Warren County Research Articles

Demographic and geographic variations in the access time of pediatric patients presenting with staring spells

ObjectiveTo assess the demographic and geographic variations in access time – defined as years between the date of symptom onset and initial date of neurological care – in pediatric patients presenting with staring spells. Materials and methodsWe conducted a secondary analysis of a retrospective chart review study from 2011 to 2021. A total of 1,353 staring spell patients, aged 0 to 17.9 years, were analyzed for age, sex, race/ethnicity, insurance, county, average county annual per capita personal income, and access time. ResultsPatients aged 0–2.9 years had the shortest median access time of 0.3 years, compared to 1.2 years in patients aged 3–12.9 years and 1.0 year in patients aged 13–17.9 years. Statistically significant differences were seen based on race/ethnicity and insurance with White patients having shorter access time of 0.5 years compared to Black patients with 1.0 year and self-pay patients having the shortest access time of 0.4 years compared to patients with private insurance (0.7 years). Warren County had the largest annual per capita personal income of $65,855 and access time of 0.5 years compared to Preble county with the least annual per capita personal income of $45,016 and access time of 1.1 years. ConclusionDemographic parameters of age, race/ethnicity, insurance, and annual county per capita personal income appeared to be associated with access time to initial neurological care in patients with staring spells. These associations need to be investigated further to ensure timely access to neurological care and to ensure equity in health care.

Modeling spatial spillover effect on intersection crash propensity: a case study at the county level in Ohio

The characteristics of intersection crashes are not only affected by the subject intersection where the crash occurs but also are correlated with environmental conditions of neighboring analysis zones. There are few studies on intersection crash analysis to solve certain spatial effects on microscopic safety issues by proactively incorporating highway safety improvement measures into the long-term transportation planning process. The objective of this paper is to develop a heuristic traffic safety analysis system where spatial spillovers analysis is integrated into roadway safety assessment to incorporate micro variables and macro variables. With K-means clustering technique in a GIS environment, 8 hotspot counties are identified from 88 counties in Ohio, which have high intersection crash propensity. The rest of counties are identified as general counties. Then, an innovative integrated Generalized Linear Model is adopted to identify 11 and 20 significant variables that contribute to the intersection crash propensity in hotspot counties and general counties, respectively. To verify compatibility of intersection crash frequency models with macro-level and micro-level measurement, Reading Road in Cincinnati, Hamilton County (hotspot county) and I-71 in Mason City and Lebanon City of Warren County (general county) are used as examples for the test, and the results show a good consistence.

Noteworthy Collections: First documented antheridia on Palamocladium leskeoides (Brachytheciaceae) in North America

The collection reported here of Palamocladium leskeoides, made in Tennessee, represents the first documented observation of antheridia on this species in North America. Palamocladium leskeoides is a dioicous moss species with a pantropical distribution. Uncommon in the United States, it grows in disjunct populations in moist habitats on calcareous rock. We visited Rock Island State Park (Warren County, Tennessee) in 2019 and relocated a population of this species that was last collected from that location in 1979. Two small voucher specimens were collected and one was observed to have a perigonium containing antheridia attached to the stem. The invasive evergreen Euonymus fortunei was also observed covering surfaces that could otherwise be suitable habitat for P. leskeoides. We plan to assist Rock Island State Park with remediation of invasive plants to improve the available habitat and monitoring the population of this rare moss.

Identification and Management of Phytophthora Aerial Blight Caused by Phytophthora nicotianae on Catharanthus roseus.

Phytophthora nicotianae is the most common pathogen in nurseries and gardens, infecting both woody and herbaceous ornamental plants. Phytophthora aerial blight symptoms such dull water-soaked lesions on shoot tips and leaf petioles, girdling on the main stem, necrosis, and wilting of annual vinca were observed in a commercial greenhouse in Warren County, TN, U.S.A., in May 2016. The objective of this study was to identify the causal agent of Phytophthora aerial blight and develop a fungicide management recommendation for ornamental producers. Attempts to isolate the pathogen from symptomatic leaf tissue were conducted, and excised leaf pieces were embedded in V8 agar medium. Morphological characterization, PCR, sequencing, and pathogenicity test of the isolate FBG2016_444 were conducted to confirm the pathogen identification. The sequence identity was 100% identical to P. nicotianae, and a combined phylogenetic tree (internal transcribed spacer, large subunit of rDNA, and ras-related protein gene) grouped isolate FBG2016_444 within the clade of P. nicotianae. In the pathogenicity study, all inoculated annual vinca plant showed Phytophthora aerial blight symptoms, and P. nicotianae was reisolated, whereas noninoculated annual vinca plant remained symptomless. These findings confirmed P. nicotianae as the causal agent of Phytophthora aerial blight of annual vinca. In addition, two rates (0.078 and 0.156 ml·liter-1) and three application intervals (7, 14, and 21 days before inoculation [DBI]) of oxathiapiprolin (Segovis) were evaluated for their ability to reduce the Phytophthora aerial blight severity on annual vinca plants. The control groups were positive (nontreated inoculated) and negative (nontreated noninoculated) plants. Both rates and application timings of oxathiapiprolin significantly reduced Phytophthora aerial blight severity and disease progress (area under disease progress curve [AUDPC]) on annual vinca plants compared with the positive control. However, 0.078 and 0.156 ml·liter-1 of oxathiapiprolin applied at 7 or 14 DBI were the most effective treatments in reducing the disease severity and AUDPC on annual vinca plants. The plant growth parameters such as increase in height and width, total plant weight, and root weight were not influenced by the application of oxathiapiprolin. The findings reported in this study will help ornamental producers with better management of Phytophthora aerial blight of annual vinca.

Black Capitalism in One City

Black Capitalism in One City Adolph Reed Jr. (bio) Soul City: Race, Equality, and the Lost Dream of an American Utopia by Thomas Healy Metropolitan Books, 2021, 448 pp. Thomas Healy’s book is an earnest and empathetic examination of Soul City, former civil rights lawyer and national director of the Congress of Racial Equality Floyd McKissick’s 1970s idea for a black-designed, black-led town in Warren County, North Carolina, near the Virginia border. The book is a moving account of McKissick’s commitment to his vision and the many obstacles, reasonable and unreasonable, objective and arbitrary, that hindered its realization. As a story of McKissick the man and his nearly indefatigable zeal, Soul City is nuanced and subtle, and it provides poignant, if not always fully intentional, commentary on the limitations of the political moment out of which McKissick’s idea emerged. Healy [End Page 151] seems to channel McKissick’s own enthusiasm in asking, “How could a project that once held such promise and potential fall so depressingly short of its goals?” His follow up questions suggest his answer: “Was Soul City an impossible and misbegotten dream from the beginning, or was it a brilliant idea that was thwarted by racism and ignorance? And how might history have been different if Soul City had succeeded?” I confess that I was bemused on reading those questions, especially the last. As someone who had peripheral associations with the project and was around it from nearly the beginning to the end, I never once believed that Soul City could be anything more than a boondoggle, much less a game-changing intervention in black American politics. I assisted in a shopping habits and patterns study that the Ford Foundation– funded community development agency I worked for in Durham conducted for Soul City in the early 1970s. Later, in the summer of 1974, I worked in Warrenton, the seat of Warren County, for six weeks on a research project monitoring local spending patterns of federal revenue sharing and other funds, which provided another perspective on Soul City. Occasionally, while visiting friends in Warrenton into the early 1980s, I would nose around and get updates on how little actual new development there had been at the Soul City site. Finally, during a car trip in late 2006 or early 2007, I pulled off I-85 on a lark to see what remained of the location. I was taken aback when I encountered a medium-security prison, which Healy describes in the book, and a factory under construction across the street, which was clearly being built to accommodate use of prison labor. That seemed like ignominious punctuation to the demise of McKissick’s vanity project, with its mixture of a class-skewed quixotic vision and blatant political opportunism. From that perspective, the more interesting question is what led Healy to see the Soul City experiment as having offered such promise. Perhaps his respect for McKissick encouraged a reflexive embrace of McKissick’s assessment of the scheme’s potential. Healy’s premise also comports with a romantic trope of recovering lost or forgotten roads tragically not taken, which has become conventional in a moment when boundaries between lay and professional historiography, and between writing about the past and doing politics, have dissolved under the pressure of claims to social relevance. The autodidact’s indictment—“Why didn’t ‘we’ (or at least I) know this?”—has elevated expressions of aggrievement above pursuit of understanding in approaches to black political history. This interpretive environment encourages extracting events, people, and tendencies from their contexts in the past to treat them as appendages to moralistic claims for the present. Healy contextualizes the Soul City experiment in some ways but not necessarily those that were most important. He situates McKissick’s idea in relation to an ideal variously characterized as black “self-determination,” “economic self-sufficiency,” “control over their own destiny,” or “economic parity.” In addition to discussing Soul City in relation to the broader New Communities movement in postwar metropolitan planning and development, he links McKissick’s ideal to the formation of all-black towns in the late nineteenth century and relates it to Booker T. Washington’s...

Directional Drilling in Glacial Deposits in Warren County, New Jersey

AbstractThis case history pertains to three horizontal directional drilling bores that were advanced under streams and are in close proximity to or beneath three bridges. During construction, optic...

First Demonstration of Nitrate Reduction Using Woodchip Bioreactor Technology at a Small Community Wastewater Treatment Plant

Eutrophication can be accelerated by excess amounts of reactive Nitrogen (Nr) entering aquatic ecosystems. Historically, the circa 1960 Bolton Wastewater Treatment Plant, Warren County, New York (USA), discharged plant effluent for final polishing to natural sand infiltration beds, which entered the groundwater and then tributaries to Lake George. The absence of a denitrification unit process at the Bolton facility resulted in the construction of a woodchip bioreactor and a corresponding demonstration project to evaluate denitrification of plant effluent prior to sand bed discharge. This Denitrifying Bioreactor (DNBR) installation was the first real time, in-situ application of this “green technology” for a small wastewater treatment plant world-wide. The Bolton DNBR reduced nitrate-nitrogen concentrations in the tertiary effluent by 38% when compared with untreated tertiary effluent. Here we show that wastewater denitrification using this passive, environmentally compatible technology offers a low-cost, effective tool for small community wastewater treatment plants where excess Nr is problematic. Combined with diligent plant operator attention, this innovative treatment should move beyond concept into full scale field applications for other small community wastewater treatment plants globally, using lessons learned at the Bolton facility.

241. A Comparison of Staphylococcal and Streptococcal Septic Arthritis with Lyme Arthritis

BackgroundSeptic arthritis is considered the most important differential diagnosis in suspected Lyme arthritis. The present study sheds light on the most frequent misdiagnoses in Lyme arthritis cases and clues for differentiation from Staphylococcal and Streptococcal septic arthritis.MethodsWe studied patients with positive joint fluid cultures with Staphylococcus aureus (SA) and streptococci and Lyme polymerase chain reaction (PCR) positive joint fluid in 9 hospitals in Eastern Pennsylvania and 1 in Warren county, New Jersey over a 3 year period.ResultsOne hundred and thirty four out of 7000 SA and 21 out of 1321 streptococcal isolates were from joint fluid. Twenty nine had Lyme arthritis, ages 5-74 ( 24 males,5 females). Twelve out of 29 were ages 10-18 with 20/29 under age 40. Predominant joint affected was a single knee 27/29. All had pain with or without swelling and little erythema. Two had fever. One reported a tick bite. None had other manifestations of Lyme disease. The diagnosis at the initial visit was sprain or sports injury in 5, osteoarthritis in 5, inflammatory arthritis or gout in 2 each, i septic arthritis, 1 viral syndrome and 1 ruptured Baker's cyst. Joint fluid count range was 3500-77,360 with only 3 over 50,000. White blood cell count (wbc) range was 3200-14,580. SA arthritis involved knee in 66 (49.3%), hip 31(23.9%), elbow 19 (14.2%), shoulder 14 (10.4%) with 2 wrist, 1 ankle and 1 sterno-clavicular joint. Fifty seven had a history of joint surgery. Eighty six were male and 48 female. age range 14-95 with a median age 65. Synovial fluid cell count was 335-470,000 and wbc 5,200-28,410 . Streptococcal septic arthritis ( 13 male 8 female) involved the knee in 17/21 with one each of hip, elbow, shoulder. The ages were 36-86 with 15/21 over age 60. Synovial fluid count was15,242-641,425 . Wbc count 11,140-25,080 .Nine out 21 had prior joint surgery.ConclusionLyme arthritis patients were younger, mostly involving 1 knee, majority male without other manifestations of Lyme disease. Highest synovial fluid count was 77,360 and highest wbc count 14,580. Most frequent misdiagnoses were sports injury/sprain or osteoarthritis. SA and Streptococcal arthritis were mostly in elderly, with higher joint fluid cell and wbc counts. Only 1/29 Lyme arthritis was initially misdiagnosed septic arthritis.Disclosures All Authors: No reported disclosures

Building design, resident's behavior, and indoor radon in the Commonwealth of Kentucky

This research aims to identify the impact of foundation type on average indoor radon levels in houses in the Commonwealth of Kentucky. It compares the averages of indoor Radon in 4 houses in Warren County, Kentucky, an area classified as zone 1 by the US Environmental Protection Agency. The predicted averages of indoor Radon greater than four pCi/L. The four houses are wood-frame structures; two of them are built on slabs-on-grade, the other two are raised on crawl spaces. A questionnaire was used to gather data about the occupant's behavior towards the indoor air quality in their houses during the test period. A T-test was performed to analyze the radon readings. The data analysis shows a significant difference in indoor Radon between houses of different foundation types. Unlike the previous studies, the houses built on slabs-ongrade show significantly lower averages of indoor Radon than those built on crawlspaces. Also, the results confirm earlier studies regarding the impact of the user's behavior on indoor air quality. Natural ventilation can significantly reduce the averages of indoor Radon. A limitation of this study is that it was carried out in only four houses. More surveys of indoor Radon in buildings with different foundation types are required for results to be generalizable.

“Thou maiest inforce my body but not mee”: Racializing Consent in John Marston’sThe Wonder of Women

“Thou maiest inforce my body but not mee”: Racializing Consent in John Marston’s<i>The Wonder of Women</i>

The multiple people of color origins of the US environmental justice movement: social movement spillover and regional racial projects in California

ABSTRACT This paper contributes to scholarship on the origins of the US environmental justice movement (EJM) through exploration of the early EJM in California. The national EJM is often seen as having grown out of the intersection of environmentalism and the Black civil rights movement in the 1982 protests in Warren County, North Carolina. This paper adds weight to alternate narratives that depict the EJM as drawing on a variety of racialized social movement infrastructures that vary regionally. These infrastructures, as they were built in California, are analyzed as regional racial projects responding to histories of white supremacy that are connected through social movement spillover. This conceptual framework illuminates the place-based ways in which racial oppression and racial justice responses create social movement infrastructure that persists across multiple movement formations, both across contemporary groups and through time. The paper draws on data gathered from existing case studies and oral histories, in-depth interviews, participant observation, and archival documents to offer a capacious view of the EJM’s origins.

1559. Methicillin Susceptible Staphylococcus aureus Is The Predominant Organism In Septic Bursitis With The Majority Involving The Olecranon Bursa: A Study Of 61 Cases

BackgroundBursae are fluid filled structures between mobile parts of the musculoskeletal system to reduce friction between surfaces by lubrication. The most frequently infected are the olecranon and prepatellar bursae. In reported studies there is male preponderance, a relationship to occupational or recreational activities, a mean age of about 50 years and the most frequent organism being Staphylococcus aureus. The frequency of methicillin resistance is not well documented.MethodsWe analyzed approximately 7000 Staphylococcus aureus isolates reported by the laboratory over a 3-year period in 10 of our network hospitals, 9 in Eastern Pennsylvania and one in adjacent Warren County, New Jersey and found 61 cases of S. aureus septic bursitis.ResultsOnly 13/61 (21.3%) were caused by methicillin resistant S. aureus (MRSA), 8 olecranon (61.5%), 4 prepatellar (30.8%) and one subacromial (7.7%). Only one in MRSA group (olecranon bursitis) was female. The mean age of MRSA cases was 58.5. Methicillin susceptible S. aureus (MSSA) predominated with 34/48 (70.8%) olecranon bursitis (28M/6F), 11/48 (22.9%) prepatellar bursitis (10M/1F) and 3/48 (6.3%) sub acromial bursitis (1M/2F) with a mean age of 61.9. Overall (MRSA +MSSA), 51/61 (83.6%) were male and 10/61 (16.4%) were female. The olecranon bursa was involved in 42/61 (68.9%), prepatellar bursa 15/54 (24.6%) and subacromial bursa 4/54 (6.6%). The mean age for the entire group was 61.2 with the youngest 23 and the oldest 93. The occupational history was recorded only in a few patients e.g. roofer, floor worker, construction worker. Three in the MSSA group had bacteremia (2 subacromial bursitis and 1 olecranon bursitis). There was 1 death from gram negative sepsis which was unrelated. The majority were successfully treated with a combination of drainage and antibiotics.ConclusionIn summary, our study shows a predominance of olecranon bursitis, with a higher incidence in males and majority caused by MSSA. The mean age around 61 was higher than the mean age in prior reports around 50 years. Elbows and knees accounted for 57/61 (93%) cases of septic bursitis. Avoidance of activities involving friction or repeated trauma to elbows and knees should help prevention of septic bursitis. As far as we are aware, this is the largest series of septic bursitis reported.Disclosures All Authors: No reported disclosures

736. Babesia microti: A study of 38 cases

Background Babesia microti is an intraerythrocytic infection transmitted by Ixodes scapularis in Eastern United States. The same vector transmits Borrelia burgdorferi, Anaplasma phagocytophilum, B miyamotoi and Powassan virus resulting in mixed infections. Spleen involvement, blood abnormalities and abnormal liver functions are common in babesiosis. Here we present the clinical findings of 38 B microti (smear or serology positive) patients.MethodsWe retrospectively evaluated charts of 38 patients, 20 male and 18 female, smear or serology positive for B. microti in our health network from 9 hospitals in Eastern Pennsylvania and one in adjacent Warren county New Jersey.ResultsEleven had B microti and Lyme co-infections (9 western blot positive, 2 with erythema migrans) and 2 mixed infections with A. phagocytophilum (PCR+). Only 2 gave a history of a tick bite. Fourteen presented with fever. 9 were Babesia smear positive. All 9 smear positive patients had fever, 7 were anemic, 6 leukopenic and 8 had increased liver enzymes. Six out of 14 with fever and 6 out of 9 smear positive patients had low platelet counts. Two with left upper abdominal discomfort likely due to splenic inflammation were initially misdiagnosed as left pyelonephritis. One had splenomegaly. Both had anemia and thrombocytopenia. A patient with a low IGG titer 1:10 for B microti and chronic ITP with a platelet count 102,000 (NL 140-200,000) had a 1 cm splenic artery aneurysm. Four western blot negative patients 2 with joint pain and 2 with radiculopathy were not counted as mixed infections. A Lyme co-infected patient had sinus tachycardia and ST, T changes in the electrocardiogram suggestive of Lyme myocarditis. All mixed infections were treated with a combination of atovaquone, azithromycin and doxycycline, including one patient initially on quinine and clindamycin switched due to side effects.Conclusion I.scapularis transmitted mixed infections are not uncommon. The majority were due to B microti and B burgdorferi. Fever was the most common presentation in symptomatic patients. Anemia, leukopenia, thrombocytopenia and elevated liver enzymes were common in smear positive patents. Babesiosis should be suspected in patients presenting with left upper abdominal pain in tick endemic areas. Most did not give a history of a tick bite.Disclosures All Authors: No reported disclosures

First Report of Phytopythium vexans Causing Root and Crown Rot on Flowering Cherry in Tennessee.

Flowering cherry (Prunus serrulata Lindl. 'Kwanzan') rooted cuttings grown in propagation beds containing 40% coarse sand and 60% ground pine bark in a commercial propagation nursery in Warren County, Tennessee were exhibiting root and crown rot in December 2016. Dark brown to black soft lesions were observed in the roots as well as the crown region of flowering cherry rooted cuttings and those rooted cuttings were non-marketable due to lesions. Disease incidence was approximately 60% of 10,000 plants. Phytophthora ImmunoStrip test (Agdia Inc., Elkhart, IN, USA) was performed and the test result was positive. Diseased plant tissues were surface sterilized with 70% ethanol and washed twice with distilled water. Culturing the affected root and crown parts (1 cm pieces) on V8-PARPH, an oomycete-selective medium consistently yielded whitish radiate mycelial growth pattern with spherical zoospores, filamentous to globose oogoni, elongated, and cylindrical antheridia with constrictions (De Cock et al., 2015) after 7 days of incubation at 25°C in a 12-h fluorescent light and dark cycle, which is the typical morphology of Phytopythium vexans (de Bary) Abad, de Cock, Bala, Robideau, Lodhi & Lévesque. To confirm pathogen identity, total DNA was extracted using the UltraClean Microbial DNA Isolation Kit (MO BIO Laboratories, Inc., Carlsbad, CA, USA) directly from a 3-day old culture of isolate (FBG2017010) on V8 medium. The internal transcribed spacer (ITS) and 28S large subunit of ribosomal RNA, and cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (CoxI) of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) genes/ region were amplified by PCR using the primer pairs ITS1/ ITS4 (White et al., 1990), NL1/ NL4 (Baten et al., 2014), and Levup and Fm85mod (Robideau et al., 2011), respectively. The PCR products were sequenced and the sequences (GenBank accession nos. MT533275, MT533451, and MT547980) were compared to the voucher specimens. They were 99.23, 99.60, and 98.92% similar to those of P. vexans isolates in the NCBI database (HQ643400, KR092144, and HQ708996, respectively). To complete Koch's postulates, 'Kwanzan' flowering cherry rooted cuttings grown on propagation substrate (10 cm pot containing 1 kg sterilized 40% coarse sand and 60% ground pine bark) were inoculated with identified pathogen and observations were taken on root rot disease symptoms. Five plants were inoculated with 100 ml of pathogen agar-slurry (1 plate of a 7-day old culture of isolate FBG2017010/1 L of sterilized water), and five control plants were drenched with agar slurry. The plants were maintained in the greenhouse condition (day/night temperature of 26/24°C), and irrigated twice a day for 2 min by overhead irrigation system. After 2 weeks, dark brown to black necrotic root lesions developed on all inoculated cuttings and P. vexans was consistently re-isolated from the inoculated plants. The morphology of the pathogen isolated on the V8-PARPH medium was identical to the original isolate. All control plants remained symptom-free and P. vexans was not isolated from the root tissue. To our knowledge, this is the first report of P. vexans causing root and crown rot in 'Kwanzan' flowering cherry in Tennessee, which can be a potential threat for the nursery crop production. The identification of P. vexans, the causal agent of Phytopythium root and crown rot is important in determination and implementation of effective management strategies.

Round County Almanac

Round County Almanac John Shoptaw Each of the new counties established their boundaries exactly twelve miles from McMinnville, with the result that by 1844 Warren County had acquired its distinctive round shape and its nickname, “the round county.” —The Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture It took dominion everywhere. —Wallace Stevens, “Anecdote of the Jar” Evenings such as these, one mounts hills.Even such a one—tall, portly, with an airof blessedness, an urge to be fruitful and conjugate(Tennessee, Tennessaw, Tennesseen),to bask in apple moonshine, line up dominoes. Such a one would mount such a hill,chestnutted summit of a county round by law,imaginary hub of the parallelogram state,parallelogram being another word for poem. April is June here, where streams run to the Gulfand purple magnolia litter and bobwhite quail arebecoming. But when the thing one carriesuphill is round, its spiced contents clear, why,the chaotic peaks of the eastern state linelook like the Sloven family come to market,all bushel baskets and overalls, smoking. Salamanders on moonlit balds will sprawl,and bats like notes from cavern mouths will spill,and black bears slathering for a long cinnamonfinish will put one, not to rout but in mindof one’s return railway ticket. One runsfrom nothing without leaving somethingempty but upright in memory of oneself. [End Page 129] John Shoptaw Kensington, California Copyright © 2019 Johns Hopkins University Press

Patriotism, Courage, & Sacrifice

Review of: Patriotism, Courage, & Sacrifice: Warren County's Response to WW II by Jerry K. Beatty

Race and Spatial Imaginary: Planning Otherwise/Introduction: What Shakes Loose When We Imagine Otherwise/She Made the Vision True: A Journey Toward Recognition and Belonging/Isha Black or Isha White? Racial Identity and Spatial Development in Warren County, NC/Colonial City Design Lives Here: Questioning Planning Education’s Dominant Imaginaries/Say Its Name – Planning Is the White Spatial Imaginary, or Reading McKittrick and Woods as

Race and Spatial Imaginary: Planning Otherwise/Introduction: What Shakes Loose When We Imagine Otherwise/She Made the Vision True: A Journey Toward Recognition and Belonging/Isha Black or Isha White? Racial Identity and Spatial Development in Warren County, NC/Colonial City Design Lives Here: Questioning Planning Education’s Dominant Imaginaries/Say Its Name – Planning Is the White Spatial Imaginary, or Reading McKittrick and Woods as

Reconstructing a herbivore's diet using a novel rbcL DNA mini-barcode for plants.

Next Generation Sequencing and the application of metagenomic analyses can be used to answer questions about animal diet choice and study the consequences of selective foraging by herbivores. The quantification of herbivore diet choice with respect to native versus exotic plant species is particularly relevant given concerns of invasive species establishment and their effects on ecosystems. While increased abundance of white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) appears to correlate with increased incidence of invasive plant species, data supporting a causal link is scarce. We used a metabarcoding approach (PCR amplicons of the plant rbcL gene) to survey the diet of white-tailed deer (fecal samples), from a forested site in Warren County, Virginia with a comprehensive plant species inventory and corresponding reference collection of plant barcode and chloroplast sequences. We sampled fecal pellet piles and extracted DNA from 12 individual deer in October 2014. These samples were compared to a reference DNA library of plant species collected within the study area. For 72 % of the amplicons, we were able to assign taxonomy at the species level, which provides for the first time-sufficient taxonomic resolution to quantify the relative frequency at which native and exotic plant species are being consumed by white-tailed deer. For each of the 12 individual deer we collected three subsamples from the same fecal sample, resulting in sequencing 36 total samples. Using Qiime, we quantified the plant DNA found in all 36 samples, and found that variance within samples was less than variance between samples (F = 1.73, P = 0.004), indicating additional subsamples may not be necessary. Species level diversity ranged from 60 to 93 OTUs per individual and nearly 70 % of all plant sequences recovered were from native plant species. The number of species detected did reduce significantly (range 4-12) when we excluded species whose OTU composed <1 % of each sample's total. When compared to the abundance of native and non-natives plants inventoried in the local community, our results support the observation that white-tailed deer have strong foraging preferences, but these preferences were not consistent for species in either class. Deer forage behaviour may favour some exotic species, but not all.

Dam Seepage Investigation of an Earthfill Dam in Warren County, Missouri Using Geophysical Methods

Electrical resistivity tomography (ERT), induced polarization (IP) and spontaneous potential (SP) data were acquired across and in proximity to a leaking earth-fill dam (Wolf Creek dam) in Warren County, Missouri. The objectives were to identify and map probable seepage pathways through the dam and to determine if the outlet works drainage pipe used in the construction of the dam was leaking. On the basis of the integrated interpretation of the acquired geophysical data two probable seepage pathways through the leaking earth-fill dam were identified and mapped. These two pathways are referred to as the Groin Leak and Water Fall Leak, respectively. The Groin Leak and Water Fall Leak seepage pathways are both characterized by relatively low resistivity and low chargeability. It is also concluded that there is high probability that water is leaking from the downstream end of the outlet works drainage pipe. The interpreted drainage pipe leak (Outlet works Leak) is characterized by relatively low resistivity, high chargeability and negative self-potential values.

Struggles for Educational Equity in Prince Edward County, VA: Resistance, Southern Manifesto Ideologies, and School Choice

ABSTRACTIn light of contemporary school choice proposals and the 60th anniversary of the Southern Manifesto, the Prince Edward County, Virginia public schools crisis provides interesting historical discussion. Prince Edward County (PEC), a rural community in central Virginia, was one of five school districts represented in the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision that ruled segregated public schools unconstitutional. In response to this decision, PEC closed public schools from 1959–1964 rather than desegregate them. Three other Virginia locales closed public schools to resist the desegregation mandate of Brown—Warren County, Charlottesville, and Norfolk—but none for as long as PEC. Like the 19 Senators and 82 Representatives from each of the former Confederate states who signed the Declaration of Constitutional Principles or “Southern Manifesto” and understood the Brown ruling as a violation of state’s rights, Virginia lawmakers also vowed “…to use all lawful means to bring about a reversal of this decision [Brown] which is contrary to the Constitution and to prevent the use of force in its implementation.”