Import procedures for timber to the European Union; Options for streamlining procedures for legal timber

This report provides a description of the institutions involved in timber import and an overview of import procedures and related documents in the Netherlands in the framework of the European Union Action Plan for Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT). FLEGT aims at establishing Voluntary Partnership Agreements (VPAs) between the EU and timber producing countries. The report includes recommendations with respect to streamlining import procedures and electronic document handling.Timber Import Procedures, Agribusiness, International Development, International Relations/Trade,

High velocity gas in external galaxies

Two nearby, nearly face-on spiral galaxies, M 101 and NGC 6946, observed in the HI with the Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope (WSRT) as part of a program to search for high velocity gas in other galaxies, are used to illustrate the range of properties of high velocity gas in other galaxies found thusfar

Transitioning From Graduate Nurse To Professional Nurse

Just as the world is facing many changes and transitions, nursing care delivery systems and nursing education systems continue to struggle with significant transitions in nursing practice. New, or novice nurses, find it increasingly difficult to transition from the role of the graduate nurse to professional nurse. It is, therefore, not surprising that the most stressful time during a nurse\u27s career is the first three months of initial employment or that 35% to 60% of nurse graduates change jobs during the first year of employment. Many of these new nurses suffer from early disillusionment with the profession and often leave within 24 months. Understanding the relationship between the amount of time a graduate nurse is given to make the transition to a professional nurse is paramount to the success and retention of nurses. The purpose of the study was to investigate whether six months was an adequate amount of time for new graduate nurses to transition into the role of a professional nurse. Data were collected from graduate nurses, (N=14) completing an Outcomes Engineering Tool, at three different intervals (one, four, and six months). The too} was used to measure graduate nurse mastery on 14-achievement indicators that focused on growth attainment. The 14-achievement indicators encompassed documenting, problem identification, evaluation of care, planning and prioritizing, decision making, delegating, collaborating, accoW1tabi1ity, nursing theory, ethics, competence, leadership, career goals and organizational commitment. Statistics measuring means, standard deviations, ANOV A and pairwise comparisons were used to determine the differences between the individuals within the group and the variance due to the difference between the groups. The study showed that after six months no graduate nurses had successfully mastered all the 14-achievement indicators. There were significant differences found between the first month and sixth month on all 14-achievement indicators; however, mastery was not achieved on all 14- achievement indicators during any of the three intervals. These findings indicate that the transition period for a new graduate to transition to a professional nurse is longer than six months

The seed sector in the Netherlands; An overview of production, trade and related institutions

This report provides a general introduction to the Dutch seed sector. It gives a statistical overview of the position of the Dutch crop sector in the European Union based on the areas of the major crops. The position of the Netherlands on the world seed market is described with import and export statistics, in particular on the vegetable sector, but also on other horticultural and arable seeds and planting material. In addition to statistical information, the report provides an extensive description of the institutional framework of the Dutch agricultural sector in general and the seed sector in particular.Crop Production/Industries,

A Test of the Standard Hypothesis for the Origin of the HI Holes in Holmberg II

The nearby irregular galaxy Holmberg II has been extensively mapped in HI using the Very Large Array (VLA), revealing intricate structure in its interstellar gas component (Puche et al. 1992). An analysis of these structures shows the neutral gas to contain a number of expanding HI holes. The formation of the HI holes has been attributed to multiple supernova events occurring within wind-blown shells around young, massive star clusters, with as many as 10-200 supernovae required to produce many of the holes. From the sizes and expansion velocities of the holes, Puche et al. assigned ages of ~10^7 to 10^8 years. If the supernova scenario for the formation of the HI holes is correct, it implies the existence of star clusters with a substantial population of late-B, A and F main sequence stars at the centers of the holes. Many of these clusters should be detectable in deep ground-based CCD images of the galaxy. In order to test the supernova hypothesis for the formation of the HI holes, we have obtained and analyzed deep broad-band BVR and narrow-band H-alpha images of Ho II. We compare the optical and HI data and search for evidence of the expected star clusters in and around the HI holes. We also use the HI data to constrain models of the expected remnant stellar population. We show that in several of the holes the observed upper limits for the remnant cluster brightness are strongly inconsistent with the SNe hypothesis described in Puche et al. Moreover, many of the HI holes are located in regions of very low optical surface brightness which show no indication of recent star formation. Here we present our findings and explore possible alternative explanations for the existence of the HI holes in Ho II, including the suggestion that some of the holes were produced by Gamma-ray burst events.Comment: 30 pages, including 6 tables and 3 images. To appear in Astron. Journal (June 1999

Extended HI spiral structure and the figure rotation of triaxial dark halos

The HI disk of the blue compact dwarf (BCD) galaxy NGC 2915 extends to 22 optical scalelengths and shows spiral arms reaching far beyond the optical component. None of the previous theories for spiral structure provide likely explanations for these very extended spiral arms. Our numerical simulations first demonstrate that such large spiral arms can form in an extended gas disk embedded in a massive triaxial dark matter halo with slow figure rotation, through the strong gravitational torque of the rotating halo. We then show that the detailed morphological properties of the developed spirals and rings depend strongly on the pattern speed of the figure rotation, the shape of the triaxial halo, and the inclination of the disk with respect to the plane including the triaxial halo's long and middle axes. These results strongly suggest that the dark matter halo of NGC 2915 is triaxial and has figure rotation. Based on these results, we also suggest that dynamical effects of triaxial halos with figure rotation are important in various aspect of galaxy formation and evolution, such as formation of polar ring galaxies, excitation of non-axisymmetric structures in low surface-brightness galaxies, and gas fueling to the central starburst regions of BCDs.Comment: 13 pages 2 figures (fig.2 = jpg format), accepted by ApJ

Gas-Rich Companions of Isolated Galaxies

We have used the VLA to search for gaseous remnants of the galaxy formation process around six extremely isolated galaxies. We found two distinct HI clouds around each of two galaxies in our sample (UGC 9762 & UGC 11124). These clouds are rotating and appear to have optical counterparts, strongly implying that they are typical dwarf galaxies. The companions are currently weakly interacting with the primary galaxy, but have short dynamical friction timescales (~1 Gyr) suggesting that these triple galaxy systems will shortly collapse into one massive galaxy. Given that the companions are consistent with being in circular rotation about the primary galaxy, and that they have small relative masses, the resulting merger will be a minor one. The companions do, however, contain enough gas that the merger will represent a significant infusion of fuel to drive future star formation, bar formation, or central activity, while building up the mass of the disk thus making these systems important pieces of the galaxy formation and evolution process.Comment: Corrected dynamical friction calculation error. Revised discussion & conclusions. 7 pages, 4 tables, 6 figures, to appear in May 1999 Astronomical Journa

Simple Models for Turbulent Self-Regulation in Galaxy Disks

We propose that turbulent heating, wave pressure and gas exchanges between different regions of disks play a dominant role in determining the preferred, quasi-equilibrium, self-similar states of gas disks on large-scales. We present simple families of analytic, thermohydrodynamic models for these global states, which include terms for turbulent pressure and Reynolds stresses. Star formation rates, phase balances, and hydrodynamic forces are all tightly coupled and balanced. The models have stratified radial flows, with the cold gas slowly flowing inward in the midplane of the disk, and with the warm/hot phases that surround the midplane flowing outward. The models suggest a number of results that are in accord with observation, as well as some novel predictions, including the following. 1) The large-scale gas density and thermal phase distributions in galaxy disks can be explained as the result of turbulent heating and spatial couplings. 2) The turbulent pressures and stresses that drive radial outflows in the warm gas also allow a reduced circular velocity there. This effect was observed by Swaters, Sancisi and van der Hulst in NGC 891, a particularly turbulent edge-on disk. The models predict that the effect should be universal in such disks. 3) They suggest that a star formation rate like the phenomenological Schmidt Law is the natural result of global thermohydrodynamical balance, and may not obtain in disks far from equilibrium. (Abridged)Comment: 37 pages, 1 gif figure, accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journa

Enabling cooperative behavior for building demand response based on extended joint action learning

This paper explores the use of distributed intelligence to assist the integration of the demand as a flexible resource, to mitigate the emerging uncertainty in the power system, while fulfilling the customer's local needs, i.e., comfort management. More exactly, our contribution is twofold. First, we propose a novel cooperative and decentralized reinforcement learning method, dubbed extended joint action learning (eJAL). Second, we perform a comparison between eJAL to noncooperative decentralized decision making strategies, i.e., Q-learning, and a centralized game theoretic approach, i.e., Nash n-player game. This comparison has been conducted on the basis of grid support effectiveness and the loss of comfort for each customer. Various metrics were used to analyze the advantages and disadvantages of each method. We demonstrated that a range of flexibility requests can be met by providing an optimal energy portfolio of buildings without substantially violating comfort constraints. Moreover, we showed that the proposed eJAL method achieves the highest fairness index.</p