An article published in Annual Review of Plant Physiology and Plant Molecular Biology, 48, 609–639, titled “More efficient plants: a consequence of rising atmospheric CO2?” attempts to answer that question by using various data gathered from previous studies. Conducted by Drake B.G., Gonzàlez-Meler M.A., and Long S.P., the research aims to analyze the collected data with conclusions made from other literature to give explanation to the questions: Why does the rise of CO2 level increase resource-use efficiency for plants and what are the implications of this increased efficiency?

The effects of atmospheric carbon dioxide (Ca) on plants gives knowledge to what is expected in the future if the trend of rising CO2 continues. The article concludes that rising Ca, in general, causes plants to use resources more efficiently. Increase in photosynthesis, light-use efficiency, water use efficiency, and nutrient-use efficiency were all present in an environment of elevated Ca. It also reduces transpiration and stomatal conductance. There more efficient plants as a consequence of elevated atmospheric CO2, in terms of higher carbon assimilation per unit of water lost, per unit nitrogen content, and per unit absorb light.

The type of data the was obtained to answer the questions was physiological traits. The research surveyed studies as a means to collect physiological traits of plants exposed to elevated Ca and with those that were not exposed to elevated Ca. With the collected data, species with its given environment were able to be compared with each other to draw physiological differences.

The research approached “efficiency” of plants in many angles and provided meaningful information. Efficiency was evaluated in terms of water, nutrient, and light. Limitation of the study were discussed which gave a more thorough insight. An example of this is the research’s response to situation where there was a lack of response to elevated Ca. and that it states that is was unclear whether it was caused by specific genes of the plants or because of the effects of high humidity on the stomata. The research presented unanswered questions and that some statements lacked evidence conclude. Suggestions to future studies to answer these questions would have been a good addition to the paper. Overall, however, the research was executed very well. The analysis of multiple studies and the reasoning of the use of data give very substantial information to the effects of Ca on plants.

In the article, “Effects of Centralized and Onsite Wastewater Treatment on the Occurrence of Traditional and Emerging Contaminants in Streams” by G.M. Ferrell and B.H. Grimes they discuss a study that took a survey of small streams, seven sites in total, in the Neuse River Basin in North Carolina to assess the effects of centralized and onsite wastewater treatment on the occurrence of selected traditional and emerging contaminants. Also included in the survey was undeveloped site to assess effects of residential land use activities on stream quality. Overall they found that concentrations were higher, of nutrients and ions, in the residential site. In these areas there was little difference between the types of wastewater treatment. Although they stated that two sites showed effects of wastewater, one was from an area near a suspected sewage line leak with centralized wastewater treatment, and the second one used onsite wastewater treatment. In these two particular sites organic wastewater compounds were more common than the other sites.

This study’s research topic was essentially the effects of emerging contaminants (versus traditional contaminants) from centralized or onsite wastewater treatment systems on streams and they asked the question; what are the effects of centralized and onsite wastewater treatment on the occurrence of selected traditional and emerging contaminants in small streams in the upper Neuse River basin, North Carolina?

The type of data they used was aggregate, interval data. They collected water samples at seven different sites and then processed them and shipped them to various laboratories across the country to analyze the data. The samples were collected in accordance with the guidelines of the U.S. Geological Survey and were collected between December 2004 and June 2005. The labs tested each sample for traditional contamination such as, nutrients and pathogens, as well as emerging contaminants like pharmaceuticals and personal care products. Each sample was ranked by its collection period and then tested by ranked values.

This research did a good job making sure there was a valid sample and also the article reported the data that got messed up or wasn’t as accurate. It also provided some reasoning for the data results they came up with. In the conclusion they stated that more data would be needed in order to receive a complete and accurate idea of wastewater contamination in streams. They also provided a link to the actual data collected if the reader wanted to see the data themselves. Graphs and tables were also provided within the article to better show how the data was analyzed.

Ferrell G.M.; Grimes B.H. Effects of Centralized and Onsite Wastewater Treatment on the Occurrence of Traditional and Emerging Contaminants in Streams. Journal of Environmental Health. 2014, 76, 18-28.

Kao, Grace, and Marta Tienda. “Optimism and Achievement: The Educational Performance of Immigrant Youth .” Social Science Quarterly. no. 1 (1995). http://0-web.a.ebscohost.com.books.redlands.edu/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=47797f1f-2597-4932-8916-fe5aa80aeeeb@sessionmgr4005&vid=1&hid=4204 (accessed February 1, 2014).

This article can also be found in the Armacost Library.

“Optimism and Achievement: The Educational Performance of Immigrant Youth” by Grace Kao and Marta Tienda looks at whether assimilation benefits immigrant students. It looks at “the relative merits of three hypotheses regarding generational status and scholastic performance: (1) straight-line assimilation; (2) accommodation without assimilation; (3) immigrant optimism,” as explained in the abstract. The article first looks at hypotheses one and two by comparing data on educational achievements and moves to compare these findings further with data on parental attitudes and behaviors. The topic of this article is the educational performance of immigrant youth and poses the question: does assimilation benefit the educational achievement of immigrant youth?

This question can be answered with a few different types of data. Educational achievement should most-likely be measured with quantitative data such as test scores, grades, or graduation rates. In this case, the study uses test scores, grades, and college aspirations of eighth graders. In this study, the authors used The National Educational Longitudinal Study of 1988, a national survey with a two-stage  probability sampling design, providing a nationally representative sample of 24,599 students from 1,052 randomly selected schools. The authors looked at a statistical profile of students. For grades, they simply compared the grades of students with first generation, second generation, and third generation immigrant status and native-born status. In addition, they performed a regression analysis on middle-school grades, eighth grade math and reading test scores, and aspirations to graduate from college. To analyze parental attitudes and behaviors, they performed a statistical analysis on family rules and communication among first generation immigrant parents, second generation immigrant parents, and native generation parents and looked at the relationship between these data and educational achievement.

This research was very thorough and provided statistical analysis which provided results that were easy to organize and present in their write-up. Although some members of the general public may struggle to interpret statistical analyses, they don’t need to be able to do so to understand the findings because the authors explain the results with great detail. The research was ethical, informative, and designed to be unbiased. The only difficulty I had was an unclear definition of “college aspirations.” I’m assuming the data on college aspirations were collected in a way that made them quantifiable because a statistical analysis was performed on the data, however it is not clear what they mean in the results by “higher college aspirations” among certain groups.

Interestingly, other variables appeared to have an impact on the results: race and ethnic background. The authors did take the time to address these variables in their results. This research wielded favorable results for accommodation without assimilation and immigrant optimism and did not favor straight-line assimilation. It is interesting to see two out of three of their hypotheses were favored by the data and one was not because we often think of hypotheses of mutually exclusive. The two different types of data were helpful in strengthening the results of the study, and looking at the relationship between the two offered a detailed analysis.

Therapeutic Community in a California Prison:

Treatment Outcome after 5 years 

Zhang, Sheldon X., Robert E. L. Roberts, and Kathryn E. McCollister. 2011. “Therapeutic       Community in California Prison: Treatment Outcome after 5 years.”

Crime and Delinquency 57(1): 82-101.

The article above discusses the research topic, “Outcomes of Therapeutic Community treatment participants in the California Prison system”. This article covers research that was conducted while studying a group of inmates who participated in a prison-based therapeutic community in a California state prison, with a comparison group of similar offenders. The article goes about answering the question, “Do therapeutic communities help participants lower return-to-prison patterns, if not, what are the new arrests and types of offenses?” The research took place during the enrollment in the therapeutic community (TC), as well as 5 years after their initial prison release.  The study followed the inmates for 5 years after their initial release in order to record return-to-prison patterns and new-arrests and types of offenses. The type of data that will answer the basic research question are reports of acts, behavior and events, economic data, and self identification.

Therapeutic communities are beginning to become increasingly popular options among correctional facilities with drug-involved offenders. Therapeutic communities are typically drug-free residential settings that rely heavily on peer influence and group processes to promote abstinence and pro-social behavior. Research findings on therapeutic communities in prison have been mostly positive. Inmates who completed the TC treatment and entered into aftercare showed the most positive outcomes at 12 and 24-month intervals.

After treatment, TC participants were offered one of three treatments in aftercare: residential, sober living with mandatory drug-free outpatient services, and drug-free outpatient services. Many studies have found that the highest rates of successful outcomes accrued to those who completed post release aftercare programs. Because most aftercare programs are voluntary, it appears that inmates’ innate motivational factors play an important role in post release treatment participation and successful reintegration into the community.

The rate of return-to-prison among participants was examined in two follow-up periods: the first year following release from prison and the period between the inmate’s release and the end of data collection, averaging just less than 5 years and 4 months. The research was conducted by the following:

1. In-depth interview – yielding data on each participants demographic background, educational and employment histories, criminal and substance abuse histories, psychological functioning, relationships with family and friends, health status, and health service utilization.

2. Detached observation and participant observation – 4 additional years post in-depth interviews.

3. Public records – arrest records maintained by the California Department of Justice and the prison inmate data maintained by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. Used to determine whether or not participants were reincarcerated, and if so, under what circumstances and offenses.

With the data analysis conducted by the following:

1. Interview data is used to separate the inmates into the control group and the experimental group. The information is to place similar individuals in both of the groups.

2. Bivariate associations (correlations) – to determine whether or not TC communities help participant’s lower return-to-prison rates.

3. Frequency counts (numbers and percentages) – to determine what percentage of TC participants and comparison participants were reincarcerated and if so, for how long.

More than half of ALL study participants were returned to prison within 12 months of release. Treatment participants who received aftercare upon release were roughly 10% less likely to be incarcerated during the first year. More than 72% of both groups were reincarcerated at least once by the end of the 5-year observation period. As a group, the TC participants and the comparison participants had almost identical reincarceration rates.

Over both follow-up periods, TC participants who received aftercare were rearrested at a rate lower than that of those who did not. None of the observed difference in either observation period reached any statistical significance.