American Lobster Settlement Index Update 2012

In a year that might be remembered as the one that brought climate change close to home for the lobster industry, lobster larvae in 2012 continued to settle mostly in the patterns we\u27ve seen before. The ocean heat wave that broke all the records and triggered an early shedder season does not seem to have had a corresponding positive effect on lobster settlement. Once again Maine\u27s lobster fishery boasted another year of historically high lobster landings, just as southern New England lobstermen still struggle with how to manage the fishery in a world of shell disease and dwindling recruitment. This issue of the Update summarizes the regional time trends in the settlement index and examines the first steps we\u27re taking in evaluating ALSI as an early warning system for the fishery

Nitrogen Transport in a Shallow Outwash Aquifer at Olean, Cattaraugus County, New York

Groundwater beneath an industrial park at Olean, New York, contained nitrogen compounds in concentrations that in 1983 ranged from 10 to 1,280 mg/L as nitrogen, mainly in the form of ammonium. Continuous pumping from an industrial well field creates a cone of depression that prevents the nitrogen compounds from migrating to municipal-supply wells, 7,000 ft away. A two-dimensional solute transport model was used to simulate changes in nitrogen concentrations that would result from a permanent shutdown of the well field. The model assumed the nitrogen source decayed at an exponential rate with a decay constant of 0.3/year to account for nitrogen removed from the aquifer by pumping during 1978-84. The source of contamination was found to be sensitive to the volume of pumpage at the industrial well field, which altered the rate of groundwater flow through the contaminated area. Simulations of a permanent shutdown of the well field, assuming nitrogen migrates as a conservative solute, indicated that nitrogen-bearing groundwater would reach the municipal well field within 5 years and the peak concentrations at the municipal well field would range from 2 to 5 mg/L. Simulations of Langmuir adsorption of the dissolved ammonium with a one-dimensional model indicated that the arrival of the solute front at the municipal well field would be retarded by a factor of three. (USGS

Precision Cultural Practices for Commercial Vegetable Production (Bulletin #836)

The objectives of this bulletin are to present a summary of research on precision cultural practices by the LSU AgCenter, to explain and discuss the advantages of these cultural practices, and to recommend practices that should help commercial vegetable growers.https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/agcenter_bulletins/1010/thumbnail.jp

Geohydrologic Conditions at the Nuclear-fuels Reprocessing Plant and Waste-management Facilities at the Western New York Nuclear Service Center, Cattaraugus County, New York

A nuclear-fuel reprocessing plant, a high-level radioactive liquid-waste tank complex, and related waste facilities occupy 100 hectares (ha) within the Western New York Nuclear Service Center near West Valley, N.Y. The facilities are underlain by glacial and postglacial deposits that fill an ancestrial bedrock valley. The main plant facilities are on an elevated plateau referred to as the north plateau. Groundwater on the north plateau moves laterally within a surficial sand and gravel from the main plant building to areas northeast, east, and southeast of the facilities. The sand and gravel ranges from 1 to 10 m thick and has a hydraulic conductivity ranging from 0.1 to 7.9 m/day. Two separate burial grounds, a 4-ha area for low-level radioactive waste disposal and a 2.9-ha area for disposal of higher-level waste are excavated into a clay-rich till that ranges from 22 to 28 m thick. Migration of an organic solvent from the area of higher level waste at shallow depth in the till suggests that a shallow, fractured, oxidized, and weathered till is a significant pathway for lateral movement of groundwater. Below this zone, groundwater moves vertically downward through the till to recharge a lacustrine silt and fine sand. Within the saturated parts of the lacustrine unit, groundwater moves laterally to the northeast toward Buttermilk Creek. Hydraulic conductivity of the till, based on field and laboratory analyses , ranges from 0.000018 to 0.000086 m/day. (USGS

An advocacy strategy favoring the adoption of a provincial public policy in reducing smoking, a public campaign highlighting the epidemiological profiles of tobacco use, studies of the impacts of measures to reduce smoking and reports on the activities of the tobacco industry

Nous analysons le rôle joué par les données probantes dans la planification et l’implantation d’une stratégie d’advocacy visant à neutraliser l’opposition à l’adoption de la Loi sur le tabac (1998) du Québec. Ce cas illustre la nécessité de compléter les données épidémiologiques traditionnelles avec d’autres informations faisant écho aux objections (principalement économiques) formulées contre le projet de loi. Il met également en exergue l’importance pour la santé publique de s’associer à des acteurs dont la légitimité leur confère le droit de cité dans les débats publics débordant des préoccupations sanitaires

Health promotion research and practice require sound policy analysis models: The case of Quebec\u27s Tobacco Act

In this paper we illustrate how policy analysis models can deepen our understanding of the challenges facing health promoters advocating for policy change. Specifically we describe the factors underpinning the adoption of Québec\u27s Tobacco Act (1998) and the role played by actors from governmental public health agencies (GPHAs). Data were collected through interviews (n = 39), newspapers articles (n = 569) and documents (n \u3e 200) from GPHAs, NGOs, the Québec National Assembly, and opponents to the legislative measures. Data collection and analysis were based on Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith\u27s Advocacy Coalition Framework (1999) and Lemieux\u27s theorization of coalition structuring (1998). We explain the adoption of the Act by: (1) the broad recognition within the policy elite of the main parameters of tobacco use (i.e. lethality, addictive properties, and legitimacy of governmental intervention), (2) the impacts of a series of events (e.g. cigarette contraband crisis) that enabled tobacco control advocates to influence public debates, and the governmental agenda, (3) the critical contribution of a coalition of GPHAs pooling resources to address both the sanitary and economic aspects of the legislation while countering the opposition\u27s strategy, and (4) the failure of the opponents to present an unified voice on the definition of the tobacco policy. This study illustrates the merits of applying a policy-change model to grasp the complexity of the process. Our findings call for the development of permanent policy analysis capabilities within public health agencies and for a broader scrutiny of the non-health-related dimensions of policy debates. © 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

Actes de la Conférence nationale et du 13e Colloque de l'AQPC

Également disponible en version papierTitre de l'écran-titre (visionné le 2 août 2009

Geologic Descriptions and Coal Analyses for 1982 Coal Drilling in the Daniel Boone National Forest, Eastern Kentucky

This report contains core descriptions, lithologic logs, and analyses of coal from 21 stratigraphic test holes drilled in 1982 in the Daniel Boone National Forest, including the Redbird Purchase Unit, in eastern Kentucky. The test holes ranged in depth from 85 to 1,988 feet and averaged about 700 feet. A total of 89 coal samples were analyzed. Results of analyses (on the as-received basis) showed the following ranges: ash, 2.37 to 28.8 percent; sulfur, 0.3 to 8.4 percent; and Btu, 9,017 to 14,550 per pound

Imaging and spectroscopy of galaxies associated with two z~0.7 damped Lyman-alpha absorption systems

We have identified galaxies near two quasars which are at the redshift of damped Lyman-alpha (DLA) systems in the UV spectra of the quasars. Both galaxies are actively forming stars. One galaxy has a luminosity close to the break in the local galaxy luminosity function, L*, the other is significantly fainter than L* and appears to be interacting with a nearby companion. Despite the strong selection effects favoring spectroscopic identification of the most luminous DLA galaxies, many of the spectroscopically-identified DLA galaxies in the literature are sub-L*, suggesting that the majority of the DLA population is probably sub-L*, in contrast to MgII absorbers at similar redshifts whose mean luminosity is close to L*.Comment: 9 pages, to appear in AJ, November 2003 issu