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Dr. A is lecturing

  

2 Days -Test Post

Super stoked for NOLA

One week to go

In exactly 168 hours (7 days) I’ll be on the Island Packers boat making my way to Santa Rosa. I’ll be checking the cameras for the first time in 5 months, so I look forward to lots of data to sort through. In addition, I’ll be assisting Dr. O’Hirok’s Stream Team in placing rebar in some of the water sheds for future monitoring. I’ll be there from Monday through Friday, so four nights. It’ll be my longest trip, and I can’t wait to get back out there and hopefully see some wildflowers. The picture included is from March 2014, my first trip to Santa Rosa. The flowers were everywhere

Santa Rosa Island 29-31 March 2014

Santa Rosa Island 29-31 March 2014

, and the Coreopsis was in full bloom as well.

Polling further solidifies CSUCI’s prominence within UAV community

Camarillo, Calif., March 14, 2016— Have you ever operated an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle?  How do you feel about law enforcement using UAVs or drones?  How about universities? Movie studios?

 

These are some of the questions on a public poll on UAVs—also called drones—that is currently being run by the Aerial and Aquatic Robotic Research (AARR) Group at CSU Channel Islands (CI).

Class Indoor flight training with a DJI Inspire (model 1), Spring 2015.
ESRM 370 indoor flight training with a DJI Inspire (model 1), Spring 2015.

In order to create a clearer and more objective understanding of the technology, the AARR Group is seeking public comment on UAVs or drones through this anonymous link: http://bit.ly/1UtrURG

 

The AAAR team and undergraduate students from CI’s foundational Introduction to Remotely-Piloted Systems class are seeking to understand more about the potential uses and attitudes toward UAVs (drones)..

 

Research like this is helping CI to become nationally prominent in the field of UAV education, according to entrepreneurs and other UAV experts, including Florida lawyer and legal scholar Jonathan Rupprecht, who specializes in Federal Aviation Administration issues and drone integration into the National Air Space.

 

“CSUCI is motivated to become a trailblazer in drones and has started taking steps to set itself apart,” Rupprecht said. “One of these steps is to gather large amounts of public opinion data on drones. This data will be informative to help build the foundation of an interdisciplinary drone education program—but not only that—it will help future students for decades to come.”

 

Industry iconoclasts like Dan Fetterly of SuperProAerial echo these impressions and see additional, unique strengths emerging within CI’s diverse approach to teaching and research. The Los Angeles-based supplier of heavy lift UAVs for industrial survey and Hollywood applications notes “CI’s unique interdisciplinary approach to integrating science, technology, engineering, art, and math into it’s UAV curriculum puts it on the “bleeding edge” of this rapidly developing technology.  Their approach is particularly suited to their Environmental Studies and Resource Management programs.”

 

This is the second year the Environmental Science and Resource Management (ESRM)’s AARR team has conducted polls about the rapidly-expanding field of unmanned technology.

 

“A mere five years ago, the drone sector was either a playground for toy manufacturers and remote control airplane hobbyists or a clandestine, hidden world of military engineers tucked away behind top secret military curtains,” said ESRM Associate Professor Sean Anderson, Ph.D. “It is now quickly becoming a massive sector touching on everything from agriculture to construction and conservation to package delivery.”

 

Anderson says he hopes a better understanding of the technology will help his students and UAV team responsibly foster the opportunities unmanned technology offers while minimizing the potential downsides.

 

“Disney is filing patents. College students are filing patents,” Anderson said. “We are San Francisco in 1850 with all kinds of Easterners daily arriving at our docks wanting and expecting to strike gold. But there is far too little perspective on this technology and industry.”

 

The poll will remain open until April 15.

UAV Poll 2016

Blog Entry #5 – How Place Matters to my Discipline-

Why Does Place Matter

Place matter for many reason, you could say it determines one’s life choices. We have learned in class that different areas breed different types of people. Whether that be in poor or rich areas, crime oriented areas, or the city or suburbs. In class we study the different types of maps and compare the different areas we look at based on: race, age, income, education or the availability of grocery stores, how much fast food there is, liquor stores, and healthcare. Place matters to how healthy individuals are whether they are prone to illness or obesity. The different types of maps give us a lay out of what areas are in more need than others. This has helped me recognize that place does matter when looking at any aspect of life. In class we recently watched a short film titled “Unnatural Causes: Place Matters (part 5)” it discusses how health is determined by the economic, physical and the emotional environment you live in. It talks about a lous man at age 49 pretty much dying of  congestive heart failure; why because he lives in Richmond, California. Richmond was once wealthy predominantly white city, it has now become primarily minorities with a large Laus community; Richmond is very poor and run down. With this environment being poorly taken care of means dirty streets and dirty air; which inevitably affected this man’s health. As the video tells us, Richmond is a neighborhood that is crime oriented littered with abandoned cars, homes, businesses, but also very few grocery stores with plenty of fast food and liquor stores. All this contributes to the poor health within the people of Richmond such as the 49  year old man with congestive heart failure.  This interesting because you would not expect where you live can be the reason for illness and death, all of this relates to my field of study, health.

Going  into the health field to become a nurse knowing what areas need more healthcare means I know which areas has more jobs. In the article “GIS and Health Care” we will literally discuss how GIS contributes to health care. Within this article Mclafferty discuss the importance of GIS in planning out health care locations. In many areas health care is not easily accessible or affordable to the surrounding people. GIS is able to offer the insight healthcare planners need to set up locations that fit economic needs. They are able to know which location has a high population of people with health issues based on: race, age, and sex.

We can see the importance of GIS in the health care and the importance their is in needing to set up the proper locations to areas in need. This next article will go on to discuss how GIS can help find out more information with the recent HIV/AID epidemic. “Health GIS and HIV/AIDS Studies: Prespective and Retrospective” goes on to tell us that “(1) geographical distribution and variation of diseases (2) analysis of spatial and temporal trends (3) identifying gaps in immunizations (4) mapping populations at risk and stratifying risk factors (5) documenting health care needs of a community and assessing resource allocations (6) forecasting epidemics (7) planning and targeting interventions (8) monitoring diseases and interventions over time (9) managing patient care environments, materials, supplies and human resources (10) monitoring the utilization of health centers (11) route health workers, equipments and supplies to service locations (12) publishing health information using maps, etc.” We can see how important it is for health care providers to have GIS to be able to locate what they are in need of the most; especially when we look at the HIV/AID epidemic. This is just one health epidemic that uses GIS with the health field having this tool expands the view for all types of health related needs.  

After reviewing these articles and what I have learned in University 298 I have a better understanding of how “place” and “GIS’ relate to everything but the importance of it in health care. As the articles pointed out they both use GIS to determine where to establish health care facilities. If I were deciding where to work based on the rate of illness, in other words how busy I am going to be and the type of care I will be able to give, I would look to GIS.

GIS would be able to tell me the income of the area, the type of care provided, and what the common illness is in different age ranges. I would personally look to be able to practice in an area that needs better healthcare, places such as Richmond from the video we watched “Unnatural Causes: Place Matters (part 5).” I find that the lower income areas need more health care facilities and better health care service, as we saw low income areas are prone to more illness just because that is where they live.  Overall I agree that “GIS” and “place” have an effect when choosing a field or a place to settle down and live or work.

 

Works Cited

McLafferty, Sara L. “GIS and Health Care.” Annual Review of Public Health, 24.1 (2003): 25-42.

Kandwal, Rashmi, P K Garg, and R D Garg. “Health GIS and HIV/AIDS Studies: Prespective and Retrospective.” Journal of Biomedical Informatics, 42.4 (2009): 748-755.

Life is Full of Surprises

Hayley is joining me, a good thing.

The 6:05am shuttle is full, egads!

As I prepare: buy galoshes, figure out how to get to Portland Airport and generally prepare for this trip, I am psychologically not ready…too much busy work that keeps me grounded and here in Corvallis.

CSU Student Research Competition Finalists

The 2016 CSU Student Research Competition is May 6-7 at CSU Bakersfield. Each CSU campus is entitled to send up to 10 projects to represent their campus. An interdisciplinary committee of the Student Research Steering Council selected the following projects to represent CI in Bakersfield. Prior to the competition students will present their work in an open forum. Watch this page for an announcement.

Reily Pratt, “Establishing Giant Brown Kelp as Biosentinel of Environmental Mercury”

Faculty Mentor: Simone Aloisio

Vanessa van Heerden, “Assessing the health of coral reefs in an era of anthropogenic stressors at Aitutaki, Cook Islands”

Faculty Mentor: Sean Anderson

Tevin Schmitt “Ecological Impact of the Refugio Oil Spill on Sandy Beach Systems”

Faculty Mentor: Sean Anderson

Brittany Marberry, “Investigating Individual and Contextual Factors Related to Arrests across Latino Immigrant Generations”

Faculty Mentor: Luis Sanchez

Jazmine Cureno, “Restoring Island History Through Graffiti”

Faculty Mentor: Colleen Delaney

Zosimo Geluz, “Neurocognition and Personality Processes: A Study of the Dark Triad”

Faculty Mentor: Kimmy Kee-Rose

Samantha Freitag, “Analysis of Mercury concentration in cigarettes as a viable source of human absorption of the top two brands sold in the United States”

Faculty Mentor: Simone Aloisio

Cordell   Tarrant, “Just how far will that tweet go? Quantifying the Social Media Impact of United States Senator’s Twitter Activity”

Faculty Mentor: Bryan Tomlin

Maria Pimentel,  “Is Education the Great Equalizer? Comparing the Wages of Native and Immigrant Latinos and Asians in California: 2000-2012”

Faculty Mentor: Luis Sanchez

Ande Murphy & Soraya Zarook, “Humanity for Robots: A Guide to Passing as a Person”

Faculty Mentor: Brad Monsma

 

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The Sunny City

The way I seen the world as an adolescent was, the influential depiction of Football. This image of being an athlete has always in my head, constantly reminding me, that one day I would be able to participate and practice with my friends. Being smaller than the rest of the kids in my grade school I would sit aside and watch my friends run with shining helmets down the sideline of a football field. My demographics has shaped the way I vewy some aspects of life. Living in San Diego, sports was at the centerfold of every part of my life. with new technology I can see the correlation between the geography in which I lived and my early childhood social development.

My Location was very significant to the way I started to play sports. San Diego is known for its regres sports programs. My neighborhood as a child has produced more than a dozen of pro athlete. The simplistic location that San Diego has in Southern California, provides a perfect environment for athletes. There’s nothing like beautiful San Diego weather. Any time of the year is great for visiting and enjoying the near-perfect climate. Temperatures peak around 80 degrees Fahrenheit during summer days, cooling off to about 65 at night. Winter highs tend to be around 66 F at night. The city typically gets over 300 days of sunshine per year, making it a great spot for a beach vacation and tourism. The aspect of weather is important to a large range of athletes because, depending on your location determines an athlete’s capability to practice on their craft.

In American football, the West Coast offense is an offense that places a greater emphasis on passing than on running. The redirect and ultimate philosophy that this offence brings, has inevitably influenced my very way of life, socially as well as athletically. Bill Walsh was the creator behind the West Coast office, his philosophy of constantly striving towards a victory is evident in the very way you teach and construct an offiance. In High School our coach used similar methods by Bill Walsh. Our coach’s ultimate goal for our team was to ultimately create an offence that was going to be: relentless, aggressive and impactful. The only way that our players and myself seen ourselves progressing towards this goal, was ultimately creating a tone that we all felt on the field and projected it towards relationships after the wisale, off the field.

Why is this important? The concept in which I endured on the football has shown me a sense of social trust. Without this important experience in my life I feel that I would be a different person, because the very way I see adversity and confront obstacles comes from the relentless attitude instilled in me from my past relationship in High School and as a youth in San Diego.

To what extent does my future depend on my current location? My past location in San Diego, ultimately created my memory’s as a youth, so I see my future depending on my ability to be a product of my environment. Attending an institution like CSU Channel Islands, I ultimately know the tone in which the outcome of my future. CSUCI is an new CSU institution, that has an outline goal that emphasizes on place, purpose and communion. The very way my college confronts opportunity, will creates an environment that will contribute to my success.

What is a supportive environment, how will it contribute to one’s senses of the success through self definity. For me, my perception of success is through support from others. The very way I obtained confidence and self morality was through past encounters and events. When these serious of events transpire, the individual has many ways to confront the situation. One’s environment can ultimately hold different senses and levels of opportunity as well as, hold different levels of social diversity.

Blog Entry #4 – 5 Metaphors and a Reason Why-

2. Show & Telepaths

This metaphor means what you can explain a concept but can’t prove it which means don’t tell a story that you can’t show proof to. This is a tricky thing in writing because it is a fine line between academic writing and creative writing. Which is often a struggle in writing but can be easily avoided. I struggle with this but I’ve learned to read over the assignment multiple times and check to see what I write is able to be proven with examples or citations.

4. Lost Money and Thank-you Notes: what’s in an audience

This is a tricky metaphor because it not only addresses the primary audience but also the secondary audience. I find it hard when writing to make sure that I am addressing the correct audience in the right manner. I face this problem a lot this semester in English 107 with the blog posts. We are writing as an assignment for our professor but also to our peers and ourselves. With this we need to be able to formal for the academic part but relaxed so we don’t lose the interest of our peers. With this type of writing it requires you to analyze the type of writing produced which should always be take into consideration.

6.Fruit-Jell-O: Balancing Argument & Examples

With this metaphor it is important to provide constancy. In the Fruit Jell-O it is important to always have a balance with what you are discussing. Such as keeping the fruit to jell-o ratio balanced it is important to keep the examples balanced with the arguments you present. Within my writing I need to practice balancing out my Jell-o; I tend to provide the argument but lack the base of examples to support it. I often feel it does not come across well in writing. Although in person I always make sure I have more than enough examples to provide evidence to my arguments. I hope to strengthen my arguments in writing by getting my examples across in a clearer manner than before.

7. Wash-and-Wear Paragraphs

The importance in paragraphs is the length and content. This metaphor addresses the jell-o metaphor as well. In other words you need to have balance within your paragraphs so you do not overwhelm your reader. The length is important because a too long paragraph can be too much and cause the reader to lose interest. You may think that a too short paragraph is bad but it’s not. If your writing can withstand short paragraphs it is okay even if it is just a sentence. Within my writing I feel that I do not over extend my paragraphs I like to keep them short.

The next most important thing to think about in your paragraph is the content. If your paragraph does not have the right content within it is then just taking up space ( a filler ) which is not good. I was always taught that it is the content of the assignment and not the length. So within my writing I feel that I was Wear and Wash effectively.

9.Short Time Writing: Use your Higher Brain

This metaphor addresses the importance of analyzing the question and finding out the main key points. When writing for class such as English it is often asked that our writing is based off of a prompt. I find this type of writing to be the most difficult because it is asking you to write outside your comfort zone. With this metaphor it is telling us to use our higher brain to analyze and pick apart the prompt before we even begin to write. I tend to ignore this step and read the prompt once and then jump into writing. I need to take the time to analyze the prompt; to decide who my audience is, what I am writing about, and why it important. Then begin the assignment based on those three key points. I noticed that last semester in English 105 I had a hard time with the writing because I did not fully understand the prompt I was given. I think that if I had taken the time to analyze the question it could have been better addressed in my writing. This is something that I will try to do to better understand what it is I am writing about.

Reid, E. Shelley. “Ten Ways To Think About Writing: Metaphoric Musings for College Writing Students.” Ed. Charles Lowe and Pavel Zemliansky. Vol. 2. West Lafayette, IN: Parlor P, 2011. 3-23. Writing Spaces. Web. 17 Feb. 2016.

place Matters 2.0

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Place Matters In Biology

 

Place weather the location is ones permanent residence or just a place one passes by will always have an effect on ones self. Let us take into consideration a red-carpet one would act confident and diva like whereas if someone were to be placed in a church setting one would act more modest. Place gives off a particular behavior in the way one should act. Elderly, adults, children, and even infants have the ability to pick up a particular trait based off of the sense of space. Often these traits could be behavioral, physical or even both; weather these traits are good or bad they are abundant and clear.

Where I live marked its very own “territory” on me. Lawndale is the city I have been raised in my whole life. This amazing city is around everything it is even less than five minutes away from the beach and not too far from the malls. There is always some type of traffic and noise in every direction that I find comfort in the city all around.

Now that I am living in Camarillo I had so many epiphany when coming here. The very first night was such a shock I realized that I couldn’t sleep in complete silence. In the middle of the night I found myself wanting the sounds of cars driving by, the sound of people reminiscing, or even just the noise of someone walking by. Before moving here I did not think that the beach would ever be a necessity to me. I believed that I could go without the beach it was a minor detail I did not need in my life and boy was I wrong. Recently I have discovered that I find assort of comfort in the beach. The beach in particular just brings me back to memories of family and home.

Moving onto a broader place to where I live being apart of Los Angeles County it has affected my speech. Yes, it is a shock to see but place really does have an effect on ones speech. There is a major phrase that rubbed off on me and it is when saying the name of a freeway. Typical a los angelonian would call a freeway by saying “the ____.” I did not realize that this trait does not apply to everyone and varies from county to county. The only reason I discovered this trait is because of a trip up to Seaside. During this trip I found it so strange to see other Californians call the freeway by the full name. The conversations were often long as if the people there had all the time in the world to say, “ Ohh yeah today I took California Pacific Coast Highway 1 Freeway” instead of just saying, “ I took the 1.” This was completely appalling because not everyone kept the names of freeways short and simple.

An even bigger picture of what goes on to place the fact that Californians have an accent is such a culture shock to me. Discovering this shock was even worst than moving to Camarillo and not hearing any noise at night. We as Californians LOVE to enunciate every single vowel in a word. This accident seems absurd and ridiculous but it is true just imagine how you are reading this right now it is a very good example you are pronouncing or reading every single vowel to its precise enunciation. One could go a whole lifetime not discovering this accent one does not leave the state.

My personal sense of place has its very own ups and downs through the years. There will always be small objects, smells and even phrases that take me back to home and let me realize what good I have back at home. I believe that I was fortunate enough to have the traits of the place where live rub off on me and I am forever grateful.

In the past school year through the surf program we have discussed the sense of place and how it is incorporated in to ones daily life. As this discussion progressed it was later formed into a class that is called University 298 research and investigations.

Through this class we have discovered a way that Geographic Information Systems (GIS) could be applied to any major. With my major being biology I believed that it would be very difficult to find research that was appealing to myself and even find a topic that there was enough research done to get an official result. Going from a broad subject like Biology and narrowing it down to include GIS research narrows the topics to a third of my findings. While looking at the various topics I stumbled upon one that struck me this topic spoke of child obesity in various counties. With this specific topic I was drawn to it because it is a very big problem that still goes on today. With the various movements and programs that go on in my local community there was a slight curiosity onto why in particular my city was selected to have these programs.

In the article’s I have selected to read to answer my questions on my city there are various factors that take place. These particular factors are the fact that not every county is keeping their programs up to date. Within the two articles they were similar in the sense that they had two cities in how they are able to use Geographic Information Systems in. Using the system those who produced the research were able to analyze how active one is, makes use of public recreations, and physical activity. With these activities research was still a bit broad. These researchers have added another factor that did not involve physical activity. Rather than physical activities using GIS this factor was a great game changer and it was available food resources. This particular factor gave a better understanding as to why these counties either had a very high or low obesity rate.

Using the Geographic Information Systems available I would be better able to further my investigations. Already through just simple basic research I have been able to narrow down my research to be specific. My primary goal at the end of this class is to hopefully go from a general location such as a state and go further in depth into counties and later hope to be county specific. If I am unable to further my investigations I would hopefully like to be able to break down my research by age, race, and gender.