This guidebook describes the Saddle Bag Mountain Research Natural Area, a 121-ha (300-ac) tract established to represent an old-growth remnant of Pacific silver fir (Abies amabilis) and western hemlock (Tsuga heterophylla) forest in the Oregon Coast Range. Pacific silver fir and noble fir (Abies procera) occur as isolated remnants, and both species are approaching the southern limits of their natural range in the Oregon Coast Range.

This guidebook describes the Grass Mountain Research Natural Area, a 377-ha (931-ac) tract in the Oregon Coast Range. The area supports a grass bald complex surrounded by stands dominated by noble fir (Abies procera) and/or Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii) in the overstory, and western hemlock (Tsuga heterophylla) in the understory. The area also contains a small rock garden plant community along high-elevation ridges, and young Douglas-fir forest that originated from a wildfire. Headwaters of high-elevation, Oregon Coast Range streams are surrounded by noble fir forest and add to the site diversity.

This guidebook describes the Little Sink Research Natural Area, a 32.38-ha (80-ac) tract occupying an area of geologically unstable marine siltstone exhibiting natural geomorphic disturbances including landslides, slump benches, scarps, basins and ponds. The area supports forested stands dominated by Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii) as well as stands codominated by Douglas-fir and bigleaf maple (Acer macrophyllum) representative of coniferous forest along the foothills of the Willamette Valley.

Over a 3-day weekend in the spring of 2004 a group of scientists interested in extending understanding of place as applied in recreation research and management convened a working session in Portland, Oregon. The purpose of the gathering was to clarify their understanding of place-related concepts, approaches to the study of people-place relations, and the application of that understanding in recreation management for the purpose of integrating perspectives from different disciplines, discussing approaches to understanding and measuring sense of place, and other questions around the study and application of place-related concepts. Topics that generated the most discussion included how social processes influence place meanings, how place meanings are shared and negoitated within social groups, and when and how place meanings and attachments focus, reduce, or avert conflict in natural resource planning and management. This collection of papers is a result of that meeting.

Soils are fundamental to a healthy and functioning ecosystem. Therefore, forest land managers can greatly benefit from a more thorough understanding of the ecological impacts of fire and fuel management activities on the vital services soils provide. We present a summary of new research on fire effects and soils made possible through the Joint Fire Science Program and highlight management implications where applicable. Some responses were consistent across sites, whereas others were unique and may not easily be extrapolated to other sites. Selected findings include (1) postfire soil water repellency is most likely to occur in areas of high burn severity and is closely related to surface vegetation; (2) although wildfire has the potential to decrease the amount of carbon stored in soils, major changes in land use, such as conversion from forest to grasslands, present a much greater threat to carbon storage; (3) prescribed fires, which tend to burn less severely than wildfires and oftentimes have minor effects on soils, may nonetheless decrease species richness of certain types of fungi; and (4) early season prescribed burns tend to have less impact than late season burns on soil organisms, soil carbon, and other soil properties.

The compilation of papers in this proceedings is based on a symposium sponsored by the Insect and Diseases Working Group (D5) at the 2007 Society of American Foresters (SAF) convention in Portland, Oregon. The selection of topics parallels the research priorities of the Western Bark Beetle Research Group (WBBRG) (USDA Forest Service, Research and Development), which had been recently formed at the time of the symposium. Reflecting a unique partnership within the Forest Service, each paper was jointly prepared by a research scientist with the WBBRG and one or more entomologists with Forest Health Protection (USDA Forest Service, State and Private Forestry). Among these papers is a description of the currently elevated impacts of bark beetles in the Western United States; descriptions of the current state of knowledge of bark beetle response to vegetation management and also to climate change; discussions of the complex interactions of bark beetles and fire and of the complex ecological and socioeconomic impacts of infestations; an overview of the use of semiochemical (behavioral chemicals)-based technology for conifer protection; and a case study exemplifying efforts to assess risks posed by nonnative invasive bark beetles.

This guidebook describes Benjamin Research Natural Area, a 258-ha (637-ac) tract originally established to represent an example of the western juniper/Idaho fescue (Juniperus occidentalis/Festuca idahoensis) plant association. Subsequent field surveys indicate the predominant vegetation is best characterized as the western juniper/low sagebrush/Idaho fescue plant association. Current vegetation is dominated by western juniper woodland with an understory vegetation mosaic that varies with soil depth. Low sagebrush (Artemisia arbuscula Nutt.) occurs as the major shrub in shallow or rocky soils, and Wyoming big sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata Nutt. ssp. wyomingensis Beetle and Young) predominates in areas with deeper or more finely textured soil.

This guidebook describes Woodcock Bog Research Natural Area (RNA), a 114-ha (281-ac) area located within the Klamath-Siskiyou ecoregion in southwestern Oregon. The RNA includes a hanging fen and stream segment on ultramafic rock and derived soils. Numerous plant species occur within the fens that are endemic to the Klamath-Siskiyou Mountains of southwestern Oregon and northwestern California. Cobra lily (Darlingtonia californica), and sedges (Carex spp.) characterize the area. The site also supports very dry, open serpentine forest stands of Jeffrey pine (Pinus jeffreyi), along with denser stands of Port-Orfordcedar (Chamaecyparis lawsoniana), Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii), and other conifers typical of the region.

The Forest Service system of experimental forests and ranges (EFRs) and other sites of long-term silvicultural, watershed, and ecological research have contributed to science and natural resource management for more than a century. An important aspect of the success of EFR programs is strong collaboration between the research and land manager communities. This guide offers suggestions for effective research management partnerships based at EFRs and other long-term research sites. Keys to success include mutual understanding and respect, shared commitment to learning, and joint projects and communications programs.

This guidebook describes Cherry Creek Research Natural Area, a 239-ha (590-ac) area that supports old-growth Douglas-fir-western hemlock (Pseudotsuga menziesii- Tsuga heterophylla) forest occurring on sedimentary materials in the southern Oregon Coast Range.

This guidebook describes Camas Swale Research Natural Area, a 127-ha (314-ac) area that supports dry site, old-growth Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii) forest. Major plant associations present within the area include the Douglas-fir/salal/western swordfern (Pseudotsuga menziesii/Gaultheria shallon/Polystichummunitum) plant association, Douglas-fir/Oregongrape (Pseudotsuga menziesii/Berberis nervosa) plant association, Douglas-fir/poison oak (Pseudotsuga menziesii/Toxicodendron diversilobum) plant association, and Douglas-fir/hazelnut-trailing snowberry/western swordfern (Pseudotsuga menziesii/Corylus cornutavar. californica-Symphoricarpos mollis/Polystichum munitum) plant association.

This guidebook describes Fox Hollow Research Natural Area (RNA), a 66-ha (163-ac) area that supports dry-site Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii)–ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa) forest within the Oregon Coast Range ecoregion. Major forest plant associations represented at Fox Hollow RNA include Douglas-fir/salal/western swordfern (Pseudotsuga menziesii/Gaultheria shallon/Polystichum munitum) forest and Douglas-fir/Oregongrape (Pseudotsuga menziesii/Berberis nervosa) forest. Other forested communities are represented within the RNA in minor amounts including: Douglas-fir/poison oak (Pseudotsuga menziesii/ Toxicodendron diversilobum) forest, ponderosa pine-Douglas-fir/California fescue (Pinus ponderosa-Pseudotsuga menziesii/Festuca californica) woodland, and ponderosa pine-Douglas-fir-California black oak (Pinus ponderosa-Pseudotsuga menziesii-Quercus kelloggii) woodland.

This guidebook describes Upper Elk Meadows Research Natural Area (RNA), a 90-ha (223-ac) area that supports a mixture of coniferous forest and open, shruband herb-dominated wetlands. The major forest plant association present within Upper Elk Meadows RNA is Pacific silver fir/vine maple/coolwort foamflower (Abies amabilis/Acer circinatum-Tiarella trifoliata).

This list of recent publications and other products of the Pacific Northwest PNW Research Station is published four times a year. The first section shows items published by the PNW Research Station. The second section shows publications available elsewhere. In each section, items are grouped alphabetically by authors within categories. The list is available online and in pdf format.

Team is partnering with British Columbia to predict smoke impacts from province’s fires.

This guidebook describes major biological and physical attributes of the 243-ha(600-ac) North Fork Silver Creek Research Natural Area (RNA), Josephine County, Oregon.

This guidebook describes major biological and physical attributes of the 243-ha (600-ac) Round Top Butte Research Natural Area. The area supports high-quality examples of valley upland grasslands and savanna of the Cascade foothills. Plant communities include Oregon white oak (Quercus garryana) savanna and open woodland with forbs and grasses; ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa)-Oregon white oak woodland; bluebunch wheatgrass-California oatgrass-Lemmon’s needlegrass (Pseudoroegneria spicata-Danthonia californica-Achnatherum lemmonii) grasslands; and tufted hairgrass (Deschampsia cespitosa)-California oatgrass vernally flooded prairie.

This guidebook describes major biological and physical attributes of the 433-ha (1,070-ac) Grayback Glades Research Natural Area.

This guidebook describes major biological and physical attributes of the 3531-ha (8,725-ac) Fish Creek Rim Research Natural Area located within the Northern Basin and Range ecoregion and managed by the Bureau of Land Management, Lakeview District (USDI BLM 2003).

This guidebook describes major biological and physical attributes of the 155-ha (384-ac) Lost Lake Research Natural Area (RNA), in Jackson County, Oregon. The RNA has been designated because it contains examples of a landslide-dammed lake; and a low-elevation lake with aquatic beds and fringing marsh, surrounded by mixed-conifer forest (ONHAC 2010).

The Pacific Northwest Research Station launched a Biodiversity Initiative to assist natural resource professionals in integrating complex biodiversity concepts into natural resource management processes. We canvassed clients from various affiliations to determine the main challenges they face in biodiversity management, to define their information needs, and to understand how best to deliver biodiversity information within a collaborative framework. The biodiversity management challenges that emerged included (1) the lack of well-defined biodiversity management policies, (2) understanding and quantifying the interaction effects between a number of factors (e.g., disturbance types, management practices) and biodiversity, (3) the lack of applied biodiversity monitoring strategies, (4) difficulty in locating and accessing biodiversity information, and (5) balancing conflicting values relating to biodiversity. We also list the biodiversity information product needs of clients, as well as preferred technology transfer methods, and we discuss the future direction of the Biodiversity Initiative.

EDISON RESEARCH and NPR released the findings in its 2020 Smart Audio Report on smart speaker and voice-controlled device usage THURSDAY (4/30)  in a webinar hosted by EDISON's TOM … more

EDISON RESEARCH will present data from its annual "Moms & Media Report" in a webinar on THURSDAY (5/7) at 2p (ET). The presentation will be given by VP MELISSA DECESARE and will … more

AMERICAN PUBLIC MEDIA's MARKETPLACE and EDISON RESEARCH have released new polling data showing Americans' increasing economic anxiety due to the pandemic. In the annual survey, 69% of … more

EDISON RESEARCH's "THE RESEARCH MOMS" have released their annual "Moms and Media" study with data from the INFINITE DIAL study and additional results from an online … more

The Association is intent on having a new boss in place by July

Perron-Frobenius theorem and linear algebra have many virtues to extol

-- Read more on ScientificAmerican.com

We join The Nature Conservancy as they search for eastern indigo snakes released at the Apalachicola Bluffs and Ravines Preserve.

DALLAS, March 24, 2020 — As part of its global response to the growing COVID-19 pandemic, the American Heart Association, the world’s leading voluntary organization focused on heart and brain health and research, is committing  $2.5 million to research...

DALLAS, April 2, 2020 – The American Heart Association — the world’s leading voluntary organization dedicated to a world of longer, healthier lives — announced today more than $14 million in scientific research grants are being awarded to four...

The business world has changed over the years and you’ll need to rely on digital methods of marketing your brand to succeed. One of the best ways to do that is through search engine optimization (SEO) to get better traffic for your business. When you use the right techniques and strategies, you can double your organic traffic.  If you’re in the business of helping people with their search engine optimization needs, here are some of the best ways to double your client’s organic traffic. Help Clients Work On Their Content You need to teach and advise your clients on how

The post Search Engine Optimization – How to Double Your Client’s Organic Traffic appeared first on Photoshop Lady.

The Iowa Supreme Court approved a pilot program in the 4th Judicial District — Audubon, Cass, Fremont, Harrison, Mills, Montgomery, Pottawattamie, Page and Shelby counties — to develop...

A good idea when trying to get the most out of your blog is usging the meta tag to tell the web bots to search & index your site. But for good SEO you should apply this code in your header.php file of your WordPress blog. <?php if(is_search()) { ?> <meta name="robots" content="noindex, nofollow" /> […]

The post Disable search engine on search pages appeared first on WPCult.

Most all WordPress theme’s use a a simple search form to search your site. But what it you wanted to search your whole site and not just your posts. Search Unleashed comes into the picture. Search Unleashed performs searches across all data, including that added by plugins. Some features of this plugin are: Full text […]

The post Search Unleased: A custom WordPress plugin appeared first on WPCult.

The Iowa Supreme Court approved a pilot program in the 4th Judicial District — Audubon, Cass, Fremont, Harrison, Mills, Montgomery, Pottawattamie, Page and Shelby counties — to develop procedures for the use of electronic search warrants.

Electronic search warrants will reduce the time required to obtain warrants, reduce travel time by law enforcement and make more effective use of judges’ time, according to the order. Paper warrants require law enforcement to fill out application forms and then leave the scene of the potential search and drive to find a judge, either at a courthouse during business hours or their home after hours. If the judge grants the warrant, then the officer has to drive back to the scene to execute it.

The electronic warrants can be submitted to a judge from a squad car computer, which is more efficient for law enforcement and the judges.

The pilot program will be evaluated by the court annually and will continue until further notice.

Fourth Judicial District Chief Judge Jeff Larson, who was on the advisory committee to develop recommendations for the new process, talked about the project, which will start in the next few weeks.

Page County Chief Deputy Charles McCalla, 6th Judicial Associate District Judge Nicholas Scott, Linn County Sheriff Capt. Greg McGivern and Marion police Lt. Scott Elam also provided their thoughts about electronic search warrants.

Q: Iowa courts started going paperless in 2010, so why did it take so long to get a pilot program for electronic search warrants?

A: Larson: It had been discussed at various levels since (the electronic document management system) started. We should take advantage of the electronic process because it will save us money. Most law enforcement agencies are now used to filing electronic citations from their patrol cars and offices. There may have been some pushback a few years ago because some counties or offices didn’t have computer scanners and needed technology. Now, the rural offices have that technology.

Q: As a task force member working on this program, what were the hurdles?

A: Larson: It was just working through the procedural issues to make sure there would be a safeguard throughout the process. When a search warrant is needed, law enforcement has to fill out the search warrant package, including the application with all the pertinent information, and submit it to a magistrate judge, associate or district judge in their judicial district. Then the officer or deputy can just call the judge to alert him/her to the warrant and the judge can ask for any additional information needed. The judge then administers the oath of office over the phone and signs off or denies the warrant. Law enforcement doesn’t have to leave the crime scene and can print off the warrant from their squad car computer.

The process of going to electronic warrants started in 2017, when the lawmakers amended the law to allow those to be submitted electronically, and then in 2018, the state court administrator’s office set up an advisory committee to develop recommendations.

Q: What has been the process to get a search warrant?

A: Larson: Law enforcement would have to leave the scene, fill out paperwork and then, many times, travel miles to go to the courthouse to have the judge sign it or if it’s after hours, go to a judge’s home. The officer may not be in the same county as the courthouse where the judge works or where the judge lives. (It) can take a lot of time. The process is way overdue.

Q: Page County Sheriff’s Chief Deputy Charles McCalla, what do you see as the biggest advantage for filing them electronically?

A: McCalla: The smaller counties have limited manpower, and some of the judges, like in Mills County, may be 60 to 70 miles away if a search warrant is needed after hours. Just traveling across the county can take time, depending where you are. At a minimum, we probably have to drive 30 minutes and up to an hour to get to a judge. This will save us time, money for travel and provide safety because we can stay at the scene to ensure the evidence hasn’t been tampered with.

Q: Is there a recent incident where an electronic search warrant may have helped?

A: McCalla: A few weeks ago, there was a theft report for a stolen chain saw and deputies went to the home and saw guns all over the house and they knew the guy who lived there had been convicted. They didn’t want to tip him off, so they just left the scene and went to get a search warrant. Luckily, the evidence was still there when they came back. They found about 90 guns.

Q: How do you feel about being the “guinea pigs” for the process?

A: McCalla: Happy to be. As law enforcement, we’re natural fixers. We find solutions. And this is an idea time to use the process during the COVID-19 pandemic to keep everyone safe. We won’t have to have any face-to-face contact with the judges.

Q: Is Linn County excited about the program, once it’s tested and used across the state?

A: Scott: I think many of us in the criminal justice system are eagerly awaiting the results of the pilot. They have the potential to make the system more efficient. It is in the interest of the police and the suspect, who is often detained pending a warrant, to get the search warrant application reviewed by a judge as soon as possible. A potential benefit is that officers could also use those more often, which protects citizens from unlawful search and seizures if a judge first reviews the evidence.

A: McGivern: I believe the implementation will be a much faster and efficient process for deputies. Like any new process, there may need to be some revisions that will have to be worked out, but I look forward to it.

A: Elam: We’ve done it this way for a long time, and it can be a bit of a haul for us, depending who’s on call (among the judges) — after hours. It’s nice to see there’s a pilot. The concern would be if something goes wrong in the process. If the internet is down or something else. Now, we have to go from Marion to the Linn County Courthouse. Then we go to the county attorney’s office to get a prosecutor to review the warrant and then find a judge (in courthouse during business hours). That takes some time. If you can type out the application from your car right at the scene, it would help with details on the warrant — describing the structure or property needing be searched. I just hope they work out all the bugs first.

Comments: (319) 398-8318; trish.mehaffey@thegazette.com

Suicide attempts common in post-concussion patients, says Dr. Charles Tator of the Canadian Concussion Centre

Having too many WordPress themes to choose among is of course better than having too few. But there are times when searching for what you really need is like looking for the proverbial needle in the haystack. If you’ve been looking for a top-of-the-line multipurpose theme you will probably find it right here. We’ve listed […]

The post “Needle in a haystack” search problem? Check 15 of the very best WordPress themes for 2020 appeared first on WebAppers.

Some of the problems we work on as UX researchers are simple and are easily solved by getting users in front of our product. But other problems can be complex and it's hard to know how to start solving them. In situations like that, a simple 2x2 diagram can cut through the 'what ifs', the 'how abouts' and the edge cases and provide a simple way of looking at the problem. Here are 10 examples of 2x2 diagrams to simplify UX research discussions.

If you compare the UX research methods we use today with the methods we used 16 years ago, something interesting emerges. We see that UX research is becoming increasingly remote and increasingly unmoderated. In other words, we're moving to a world where UX research is becoming automated. We can learn a lot from automated research. But it comes at the price of understanding our users.

When carried out in a lab, user experience research is gear heavy. You need technology to record audio, video and the screen of the device under test. In contrast, when carried out in the field, user experience research is more lightweight. Even so, there are a few non-obvious items of kit that I find essential on a field visit.

Doing UX research in a university is very different to doing UX research in a business setting. If you're an academic making the leap, what are the main differences you need to keep in mind?

Whether you call it a field visit, a contextual inquiry or a customer discovery interview, the goal of early stage research is the same: to uncover users' needs. Here are 5 mistakes I've seen crop up time and again in this kind of research.

Robots operating in household environments must find objects on shelves, under tables, and in cupboards. Previous work often formulate the object search problem as a POMDP (Partially Observable Markov Decision Process), yet constrain the search space in 2D. We propose a new approach that enables the robot to efficiently search for objects in 3D, taking occlusions into account. We model the problem as an object-oriented POMDP, where the robot receives a volumetric observation from a viewing frustum and must produce a policy to efficiently search for objects. To address the challenge of large state and observation spaces, we first propose a per-voxel observation model which drastically reduces the observation size necessary for planning. Then, we present a novel octree-based belief representation which captures beliefs at different resolutions and supports efficient exact belief update. Finally, we design an online multi-resolution planning algorithm that leverages the resolution layers in the octree structure as levels of abstractions to the original POMDP problem. Our evaluation in a simulated 3D domain shows that, as the problem scales, our approach significantly outperforms baselines without resolution hierarchy by 25%-35% in cumulative reward. We demonstrate the practicality of our approach on a torso-actuated mobile robot searching for objects in areas of a cluttered lab environment where objects appear on surfaces at different heights.

Deep neural networks have exhibited promising performance in image super-resolution (SR). Most SR models follow a hierarchical architecture that contains both the cell-level design of computational blocks and the network-level design of the positions of upsampling blocks. However, designing SR models heavily relies on human expertise and is very labor-intensive. More critically, these SR models often contain a huge number of parameters and may not meet the requirements of computation resources in real-world applications. To address the above issues, we propose a Hierarchical Neural Architecture Search (HNAS) method to automatically design promising architectures with different requirements of computation cost. To this end, we design a hierarchical SR search space and propose a hierarchical controller for architecture search. Such a hierarchical controller is able to simultaneously find promising cell-level blocks and network-level positions of upsampling layers. Moreover, to design compact architectures with promising performance, we build a joint reward by considering both the performance and computation cost to guide the search process. Extensive experiments on five benchmark datasets demonstrate the superiority of our method over existing methods.