Federal Influences and Intergovernmental Relations: Constraints, Conflicts, and Benefits

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Nitrate pollution from horticultural production systems : tools for policy and advice from field to catchment scales

The implementation of the Nitrates Directive has imposed a requirement to restrict N fertiliser and manuring practices on farms across the EU in order to reduce nitrate losses to water. These requirements have since been extended by the more demanding Water Framework Directive, which broadens the focus from the control of farm practices to a consideration of the impacts of pollutants from all sources on water quality at a catchment or larger scale. Together, these Directives set limits for water quality, and identify general strategies for how these might be achieved. However, it is the responsibility of policy makers in each Nation State to design the details of the management practices and environmental protection measures required to meet the objectives of the legislation, to ensure they are appropriate for their specific types of land use and climate. This paper describes various modelling tools for comparing different cropping and land use strategies, and illustrates with examples how they can inform policy makers about the environmental benefits of changing management practices and how to prioritise them. The results can help to provide the specific advice on N fertiliser and land use management required by farmers and growers at a field scale, and by environmental managers at a catchment or larger scale. A further example of how results from multiple catchments can be up-scaled and compared using Geographic Information Systems is also outlined

Youth and Pornography in Australia: Evidence on the Extent of Exposure and Likely Effects

Children have always sought out sexually explicit material but doing so today is easier, quicker, cheaper and more anonymous. While the system of video classification is designed to exclude those under 18 from viewing pornography, there are virtually no age-related barriers to pornography on the Internet. Children can spend hours wandering online through a vast array of free images and movie clips much of which would be prohibited on video. They can been drawn or coerced into viewing material they have no desire to see through 'pop-ups', 'mousetrapping', spam emails and manipulation of search engines. Yet despite the scale and possible consequences of this social problem, it has received almost no public attention

Laptops for teachers: An evaluation of the TELA scheme in schools (Years 4 to 6)

The purpose of this evaluation was to investigate the impacts of the Laptops for Teachers Scheme (referred to from here as the TELA scheme) on Years 4 to 6 teachers’ work over a period of three years (2004-2006) and to record emerging changes in laptop use. The investigation focused on the Ministry of Education expectation (Ministry of Education, 2004) that teacher access to a laptop for their individual professional use would lead to gains in confidence and expertise in the use of ICTs, to efficiencies in administration, would contribute to teacher collaboration and support the preparation of high quality lesson resources. It was also anticipated that teacher would use their laptop in the classroom for teaching and learning

Predicting Success in College: The Importance of Placement Tests and High School Transcripts

This paper uses student-level data from a statewide community college system to examine the validity of placement tests and high school information in predicting course grades and college performance. It considers the ACCUPLACER and COMPASS placement tests, using two quantitative and two literacy tests from each battery. The authors find that placement tests do not yield strong predictions of how students will perform in college. Placement test scores are positively—but weakly—associated with college grade point average (GPA). The correlation disappears when high school GPA is controlled for. Placement test scores are positively associated with college credit accumulation even after controlling for high school GPA. After three to five semesters, a student with a placement test score in the highest quartile has on average nine credits more than a student with a placement test score in the lowest quartile. In contrast, high school GPAs are useful for predicting many aspects of students' college performance. High school GPA has a strong association with college GPA; students' college GPAs are approximately 0.6 units below their high school GPAs. High school GPA also has a strong association with college credit accumulation. A student whose high school GPA is one grade higher will have accumulate approximately four extra credits per semester. Other information from high school transcripts is modestly useful; this includes number of math and English courses taken in high school, honors courses, number of F grades, and number of credits. This high school information is not independently useful beyond high school GPA, and collectively it explains less variation in college performance. The authors also calculate accuracy rates and four validity metrics for placement tests. They find high "severe" error rates using the placement test cutoffs. The severe error rate for English is 27 to 33 percent; i.e., three out of every ten students is severely misassigned. For math, the severe error rates are lower but still nontrivial. Using high school GPA instead of placement tests reduces the severe error rates by half across both English and math

Rationalising a volcanic crisis through literature: Montserratian verse and the descriptive reconstruction of an island

International audienceThis article discusses a selection of the literary output provoked and inspired by the eruption of Soufrière Hills Volcano on Montserrat - notably poetry and prose written by Montserratians affected by the disaster. It argues that literature can be a source of local knowledge, and a window into a culture that is seeking to deal with a tragedy. It can also be used to assess outreach efforts and to investigate the impact of volcanic events - and of volcanological information - on local populations. The texts describe the process by which Montserratians moved from bewilderment and denial to renewal and re-identification, and even pride in the volcanic activity and their own ability to live with it - and to help prepare other Caribbean islands for future volcanic events. Literature looks both backwards and forwards, communicating the acts of experiencing and changing. On Montserrat, that applies both to colonialism and the role of the UK in Montserrat's political, economic and social life, and also to the importance of learning volcanology, and welcoming volcanologists, as a means of survival

A high spatial resolution Stokes polarimeter for motional Stark effect imaging

We describe an enhanced temporally switched interfero-polarimeter that has been successfully deployed for high spatial resolution motional Stark effect imaging on the KSTAR superconducting tokamak. The system utilizes dual switching ferroelectric liquid crystal waveplates to image the full Stokes vector of elliptically polarized and Doppler-shifted Stark-Zeeman Balmer-alpha emission from high energy neutral beams injected into the magnetized plasma. We describe the optical system and compare its performance against a Mueller matrix model that takes account of non-ideal performance of the switching ferro-electric liquid crystal waveplates and other polarizing components

Modelling the impacts of climate change on thermal habitat suitability for shallow-water marine fish at a global scale

Funding: EL received no specific funding for this work. C.J.F. received no specific funding for this work. M.T.B was supported by Natural Environment Research Council grant NE/J024082/1 (https://nerc.ukri.org).Understanding and predicting the response of marine communities to climate change at large spatial scales, and distilling this information for policymakers, are prerequisites for ecosystem-based management. Changes in thermal habitat suitability across species’ distributions are especially concerning because of their implications for abundance, affecting species’ conservation, trophic interactions and fisheries. However, most predictive studies of the effects of climate change have tended to be sub-global in scale and focused on shifts in species’ range edges or commercially exploited species. Here, we develop a widely applicable methodology based on climate response curves to predict global-scale changes in thermal habitat suitability. We apply the approach across the distributions of 2,293 shallow-water fish species under Representative Concentration Pathways 4.5 and 8.5 by 2050–2100. We find a clear pattern of predicted declines in thermal habitat suitability in the tropics versus general increases at higher latitudes. The Indo-Pacific, the Caribbean and western Africa emerge as the areas of most concern, where high species richness and the strongest declines in thermal habitat suitability coincide. This reflects a pattern of consistently narrow thermal ranges, with most species in these regions already exposed to temperatures above inferred thermal optima. In contrast, in temperate regions, such as northern Europe, where most species live below thermal optima and thermal ranges are wider, positive changes in thermal habitat suitability suggest that these areas are likely to emerge as the greatest beneficiaries of climate change, despite strong predicted temperature increases.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe