An index method to evaluate growers' pesticide use for identifying on-farm innovations and effective alternative pest management strategies: a case study of winegrape in Madera County, California

Winegrape is an important perennial crop in California, USA. Each year California winegrape farming consumes about 20 million kilograms of pesticides that have been a pollutant source to the fresh water systems of the state. The variation of pesticide use among winegrape growers has been significant. It has been observed that some growers have developed effective ways to reduce pesticide use, yet control pests efficiently to ensure harvest. Identification of the growers with low and high pesticide use is very helpful to extension programs that aim on reducing pesticide environmental risk. In this study, an index approach is proposed to quantitatively measure pesticide use intensity at grower level. An integrated pesticide use index is developed by taking pesticide quantity and toxicity into account. An additive formula and a multiplying formula were used to calculate the pesticide use index, i.e., PUI and PUIM. It was found that both PUI and PUIM were capable of identifying the low and high pesticide users while PUI was slightly more conservative than PUIM. All pesticides used in California winegrape farming were taken into account for calculating the indices. Madera County, one of the largest winegrape producers in California, was taken as an example to test the proposed approach. In year 2000, among the total 208 winegrape growers, 28 with PUI≤10 and 34 with 10<PUI≤20 were identified as low pesticide users who were characterized with both low quantity and low toxicity of pesticide use. Most of the growers had small-sized vineyards, i.e., one field and small planted areas. Furthermore, they had very low pesticide use intensity, used only 1–2 types of pesticides (mainly fungicides), applied few pesticides (1–3 only), and emphasized the use of low toxicity compounds. Meanwhile, 19 growers with PUI>60, identified as high pesticide users, had large-sized vineyards, i.e., more fields and large planted areas. They used all types of pesticides and many compounds, which indicated that their pest controls heavily depended on pesticides rather than on-farm management. Through the case study, the proposed approach proved to be useful for analyzing the growers’ pesticide use intensities and interpreting their pesticide use behaviors, which led to a new start point for further investigation of searching ways to reduce pesticide environmental risk.     

Classroom environments and student empowerment: An analysis of elementary and secondary teacher beliefs

This project explored a classroom model of motivation in which the source of student motivation is based on internal mechanisms or structures and classroom student/instructor interactions. It also extended earlier research in which beliefs of veteran, entry level, and preservice teachers have been explored. For this project, 117 elementary teachers (Grades K–5) with at least 3 years of experience and 126 secondary teachers (Grades 6–12) with similar teaching experiences completed a 40-item Likert-type questionnaire that focused on the four classroom dimensions of Affirmation, Rejection, Student Empowerment, and Teacher Control. The results suggested that elementary teachers and secondary teachers varied in their reported desire for teacher empowerment versus student empowerment in the classroom, and for providing a positive classroom environment as opposed to one that encourages a classroom atmosphere of rejection. Implications for future research and the need for creating affirming, empowering, motivational classroom environments are discussed.     

Governance Paradigms of Public Universities: An international comparative study

Tertiary Education and Management - This study aims to develop a conceptual model of the wider influencing forces impacting the governance paradigms of public universities. It draws on the...     

Temperament and psychopathology: The “community” to which you belong matters

We utilized a community detection approach to longitudinally (a) identify distinct groups of children with common temperament profiles in infancy and at 2 and 3 years of age and (b) determine whether co-occurrence of certain temperament traits may be early predictors of internalizing problems at 5 years of age. Seven hundred and seventy-four infants (360 girls; 88.6% White, 9.8% Hispanic, and 1.6% other races) were recruited from the Boston area. Data collection spanned from 2012 to 2021. The analysis yielded three distinct groups of children with different temperament traits and was associated with significant variation in levels of internalizing symptoms and anxiety diagnosis rate. Our findings suggest that stable temperament “communities” can be detected in early childhood and may predict risk for psychopathology later in life.     

Social Integration and the Mental Health of Black Adolescents

The influence of family, school, and religious social contexts on the mental health of Black adolescents has been understudied. This study used Durkheim's social integration theory to examine these associations in a nationally representative sample of 1,170 Black adolescents, ages 13–17. Mental health was represented by positive and negative psychosocial well‐being indicators. Results showed that adolescents' integration into family and school were related to better mental health. In addition, commitment to religious involvement positively influenced mental health. Although the direct effect of religious involvement was inversely related to mental health, mediation analyses revealed a positive influence through religious commitment. Findings suggest a greater emphasis on all three social contexts when designing strategies to improve the mental health of Black adolescents.     

Investigating the sets of values that community members hold toward local nature centers

While nature center’s missions often point to connecting people to nature in various ways, their potential to provide a broader array of services to their communities remains largely unexplored. To better understand the values local community members hold for nature centers, we conducted survey research around 16 centers in the United States. Exploratory factor analysis identified four underlying values: environmental connection, leisure provision, community resilience, and civic engagement. Our limited sample of community respondents felt these values to be important and well-provided by local centers, suggesting centers may play broader roles in communities than inferred from their mission statements. The identification of these distinct value sets provides centers with food for thought regarding not only the services they provide, but also how they might communicate their roles to various constituencies in their communities. The values also provide clear conceptual categories for future research on the values of diverse community institutions.     

Is it all memory recall? An empirical investigation of intellectual skill requirements in Leaving Certificate examination papers in Ireland

The terminal examination of post-primary education in Ireland, the Leaving Certificate, is often criticised for the reliance on memory recall over higher order thinking skills in the assessment process. In order to examine the evidence base for these critiques, this article presents an empirical investigation of the intellectual skills and knowledge domains implicit in the tasks in the written examination papers of 23 subjects in the Leaving Certificate in Ireland from 2005 to 2010. Data were collected from two sources: examination papers and student interviews. In an in-depth document analysis of the examination papers, 14,910 occurrences of command verbs were coded for the intellectual skill and knowledge domains required by the assessment task. As the same verb can require different intellectual skills in different subjects and in different tasks, each occurrence of every verb was assigned a specific value depending on its context. The article presents the frequencies and distributions of intellectual skills and knowledge domains within and across subjects. In light of key points in the literature search, the findings indicate concern regarding the level of challenge and stimulation for the development of students of the Leaving Certificate.     

Developing a Heritage and ICT Project in 12 Irish Primary Schools

This paper outlines how a heritage and ICT project entitled ‘The Sligo Seashore Project’ was organised in twelve Irish primary schools from September 2001 to June 2003. The project was coordinated and supported by the ICT Advisor, Sligo Education Centre and the Heritage Officer, Sligo County Council. It was an extension of “Exploring the Field Fences of County Sligo”, a Schools Integration Project or SIP, one of the initiatives of the National Centre for Technology in Education (NCTE) in the Schools IT 2000 programme. The project sought to promote high levels of awareness and understanding of seashore heritage amongst the participants. It also gave them an opportunity to learn with and through ICT and in that way learn in a new and different way. The project was sponsored by a number of national and local organisations both public and private. The schools were situated on or close to the County Sligo coastline and were provided with resource material and computing equipment and received a number of supports including ICT training in digital media. The students studied the following areas: animals, habitats and plants, man and the sea and history of our coast. The students recorded their findings through essays, stories, written articles, artwork, crafts, puppets, models, photographs, maps and multimedia presentations. The second phase involved the collection and organisation of all the project material in preparation for the construction of a website, www.sligoseashore.com which developed a range of resources for teachers and students. The project was awarded first prize at the 2003 eSchola awards where the chair of the judging panel said it was “beautifully designed and perfectly integrated from a pedagogical point-of-view”. The project is ongoing.