Sustainability of intensified agricultural production in the Boyne catchment.

Food Harvest 2020 is a national plan for intensification of agriculture with specific targets to be delivered by 2020. The plan envisages increases in output across a range of farm enterprises – dairying, beef, sheep and pigs. The motivation for this study was to examine the environmental sustainability of the Food Harvest 2020 targets. The study was carried out on the River Boyne catchment area. A wide-ranging environmental systems analysis was carried out to assess the environmental impacts associated with the intensification of agricultural production envisaged in Food Harvest 2020. The following environmental impacts were assessed using Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) modelling: Global Warming Potential, Primary Energy Use, Eutrophication Potential, Acidification Potential, Abiotic Resource, Pesticide Use and Land Use. Ideally, one would aim for a full LCA approach for all commodities in the agricultural sector. However, this was not possible because of the complexity. The scope of the study was therefore limited to 10 arable crops and 4 livestock production systems. Following an extensive review of the literature and consultation with expert opinion, the Cranfield LCA Systems Model was selected to carry out the analysis. This model proved to be very suitable as it was specifically developed for agricultural purposes. The modelling identified significant increases in environmental burdens associated with intensification of milk production, beef production and pig production. There are a number of strategies that could mitigate or offset to some degree the increased environmental burdens. The recommendation from this study is that the implementation of Food Harvest 2020 should be tied to a package of transparent and verifiable mitigation measures. Some of the mitigation measures may be cost neutral and others may not. In any case business as usual is not a sustainable scenario

An experiment to determine the value of a personality test as a means of entry for counseling

Thesis (M.A.)--Boston University, 1949. This item was digitized by the Internet Archive

Shifting Baselines in Coral Bleaching Resilience

Tropical corals live at or near their upper thermal limits and are sensitive to periods of elevated sea surface temperatures. As our global climate rapidly warms, the frequency, magnitude, and duration of coral bleaching events is increasing, resulting in widespread losses in coral cover and increased mortality. Yet, corals native to variable thermal reef environments often resist bleaching temperatures, and these habitats have also promoted increased thermal tolerance. On Ofu Island, American Samoa, branching coral species from a highly variable (HV) pool have higher bleaching resistance than corals from a nearby moderately variable (MV) pool. In addition, MV corals were able to increase heat tolerance when moved into the HV pool, providing promising evidence for the persistence of some reefs under projected climate change. In this study, we investigated the breadth of thermal tolerance in massive coral species in the backreef of Ofu Island. We transplanted populations of two massive corals, Porites lobata and Goniastrea retiformis, from three contrasting backreefs separated by months, transplanted and native coral samples were weighed and then exposed to a controlled acute thermal stress assay. Physiological bleaching responses – chlorophyll and photosynthetic efficiency – were quantified to elucidate heat stress resistance. For both species, coral transplants in the HV pool had reduced growth, decreased photosynthetic efficiency, and greater chlorophyll loss following acute heat stress. Variation in growth and thermal tolerance was instead driven by native backreef, not acclimatization or genomic differences. More importantly, the thermal regime of the HV pool surpassed regional records and the magnitude of variability increased, potentially exceeding local stress thresholds of massive coral species. This study strongly contrasts previous research, and could be the first demonstration of a shifting baseline from increased to decreased resilience for corals residing in high-frequency variable environments.https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/sciences_achievement/1012/thumbnail.jp

X-ray luminous clusters of galaxies at z > 0.3

This thesis presents optical CCD imaging taken as part of the follow-up programme to the Massive Cluster Survey, a ROSAT All-Sky Survey based cluster survey aiming to discover X-ray luminous galaxy clusters at redshifts above 0.3. A data-reduction pipeline is developed to process the V, R and I band imaging of 111 clusters observed with the University of Hawaii 2.2 metre telescope and 57 with the ESQ NTT. The galaxian population is examined and all clusters but one contain enough galaxies to account for the X-ray flux. The cluster red-sequence is used to constrain the star-formation epoch to high {z > 1.7) redshift and as a basis for photometric redshifts. The symmetry properties of the clusters are examined to probe merger activity, the cluster selection exhibiting no bias towards, or against, merging clusters. The BCG population is examined. The degree to which the BCG dominates the cluster galaxy population displays no trend with either redshift or cluster X-ray luminosity, indicative of considerable previous as well as ongoing evolution. A quarter of the BCG population show bluer colours than would be expected for an elliptical galaxy at the appropriate redshift, some with known line emission, proving that BCGs are not purely passively evolving galaxies. Multi-object spectroscopy of two clusters is used to confirm these as being massive. Colour-magnitude diagrams of spectroscopically selected galaxies are used to determine that the major source of error in the photometry to is the flux limit of the imaging not the techniques applied. The Veron-Cetty Veron AGN catalogue is cross-correlated with the Abell catalogue to reveal a sample of AGN in clusters which are found to be distributed within clusters as ordinary galaxies, making contamination to the observed X-ray flux a possibility. A search for gravitationally lensed galaxies reveals such objects in 23% of the clusters imaged

Modification and Assessment of the Bedside Pediatric Early Warning Score in the Pediatric Allogeneic Hematopoietic Cell Transplant Population

OBJECTIVES: To determine the validity of the Bedside Pediatric Early Warning Score system in the hematopoietic cell transplant population, and to determine if the addition of weight gain further strengthens the association with need for PICU admission. DESIGN: Retrospective cohort study of pediatric allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplant patients from 2009 to 2016. Daily Pediatric Early Warning Score and weights were collected during hospitalization. Logistic regression was used to identify associations between maximum Pediatric Early Warning Score or Pediatric Early Warning Score plus weight gain and the need for PICU intervention. The primary outcome was need for PICU intervention; secondary outcomes included mortality and intubation. SETTING: A large quaternary free-standing children's hospital. PATIENTS: One-hundred two pediatric allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplant recipients. INTERVENTIONS: None. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS: Of the 102 hematopoietic cell transplant patients included in the study, 29 were admitted to the PICU. The median peak Pediatric Early Warning Score was 11 (interquartile range, 8-13) in the PICU admission cohort, compared with 4 (interquartile range, 3-5) in the cohort without a PICU admission (p < 0.0001). Pediatric Early Warning Score greater than or equal to 8 had a sensitivity of 76% and a specificity of 90%. The area under the receiver operating characteristics curve was 0.83. There was a high negative predictive value at this Pediatric Early Warning Score of 90%. When Pediatric Early Warning Score greater than or equal to 8 and weight gain greater than or equal to 7% were compared together, the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve increased to 0.88. CONCLUSIONS: In this study, a Pediatric Early Warning Score greater than or equal to 8 was associated with PICU admission, having a moderately high sensitivity and high specificity. This study adds to literature supporting Pediatric Early Warning Score monitoring for hematopoietic cell transplant patients. Combining weight gain with Pediatric Early Warning Score improved the discriminative ability of the model to predict the need for critical care, suggesting that incorporation of weight gain into Pediatric Early Warning Score may be beneficial for monitoring of hematopoietic cell transplant patients

Examining Elementary Students\u27 Purposeful and Ancillary Prior Knowledge Activation When Reading Grade Level Texts

Prior knowledge activation is a crucial component of reading comprehension. Previous studies have examined students’ prompted (or solicited) purposeful knowledge activation, which occurs when the explicit goal is to activate knowledge, as well as ancillary knowledge activation, which is when students indirectly use their prior knowledge to fill in gaps in the text, form an opinion, or question the author. However, little is known regarding elementary students’ unprompted (or unsolicited) purposeful and ancillary activation of prior knowledge while reading grade level texts. The purpose of the current study was to (a) examine differences between third and fifth grade students on their use of purposeful and ancillary prior knowledge activation when reading grade level social studies and science texts; and (b) determine how students’ prior knowledge activation relates to their reading outcomes and reader profiles. Participants included 25 third grade and 27 fifth grade students from an urban school system in the southeastern United States. Participants were asked to think aloud as they read grade level texts. Utterances were transcribed and coded according to the type of knowledge activation. Although repeated measures ANOVA revealed no significant differences in purposeful or ancillary activation across texts or between grade levels, the way in which students utilized these two types of prior knowledge activation (i.e., purposeful and ancillary) differed as a function of their reader profile. To uncover these differences, we took a case study approach to further explicate the complex relations between prior knowledge activation, other reading behaviors, and reading outcomes

Modeling Energy Savings from Urban Shade Trees: An Assessment of the CITYgreen Energy Conservation Module

CITYgreen software has become a commonly used tool to quantify the benefits of urban shade trees. Despite its frequent use, little research has been conducted to validate results of the CITYgreen energy conservation module. The first objective of this study is to perform a familiar application of CITYgreen software to predict the potential energy savings contribution of existing tree canopies in residential neighborhoods during peak cooling summer months. Unlike previous studies utilizing CITYgreen, this study also seeks to assess the software\u27s performance by comparing model results (i.e., predicted energy savings) with actual savings (i.e., savings derived directly from energy consumption data provided by the electric utility provider). Homeowners in an older neighborhood with established trees were found to use less energy for air-conditioning than homeowners in a recently developed site. Results from the assessment of model performance indicated that CITYgreen more accurately estimated the energy savings in the highly vegetated, older neighborhood