Sustainable horticultural supply chain: the case of local food networks in the United Kingdom

In the UK there is widespread support from Government, media and consumers for local food networks. These have the potential to provide a more sustainable supply chain and are well suited to the unique production and consumption characteristics of horticultural products. In terms of food marketing, local food is in its relative infancy and is still without any formal definition. This lack of clarity hampers research activities. Although the profile of local food buyers and their expectations has been explored, our knowledge of its social, economic and environmental aspects is minimal. This research contributes by exploring the structure and scope of local food activities in the UK in terms of profiling those specialised retail outlets who provide consumers with the opportunity to purchase locally grown horticultural products

Experimental evaluation of resistojet thruster plume shields

The exhaust of an engineering model resistojet has been investigated using rotary pitot probes and a rotary quartz crystal microbalance. The resistojet operated on CO2 propellant at a mass flow rate of 0.29 g/sec in both heated and unheated flows. Measurements of local flow angles in the near field of a conical plume shield indicated that the shield was not wholly effective in confining the flow to the region upstream of its exit plane. However, the absolute levels of the measured mass flux into the backflow region were very low, on the order of 7 x 10 to the -7 power g/sqcm/sec or less. The use of a circualr disk at the exit plane of the existing conical shield showed some benefit in decreasing the amount of backflow by a factor of two. Lastly, a detached shield placed upstream of the resistojet exit plane demonstrated a small degree of local shielding for the region directly behind it

Habituation is not neutral or equal: Individual differences in tolerance suggest an overlooked personality trait

In behavioral studies, observer effects can be substantial, even for habituated animals, but few studies account for potential observer-related phenomenon empirically. We used wild, habituated chacma baboons to explore two key assumptions of behavioral ecology (i) that observers become a “neutral” stimulus and (ii) that habituation is “equal” across group members. Using flight initiation distance (FID) methods within a personality paradigm, the behavioral responses of baboons suggested that observers were not perceived as neutral but instead viewed as a high-ranking social threat. Habituation was also not equal across group members, with repeatable individual differences more important than contextual factors (e.g., habitat) in determining the distance at which baboons visually oriented or displaced from observers. A strong correlation between individual visual tolerance and displacement tolerance (i.e., convergent validity) indicated a personality trait. We offer several suggestions for how to account for these factors and minimize potential bias in future studies

Aspects of service-dominant logic and its implications for tourism management: examples from the hotel industry.

Author's draft of article submitted to Tourism Management, also available on Surrey University e-prints repository. The definitive version was subsequently published by Elsevier and is available online at http://www.sciencedirect.com/This paper introduces the concept of service-dominant logic as a research paradigm in marketing management. It does so in the context of tourism management‟s need to engage with wider debates within the mainstream management literature. Moreover it demonstrates the importance of service-dominant logic in uncovering the role played by co-production and co-creation in the tourism industry. These ideas are developed in detail through a case study of the UK hotel industry that draws on new empirical research undertaken by the authors.Funding provided by ESRC and the Advanced Institute of Managemen

The Prowler IADS performance evaluation tool (PIPE)

The Prowler IADS Performance Evaluator is a computer simulation model of an airstrike protected by electronic countermeasures platforms. It is designed for integration into mission planning systems and analysis tools used to determine the effectiveness of electronic countermeasures or allocate scarce countermeasures equipment. PIPE's features include flexible hierarchical IADS specification, the capability to construct and calculate appropriate measures of performance, graphical presentation analysis results, mission visualizationNaval Postgraduate School, Monterey, California.http://archive.org/details/prowleriadsperfo00bailMonterey, California. Naval Postgraduate SchoolApproved for public release; distribution is unlimited

On the impact of powder cohesion on the bulk properties of a powder bed in Additive Manufacturing using Discrete Element Method (DEM) simulations

In powder based Additive Manufacturing (AM) a uniform and compact spread of particles is required which can then be accurately fused layer by layer to form final products. As powders are spread, several parameters control the quality of the final powder bed layer; namely, spreader type, powder grain shape, powder characteristics and ambient manufacturing conditions. Utilising discrete element method (DEM) simulations this paper investigates the effect of cohesion on the quality of the powder bed post spreading. However, only cohesion due to the formation of liquid bridges as a result of moisture content of the powder is considered in this work. Simulations are run with a realistic spreader (geometry of which was created from data points from manufacturing equipment used within industry), alongside realistic particle shapes created via Multi-Sphere Approximations (MSA) of models derived from powder X-ray microtomography images, see Figure 1. A random selection of powder particles is chosen and used within simulations, with the resolution of these particles being controlled via a surface smoothing factor [1] to ensure an acceptable balance of accuracy and computational cost. Simulations are run with an appropriate subset of the total number of particles to yield a statistically accurate representation of the grain population to identify the effects of cohesion on the final quality of the powder bed layer. In this paper for the first time, the relationship between the moisture content and powder bed quality is investigated and the simulation results indicate that the cohesion has a strong effect on the powder bed quality which is quantified via a surface roughness parameter and powder's bulk density

Survival of the fittest: explanations for gadoid imbalance in heavily fished seas

1. Anthropogenic activities have caused the degradation of the world's ecosystems, accelerating the loss of biodiversity. In marine ecosystems, fishing has had strong impacts on fish populations and their habitats; however, not all species have responded equally to fishing pressure. 2. Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua), haddock (Melanogrammus aeglefinus), and whiting (Merlangius merlangus) are of high commercial value throughout the North Atlantic. Despite having relatively similar life cycles, the state of stocks of these three species varies enormously, with whiting faring better than cod. Within the Firth of Clyde (south‐west Scotland), this imbalance is especially accentuated, where small whiting now make up the greater proportion of the biomass. 3. In this study, cod, haddock, and whiting recruitment to coastal areas, growth, and bait attraction were explored within a marine protected area (MPA) in the Firth of Clyde. Over the course of the summers of 2013 and 2014, whiting and haddock arrived at coastal areas earlier than cod, and grew more quickly. Cod were on average the smallest gadoid observed, and whiting the largest. Whiting also had more predominant scavenging behaviour. 4. These results, in combination with other life‐history traits, indicate that whiting may be at a competitive advantage over cod, and this may partly explain the imbalance of gadoids in the Firth of Clyde. This study highlights the importance of considering life‐history differences in multi‐species fisheries management, and how appropriately managed MPAs could help to restore fish population and assemblage structure

Telomere dysfunction accurately predicts clinical outcome in chronic lymphocytic leukaemia, even in patients with early stage disease

© 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Defining the prognosis of individual cancer sufferers remains a significant clinical challenge. Here we assessed the ability of high-resolution single telomere length analysis (STELA), combined with an experimentally derived definition of telomere dysfunction, to predict the clinical outcome of patients with chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL). We defined the upper telomere length threshold at which telomere fusions occur and then used the mean of the telomere 'fusogenic' range as a prognostic tool. Patients with telomeres within the fusogenic range had a significantly shorter overall survival (P  <  0·0001; Hazard ratio [HR] = 13·2, 95% confidence interval [CI]  = 11·6-106·4) and this was preserved in early-stage disease patients (P  <  0·0001, HR=19·3, 95% CI = 17·8-802·5). Indeed, our assay allowed the accurate stratification of Binet stage A patients into those with indolent disease (91% survival at 10 years) and those with poor prognosis (13% survival at 10 years). Furthermore, patients with telomeres above the fusogenic mean showed superior prognosis regardless of their IGHV mutation status or cytogenetic risk group. In keeping with this finding, telomere dysfunction was the dominant variable in multivariate analysis. Taken together, this study provides compelling evidence for the use of high-resolution telomere length analysis coupled with a definition of telomere dysfunction in the prognostic assessment of CLL