Forest community characteristics on six forest stands in northeastern Mississippi were investigated. Study sites included two cottonwood stands, two managed hardwood stands, and two unmanaged hardwood stands. Relationships between forest stand components and habitat characteristics were estimated. Measured forest stand characteristics included regeneration, midstory and overstory to estimate species composition and forest structure. Basal area, crown density, standing dead trees and fallen dead tree measurements were also taken in the fall of 2010. A higher amount of tree species in the cottonwood and managed hardwood stands with the unmanaged hardwood stands having the lowest number of tree species. It was also detected that the unmanaged hardwood stands contained a higher DBH of 29.0 cm than the remaining stands. Cottonwood stands had a higher tree per hectare than the other stands. The unmanaged hardwood stands also contained the largest amount of standing and fallen dead trees.

The Education for All Movement (EFA) premises its commitment on the belief that quality education for all youth will ensure that they have equal access to skills and knowledge that will assist them in getting into gainful employment and enable them to participate fully in their societies. The importance and benefits of providing access to education and lifelong learning opportunities to youth has been acknowledged by a majority of world countries. These countries believe that quality education to youth means the ability to survive, to live and work in dignity, to participate fully in development, improve quality of their lives, to make informed decisions, and continuous learning – requirements for citizens of the 21st century. However, EFA mid-term report shows that as much as 42% of the world’s secondary school going-age youth were not enrolled in 2006, the majority of these youth are found in sub-Saharan Africa. There are a few empirical studies on the extent of school non-attendance and the profile of these youth not enrolled in an educational institution in the region. The study makes use of the Statistics South Africa dataset, Community Survey 2007, to determine the prevalence of school non-enrolment in South Africa among the 16 to 18 year olds. Second, the study attempts to establish the characteristics of the youth not enrolled in an education institution. To this end, the study analyzed the extent of non-enrolment prevalence, vi and the geographic distribution of the problem. In order to determine the geographic distribution of the problem, I first look at the size of school non-enrolment problem, nationally. I then analyse provincial, district and local patterns of school non-enrolment. Lastly, I analyse the data for identifiable individual and family factors that could be associated with the youth not currently enrolled in an educational institution. My analysis shows that the extent of youth between 16 and 18 years not enrolled in school is 16.6%, confirming recent government reports on prevalence among this age cohort. The study reveals physiographic and sub-population characteristics associated with non-enrolment in school. Disability, lack of access to social security grants, the low education level of a parent, or head of household that is not a parent are factors found to be related with low school participation by youth from those households. The study recommends a deeper investigation on the impact that the physiographic characteristics have on patterns of school enrolment.

Although a specific program called the Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) has been generally recognized as the best-practice model that addresses the needs of the police officers in responding to mental health calls, many jurisdictions across the country have not only adopted the full CIT model but also have taken the liberty of adding new components and/or removing components of the original model in order to create a unique program that fits the needs of their individual community. The issue of differentiated adaptations of the original CIT model has created a controversy around best practice in the area of police response to individuals with mental health issues who are in crisis. Using an on-line survey and interview methods, this study examined a relationship between the degree of variation within specialized policing response models and their corresponding community characteristics. Previous research shows that the components of the original CIT model have positive influence on officers’ confidence in interacting with people with mental illness. Therefore, this study also hypothesized that a rating of an SPR police officers’ job satisfaction was likely to correlate with the degree to which an SPR program adhered to the original CIT model. The study found that mental health resources, extent of presence of special populations in a community, existence of SPR policies in law enforcement, mental health, and dispatch departments, and how much law enforcement and mental health administrators supported the program, all predicted the degree of total deviation of a program from the original CIT model. Population density, related to a distinction between rural and non-rural communities, did not predict the degree of deviation from the original CIT model. The study also found that the degree of deviation of a program from the original CIT model did not strongly predict the rating of SPR officers’ job satisfaction. The study discusses the possible reasons for the results as well as implications for stakeholders who are considering implementation of a Specialized Policing Response model in their communities. Limitations of the current study’s research design are also discussed.