Liberalism, Race and Humanitarianism: British Colonial Policy and Jewish Refugees 1938-1943

This thesis studies the British colonial response to Jewish refugees between 1938 and 1943. By assessing Britain’s ‘bystander’ response through the lens of the empire, this study expands on existing historiography and seeks not just to detail Britain’s limited action but also explain it. In this thesis, the concepts of liberalism, race and humanitarianism are used as analytical frameworks through which to examine British colonial policy. Specifically, in the interwar years, the scope of British (in)action was defined by liberal views on assimilation and the rights of individuals versus groups. Rather than antisemitism, a strict racial hierarchical and paternal system was used to justify British power and to protect British interests in the making of refugee policy. Finally, international humanitarianism was at a particular moment of development in the interwar years, both in terms of the intergovernmental system through which humanitarian action was channelled and in the socio-political expectation on governments to act. This was expressed in a conflict of short-term emergency aid and long-term developmental aid. The result was a colonial policy of compromise that saw officials try to connect the skills and financial assets of refugees with their overriding priority of colonial development and welfare. Through the use of official documents and refugee testimony, this study provides an account of the making and impact of colonial refugee policy and raises questions that remain relevant for us today

Northern Utah Peach Orchard Costs and Returns Comparisons by Management Strategy, 20 Acres, 2015

This fact sheet outlines the costs and returns associated with eleven separate peach orchard treatments based upon research conducted at Utah State University, Kaysville Research Farm, from 2012-2014. This publication is intended to be a guide used to make production decisions, determine potential returns, and prepare business and marketing plans

Northern Utah Conventional Peach Orchard Costs and Returns, 20 Acres, 2015

This publication contains average costs and returns for establishing and maintaining a 20-acre peach orchard in Northern Utah. Unless otherwise indicated, information in this publication is based upon grower surveys and pricing data collected in 2014. The establishment and operating costs are meant to be “representative” of a Utah peach orchard, but should be adjusted where necessary to reflect individual situations. Site selection, peach variety, pest management and other practices will also affect the establishment and operating costs of an orchard and should be considered by the producer

Effects of a one-time compost addition on soil health in a rainfed dryland organic wheat system

Maintaining adequate soil fertility and health is a challenge in dryland organic wheat systems. This research examines the short-term impact of a one-time addition of compost on the soil health in a rainfed dryland organic winter-wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) fallow system. Field plot experiments were established in 2015 in a semiarid dryland organic wheat field in Snowville, Utah with the following treatments: control (C), compost at 12.5 Mg/ha dry weight (CM1), 25 Mg/ha (CM2), 50 Mg/ha (CM3), positive control 25 Mg compost + 40 lb N feather meal (PC), and 2 Mg chicken manure (CMU). Soil samples were taken in May 2016 at a depth of 0-10 cm from the plots in the wheat phase of the rotation. Indicators of soil health and fertility were determined such as microbial biomass C, enzyme activities involved in the cycling of C and P, total organic carbon and nitrogen determined. The application of compost appeared to promote microbial activities with the greatest effect at CM3. Acid and alkaline phosphatase enzyme activities significantly increased by as much as 61 % and 47 % respectively. Microbial biomass carbon, dehydrogenase enzyme activity, readily mineralizable carbon, total organic carbon and total nitrogen were highest at CM3. Based on our findings so far, compost addition stimulated soil microbial activities and boosted organic C and N in the surface layers of the soil. Outcomes of this study will contribute to the overall goal of enhancing productivity and sustainability of rainfed dryland organic winter-wheat

Modelling advanced reforming of bio-compounds for hydrogen production

In the efforts to decarbonise the energy system, there has been a great deal of interest in the potential of hydrogen (H2) as a versatile, low carbon energy vector. To support rising demand for hydrogen in existing and new applications, it will be necessary to find cost-effective routes for hydrogen production at scale. Recent research has identified new methods to optimise the steam reforming process as a means to achieve this. These include chemical looping, in which a metal oxide provides an unmixed source of oxygen directly into the reforming reactor, to enable autothermal reactor operation. Other work has considered sorption enhancement, in which solid CO2 sorbents provide in situ CO2 capture, enhancing product purity and improving process yields. Another branch of research considers the use of bioenergy feedstocks to reduce carbon intensity. One promising route is the fast pyrolysis of bioenergy feedstocks to produce bio-oils, followed by steam reforming. This route could combine the benefits of a flexible bio-based supply chain with those of the steam reforming process, including its thermal efficiency and cost-effectiveness. This thesis brings together these two branches of process development, to consider the feasibility and benefits of using bio-oil in advanced reforming processes, to produce hydrogen with low, or negative, carbon emissions. A thermodynamic evaluation is first presented, to determine the thermodynamic feasibility of different bio-oil reforming technologies, including conventional steam reforming (C-SR), sorption-enhanced steam reforming (SE-SR), chemical looping steam reforming (CLSR) and sorption-enhanced chemical looping steam reforming (SE-CLSR). When these benefits of chemical looping and sorption enhancement are combined, the resulting SE-CLSR process is autothermal, with reduced risk of carbon deposition, reduced H2 purification requirements, and the potential for readily separated CO2. A techno-economic evaluation is carried out on the viability of SE-CLSR and C-SR and with CO2 capture (C-SR-CCS), using heat and material balances derived from process models in Aspen Plus. C-SR-CCS and SE-CLSR produce hydrogen in a similar price range, of 3.8 to 4.6 $kgH2-1. Both processes have similar operating costs, but SE-CLSR has a lower capital cost, leading to a marginally lower hydrogen cost. SE-CLSR has certain other advantages, such as the elimination of fossil-based energy, and therefore increased potential for net negative emissions. Cost of carbon avoided, based on direct process emissions, including negative emissions, is estimated to be in the range of 95 to 105$ tCO2-1, similar to bioenergy with CCS (BECCS) in other industries. The analysis identified that a key process stage is simultaneous reduction-calcination, during which the reactor bed undergoes several important functions required to complete the SE-CLSR cycle. These include sorbent regeneration, reduction of the oxygen transfer material, and bed cooling. In Chapter 7, a dynamic packed bed reactor model is created in gPROMS Modelbuilder™ 4.1.0. This confirms that simultaneous reduction-calcination in a nickel-based system is feasible in principle. However, certain design and operating strategies will be required to manage the many complex and interacting factors in the system, including CO2 equilibrium pressure, CO2 product purity, and the relative speeds of reduction and calcination fronts. Future models of the entire SE-CLSR process will also require the derivation of bio-oil steam reforming kinetics. Chapter 7 details an experimental study on acetic acid, a major constituent of bio-oil that is commonly used as a model compound. A kinetic model is proposed, using a simplified reaction scheme comprised of acetic acid steam reforming, acetic acid decomposition to CO, and the water gas shift reaction. This model is subsequently used to compare steam methane reforming to bio-oil steam reforming in a low-pressure industrial-scale reactor bed. This identifies that the relatively slow kinetics of acetic acid steam reforming are another important aspect for consideration. Taken together, the above analyses provide a high-level assessment of the advanced reforming of bio-oils. In principle, SE-CLSR could offer certain technical and economic advantages compared to conventional steam reforming, and could offer a competitive route to hydrogen production with negative emissions. However, this is contingent upon several priority areas identified for process development

The Phylogeny, Physiology, and Evolution of Salinity Tolerance in Cyanobacteria

The evolution of oxygenic photosynthesis in the cyanobacterial phylum led to the irreversible oxidation of the Earth&rsquo;s atmosphere at the Great Oxidation Event (GOE), ~2.5 &ndash; 2.0 billion years ago. While the GOE provides a minimum age for the evolution of oxygenic photosynthesis, there is evidence that oxygenic photosynthesis evolved significantly before the GOE. If this is the case, the oxygenation of the Earth&rsquo;s atmosphere, and by extension cyanobacterial evolution, must have been delayed by some biotic or abiotic factor(s). My dissertation addresses the hypothesis that early cyanobacteria were restricted to terrestrial environments due to salinity intolerance, and their expansion into the marine environment was the trigger for enhanced global oxygenic photosynthesis and the GOE. My dissertation evaluates this hypothesis across multiple timescales. The first chapter investigates how phylogenetic methods reconstruct microbial traits versus environmental history in deep time. The second chapter focuses on the physiological timescale to empirically investigate the plasticity of salinity tolerance within multiple taxa of modern cyanobacteria. And the third chapter uses experimental evolution to observe the impacts of salinity selection on the salinity response of cyanobacteria. To test the implications of ancestral state reconstruction (ASR) methods, I produced simulated trait distributions of salinity optima via two models of evolution. These simulated &ldquo;modern&rdquo; distributions were used as the data for testing ASR predictions. I established the range of evolutionary rates that allow for salinity to be reconstructed across the cyanobacterial tree, which are slow in comparison with published estimates of rates from fossil and experimental macroevolution data. I collated data from scientific papers published over the last 70 years reporting cyanobacterial growth responses to changes in salinity. Upon standardizing this historical dataset, I evaluated differences in responses to salinities across the phylum. Over half of the strains isolated from &ldquo;terrestrial&rdquo; habitats grew at salinities above the thresholds (0.5 - 5 ppt) typically used to distinguish between terrestrial and marine environments. They are, however, rationalized in terms of a mechanistic model that relates growth rate to maintenance of osmotic homeostasis. To evaluate how these responses change on evolutionary timescales, I grew sixteen experimental lineages of the model euryhaline cyanobacterium Synechococcus sp. PCC 7002, inoculated from a genetically homogenous ancestor into 4 treatments, ranging from 10% marine salinity to 100% marine salinity, and serially transferred twice a week. I then evaluated these evolved lineages for changes in their general fitness, as well as changes in their plastic response to varying salinities. My data on both the physiological and evolutionary response of cyanobacteria to changes in salinity suggests that we need to reevaluate how we consider salinity tolerance as a trait in phylogenetic reconstructions. Salinity does not appear to behave as a discrete trait, and salinity tolerance does not appear to be a trait maintained only by strains regularly exposed to higher salinities. These eco-evolutionary results indicate that our perspective of geobiological records of cyanobacterial evolution and the Great Oxidation Event needs to shift from a focus on salinity tolerance of individual organisms toward consideration of the relative environmental niches (marine versus terrestrial) available on the Archean Earth. While phylogenetics can inform our understanding of the evolutionary trajectories of early life, we must address the challenge of considering not just the modern distribution of traits, but also the variance of those traits over ecological and evolutionary timescales.</p

Nutrient Management Strategies for Organic Vegetable Production

Organic vegetable production can be profitable for growers in Utah looking to supply local markets. Much of Utah has short growing seasons (\u3c150 days frost-free) with hot, dry summers and cold winters. Organic growers must work within these constraints to generate sufficient soil fertility using cover crops, composts, and targeted use of commercial organic fertilizers. This fact sheet explores nutrient management techniques used at the Utah State University (USU) Student Organic Farm (Student Farm) located in Cache County. In operation since 2008, the Student Farm was certified organic in 2011

Measuring and Building Soil Health

This fact sheet provide facts about soil health and will help land managers understand what soil health is, how to measure it, and how to potentially build it on their soils

Simple Soil Tests for Onsite Evaluation of Soil Health in Orchards

This fact sheet describes the importance of soil health and best soil testing practices