ECONOMIES OF SIZE AMONG MUNICIPAL WATER AUTHORITIES IN PENNSYLVANIA

Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

Evaluation of Potential Wild Turkey Habitat in Eastern Illinois

Reestablishment of the wild turkey has been successful in the southern part of Illinois where large established tracts of woodland occur. However, turkeys are capable of surviving in areas with less forest cover, if food, nesting materials and protection are available. This project evaluated the potential turkey habitat of a 14-county area of eastern Illinois along the drainage of the Wabash River. Six potential release sites were selected and the habitat evaluated. In these areas, oak (Quercus spp.) and hickory (Carya spp.) were the dominant tree species. Disturbance from human populations was determined in each of the six areas, including the amount of roads and population densities. The Clark County area, in the region of Lincoln Trail State Park, appears to be the best release site, on the basis of amount of forest, forest edge and the availability of protection. Crawford and Clay county areas, which also contain sizable forest tracts should be considered as secondary sites

Wind-tunnel/flight correlation study of aerodynamic characteristics of a large flexible supersonic cruise airplane (XB-70-1). 3: A comparison between characteristics predicted from wind-tunnel measurements and those measured in flight

A program was undertaken by NASA to evaluate the accuracy of a method for predicting the aerodynamic characteristics of large supersonic cruise airplanes. This program compared predicted and flight-measured lift, drag, angle of attack, and control surface deflection for the XB-70-1 airplane for 14 flight conditions with a Mach number range from 0.76 to 2.56. The predictions were derived from the wind-tunnel test data of a 0.03-scale model of the XB-70-1 airplane fabricated to represent the aeroelastically deformed shape at a 2.5 Mach number cruise condition. Corrections for shape variations at the other Mach numbers were included in the prediction. For most cases, differences between predicted and measured values were within the accuracy of the comparison. However, there were significant differences at transonic Mach numbers. At a Mach number of 1.06 differences were as large as 27 percent in the drag coefficients and 20 deg in the elevator deflections. A brief analysis indicated that a significant part of the difference between drag coefficients was due to the incorrect prediction of the control surface deflection required to trim the airplane

Five-Year Growth Report: From Inception to Global Influence 2010 - 2015

While we are proud of our accomplishments in building an institutional framework, we are even more proud of our institute’s initial work to build an impact-driven program. This work is indeed the central focus of this report. Through the leadership of our new directors for research and policy, we have begun to build a vigorous research and policy development program that includes engagement with both local and global stakeholders. We have also developed a strong set of collaborations with national and international partners, striving to achieve a balance between work in Nebraska and globally, including in India, Brazil, China and selected countries in East Africa and the Middle East and North Africa region. Our annual Water for Food Global Conference has become a sought-after event for thought partners, researchers, students, policymakers, producers, business leaders and others in our sector. We have also convened or co-convened many policy dialogues, workshops and seminars in the last five years, including at the annual Stockholm World Water Weeks and the 2012 and 2015 World Water Forums. We are pleased by the progress we have made in our work to educate the next generation and engage young talent, through such activities as the double Master of Science program in Agricultural Water Management with UNESCO-IHE in Delft and a fellowship program for undergraduate and graduate students and post-docs. Now, with a full complement of directors and staff, the past year has witnessed a transformation at WFI. Relationships and partnerships have matured, programs launched and directions clarified. After reflecting on lessons learned in our initial years and many discussions with university leadership, global experts and faculty, we’ve identified where WFI’s greatest capacities lie to effect change. As we’ve developed new strategies for the next five years, we’ve targeted key subject areas and geographic locations in which we will focus our resources. The 2015-2020 Strategic Plan details specific research, policy and educational projects we are undertaking and how we will measure progress in outputs and outcomes. A year ago, when we moved into our new location on the Nebraska Innovation Campus, we had many empty desks. Today, those desks are filled and our offices bustling with core staff as well as students, faculty and visiting researchers. As WFI heads into its next five years, we’re excited to embrace promising new projects, from closing water and agricultural productivity gaps in Africa to educating the next generation of researchers and practitioners. Contents: 10 I Ending Water and Food Insecurity 12 I A Comprehensive Plan for Today... 15 I ... and Tomorrow / Innovation through Research and Policy 19 I Key research & Policy Accomplishments 21 I Improving Yields and Water Productivity 23 I Telling Nebraska’s Groundwater Governance Story 25 I Making Crop CIRCLES in Tanzania 27 I Setting a River in Motion 29 I Educating, Engaging and Communicating 35 I Building Capacity in Developing Countries 36 I A Global Forum for Water for Food 37 I 50 Years of Nebraska Water Experience 40 I Connecting Nebraska to the World 42 I Bringing People Together 44 I Building the Institute 48 I The Water for Food Institute: A Founding Story 52 I Conclusion 54 I Financials 56 I Leadership/ Board of Directors/International Advisory Panel 57 I Faculty Advisory Panel 58 I Leadership Team/Staff 59 I Credit

Magnetospheric eclipses in the double pulsar system J0737-3039

We argue that eclipses of radio emission from the millisecond pulsar A in the double pulsar system J0737-3039 are due to synchrotron absorption by plasma in the closed field line region of the magnetosphere of its normal pulsar companion B. A's radio beam only illuminates B's magnetosphere for about 10 minutes surrounding the time of eclipse. During this time it heats particles at r\gtrsim 10^9 cm to relativistic energies and enables extra plasma to be trapped by magnetic mirroring. An enhancement of the plasma density by a factor \sim 10^2 is required to match the duration and optical depth of the observed eclipses. The extra plasma might be supplied by a source near B through B\gamma pair creation by energetic photons produced in B's outer gap. Excitation of pairs' gyrational motions by cyclotron absorption of A's radio beam can result in their becoming trapped between conjugate mirror points in B's magnetosphere. Because the trapping efficiency decreases with increasing optical depth, the plasma density enhancement saturates even under steady state illumination. The result is an eclipse with finite, frequency dependent, optical depth. After illumination by A's radio beam ceases, the trapped particles cool and are lost. The entire cycle repeats every orbital period. We speculate that the asymmetries between eclipse ingress and egress result in part from the magnetosphere's evolution toward a steady state when illuminated by A's radio beam. We predict that A's linear polarization will vary with both eclipse phase and B's rotational phase.Comment: 8 pages, 1 figure, submitted to ApJ, references corrected, detectability of reprocessed emission revised, major conclusions unchange

GROWING A WATER AND FOOD SECURE FUTURE: ANNUAL REPORT FY2019 (JULY 1, 2018 TO JUNE 30, 2019)

Ensuring water and food security for our growing world is an audacious goal – exactly what Bob Daugherty sought to achieve by creating the Daugherty Water for Food Global Institute (DWFI) at the University of Nebraska nearly 10 years ago. He, along with leaders and supporters within the University of Nebraska, the state and well beyond, understood that a collective and committed effort on wise water management was essential to producing enough food to feed the world while sustaining our valuable and limited water resources. For decades, many dedicated people around the world have striven to overcome the challenges of ensuring water and food security. There isn’t a “silver bullet” that will quickly address the complex, interconnected and evolving issues, including climate change, rising demand for more water-intensive foods, soil and water degradation, conflict over and competition for water resources, and, in many developing countries, the low levels of investment in supporting facilities and services. In collaboration with our dedicated partners, DWFI is making valuable contributions to meeting these challenges. As you’ll read in this year’s annual report, the institute is conducting innovative research, informing policy, convening stakeholders, sharing knowledge, cultivating new leaders and communicating our work to millions of stakeholders across the U.S. and around the world. Most importantly, our work is advancing our mission to ensure food and water security for nearly 10 billion people by 2050. The progress towards these outcomes was fittingly demonstrated at the 2019 Water for Food Global Conference, which focused on innovation in water and food security. More than 400 partners – including farmers, scientists, companies, philanthropists, investors, government agencies and nonprofit organizations – convened to explore practical actions to help stakeholders build more resilient, water-smart and productive agricultural and food systems. New partnerships and ideas generated during the conference sessions and networking are now under development. Here in Nebraska and neighboring states, it has been a year of far too much water, dominated by historic floods and a wetter-than-usual planting season that left many acres fallow. The impacts on people and communities, infrastructure, and crops and livestock have been enormous. Much has been done to restore the affected communities, though full recovery will take much longer. Stakeholders across the state are reflecting on lessons learned and exploring ways to strengthen the resilience of communities, including bolstering water and food systems. The results from the recently completed Nebraska Water Productivity report reflect remarkable improvements in yield per drop of water used (water productivity or WP) for crops, livestock and biofuels over the past three decades. This underscores the importance of long-term investments in crop and livestock breeding, enhanced management systems and new technologies. The challenge is how to sustainably achieve similar water productivity advancements in other agricultural landscapes. With our friends at the Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources (IANR) and a number of Faculty Fellows and partners, we have catalyzed our efforts to better understand and address water quality challenges here in Nebraska and further afield. A notable example is the Bazile Groundwater Management Area (BGMA) in Northeast Nebraska, where we are working with four Natural Resources Districts (NRDs) to mitigate and manage nitrate contamination. DWFI is part of a strong alliance of international partners working to expand development of local solutions for irrigated agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa and other emerging regions of the world. These collaborations amplify our individual strengths and create powerful new approaches to achieving water and food security. Directly contributing to this ambitious initiative, the institute and IANR are assessing existing irrigated agriculture business models in Rwanda. The results from this research are expected to inform new investments in sustainably scaling intensive agriculture in other sub-Saharan countries. While it will still take time to fully achieve our vision of a world without hunger or water scarcity, we are witnessing accelerated progress. As we close in on the institute’s 10th anniversary in 2020, we are pleased to share the impacts we’ve made. We greatly appreciate the support of our Board of Directors, staff, University of Nebraska leadership, Faculty Fellows, Global Fellows, International Advisory Panel, donors and friends who help make these important breakthroughs possible

Invertebrate carcasses as a resource for competing Aedes albopictus and Aedes aegypti (Diptera : Culicidae)

However, little is known of the role of these carcasses in other containers, which also receive leaf fall and stemflow inputs. This experiment investigated effects of accumulated invertebrate carcasses as a resource for two competing mosquitoes, Aedes albopictus (Skuse) and Aedes aegypti (L.) whether either species differentially benefited from accumulated carcasses, and if such a benefit affected interspecific competition. First, we measured accumulation of invertebrate carcasses in standard containers at a field site. We then used a replacement series with five different species ratios at the same total density: and varied the input of invertebrate carcasses [dead Drosophila melanogaster (Meigen) ] in three levels: none, the average input from our field site, or the maximum input recorded at our field site. Survivorship, development time, and mass were measured for each mosquito species as correlates of population growth, and were used to calculate a population performance index, lambda\u27. There were strong positive effects of invertebrate carcass additions on all growth correlates and lambda\u27. Differences in performance between species were pronounced in small or no carcass additions and absent in large inputs of invertebrate carcasses, but there was little evidence that inputs of invertebrate carcasses altered the competitive advantage in this system. These results suggest that terrestrial invertebrate carcasses may be an important resource for many types of container communities, and large accumulations of dead invertebrates may: reduce resource competition between these mosquitoes. thus favoring coexistence. We propose that the total amount of resource, including accumulated invertebrate carcasses, may explain observed patterns of replacement involving these mosquitoes

The frequency of asthma exacerbations and healthcare utilization in patients with asthma from the UK and USA

Asthma exacerbations are frequent in patients with severe disease. This report describes results from two retrospective cohort studies describing exacerbation frequency and risk, emergency department (ED)/hospital re-admissions, and asthma-related costs by asthma severity in the US and UK

Educational partnerships

A key objective of the professional forestry program in the School of Forestry at Northern Arizona University (NAU) has been to prepare students to become practicing land managers. But in a state where the vast majority of the commercial forestland ownership rests with the federal government or in tribal holdings, providing NAU students with exposure to private forestland management practices is difficult