Using Information from Mid Term Evaluations of RDP for the Multicriteria Analysis of Agri-environmental Schemes

This paper discusses how environmental indicators and multicriteria methodologies can support the ex post evaluation of Agri-Environmental Schemes. The paper is based on information from the Mid term evaluation of the Rural Development Programmes and develops around an example that compares Ireland and Emilia-Romagna. The results show that the application of Agri-Environmental Schemes only partially achieves to local objectives, and the way in which the Agri-Environmental Schemes are implemented can be reasonably improved. However, the tentative analysis emphasizes the scarcity of quantitative data that can be related to effectiveness, the lack of predetermined quantitatively defined target levels of objectives and the difficulty to assess the relative importance of different evaluation criteria. Clearly, the ability to properly evaluate the results depends not only on the amount of information gathered, but also on the formalisation of a clear evaluation framework at the design stage of schemes.agri-environmental schemes, mid term evaluation, multifunctional agriculture, indicators, multicriteria analysis, Environmental Economics and Policy, Q1, Q18, Q2,

Outcomes of different health care contexts for direct transport to a trauma center versus initial secondary center care: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Introduction: Within a trauma system, pre-hospital care is the first step in managing the trauma patient. Timely and appropriate transport of the injured patient to the most appropriate facility is important. Many trauma systems mandate that serious trauma cases are transported directly to a level I trauma center unless transfer to a closer hospital is deemed necessary to resuscitate and stabilize the patient prior to onward transfer to definitive care. Statistical and clinical heterogeneity is often high and is likely to be influenced by the heath care context.Methods: We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis to compare patient outcomes for patients with serious trauma transported directly to a Level I/II trauma center (‘direct’ group) to those transported to a healthcare facility before transfer to the Level I/II trauma center (‘transfer’ group). A search of bibliographic databases and secondary sources that focus on trauma was made. Studies were grouped by region: United States of America, Canada, Europe, Asia, Australia and New Zealand and South Africa.Results: The review included 43,554 patients from the 30 studies that met the selection criteria. Heterogeneity of the studies was high (I2 71%) overall but low for European, Asian, and Australian and New Zealand studies. There was considerable variation between studies in the structure, policies and practices of the respective trauma systems. The effect of “directness” on patient outcomes was inconsistent.Conclusion: The current research evidence does not support nor refute a position that all serious trauma patients be routinely transported directly to a level I/II trauma center. As this is a complex issue, local health-care context and injury profile influence trauma policy and practice

Effect of transient pinning on stability of drops sitting on an inclined plane

We report on new instabilities of the quasi-static equilibrium of water drops pinned by a hydrophobic inclined substrate. The contact line of a statically pinned drop exhibits three transitions of partial depinning: depinning of the advancing and receding parts of the contact line and depinning of the entire contact line leading to the drop's translational motion. We find a region of parameters where the classical Macdougall-Ockrent-Frenkel approach fails to estimate the critical volume of the statically pinned inclined drop

Entropy of Thermally Excited Black Rings

A string theory description of near extremal black rings is proposed. The entropy is computed and the thermodynamic properties are derived for a large family of black rings that have not yet been constructed in supergravity. It is also argued that the most general black ring in N=8 supergravity has 21 parameters up to duality.Comment: 17 pages; v2: minor edits and refs adde

Greybody Factors and Charges in Kerr/CFT

We compute greybody factors for near extreme Kerr black holes in D=4 and D=5. In D=4 we include four charges so that our solutions can be continuously deformed to the BPS limit. In D=5 we include two independent angular momenta so Left-Right symmetry is incorporated. We discuss the CFT interpretation of our emission amplitudes, including the overall frequency dependence and the dependence on all black hole parameters. We find that all additional parameters can be incorporated Kerr/CFT, with central charge independent of U(1) charges.Comment: 27 pages. v2: typos fixed, references adde

In vivo microdialysis reveals age-dependent decrease of brain interstitial fluid tau levels in P301S human tau transgenic mice

Although tau is a cytoplasmic protein, it is also found in brain extracellular fluids, e.g., CSF. Recent findings suggest that aggregated tau can be transferred between cells and extracellular tau aggregates might mediate spread of tau pathology. Despite these data, details of whether tau is normally released into the brain interstitial fluid (ISF), its concentration in ISF in relation to CSF, and whether ISF tau is influenced by its aggregation are unknown. To address these issues, we developed a microdialysis technique to analyze monomeric ISF tau levels within the hippocampus of awake, freely moving mice. We detected tau in ISF of wild-type mice, suggesting that tau is released in the absence of neurodegeneration. ISF tau was significantly higher than CSF tau and their concentrations were not significantly correlated. Using P301S human tau transgenic mice (P301S tg mice), we found that ISF tau is fivefold higher than endogenous murine tau, consistent with its elevated levels of expression. However, following the onset of tau aggregation, monomeric ISF tau decreased markedly. Biochemical analysis demonstrated that soluble tau in brain homogenates decreased along with the deposition of insoluble tau. Tau fibrils injected into the hippocampus decreased ISF tau, suggesting that extracellular tau is in equilibrium with extracellular or intracellular tau aggregates. This technique should facilitate further studies of tau secretion, spread of tau pathology, the effects of different disease states on ISF tau, and the efficacy of experimental treatments

Bounding the graviton mass with binary pulsar observations

By comparing the observed orbital decay of the binary pulsars PSRB1913+16 and PSRB1534+12 to that predicted by general relativity due to gravitational-wave emission, we are able to bound the mass of the graviton to be less than $7.6\times10^{-20} \text{eV}/c^2$ at 90% confidence. This is the first such bound to be derived from dynamic gravitational fields. It is approximately two orders of magnitude weaker than the static-field bound from solar system observations, and will improve with further observations.Comment: 9 pages, 1 figure. Presented at Fourth Edoardo Amaldi Conference on Gravitational Waves, Perth, 200

Directional approach to spatial structure of solutions to the Navier-Stokes equations in the plane

We investigate a steady flow of incompressible fluid in the plane. The motion is governed by the Navier-Stokes equations with prescribed velocity $u_\infty$ at infinity. The main result shows the existence of unique solutions for arbitrary force, provided sufficient largeness of $u_\infty$. Furthermore a spacial structure of the solution is obtained in comparison with the Oseen flow. A key element of our new approach is based on a setting which treats the directino of the flow as \emph{time} direction. The analysis is done in framework of the Fourier transform taken in one (perpendicular) direction and a special choice of function spaces which take into account the inhomogeneous character of the symbol of the Oseen system. From that point of view our technique can be used as an effective tool in examining spatial asymptotics of solutions to other systems modeled by elliptic equations