Shellfish Spotlight: 2008

Each year Granite State shellfishers search shallow briny waters in search of delicious mussels, clams, or oysters for the dinner table. Those who are skilled often are rewarded with full buckets, but few shellfishers realize that good harvests in New Hampshire’s Seacoast owe much to activities occurring far upstream. The quality of the water and amount of available nutrients that sustain a clam or oyster is directly related to the condition of the rivers and streams that drain the land. The Hampton-Seabrook Estuary is fed by approximately 46 square miles of surrounding land. An even larger system, the Piscataqua River Estuary that includes Great Bay, is supplied by a watershed that is 1,023 square miles. Development within the coastal watershed area has profound impacts on the amount of contaminants flowing to the sea. Sediment washed from roadways and bare soil flows downstream and collects in the estuary where it smothers shellfish beds in extreme cases. Nutrients, primarily nitrogen, are contributed by wastewater treatment plants, septic systems, and land use activities such as lawn fertilizing. Excessive nutrients threaten the ecological balance of the estuaries and thus the survival of shellfish populations. Finally, bacteria from failing septic systems, pet waste, or damaged sewer systems create a human health hazard in estuarine waters. Because shellfish filter great amounts of water to take in food and oxygen, they absorb contaminants from the water that accumulate in their flesh. Therefore, a watershed that flushes large amounts of contaminants downstream will deliver many of these contaminants to shellfish and reduce their numbers or often make them unsafe to eat. It is this close relationship between coastal watershed function and shellfish health that caused the New Hampshire Estuaries Project (NHEP), and many partnering agencies, to monitor shellfish in New Hampshire and make their restoration and maintenance a priority. The NHEP Manage- ment Plan includes many strategies that improve water quality throughout the watershed that will in turn improve shellfish populations and open more harvesting areas

The Challenge of Climate Change Adaptation for Agriculture: an Economically Oriented Review

Climate change is occurring. Deviations from historic temperatures and precipitation plus increased frequency of extreme events are modifying agriculture systems globally. Adapting agricultural management practices offers a way to lessen the effects or exploit opportunities. Herein many aspects of the adaptation issue are discussed, including needs, strategies, observed actions, benefits, economic analysis approaches, role of public/private actors, limits, and project evaluation. We comment on the benefits and shortcomings of analytical methods and suggested economic efforts. Economists need to play a role in such diverse matters as projecting adaptation needs, designing adaptation incentives, and evaluating projects to ensure efficiency and effectiveness

Mars atmospheric escape and isotopic fractionation: Synthesis of data and models

The present Mars atmosphere is relatively thin and cold. It is not at all like that which is presumed to have been responsible for the formation of valley networks and the heavy erosion of craters during the earliest epochs of martian history. An important goal of Mars exploration is to try to understand the properties of the early atmosphere, the initial inventory of volatiles at the planet's surface, the processes by which the atmosphere and climate have evolved over time, and the current location of volatiles presumed to have been in the atmosphere in the earlier times. The current status of understanding of the escape of volatiles to space over geologic time and the resulting fractionation of isotopes of stable atoms remaining in the atmosphere are described, and a scenario for volatile abundance and evolution that is consistent with the available information on the escape and fractionation of each species is constructed. In particular, the evolution of hydrogen, carbon, oxygen, and nitrogen, as contained in atmospheric (and non-atmospheric) water, carbon dioxide, and molecular nitrogen, is examined

Occasional papers

no.4 (1994

Low Mass Stars and Substellar Objects in the NGC 1333 Molecular Cloud

We present the results of near-infrared imaging and low-resolution near- infrared spectroscopy of low mass objects in the NGC 1333 molecular cloud. A JHK survey of an 11.4' x 11.7' area of the northern cluster was conducted to a sensitivity of K < 16 mag. Using near-infrared magnitudes and colors from this and previously published surveys, twenty-five brown dwarf candidates were selected toward the high extinction cloud core. Spectra in the K band were obtained and comparisons of the depths of water vapor absorption bands in our candidate objects with a grid of dwarf,subgiant, and giant standards were made to derive spectral types. These data were then used to derive effective temperatures and stellar luminosities which, when combined with theoretical tracks and isochrones for pre-main sequence objects, resulted in estimates for their masses and ages. The models suggest a median age for the sample of < 1 Myr with substellar masses for at least 9 of the candidates including the x-ray flare source ASR 24. Surface gravities have been estimated for the brown dwarf candidates and, for a given spectral type,found to resemble more closely dwarfs than giants. Using the near-infrared imaging data and age estimates from the spectroscopic sample, an extinction-limited sample in the northern cluster was defined. Consistent with recent studies of other young clusters, this sample exhibits an accretion disk frequency of 0.75 +-0.20 and a mass spectrum slope across the hydrogen-burning limit of alpha < 1.6 where dN/dM ~ M^-(alpha).Comment: 22 postscript pages, 12 postscript figures, and 3 postscript tables. Accepted for publication in the Astronomical Journal (February, 2004

Would Functional Agricultural Foods Improve Human Health?

Concern over diet-health relationships has moved to the forefront of public health concerns in the UK and much of the developed world. It has been estimated, for example, that obesity costs the UK National Health Service up to £6b per year (Rayner and Scarborough, 2005), but if all consumers were to follow recommended healthy eating guidelines there would be major implications for food consumption, land use and international trade (Srinivasan et al, 2006). This is unlikely to happen, at least in the short term, but it is realistic to anticipate some dietary adjustment toward the recommendations, resulting in an improvement in diet quality (Mazzocchi et al, 2007). Although consumers are reluctant to make major changes to their diets, they may be prepared to substitute existing foods for healthier alternatives. Three of the most prominent nutritional recommendations are to consume more fruit and vegetables, which contain phytochemicals beneficial to health, reduce consumption of saturated fatty acids (SFA) and increase intake of long-chain n-3 fatty acids (FA). In the first case, consumption of fruit and vegetables has been stable at around three 80 g portions per person per day according to the Health Survey for England. It is estimated that 42,200 deaths per year could be avoided in England and 411,000 Quality Adjusted Life Years (QALYs) could be saved if fruit and vegetable consumption were increased to the recommended 5 portions per day (Ofcom 2006). As well as continuing to encourage people to eat more, it could be desirable to ‘intensify’ the beneficial phytochemical content of existing fruit and vegetables.Agribusiness, Agricultural and Food Policy, Farm Management, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, Industrial Organization,

Legume based plant mixtures for delivery of multiple ecosystem services: An overview of benefits

As costs for mineral fertilizers rise, legume-based leys are recognised as a potential alternative nitrogen source for crops. Here we demonstrate that including species-rich legume-based leys in the rotation helps to maximize synergies between agricultural productivity and other ecosystem services. By using functionally diverse plant species mixtures these services can be optimised and fine-tuned to regional and farm-specific needs. Field experiments run over three years at multiple locations showed that the stability of ley performance was greater in multi-species mixtures than in legume monocultures. In addition, mixing different legume species in the ley helps to suppress both early and late weeds. Further, combining complementary phenologies of different legume species extended forage availability for key pollinator species. Finally, widening the range of legume species increases opportunities to build short term leys into rotations on conventional farms via cover cropping or undersowing

Eighteenth Year of the Gulf of Maine Environmental Monitoring Program

This report summarizes the metals and organic contaminant data associated with the collection and analyses of blue mussel (Mytilus edulis) tissue from selected sites along the Gulf of Maine coast during the 2008 sampling season. Contaminant monitoring is conducted by the Gulfwatch Program for the Gulf of Maine Council on the Marine Environment (GOMC). A subset of these data is compared with analytical results from earlier Gulfwatch monitoring (2001-2007). Statistical analyses are limited to descriptive measures of replicates from selected sampling sites and include: arithmetic means, and appropriate measures of variance. The primary purpose of this report is to present the current annual results, present graphical representation of spatial and temporal trends and identify potential outliers in order to provide investigators and other interested persons with contemporary information concerning water quality in the Gulf of Maine, as reflected by uptake into resident shellfish (mussels and clams)

Retrospective examination of injuries and physical fitness during Federal Bureau of Investigation new agent training

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>A retrospective examination was conducted of injuries, physical fitness, and their association among Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) new agent trainees.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Injuries and activities associated with injuries were obtained from a review of medical records in the medical clinic that served the new agents. A physical fitness test (PFT) was administered at Weeks 1, 7 and 14 of the 17-week new agent training course. The PFT consisted of push-ups, sit-ups, pull-ups, a 300-meter sprint, and a 1.5-mile run. Injury data were available from 2000 to 2008 and fitness data were available from 2004 to early 2009.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>During the survey period, 37% of men and 44% of women experienced one or more injuries during the new agent training course (risk ratio (women/men) = 1.18, 95% confidence interval = 1.07-1.31). The most common injury diagnoses were musculoskeletal pain (not otherwise specified) (27%), strains (11%), sprains (10%), contusions (9%), and abrasions/lacerations (9%). Activities associated with injury included defensive tactics training (48%), physical fitness training (26%), physical fitness testing (6%), and firearms training (6%). Over a 6-year period, there was little difference in performance of push-ups, sit-ups, pull-ups, or the 300-meter sprint; 1.5-mile run performance was higher in recent years. Among both men and women, higher injury incidence was associated with lower performance on any of the physical fitness measures.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>This investigation documented injury diagnoses, activities associated with injury, and changes in physical fitness, and demonstrated that higher levels of physical fitness were associated with lower injury risk.</p

Information scraps: how and why information eludes our personal information management tools

In this paper we describe information scraps -- a class of personal information whose content is scribbled on Post-it notes, scrawled on corners of random sheets of paper, buried inside the bodies of e-mail messages sent to ourselves, or typed haphazardly into text files. Information scraps hold our great ideas, sketches, notes, reminders, driving directions, and even our poetry. We define information scraps to be the body of personal information that is held outside of its natural or We have much still to learn about these loose forms of information capture. Why are they so often held outside of our traditional PIM locations and instead on Post-its or in text files? Why must we sometimes go around our traditional PIM applications to hold on to our scraps, such as by e-mailing ourselves? What are information scraps' role in the larger space of personal information management, and what do they uniquely offer that we find so appealing? If these unorganized bits truly indicate the failure of our PIM tools, how might we begin to build better tools? We have pursued these questions by undertaking a study of 27 knowledge workers. In our findings we describe information scraps from several angles: their content, their location, and the factors that lead to their use, which we identify as ease of capture, flexibility of content and organization, and avilability at the time of need. We also consider the personal emotive responses around scrap management. We present a set of design considerations that we have derived from the analysis of our study results. We present our work on an application platform, jourknow, to test some of these design and usability findings