Salt marsh harvest mouse abundance and site use in a managed marsh

The salt marsh harvest mouse (Reithrodontomys raviventris) is a federal and California listed endangered mammal endemic to the San Francisco Bay. The objectives of this research were to determine habitat use of endangered salt marsh harvest mice in a managed marsh in Fremont California, and to evaluate whether managed flooding of the marsh provides favorable habitat conditions for the mice. In addition, this research explores the effectiveness of using mark-recapture model selection analysis to estimate capture probability, survival, and population growth rate for salt marsh harvest mice. Mice were captured for four nights per month between May and August, 2008. Thirty-six unique salt marsh harvest mice were captured for a catch per 100 nights of trap effort of 1.9. The sex ratio of male to female mice was skewed towards males with a sex of 2.3:1. Salt marsh harvest mice were distributed randomly throughout the marsh and no relationships were found between mice distribution and pickleweed salinity, pickleweed height, distance to levees, distance to dry or filled water bodies, percent cover of vegetation, or sympatric rodents. The findings of this study indicate that catch-per-trap-effort, the current standard method to estimate salt marsh harvest mice populations, may not be accurate. The results of this study can be used by managers of salt marsh harvest mice habitat to manage and estimate mouse populations

Water Development in South Africa

A report on South African water development: South Africa's water resources are, in global terms, scarce and extremely limited: average rainfall (450 mm per year) is well below the world average (of about 860 mm), evaporation is comparatively high, no truly large or navigable rivers exist, the combined runoff (of 49 billion cubic metres per year) is less than half of that of the Zambezi River, the closest large river to South Africa. In addition South Africa is also poorly endowed with groundwater and the natural availability of water across the country is highly uneven with more than 60% of the river flow arising from only 20% of the land. Four of South Africa's main rivers are shared with other countries, which together drain about 60% of the country's land area and contribute about 40% of its total surface runoff (river flow). Most urban and industrial development took place in locations remote from large watercourses, dictated either by the occurrence of mineral riches or influenced by the political dispensation of the past. Some irrigation were also established during times that water was still relatively abundant and little incentive existed for seeking the most beneficial application thereof. As a result, in several river basins the requirements for water already far exceeds its natural availability, and widely-spread and often large-scale transfers of water across catchments have therefore, been implemented

Validation of the Commercial Sexual Exploitation-Identification Tool

Trafficked youth are typically not identified until years after their exploitation has begun. In order to protect youth from prolonged abuse and violence and get them help, exploitation must be recognized as early as possible. To make this possible, service providers and other professionals who work with youth need a validated screening tool to aid in accurately detecting exploitation.the cse-it is an evidence based toolIn 2014, WestCoast Children's Clinic developed the Commercial Sexual Exploitation – Identification Tool (CSE-IT) with the input of over 100 survivors and service providers. In 2016, we validated the CSE-IT with data from a 15-month pilot to ensure that it accurately identifies youth who have clear indicators of exploitation. Since 2015 we have worked collaboratively with 77 agencies in 3 states to use the CSE-IT. As of June 2017, WestCoast has trained 4,000 service providers to recognize the signs of exploitation. These providers screened 12,500 youth and identified 1,500 youth with clear indicators of exploitation

Risk mitigation of performance ratio guarantees in commercial photovoltaic systems

Abstract: This study demonstrates the importance of managing the risk of performance ratio guarantees, which typically are applicable to most commercial PV projects. A qualitative assessment of the performance metrics has shown multiple performance parameters, which could influence the Performance Ratio. Alternative performance metrics, including the Temperature Corrected Performance Ratio and the Weather Corrected Performance Ratio were evaluated by means of a quantitative analysis. The Temperature– and Weather Corrected Performance Ratios have both demonstrated the capability of reducing the inter-annual and seasonal variance experienced with the conventional Performance Ratio. The respective performance metrics were further calculated from multiple years of meteorological data in order to construct a statistical distribution for each performance metric. The resulting probability distribution function was then used to determine the probable risk percentiles for each of the respective performance metrics and compared with the separately calculated performance metrics referring to a long-term mean data set. It was demonstrated that the long-term mean derived performance parameters did present a risk for overstating the facilities’ performance. The risk was mitigated by referring to the multi-year’s P90 percentile instead

Nutritional management after colonic interposition

During oesophagal reconstruction adequate nutrition must be maintained. The article provides an account of the feeding programme and procedures followed in the case of a patient that had an emergency gastrectomy, splenectomy and oesophagectomy.Department of HE and Training approved lis