Type Of Fieldwork Research Articles

Using decoys and camera traps to estimate depredation rates and neonate survival.

Ungulate neonates-individuals less than four weeks old-typically experience the greatest predation rates, and variation in their survival can influence ungulate population dynamics. Typical methods to measure neonate survival involve capture and radio-tracking of adults and neonates to discover mortality events. This type of fieldwork is invasive and expensive, can bias results if it leads to neonate abandonment, and may still have high uncertainty about the predator species involved. Here we explore the potential for a non-invasive approach to estimate an index for neonate survival using camera traps paired with decoys that mimic white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) neonates in the first month of life. We monitored sites with camera traps for two weeks before and after the placement of the neonate decoy and urine scent lure. Predator response to the decoy was classified into three categories: did not approach, approached within 2.5 m but did not touch the decoy, or physically touched the decoy; when conducting survival analyses, we considered these second two categories as dead neonates. The majority (76.3%) of the predators approached the decoy, with 51.1% initiating physical contact. Decoy probability of survival was 0.31 (95% CI = 0.22, 0.35) for a 30-day period. Decoys within the geographic range of American black bear (Ursus americanus) were primarily (75%) attacked by bears. Overall, neonate survival probability decreased as predator abundance increased. The camera-decoy protocol required about ½ the effort and 1/3 the budget of traditional capture-track approaches. We conclude that the camera-decoy approach is a cost-effective method to estimate a neonate survival probability index based on depredation probability and identify which predators are most important.

Online learning experiences of social work students in India

Summary Ever since the pandemic first broke out in 2020, there has been a swift shift from offline to online mode of education. The present study is aimed at examining the online learning experience among a sample of social work students in India (n = 202) in order to understand the crucial factors that can help improve their learning experience and so that they become effective social workers in the future. Findings The results have highlighted several independent factors such as the mode of connecting to the internet, number of hours of online classes per day, type of field work, rural/urban location of the students, and hours of sleep, among other variables, that are significantly associated with important indicators of the online learning experience of students. Applications The results point to the urgent need to reduce the number of hours of online classes, educate students on the importance of sleep, improve internet accessibility along affordability of learning tools such as laptops, especially for those residing in rural areas, and promote classroom discussion during online classes, so as to improve the online learning experience of social work students in India and to produce effective social work practitioners.

МОДЕЛЮВАННЯ ТИСКУ ХОДОВОЇ СИСТЕМИ НА ГРУНТ В ЗАЛЕЖНОСТІ ВІД КОНСТРУКТИВНИХ ПАРАМЕТРОВ ТРАКТОРІВ

The article defines the influence of the traction resistance of the machine-tractor unit working tool on the weight distribution of the tractor along the running system axles. Depending on the type of field work, the resistance force of tools aggregated with a tractor has a different value, accordingly, the tractor has a different weight distribution along the axles and, thus, different ground pressure. An increase in pressure on the soil leads to additional costs for tillage, and in the future to a decrease in agricultural production efficiency. The article presents a mathematical model for determining the reactions of the soil, and, accordingly, the pressure of tractor engines on the ground, depending on the structural parameters of the tractor, its adequacy estimation, and an example of calculating the weight distribution along the tractor axles.

Evaluation of the Impact of Tractor Field Works on Changes in Selected Elements of Engine Oils

Abstract Tractors are used for various types of field work, as well as for transport on public roads, in difficult and changing environmental conditions. The main goal of the study was to analyze the changes of trace elements in engine oil during various field works. For this purpose, engine oils from two tractors were selected for the study. These tractors were coupled with: a cultivator, a reversible plow, a tillage-sowing unit, and a trailer. The samples were taken at the beginning and after the field work with a given unit was completed. The instrumental chemical analysis method HDXRF was used to determine changes in the content of the trace elements: Cr, Cu, Fe, Pb, Ni, Ca, P, Zn, and Mo in the engine oil. The comparison of oil from tractors coupled with various agricultural machines allowed the conclusion that the distribution of the consumption of tested metals, as well as the concentrations of individual elements, differed significantly depending on the coupled machine. The research showed that agricultural treatments with a cultivator caused the highest percentage of wear-induced changes in the content of metal elements such as Cr, Cu, and Pb. On the other hand, the operation of a tractor coupled with a tillage-sowing unit resulted in the vehicle’s accelerated wear.

Digital Ethnography: A Systematic Literature Review

Digital ethnography can be defined as a contemporary form of ethnography which considers online social spaces of discussion following the advances in data transmission technology. In the last few years, various attempts of considering online spaces in ethnographic research have been made producing different styles of online ethnography, each identified by a different label. This paper aims to provide a systematic review of the topic to map the practice of digital ethnography. The research process followed four key steps: search, selection, analysis and synthesis. In the search phase, we searched contributions iteratively in Web of Science and Scopus by using a variety of keywords corresponding to the different labels used to refer to digital ethnography. In the selection phase, we adopted a selective stance that aims to provide a critical review of the existing research and practices in the context of digital ethnography. In the analysis phase, we carried out a content analysis of the papers combining deductive and inductive coding. The synthesis phase involves a process of typology development to pragmatically reduce and systematize an extensive set of features and digital ethnography practices. Basing on the type of data collected (Small vs Big Data) and the type of fieldwork (meta or contextual field), we detected four types of ethnographic research: social media ethnography , contextual digital ethnography , meta digital ethnography , cross-media ethnography .

Building a Resilient LIASE Program by Developing Multiple Field Sites

Most LIASE-sponsored programs incorporate some type of fieldwork in Asia as a primary element. Sustaining these field sites over the long term is vulnerable to varying levels of faculty commitment, personal relationships with overseas partner institutions, and the vicissitudes of student interest, especially given the small student pools at liberal arts colleges. Eckerd College has met this challenge by using a joint on-campus program to feed into multiple field research locations, which broadens the opportunities for faculty and student engagement. It has also allowed us to let some field sites lapse when they were not working out, without undermining the integrity and continuity of the overall program.

Comparing Field-Teaching Experiences: A Longitudinal Examination of Preservice and First-Year Teacher Perspectives

The purpose of this longitudinal study was to examine preservice and first-year music educators’ perspectives on fieldwork activities embedded within a music teacher preparation program. One cohort of students was tracked for 2.5 years as they participated in an elementary teaching practicum, fulfilled the student teaching internship, and ultimately entered the field. Drawing on data from a previous study of the same cohort’s perceptions of a service-learning project (2013), this report provides a comparative analysis of the students’ evolving perceptions of fieldwork over time. The perceived transfers of emergent skills and dispositions to the first year of practice also are explored with particular attention to the voices of first-year teachers. Findings suggested a wide range of benefits associated with each type of fieldwork, including overlapping and unique constructs. Perceived collective transfers included comfort and experience, habits of self-reflection, skills and knowledge for job interviews, and comfort with the observation process. These findings may assist higher education professionals as they design field-teaching activities and make informed decisions about best practices in music teacher preparation.

Sexual Harassment and the Construction of Ethnographic Knowledge

It is not uncommon for women researchers to experience sexualized interactions, sexual objectification, and harassment as they conduct fieldwork. Nevertheless, these experiences are often left out of ethnographers’ “tales from the field” and remain unaddressed within our discipline. In this article, we use women's experiences with harassment in the field to interrogate the epistemological foundations of ethnographic methodology within the discipline of sociology. Based on more than 50 qualitative interviews, we examine three “fixations” of contemporary ethnography that inform women ethnographers’ understandings of and reactions to harassment in the field. These fixations are solitude, danger, and intimacy. Our data show that these fixations not only put researchers in danger but also have implications for the construction of ethnographic knowledge. They contribute to silence surrounding sexual harassment, and are motivated by and reproduce androcentric norms that valorize certain types of fieldwork. We argue that acknowledging and analyzing experiences with harassment and other unwanted sexual attention in the field is part of a more fully developed understanding of ethnographic research itself.

Managing work-related stress in humanitarian fieldwork: aid workers and resilience resources

This study explores which challenges in humanitarian fieldwork trigger stress and what factors and conditions enable humanitarian aid workers (HAW) to withstand adversity without developing negative physical or mental health outcome. A qualitative approach was selected to interview aid workers, using an in-depth semi-structured question guide. Selected participants completed at least three missions while employed with an organisation and the type of fieldwork was restricted to emergency response, complex emergencies and early recovery. Results show that general workload, teamwork and the connection to headquarters are perceived as the biggest challenges. Important resilience resources can be identified in team-members, professional experience and possessing a satisfying life back home. Intercultural understanding was researched as one of the most important personality traits within humanitarian fieldwork. This study suggests better preparation for HAW prior fieldwork and better education programs within the field to compliment professional experience.

Biological Fieldwork Provision in Higher Education

AbstractFieldwork is regarded as an important component of many bioscience degree programmes. QAA benchmarks statements refer explicitly to the importance of fieldwork, although give no indication of amounts of field provision expected. Previous research has highlighted the importance of fieldwork to the learning of both subject-specific and transferable skills. However, it is unclear how the amount and type of fieldwork currently offered is being affected by the recent expansion in student numbers and current funding constraints. Here we review contemporary literature and report on the results of a questionnaire completed by bioscience tutors across 33 UK institutions. The results suggest, perhaps contrary to anecdotal evidence, that the amount of fieldwork being undertaken by students is not in decline and that on the whole, programmes contain reasonable amounts of fieldwork. The majority of programmes involved UK-based fieldwork, but a number of programmes also offered ‘exotic’ overseas fieldwork which...

Travels in Coyote's CountryJourneys West: Jane and Julian Steward and Their Guides. By Virginia Kerns. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2010.

Travels in Coyote's Country<i>Journeys West: Jane and Julian Steward and Their Guides</i>. By Virginia Kerns. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2010.

The Settlement History of Tel Burna: Results of the Surface Survey

The paper presents the results of the survey at Tel Burna, conducted in June 2009 in preparation for the long-term archaeological project undertaken at the site by the authors. The survey revealed that the mound was settled intensively in the Bronze and iron Ages, and was probably an important site along the Judah-Philistine border. The paper also details the site's settlement history in relation to its surroundings in the Shephelah; suggests possible identification of the site as libnah, one of the levitical cities; and discusses the implications of the methodology of this type of fieldwork.

The Corn-Wolf: Writing Apotropaic Texts

Act One Anthropology graduate student finishes two years of fieldwork and returns home with a computer full of notes and a trunk full of notebooks. Job now is to convert all that into a three-hundred-page piece of writing. No one has told her or him (1) how to do fieldwork or (2) that writing is usually the hardest part of the deal. Could these omissions be linked? I mean—what a state of affairs! Here we have what are arguably the two most important aspects of anthropology and social science, and they are both rich, ripe secrets—secret-society-type shenanigans. Why so? Could it be that both are based on impossible-to-define talents, intuitions, tricks, and fears? All the more reason to talk about them, you say. Yes, but what sort of talk? For is there not something else going on here, something connecting fieldwork to writingwork, something they have in common? For instance, fieldwork involves participant observation with people and events, being inside and outside, while writingwork involves magical projections through words into people and events. Can we say therefore that writingwork is a type of fieldwork and vice versa?

Threat of Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome to Field Biologists Working with Small Mammals

Low risk for hantavirus pulmonary syndrome (HPS) has been reported among biologists engaged in fieldwork with rodents. The overall probability of acquiring HPS when working with rodents appears to be 1 in 1,412 (0.00071). Nonetheless, a causal link between HPS and lack of personal protective equipment (PPE) use is suggested by some investigators. However, supporting data are incomplete and consequently misleading. A recent HPS case was assumed to be acquired during rodent-handling activities, although substantial peridomestic exposure was evident. Regulatory groups interpret inadequate data as evidence of the need for excessive and inappropriate PPE, which can hamper field research and instructional efforts. PPE recommendations should be reviewed and revised to match the risk associated with different types of fieldwork with small mammals.

FOREST CANOPIES: Methods, Hypotheses, and Future Directions

▪ Abstract Forest canopies contain a major portion of the diversity of organisms on Earth and constitute the bulk of photosynthetically active foliage and biomass in forest ecosystems. For these reasons, canopy research has become integral to the management of forest ecosystems, and to our better understanding of global change. Ecological research in forest canopies is relatively recent and has been primarily descriptive in scope. The development of new methods of canopy access has enabled scientists to conduct more quantified research in tree crowns. Studies of sessile organisms, mobile organisms, and canopy interactions and processes have emerged as subdisciplines of canopy biology, each requiring different methods for collecting data. Canopy biology is beginning to shift from a descriptive autecology of individuals to a more complex ecosystem approach, although some types of field work are still limited by access. Questions currently addressed in canopy research are extremely diverse but emphasize comparisons with respect to spatial and temporal variation. Spatial scales range from leaves (e.g. quantifying the number of mites on individual phylloplanes) to trees (e.g. measuring photosynthesis between sun and shade leaves), to forest stands (e.g. measuring turbulence above the canopy), and entire landscapes (e.g. comparing mammals between different forest types). Temporal variation is of particular significance in tropical forest canopies, where populations of organisms and their resources have diurnal, seasonal, or even annual periodicity. As the methods for canopy access improve, more rigorous hypotheses-driven field studies remain a future priority of this newly coalesced discipline.

A pilot study of fieldwork rotations vs. year long placements for social work students in a public hospital.

A comparison of two types of fieldwork was undertaken with 26 social work students in a large urban hospital. The first group was assigned to a traditional, year long placement. The second group was assigned to three successive placements of approximately 10 weeks each. The impact of these two types of placement on students' general sense of self-efficacy, self-efficacy regarding specific hospital social work activities and perceptions of the work environment, was assessed. Initial results suggest that both groups produce virtually no change in students' general sense of self-efficacy, yet produce positive changes in students' self-efficacy regarding hospital social work. In addition, results suggest that the fieldwork rotation used in the second group may produce somewhat more positive views of the work environment.

Sensuality and Consciousness:Psychosexual Transformation in the Eastern Andaman

Field/work still underway in the eastern Sea of Andaman shows that direct sensual experience of exotic cultures is sometimes needed to grasp central aspects of the way of life. A brief ethnographic sketch of the region precedes a discussion of how alien intrusion catastrophicaUy transforms the aboriginal consciousness. The spectrum of consciousness across the region is then analyzed. Two critical crosscultural sensual events essential to the study are detailed. Without the experiences these conferred, core features of the original way‐of'tife (and its transformation) would have remained unknown. Two Western cultural restraints on this type offieldwork are considered: that of Western ethicality and that of Western epistemology.

Light assimilation curves of some tropical macroscopic marine plants

The light assimilation curves of 10 Cuban macroscopic marine plants presented assimilation plateaus except for those few cases with photoinhibition due to excess light, high temperature, or water stagnation inside unshaken incubation bottles. The studied brown algae had an average compensation irradiance ( I k) value lower than the I k for both green algae and seagrasses. As bottles cannot be adequately agitated during in situ experiments at different depths, this type of field work should be designed only to determine relative photosynthesis values. Because of temperature increments due to artificial lighting, laboratory experiments should provide temperature control during incubations.

Field Techniques in Marine Biology

Many methods and techniques can be used to teach the student how to use various marine and scientific apparati, but probably the best method is to have the student use the gear under practical field and laboratory experiences. Schools close to the beach have a better opportunity for studying the marine environment for obvious reasons. The type of field work and techniques employed by the students depend heavily upon the kind of environment that surrounds the immediate area of the school or how easily accessible it is. My intention is to illustrate how one type of technique can be used for various kinds of environments. Here at Jacksonville Beach, Florida, we have one of the few remaining natural sand dune areas in the state. Also, there are many estuaries, marshes, and maritime forests within class-time driving distance. Other ecosystems that can be found throughout Florida and other parts of the United States are; mangrove swamps, tidal flats, coral reefs, mud flats, and jetties. In order to teach my students field techniques in marine biology, I have divided the work into six different studies according to ecosystems: intertidal zone, upper beach, sand dunes, maritime forest, estuary and marsh. The objective of this type of study is twofold: to teach the student how to use various field gear and test equipment, and to have the student understand the important relationships between the factors (abiotic and biotic) of each ecosystem. Each ecosystem is studied separately and after all ecosystems have been studied they are grouped together on a Data Retrieval Chart for study of all the ecosystems' interrelationships. The students are divided into groups according to what they will be studying, and the groups are rotated for each study so that every student will have the opportunity to use all sampling gear and test equipment. Below is a chart explaining how the students may be divided into groups, and each group into its subgroups. Remember that this is only one way that it may be done! Different groups may be formed according to area, number of students, equipment and gear available. After all the students have been assigned to a group and understand what equipment they will be using, it may be necessary to explain how to use some of the equipment such as plankton net, salinity kit, etc. Also, more than one class period may be necessary in order to complete the study of a particular ecosystem. If so, that's quite all-right. When the plankton net is used, it

Role-Making in Participant Observation: Processes in the Researcher-Actor Relationship

Although recent essays about participant observations have extended our understanding of that research method and its problematic aspects, few methodologists have scrutinized intensively the processes by which roles are developed in this type of fieldwork or the relationship of role development to the data gathered. Our purpose in reviewing our own experiences as participant observers in a longitudinal study of baccalaureate student nurses is to explore these questions. We have also studied reports of the encounters of other researchers in participant observation. Using information from such experiences, we have tried to outline and interpret the characteristic processes of role defining in this type of research. We have restricted ourselves to consideration of fieldwork situations in which the involved parties are mutually aware of the research, thus avoiding the special problems of role definitions in hidden research.