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Dating app tourism is a phenomenon that intersects both digital mobile media applications and tourism networks. As such, it represents a new but little-examined frontier in the study of sexuality, technology, and identity formation. Using a qualitative sociological approach, this exploratory study identifies Grindr tourism practices and their consequences for gay tourism, tourist-local relations, and digitally mediated social life. With Tel Aviv as the research site, Grindr tourism practices were analyzed using 19 in-depth interviews and six audio diaries. The concept of embedded learning is used to understand the communication that results from contemporary mobile media-integrated tourism. Grindr tourism practices are viewed as mutually beneficial by tourists, locals, and immigrants. Findings indicate that Grindr tourism contributes to tourists’ embedded learning about travel destinations, immigrants’ acclimation and friendship networks, and locals’ self-ascribed cosmopolitan, multicultural identities. The research also uncovered wider issues affecting sexuality, communication, migration movements, ethnicity, and the economic bodies that support large-scale tourism. Specifically, Grindr is used as a tool to arrange independent, mobile, non-institutionalized travel that serves as an alternative to LGBT + tourism industry institutions. Not only is Grindr tourism indicative of shifting travel practices, but it also reflects dating apps’ overarching tendency toward the convergence of multiple social functions into one platform.

Ecological understanding of host–pathogen dynamics is the basis for managing wildlife diseases. Since 2008, federal, state, and provincial agencies and tribal and private organizations have collaborated on bat and white‐nose syndrome (WNS) surveillance and monitoring, research, and management programs. Accordingly, scientists and managers have learned a lot about the hosts, pathogen, and dynamics of WNS. However, effective mitigation measures to combat WNS remain elusive. Host–pathogen systems are complex, and identifying ecological research priorities to improve management, choosing among various actions, and deciding when to implement those actions can be challenging. Through a cross‐disciplinary approach, a group of diverse subject matter experts created an influence diagram used to identify uncertainties and prioritize research needs for WNS management. Critical knowledge gaps were identified, particularly with respect to how WNS dynamics and impacts may differ among bat species. We highlight critical uncertainties and identify targets for WNS research. This tool can be used to maximize the likelihood of achieving bat conservation goals within the context and limitations of specific real‐world scenarios.

Roadside amphibian citizen science (CS) programmes bring together volunteers focused on collecting scientific data while working to mitigate population declines by reducing road mortality of pond‐breeding amphibians. Despite the international popularity of these movement‐based, roadside conservation efforts (i.e. “big nights,” “bucket brigades” and “toad patrols”), direct benefits to conservation have rarely been quantified or evaluated. As a case study, we used a population simulation approach to evaluate how volunteer intensity, frequency and distribution influence three conservation outcomes (minimum population size, population growth rate and years to extinction) of the spotted salamander (Ambystoma maculatum), often a focal pond‐breeding amphibian of CS and conservation programmes in the United States. Sensitivity analysis supported the expectation that spotted salamander populations were primarily recruitment‐driven. Thus, conservation outcomes were highest when volunteers focused on metamorph outmigration as opposed to adult in‐migration—contrary to the typical timing of such volunteer events. Almost every volunteer strategy resulted in increased conservation outcomes compared to a no‐volunteer strategy. Specifically, volunteer frequency during metamorph migration increased outcomes more than the same increases in volunteer effort during adult migration. Small population sizes resulted in a negligible effect of volunteer intensity. Volunteers during the first adult in‐migration had a relatively small effect compared to most other strategies. Synthesis and applications. Although citizen science (CS)‐focused conservation actions could directly benefit declining populations, additional conservation measures are needed to halt or reverse local amphibian declines. This study demonstrates a need to evaluate the effectiveness of focusing CS mitigation efforts on the metamorph stage, as opposed to the adult stage. This may be challenging, compared to other management actions such as road‐crossing infrastructure. Current amphibian CS programmes will be challenged to balance implementing evidence‐based conservation measures on the most limiting life stage, while retaining social and community benefits for volunteers. Although citizen science (CS)‐focused conservation actions could directly benefit declining populations, additional conservation measures are needed to halt or reverse local amphibian declines. This study demonstrates a need to evaluate the effectiveness of focusing CS mitigation efforts on the metamorph stage, as opposed to the adult stage. This may be challenging, compared to other management actions such as road‐crossing infrastructure. Current amphibian CS programmes will be challenged to balance implementing evidence‐based conservation measures on the most limiting life stage, while retaining social and community benefits for volunteers.

Despite calls for improved responses to emerging infectious diseases in wildlife, management is seldom considered until a disease has been detected in affected populations. Reactive approaches may limit the potential for control and increase total response costs. An alternative, proactive management framework can identify immediate actions that reduce future impacts even before a disease is detected, and plan subsequent actions that are conditional on disease emergence. We identify four main obstacles to developing proactive management strategies for the newly discovered salamander pathogen Batrachochytrium salamandrivorans (Bsal). Given that uncertainty is a hallmark of wildlife disease management and that associated decisions are often complicated by multiple competing objectives, we advocate using decision analysis to create and evaluate trade‐offs between proactive (pre‐emergence) and reactive (post‐emergence) management options. Policy makers and natural resource agency personnel can apply principles from decision analysis to improve strategies for countering emerging infectious diseases.

Quantifying patterns of habitat use by riverine species is logistically challenging, yet instream habitat characteristics are likely important in explaining the distribution of species. We integrated radiotelemetry and sonar habitat mapping to quantify instream habitat use by female Barbour's Map Turtles (Graptemys barbouri) in Ichawaynochaway Creek, a tributary to the Flint River. We used logistic regression and a Bayesian information-theoretic approach to evaluate habitat use relative to habitat availability based on random locations. Over the two-year study period, turtles used an average of 839±199 m of creek length and exhibited site fidelity (mean 50% kernel density = 0.23±0.05 ha). Substrate was generally more predictive of habitat use of female G. barbouri compared to large woody debris and water depth. Turtles generally used deeper habitats close to rocky-boulder and rocky-fine substrate with greater amounts of large woody debris. Estimates of home range size and habitat use found in this study improve our understanding of the spatial ecology of G. barbouri and provide a baseline for their habitat use in a relatively undisturbed section of stream. It is imperative to understand the spatial ecology of species, such as map turtles, that are particularly vulnerable to indirect effects of habitat modifications caused by impoundments, sedimentation, pollution, and snagging.

Gay male dating app users have innovatively adopted Grindr as a means to enhance touristic experiences, a phenomenon coined Grindr tourism. The impacts of this novel set of practices, let alone the practices themselves, are not well understood. Grindr tourism is a product of the dating app's fixture in the landscape of what is often uncritically and broadly called \"the gay community.\" However, discursive imaginings of an essentialized, singular community often used by the gay tourism industry undermine nuanced boundaries and prejudices within LGBT+ spaces. By taking a spatial approach, as opposed to a communities-based one, this dissertation investigates international Grindr tourism's social impacts by inquiring into how it reconfigures interactions, relations, and practices.The research project examines Grindr tourism through a case study in Tel Aviv, Israel, a popular international gay travel destination. It utilizes a multi-method qualitative interactionist approach. Nineteen tourists and locals in Tel Aviv, Israel were interviewed. Prior to the interview, six also elected to complete audio diaries recording their Grindr routine. Participants were recruited using snowball sampling with multiple entry points: online and via posters displayed around Tel Aviv. Thematic analysis was employed to examine the data.Following a review of the literature and outlining of the methodology, the PhD dissertation has three empirical discussion chapters. \"Coming Out in the Age of Grindr\" utilizes Plummer's theory of narratives of life to examine participant biographies of coming out as gay. It addresses how gay selves and identities are formed and built through Grindr. It argues that Grindr allows historical community and travel institutions predicated on physical space to be circumnavigated, and that Grindr also brings about new imagined institutions that people come out into. The chapter \"'A Match Made in Heaven?' Situating Tourists and Locals\" outlines practices that constitute Grindr tourism. It analyses tourist-local interactional dynamics of mutual exoticization and eroticization that challenge sociologists' expectations of empowered tourists and exploited locals. Theories of hegemonic masculinities and resistance are engaged to understand how the relations developed between locals and tourists draw on and generate capitals for both groups. The project finds that despite dominant sociological narratives of tourists as only interested in casual, temporary encounters with locals, in reality tourists narrate imagined futures with locals. In turn, locals pursue relations with tourists in order to build on notions of themselves as cosmopolitan. The chapter \"Feeling Their Way? Grindr Norms, Etiquette, and Affects\" pinpoints Grindr norms and how they work to create new regimes of online behavior. Users also resist regimes by pushing for a \"Grindr etiquette\" underpinned by spatial hierarchies predicated on offline space. Theories of context collapse and impression management provide explanations for how people imagine Grindr spatial norms, how norms are negotiated with others, and how these interactions generate affect.In conclusion, this thesis offers insight into how geolocative mobile technologies impact everyday social relations at transnational and local levels. In the case examined, Grindr tourism perpetuates inequalities by invoking hegemonic masculinities, sexualities, and bodies through the ideal of Mizrahi masculinity. Yet at the interpersonal level, Grindr is availed by users as a site for resistance to norms deemed problematic. Fundamentally, Grindr illustrates how people narrate and negotiate selves within digital spaces that that permeate past online-offline divisions.

Successful scale-up of PrEP for HIV prevention in African adolescent girls and young women (AGYW) requires integration of PrEP into young women’s everyday lives. We conducted interviews and focus group discussions with 137 AGYW PrEP users aged 16–25 from South Africa and Kenya. Individual and relational enablers and disablers were explored at key moments during their PrEP-user journey from awareness, initiation and early use through persistence, including PrEP pauses, restarts, and discontinuation. PrEP uptake was facilitated when offered as part of an integrated sexual reproductive health service, but hampered by low awareness, stigma and misconceptions about PrEP in the community. Daily pill-taking was challenging for AGYW due to individual, relational and structural factors and PrEP interruptions (intended or unintended) were described as part of AGYW’s PrEP-user journey. Disclosure, social support, adolescent-friendly health counseling, and convenient access to PrEP were reported as key enablers for PrEP persistence.

Young children regularly engage in musical activities, but the effects of early music education on children's cognitive development are unknown. While some studies have found associations between musical training in childhood and later nonmusical cognitive outcomes, few randomized controlled trials (RCTs) have been employed to assess causal effects of music lessons on child cognition and no clear pattern of results has emerged. We conducted two RCTs with preschool children investigating the cognitive effects of a brief series of music classes, as compared to a similar but non-musical form of arts instruction (visual arts classes, Experiment 1) or to a no-treatment control (Experiment 2). Consistent with typical preschool arts enrichment programs, parents attended classes with their children, participating in a variety of developmentally appropriate arts activities. After six weeks of class, we assessed children's skills in four distinct cognitive areas in which older arts-trained students have been reported to excel: spatial-navigational reasoning, visual form analysis, numerical discrimination, and receptive vocabulary. We initially found that children from the music class showed greater spatial-navigational ability than did children from the visual arts class, while children from the visual arts class showed greater visual form analysis ability than children from the music class (Experiment 1). However, a partial replication attempt comparing music training to a no-treatment control failed to confirm these findings (Experiment 2), and the combined results of the two experiments were negative: overall, children provided with music classes performed no better than those with visual arts or no classes on any assessment. Our findings underscore the need for replication in RCTs, and suggest caution in interpreting the positive findings from past studies of cognitive effects of music instruction.

Many acute respiratory illness surveillance systems collect and test nasopharyngeal (NP) and/or oropharyngeal (OP) swab specimens, yet there are few studies assessing the relative measures of performance for NP versus OP specimens. We collected paired NP and OP swabs separately from pediatric and adult patients with influenza-like illness or severe acute respiratory illness at two respiratory surveillance sites in Kenya. The specimens were tested for eight respiratory viruses by real-time reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR). Positivity for a specific virus was defined as detection of viral nucleic acid in either swab. Of 2,331 paired NP/OP specimens, 1,402 (60.1%) were positive for at least one virus, and 393 (16.9%) were positive for more than one virus. Overall, OP swabs were significantly more sensitive than NP swabs for adenovirus (72.4% vs. 57.6%, p<0.01) and 2009 pandemic influenza A (H1N1) virus (91.2% vs. 70.4%, p<0.01). NP specimens were more sensitive for influenza B virus (83.3% vs. 61.5%, p = 0.02), parainfluenza virus 2 (85.7%, vs. 39.3%, p<0.01), and parainfluenza virus 3 (83.9% vs. 67.4%, p<0.01). The two methods did not differ significantly for human metapneumovirus, influenza A (H3N2) virus, parainfluenza virus 1, or respiratory syncytial virus. The sensitivities were variable among the eight viruses tested; neither specimen was consistently more effective than the other. For respiratory disease surveillance programs using qRT-PCR that aim to maximize sensitivity for a large number of viruses, collecting combined NP and OP specimens would be the most effective approach.

Effective use of oral HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) has been lower among African adolescent girls and young women (AGYW) than among older women, young men who have sex with men, and serodiscordant heterosexual couples in the region. Efforts to build PrEP support have centered around peers and male partners, but the family may also play an important role. This qualitative study aimed to describe family influence on PrEP use among AGYW in in three African cities. POWER (Prevention Options for Women Evaluation Research) was a PrEP demonstration project among 2550 AGYW (16-25 years old) in Johannesburg and Cape Town, South Africa and Kisumu, Kenya conducted from 2017 to 2020. In-depth interviews and focus group discussions were conducted with 136 AGYW participants to explore their PrEP views and experiences, including awareness and interest in PrEP; barriers and facilitators to uptake and use; the influence of family, peers, intimate partners, and community; and the key types of support for their PrEP use. Transcripts were coded and analysed thematically. The decision to initiate PrEP was associated with fear and anxiety linked to anticipated stigma from family members, and with family's lived HIV experience. Family disclosure, especially to mothers, was important to participants, as most lived with their families and considered it essential for them to obtain their mother's approval to use PrEP. Most family members, particularly mothers, provided instrumental, emotional, informational and appraisal support to participants using PrEP, including reminders, encouragement, and problem-solving. Participants reported that family members with insufficient information about PrEP safety and efficacy and who voiced concerns were a substantial barrier to their use. However, they often became supportive after receiving more PrEP information. Families, particularly mothers, can play an important role in supporting PrEP use. PrEP programmes should leverage family support to help with PrEP persistence by providing basic information to families about PrEP safety and efficacy. AGYW using PrEP should be encouraged to selectively disclose PrEP use to build support and counseled on how to disclose and address family concerns.