PROMOTING FARM SAFETY WITH ECONOMIC AND MANAGERIAL INCENTIVES

The ex ante marginal values of management strategies for farm producers facing significant exposures to accident risks is assessed. A probit model describing the factors influencing the probability of a farm accident is estimated jointly with an ordered probit model for the severity of the accident.Farm Management,

Addressing road-river infrastructure gaps using a model-based approach

The world's rivers are covered over and fragmented by road infrastructure. Road-river infrastructure result in many socio-environmental questions and documenting where different types occur is challenged by their sheer numbers. Equally, the United Nations has committed the next decade to ecosystem restoration, and decision makers across government, non-government, and private sectors require information about where different types of road-river infrastructure occur to guide management decisions that promote both transport and river system resilience. Field-based efforts alone cannot address data and information needs at relevant scales, such as across river basins, nations, or regions to guide road-river infrastructure remediation. As a first step toward overcoming these data needs in Great Britain, we constructed a georeferenced database of road-river infrastructure, validated a subset of locations, and used a Boosted Regression Tree model-based approach with environmental data to predict which infrastructure are bridges and culverts. We mapped 110,406 possible road-river infrastructure locations and were able to either validate or predict which of 110,194 locations were bridges (n=60,385) or culverts (n=49,809). Upstream drainage area had the greatest contribution to determining infrastructure type: when <10 km2 our model correctly predicted culverts 73% of the time but only 60% of the time for bridges. Road type and stream gradient also influenced model results. Our model-based approach is readily applied to other locations and contexts and can be used to inform decisions about management of smaller infrastructure that are frequently overlooked worldwide

Robust estimation of bacterial cell count from optical density

Optical density (OD) is widely used to estimate the density of cells in liquid culture, but cannot be compared between instruments without a standardized calibration protocol and is challenging to relate to actual cell count. We address this with an interlaboratory study comparing three simple, low-cost, and highly accessible OD calibration protocols across 244 laboratories, applied to eight strains of constitutive GFP-expressing E. coli. Based on our results, we recommend calibrating OD to estimated cell count using serial dilution of silica microspheres, which produces highly precise calibration (95.5% of residuals &lt;1.2-fold), is easily assessed for quality control, also assesses instrument effective linear range, and can be combined with fluorescence calibration to obtain units of Molecules of Equivalent Fluorescein (MEFL) per cell, allowing direct comparison and data fusion with flow cytometry measurements: in our study, fluorescence per cell measurements showed only a 1.07-fold mean difference between plate reader and flow cytometry data

PROMOTING FARM SAFETY WITH ECONOMIC AND MANAGERIAL INCENTIVES

The ex ante marginal values of management strategies for farm producers facing significant exposures to accident risks is assessed. A probit model describing the factors influencing the probability of a farm accident is estimated jointly with an ordered probit model for the severity of the accident

Language-Specific Mappings from Semantics to Syntax

Wc present a study of the mappings from semantic content to syntactic expression with the aim of isolating the precise locus and role of pragmatic information in the generation process. lom a corpus of English, French, and Portuguese instructions for constuner prodnets, wc demonstrate the range of expressions of two semantic relations, GEN- EIATION and ENABLEMENT (Goldman, 1970) in each language, and show how the available choices arc constrained syntactically, semantically, and pragmatically. The study reveals how multilin- gual NLG can bc informed by language- specific principles for syntactic choice

Expressing Procedural Relationships in Multilingual Instructions

In this paper we discuss a study of the expression of procedural relations in multilingual user instructions in particular the relations of Generation and Enablement. These procedural relations are defined in terms of a plan representation model, and applied in a corpus study of English, French, and Portuguese instructions. The results of our analysis indicate specific guidelines for the tactical realisation of expressions of these relations in multilingual instructional text

L'esportazione di beni a doppio uso: sentenze 17 ottobre 1995, C-83/94 (Peter Leifer) e C-70/94, (Fritz Werner)

More students with disabilities are accessing the tertiary sector with many disabilities not easily observed (or hidden), because there are no physical indicators. These “hidden” disabilities affect a variety of cognitive processes and may be developmental or acquired. To ensure students with hidden disabilities can enrol, engage in and benefit from tertiary education, universities generally provide a range of supports. Typically these supports and any reasonable adjustments are negotiated with students taking into account a number of factors including, where available, any supporting documentation that they might be able to provide. This case study reports efforts within one large Australian university to support higher education students with hidden disabilities on campus. Perceptions on the use of and barriers to support available were collected from seven undergraduate students who self-identified as having hidden disabilities and from eight support staff. Results indicated that students found their informal networks to be their most effective supports, closely followed by clear, caring and flexible lecturers and tutors. There were mixed positive and negative perceptions reported on the universal and disability-specific supports available. Implications and future research directions are discussed