The article From Sea to Sea written by Susan L. Williams is about the genome sequence of the marine flowering plant eelgrass and how it evolved to a terrestrial specie and back to a marine specie.  Eelgrass is part of the seagrass family and is known to highly specialized and sexually reproductive. Eelgrass has gone through many major habitat shifts. It started as marine green algae and then evolved to a terrestrial flowering plant, then the angiosperms entered freshwater and formed eelgrass and a few other seagrass species. Seagrasses are not widely studied and usually are ignored by biologists. Eelgrass is a very important because it supports many different species and organisms, especially endangered sea otters. The root systems on eelgrasses are very important because they help stabilize sediments and shorelines. This seagrass specie has many different uses. In Mexico man cultures rely on the grass and in Europe they use eelgrass to stuff furniture and to insulate homes. Eelgrass is very adaptable, it has grown under sea ice, and in the warm temperatures of Baja California. This amazing ability to adapt might be crucial to the survival for eelgrass with the warming climates and the oceans becoming more acidic.

The question that is being answered in this article is how eelgrass evolved and to gain a better understanding of the plants evolution. The author used expert analysis to gather data on the genome of eelgrass and the data method analysis is quantitative.

This research article was well written and easy enough for anyone to understand. The author did a good job covering all the transitions eelgrass went through and there were no bias opinions.

I found it very interesting that a plant species could start as marine algae, evolve into a terrestrial plant and then evolve back to a marine seagrass.

The article Diagnosis by Extracellular Vesicles, written by Clotilde Théry, is about a test that tried to help detect patients with late stage pancreatic cancer before it fully develops. This is done by taking a simple draw of blood from the patient and then testing it. The test will identify the levels of glypican-1 (GPC1) in vesicles within the blood stream as well as the levels of a pancreatic tumor biomarker called carbohydrate antigen 19-9 (CA 19-9). To gather this data, Sonia A. Melo and her various other colleagues (the ones who conducted the research), tested on mice and also serum from various other human patients who had already been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Results showed that healthy patients contained higher levels of CA19-9 and lower levels of GPC1, while those with diagnosed pancreatic tested for lower levels of CA19-9 but higher levels of GPC1. In the end, Melo and her colleagues reported that the test gave one hundred percent certainty. The only downfall to this test is that it doesn’t detect other cancers. It is only able to detect early stages of pancreatic cancer.

For this research, because Théry wrote about someone else’s work, the type of data collected was reports of Melo’s work, and so therefore the method of collection was public and private records. To analyze the data collected, Melo compared the levels of CA 19-9 and GPC1 within patients of pancreatic cancer and those of healthy patients, but Théry ultimately described Melo’s work while analyzing it.

I believe that this research was conducted well and will ultimately be very beneficial to today’s society. There did not seem to be any bias or large-scale mistakes and so if presented to where this test can be done in a seemingly more affordable manner, it can be a useful tool in helping to save many lives in the future.

Restoration Ecology Volume 10, Number 1, March 2002

The journal of the society for ecological restoration

Nitrogen Farming: Harvesting a Different Crop

Donald L.Hey

This journal is about the streams of “North America that convey excessive amounts of nitrate-nitrogen, and the effects which range from eutrophication of local surface waters to hypoxia in the Gulf of Mexico. An alternative solution is needed. One possibility is “nitrogen farming”. Nitrogen farms could employ restored wetlands in flood plains and on bottomlands to remove the excess nitrate-nitrogen and, at the same time, provide the landowner an alternative crop”.  So, the topic is nitrogen and the harm it can do to the earth.  While the research question is “What is a solution to the excessive amounts of nitrate-nitrogen in American river?” The different types of data that would be needed would be expert knowledge, opinions, reports of acts, and economic figures. The data gathering methods we see in this journal are public and private records. In this journal, there are a lot of graphs and maps showing the effects of the nitrogen. The data analysis method that the author uses is numeric data to tell how much nitrogen is being put into our soil.   Overall I think the author did a great job following the six steps he had a topic he wanted to research so he came up with a research question he also picked what type of data he needed and where he was going to get this data. Finally, he chose what data analysis method he would use. Something useful I got out of this is his use of maps and bar graphs makes his research clearer.  The images help me understand what he is trying to portray with his research. I will try to do that in my research.

In the article, “Masculinity, American Modernity, and Body Modification: A Feminist Reading of American Eunuchs“, Brenda R. Weber critically analyzes the documentary American Eunuchs from a historical feminist perspective in order to understand the motivations behind male body modification in regards to masculine culture. Weber begins by siting Margrit Shildrick’s research in regards to Western culture’s dominant beliefs regarding the body. Shildrick argues that Western intellectuals have posited the body as hindering to reason and when subjugated to modification has the ability to reach a higher plane of knowledge. The ability to transcend the body has historically been seen as a trait of masculinity and in opposition to this lies the feminine, which is rooted in body. This juxtaposition of the masculine as the ability to transcend the body and the feminine as wholly rooted within the body has played a role in gender, race, and class inequality ( as those of lower socioeconomic status and oppressed racial identities have been historically depicted as feminine).

Weber uses Shildrick’s observations and applies them to to her own analysis of the American Eunich in opposition to the stance of the filmmakers who posited the film from the perspective of body modification as one dangerous outcome of American modernity and freedom. Although the documentary surveys the life of three men in order to tell their stories, the film is highly edited and depicts the men as compromising their masculinity through body mutilation. Weber argues the film lacks introspection beyond depicting the men as new-age freaks, and does not account or address the history and culture behind non-normative bodies.

Weber continues to combat the use of freaks by presenting her definition of freak rooted in the history of freak shows and then follows the stories of each of the men featured in the documentary. Weber notes, though not expanded upon by the filmmakers, the documentaries inclusion of interviews with all three men featured positing that they used the body modification surgery to remove their genitals in order gain further control over their masculinity. In contrast to Sigmund Freud’s theory about the fears of men involving the physical removal of genitals linked to their masculinity and power thus leaving them in a state that is more markedly feminine, ironically the men featured in the documentary feel more powerful without their phallic body parts due to their ability to control their hormones and thus achieve higher control over their bodies and minds. By removing their physical masculinity, they are ironically performing a thoroughly masculine act.

Weber concludes that the men’s want to move out of the realm of gender conformity  through performing individualized acts of body modification that physically represents their identification as neither male or female but simply human, also “creates the terms for the hyper articulation of gender codes” (Weber, 2013: 691.)

Although this article is not specifically about sex education, I found through reading the article about the physical and mental contributions of acknowledging, removing, ignoring, or keeping ones genitalia enlightening in regards to how sex educators talk about genitalia in the classroom. Genitals are often regarded as taboo and showing images of them, even though educational, non-sexual in goal, and constructive are still seen as breaching proper conduct with minors in the classroom. How does sex education and the way American students, specifically in California, are taught about the body parts they all have set the stage for performative body modification or self identification with ones genitals?

Weber, Brenda (2013). Masculinity, American Modernity, and Body Modification: A Feminist Reading of American Eunuchs. The Journal of Women in Culture and Society. 38(3).

“Paving the Road to “to Big to Fail”: Business Interest and the politics of Financial Deregulation in the United States” by Sandra Suárez and Robin Kolodny, discusses the connection between public policy makers, polices, and business alliances. The article analyzes the time period of the financial crisis in 2007-09 to critique the political process leading to the FMA, the Financial Modernization Act. The result of the review of FMA’s process concluded in finding several factors such as: “political institutions, international competition, the ideological converges of the Republican and democratic parties and the political interest of financial industry actors”; that contributed to the establishment of the FMA. The FMA is an act that repealed depression-era regulations, allowing commercial banks to enter the securities and insurance business and vice versa established in 1999. This goes into proving “to big to fail” by condoning the emergence of largely unregulated diversified financial institutions. “To Big to Fail” is basically the story of the financial crises of 2007- ’09, when “wall street and Washington fought to save the financial system.. and themselves.” Overall the topic would be how the certain relationships among policy makers and business alliances set up certain financial situations, narrowing down into specifically how did the FMA process correlate with the crisis of 2007-09? This is a correlation study, where the data types consist of organizational data, historical and reports of acts data. Patterns and historical review will locate some of the data used, but also public and private records will help. To analyze the data intake they used categorical data analysis in comparing company and governmental positions. You can Find this article at the Armocost Library in the Journal “Politics and Society” Volume 39 Number 1 March 2011 a Sage Publications Production.

Suárez, Sandra and Kolodny, Robin. “Paving the Road to “to Big to Fail”: Business Interests and the politics of Financial Deregulation in the United States.” Politics & Society 39, no.1 (2011): 74-102.

In the article, Difference in Student Achievement by Grade Span Configuration for Students Who Where Economically Disadvantaged researchers Carolyn F. Fiaschetti, and John R. Slate professors at Sam Houston State University investigated reading achievement amongst fifth and sixth graders both of which were economically disadvantaged. The schools researched were made of multiple grade levels (K-8), which were compared to single grade levels (K-5). The researchers were curious to find out if students living in both economically disadvantaged areas, and who were also required to make more transitions throughout their educational careers would suffer educationally.

The researchers posed the following research questions: (a) What is the effect of grade span configuration on the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills Reading test passing rates for students in Grade 5 who were economically disadvantaged in the 2010-2011 school year?; and (b) What is the effect of grade span configuration on the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills Reading test passing rates for students in Grade 6 who were economically disadvantaged in the 2010-2011 school year?

Participants of the study were students, all of whom were enrolled in either PREK-6^th grade (elementary schools) or who were enrolled in single or double grade (Grades 4-5, 5 only, or 5-6) schools. The schools used in the study and therefore whose data was obtained and analyzed were all grade level public schools in Texas. Archival data for each of the schools were accessed through the Texas Education Agency Academic Excellence Indicator System. All of the data analyzed in this investigation was intended for students whom identified as being economically disadvantaged. Groupings were created amongst the grade level, and were downloaded as Excel files, and then converted into SPSS data files. The independent variable used in this investigation was grade span configuration grouping and the dependent variables were the passing rates in reading for Grade 5 and for Grade 6 students who were economically disadvantaged.

Once the research was complete the study showed students in the multigrade level schools had higher reading passing rates, almost 2% higher, than those enrolled in single grade level campuses.

I found this information to be very beneficial. It is eye-opening to realize that students living in economically disadvantaged areas are already facing enough stress, and constant change in their lives. To also incorporate a great deal of adjustment, and moving in their schooling will only create higher rates of stresses therefore leading to a decrease in their educational success.

I am interested in hearing your thoughts on multiple vs. single grade schooling. Which did you attend? And do you think it helped or hindered your educational success?

The article I found is titled The Environmental and Economic Impacts of Ocean Acidification,  written by the U.S. Subcommittee on Oceans, Atmosphere, Fisheries and Coast Guard. Ocean acidification is currently one of the greatest threats facing our oceans today. Ocean acidification is caused by the mixing of seawater and carbon dioxide, which forms carbonic acid, thereby increasing the acidity of the ocean. According to the article, in the past 250 years, atmospheric and oceanic carbon contractions have increased by 40 percent, while the pH of our oceans has decreased  by roughly 30 percent, which is a rate of change that has not been seen in over 800,000 years. Only until recently did scientists find out what this entails for marine life in the ocean. Coral reefs are rapidly depleting, hard shelled organisms are unable to form shells, and other marine life is migrating to other areas of the ocean. This document attempted to analyze and provide solutions that combat ocean acidification. The researchers involved in this study needed expert knowledge, reports of events, as well as economic data which may have required several of the following: public and private records, in-depth interviews, surveys, as well as field research. I believe this piece was well done and provided accurate and informational information.

U.S. Subcommittee on Oceans, Atmosphere, Fisheries and Coast Guard (22 April 2010). The Environmental and Economic Impacts of Ocean Acidification. Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation for the United States Senate. pp. 1-21.

The article I came across in the library was from the Journal of Religion and was titled “On Giving Religious Intolerance Its Due: Prospects for Transforming Conflict in a Post-Secular Society”. The author, Jason A. Springs, through this essay tries to find if intolerance and conflict, coming from moral and religious identities and commitments, can be rearranged and used as resources of constructive social and political purposes. In today’s day in age when our society is becoming more and more secular, it is interesting to look at articles such as this one to find out the current significance of religion within society. Especially when it comes to politics, and political speech, are such discussions important. Throughout this piece, the author takes three different steps to investigate his topic. First, he explores the social limits to which religion is accommodated for within public and political life. He then goes on to explore the attempt of Charles Taylor to improve the discussed accommodation through mutual understandings of identity-based opponents. The third section looks at how religiously affiliated conflict and intolerance can be reframed. Within this, he proposed that perhaps the most good comes from intentional conflict, arguing that intolerance is not good, but it can somehow lead towards progress. In all of this research, the fact that America has become so incredibly diverse comes about, as can be seen through an increasing number of secular communities contrasted against a variety of religious fundamentalist groups. Within such a society, there is bound to be the fusion and creation of new horizons. In this piece, the author seems to look at the surface level information addressing the topic of his research. Through looking at reports of acts and events, he rounds his argument through the eyes and work of other researchers. I think an argument could also be made for his use of detached observation and grounded theory of hidden social patterns as they relate to society’s view of religion today.

Although this particular article was somewhat hard to understand, given the particularity of the subject matter, I thought it was really interesting. Although I have thought a lot about the decline of religion in the United States, I had never thought to look into how social and political narratives affect religious intolerance and conflict. I think, if anything, this article does a sufficient job of beginning to address such issues. However, I do think it could have gone farther in depth, looking past the literature on the topic and into more real life scenarios. This is definitely an article I can circle back to as a resource, and one whose references would be useful as well.

Springs, J. A. (2012). On Giving Religious Intolerance Its Due: Prospects for Transforming Conflict in a Post-secular Society. The Journal of Religion,92(1), 1-30. doi:10.1086/662203

Today, in the United States, juvenile delinquency is a rising problem, especially among those with disabilities. The rate of recidivism among these youth is becoming a large problem as well, and those with disabilities are exceptionally vulnerable. This study looks into the different patterns of recidivism among disabled, incarcerated youth and different components associated with it. This particular study dealt with 5,435 juveniles with disabilities. They collected their data from the records of the family court intake, in South Carolina department of juvenile justice. They split up the subjects into 3 different subgroups using the latent class analysis model. Each group had different combination or organizational data such as gender, ethnicity (either Caucasian or African American) family income, age at first referral (into the juvenile justice system) first referral offense severity, family delinquency and drug use. The three separate sub groups could be summarized as follows: subgroup 1 were the economically disadvantaged but with fewer problems in family delinquency and drug use, subgroup 2 were the economically better off group with relatively equal racial distributions and subgroup 3 were the African American males who have more families with delinquency history. After the collection, and analysis of their data, researchers concluded that sub group 3 had the highest percentage of juveniles returning to the juvenile justice system. One of their pattern discoveries associated with this find was that group belonging predicted the likelihood of recidivism.

This research was very well preformed. The researchers included many separate factors that have been known to cause recidivism and used prior knowledge and research surrounding this topic to help create a solid project. The most interesting statistic that I learned while reading this study was that while only 8.2% of students in schools have disabilities, disabled students make up 47.7% of the juveniles justice system. That is a horrifying number and tells us that something needs to change in the handling of juvenile delinquency, especially surrounding disabled youth.

Zhang, D., Hsu, H., Katsiyannis, A., Barrett, D. E., & Ju, S. (2011). Adolescents with Disabilities in the Juvenile Justice System: Patterns of Recidivism. Exceptional Children, 77(3), 283-298. doi:10.1177/001440291107700302

The article I found in the library is titled “Plant Community Recovery following Restoration in Temporally Variable Riparian Wetlands,” done by Meyer, Whiles and Baer and published in Restoration Ecology in 2010. The research topic was the effectiveness of river/wetland restoration projects done on the Platte river, which is located within the Great Plains, with the study area in southern Nebraska. Over three years they monitored several sites that had been restored at various times, including three natural sites that had never been disturbed for comparison. Their research question was “[Do] measures of community structure (richness, diversity) …increase with time since restoration [of wetlands]?” They found that over time the restored wetlands indeed had more plants, but that undisturbed wetlands and older restored wetlands actually had less richness and diversity than newly restored wetlands. I would put their data into the category of events/acts, as they were measuring mainly plant growth and water levels, which are things that happen. They gathered this data through observation of the sites, visiting them at certain intervals to count numbers and species of plants at each site. They used various forms of statistical analysis to compare the plant communities of the sites with each other and over time. Another significant finding from this research was that there were many challenges in getting a comparison of the wetlands based only on time since restoration, because there were many other variables in this natural experiment, such as soil composition, precipitation differences and management. Even though this study faced a lot of challenges, the resulting findings that diversity actually did not increase over time seems valid and interesting to me, and I think it could potentially be a part of a broader study of how to go about restoring and managing wetlands in this particular area, answering a “how to” research question.

Reference:

Meyer, C.K., Whiles, M.R., Baer S.G. (2008). Plant community recovery following restoration    in temporally variable riparian wetlands. Restoration Ecology. 18(1), 52-64. doi:10.1111/j.1526-100x.2008.00451.x