Potential Environmental Contamination From Conventional and Alternative Cropping Systems in Northeast Kansas

Surface-water contamination from agricultural chemicals is a problem in northeast Kansas. The objective of this study is to compare potential atrazine, nitrogen, and sediment loadings from regional conventional and alternative cropping systems. Results indicate that several alternative systems have lower loading levels for atrazine and sediment than the conventional system, but higher loading levels for nitrogenalternative agriculture, nitrogen, atrazine, Crop Production/Industries, Environmental Economics and Policy,

Charge carrier induced lattice strain and stress effects on As activation in Si

We studied lattice expansion coefficient due to As using density functional theory with particular attention to separating the impact of electrons and ions. Based on As deactivation mechanism under equilibrium conditions, the effect of stress on As activation is predicted. We find that biaxial stress results in minimal impact on As activation, which is consistent with experimental observations by Sugii et al. [J. Appl. Phys. 96, 261 (2004)] and Bennett et al.[J. Vac. Sci. Tech. B 26, 391 (2008)]

Student Expectations and Preferences of Distance Course Delivery Methods

Students in five courses offered with a variety of distance and on-campus delivery methods were surveyed to determine student expectations and post-evaluation of courses; student demographics; and student experiences and preferences with technology and course delivery methods. The response group was primarily degree seeking upperclassmen, taking a required course, equally split by gender and by delivery location. All students preferred a live class delivery method but videotape delivery appeared to have a higher student satisfaction level than satellite. On-campus students found simultaneous satellite delivery distracting but not detrimental to their learning experience. Students consistently misjudged the content and workload of courses.Teaching/Communication/Extension/Profession,

The Outward Turn: Personality, Blankness, and Allure in American Modernism

The history of personality in American literature has surprisingly little to do with the differentiating individuality we now tend to associate with the term. Scholars of nineteenth- and twentieth-century American culture have defined personality either as the morally vacuous successor to the Protestant ideal of character or as the equivalent of mass-media celebrity. In both accounts, personality is deliberately constructed and displayed. However, hiding in American writings of the long modernist period (1880s-1940s) is a conception of personality as the innate capacity, possessed by few, to attract attention and elicit projection. Skeptical of the great American myth of self-making, such writers as Henry James, Theodore Dreiser, Gertrude Stein, Nathanael West, and Langston Hughes invented ways of representing individuals not by stable inner qualities but by their fascinating--and, often, gendered and racialized--blankness. For these writers, this sense of personality was not only an important theme and formal principle of their fiction and non-fiction writing; it was also a professional concern made especially salient by the rise of authorial celebrity. This dissertation both offers an alternative history of personality in American literature and culture and challenges the common critical assumption that modernist writers took the interior life to be their primary site of exploration and representation. Instead, it argues for a reassessment of American modernism as crucially concerned--in its literary texts and in its professional literary culture--with surface, blankness, and opacity, all barriers to seeing inside which nonetheless produce an impression of personal power

Session B3 - Road crossings limit nothern pike access to seasonal spawning habitat

The Juvenile Salmon Acoustic Telemetry System (JSATS) is a nonproprietary technology developed by the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers, Portland District, for detecting and tracking small fish. The JSATS consists of acoustic microtransmitters; autonomous, cabled, or portable receivers with hydrophones; and data management and processing applications. Each microtransmitter, surgically implanted in fish, transmits a unique 31-bit binary code encoded using binary phase shift keying at 416.7 kHz. Cabled systems are deployed at dams and used to determine passage-route and near-dam behavior for fish. Each cabled system is synchronized to a universal GPS clock and waveforms are saved to the computer before being decoded. Valid detections are separated from spurious detections using filtering processes requiring a minimum of six messages with a pulse interval matching that expected from properly functioning tags within a fixed period. Time-of-arrival information for valid detections on four hydrophones is used to solve for the 3D position of tagged fish. For the cabled system at John Day Dam, the range for 3D tracking is more than 100 m upstream of the dam face where hydrophones are deployed. Cabled systems have been successfully deployed on several major dams to acquire information for salmon protection and to develop more fish friendly hydroelectric facilities

An Economic Analysis of the IFMPO

The Integrated Farm Management Program Option (IFMPO) of the 1990 farm bill is designed to increase crop management flexibility and promote the use of resource-conserving crops. Economic analysis of this program indicates that, although the current format provides flexibility, it provides little economic incentive to adopt resource-conserving crop rotations.Farm Management,

Strukturvielfalt in der Elbeaue : Erfahrungsbericht über die „Flutrinnenanbindung Sandauerholz“ im Biosphärenreservat Mittelelbe

Ab dem 19. Jahrhundert vollzog sich der Ausbau der bis dahin naturnahen Elbe zur Wasserstraße. Vor allem den Interessen der stetig zunehmenden Schifffahrt wurde entsprochen, indem man die landschaftsgestaltende Kraft des Wassers bändigte und den Fluss auf den Hauptstrom reduzierte. Dabei wurden ökologisch wertvolle Flusslaufverzweigungen und Bögen isoliert. Die vom Hauptstrom und der Flussdynamik abgetrennten Altarme und Flutmulden unterliegen seither einer zunehmenden Verlandung und weisen als Lebensräume für Tier- und Pflanzenarten der Flussaue teils enorme ökologische Defizite auf. Eine Vielzahl von Auengewässern unterschiedlicher Ausprägung ist daher ein im Arten- und Biotopschutzprogramm für den Landschaftsraum Elbe formuliertes Ziel und Voraussetzung für eine erfolgreiche Umsetzung der Ziele der EU-Wasserrahmenrichtlinie. Im UNESCO-Biosphärenreservat Mittelelbe wurden in den zurückliegenden Jahren zahlreiche Projekte mit der Zielstellung umgesetzt, Flussaltarme und Flutrinnen zu reaktivieren. Ein solches Projekt war die „Flutrinnenanbindung Sandauerholz“, das im Rahmen des Europäischen Fonds für regionale Entwicklung (EFRE) gefördert und im Jahr 2006 im nördlichen Teil des Biosphärenreservates realisiert wurde

Lactobacillus crispatus Produces a Bacteridical Molecule That Kills Uropathogenic E. Coli

As many as 1 in 2 women will have at least one urinary tract infection (UTI) in their lifetime. UTIs can cause complications in pregnancy and decrease quality of life, and their treatment and prevention are expensive. Uropathogenic E. coli (UPEC) is the primary cause of UTI. The probiotic and bactericidal capacities of gut and vaginal Lactobacillus isolates have been studied, but the same attention has not been paid to urinary strains. These urinary isolates of L. crispatus appear to have a greater killing capacity against UPEC and this bactericidal activity does not depend on the cells themselves, consistent with the hypothesis that they secrete a molecule with anti-UPEC activity. In the future, this bacterium could be useful as a probiotic and molecules it produces could be used as antibacterial compounds. The SCS of one urinary isolate of L. crispatus killed several logs of UPEC within 2 hours of exposure. This isolate creates a more acidic environment than isolates of other Lactobacillus species, but the killing of UPEC was not due to low pH alone, as buffered of the SCS delayed but did not eliminate the bactericidal effect. This effect became stronger after the SCS was left to sit for 24 hours. The molecule was not heat sensitive. A urinary L. crispatus isolate produces a unique soluble molecule that can kill up to 9 logs of UPEC within 24 hours. The molecule may be an antimicrobial peptide or bacteriocin. Further experiments are required