College of Behavioral & Social Sciences

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    Measurement of Within-Season Tree Height Growth in a Mixed Forest Stand Using UAV Imagery
    (MDPI, 2017-06-29) Dempewolf, Jan; Nagol, Jyoteshwar; Hein, Sebastian; Thiel, Carsten; Zimmerman, Reiner
    Tree height growth measurements at monthly and annual time scales are important for calibrating and validating forest growth models, forest management and studies of forest ecology and biophysical processes. Previous studies measured the terminal growth of individual trees or forest stands at annual or decadal time scales. Short-term, within-season measurements, however, are largely unavailable due to technical and practical limitations. Here, we describe a novel approach for measuring within-season tree height growth using a time series of co-registered digital surface models obtained with a low-cost unmanned aerial vehicle in combination with ground control plates and Structure from Motion data processing. The test site was a 2-hectare temperate mixed forest stand of varying age and successional stage in central Europe. Our results show median growth rates between 27 May and 19 August of 68 cm for Norway spruce, 93 cm for Scots pine, 106 cm for Silver birch and 26 cm for European beech. The results agree well with published field observations for these species. This study demonstrates the capability of inexpensive, increasingly user-friendly and versatile UAV systems for measuring tree height growth at short time scales, which was not previously possible, opening up new avenues for investigation and practical applications in forestry and research.
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    Technoscientific Knowledge Practices of Adolescent Mental Health Care Work
    (2013) Nelson, Amber Dawn; Falk, William W.; Sociology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    This study examines the technoscientific knowledge-practices of adolescent psychotherapy. Employing an interpretive, feminist version of grounded theory, 40 interviews with psychotherapists were analyzed. Building on Science and Technology Studies and the Sociology of Health and Illness, the following research questions are asked: How are adolescent mental illnesses defined and approached within and across social worlds? How do practitioners negotiate social processes of diagnosis? In what ways does the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) as a technology, shape the diagnostic and treatment work of mental health practitioners? In what ways does Managed Care (MC) shape adolescent mental health care? Social worlds define psychotherapy as an art and science, resist biomedicine and embrace eclectic theoretical orientations to treatment. Psychotherapists utilize Evidence Based Practices (EBPs) in their treatment plans but critique how EBPs privilege scientific evidence over patient subjectivity, social contexts and the therapeutic relationship. Psychotherapists challenge the cultural authority of the DSM and downplay its significance for clinical work. While the DSM is a socially-scripted technology, its significance is interpretively flexible. Psychotherapists employ work-arounds to the problems posed by biomedical and bureaucratic standardization, and participate in processes of cribbing. Cribbing signifies the collective knowledge building and translation work necessary to learn the codes that facilitate therapeutic service authorizations and minimize denials. The DSM technology and MC privilege a therapeutic focus on surface level symptoms and behaviors whereas psychotherapists focus on communication, relational and emotional issues. The assemblage of the DSM and MC creates diagnostic dissonance for psychotherapists--a conflict between their own theoretical orientations and the biomedical model. Biomedicalization processes are uneven and actively resisted. MC governs the clinical practices of psychotherapists. For-profit MC companies have shifted care from intense psychodynamic therapy towards short-term surface level medications and behavioral programs. MC policies limit services, over-manage treatment and harm the therapeutic relationship. MC stratifies providers and patients by encouraging seasoned professionals to leave public forms of insurance. The least experienced practitioners care for those with the most intense mental illness while those with experience opt-out and treat the worried-well.