Incidence and Timing of Low Dissolved Oxygen Events in the Squamscott River: 2005-07

The Squamscott River has had extended episodes of low dissolved oxygen (DO) that have been recorded at a site near its mouth during the past few years. These episodes were recorded as a result of temporally intensive monitoring by a datasonde deployed through most of each year. Whereas low DO events can occur during April-November, events during the colder months are typically less frequent and are often caused by unusual natural or severe weather conditions. Low DO events occur most frequently during July-September when elevated levels of nutrients are most likely to contribute to their cause, and are thus of most concern. The study found the warm season time period of July-September to be the time of year when low DO events were most frequent and pervasive. In comparisons between each year from 2005 to 2007, 2005 had less frequent and pervasive low DO events compared to 2006 and 2007. Relative to tidal cycle conditions, low DO conditions were most likely to occur during neap tide conditions, as indicated by the least shallow depth readings for the data sonde. Beyond the seasonal and tidal time periods, the time of day where conditions are most likely to cause low DO events is also critical for focusing field efforts. The most frequently observed time of day when either a low DO event was initiated or the lowest DO reading was recorded was in the morning, especially before 8:00 AM. Much less frequent occurrence of these events was observed during the second half of days. It appears that the predicted conditions for conducting water measurements and sampling during 2005 were relatively accurate. The study should have been more successful except that 2005 was a year in which low DO episodes were less frequent and pervasive. Future studies in the Squamscott River area near the data sonde can benefit from use of the results reported herein. The same kind of analysis could also be used to help inform studies in other areas of the estuary where data sondes are nearby and have available databases for water quality conditions

Tracking Bacterial Pollution Sources in Stormwater Pipes

The New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services (DES) conducted two rounds of wet weather sampling in the Hampton Harbor watershed during 2002. Samples were collected from stormdrains, tributaries, and harbor stations for bacteria and flow in order to calculate bacteria loads. This information was needed to prioritize pollution sources as part of a Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) study of bacteria in Hampton Harbor (Trowbridge, 2003). Two of the 16 monitored stormdrain pipes were selected for microbial source determination using ribotype profiling. Stormdrain pipe selection was based on the bacteria loading data from the first wet weather sampling that occurred on 7/23/02. The two sampling sites identified as HHPS069 and HHPS182 contributed 12% and 60%, respectively, of the bacteria load from the 16 monitored stormdrains during the first storm event. It was determined that these two pipes would be targeted for more intensive investigations based on the high relative loading of bacteria. Thus, samples were collected during a second storm on October 16, 2002 from these two pipes and analyzed for source species identification using ribotype profiling

Outcomes and Well-being Part 2: A comparative longitudinal study of two models of homecare delivery and their impact upon the older person self-reported subjective well-being. A qualitative follow up study paper

Purpose – This paper aims to follow up on a previous quantitative research project which established that outcome-focussed care appeared to be associated with an increase in the individuals’ subjective well-being. The purpose of this paper is to establish why the intervention enabled this. Design/methodology/approach – The study utilised a qualitative approach to gather the subjective experience of the individual service users. The sample consisted of 20 service users, who were subject of two semi-structured interviews; one interview at the start of the intervention and one at the six month stage. The data were then analysed under core themes raised by the service user in these interviews. The sample was divided into two, with one group receiving the outcome-focussed model of care and the other group receiving the traditional time focussed care. Findings – The research established that service users’ subjective well-being improved due to the ability of outcome-focussed care to provide consistency, flexibility and most importantly the ability of the service user to form a relationship with the homecare workers providing their care. Practical implications – This paper will assist professionals to understand why outcome-focus care has a profound impact upon service users’ subjective well-being as opposed to the existing task focussed care. Originality/value – This and the previous paper provide an insight into how different processes and models of intervention impact upon the subjective well-being of socially isolated older people

Periodic Motions in Banach Space and Applications to Functional-Differential Equations

In establishing the existence of periodic solutions for nonautonomous differential equations of the form x = g(x, t), where g is periodic in t of period for fixed x, it is often convenient to consider the translation operator T(x(t)) = x(t + ). If corresponding to each initial vector chosen in an appropriate region there corresponds a unique solution of our equation, then periodicity may be established by proving the existence of a fixed point under T. This same technique is also useful for more general functional equations and can be extended in a number of interesting ways. In this paper we shall consider a variable type of translation operator which is useful in investigating periodicity for autonomous differential and functional equations where the period involved is less obvious

The Effectiveness of Training for Displaced Workers with Long Prior Job Tenure

Workers displaced from long-tenure jobs often have difficulty finding new employment and can take a substantial drop in earnings when they find reemployment. These losses are large and persistent, and can easily dwarf the transitory losses from the initial period of nonemployment. Policy response for these long-term problems has centred on education, training and skill development. This paper surveys and assesses a variety of strategies that have been employed to determine training effectiveness, using results from field experiments and from econometric work based on non-experimental data. Findings from this large research enterprise are not encouraging. Both experimental and non-experimental research shows that the returns to training for displaced workers are low, almost surely less than the (well-estimated) returns to formal schooling which lie in the 6-9% range. On a cost-benefit basis, the body of evidence does not show that training pays off for most of the displaced population. Alternative means to compensate the losers from economic adjustment might include modified or expanded EI coverage, without any necessary link to training expenditures, and perhaps consideration of alternative policies, such as Wage Insurance. Since evidence on training programs for displaced workers gives only limited promise, it is important to search for other creative ways to ensure that the costs of economic restructuring do not fall disproportionately on a narrow group.labour market adjustment, training, displaced workers

Parton Shower and NLO-Matching uncertainties in Higgs Boson Pair Production

We perform a detailed study of NLO parton shower matching uncertainties in Higgs boson pair production through gluon fusion at the LHC based on a generic and process independent implementation of NLO subtraction and parton shower matching schemes for loop-induced processes in the Sherpa event generator. We take into account the full top-quark mass dependence in the two-loop virtual corrections and compare the results to an effective theory approximation. In the full calculation, our findings suggest large parton shower matching uncertainties that are absent in the effective theory approximation. We observe large uncertainties even in regions of phase space where fixed-order calculations are theoretically well motivated and parton shower effects expected to be small. We compare our results to NLO matched parton shower simulations and analytic resummation results that are available in the literature

European Neighbourhood Policy in the Mashreq Countries: Enhancing Prospects for Reform. CEPS Working Documents No. 229, 1 September 2005

This report assesses ways in which the Action Plan process that has been launched under the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) could become a more effective driver of political and economic change in the Mashreq region (covering Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and the Palestinian territories), compared with the modest results from the Barcelona process to date. The development of the ENP has already provided a valuable systemic/institutional advance in Euro-Med relations and has been an important confidence-building measure in an increasingly uncertain political environment. But it has yet to provide momentum for economic, political and social advance in the partner states. Key elements in making the Action Plan process more effective would be the following: · The Commission needs to deepen the policy content of the ENP with sketches of different degrees of desirable EU acquis compliance as a function of different economic structures and capabilities of the partner states. · The task of policy-shaping in different sectors of the Action Plans with the partner states needs to be shared by the Commission with other international organisations, most importantly the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the European Investment Bank (EIB). · The policy-shaping recommendations in support of the economic parts of the Action Plans should be explicitly linked to financial or market-access incentives (or both) on offer from the EU and international financial institutions. The promotion of political reform in the partner states is a more delicate affair. Yet there is still some room for ‘positive conditionality’ if the Commission were to define more substantively the package of incentives that are offered to partner states

Topex high-gain antenna system deployment actuator mechanism

A deployment actuator mechanism was developed to drive a two-axis gimbal assembly and a high-gain antenna to a deployed and locked position on the Jet Propulsion Laboratory Ocean Topography Experiment (TOPEX) satellite. The Deployment Actuator Mechanism requirements, design, test, and associated problems and their solutions are discussed