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Rapid increases in the global human population have led to agricultural intensification worldwide, highlighting the need for conserving the remaining fragmented natural areas and incorporating more sustainable farming techniques. South Africa is currently the largest producer of macadamia nuts in the world and macadamia plantings are increasing rapidly, resulting in the loss of natural vegetation. The study area, Hazyview in Mpumalanga, is an agricultural mosaic, with fragments of natural vegetation patches in between. These natural vegetation patches are key to retaining important ecosystem services for the agricultural industry such as pollination and pest-control. This study evaluated how a land-use mosaic, represented by an agricultural landscape with natural vegetation retained around the farms, is related with macadamia nut yield and quality, the activity of insectivorous bat species, and nocturnal insect abundance, with a specific focus on five different macadamia farms. The role and contribution of bats and insects in agro-ecosystems are becoming more apparent, and their importance as indicator species which can reflect environmental changes in plant and insect communities is of key value. With this information, I could gain a better understanding of the relationships between the surrounding biodiversity and the commercial macadamia nut production industry, as well as the potential impact that agriculture-induced landscape fragmentation has on the biodiversity in the region. Firstly, on-farm characteristics (e.g. tree age, density, height) for five farms were used, aswell as their yield and quality measures and land-use types surrounding each farm to determine potential relationships between macadamia nut yield and/or quality and proximity to surrounding natural vegetation. Farm characteristics such as the height and density of the macadamia trees planted had a significant association with yield and quality of the nuts which both decreased with increasing tree height and density. Additionally, a characteristic of land-use type (in this case, extent of waterbodies such as rivers/ dams and wetlands surrounding the farms) was found to have an association with yield. The surrounding natural areas likely act as a reservoir for both insects and their predators, which could be beneficial for the neighbouring agricultural lands by improving pollination, yield and nut quality through biological pest-control. Secondly, the Hazyview landscape composition was assessed, using National land-cover data and buffer zones around each of the five farms. Within a 5 km radius, land-cover composition varied across the five farms, reaching high proportions of natural vegetation (64.83 %), agriculture and forestry plantations (55.78 %), settlements (10.78 %) and water bodies (1.78 %) in some areas. This indicates the extent of the remaining natural vegetation surrounding each farm. Bat echolocation calls (bat activity) and insect collection (insect abundance) were conducted on two study farms. Sample points were located at different edge sites (land-use types), natural vegetation, river and road edges, to determine whether bats (activity) show preferences for foraging over macadamia orchards bordering natural vegetation and if insect abundance follows the same trend. Corresponding with other studies, land-use type, specifically natural vegetation bordering the farms, was significantly associated with increased bat activity and insect abundance within this agricultural landscape, with natural vegetation edges being preferred and road edges being least favoured by both. Bats from all three foraging guilds (clutter, clutter-edge and aerial) were recorded during the study, which indicates that the Hazyview farming region still appears to support a high bat species richness. In conclusion, this study highlights the importance of natural vegetation within an agricultural land-use mosaic and the benefits it can bring, both to the farmer and the surrounding biodiversity. Although ecosystem services were not directly measured, it can be deduced from the association of higher yield and better crop quality with surrounding natural vegetation, where the presence of bat and insects was found to be higher. Given the future increase in agricultural land expansion, information must be made publicly available, to allow farmers to consider all beneficial ecosystem services that the surrounding natural vegetation has to offer, namely pollination and pest-control. Farm management practices, which are aligned with consideration for ecosystem services have the potential to improve ecosystem functioning and service provision across agricultural landscapes. / Dissertation (MSc (Wildlife Management))--University of Pretoria, 2021. / Department of Science and Technology (DST), National Research Foundation (NRF) / Mammal Research Institute / MSc (Wildlife Management) / Unrestricted

This paper is a follow-up to the 2012 efforts of John Fife that identified Community Development Financial Institution-led food retail intervention policies as the most effective in bringing supermarkets to underserved urban areas. Specifically cited in the conclusion was the success of the Pennsylvania Fresh Food Financing Initiative. To further this research, this paper will utilize a similar structured inquiry to evaluate CDFI-led policies that were implemented during or since the FFFI program. Through five case studies (Pennsylvania (updated), California, Colorado, New Orleans, and New York) this paper examines the creation and results of several different retail intervention policies. Each case study provides the conditions predicating the need to improve food access and the policy instruments used to address the issues. The paper assesses the policies based on eight features: strategy components, aeris rating, funding stream, viability, duration, scope, cost-effectiveness, and replicability. The analysis compares the cases to determine the most successful and replicable policy used to address the food access issues plaguing urban areas commonly referred to as food deserts. The paper makes several conclusions regarding CDFI-led retail intervention policies. Successful retail intervention policies require strong and stable CDFI's administering policy funds to sustain operations. The geographic scope of the policy, in terms of statewide versus citywide, does not alter the potential of a policy so much as population density. The overall fund size and thus size of funding packages available to individual projects must be complementary to available funds on the market, which varies by area. Finally, policies are most effective with sufficient seed funding that carries few regulations or compliance requirements. / 0 / SPK / specialcollections@tulane.edu

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Ginseng, the root and rhizome of Panax ginseng C. A. Mey. (Araliaceae), is one of the most famed dietary and medicinal herbs worldwide due to its multifaceted efficacies. Ginsenosides and carbohydrates are demonstrated the major bioactive components of ginseng. Ginseng materials are always formed under various conditions, e.g. different growth years or different post-harvest processing/handling manners. These conditions can impact chemical profiles and thereby cause different quality and efficacy of ginseng. To address this issue, it will be necessary to understand the correlation between the quality and efficacy of ginseng materials formed under different conditions. Previous studies have attempted to investigate how growth years and post-harvest processing/handling manners affect the quality and efficacy of ginseng. In the most of these cases, several chemical components and biological parameters were selected as the indicators for evaluating the quality and efficacy of ginseng, respectively. However, it has been well recognized that the therapy of ginseng is featured by "multiple components against multiple targets". Therefore, several selected indicators may fail to comprehensively characterize the quality and efficacy of ginseng, thus cannot accurately reveal their correlations. Instead, holism-based approaches should be employed. In this study, we integrated chemomics, metabolomics and gut microbiota genomics to investigate the correlation between the quality and efficacy of ginseng in the conditions of growth years, steam-processing and sulfur-fumigation. First, chemomics approach was developed to qualitatively and quantitatively determine major ginsenosides and carbohydrates (poly-, oligo- and monosaccharides) by ultra-high performance liquid chromatography-tandem triple quadrupole mass spectrometry (UHPLC-QqQ-MS/MS) and high performance liquid chromatography coupled with evaporative light scattering detector (HPLC-ELSD) for characterizing the overall quality of ginseng. Second, ultra-performance liquid chromatography-quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry (UPLC-QTOF-MS/MS)-based metabolomics and 16S rRNA gene sequencing-based gut microbiota genomics coupled with biochemical parameters determination were performed to evaluate anti-fatigue and anti-obesity activities of the different ginseng on animal models. Third, the obtained multi-omics data were processed by multivariate statistical analysis and then were integrated to discuss the correlation between the quality and efficacy of ginseng materials in different conditions. The results indicated that: 1) ginseng with 4-6 growth years possessed different anti-fatigue activity in multiple targets due to the different effects of ginsenosides and carbohydrates on endogenous metabolism and gut microbiota; 2) steam-processing qualitatively and quantitatively altered ginsenosides and carbohydrates in ginseng, resulting in different anti-obesity activity between white ginseng and red ginseng, and the mechanisms potentially involve chemically structural/compositional specificity to gut microbiota; 3) SO2 residual content caused by sulfur-fumigation did not correlate with the quality, efficacy and toxicity changes of sulfur-fumigated ginseng, more specifically, less SO2 residue did not indicate higher quality, better efficacy nor weaker toxicity. The research provides scientific insights for guiding the clinical and dietary practice of ginseng and offers new methodology for comprehensively exploring the correlation between the quality and efficacy of herbal medicines

The ability to use force by police officers is one of their defining features. Police officers have a monopoly on the legitimate use of coercive force in the United States. A police officer’s decision to use force in an encounter depends on the behavior of both officer and citizen in an officer-citizen encounter. Each party interacts with, and responds to, the other over the course of the encounter, with each behavior and subsequent response drawing the encounter closer to its ultimate conclusion. As representatives of government, police officers have perhaps greater control in steering the interaction towards or away from a forceful conclusion. Using various techniques, police officers often can de-escalate an officer-citizen encounter before use of force is required. These techniques include things such as explaining the purpose of the interaction, keeping a respectful and safe distance from citizens, providing an introduction to citizens, exhibiting a calm and controlled demeanor, speaking directly and concisely, repeating important information, engaging in active listening, and clearly explaining the consequences of the offenders actions. The current study utilizes police officer body camera footage to examine if and how these eight officer de-escalation practices predict whether or not officers’ resort to using force in an officer-citizen encounter. Furthermore, the eight techniques are divided into proactive and reactive techniques in order to test whether a specific set of de-escalation techniques are more effective than another.

A mini dissertation submitted to the Faculty Of Education in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree Of Master Of Education in Research Methodology at the Department of Education Psychology and Special Needs Education at the University Of Zululand, 2016 / The purpose of this study is to investigate anxiety associated with the use of technology among teachers in Lesotho. The sample consists of 100 high school teachers from various schools located in the Maseru district. To meet the objectives, a questionnaire was designed, which collected data on teachers’ anxieties towards technology in relation to demographic variables. The findings of the study suggest that the educators do differ in their anxiety levels in relation to technology, and that there is no correlation between age and anxiety. The relationship between the variable of gender and anxiety is revealed. Furthermore, teaching experience is found to have a significant effect on anxiety, while nationality is found to have no effect on anxiety.

The study aimed at examining the relationship between contraceptive use and fertility in Western region, Uganda, using a sample of 1993 women from the Uganda Demographic Health Survey of 2000-2001. Uganda Demographic Health Survey (UDHS) 2000-2001 is the third survey conducted by the Ugandan Ministry of Health. Chi-square, Logistic regression and multiple regression were used to test and determine factors contributing to the high fertility levels and low contraceptive usage in the region. Results show that the region has a total fertility rate of 6.4, and childbearing is not evenly distributed among age groups. Fertility peaks at ages 20-29, and reduces sharply with women in their late reproduction span. Contraception and fertility are inversely correlated. Though knowledge on contraception is universal, contraceptive prevalence remains low (95% and 16% respectively) among women of reproductive age. Family planning approval is inversely related with contraceptive use. Findings reveal that contraceptive prevalence plays minor role in explaining fertility levels as compared to some socioeconomic factors. Education is significantly and inversely related with fertility, but positively correlated with contraceptive use. The government should revisit the population policy to actively promote family planning activities by promoting and facilitating debates about family size, and the means to achieve. Women education needs to be emphasized in order to promote innovative reproductive behavior. More research to explore whether women are using contraception for spacing rather than limiting is required.

Research relating to illicit use of prescription stimulants (IUPS) has, for the most part, focused on describing behaviors of IUPS. However, there have been few attempts to measure IUPS in a consistent manner or determine how to best predict IUPS in an effective and concise manner. Data from Mississippi State University undergraduates (N = 703) were analyzed to create two shortorm measures to predict lifetime IUPS. The data-driven shortorm consisted of 15 items and 5 factors, and accurately classified 74.8% of participants as users versus non-users. The hand-picked shortorm consisted of 8 items and 5 factors, and accurately classified 84.6% of participants as users versus non-users. Results of this study can begin to provide information and possible tactics for briefly and quickly measuring risk for IUPS, particularly in applied settings, like university health centers or academic admissions. Future directions for research include testing these created shortorm measures with longitudinal data collection, validating the measures on different populations, and determining if these measures can accurately predict specific behaviors related to IUPS (e.g., diversion, IUPS within certain time frames).