Perspective: LaGuardia Community College Newsletter [1974]

A newsletter published periodically to keep the faculty, students, staff, and community informed about the activities taking place on the campus of LaGuardia Community College Cover article: Senate Studies New Grading Policy.

Perspective: LaGuardia Community College Newsletter [1974]

A newsletter published periodically to keep the faculty, students, staff, and community informed about the activities taking place on the campus of LaGuardia Community College Cover article: SEVEN DISTINGUISHED GUESTS TO ATTEND SYMPOSIUM ON LAGUARDIA & ETHNIC VOTE. Other entries: BHE ADOPTS TENURE GUIDELINES AND IMPLEMENTATION STEPS; OVERFLOW AUDIENCE ATTENDS POST VISIONS OF WAR SYMPOSIUM; LAGUARDIA FLYERS SEEK FIRST BASKETBALL WIN; DIVISION OF CONTINUING EDUCATION BEGINS 3RD YEAR WITH WINTER PROGRAM; TYPING FOR HANDICAPPED PROGRAM SEEKS ADDITIONAL STUDENTS.

Perspective: LaGuardia Community College Newsletter [1973]

A newsletter published periodically to keep the faculty, students, staff, and community informed about the activities taking place on the campus of LaGuardia Community College. Cover article: CUNY CHANCELLOR KIBBEE, WOMEN'S CITY CLUB SCHEDULE VISITS HERE.

Expediting New Program Development: Meeting Market Demand and Leveraging Internal Resources

Expediting new program development can help universities meet student and employer demand while gaining an edge over competitors, but coordinating program development and approval requires careful preparation and execution. This report profiles strategies to measure market demand for new programs, choose programs for accelerated development, and leverage internal resources. The report also suggests ways to structure and staff program development to maximize speed and effectiveness.

Barriers to entry and development

This paper analyzes the effect of an accountability system in the Brazilian college market. For each discipline, colleges were assigned a grade that depended on the scores of their students on the ENC, an annual mandatory exam. Those grades were then disclosed to the public, giving applicants information about college quality. The system also established rewards and penalties based on the colleges’ grades. I find that the ENC had a substantial effect on different measures of college quality, such as faculty education and the proportion of full-time faculty. The detailed information from this unique dataset and the fact that the ENC started being required for different disciplines in different years allow me to control for time-specific effects, thus minimizing the bias caused by policy endogeneity. Indeed, I find strong evidence on the importance of controlling for time-specific effects: estimates of the impact of the ENC on college quality more than double when I do not take those effects into account. The ENC also affects positively the ratio between applicants and vacancies, and it decreases the faculty and the entering class sizes. The results suggest that its introduction fostered competition and favored colleges entering the market.

Prevalence of Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococci on a Farm: Staff can Harbour MRS When Animals do Not

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Protected Species – Research Permits and the Value of Basic Research

The complexities involved in obtaining permits for field research using protected species continue to increase. In October 1988, Congress amended the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA) to increase the documentation required to obtain a scientific research permit (PL 100-711). Applicants for scientific research permits must now submit “information indicating that the taking is required to further a bona fide scientific purpose and does not involve unnecessary duplication of research.”

Genetic isolation and morphological divergence of Black Sea bottlenose dolphins

The Black Sea is a semi-enclosed body of water that differs from the adjacent Mediterranean Sea in terms of its biodiversity, oceanographical and ecological characteristics. There is growing international concern about pollution in the Black Sea and other anthropogenic threats to its fauna. The bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus) is one of three species of cetaceans living in the Azov-Black Sea basin. Despite considerable research on bottlenose dolphins elsewhere, the extent of human impacts on the Black Sea populations is unknown. Previous attempts to award special conservation status to Black Sea cetaceans have failed specifically because policy makers have viewed their ecological and evolutionary uniqueness as equivocal. This study assessed divergence between Black Sea, Mediterranean Sea and Atlantic Ocean bottlenose dolphins for 26 cranial measurements (n = 75 adult bottlenose dolphin skulls) and mitochondrial DNA (n = 99 individuals). Black Sea bottlenose dolphins are smaller than those in the Mediterranean, and possess a uniquely shaped skull. As in a previous study, we found the Black Sea population to be genetically distinct, with relatively low levels of mtDNA diversity. Population genetic models suggest that Black Sea bottlenose dolphins have so little gene flow with the Mediterranean due to historical isolation that they should be managed separately.

Biological Background on Bottlenose Dolphins (Tursiops spp.) in the 'Live-Capture' Trade and Specifically on the Indo-Pacific Bottlenose Dolphin, T. Aduncus

The most significant cetacean trade items until commercial whaling all but ceased in the 1990s (aside from scientific exchanges of tissues etc.) were meat and blubber from baleen whales for human consumption. Since then, live dolphins and 'small' whales for display (and to some extent for research, military use, and 'therapy') have become the most significant cetacean 'products' in international trade. Trade in live cetaceans is presently dominated by bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops spp.), beluga whales (Debhinapterns leucas) and to a lesser extent killer whales (Orcinus orca) (Fisher and Reeves 2005). In the past, most of the dolphins in trade were common bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) originating in the United States, Mexico and the Black Sea, but since the 1980s the United States has essentially stopped its capture-for-export activities and in 2001Mexico implemented a moratorium on live-captures. The source countries for dolphins in trade are now geographically diverse, but Cuba and Japan are currently major source nations for common bottlenose dolphins. Russia is the only current source for belugas. Russia and Japan have become the main potential sources for killer whales since Iceland ceased exporting them in the 1980s or early 1990s.

Gray Whales (Eschrichtius robustus) Off Sakhalin Island, Russia: Seasonal And Annual Patterns Of Occurrence

The annual return, seasonal occurrence, and site fidelity of Korean-Okhotsk or western gray whales on their feeding grounds off northeastern Sakhalin Island, Russia, were assessed by boat-based photo-identification studies in 1994-1998. A total of 262 pods were observed, ranging in size from 1 to 9 whales with an overall mean of 2.0'. Sixty-nine whales were individually identified, and a majority of all whales (71.0%) were observed in multiple years. Annual sighting frequencies ranged from 1 to 18 d, with a mean of 5.4 d. The percentage of whales re-identified from previous years showed a continuous annual increase, reaching 87.0% by the end of the study. Time between first and last sighting of identified individuals within a given year was 1-85 d, with an overall mean of 40.6 d. Annual calf proportions ranged from 4.3% (1997) to 13.2% (1998), and mother-calf separations generally occurred between July and September. The seasonal site fidelity and annual return of whales to this part of the Okhotsk Sea emphasize its importance as a primary feeding ground for this endangered population.

Estimating the number of whales entering trade using DNA profiling and capture-recapture analysis of market products

Surveys of commercial markets combined with molecular taxonomy (i.e. molecular monitoring) provide a means to detect products from illegal, unregulated and/or unreported (IUU) exploitation, including the sale of fisheries bycatch and wild meat (bushmeat). Capture-recapture analyses of market products using DNA profiling have the potential to estimate the total number of individuals entering the market. However, these analyses are not directly analogous to those of living individuals because a ‘market individual’ does not die suddenly but, instead, remains available for a time in decreasing quantities, rather like the exponential decay of a radioactive isotope. Here we use mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) sequences and microsatellite genotypes to individually identify products from North Pacific minke whales (Balaenoptera acutorostrata ssp.) purchased in 12 surveys of markets in the Republic of (South) Korea from 1999 to 2003. By applying a novel capture-recapture model with a decay rate parameter to the 205 unique DNA profiles found among 289 products, we estimated that the total number of whales entering trade across the five-year survey period was 827 (SE, 164; CV, 0.20) and that the average ‘half-life’ of products from an individual whale on the market was 1.82 months (SE, 0.24; CV, 0.13). Our estimate of whales in trade (reflecting the true numbers killed) was significantly greater than the officially reported bycatch of 458 whales for this period. This unregulated exploitation has serious implications for the survival of this genetically distinct coastal population. Although our capture-recapture model was developed for specific application to the Korean whale-meat markets, the exponential decay function could be modified to improve the estimates of trade in other wildmeat or fisheries markets or abundance of living populations by noninvasive genotyping.

Catches of Humpback Whales, Megaptera novaeangliae, by the Soviet Union and Other Nations in the Southern Ocean, 1947–1973

The great whales of the Southern Ocean were extensively exploited by modern whaling methods, with the first catches made in the Falkland Islands Dependencies region of IWC Management Area II in 1904 (Tønnesson and Johnsen, 1982; Hart, 2006). Exploitation went through several phases. Populations of humpback whales, Megaptera novaeangliae, and blue whales, Balaenoptera musculus, around South Georgia crashed around the time of World War I, and further exploitation occurred in other regions into the 1930’s. There was a hiatus in whaling during World War II, but large-scale catches resumed in Antarctic waters after 1945.

Population histories of right whales (Cetacea: Eubalaena) Inferred from Mitochondrial Sequence Diversities and Divergences of Their Whale Lice (Amphipoda: Cyamus)

Right whales carry large populations of three ‘whale lice’ (Cyamus ovalis, Cyamus gracilis, Cyamus erraticus) that have no other hosts. We used sequence variation in the mitochondrial COI gene to ask (i) whether cyamid population structures might reveal associations among right whale individuals and subpopulations, (ii) whether the divergences of the three nominally conspecific cyamid species on North Atlantic, North Pacific, and southern right whales (Eubalaena glacialis, Eubalaena japonica, Eubalaena australis) might indicate their times of separation, and (iii) whether the shapes of cyamid gene trees might contain information about changes in the population sizes of right whales. We found high levels of nucleotide diversity but almost no population structure within oceans, indicating large effective population sizes and high rates of transfer between whales and subpopulations. North Atlantic and Southern Ocean populations of all three species are reciprocally monophyletic, and North Pacific C. erraticus is well separated from North Atlantic and southern C. erraticus. Mitochondrial clock calibrations suggest that these divergences occurred around 6 million years ago (Ma), and that the Eubalaena mitochondrial clock is very slow. North Pacific C. ovalis forms a clade inside the southern C. ovalis gene tree, implying that at least one right whale has crossed the equator in the Pacific Ocean within the last 1–2 million years (Myr). Low-frequency polymorphisms are more common than expected under neutrality for populations of constant size, but there is no obvious signal of rapid, interspecifically congruent expansion of the kind that would be expected if North Atlantic or southern right whales had experienced a prolonged population bottleneck within the last 0.5 Myr.

A note on the unprecedented strandings of 56 deep-diving whales along the UK and Irish coast

In the first seven months of 2008, eighteen Cuvier’s beaked whales (Ziphius cavirostris), four Sowerby’s beaked whales (Mesoplodon bidens), five unidentified beaked whales and twenty-nine long-finned pilot whales (Globicephala melas) were reported stranded in the UK and Ireland. Decomposition of those animals investigated puts the predicted time of death at mid-January. Concerns that an unusual mortality event had taken place prompted further investigations. Most carcasses were too decomposed for necropsy. A summary of findings is presented here. Although the initial stranding of five Cuvier’s beaked whales in Scotland shared some similarities with atypical mass stranding events linked in time and space to mid-frequency naval sonars, there were two important differences with the remaining strandings during this period. First, the geographical range of the event was very wide and second, the strandings occurred over a prolonged period of several months. Both of these factors could be related to the fact that the mortalities occurred offshore and the carcasses drifted ashore. The cause(s) of this high number of strandings of mixed offshore cetacean species during this period remain undetermined.

Pinniped Populations at Islas ae Guadalupe, San Benito, Cedros, and Natividad, Baja California, in 1968

In April and June 1968, the Pacific Ocean Biological Survey Program (POBSP) of the Smithsonian Institution conducted surveys on breeding marine birds and pinnipeds on various Mexican islands. Between 18 to 26 April and 21 to 29 June, pinniped populations were surveyed at Islas de Guadalupe, San Benito, Cedros, and Natividad off Baja California. Species observed were the California sea lion, Zalophus californianus, Guadalupe fur seal, Arctocephalus townsendi, harbor seal, Phoca vitulina, and northern elephant seal, Mirounga angustirostris