A tackle box guide to: common saltwater fishes of southwest Florida

There are well over 150 species of fish caught by hook and line in local waters. The 86 species included in this book were selected by the author and editors because they are the most frequently encountered. For eachspecies, important informationabout distinguishing features, biology/habitat, and fishing methods is provided. The often confusing common nicknames applied to each fish are noted, as well as the fish's preferred common name. (56pp.

An eighth-century inscribed cross-slab in Dull, Perthshire

The discovery of a cross-inscribed slab with an inscription is described. Because of its importance it was decided to invite specialist comment on this piece of sculpture and to publish it in advance of the full report on the excavations. The form of the monument, its inscription and archaeological context are considered. The text appears to consist of a Gaelic personal name. The script is a form of geometrical lettering which can be dated to the opening quarter of the eighth century. The form of the cross has Columban associations which sit well with place-name and other evidence which points to Dull having been a monastery founded from Iona by c. AD 700

Provider diversity in the NHS: impact on quality and innovation

The overall objective of the research project has been to assess the impact of provider diversity on quality and innovation in the NHS. The specific research aims were to identify the differences in performance between non-profit Third Sector organisations, for-profit private enterprises, and incumbent public sector institutions within the NHS as providers of health care services, as well as the factors that affect the entry and growth of new private and Third Sector providers. The study used both qualitative and quantitative methods based on case studies of four Local Health Economies (LHEs). Qualitative methods included documentary analysis and interviews with key informants and managers of both commissioning and provider organisations. To provide a focus to the study, two tracer conditions were followed: orthopaedic surgery and home health care for frail older people. In the case of hospital inpatient care, data on patient characteristics were also collected from the HES database. The analysis of this data provided preliminary estimates of the effects of provider type on quality, controlling for client characteristics and case mix. In addition, a survey of patient experience in diverse provider organisations was analysed to compare the different dimensions of quality of provision of acute services between incumbent NHS organisations and new independent sector treatment centres. The research has shown that, in respect of inpatient hospital services, diverse providers supply health services of at least as good quality as traditional NHS providers, and that there is ample opportunity to expand their scale and scope as providers of services commissioned by the NHS. The research used patient experience survey data to investigate whether hospital ownership affects the quality of services reported by NHS patients in areas other than clinical quality. The raw survey data appear to show that private hospitals provide higher quality services than the public hospitals. However, further empirical analysis leads to a more nuanced understanding of the performance differences. Firstly, the analysis shows that each sector offers greater quality in certain specialties. Secondly, the analysis shows that differences in the quality of patients’ reported experience are mainly attributable to patient characteristics, the selection of patients into each type of hospital, and the characteristics of individual hospitals, rather than to hospital ownership as such. Controlling for such differences, NHS patients are on average likely to experience a similar quality of care in a public or privately-run hospital. Nevertheless, for specific groups of patients and for specific types of treatments, especially the more straightforward ones, the private sector provides an improved patient experience compared to the public sector. Elsewhere, the NHS continues to provide a high quality service and outperforms the private sector in a range of services and for a range of clients

On the embodied carbon of structural timber versus steel, and the influence of LCA methodology

Reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the built environment is key to mitigating climate change. This paper uses Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) to explore whether glue-laminated timber (glulam) has a significantly lower whole-life embodied carbon (Global Warming Potential; GWP) than functionally-equivalent structural steel. Alongside a baseline assessment that follows standard practice, a variety of further sensitivity analyses establish how differing assumptions affect results. Assessment found that the GWPs were highly dependent on: (1) the assumed end-of-life scenarios; (2) the approach used to consider biogenic CO2, and; (3) whether the timing of emissions was considered. In general, glulam had the lowest GWP when incinerated (with energy recovery) at end-of-life. However, when recycling is modelled according to current standards, glulam GWPs were in amongst those of steel, giving no clear ranking of materials. Landfilled glulam had a lower GWP than steel if some biogenic carbon was assumed to be permanently stored. That may be appropriate given recent guidance from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, but is not allowed in the updated standards for LCA of construction products (e.g. EN 15804:2019). Six additional impact categories were also assessed to give a broader environmental comparison. The relative impact of the two materials depended on the impact category assessed, with glulam generally having a similar or lower impact than steel. Given the findings of this paper, further research on end-of-life treatment and LCA methodology is critical to ensure that strategies aiming to reduce GWP by material selection are effective in practice.</p

Finalist essays from the Center for Homeland Defense and Security's First Annual Essay Competition, 2008

The Center for Homeland Defense and Security (CHDS) announces the winner and finalists of its first annual essay contest. CHDS launched the contest last year to provide people from around the country the opportunity to express their opinions on homeland security issues and to suggest new ideas. The winner and four finalists were selected from eighty contest submissions by a committee comprised of CHDS staff, faculty, and alumni. The variety of the essay topics submitted, as well as the backgrounds of the authors, highlights the vast scope of the impact that homeland security policies, programs, and challenges have on our communities and professions. This year’s contestants were asked to answer the question “What single aspect of Homeland Security has been most successful, and what single aspect will be most critical to Homeland Security success?”Naval Posgraduate School, Center for Homeland Defense and Securit

P-33 Evaluation of Anodized Aluminum for Potential Use as Interposer for Test Socket Industry

Anodized aluminum displays desirable qualities as an interposer in test sockets, as it is more dimensionally accurate than traditional polymers and less expensive than alternatives. However, the metal must withstand extensive heating and cooling cycles. Using a scanning electron microscope, we can compare the surface of the anodized aluminum before and after cycling to ensure that the difference in thermal expansion rates of the oxide and aluminum is not enough to cause critical defects. Initial observations suggest that the difference in expansion rates does not compromise the oxide layer, making anodized aluminum a strong candidate as a new interposer material

Embodied carbon assessment using a dynamic climate model: Case-study comparison of a concrete, steel and timber building structure

The enormous environmental impact of construction is becoming increasingly apparent and unacceptable to many structural engineers, whose designs typically account for the majority of a building's embodied carbon. It is timely, therefore, that consensus is forming around a methodology for calculating embodied carbon. This encourages the inclusion of all life cycle stages, from material production and construction, through use and eventual demolition, disposal and reuse. In practice, however, end-of-life processes are fraught with uncertainty and often ignored, despite the potentially large associated carbon fluxes. Further uncertainty exists when considering bio-based construction materials, which store carbon during use. There are no widely-accepted means of accounting for timing of these carbon fluxes, despite the long service life of most buildings. Could we consider whole-life carbon in a more holistic and climate-focused way? This article uses dynamic life cycle assessment to convert greenhouse gas emission histories to key climate impacts using a simple dynamic model. The implications for structural design decisions are explored by comparing concrete, steel and timber options for a typical medium-rise building structure. Concrete is found to have a higher impact than steel, with the climate response of both options dominated by the large initial emissions of material production and construction. Timber has the smallest impact, for this example, under a typical scenario with sustainable forest management and re-emission of sequestered carbon at end-of-life. The analysis takes a forward-looking approach to sequestration, with timing corresponding to the growth of replanted trees. An optimistic timber scenario, whereby future carbon-capture technology avoids most end-of-life emissions, demonstrates the possibility of structures with small long-term climate cooling effects. Conversely, in a hypothetical worst-case scenario where no replanting or subsequent sequestration occurs, the long-term warming effect of the timber structure is increased by the net emission of biogenic carbon. Although end-of-life processes are important in the long-term, particularly for timber, the analysis also highlights the importance of the initial emissions from material production and construction. These cause high rates of short-term temperature increase and prolonged accumulation of radiative heat for all the buildings, but the impacts are again lowest for timber. Most importantly, the investigation shows how dynamic life cycle assessment can be used to explore climate impacts in a comprehensive, graphical and unbiased way. As a simple extension to established methodologies for calculating embodied carbon, it is a powerful decision making tool in the climate emergency

Epilogue: Roundtable on Drama Conventions – creative practices

Peer reviewe

Reinforcement Learning Considered Harmful

IPv4 [1] must work. After years of extensive re- search into thin clients, we disconfirm the investigation of object-oriented languages, demonstrates the significant importance of software engineering. Quar, our new heuristic for the de- ployment of RAID, is the solution to all of these issues