Noise levels and sources in the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary and the St. Lawrence River Estuary

Although ambient (background) noise in the ocean is a topic that has been widely studied since pre-World War II, the effects of noise on marine organisms has only been a focus of concern for the last 25 years. The main point of concern has been the potential of noise to affect the health and behavior of marine mammals. The Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary (SBNMS) is a site where the degradation of habitat due to increasing noise levels is a concern because it is a feeding ground and summer haven for numerous species of marine mammals. Ambient noise in the ocean is defined as “the part of the total noise background observed with an omnidirectional hydrophone.” It is an inherent characteristic of the medium having no specific point source. Ambient noise is comprised of a number of components that contribute to the “noise level” in varying degrees depending on where the noise is being measured. This report describes the current understanding of ambient noise and existing levels in the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary. (PDF contains 32 pages.

Implementing a health information system in India : Challenges and opportunities for scaling and sustainability

Health Information Systems (HIS) are used to collect and analyze health data in order to support the improvement of health care services. Public health care in third world countries are often based on a poor functioning HIS. Simply put, data collection processes tend to be extensive, often of poor quality and typically failing to be used for practical purposes such as for effectively allocat-ing resources. Thus, exploring ways of improving existing HIS is evidently a fruitful approach to strengthen public health care. As a part of health sector reform, governments in many developing countries are in the process of strengthening their HIS through the introduction of computer based systems. This thesis describes and discusses the implementation of the Health Informa-tion System Program (HISP) in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. The study was done using an action research approach over a five month period spread over two years. The challenges were to work with political, infrastructural, hu-man resources, geographical, and cultural issues to get the system developed, implemented and institutionalized. The results show that to institutionalize a HIS into the everyday working of the health department in Andhra Pradesh, it is important to rec¬ognise the interdependency between scaling and sustainabil-ity. Scaling indicates the need for the HIS to reach a certain geographic and functional scope so as to become of interest to the higher levels. Small pilot projects have problems in reaching such scale, and will therefore end up more as interesting academic exercises, unless they manage to reach a certain scope and scale. Theoretically, concepts from information infrastructure theory have been used to better analyze the complexities of scaling and sustainability, and their inter-dependencies. An important research focus has been to explore how the smaller scale project in India that was studied could be extended – scaled up – so as to become of interest to health managers at different levels, and thereby, eventu-ally, become institutionalised. Three key processes have been identified to achieve this goal of institutionalization. These are the processes of cultivation, the creation of gateways to enable integration between the “installed base” and the “new system”, and the choice relating to the level at which data-entry and report generation should take place. To achieve institutionalization, in addition to the above focus on these processes, equal emphasis needs to be also placed on obtaining political support, thus emphasizing the need to combine top-down and bottom-up strategies

Bulletin 2220: Best Management Practices for Small Scale Poultry Producers in Maine

Written for small-scale poultry producers. University specialists, Extension educators, and agriculture service providers from New England and New York developed this list of Best Management Practices to assist small-scale poultry growers to provide the best of care for their birds, minimize losses due to disease and predation, as well as minimizing the impact on the environment while assuring a high quality, wholesome product for their family and customers.https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/extension_ag/1004/thumbnail.jp

A Framework for Bioacoustic Vocalization Analysis Using Hidden Markov Models

Using Hidden Markov Models (HMMs) as a recognition framework for automatic classification of animal vocalizations has a number of benefits, including the ability to handle duration variability through nonlinear time alignment, the ability to incorporate complex language or recognition constraints, and easy extendibility to continuous recognition and detection domains. In this work, we apply HMMs to several different species and bioacoustic tasks using generalized spectral features that can be easily adjusted across species and HMM network topologies suited to each task. This experimental work includes a simple call type classification task using one HMM per vocalization for repertoire analysis of Asian elephants, a language-constrained song recognition task using syllable models as base units for ortolan bunting vocalizations, and a stress stimulus differentiation task in poultry vocalizations using a non-sequential model via a one-state HMM with Gaussian mixtures. Results show strong performance across all tasks and illustrate the flexibility of the HMM framework for a variety of species, vocalization types, and analysis tasks

A Framework for Bioacoustic Vocalization Analysis Using Hidden Markov Models

Using Hidden Markov Models (HMMs) as a recognition framework for automatic classification of animal vocalizations has a number of benefits, including the ability to handle duration variability through nonlinear time alignment, the ability to incorporate complex language or recognition constraints, and easy extendibility to continuous recognition and detection domains. In this work, we apply HMMs to several different species and bioacoustic tasks using generalized spectral features that can be easily adjusted across species and HMM network topologies suited to each task. This experimental work includes a simple call type classification task using one HMM per vocalization for repertoire analysis of Asian elephants, a language-constrained song recognition task using syllable models as base units for ortolan bunting vocalizations, and a stress stimulus differentiation task in poultry vocalizations using a non-sequential model via a one-state HMM with Gaussian mixtures. Results show strong performance across all tasks and illustrate the flexibility of the HMM framework for a variety of species, vocalization types, and analysis tasks

Evaluation Du Traitement Chirurgical Des Fractures De Type Burst Non Deficitaire

Introduction: The difficulty in treating of burst fracture is marked by secondary kyphosis. We expose our results in this challenge. Material and Methods: We retrospectively evaluated on preoperative, postoperative, and follow up scanners of 40 patients operated between 2007 and 2012 in the neurosurgery department of the CHU Grenoble these parameters: vertebral kyphosis (CV), regional kyphosis (CR), traumatic regional angulation (ART) and the inter-pedicular distance. The follow-up should be at least a year. Results: The mean age of patients was 39.2 years. Average postoperative distraction was 5.8 mm, and angular reduction was 8.5 ° on the CV and 9.8 ° on ART. At follow-up, the loss of correction was respectively 3.2 ° and 6.1 ° on CV and ART. The secondary compaction was 2.5 mm. Secondary regional kyphosis was higher in short instrumentation (7 ° against 5.2 °) as well as for patients with a BMI ≥ 25

Identification of chromosomes involved in a Robertsonian translocation in cattle

Summary- The chromosomes involved in the robertsonian translocation described after classical Giemsa staining by Darre et al. (1974), were determined using G(GTG), R(RBA) and C(CBG) banding techniques. The chromosomes in question were identified as chromosomes 9 and 23. cattle- chromosome- robertsonian translocation Résumé- Les chromosomes impliqués dans une translocation robertsonienne décrite, tout d’abord, en coloration conventionnelle par Darre et al. (1974) ont été déterminés à l’aide des techniques de marquage G(GTG), R(RBA) et C(CBG). sont le 9 et le 23. boeuf- chromosome- translocation robertsonienne Les chromosomes concerné

FACTORES DE PRE Y POSCOSECHA QUE AFECTAN EL CONTENIDO DE COMPUESTOS ANTIOXIDANTES EN HORTALIZAS

Se propone como objetivo de este trabajo analizar cómo afectan factores deprecosecha (plantas francas vs. plantas injertadas en diferentes pies) y poscosecha (aplicación de LTC e irradiación UV-B) al contenido de compuestos antioxidantes y a diferentes parámetros de conservación en berenjena y brócoli. Las variables evaluadas fueron pérdida de peso, color, textura y compuestos antioxidantes en berenjena y brócoli. El empleo de portainjertos Java y Maxifort en berenjena violeta cv. Monarca aumentó la velocidad de crecimiento de los frutos. Los frutos de plantas injertadas fueron más delgados y rojizos que los controles. Asimismo, presentaron menor contenido de materia seca y antioxidantes tanto en la piel como en la pulpa al final de su crecimiento. Las berenjenas de plantas injertadas presentaron una menor susceptibilidad al daño por frío cuando se almacenaron a 0 °C. A su vez mostraron una menor deshidratación y pardeamiento de la pulpa, mayor resistencia a la compresión y mejor retención de compuestos antioxidantes en piel y pulpa. El empleo de portainjertos puede ser de utilidad para la mejora en la respuesta al daño por frío, principal problema de la refrigeración en algunas especies. El empleo de LTC (2 días a 10 °C previo al almacenamiento a 5 °C) en dos genotipos de berenjena (rayada y violeta) para tamaño “baby” y comercial convencional logró un retraso del daño por frío y mantuvo una mejor calidad poscosecha. Los frutos tratados retuvieron en mayor medida los compuestos antioxidantes en la piel y pulpa de ambos genotipos y tamaños, sugiriendo que puede ser una tecnología valiosa capaz mejorar el comportamiento de las berenjenas en el almacenamiento refrigerado. En la última etapa del presente trabajo se analizó el efecto de tratamientos UV-B de distinta intensidad en la calidad y contenido de compuestos antioxidantes en brócoli. Los resultados permitieron establecer que los tratamientos con baja dosis (2 y 4 kJ/m2) y baja intensidad de radiación (3,2 W/m2) fueron eficaces para retrasar la senescencia manteniendo niveles más elevados de clorofila y mejor color en el producto almacenado en refrigeración. Por su parte, los tratamientos UV-B a intensidades altas (5 W/m2) resultaron eficaces para inducir la acumulación de antioxidantes a tiempos cortos, debido principalmente a una inducción en la biosíntesis de compuestos fenólicos luego de 6 horas de finalizado el tratamiento UV-B. Esto indica que el uso de la irradiación UV-B como método de priming para inducir la acumulación de antioxidantes sería de utilidad en el caso de vegetales que sean sometidos con posterioridad a tratamientos como la congelación