Back Bay Research Articles

Impact of invasive Carex kobomugi on the native dune community in a US mid-Atlantic coastal system

Dunes provide numerous ecosystem services including habitat for flora and fauna, coastal protection through mitigation of wind and wave energy, and as a barrier to storm flooding. Dune vegetation that inhabits these systems plays a vital role in building dunes and resisting erosion. In the United States, the Virginia coast is a transitional temperature zone for several dominant dune grasses, where the northern species, Ammophila breviligulata (C3) and the southern species, Uniola paniculata and Panicum amarum (both C4) overlap. At Back Bay National Wildlife Refuge (NWR), Virginia, warming temperatures are resulting in native species range shifts altering biotic interactions. Additionally, the invasive sedge, Carex kobomugi (C3) has become more prevalent in the region with unknown effects on the landscape. To understand the impact of Carex on the native plant community, we quantified species distribution and morphological traits of three dominant native species, A. breviligulata, Panicum, and Uniola as well as invasive Carex. We found that Carex was most dominant and exhibited similar individual traits when compared to native species. The suite of plant traits was unique in Carex, with less variation than in native species allowing for rapid nutrient acquisition and growth. These traits, combined with species distribution data suggest that Carex may limit Ammophila abundance. Similarly, presence of Carex had a negative effect on Panicum growth, but no discernible effect on Uniola. Success of Carex at Back Bay NWR may be indicative of the future spread of the species due to above and belowground morphological traits, which may give the invasive an advantage with climate warming.

Back Bay Battery Simulation Reflective Essay

The success of an organization’s innovation strategy relies on a clearly defined innovation theme. In this article, the author will delve into the concept of disruptive innovation and explore how to achieve Horizon 2 ideas. Horizon 2 ideas involve extending the business’s current model and core competencies to reach new customers, markets, and even new business objectives in different segments. The business model extension under Horizon 2 focuses on the organization’s mid-term goals, typically taking 24 to 36 months to yield results. Drawing insights from the Harvard Business Review’s Back Bay Battery (BBB) simulation, this article presents the implementation of an innovation strategy within the BBB company. The aim is to assist the company in enhancing its business model and transitioning into the high-end market. The latter part of the article will shed light on the challenges associated with implementing this strategy in a real-world firm and the results it can deliver to the organization. Specifically, it will explore the effectiveness of the strategy in achieving disruptive innovation within the employee market, where the company intends to use the new business model to tap into new markets.

Abstract PR003: An examination of tobacco and alcohol outlet density in Boston to identify priority areas for cancer prevention efforts using environmental justice mapping

Abstract Background. Inequitable access to health-harming substances in the built environment can create and exacerbate race and SES-based disparities in cancer incidence and mortality. Availability and density of tobacco and alcohol outlets is associated with increased experimentation, initiation, and regular use of alcohol and tobacco products. Prior studies examining the sale of tobacco and alcohol indicate that these outlets tend to be concentrated in communities of color and low-income areas. Massachusetts has highlighted environmental justice (EJ), one’s right to be protected from hazards and live in clean, health-promoting environments, as a priority issue and identified block group populations who are at most risk of environmental burdens. The objective of this study was to (a) examine the distribution of tobacco and alcohol outlets in environmental justice block groups in Boston, and (b) compare outlet density in more deprived neighborhoods to more privileged neighborhoods. Methods. Publicly available licensing lists for tobacco and alcohol retailers with geocoded data were obtained from the City of Boston’s open data hub. Lists were de-duplicated so that retailers that sell both tobacco and alcohol products were only represented once. The environmental justice block group layer (2020) was downloaded from Mass.gov. EJ block groups meet one or more of the following criteria: ‘high minority’ (>40% non-white population), ‘low-income’, or ‘high English isolation.’ ArcGIS Pro software was used to spatially join retailer data to Boston block groups and calculate tobacco and alcohol outlet density (the number of retailers per 1,000 people). Sociodemographic and cancer mortality data from the Health of Boston Report was used to classify neighborhoods as ‘more privileged’ (Back Bay, Beacon Hill, North End, West End) or ‘more deprived’ (Dorchester, Hyde Park, Mattapan, Roslindale, Roxbury). Results. Of the 560 Boston block groups analyzed, 458 (81.8%) were considered environmental justice block groups with 60% of EJ block groups classified as ‘high minority’. There were 931 retailers that sell tobacco or alcohol products for off-premises consumption in Boston, with 86% of these retailers (n=811) located in EJ block groups. On average, tobacco and alcohol outlet density was greater in EJ block groups compared to non-EJ block groups (2.09 vs 1.25 retailers per 1,000 residents). Nearly half (48%) of environmental justice block groups in Boston are located in the most deprived neighborhoods compared to only 3.7% in the most privileged neighborhoods. Tobacco outlet density is significantly higher in deprived neighborhoods compared to privileged neighborhoods (1.25 vs 0.98, p < 0.01). However, alcohol density is lower in more deprived block groups compared to more privileged ones (0.35 vs 0.74, p < 0.01). Conclusion. Environmental justice mapping can be used as a tool to identify areas where cancer prevention efforts may be enhanced by modifying the built environment to reduce clusters of alcohol and tobacco outlets. Citation Format: Lindsay Kephart. An examination of tobacco and alcohol outlet density in Boston to identify priority areas for cancer prevention efforts using environmental justice mapping [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 16th AACR Conference on the Science of Cancer Health Disparities in Racial/Ethnic Minorities and the Medically Underserved; 2023 Sep 29-Oct 2;Orlando, FL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2023;32(12 Suppl):Abstract nr PR003.

How far I’ll go: Social infrastructure accessibility and proximity in urban neighborhoods

Recent studies have shown that social infrastructure – community spaces, places of worship, social businesses, and parks – help build social ties, mitigate political polarization, and improve our health. This exploratory study examines why some areas in American cities see greater access to social infrastructure than others, applying geospatial models and city block analyses to the case of Boston. We hypothesize that neighborhoods of color and lower-income neighborhoods might see lower levels of access to social infrastructure, which have significant implications for the health and resilience of these neighborhoods. Using analyses of proximity on a large-N dataset of (1) all social infrastructure sites in Boston and (2) every building in Boston, we measure the distance between every building and social infrastructure site in the city, and model the associations of neighborhood demographics, socioeconomic status, and urban design factors on median distance from social infrastructure. Finally, we demonstrate findings using hyperlocal case studies of 3 iconic city blocks in Boston, examining Back Bay, Nubian Square, and Mount Bowdoin. We find evidence of strong race- and income-related gaps in access to social infrastructure, consistent even after extended controls for demographics and physical infrastructure traits, highlighting major inequities in social policy.

OVERVIEW OF THE COASTAL TEXAS MEGA PROJECT

The Texas Gulf coast is a complex system with numerous narrow inlets and broad back bays with intricate river and bayou networks. Due to its complex settings, the Texas coast is susceptible to extreme compound flooding due to fluvial, pluvial, and surge during hurricanes and tropical storms. Five of the top six largest tropical cyclone rainfall totals in the continental U.S. have occurred in Texas (USACE 2021a). The Texas coast is also one of the United States most dynamic regions in terms of population and economic growth. According to the Bureau of Economic Geology, twenty five percent of the population and thirty three percent of the economic resources of Texas are located along the 360 mile long coast. The objective of the Coastal Texas Study was to improve our capabilities to prepare for, resist, recover and adapt to extreme events. A “Multiple Lines of Defense” strategy was used in the Coastal Texas study to design cost-effective, environmentally friendly solutions that will reduce risks of storms impacting the coastal communities and restore important wildlife habitat at the same time.

Ocean City, New Jersey coastal flooding management: A case study

Coastal flooding from both extreme storm events and sea level rise is impacting low-lying areas globally within the coastal zone. The intensity and frequency of these impacts are expected to increase as a result of climate change, thus requiring resilience planning to address both short- and long-term coastal change dynamics. Rates of actual and projected sea level rise in southern New Jersey are relatively high when compared to other portions of the eastern coast of the United States – partially due to glacial isostatic adjustment specific to that region. Numerous municipalities are attempting to adapt to these climate-driven coastal flooding hazards by adopting, or enhancing, integrated coastal resiliency programs. Located in southern New Jersey, the City of Ocean City has implemented numerous mitigation measures and policies focused on bolstering community resilience and managed through the implementation of various management plans. These adaptive plans’ purpose is to guide waterway maintenance; mitigate flooding through the implementation of numerous mitigation projects such as installing or upgrading pump stations and focused public engagement programs; and manage stormwater, while also protecting the environment through restoration-focused projects. Projects undertaken by the city as part of plan implementation include restoring tidal wetlands at Shooting Island, management of back bay waterways, and analysis of flooding impacts. The objective of this study is to examine one municipality that has been proactive in its climate adaptation and mitigation efforts and to disseminate the outcomes, solutions, and lessons learned for coastal managers and decisionmakers to allow them to utilize this information as the impacts of climate change continue to increase.

100 years ago in the American Ornithologists’ Union

The year 1923 marked the 40th anniversary of the American Ornithologists’ Union and its 41st annual meeting. When counting the 1887 meetings held at the Boston Society of Natural History, which included a trip to see William Brewster’s Collection at Harvard’s Museum of Comparative Zoology, it was the 9th held in Cambridge, Massachusetts. As earlier, when the AOU met in Cambridge, attendees stayed in Boston. In 1923, they lodged at Boston’s renowned Copley Square Hotel in Back Bay on Huntington Avenue and Exeter Street. The hotel became a confluence for attendees (Palmer 1924) who traveled approximately 5 miles to activities in Cambridge. To avoid the congestion on Harvard Bridge connecting Back Bay and Cambridge, many may have made the trek via the relatively new technology of subway or streetcar (O’Connell 2013). Business meetings convened Monday, October 8. Two council meetings, one in the morning and the other early afternoon, were held at 7 Kirkland Street in Cambridge, home of Charles F. Batchelder (1856–1954), sole Founder among Fellows in attendance that year. Meetings of Fellows and Members were held late that afternoon and evening at the Colonial Club (current site of Harvard’s Faculty Club) at 20 Quincy Street. The Meetings of Fellows had 24 attending due to the death of Founder Walter Bradford Barrows (1855–1923), respected for his broad knowledge as a general naturalist and ornithologist (Fisher 1925). Barrows had enjoyed a diverse career, with positions as instructor and professor at colleges and universities in Argentina and the U.S., including Wesleyan and Michigan State University. He also held positions with the Biological Survey in the Division of Ornithology and Mammalogy from 1886 until 1894 and is best known for his publications, “The English Sparrow in North America” and “Michigan Bird Life”.

Spatial distribution of seawater carbonate chemistry and hydrodynamic controls in a low-inflow estuary

Coastal and estuarine systems play an important role in the global carbon cycle and often have complex carbonate chemistry dynamics due to a multitude of biogeochemical and physical drivers. Compared to classic estuaries, mechanisms driving the distribution of carbonate parameters in low-inflow estuaries are understudied. The spatial distribution of carbonate chemistry and hydrodynamic parameters were characterized in Morro Bay, a short and seasonally hypersaline estuary on the Central California Coast, during the dry, low-inflow season to better understand in situ modifications. Sampling transects were completed in the main channel in June, August, and September of 2018, bracketing both a high and low tide on each date. Temperature, salinity, total alkalinity, and dissolved inorganic carbon all increased from the mouth to the back of the estuary, with larger values observed during the low tide. pH values decreased towards the back of the bay, and had little variation between high and low tide for June and August transects. Flushing times (estimated using a salt-budget model approach) also increased toward the back of the bay which led to hypersaline conditions. Salinity alone only explained 20–33% of observed changes in total alkalinity and 13–22% of observed changes in dissolved inorganic carbon throughout the bay. The remaining changes in total alkalinity and dissolved inorganic carbon were likely driven by biogeochemical modifications enhanced by extended flushing times, particularly in the back bay. Prior to this project, Morro Bay experienced a recent, rapid collapse of eelgrass, the major biogenic habitat. In the last four years eelgrass in Morro Bay appears to be on a recovery trajectory; therefore, this study provides a baseline whereby future studies can evaluate carbonate chemistry changes associated with potential eelgrass recovery and expansion. This study highlights the unique hydrodynamic exchange in seasonally low-inflow estuaries and its potentially large role in influencing local carbonate chemistry and ocean acidification.

What To Read Now: Historical Biographical Fiction

What To Read NowHistorical Biographical Fiction Rilla Askew (bio) Katherine J. Chen John Random House Luis Alberto Urrea The Hummingbird's Daughter Back Bay Books Priya Parmar Vanessa and Her Sister Random House LeAnne Howe Savage Conversations Coffee House Press When I first read Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall, I'd been working on a novel about Tudor-era martyr and writer Anne Askew for over a decade. My head buried in research, I'd been struggling toward a voice, a lens, a pathway into the story. Reading Mantel's work broke that open for me. Historical biographical fiction can complexify and reshape our understanding of famous people, who they were on the inside, why they did as they did. For the writer, the plot is largely prescribed, because these things did happen to this person this way, but the why of the story, the voice, the form of the novel: these are all up for grabs. In her essay "Why I Became a Historical Novelist," Mantel wrote that she would make up a man's inner torments but not the color of his drawing-room wallpaper, because someone somewhere might know the color and pattern, and if she kept searching she might learn it. I try to write to the ones who know the wallpaper. In researching the life of Anne Askew for my novel Prize for the Fire, I sought first the facts: how did people live in sixteenth-century England? What were the political, religious, social mores of the day? What happened in this young woman's life to bring her to the fires of martyrdom? Then I listened for a voice to tell the story. That voice, over the course of many years, gave me the why. Hilary Mantel's masterful Thomas Cromwell trilogy showed me the capacious powers of historical biographical fiction. In honor of her life and work and influence, I've selected four books that plumb the lives of real historical persons. As a reader, I delight in the myriad forms this genre can take. These writers each chose a unique slant for their stories of real women who lived and breathed and walked the earth, each of whom, in her own time and place, made history. Katherine J. Chen Joan Random House AS SOON AS I saw the advance praise for Joan, Katherine J. Chen's novel about Joan of Arc, I knew it would go on my to-read list. To embark on a novel about a woman of such fame requires courage and vision: how to reimagine a person whose story has been told so many times over the centuries in plays, poems, operas, films, novels, histories? Chen achieves the task brilliantly. The historical Joan shares similarities with the woman whose life I've been researching and writing for twenty years. Both Joan of Arc and Anne Askew were religious zealots who were ultimately labeled heretics and burned at the stake—not just for their worlds prescribed for them. Both lived in a deeply patriarchal, blanketly religious age. Chen's Joan is not a saint driven by faith or by hallucinatory voices but rather by her passions for justice, mercy, revenge. She is a warrior, an empath, a visionary, a political and intellectual adept. Chen makes the distinction, in her revealing afterword, between the Joan of the novel and the historical Joan, noting the liberties she had to take with history to create this deeply personal Joan. The result is a powerfully feminist, secular retelling of Sant Joan, perfect for our areligious age. Perhaps the strongest recommendation I can make is to say that, once I'd finished, I turned immediately to read Joan of Arc: By Herself and Her Witnesses, by Régine Pernoud—not to compare but to set the transcribed voices of Joan and her contemporaries contrapuntally with the fully fleshed, fully realized Joan of Katherine Chen's novel. Both remain alive in me long after the covers of the books are closed. Luis Alberto Urrea The Hummingbird's Daughter Back Bay Books I WAS INTRODUCED to Luis Alberto Urrea's work through his lucid and wrenching nonfiction book about a deadly desert border crossing in...

Seasonal hypoxia and temperature inversions in a tropical bay

AbstractDissolved oxygen (DO) is a critically important ecological variable, and the prevalence of marine hypoxia is expected to increase due to the combined effects of ocean warming and eutrophication. Thermal stress can co‐occur with hypoxia, especially in tropical systems, and can exacerbate its effects. We examine the physical processes that are important in regulating hypoxia and temperature inversions in Bahía Almirante, a semi‐enclosed tropical embayment on the Caribbean coast of Panama. A 10‐yr record of observations at 7 locations within Bahía Almirante reveals seasonal temperature inversions and hypoxia at depth that often co‐occur. These features are more severe and persistent in the back bay, though they occur throughout Bahía Almirante. DO reductions correspond to periods with high freshwater input, including direct precipitation, resulting in strong salinity stratification that isolates bottom waters, allowing biological oxygen demand to draw down DO. Evidence indicates that lateral advection can contribute to reoxygenation events, and the relationship between near bottom DO and bottom salinities in the mid bay and back bay is consistent with deep‐water renewal as the mechanism for bottom water ventilation. These hypoxia and temperature inversion events impact the biological communities of Bahía Almirante, and the physical dynamics that regulate these coincident and persistent stressors for marine organisms are likely present in other shallow, tropical estuaries.

Editorial

Editorial

Editor’s Introduction

Previous articleNext article FreeEditor’s IntroductionCatharine Dann RoeberCatharine Dann Roeber Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmailQR Code SectionsMoreArchitecture often sparks strong opinions. Who has not glanced at a residence or entered a museum and felt either admiration (“I love that house!”) or dislike (“That place is SO ugly!”)? The livelihood of architectural historians, journalists, and reviewers of the built environment has long rested on their ability to evaluate buildings for professional and avocational readers alike. One thing is certain, though, opinions about a building’s success vary widely and often relate to perceptions about whether it expresses an “original” idea in wood, stone, glass, metal, and other materials. But what is original? Can repurposed design elements or architectural fabric count as something new? Does critical acclaim or functional utility even matter if the built environment satisfies its patrons?Articles in this issue of Winterthur Portfolio discuss two buildings, a little-known private home and a well-known museum, and the varied responses to the structures’ mimetic attributes. Amy D. Finstein’s “A Gropius-Breuer House like Notable Others: Consumerism, Copying, and Connoisseurship in an Unsung Commission” and Sandra Tomc’s “The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum: A Venice Spectacle” highlight buildings that were, in their own ways, intentionally not “original” but rather demonstrated international design conversations in American settings. We see individuals ranging from a wealthy socialite to an up-and-coming doctor incorporating European references into their American buildings. By taking a closer look at these two projects and their patrons, the contexts for their creation, rather than value judgments such as original or derivative, take center stage.By highlighting the Abele House in Framingham, Massachusetts (1941), as an important material expression of midcentury consumer culture, Finstein counters critics’ and scholars’ dismissal of it as a not altogether successful mashup of famed architects’ Walter Gropius’s and Marcel Breuer’s own houses nearby. She argues that, for Abele, selecting elements from the architects’ previous projects and from other accessible references to the International style at the 1939/40 New York World’s Fair was the point. He could use his buying power to craft a version of a popular style and a status symbol for his family that made a modest design splash, if only on a local level.In contrast, Tomc suggests that dramatic impact, including Gardner’s staged greeting of her guests on the Music Room stairs during the museum’s opening, was part of her personal spectacle in Boston. This bit of Venice in Back Bay rested not only on architectural references to canals and palazzos but on installation of imported elements such as the balconied façades from the Ca’ d’Oro that set off the breathtaking beauty of the Gardner courtyard to this day. Tomc reads the Gardner Museum as a backdrop informed by romantic design ideas of Venice but also concealing the illicit origins of some of its priceless Venetian contents.In their close examination of these two spaces, Finstein and Tomc sharpen our understanding of different audiences’ varying reactions to these spaces. Abele’s “architectural quotation” failed to impress connoisseurs but provided pleasant memories for the Abele children while it introduced midcentury modern design into their neighborhood. Gardner created spectacle within a spectacle in her “architectural confection” that repurposed a sanitized Venice for tourists. The fact that Abele and Gardner chose not to create something entirely new uncovers realities about how Americans built personal visions of international design and consumed architecture in the early twentieth century.Whether you study architecture, objects, landscapes or other aspects of the material world, we encourage you to be in touch. We are continually seeking content from scholars at all stages in their careers and from folks within or outside of academia. We at Portfolio intend for our pages to provide a forum for rigorous discussion and thoughtful reconsideration of methodologies and practices related to material culture in the Americas, and we welcome manuscript submissions that engage with similarly essential and timely questions. We welcome conversations with any scholars and practitioners of material culture who are considering a submission. Please view our videos on submitting manuscripts and reviewing for the journal and contact managing editor Amy Earls ([email protected]) or visit https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/journals/wp/instruct for more information. Previous articleNext article DetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Winterthur Portfolio Volume 56, Number 1Spring 2022 Published for the Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum, Inc. Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/723779 © 2022 The Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum, Inc. All rights reserved.PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Effects of submerged aquatic vegetation and water quality on waterfowl abundance by foraging guild

Abstract Back Bay, Virginia, has been documented as an important foraging area for waterfowl since at least the mid‐1800s. Expansive submerged plant beds historically supported diverse assemblages of non‐breeding waterfowl; however, coastal development and other anthropogenic influences have since led to fluctuations in submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV) and an associated decline in waterfowl abundance in the bay. To gain insight into the effects of environmental drivers on waterfowl foraging guilds, our study explores the effects of SAV frequency and water quality on the abundance of dabbling ducks, diving ducks and swans and geese in Back Bay. We use 8 years of SAV, water quality, and waterfowl monitoring data collected by state and federal agencies to model the effects of salinity, turbidity, pH and percent frequency of SAV on the relative abundance of waterfowl by foraging guild in Back Bay. The appropriateness of the data and reasonability of the preliminary results were then evaluated through semi‐structured interviews with 11 local informants representing state, federal and non‐governmental organizations. Quantitative results indicated that dabbling ducks are affected differently than other guilds by water quality and percent frequency of SAV. Thematic analysis of the interview data revealed a number of potential explanations for the model results, as well as highlighted areas of uncertainty in need of further research. In a test of face validity, participants demonstrated a significant degree of belief in turbidity, salinity and SAV as drivers of waterfowl abundance, but were not convinced by the potential effects of pH as demonstrated by the model. This mixed methods study provides insights that could potentially influence the management and conservation of non‐breeding waterfowl populations by challenging the assumption that particular environmental conditions serve all foraging groups equally.

Estimating spatial and temporal patterns of urban building anthropogenic heat using a bottom-up city building heat emission model

Anthropogenic heat (AH) emission from buildings is a key contributor to the urban heat island (UHI) effect. Although an improved understanding of spatiotemporal patterns of building AH is highly needed for mitigating UHI effect, such information is still limited in high spatiotemporal resolutions at the city level. In this study, a bottom-up city building heat emission model (CityBHEM) was developed to investigate temporal variations of building AH from three components (i.e., envelope convection, zone infiltration and exfiltration, and HVAC system) for all buildings in Boston, United States. First, buildings in Boston were grouped into eleven commercial and five residential building prototypes based on building type, construction year, and foundation type. Second, an end-use-based calibration was developed to calibrate CityBHEM using U.S. Energy Information Administration's survey data. Finally, AH from all buildings in the city under actual weather conditions was calculated using the calibrated CityBHEM model together with building types and sizes. Results indicate that total building AH density of Back Bay neighborhood reaches the maximum value of 526 kWh/m2 in summer (56% of HVAC system and 44% of envelope convection) and the minimum value of 369 kWh/m2 in winter (54% of HVAC system, 24% of envelope convection and 22% of zone infiltration and exfiltration). In contrast, total building AH density of suburban neighborhoods is lower than 30 kWh/m2 in summer and 20 kWh/m2 in winter. Given that key inputs are publicly available, CityBHEM is transferable to other U.S. cities, enabling us to explore practical building energy-saving strategies for mitigating AH.

Book Reviews

Sherman RO. Published by Rose Sherman; 2021. Paperback; 258 pages.Some nurses are called to leadership. An effective nursing leader needs many skills, and the career path often includes obtaining a graduate education and gaining clinical expertise. In addition, nursing leaders should continue to learn from experts on current thinking to be successful. In The Nuts and Bolts of Nursing Leadership: Your Toolkit for Success, the author defines the areas of accountability of a nursing leader, specifically of the nurse manager, and incorporates key points from established leadership experts.The book is organized into 5 parts: Transitioning Into Leadership, Communicating and Collaborating in Leadership Roles, Leading High Performance Teams, Leading in Organizations, and Your Leadership Toolkit. In each part, the chapters start with foundational information and continue to expand on that information. In addition, chapters include key points and references. The final part, Your Leadership Toolkit, contains actionable items and tools to support the application of the material discussed in the book. The information in this book is appropriate for both new and experienced leaders; the topics are well explored and can be applied to any organization.One of the greatest challenges that affects nursing today is staffing. Research suggests that staffing can impact such outcomes as patient clinical indicators, patient and staff satisfaction, turnover, and institutional financial performance. Although there is no magic solution to the staffing challenge, Sherman provides details of how nursing leaders can develop and drive staffing solutions that appeal to all stakeholders and optimize performance outcomes.In The Nuts and Bolts of Nursing Leadership, Sherman discusses how to determine what you can and cannot control, how to establish boundaries, and how to foster resilience in yourself and your teams. These skills are crucial to the health, wellness, and success of nursing leaders and the nurses they guide and mentor. Also, using these skills, nurses can establish their own legacy and develop as leaders and innovators of the future.This book includes many references, most of them current and some classic but still relevant. Many aspiring and current nursing leaders may not have read these works and can benefit from learning more about the contribution to and influence on leadership best practices of these references.The Nuts and Bolts of Nursing Leadership provides an excellent overview of the components of successful nursing leadership. This book would be a wonderful tool for business leaders who join health care organizations; it provides insight into the unique culture of nursing and how best to collaborate with nursing leaders and partners. The Nuts and Bolts of Nursing Leadership can help readers understand the thinking and prioritization applied at the point of care and how the influence of an organization is established through its frontline health care providers.Tedeschi RG, Moore BA, Falke K, Goldberg J. Independently published; 2020. Paperback; 290 pages.The experience of trauma changes a person. Initially, the experience is almost always negative and can affect the rest of someone’s life. However, the authors of Transformed by Trauma have found that trauma can lead to finding purpose and growth in the pain experienced. Transformed by Trauma includes true stories of veterans and their family members who found such purpose and growth in their experiences with trauma.Clinton C. Back Bay Books; 2005. Paperback; 304 pages.This book is the biography of a former slave who became the only Black female known to have repeatedly and successfully led other slaves to freedom as a “conductor” on the Underground Railroad. The accomplishments of this remarkable woman do not end there; Tubman went on to be a Civil War nurse, spy, scout, and military commander. After the war, she was a well-known philanthropist and leader in the women’s suffrage movement. Harriet Tubman: The Road to Freedom is a well-written biography of an amazing person.McChrystal S, Collins T, Silverman D, Fussell C. Portfolio; 2015. Hardcover; 304 pages.In 2004, General Stanley McChrystal took over command of the Joint Special Operations Task Force only to discover that tactics in use at that time were woefully inadequate to defeat Al-Qaeda. He needed to lead the organization toward a faster, flatter, and more flexible command structure—a “team of teams.” General McChrystal decentralized power to allow small groups the freedom to experiment and share what they learned across the entire special operations command. This change allowed teams to respond more quickly, communicate more freely, and make better and faster decisions. Team of Teams is an excellent read for those looking to promote leading from the bedside.

A cross-scale study for compound flooding processes during Hurricane Florence

Abstract. We study the compound flooding processes that occurred in Hurricane Florence (2018), which was accompanied by heavy precipitation, using a 3D creek-to-ocean hydrodynamic model. We examine the important role played by barrier islands in the observed compound surges in the coastal watershed. Locally very high resolution is used in some watershed areas in order to resolve small features that turn out to be critical for capturing the observed high water marks locally. The wave effects are found to be significant near barrier islands and have contributed to some observed over-toppings and breaches. Results from sensitivity tests applying each of the three major forcing factors (oceanic, fluvial, and pluvial) separately are succinctly summarized in a “dominance map” that highlights significant compound effects in most of the affected coastal watersheds, estuaries, and back bays behind the barrier islands. Operational forecasts based on the current model are being set up at NOAA to help coastal resource and emergency managers with disaster planning and mitigation efforts.

The degradation of acetaldehyde in estuary waters in Southern California, USA.

Acetaldehyde plays an important role in oxidative cycles in the troposphere. Estimates of its air-water flux are important in global models. Biological degradation is believed to be the dominant loss process in water, but there have been few measurements, none in estuaries. Acetaldehyde degradation rates were measured in surface waters at the inflow to the Upper Newport Back Bay estuary in Orange County, Southern California, USA, over a 6-month period including the rainy winter season. Deuterated acetaldehyde was added to filtered and unfiltered water samples incubated in glass syringes, and its loss analyzed by purge and trap gas chromatography mass spectrometry. Filtered samples showed no significant degradation, suggesting that particle-mediated degradation is the dominant removal process. Correlation between measured degradation rate constants in unfiltered incubations and bacteria counts suggests the loss is due to microorganisms. Degradation in unfiltered samples followed first-order kinetics, with rate constants ranging from 0.0006 to 0.025 min-1 (k; average 0.0043 ± 0.006 min-1). Turnover (1/k) ranged from 40 to 1667 min, consistent with prior studies in coastal waters. Acetaldehyde concentrations in the estuary are estimated to range from 30 to ~500 nM (average ~250 nM). Results suggest the estuary is a source of acetaldehyde to the atmosphere.

Blue-green urban infrastructure in Boston and Bombay (Mumbai): a macro-historical geographic comparison

This study offers a macro-historical geographic comparison of blue-green urban infrastructure in the coastal cities of Boston, USA and Mumbai (formerly Bombay), India. After introducing the aims and methods of comparative historical geography, we focus on the insights that these two cases offer. Their stories begin with ancient coastal fishing settlements, followed by early processes of urbanization and fortification in the 17th century. By the late-18th century Anglo-American merchants in Boston were trading with Parsi merchants in Bombay, at a time when Bostonians had little more to sell than ice in exchange for India’s fine textiles. From the early-19th century onwards, the two maritime cities undertook surprisingly parallel processes of land reclamation and water development. Boston commissioned blue-green infrastructure proposals at the urban scale, from Frederick Law Olmsted’s Back Bay Fens to Charles Eliot’s Metropolitan Park District Plan—innovations that offer more than a century of lessons in environmental performance and resilience. The two cities developed parallel “Esplanade,” “Back Bay,” and “Reclamation” projects. None of these projects anticipated the magnitude of 20th century land, water, and infrastructure change. Both cities have begun to address the increasing risks of urban flooding, sea level rise, and population displacement, but they need bolder metropolitan visions of blue-green urban infrastructure to address emerging climate change and water hazards.

Salinity Tolerance and Osmoregulation in the Wide-spread Pacific Treefrog, Pseudacris regilla

The effects of high saline concentrations on the plasma osmolytes of the four populations of the Pacific Treefrog, Pseudacris regilla, were investigated. Two of the populations, Chris Wicht and Trabuco Canyon, were in fresh water environments and two populations, Newport Back Bay and Alkaline Marsh, were in brackish water environments. The Newport Backbay treefrogs were most tolerant of increased sodium chloride solutions with 11 of 15 individuals surviving at 240 mM sodium chloride at 72 hrs. The Trabuco Canyon population was the least tolerant with 10 of 15 specimens surviving 120 mM sodium chloride at 72 hrs but none at the 180 mM concentration at 72 hrs. The Chris Wicht and Alkaline Marsh treefrogs were intermediate in their survival times with frogs surviving in 180 mM saline solutions at 72 hrs. The Newport treefrogs appeared to be the most efficient in osmoregulating by mainstreaming the plasma sodium and increasing plasma urea to compensate for the osmotic gradient produced by the increased external saline concentrations. The Trabuco Canyon and the Chris Wicht treefrogs appeared to be intermediate in their osmoregulatory abilities with the Alkaline Marsh treefrogs being least efficient and more likely an osmoconformer. The difference in osmoregulatory responses appears to be a population difference and a function of habitat. Sodium chloride was the major plasma osmolyte in the four populations of treefrogs. Urea increased in importance as the external concentration of the saline media increased, thus the role of urea was significant in maintaining the internal osmoconcentration. These simple physiological mechanisms allow this widespread treefrog to occur in so many different habitats.

John Wheelwright, Sound Engineer

John Wheelwright, Sound Engineer Matthew Kilbane (bio) The life and poetry of John Wheelwright (1897–1940) testify to a subterranean link between two ostensibly very different cultural forms, the sonnet and radio broadcasting. To set about unfolding this surprising affiliation is also to assume the delightful responsibility of introducing readers to an idiosyncratic modern poet little-read these days, one for whom the sonnet and radio were objects of characteristically ingenious aesthetic investment. In the 1930s, Wheelwright’s artistic commitments to these sonorous technologies—first to the poetic form, and then to the communications medium—found their authorization in one-and-the-same deeply felt requirement: the desire to engineer a politically usable modernist poetry. In the final years of that decade, Wheelwright believed he had located at last, in the radical implications of radio broadcasting, a socialist horizon for modern verse. And yet his prior innovations in sonnet form so vividly betray the early stirrings of this quest that the largest stakes of these printed sonnets are most clearly apprehended in the light shed by his later career on the air. To read his sonnets well, in other words, we must read with an ear to radio. For that reason, it makes sense to begin in 1938 at the University Club in Boston’s Back Bay, where for several months that autumn, Wheelwright ran a weekly poetry program on the World Wide Broadcasting Foundation’s noncommercial shortwave station W1XAL (later WRUL). According to its funders at the Rockefeller Foundation, since 1935 W1XAL had been “the only station in the United States with national coverage . . . devoted exclusively to educational programming.” Transmitting 50,000 watts across four shortwave bands, [End Page 238] W1XAL was by the late 1930s a leading “university of the air,” disseminating “New England enlightenment” with the collaboration of faculty from Harvard and other universities to listeners across the country, and, increasingly in non-English languages, around the globe. To recite poetry into a W1XAL microphone was to hitch a ride on a powerful cultural apparatus, one that other entities like the Rockefeller Foundation, the Pan-American Foundation, and the federal government were simultaneously using, in Good Neighborly fashion, to secure US interests abroad. It is high testimony indeed to W1XAL’S soft power that in May 1938, when congressional efforts to establish a government-owned shortwave station “to counter the heavy-handed propaganda of the Nazi and Fascist competition” were squashed by major networks, the Daily Boston Globe could point with beaming hometown pride to W1XAL, already pouring a star-spangled “deluge of high-powered thought . . . into the ether for a world audience.” Given W1XAL’s educational mandate and its high-cultural affiliations, it’s hardly unusual that some of this “high-powered thought” issued from poets. It’s a good deal stranger to find a poet like Wheelwright in the mix. Those listeners tuning in from Peru, Trinidad, or New Zealand were doubtless unfamiliar with W1XAL’s poetry impresario, but Bostonians may have recognized Wheelwright, less perhaps from his poetry than from his minor cultural celebrity, the baffling figure he cut in a city so indelibly his milieu. “What Dublin was to Joyce,” recalled his friend Winfield Townley Scott, “Boston was to Wheelwright.” When remembered today, Wheelwright’s life is often recalled as a spectacle of contradictions. A direct descendent on his father’s side of the Antinomian rebel Rev. John Wheelwright (1592–1679), and on his mother’s side of the merchant Peter Chardon Brooks (1767–1849), once New England’s wealthiest man, even as his family’s finances deteriorated rapidly in the poet’s lifetime Wheelwright could boast of near-perfect Brahmin pedigree. But he also relished confounding this upper-crust exemplarity. As a young man grieving his father’s suicide, Wheelwright rejected the Puritan faith of his ancestors for a [End Page 239] very high church Anglicanism, and after his political radicalization in the early 1930s, set himself the task of squaring Anglican and apocryphal Christian traditions with a drop-dead serious dialectical materialism. He describes his third and final collection of poems, 1940’s Political Self-Portrait—which marshals St. Paul alongside Lenin, and references to the “Apostolic Orders” alongside exhortations...