This study is to assess natural resource management practices in Xilingol Biosphere Reserve (XBR) located in northern China in their institutional contexts. Institutions including legislation, regulations and administrative structures, responsibilities associated with land and resource rights, decision making powers and processes, and community participation, and the interactions between these institutions have exerted great impacts on how natural resources are used and managed in XBR. Local people have experienced great socioeconomic losses accompanied with the establishment of XBR. However, they have not been provided with adequate compensation for their lost benefits. This gave rise to the conflict between local people and XBR. The findings indicate that partnerships prove to be an inevitable trend for improving the reserve management and facilitating the resolution of a series of issues facing XBR.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Michigan. / "References": p. 177-182. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Columbia University, 1935. / Vita. Published also without thesis note. Bibliography: p. 413-420.

Background: Cognitive reserve (CR) has been associated with better cognitive function and lower risk of dementia in older people, yet it remains unclear whether sex moderates the association between CR and cognition. This study aims to identify whether sex influences both the relationships between brain-cognition and how CR proxies moderate the brain-cognition relationship. Materials and Methods: Complete data on the measures of CR, education, occupation, and cognition were available for 189 healthy individuals aged 60 to 71 years (105 men and 84 women). Multiple linear regression models were used to investigate the potential effect of sex and CR proxies on the association between the brain and cognition measures. Results: The results highlighted differences in speed/attention for males compared to females at high education and high occupational complexity. No significant sex differences in brain measures were observed in meanPutamen, meanCaudate, and meanHippocampal volume. Conclusion/Significance: Traditional reserve contributors are influenced by gender and may be a result of different social determinants among men and women. Both sex-specific risk and protective factors for cognitive decline trajectories are critical for advancing knowledge for individualized interventions.

Conserving biodiversity in human-dominated landscapes requires protecting networks of ecological reserves and managing the intervening matrix to maintain the potential for species to move among them. This dissertation provides original insights towards (1) identifying areas for protection in reserves that are critical to maintain biodiversity and (2) assessing the potential for species' movements among habitat patches in a reserve network. I develop and test methods that will facilitate conservation planning to promote viable, resilient populations through time. The first part of this dissertation tests and develops reserve selection strategies that protect either a single focal species in a dynamic landscape or multiple interacting species in a static landscape. Using a simulation model of boreal forest dynamics, I test the effectiveness of static and dynamic reserves to maintain spatial habitat requirements of a focal species, American Marten (Martes americana). Dynamic reserves improved upon static reserves but re-locating reserves was constrained by fragmentation of the matrix. Management of the spatial and temporal distribution of land-uses in the matrix will therefore be essential to retain options for re-locating reserves in the future. Additionally, to include essential consumer-resource interactions into reserve selection, a new algorithm is presented for American marten and its two primary prey species. The inclusion of their interaction had the benefit t of producing spatially aggregated reserves based on functional species requirements. The second part of this dissertation evaluates and synthesizes the network-theoretic approach to quantify connectivity among habitat patches or reserves embedded within spatially heterogeneous landscapes. I conduct a sensitivity analysis of network-theoretic connectivity analyses that derive least-cost movement behavior from the underlying cost surface which describes the relative ecological costs of dispersing through different landcover types. Landscape structure is shown to aff ect how sensitive least-cost graph connectivity assessments are to the quality (relative cost values) of landcover types. I develop a conceptual framework to classify network connectivity statistics based on the component of habitat connectivity that they quantify and the level within the network to which they can be applied. Together, the combination of reserve design and network connectivity analyses provide complementary insights to inform spatial planning decisions for conservation.

Analysts increasingly have used probabilistic approaches to evaluate the uncertainty in reserves estimates based on a decline curve analysis. This is because the results represent statistical analysis of historical data that usually possess significant amounts of noise. Probabilistic approaches usually provide a distribution of reserves estimates with three confidence levels (P10, P50 and P90) and a corresponding 80% confidence interval. The question arises: how reliable is this 80% confidence interval? In other words, in a large set of analyses, is the true value of reserves contained within this interval 80% of the time? Our investigation indicates that it is common in practice for true values of reserves to lie outside the 80% confidence interval much more than 20% of the time using traditional statistical analyses. This indicates that uncertainty is being underestimated, often significantly. Thus, the challenge in probabilistic reserves estimation using a decline curve analysis is not only how to appropriately characterize probabilistic properties of complex production data sets, but also how to determine and then improve the reliability of the uncertainty quantifications. This thesis presents an improved methodology for probabilistic quantification of reserves estimates using a decline curve analysis and practical application of the methodology to actual individual well decline curves. The application of our proposed new method to 100 oil and gas wells demonstrates that it provides much wider 80% confidence intervals, which contain the true values approximately 80% of the time. In addition, the method yields more accurate P50 values than previously published methods. Thus, the new methodology provides more reliable probabilistic reserves estimation, which has important impacts on economic risk analysis and reservoir management.

Thesis (M.S. in environmental science)--Washington State University, December 2009. / Title from PDF title page (viewed on Jan. 22, 2010). "School of Earth and Environmental Science." Includes bibliographical references (p. 18-23).

Thesis--University of Pennsylvania. / Includes bibliographical references (p. [205]-208).

More North American Aboriginal women are being diagnosed with gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) than the general population. Despite the association of a number of health problems with GDM, there have been few evaluations of GDM prevention projects. Nor have investigators looked at Aboriginal women’s understandings of GDM in an effort to develop appropriate and effective health strategies. A qualitative investigation was therefore proposed to describe the experiences of Aboriginal women with GDM. The study began with unstructured interviews and focus groups with 25 advisors such as maternal care providers and community representatives working with Aboriginal women. Semi-structured explanatory model interviews were then conducted with 29 Aboriginal women in Winnipeg, the capital city of Manitoba, Canada. Fixed-response interviews were also administered and analyzed using cultural consensus analysis to determine whether or not shared cultural understandings existed among the Aboriginal women participants. Results of the consensus analysis revealed biomedical understandings were the most commonly shared. A more variable response was associated with women’s personal interpretations of GDM, leading to weak consensus overall. Thematic analysis of the semi-structured interviews illustrated the fear, anxiety and frustration many participants experienced with GDM. Women discussed their emotional reactions alongside negative relationships with food and other prescribed lifestyle treatments. These perspectives, combined with results from the group of advisors, pointed to communication and cultural barriers which may limit the quality of prenatal care received. Collectively the results suggest living with GDM can be overwhelming and underscore the need for health care providers to encourage self-efficacy and emotional security towards effective management practices. Research contributing to a more comprehensive understanding of Aboriginal women’s experiences with GDM is also required, to provide further perspective for diabetes prevention and positive change.

More North American Aboriginal women are being diagnosed with gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) than the general population. Despite the association of a number of health problems with GDM, there have been few evaluations of GDM prevention projects. Nor have investigators looked at Aboriginal women’s understandings of GDM in an effort to develop appropriate and effective health strategies. A qualitative investigation was therefore proposed to describe the experiences of Aboriginal women with GDM. The study began with unstructured interviews and focus groups with 25 advisors such as maternal care providers and community representatives working with Aboriginal women. Semi-structured explanatory model interviews were then conducted with 29 Aboriginal women in Winnipeg, the capital city of Manitoba, Canada. Fixed-response interviews were also administered and analyzed using cultural consensus analysis to determine whether or not shared cultural understandings existed among the Aboriginal women participants. Results of the consensus analysis revealed biomedical understandings were the most commonly shared. A more variable response was associated with women’s personal interpretations of GDM, leading to weak consensus overall. Thematic analysis of the semi-structured interviews illustrated the fear, anxiety and frustration many participants experienced with GDM. Women discussed their emotional reactions alongside negative relationships with food and other prescribed lifestyle treatments. These perspectives, combined with results from the group of advisors, pointed to communication and cultural barriers which may limit the quality of prenatal care received. Collectively the results suggest living with GDM can be overwhelming and underscore the need for health care providers to encourage self-efficacy and emotional security towards effective management practices. Research contributing to a more comprehensive understanding of Aboriginal women’s experiences with GDM is also required, to provide further perspective for diabetes prevention and positive change.