Priorities for sustainable turfgrass management: a research and industry perspective

This paper provides a brief review and assessment of the key environmental, regulatory and technical issues facing the turfgrass sector with specific reference to the European context. It considers the range of externalities or ‘drivers for change' facing the industry, and the challenges and opportunities available for promoting and achieving more sustainable turfgrass management within the sports, landscape and amenity sectors. The analysis confirms that there are a number of key areas where a concerted research and industrial effort is required. These include responding to the pressures from government demands for greater environmental regulation, the increasing pressure on natural resources (notably water, energy and land), the emerging role of turf management in supporting ecosystem services and enhancing biodiversity, the continued need to promote integrated pest management, and the looming challenges posed by a changing climate, and urgent need to adapt. Whilst many of these externalities appear to be risks to the sports turf industry, there will also be significant opportunities, for those where the labour, energy and agronomic costs are minimized and where the drive to adopt a multifunctional approach to sportsturf management is embraced

The Devil Dwells in the Tails A Quantile Regression Approach to Firm Growth

This paper explores the firm growth rate distribution in a Gibrat’s Law context. The aim is to provide an empirical exploration of the determinants of firm growth. The work is novel in two respects. First, rather than limiting the analysis to focus on the conditional mean growth level, we investigate the complete shape of the distribution. Second, we show that the differences in the firm growth rate process between large and small firms are highly circumstantial. That industry dynamics have a substantial influence on the relationship between firm size and firm growth. The data used includes more than 9000 Danish firms from manufacturing, services and construction. We provide robust evidence indicating that firm growth studies should be less obsessed with explaining means and instead look to other parts of the firm growth rate distribution.Firm growth; quantile regression; distribution shape

Høj kvalitet af grønsagsfrø ved tunnelproduktion

Der har tidligere været produktion af mange forskellige grønsager i Danmark, men for nogle arter, som fx gulerod, er produktionen flyttet til Frankrig og Italien, hvor der opnås en højere frøkvalitet. I Forskningsprogram frøavl II blev det besluttet at undersøge, om økologisk produktion af grønsagsfrø kan gennemføres i tunneller i Danmark. Siden år 2000 er der dyrket gulerod, porre og blomkål i en 5 x 50 m stor tunnel opstillet ved Danmarks JordbrugsForskning, Forskningscenter Flakkebjerg

Bronchial reactivity to cigarette smoke; relation to lung function, respiratory symptoms, serum-immunoglobulin E and blood eosinophil and leukocyte counts

AbstractStudy objectives: The aim of the study was to investigate the relationship between the immediate bronchial response to inhaled cigarette smoke [cigarette smoke bronchial reactivity (CBR)] and lung function, respiratory symptoms and markers of allergy and inflammation.Design, participants and measurements: This cross-sectional study included 98 smokers. Their lung function and reversibility to inhaled terbutaline was measured. Their clinical history was obtained, an allergological examination was done, and bronchial reactivity to methacholine and inhaled cigarette smoke was measured. Questionnaires about respiratory symptoms, smoking history and drug usage were completed and a blood sample was obtained. Participants were divided into three groups: with asthma, chronic bronchitis and persons without asthma or chronic bronchitis (the respiratory healthy).Results: Forced expiratory volume in 1sec (FEV1) residuals were independently related to the % fall in FEV1after 12 cigarette smoke inhalations (DFEV%) in all participants (P<0·01), in asthmatic smokers (P<0·01) and in smokers with chronic bronchitis (P<0·05). In smokers with asthma and chronic bronchitis FEV1residuals explained 51% and 13% of the variation in DFEV%, respectively, but only 8% (P<0·05) and 1% (N.S.) of the variation in the methacholine bronchial reactivity. In the total population the presence of wheeze (P<0·01), attacks of breathlessness (P<0·05) and daily expectoration (P<0·001) were related to higher DFEV% readings. Serum immunonoglobulin (ES-IgE) was independently related to DFEV% in all participants (P<0·01), in smokers with chronic bronchitis (P<0·01) and in the respiratory healthy (0·05<P<0·1). The eosinophil blood count was, in similar analyses, related to DFEV% in all participants (P<0·05) and in persons with chronic bronchitis (0·05<P<0·1).Conclusion: Cigarette smoke bronchial reactivity was strongly associated to actual FEV1in smokers with asthma and bronchitis, overall to most respiratory symptoms and in smokers without asthma to S-IgE. Cigarette smoke bronchial reactivity might be suitable to test further how cigarette smoke influences the pathophysiology of the bronchial wall, especially in smokers with asthma

Response of the large-scale subglacial drainage system of Northeast Greenland to surface elevation changes

The influence of subglacial water on the dynamics of ice flow has been the object of increasing interest in the past decade. In this study we focus on large-scale, long-term changes in surface elevation over Northeast Greenland and the corresponding changes in subglacial water routeways. Our results show that over timescales ranging from decades to millennia the area may experience redistribution of and fluctuation in subglacial water outflux under the main glacier outlets. The fluctuations in subglacial water routing occur even in the absence of external forcing. Based on these results we conclude that changes in the subglacial water routeways are an intrinsic part of the drainage basin dynamics, where the subglacial system is likely always in a transient state. The results also imply that fluctuations at the margins observed at present might originate from changes several hundred kilometres upstream. Since surface elevation changes may propagate upstream over timescales much longer than the observational period, the cause of the fluctuations may not be present in current observational records