Aspiring Top Civil Servants' Distrust in the Private Sector

In this paper, we assess the beliefs of aspiring top civil servants towards the private sector. We use a survey conducted in a French university known for training most of the future high-ranking civil servants and politicians, as well as students who will work in the private sector. Our results show that students aspiring to work in the public sector are more likely to distrust the private sector, to believe that conducting business is easy, and are less likely to see the benefits of public-private partnerships. They are also more likely to believe that private sector workers are self-interested. These results have strong implications for the level of regulation in France, and the cooperation between the public and private sector

Fire protection through modern day building codes

In this edition, fire protection regulations are not included and requirements of model codes and recommendations of code writing organizations are cited in the text. Much progress has been made in building construction techniques and in material development since the publication of the First Edition in 1944. While this Fifth Edition reflects that progress, it adheres to its original purpose to help develop construction standards for safeguarding life and property from fire

The development of a spatially explicit model to estimate

A spatially explicit model of raccoon (Procyon lotor) distribution for the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Savannah River Site (SRS) in west-central South Carolina was developed using data from a raccoon radio-telemetry study and visualized within a Geographic Information System (GIS). An inductive approach was employed to develop three sub-models using the ecological requirements of raccoons studied in the following habitats: (1) man-made reservoirs, (2) bottomland hardwood/ riverine systems, and (3) isolated wetland systems. Logistic regression was used to derive probabilistic resource selection functions using habitat compositional data and landscape metrics. The final distribution model provides a spatially explicit probability (likelihood of being in an area) surface for male raccoons. The model is a stand-alone tool consisting of algorithms independent of the specific GIS data layers to which they were derived. The model was then used to predict contaminant burdens in raccoons inhabiting a riverine system contaminated with radiocaesium (137Cs). The predicted 137Cs burdens were less than if one would assume homogeneous use of the contaminated areas. This modelling effort provides a template for DOE managed lands and other large government facilities to establish a framework for site-specific ecological assessments that use wildlife species as endpoints

Quantifying energy use efficiency via entropy production: a case study from longleaf pine ecosystems

Ecosystems are open systems that exchange matter and energy with their environment. They differ in their efficiency in doing so as a result of their location on Earth, structure and disturbance, including anthropogenic legacy. Entropy has been proposed to be an effective metric to describe these differences as it relates energy use efficiencies of ecosystems to their thermodynamic environment (i.e., temperature) but has rarely been studied to understand how ecosystems with different disturbance legacies respond when confronted with environmental variability. We studied three sites in a longleaf pine ecosystem with varying levels of anthropogenic legacy and plant functional diversity, all of which were exposed to extreme drought. We quantified radiative (effrad), metabolic and overall entropy changes – as well as changes in exported to imported entropy (effflux) in response to drought disturbance and environmental variability using 24 total years of eddy covariance data (8 years per site). We show that structural and functional characteristics contribute to differences in energy use efficiencies at the three study sites. Our results demonstrate that ecosystem function during drought is modulated by decreased absorbed solar energy and variation in the partitioning of energy and entropy exports owing to differences in site enhanced vegetation index and/or soil water content. Low effrad and metabolic entropy as well as slow adjustment of effflux at the anthropogenically altered site prolonged its recovery from drought by approximately 1 year. In contrast, stands with greater plant functional diversity (i.e., the ones that included both C3 and C4 species) adjusted their entropy exports when faced with drought, which accelerated their recovery. Our study provides a path forward for using entropy to determine ecosystem function across different global ecosystems.</p

Seeing motion and apparent motion

In apparent motion experiments, participants are presented with what is in fact a succession of two brief stationary stimuli at two different locations, but they report an impression of movement. Philosophers have recently debated whether apparent motion provides evidence in favour of a particular account of the nature of temporal experience. I argue that the existing discussion in this area is premised on a mistaken view of the phenomenology of apparent motion and, as a result, the space of possible philosophical positions has not yet been fully explored. In particular, I argue that the existence of apparent motion is compatible with an account of the nature of temporal experience that involves a version of direct realism. In doing so, I also argue against two other claims often made about apparent motion, viz. that apparent motion is the psychological phenomenon that underlies motion experience in the cinema, and that apparent motion is subjectively indistinguishable from real motion

Using Raccoons as an Indicator Species for Metal Accumulation Across Trophic Accumulation across Trophic Levels: A Stable Isotope Approach

: The fact that raccoons (Procyon lotor) are an opportunistic omnivore has severely complicated interpreta- tions of contaminant uptake patterns due to the inability to determine the trophic position an individual occupies. Moreover, few studies have examined the relationships between heavy metal bioaccumulation and trophic struc- ture, especially in the terrestrial environment. In this study, the stable isotopes of nitrogen were used to charac- terize the feeding habits of the raccoon at the population level and to determine whether metal burden was relat- ed to trophic feeding structure within a welldefined ecosystem. Raccoon populations were isotopically distinct, and significant positive relationships existed between some trace element contents and 6 1 5 ~of muscle when site was used as a covariable in a statistical model. Although the transfer of metals through terrestrial ecosystems is com- plex, our study showed that some of the variation in contaminant body burdens in raccoon populations can be attributed to trophic feeding position and that 1 5 ~ / 1 4 ~ ratios of muscle tissue provide a quantitative measure of this process. The potential for using omnivores such as the raccoon, as a sentinel species for contaminant studies, should be explored further since the ambiguity of the relative trophlc level an animal occupies can be directly esti- mated. This provides a more extensive sampling across trophic levels using a single species, which can have broad consequences for ecological risk assessment

Effects of cooking on radiocesium in fish from the Savannah River: exposure differences for the public

Understanding the factors that contribute to the risk from fish consumption is an important public health concern because of potential adverse effects of radionuclides, organochlorines, other pesticides, and mercury. Risk from consumption is normally computed on the basis of contaminant levels in fish, meal frequency, and meal size, yet cooking practices may also affect risk. This study examines the effect of deep-frying on radiocesium (137Cs) levels and risk to people fishing along the Savannah River. South Carolina and Georgia have issued consumption advisories for the Savannah River, based partly on 137Cs. 137Cs levels were significantly higher in the cooked fish compared to the raw fish on a wet weight basis. Mean 137Cs levels were 0.61 pCi/g (wet weight basis) in raw fish, 0.81 pCi/g in cooked-breaded, and 0.99 pCi/g in cooked-unbreaded fish. Deep-frying with and without breading resulted in a weight loss of 25 and 39%, while 137Cs levels increased by 32 and 62%, respectively. Therefore, the differences were due mainly to weight loss during cooking. However, the data suggest that risk assessments should be based on cooked portion size for contaminant analysis, or the risk from 137Cs in fish will be underestimated. People are likely to estimate the amounts of fish they eat based on a meal size of the cooked portion, while risk assessors determine 137Cs levels in raw fish. A conversion factor of at least two for 137Cs increase during cooking is reasonable and conservative, given the variability in 137Cs levels. The data also suggest that surveys determining consumption should specifically ask about portion size before or after cooking and state which was used in their methods

Raccoons as potential vectors of radionuclide contamination to human food chains from a nuclear industrial site

Although the raccoon (Procyon lotor) is commonly harvested and consumed throughout the southeastern United States, little is known regarding the fate and effects of environmental pollutants to this species, and the potential for it to act as a contaminant vector to humans or other predators. Muscle and liver tissues were collected from 76 raccoons from locations on and near the Department of Energy\u27s Savannah River Site (SRS) in South Carolina and analyzed for radiocesium (137Cs). Raccoons were trapped from areas near a former reactor cooling reservoir known to be contaminated from former nuclear production activities, a stream drainage system also known to have received 137Cs contamination from low level releases, and 4 on-site reference areas that have been unimpacted by nuclear production activities. Raccoons from 3 hunting areas 3-15 km of SRS were used as off-site reference samples. 137Cs levels differed between the 3 treatment groups (contaminated, on-site reference, off-site reference) for both muscle and liver tissues. Muscle and liver samples from raccoons from on-site reference areas were higher in 137Cs than those from off-site reference animals. 137Cs in raccoon tissues from contaminated habitats exceeded levels in the pooled reference animals. The 2 contaminated areas differed in 137Cs tissue levels. Only 1 of 20 raccoons from contaminated sites on the SRS exceeded the European Economic Community (EEC) limit for 137Cs in edible muscle tissue of 0.6 Bq 137Cs/g fresh-weight edible muscle. Further, none of the raccoons from the on-site reference areas exceeded EEC limits for muscle. It is unlikely that the hunting public faces any significant risk from exposure to raccoons from the SRS. Although some raccoons might stray off the SRS which is closed to public access, most of the heavily contaminated areas are not adjacent to the edges of the site, decreasing the potential for off-site movement of contaminated animals