Development of responsible tourism guidelines for South Africa (Final report)

This project aimed to identify a system by which the aspirations laid out in a specific government policy document could be presented in a way that the private sector and rural communities can use it to manage business at the operational local level. The model aimed to demonstrate how civil society could use the new responsible tourism policy criteria that exist to structure management and leverage government support and to guide and benchmark the achievement against economic (pro-poor) social and environmental criteria. The project was designed to: 1. translate stakeholder agreed government policy into practical management guidelines for the whole tourism industry; 2. develop, test and adapt the guidelines in the most directly relevant sector for rural livelihoods impact, that of nature based tourism - applicable across significant areas of South Africa and far beyond the boundaries of national parks; 3. pilot the guidelines as a system of monitoring against criteria and measurable indicators that have recently been developed by South African National Parks within the lodge concession leasing process

A portable audio/video recorder for longitudinal study of child development

Collection and analysis of ultra-dense, longitudinal observational data of child behavior in natural, ecologically valid, non-laboratory settings holds significant promise for advancing the understanding of child development and developmental disorders such as autism. To this end, we created the Speechome Recorder - a portable version of the embedded audio/video recording technology originally developed for the Human Speechome Project - to facilitate swift, cost-effective deployment in home environments. Recording child behavior daily in these settings will enable detailed study of developmental trajectories in children from infancy through early childhood, as well as typical and atypical dynamics of communication and social interaction as they evolve over time. Its portability makes possible potentially large-scale comparative study of developmental milestones in both neurotypical and developmentally delayed children. In brief, the Speechome Recorder was designed to reduce cost, complexity, invasiveness and privacy issues associated with naturalistic, longitudinal recordings of child development.National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (Grant R01 2DC007428)Nancy Lurie Marks Family Foundatio

CORRELATIONS AMONG GRAIN CHARACTERISTICS USED TO DETERMINE THE EFFECTS OF ROUGH RICE STORAGE TIME AND TEMPERATURE ON AROMATIC RICE QUALITY

Summary statistics and corresponding Spearman correlation coefficients are illustrated for various subsets of aromatic rough rice storage time and temperature data from (a) the College Station texture sensory panel, (b) the New Orleans aroma and flavor sensory panel, and (c) the Beaumont USDA-ARS Rice Quality Laboratory. These correlations represent the inclinations of seemingly-related measures of several attributes to "move together," acting as an indicator of their associations with or impacts on one another.Crop Production/Industries,

CORRELATIONS AMONG GRAIN CHARACTERISTICS USED TO DETERMINE THE EFFECTS OF MILLED RICE STORAGE TIME AND TEMPERATURE ON AROMATIC RICE QUALITY

Summary statistics and corresponding Spearman correlation coefficients are illustrated for various subsets of aromatic milled rice storage time and temperature data from (a) the College Station texture sensory panel, (b) the New Orleans aroma and flavor sensory panel, and (c) the Beaumont USDA-ARS Rice Quality Laboratory. These correlations represent the inclinations of seemingly-related measures of several attributes to "move together," acting as an indicator of their associations with or impacts on one another.Crop Production/Industries,

Resolving Individuals Contributing Trace Amounts of DNA to Highly Complex Mixtures Using High-Density SNP Genotyping Microarrays

We use high-density single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) genotyping microarrays to demonstrate the ability to accurately and robustly determine whether individuals are in a complex genomic DNA mixture. We first develop a theoretical framework for detecting an individual's presence within a mixture, then show, through simulations, the limits associated with our method, and finally demonstrate experimentally the identification of the presence of genomic DNA of specific individuals within a series of highly complex genomic mixtures, including mixtures where an individual contributes less than 0.1% of the total genomic DNA. These findings shift the perceived utility of SNPs for identifying individual trace contributors within a forensics mixture, and suggest future research efforts into assessing the viability of previously sub-optimal DNA sources due to sample contamination. These findings also suggest that composite statistics across cohorts, such as allele frequency or genotype counts, do not mask identity within genome-wide association studies. The implications of these findings are discussed

Specialist nursing and community support for the carers of people with dementia living at home: an evidence synthesis.

Specialist nurses are one way of providing support for family carers of people with dementia, but relatively little is known about what these roles achieve, or if they are more effective than roles that do not require a clinical qualification. The aim of this review was to synthesise the literature on the scope and effectiveness of specialist nurses, known as Admiral Nurses, and set this evidence in the context of other community-based initiatives to support family carers of people with dementia. We undertook a systematic review of the literature relating to the scope and effectiveness of Admiral Nurses and a review of reviews of interventions to support the family carers of people with dementia. To identify studies, we searched electronic databases, undertook lateral searches and contacted experts. Searches were undertaken in November 2012. Results are reported narratively with key themes relating to Admiral Nurses identified using thematic synthesis. We included 33 items relating to Admiral Nurses (10 classified as research) and 11 reviews evaluating community-based support for carers of people with dementia. There has been little work to evaluate specific interventions provided by Admiral Nurses, but three overarching thematic categories were identified: (i) relational support, (ii) co-ordinating and personalising support and (iii) challenges and threats to the provision of services by Admiral Nurses. There was an absence of clearly articulated goals and service delivery was subject to needs of the host organisation and the local area. The reviews of community-based support for carers of people with dementia included 155 studies but, in general, evidence that interventions reduced caregiver depression or burden was weak, although psychosocial and educational interventions may reduce depression in carers. Community support for carers of people with dementia, such as that provided by Admiral Nurses, is valued by family carers, but the impact of such initiatives is not clearly established

Extreme Ultraviolet Reflective Grating Characterization and Simulationsfor the Aspera SmallSat Mission

The Aspera SmallSat mission is designed to detect and map the warm-hot gaseous component of the halos of nearby galaxies through long-slit spectroscopy of the ionized O VI emission line (103.2 nm) for the first time. The Aspera Rowland circle type spectrograph uses a toroidal grating coated with a multilayer film consisting of aluminum, lithium fluoride, and magnesium fluoride capping to optimize reflectivity in the extreme ultraviolet (EUV) waveband from 103 to 104nm. We discuss the grating characterization test setup at the University of Arizona (UA), which will validate the multilayer coating and grating efficiency in a UV vacuum chamber. We also simulate the reflectivity of the multilayer thin film coating using IMD IDL software to compare simulated results with measured reflectivity. Additionally, non-sequential ray trace simulations and 3D CAD modeling are used for verification of the test setup. Finally, the implications of the differences between the measured and simulated reflectivity and grating efficiencies are considered, including impact to the mission

Prediction of the radiative heat transfer in small and large scale oxy-coal furnaces

Predicting thermal radiation for oxy-coal combustion highlights the importance of the radiation models for the spectral properties of gases and particles. This study numerically investigates radiation behaviours in small and large scale furnaces through refined radiative property models, using the full-spectrum correlated k (FSCK) model and Mie theory based data, compared with the conventional use of the weighted sum of grey gases (WSGG) model and the constant values of the particle radiation properties. Both oxy-coal combustion and air-fired combustion have been investigated numerically and compared with combustion plant experimental data. Reasonable agreements are obtained between the predicted results and the measured data. Employing the refined radiative property models achieves closer predicted heat transfer properties to the measured data from both furnaces. The gas-phase component of the radiation energy source term obtained from the FSCK property model is higher within the flame region than the values obtained by using the conventional methods. The impact of using non-grey radiation behaviour of gases through the FSCK is enhanced in the large scale furnace as the predicted gas radiation source term is approximately 2-3 times that obtained when using the WSGG, while the same term is in much closer agreement between the FSCK and the WSGG for the pilot-scale furnace. The predicted total radiation source term (from both gases and particles) is lower in the flame region after using the refined models, which results in a hotter flame (approximately 50-150 K higher in this study) compared with results obtained from conventional methods. In addition, the predicted surface incident radiation reduces by using the refined radiative property models for both furnaces, in which the difference is relevant with the difference in the predicted radiation properties between the two modelling techniques. Numerical uncertainties resulting from the influences of combustion model, turbulent particle dispersion and turbulence modelling on the radiation behaviours are discussed