at which different ion species are heated, which we test by simulating test particles interacting with a spectrum of randomly phased AWs and KAWs. We find that the stochastic heating rate depends sensitively on the quantity ? = ?v ?/v ?, where v ? (v ?) is the component of the ion velocity perpendicular (parallel) to the background magnetic field B 0, and ?v ? (?B ?) is the rms amplitude of the velocity (magnetic-field) fluctuations at the gyroradius scale. In the case of thermal protons, when ? ?crit, where ?crit is a constant, a proton's magnetic moment is nearly conserved and stochastic heating is extremely weak. However, when ?>?crit, the proton heating rate exceeds half the cascade power that would be present in strong balanced KAW turbulence with the same value of ?v ?, and magnetic-moment conservation is violated even when ? ?. For the random-phase waves in our test-particle simulations, ?crit = 0.19. For protons in low-? plasmas, ? ??1/2?B ?/B 0, and ? can exceed ?crit even when ?B ?/B 0 ?crit. The heating is anisotropic, increasing v 2 ? much more than v 2 ? when ? 1. (In contrast, at ? 1 Landau damping and transit-time damping of KAWs lead to strong parallel heating of protons.) At comparable temperatures, alpha particles and minor ions have larger values of ? than protons and are heated more efficiently as a result. We discuss the implications of our results for ion heating in coronal holes and the solar wind.

The Neighborhood Nestwatch Program: Participant Outcomes of a Citizen-Science Ecological Research Project

Abstract: Formal education is not enough to ensure scientific literacy in a w^orld where ideas and technology are changing rapidly (Hacker & Harris 1992). Projects that invite citizens to be involved in ecological research in their ow^n backyards or neighborhoods may provide rich opportunities for community members of all ages to improve their science literacy (TrumbuU et al. 2000; Brewer 2002&) and their sense of place. This learning about, and aw^areness of, the local environment may translate into tangible participant action on a local scale. Yet relatively fe^v data are available regarding science education outcomes of ecological research projects conducted ^vith the help of citizen research assistants in informal settings (Layton et al. 1986). Programs that have been assessed (e.g., several conducted by the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology; Krasny & Bonney [2005]) have focused on science process and biological kno^vledge, not on attachment to an ecological \"place\" and the potential implications of that attachment to conservation behaviors. The Neighborhood Nestwatch (NN) program engages citizen scientists in the collection of scientific data and fosters scientific literacy and increased attachment to place in their local natural environment. Here, ^ve define science literacy as both an understanding of scientific content and ways of thinking such that citizens can make better sense of our increasingly technical and scientific w^orld. Skills of a scientifically literate citizen include critical and independent thinking, ability to interpret evidence and data, and understanding the role of uncertainty (AAAS 1993). But scientific literacy alone is not sufficient for understanding the influence of humans on ecological systems. People need to kno^v about the places in w^hich they live. We suggest that a sense of one's place has four primary components: know^ledge, skills, aw^areness, and disposition to care. The first two components are aspects of science literacy. Moreover, there are many feedback loops betw^een these four components.

The flux of carbon from terrestrial ecosystems to the atmosphere in 1980 due to changes in land use: geographic distribution of the global flux

Abstract: Recent analyses of land-use change in the tropical regions and in the temperate and boreal regions of the earth were combined to yield a global estimate of 1.0 - 2.6 x 10I5 g C for the net release of carbon to the atmosphere in 1980 from changes in land use. Deforestation in the tropics accounted for nearly all of the flux; the net release of carbon from temperate and boreal regions was only 0.1 x loi5 g C. The average global value of 1.8 x IOl5 g C in 1980 was distributed geographically among tropical countries and other regions on the basis of deforestation rates and carbon stocks. The net release of carbon from changes in land use worldwide is inconsistent with the results of geochemical models of the carbon cycle. The discrepancy is smaller than in previous analyses, but is large enough to exceed the errors of the analysis. Possible explanations for the discrepancy include the possibility of a net accumulation of carbon in undisturbed ecosystems as a result of C02 fertilization or changes in climate. Even if the terms of the global carbon equation were to appear balanced at present, current knowledge is insufficient to predict whether terrestrial ecosystems will act as a positive or negative feedback on the anticipated C0,-caused global warming.

Mitogenomics: digging deeper with complete mitochondrial genomes

Abstract: Mitochondrial genomes are being used to study increasingly ancient divergences among animal groups. Recent studies of complete mitochondrial DNA sequences have arrived at somewhat heretical conclusions, raising questions about the use of mitochondrial gene sequences for studying the relationships among highly divergent lineages. Other studies have documented convergent evolution of mitochondrial gene order, casting doubt on the use of these characters for phylogenetic analysis. The use of mitochondrial genomes for studying such deep divergences is coming under increased scrutiny, and these novel results need to be confirmed with data from nuclear genes.