Dry Matter and Minerals in Loblolly Pine Plantation on Four Arkansas Soils

Average contents of N, P, K, Ca, and Na and total above ground dry matter were determined in 19-year-old unthinned loblolly pine (Pinus taeda L.) plantations in southeastern Arkansas. Three stands were sampled on each of four sites: well and poorly drained coastal plain soils and well and poorly drained loessial soils. Total dry weights, determined from 15 felled trees on each of the 12 plots, ranged from 127,000 kg/ha on poorly drained loessial soil to 173,300 kg/ha on poorly drained coastal plain soil. Ranking of sites, in descending order of production of dry matter, P, K, and Na was: coastal plain poorly drained, coastal plain well drained, loess well drained, and loess poorly drained. Quantity of Ca in stemwood and stembark was 36% higher on well than poorly drained soils; P was 30% higher on coastal plain than loess soils. Results permit calculation of nutrient drain in timber harvests. Bark in 19-year-old plantations contained 44, 44, 25, and 50% of total N, P, K, and Ca in the stems

Workers' Compensation Under Alternative Insurance Arrangements

The authors use a unique panel data set of state-level data for 48 jurisdictions between 1975 and 1995 to explore the effects of insurance arrangements on workplace safety, the structure of the workers' compensation insurance market, and the employers' costs of workers' compensation insurance. In addition, we examine the trade-off between the benefit adequacy and affordability objectives of state workers' compensation programs and estimate the impact that the imposition of federal standards for benefit adequacy would have on workers' compensation costs

Flight Testing Quadeye The First Night Vision Helmet Mounted Cueing System for Fixed Wing Jet Aircraft

In 2002 the United States Navy introduced helmet mounted cueing systems (HMCS) into tactical jet operations. As aircrews have become more reliant on their HMCS the requirement for a night vision capable cueing system has risen to the forefront of HMCS technology. One proposed solution to this requirement was Quadeye. Quadeye is a wide-angle (100deg field of view) four cathode-ray tube system with injected Joint Helmet Mounted Cueing video. The Navy flew 8 evaluation sorties from March to August 2005, in the F-18 A-F fighter aircraft. The goal of this limited scope effort was to answer four questions: Does the basic display function as designed? Does the wide-angle night vision provide a usable 100deg field of view? Are the two main capabilities that the Quadeye system enables, night vision helmet mounted display and wide field of view, useful in the operational environment? Are design changes required in order to field the system? If so, what are they? During the course of executing the Quadeye test plan; the team demonstrated that Night Vision Helmet Mounted Cueing Systems improved both the lethality (time to destroy the target) and survivability (likelihood of surviving the mission) of the F-18 by by more than a factor of two. The team also discovered several design deficiencies in the Quadeye system that must be corrected prior to fielding the final production version. During the test execution several new lessons were learned. These lessons should be used in the testing of future night vision helmet mounted cueing systems

Public participation : principles and practice : the legal regulation of water pollution

The main body of the thesis is a detailed study of the practice of the legal regulation of water pollution, primarily between the period of 1 October 1983 and 31 August 1989, although reference is made to events preceding that period where necessary to provide a full assessment

Perceptions of Violations by Artificial and Human Actors across Moral Foundations

Artificial agents such as robots, chatbots, and artificial intelligence systems can be the perpetrators of a range of moral violations traditionally limited to human actors. This paper explores how people perceive the same moral violations differently for artificial agent and human perpetrators by addressing three research questions: How wrong are moral foundation violations by artificial agents compared to human perpetrators? Which moral foundations do artificial agents violate compared to human perpetrators? What leads to increased blame for moral foundation violations by artificial agents compared to human perpetrators? We adapt 18 human-perpetrated moral violation scenarios that differ by the moral foundation violated (harm, unfairness, betrayal, subversion, degradation, and oppression) to create 18 agent-perpetrated moral violation scenarios. Two studies compare human-perpetrated to agent-perpetrated scenarios. They reveal that agent-perpetrated violations are more often perceived as not wrong or violating a different foundation than their human counterparts. People are less likely to classify violations by artificial agents as oppression and subversion, the foundations that deal the most with group hierarchy. Finally, artificial agents are blamed less than humans across moral foundations, and this blame is based more on the agent\u27s ability and intention for every moral foundation except harm

Workers\u27 Compensation: Benefits, Costs, and Safety Under Alternative Insurance Arrangements

Thomason, Schmidle, and Burton make use of a unique data set to delve into how insurance arrangements affect several objectives of the workers\u27 compensation (WC) program. They underscore the effects of deregulation and other changes in WC insurance pricing arrangements by performing empirical analyses that use state-specific cost, benefit, and injury data from 48 states for 1975-1995. This allows them to address the interactive relationships among the four objectives of WC systems adequacy of benefits, affordability of WC insurance, efficiency in the benefits delivery system, and prevention of workplace injuries and diseases and how various public policies adopted by states or the federal government work to achieve them.https://research.upjohn.org/up_press/1058/thumbnail.jp

Direct Optical Detection of Microorganisms in Exoplanet Atmospheres: Methods

The purpose of this project is to develop an optical method for detecting the presence of life, specifically microorganisms, in the atmosphere of an exoplanet. We are developing algorithms that distinguish between aerosols of biological origin (microorganisms) from aerosols of non-biological origin (dust, hydrosols, etc.) using analysis of their respective and combined extinction spectra. The method uses large databases of computer-modeled spectra to analyze optical measurements and identify biological aerosols. Whereas most exoplanet researchers focus on detecting molecular spectral signatures, we are focusing on detecting the microorganisms directly rather than their molecular by-products. This method holds significant potential for detecting microorganisms from light scattered from an exoplanet’s atmosphere. In order to simulate exoplanet atmospheres using information available today, Jupiter’s atmosphere was used as a model. This was accomplished by creating a MATLAB program that simulates the scattering of light using complex mathematical models. The optical information for clouds of different types was programmed into MATLAB, as well as the optical data for different kinds of microorganisms. Extinction spectra were simulated using many different size distributions; these distributions were centered at particle sizes typical of microorganisms, liquid clouds, and ice clouds. Many experiment were carried out in order to analyze the effects of different variables on the resulting extinction spectra. These experiments and their results are detailed in our second poster, entitled “Direct Optical Detection of Microorganisms in Exoplanet Atmospheres: Models & Results.

Direct Optical Detection of Microorganisms in Exoplanet Atmospheres: Models & Results

This poster will focus on the analysis of extinction spectra obtained from simulations of exoplanet atmospheres; these spectra have been simulated using a variety of particle types and size distributions. To simulate these spectra, we have created a MATLAB program that uses mathematical models and complex algorithms to model Mie and spherical scattering. This scattering of light from aerosols has been modeled in the ultraviolet to near infrared band (200-1100 nm). We have modeled atmospheric compositions that are typical of Jovian planets, using known information about the atmosphere of Jupiter (see our first poster, entitled “Direct Optical Detection of Microorganisms in Exoplanet Atmospheres: Methods”). Extinction spectra were simulated for six particle types: Erwinia herbicola (EH), Bacillus atrophaeus (BG), ovalbumin (OV), ammonia ice, water, and water ice. Initial results show that the extinction spectra of microorganisms are distinctly different from those of water and ammonia ice clouds; all spectra resemble complex polynomial functions, but the size and location of the peaks vary according to the composition of the particles simulated. These differences are amplified when the size of the particles tested is proportional to the wavelength of the light. There are many variables that could affect this change in extinction spectra. The resulting data from the simulations detailed above has been analyzed to determine which variables most affect the spectra. This analysis focused on the variation of four parameters: refractive index, average particle size, percent volume, and standard deviation