39,306 research outputs found

    Rural sustainable drainage systems:a practical design and build guide for Scotland's farmers and landowners

    Get PDF
    Soil cultivation, manure / fertiliser applications and chemical spraying can all contribute to diffuse pollution from agricultural land. Rainfall runoff from farm roads, tracks, yards and dusty roofs are also potential sources of diffuse pollution. Whilst many changes in farming practice have dealt with these sources of pollution there still remains instances where small amounts escape from a farmyard into a nearby ditch or where sediment laden overland field flows make their way into a ditch or burn, river or natural wetland and finally the sea. This not only has cost implications for a farmer but these incidents across a catchment have a huge impact on our water environment. Rural Sustainable Drainage Systems (Rural SuDS) will reduce agricultural diffuse pollution impacts as they are physical barriers that treat rainfall runoff. They are low cost, above ground drainage structures that capture soil particles, organic matter, nutrients and pesticides before they enter our water environment. Rural SuDS for steadings prevent blockages in drains and ditches. They contribute to good environmental practice and farm assurance schemes. In fields they can be used for returning fertile soil back to farmland and will help your business become more resilient to the impacts of climate change. Trapping soils, organic matter and nutrients means that valuable assets can be reclaimed – recent studies indicate savings of £88 per hectare per year! This Design and Build guide can be used by farmers and land managers to reduce diffuse pollution

    216 Jewish Hospital of St. Louis

    Get PDF
    https://digitalcommons.wustl.edu/bjc_216/1187/thumbnail.jp

    Public Spaces/Private Money: The Triumphs and Pitfalls of Urban Park Conservancies

    Get PDF
    This study explores city park conservancies -- private organizations that utilize donations to rebuild, refurbish, and even maintain some of their most iconic parks. The study uses examples and experiences from 41 organizations across the country that have a collective experience record of nearly 750 years

    Barnes Hospital Bulletin

    Get PDF
    https://digitalcommons.wustl.edu/bjc_barnes_bulletin/1184/thumbnail.jp

    Changing of the guards

    Get PDF
    On 31 October 2011, after eight years in office, Mr Jean-Claude Trichet’s term as President of the ECB will come to an end. The aim of this note is to evaluate the presidency of the Mr Trichet and to discuss the challenges that his successor will face

    Advances and applications in high-dimensional heuristic optimization

    Get PDF
    “Applicable to most real-world decision scenarios, multiobjective optimization is an area of multicriteria decision-making that seeks to simultaneously optimize two or more conflicting objectives. In contrast to single-objective scenarios, nontrivial multiobjective optimization problems are characterized by a set of Pareto optimal solutions wherein no solution unanimously optimizes all objectives. Evolutionary algorithms have emerged as a standard approach to determine a set of these Pareto optimal solutions, from which a decision-maker can select a vetted alternative. While easy to implement and having demonstrated great efficacy, these evolutionary approaches have been criticized for their runtime complexity when dealing with many alternatives or a high number of objectives, effectively limiting the range of scenarios to which they may be applied. This research introduces mechanisms to improve the runtime complexity of many multiobjective evolutionary algorithms, achieving state-of-the-art performance, as compared to many prominent methods from the literature. Further, the investigations here presented demonstrate the capability of multiobjective evolutionary algorithms in a complex, large-scale optimization scenario. Showcasing the approach’s ability to intelligently generate well-performing solutions to a meaningful optimization problem. These investigations advance the concept of multiobjective evolutionary algorithms by addressing a key limitation and demonstrating their efficacy in a challenging real-world scenario. Through enhanced computational efficiency and exhibited specialized application, the utility of this powerful heuristic strategy is made more robust and evident”--Abstract, page iv

    Audaciously Hopeful: How President Obama Can Help Restore the Pro-Trade Consensus

    Get PDF
    There is reason for grave concern about the direction of U.S. trade policy. The bipartisan, pro-trade consensus that served U.S. economic and diplomatic interests so well for so long collapsed during the final two years of the Bush administration. Trade skeptics have increased their ranks in the new Congress, a majority of Americans perceive trade as threatening, and grim economic news has made the political climate inhospitable to arguments in support of trade. But restoring the pro-trade consensus must be a priority of the Obama administration. If the United States indulges misplaced fears, restrains economic freedoms, and attempts to retreat from the global economy, the country will suffer slower economic growth and have greater difficulty facing future economic and foreign policy challenges. America's trade skepticism is largely the product of a top-down process. Perceptions have been shaped overwhelmingly by relentless political rhetoric that relies on three myths. Congress and the media have spoken for years about the decline of U.S. manufacturing as though it were fact, when the overwhelming evidence points to a sector that, until the onset of the current recession, was robust and setting performance records. Both lament the U.S. trade deficit without attempting to convey or even understand its causes, meaning, or implications. And both attribute these alleged failures of policy to lax enforcement of existing trade agreements. President Obama should reexamine these premises. He will find that they are long on fallacy and short on fact. Meanwhile, the president will find it necessary to rein in the congressional leadership's increasingly provocative approach to trade policy if he is to have success repairing America's foreign policy credibility. The determination of the president to arrest and reverse America's misguided and metastasizing aversion to trade could dramatically improve prospects for restoring the pro-trade consensus

    Great East Japan Earthquake, JR East Mitigation Successes, and Lessons for California High-Speed Rail, MTI Report 12-37

    Get PDF
    California and Japan both experience frequent seismic activity, which is often damaging to infrastructure. Seismologists have developed systems for detecting and analyzing earthquakes in real-time. JR East has developed systems to mitigate the damage to their facilities and personnel, including an early earthquake detection system, retrofitting of existing facilities for seismic safety, development of more seismically resistant designs for new facilities, and earthquake response training and exercises for staff members. These systems demonstrated their value in the Great East Japan Earthquake of 2011 and have been further developed based on that experience. Researchers in California are developing an earthquake early warning system for the state, and the private sector has seismic sensors in place. These technologies could contribute to the safety of the California High-Speed Rail Authority’s developing system, which could emulate the best practices demonstrated in Japan in the construction of the Los Angeles-to-San Jose segment
    • …
    corecore