Climate change, mitigation and adaptation: the case of the Murray–Darling Basin in Australia

Climate change is likely to have substantial effects on irrigated agriculture. It is anticipated that many areas that are already dry will become drier, while areas that already receive high rainfall may experience further increases. Extreme climate events such as droughts are likely to become more common. These patterns are evident in projections of climate change for the Murray–Darling Basin in Australia. To understand the effects of climate change, as modified by mitigation and adaptation, active management responses designed to improve returns in particular states of nature, such as in the case of drought must be considered. A change in the frequency of drought will induce a change in the allocation of land and water between productive activities. Even with action to stabilize atmospheric concentrations of CO2 at or near current levels, climate change will continue for some decades and adaptation will therefore be necessary. Conversely, most adaptation strategies are feasible only if the rate and extent of climate change is limited by mitigation. In this paper, a simulation model of state-contingent production is used to analyze these issues.Irrigation, Uncertainty, Climate Change

Climate change, uncertainty and adaptation: the case of irrigated agriculture in the Murray–Darling Basin in Australia

Climate change is likely to have substantial effects on irrigated agriculture. Extreme climate events such as droughts are likely to become more common. These patterns are evident in median projections of climate change for the Murray–Darling Basin in Australia. Understanding climate change effects on returns from irrigation involves explicit representation of spatial changes in natural stocks (i.e. water supply) and their temporal variability (i.e. frequency of drought states of nature) and the active management responses to capital stocks represented by mitigation and alternative adaptation strategies by state of nature . A change in the frequency of drought will induce a change in the allocation of land and water between productive activities. In this paper, a simulation model of state-contingent production is used to analyze the effects of climate change adaptation and mitigation. In the absence of mitigation, climate change will have severe adverse effects on irrigated agriculture in the Basin. However, a combination of climate mitigation and adaptation through changes in land and water use will allow the maintenance of agricultural water use and environmental flows.Irrigation, Uncertainty, Climate Change

Monitoring Networked Applications With Incremental Quantile Estimation

Networked applications have software components that reside on different computers. Email, for example, has database, processing, and user interface components that can be distributed across a network and shared by users in different locations or work groups. End-to-end performance and reliability metrics describe the software quality experienced by these groups of users, taking into account all the software components in the pipeline. Each user produces only some of the data needed to understand the quality of the application for the group, so group performance metrics are obtained by combining summary statistics that each end computer periodically (and automatically) sends to a central server. The group quality metrics usually focus on medians and tail quantiles rather than on averages. Distributed quantile estimation is challenging, though, especially when passing large amounts of data around the network solely to compute quality metrics is undesirable. This paper describes an Incremental Quantile (IQ) estimation method that is designed for performance monitoring at arbitrary levels of network aggregation and time resolution when only a limited amount of data can be transferred. Applications to both real and simulated data are provided.Comment: This paper commented in: [arXiv:0708.0317], [arXiv:0708.0336], [arXiv:0708.0338]. Rejoinder in [arXiv:0708.0339]. Published at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/088342306000000583 in the Statistical Science (http://www.imstat.org/sts/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org

Rejoinder: Monitoring Networked Applications With Incremental Quantile Estimation

Rejoinder: Monitoring Networked Applications With Incremental Quantile Estimation [arXiv:0708.0302]Comment: Published at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/088342306000000592 in the Statistical Science (http://www.imstat.org/sts/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org

Propofol Waste Reduction in the Operating Room

Propofol is the most wasted intravenous medication used in anesthesia in the operating room (OR) (More, Dabhade, & Ghongane, 2015). Propofol, a sedative anxiolytic, is utilized as a continuous infusion in sedation procedures, or monitored anesthesia care (Nagelhout & Elisha, 2014). Inherent to these infusions is unpredictability in determining the amount of medication needed for the duration of a procedure. This project implemented customized propofol preparation charts consistent with the literature to aid the administering professional in determining the approximate milliliter requirement for the duration of a procedure. The pre-intervention steps consisted of voluntary data collection among anonymous anesthesia professionals in the OR regarding infusion characteristics. Patient weight, a commonly used infusion rate, and the duration of procedure were used in the calculation within customized charts. Post-intervention data collection was conducted in the same manner to capture the impact of the charts. This data was measured simultaneously at a local healthcare system’s main hospital and separate surgery center site, and waste reduction from baseline data was found to be 49% and 60%, respectively. This project was conducted over a four-month period and translates to a potential yearly savings of greater than $15,000 for the healthcare system. A culture of waste reduction leads to savings for anesthesia departments and healthcare organizations as a whole

The Ursinus Weekly, March 15, 1973

Ursinus Board of Directors meets in regular Spring session; Discusses tax proposals, committee reports, appointments • USGA fills vacancies; 3 new members elected • USGA secures bike racks; readies for J-Board elections • Old snack bar to be transformed by ProTheatre into acting workshop • Editorial: It depends on your point of view • Focus: David Mowere • WRUC, radio voice of Ursinus, on the air 12 hours a day • Fidler on the wax: New L.P. a delight for Traffic fans • Letters to the editor: Union head happy; Female uproar • Bearettes lose at regionals; West Chester drops Boydies • Water wonders end seasonhttps://digitalcommons.ursinus.edu/weekly/1100/thumbnail.jp

Petrographic characterization of lunar soils: Application of x ray digital-imaging to quantitative and automated analysis

The rocks and soils of the moon will be the raw materials for various engineering needs at a lunar base, such as sources of hydrogen, oxygen, metals, etc. The material of choice for most of the bulk needs is the regolith and its less than 1 cm fraction, the soil. For specific mineral resources it may be necessary to concentrate minerals from either rocks or soils. Therefore, quantitative characterizations of these rocks and soils are necessary in order to better define their mineral resource potential. However, using standard point-counting microscopic procedures, it is difficult to quantitatively determine mineral abundances and virtually impossible to obtain data on mineral distributions within grains. As a start to fulfilling these needs, Taylor et al. and Chambers et al. have developed a procedure for characterization of crushed lunar rocks using x ray digital imaging. The development of a similar digital imaging procedure for lunar soils as obtained from a spectrometer is described

Lunar mineral feedstocks from rocks and soils: X-ray digital imaging in resource evaluation

The rocks and soils of the Moon provide raw materials essential to the successful establishment of a lunar base. Efficient exploitation of these resources requires accurate characterization of mineral abundances, sizes/shapes, and association of 'ore' and 'gangue' phases, as well as the technology to generate high-yield/high-grade feedstocks. Only recently have x-ray mapping and digital imaging techniques been applied to lunar resource evaluation. The topics covered include inherent differences between lunar basalts and soils and quantitative comparison of rock-derived and soil-derived ilmenite concentrates. It is concluded that x-ray digital-imaging characterization of lunar raw materials provides a quantitative comparison that is unattainable by traditional petrographic techniques. These data are necessary for accurately determining mineral distributions of soil and crushed rock material. Application of these techniques will provide an important link to choosing the best raw material for mineral beneficiation

Understanding Schools and Schooling. (Book Review)

A review of a book written by Clive Chitty (2002 with a useful focus on issues of equity and social justice, including prejudice, discrimination and bullying in secondary schools. Education policy makers need to explore the extent to which it is important to produce interested, motivated and socially balanced young adults. It is well researched and documented

Polarizing Grids, Their Assemblies and Beams of Radiation

This article gives an analysis of the behavior of polarizing grids and reflecting polarizers by solving Maxwell's equations, for arbitrary angles of incidence and grid rotation, for cases where the excitation is provided by an incident plane wave or a beam of radiation. The scattering and impedance matrix representations are derived and used to solve more complicated configurations of grid assemblies. The results are also compared with data obtained in the calibration of reflecting polarizers at the Owens Valley Radio Observatory (OVRO). From this analysis, we propose a method for choosing the optimum grid parameters (wire radius and spacing). We also provide a study of the effects of two types of errors (in wire separation and radius size) that can be introduced in the fabrication of a grid.Comment: 35 pages, 6 figure