The non-permanence of optimal soil carbon sequestration

Carbon sequestration in agricultural soils is considered as an option of greenhouse gas mitigation in many countries. But, the economic potential is limited by the dynamic process of saturation and the opportunity cost of land use change. In addition, this article shows that permanence cannot, in general, be achieved in the strict sense of maintaining the soil carbon stock on an increased equilibrium level. Rather, a cyclical pattern with periodical release of sequestered carbon can be economically optimal from both the farmers’ and societal point of view.Agriculture, Climate policy, Carbon sequestration, Land use change, Economic analysis., Land Economics/Use, Q15, Q24, Q54.,

Advanced Computed Tomography Inspection System (ACTIS): An overview of the technology and its application

The Advanced Computed Tomography Inspection System (ACTIS) was developed by NASA Marshall to support solid propulsion test programs. ACTIS represents a significant advance in state-of-the-art inspection systems. Its flexibility and superior technical performance have made ACTIS very popular, both within and outside the aerospace community. Through technology utilization efforts, ACTIS has been applied to inspection problems in commercial aerospace, lumber, automotive, and nuclear waste disposal industries. ACTIS has been used to inspect items of historical interest. ACTIS has consistently produced valuable results, providing information which was unattainable through conventional inspection methods. Although many successes have already been shown, the full potential of ACTIS has not yet been realized. It is currently being applied in the commercial aerospace industry by Boeing. Smaller systems, based on ACTIS technology, are becoming increasingly available. This technology has much to offer the small business and industry, especially in identifying design and process problems early in the product development cycle to prevent defects. Several options are available to businesses interested in this technology

The Application of Robust Regression to a Production Function Comparison – the Example of Swiss Corn

The adequate representation of crop response functions is crucial for agri-environmental modeling and analysis. So far, the evaluation of such functions focused on the comparison of different functional forms. The perspective is expanded in this article by considering an alternative regression method. This is motivated by the fact that exceptional crop yield observations (outliers) can cause misleading results if least squares regression is applied. We show that such outliers are adequately treated if robust regression is used instead. The example of simulated Swiss corn yields shows that the use of robust regression narrows the range of optimal input levels across different functional forms and reduces potential costs of misspecification.production function estimation, production function comparison, robust regression, crop response

Agriculture’s Multifunctionality, Sustainability, and Social Responsibility

We investigate the question whether the concept of corporate social responsibility (CSR) could be used to replace or complement those of multifunctionality and sustainability in the agri-food sector. It shows that the double role of citizens as tax payers and customers requests and allows us to directly link the problems of governance and stakeholder society in an intertemporal framework of total value maximisation and sustainable development. Thus, the concept of CSR provides a link between the views on agriculture’s multifunctionality and sustainability. Moreover, the fact that some actors in a vertical market, such as the agri-food chain, can exercise market power and absorb tax money and resource rents enforces the need of a broader perspective which involves concern about addresses the social responsibilities and performance of all actors along this value chain.agricultural policy, multifunctionality, sustainability, social responsibility, market power., D62, D63, Q01, Q18,

A Computational Methodology to Screen Activities of Enzyme Variants

We present a fast computational method to efficiently screen enzyme activity. In the presented method, the effect of mutations on the barrier height of an enzyme-catalysed reaction can be computed within 24 hours on roughly 10 processors. The methodology is based on the PM6 and MOZYME methods as implemented in MOPAC2009, and is tested on the first step of the amide hydrolysis reaction catalyzed by Candida Antarctica lipase B (CalB) enzyme. The barrier heights are estimated using adiabatic mapping and are shown to give barrier heights to within 3kcal/mol of B3LYP/6-31G(d)//RHF/3-21G results for a small model system. Relatively strict convergence criteria (0.5kcal/(mol{\AA})), long NDDO cutoff distances within the MOZYME method (15{\AA}) and single point evaluations using conventional PM6 are needed for reliable results. The generation of mutant structure and subsequent setup of the semiempirical calculations are automated so that the effect on barrier heights can be estimated for hundreds of mutants in a matter of weeks using high performance computing

Sustainable development with stock pollution

Optimal pollution control is an important challenge for sustainable development with three distinct cases. First, the situation where nature's assimilative capacity is completely destroyed involves normative problems that require further research. Second, environmental restoration with initial pollution above the steady-state stock requires an economy to initially allocate a relatively high share of its resources to cleaning-up activities. In return, this generally results in an intertemporally efficient development path that is both environmentally and economically sustainable. Third, optimal trajectories in situations with initial stocks of pollution below the long-term optimum generally imply an increase in pollution and a decline of optimal consumption. In this case, the investment of the environmental rents accruing from nature's assimilative capacity into man-made capital is required in analogy to the famous Hartwick rule to maintain a constant flow of instantaneous welfare. This would facilitate growth in consumption sufficient to compensate for the rising disutility of pollutio

Distribution of the glutamate transporters GLT-1 (SLC1A2) and GLAST (SLC1A3) in peripheral organs

The glutamate transporters GLT-1 and GLAST are widely expressed in astrocytes in the brain where they fulfill important functions during glutamatergic neurotransmission. The present study examines their distribution in peripheral organs using in situ hybridization (ISH) and immunocytochemistry. GLAST was found to be more widely distributed than GLT-1. GLAST was expressed primarily in epithelial cells, cells of the macrophage-lineage, lymphocytes, fat cells, interstitial cells, and salivary gland acini. GLT-1 was primarily expressed in glandular tissue, including mammary gland, lacrimal gland, and ducts and acini in salivary glands, but also by perivenous hepatocytes and follicular dendritic cells in spleen and lymph nodes. The findings demonstrate that, although expressed by the same cells in the brain, these two glutamate transporters have different distribution patterns in peripheral tissues and that they fulfill glutamate transport functions apart from glutamatergic neurotransmission in these area

Notfall in der Palliative Care? : High Fidelity Simulationen im Studiengang BSc Pflege

High Fidelity Simulationen fokussieren aktuell kaum auf Szenarien der Palliative Care und der Familienzentrierten Pflege. Im Studiengang “Bachelor of Science in Pflege” der ZHAW wurde ein neuartiges Simulationsszenario entwickelt, das auf einer palliativen Pflegesituation mit exazerbierender Pathophysiologie und im psychosozialen Kontext basiert. Das Szenario mit einer High Fidelity Simulationspuppe (Patientin) wird durch die Präsenz eines Familienmitglieds am Bett (Schauspielerin) ergänzt. Das zentrale Debriefing wird zusätzlich durch Feedbacks durch die Schauspielerin und Peer-to-Peer unterstützt. Basierend auf den gut etablierten CRM-Leitsätzen wurden neuartige Patient Family Crew Resource (PF-CRM) Kriterien entwickelt. Diese stellen nicht nur das Teamwork der involvierten Studierenden, sondern auch ihre Kommunikation mit der Patientin und der Familienangehörigen ins Zentrum. Die Erfahrungen der Autorinnen zeigen, dass dieser Lernansatz von Studierenden und Dozierenden gut akzeptiert und geschätzt wird. Das beschriebene Szenario ist ideal, um den Studierenden transformatives Lernen hin zu Best Practice in Palliative Care zu ermöglichen, bei dem sie verschiedene Herangehensweisen überprüfen, ihr Wissen/ihre Fertigkeiten weiterentwickeln und lernen verantwortungsvolle Entscheidungen zu treffen. Es ist geplant in Zukunft weitere Professionen ins Szenario miteinzubeziehen. Die PF-CRM Kriterien können ebenfalls in traditionellen interprofessionellen akutmedizinischen High Fidelity Simulationen eingesetzt werden, da auch dort die Kommunikation mit Patientinnen, Patienten und Familienangehörigen zentral sein kann