Fisheries bioecology at the Khone Falls (Mekong River, Southern Laos)

This CD-ROM contains full database of the "Khone Fall fisheries database" and detailed analyses done in the companion report "Ecological studies of fish in the Khone Falls area (Mekong River, Southern Lao PDR).Fisheries, Ecology, Mekong River, Laos,

Conveying the Role of Professional Farm Managers to Potential Clientele

Many farmland owners opt to work directly with farmer-tenants while others choose to hire a professional farm manager to assist in the management of their land. As absentee landownership increases and more landowners become less associated with farming, professional farm managers have increased opportunity to communicate their role to potential clientele. Some landowners have an opportunity to make the most of their situation by enlisting the services of a professional farm manager, but only if they know what can be expected from a professional farm manager. We discuss some of the benefits and disadvantages to landowners and tenants of professional farm management and how professional farm managers can convey these ideas to potential clients and assist landowners to choose the best farm manager for their farm.Farm Management,

Financial Reporting And Tax Issues At JC Construction Corporation: An Instructional Case

JC Construction Corporation (JCCC) is a privately held corporation with 10 shareholders, who are all members of the Carpenter family.  The company was founded by Joe Carpenter in the late 1990s.  The company’s projects involve mostly comparatively small commercial building construction, such as restaurants and smaller-scale stores.  JCCC specializes in renovation and restoration projects rather than new construction, but does occasionally take on some new construction projects. The company does not build or renovate single family homes.  JCCC is located in Minnesota, near the Minneapolis/St. Paul area where remodeling contractors are in high demand

Early recurrent ischemic stroke complicating intravenous thrombolysis for stroke: incidence and association with atrial fibrillation

<p><b>Background and Purpose:</b> Mechanisms of early neurologic deterioration after treatment with intravenous, recombinant, tissue-type plasminogen activator (IV rt-PA) include symptomatic intracerebral hemorrhage (SICH) and early recurrent ischemic stroke. We observed a number of cases of acute deterioration due to recurrent ischemic events.</p> <p><b>Methods:</b> We undertook a single-center, retrospective analysis of consecutive acute stroke patients treated with IV rt-PA between January 2006 and December 2008 to define the incidence of early neurologic deterioration (>= 4-point drop on the National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale within 72 hours) and its mechanism. Deterioration was attributed to SICH when associated with a PH1 or PH2 hemorrhage on postdeterioration computed tomography scans, to recurrent ischemic stroke when there was clinical and radiologic evidence of a new territorial infarction or new vessel occlusion, and otherwise to evolution of the incident stroke.</p> <p><b>Results:</b> Of 228 consecutive IV rt-PA-treated patients, 34 (15%) developed early neurologic deterioration, 18 (8%) secondary to incident strokes 10 (4.4%) due to SICH, and 6 (2.6%) due to early recurrent ischemic events, which were significantly associated with atrial fibrillation (present in 5 of 6 patients; 4 paroxysmal, 1 permanent). In 4 patients, sudden clinical deterioration developed during or shortly after IV rt-PA infusion, and in 2, deterioration developed 3 days later. All died 2 days to 2 weeks later. The single case without atrial fibrillation had a recurrent, contralateral, middle cerebral artery stroke during IV rt-PA infusion and multiple high-signal emboli detected by transcranial Doppler. Early recurrent ischemic stroke accounted for 5 of 12 (42%) cases of early neurologic deterioration in patients with atrial fibrillation.</p> <p><b>Conclusion:</b> In this single-center series, the incidence of early recurrent ischemic stroke after IV rt-PA was 2.6% and was associated with previous atrial fibrillation.</p&gt

Towards a verified mechanistic model of plankton population dynamics

Plankton are a signicant component of the biogeochemical cycles that impact on the global climate. Plankton ecosystems constitute around 40 % of the annual global primary productivity, and the sinking of plankton to the deep ocean (the so-called biological pump) is the largest permanent loss of carbon from the coupled atmosphere-surface ocean-land system. The biological pump need only increase by 25 % to cancel the anthropogenically-released ux of CO2 into the atmosphere. Mechanistic models of atmosphere-ocean dynamics have proved to have superior predictive capabilities on climate phenomena, such as the El Ni~no, than empirical models. Mechanistic models are based on fundamental laws describing the underlying processes controlling a particular system. Existing plankton population models are primarily empirical, raising doubts to their ability to forecast the behaviour of the plankton system, especially in an altered global climate. This thesis works towards a mechanistic model of plankton population dynamics based primarily on physical laws, and using laboratory-determined parameters. The processes modelled include: diusion and convection to the cell surface, light capture by photosynthetic pigments, sinking and encounter rates of predators and prey. The growth of phytoplankton cells is modelled by analogy to chemical kinetics. The equations describing each process are veried by comparison to existing laboratory experiments. Process-based model verication is proposed as a superior diagnostic tool for model validation than verication based on the changing state of the system over time. To increase our ability to undertake process-based verication, a model of stable isotope fractionation during phytoplankton growth is developed and tested. The developed model has been written to complement other process-based models of biogeochemical cycles. A suite of process-based, biogeochemical models, coupled to an atmosphere-ocean circulation model, will have superior predictive capabilities compared with present global climate models

Morphology of the recently re-classified Tasman masked booby (Sula dactylatra tasmani) breeding on the Kermadec Islands

Once thought to be extinct, the Tasman Booby Sula tasmani has recently been re-classified as a subspecies of the Masked Booby S. dactylatra on the basis of genetic data. This re-classification raises the issue of whether this novel clade has a distinct morphology. Morphological differences in size, as well as coloration of integuments, bill and iris have been found in other subspecies of the Masked Booby but have not yet been reported for live Kermadec Islands breeding individuals. Museum specimens from this breeding location have been separated from other Pacific breeding subspecies by their longer wings. We sampled a total of 21 individuals from North Meyer Islet, Kermadec Group, New Zealand, and applied molecular sexing to obtain sex-specific morphometric measurements. We matched dimorphism in vocalization with genetic sexing results and photographic documentation of human-assessed bill, foot and eye coloration. While culmen measurements were consistent with reports from museum specimens, wing chords from living specimens of Tasman Masked Boobies were 3% and 4% larger in males and females, respectively. Females had larger culmens and wings than males, consistent with the low extent of sexual dimorphism reported from museum skins. Adult Tasman Masked Boobies had yellow to buff-yellow feet, while fledglings, as in most sulids, had grey to greyish-yellow feet. Our findings confirm the distinctively long wing and particular iris coloration previously reported for the taxon and provide the first description of integument coloration of live specimens. This study highlights the importance of including in situ assessment in taxon descriptions