The State of Global Air Quality Funding 2022

The only global snapshot of clean air funding from donor governments and philanthropic foundations. This report highlights funding trends and gaps in 2015-2021, as well as recommendations for smarter investment for people and planet.99% of the world's population breathes air that exceeds World Health Organization air quality guidelines. Cleaning the air is a massive opportunity to improve public health and climate change. Because air pollution and climate change are mainly caused by burning fossil fuels, these problems can be tackled together. By addressing these issues in isolation, funders and policymakers drastically overlook the potential of clean air to realise multiple health, social and sustainable economic benefits.Our fourth annual report is the only global snapshot of projects funded by international development funders and philanthropic foundations to tackle air pollution. We identify gaps in funding, and opportunities for strategic investment and collaboration for systemic change.?As the world prepares for COP27 in Egypt, we call for more joined up policies and funding to address air pollution, climate change and unsustainable economic growth simultaneously. This report provides recommendations for decision makers, policy makers and philanthropic foundations

Skipper-CCD Sensors for the Oscura Experiment: Requirements and Preliminary Tests

Oscura is a proposed multi-kg skipper-CCD experiment designed for a dark matter (DM) direct detection search that will reach unprecedented sensitivity to sub-GeV DM-electron interactions with its 10 kg detector array. Oscura is planning to operate at SNOLAB with 2070 m overburden, and aims to reach a background goal of less than one event in each electron bin in the 2-10 electron ionization-signal region for the full 30 kg-year exposure, with a radiation background rate of 0.01 dru. In order to achieve this goal, Oscura must address each potential source of background events, including instrumental backgrounds. In this work, we discuss the main instrumental background sources and the strategy to control them, establishing a set of constraints on the sensors' performance parameters. We present results from the tests of the first fabricated Oscura prototype sensors, evaluate their performance in the context of the established constraints and estimate the Oscura instrumental background based on these results

Early Science with the Oscura Integration Test

Oscura is a planned light-dark matter search experiment using Skipper-CCDs with a total active mass of 10 kg. As part of the detector development, the collaboration plans to build the Oscura Integration Test (OIT), an engineering test experiment with 10% of the Oscura's total mass. Here we discuss the early science opportunities with the OIT to search for millicharged particles (mCPs) using the NuMI beam at Fermilab. mCPs would be produced at low energies through photon-mediated processes from decays of scalar, pseudoscalar, and vector mesons, or direct Drell-Yan productions. Estimates show that the OIT would be a world-leading probe for low-mass mCPs.Comment: 21 pages, 13 figure

25th New Zealand Singing School - Te Wananga Toi Waiata

Accompanist at the 25th New Zealand Singing School - Te Wananga Toi Waiata. 5 - 15th January 2011. School Director; Judy Bellingha

An assessment of the variation of manure nitrogen efficiency throughout Europe and an appraisal of means to increase manure-N efficiency

Using the nitrogen (N) in organic manures more effectively reduces losses to the environment. A requirement to take allowance of the N conserved by reduced ammonia (NH3)-emission techniques would increase manure-N efficiency by up to 15%. Covering manure stores and land application of slurry by injection beneath the soil surface and by rapid incorporation of both slurries and solid manures into uncropped soil reduce NH3 emissions. Injection of cattle slurry also reduces N immobilization compared with application methods, which mix the slurry with soil and increases manure-N efficiency by ca 10–15%. In growing cereals, NH3 emissions can be reduced by band spreading within the canopy. Anaerobic digestion of slurry may also increase manure-N availability in the season of application by 10–20%, compared with undigested slurry. Slurry acidification may increase manure-N efficiency by 35–65% by reducing total NH3 losses by 70% compared with unacidified slurry stored without cover and not incorporated after spreading. To fully utilize the fertilizer value of manure-N, uptake over more than 1 year needs to be accounted for. This is particularly important for solid manures which provide less-available N in the season after application than slurries but release more N to crops in subsequent years. Using manure-N as a sole N source may limit overall manure-N efficiency. Applying manures at reduced rates over a larger crop area, using N fertilizer at times when crop recovery of manure-N may be limited, may give the greatest overall manure-N efficiency