Water storage has not kept pace with stock numbers : South Stirling survey finding

RESULTS of a survey on water storage capacity in the South Stirlings area indicate that farm water storage has not kept pace with increased clearing and stock numbers. This has resulted in many farmers requesting advice on water conservation projects following two consecutive years of low rainfall runoff

Effects of Loneliness, Years of Service, and Spiritual Well-Being upon Burn-Out Among Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod Clergy

Past research had concluded that a combination of individual and situational factors interact as causes for burn-out in ministers. This present study sought to measure three factors, loneliness, years of service, and spiritual well-being for their singular and combined impact upon burn-out among Christian pastors. Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod pastors, 276 in number, were surveyed to determine their level of burn-out, together with measure of the afore-mentioned variables. It was expected that fewer years of service, lower spiritual well-being, and higher loneliness would effect increased levels of measured burn-out in the pastors surveyed. A three-way analysis of variance indicated that burn-out scores were effected by loneliness, years of service, and spiritual well-being, but revealed no interaction effects of these three factors upon burn-out scores. Future recommendations for research include attempts to determine likely points in career for burn-out, and future identification of factors which effect increased burnout

The soil organic carbon: Clay ratio in North Devon, UK: Implications for marketing soil carbon as an asset class

Building up stocks of agricultural soil organic carbon (SOC) can improve soil conditions as well as contribute to climate change mitigation. As a metric, the ratio of SOC to clay offers a better predictor of soil condition than SOC alone, potentially providing a benchmark for ecosystem service payments. We determined SOC:clay ratios for 50 fields in the North Devon UNESCO World Biosphere Reserve using 30 cm soil cores (divided into 0-10 cm and 10-30 cm depth samples), with soil bulk density, soil moisture and land-use history recorded for each field. All the arable soils exceeded the minimum desirable SOC:clay ratio threshold, and the ley grassland soils generally exceeded it but were inconsistent at 10-30 cm. Land use was the primary factor driving SOC:clay ratios at 0-10 cm, with permanent pasture fields having the highest ratios followed by ley grass and then arable fields. Approximately half of the fields sampled had potential for building up SOC stock at 10-30 cm. However, at this depth, the effect of land use is significantly reduced. Within-field variability in SOC and clay was low (coefficient of variation was similar to 10%) at both 0-10 cm and 10-30 cm, suggesting that SOC:clay ratios precisely characterized the fields. Due to the high SOC:clay ratios found, we conclude that there is limited opportunity to market additional carbon sequestration as an asset class in the North Devon Biosphere or similar areas. Instead, preserving existing SOC stocks would be a more suitable ecosystem service payment basis

Water supplies : dams and roaded catchments

Western Australia\u27s Upper and Lower Great Southern statistical areas include most of the broad-scale agricultural land south of a line from Perth to Hyden. Much of the area is well-developed and carries 13.4 million sheep, 203 00 cattle and 95 000 pigs, almost half the State\u27s livestock. There are few natural rivers and lakes to water livestock in summer and much of the bore water is salty. On-farm waterr conservation, therefore, consits mainly of excavated earth tanks (dams) which are filled by surface runoff or shallow seepage. In the drier areas and in the sandplain roaded catchments have neen built to ensure reliable filling of dams. To supply the larger towns in the area, the Water Authority of Western Australia has developed the Great Southern Towns Water Supply Scheme in which water is pumped inland from Wellington Dam near Collie

OncoLog Volume 49, Number 01, January 2004

Pregnancy and Cancer Treatment Often Are Not Mutually Exclusive Studies of the Viral Origins of Some Cancers Lead to New Prevention, Treatment Strategies House Call: Cancer and Your Weight DiaLog: Treating Breast Cancer during Pregnancy, by Karin M.E.H. Gwyn, MD, Assistant Professor, and Richard L. Theriault, DO, Professor, Department of Breast Medical Oncologyhttps://openworks.mdanderson.org/oncolog/1125/thumbnail.jp

Beings in their own right? Exploring Children and young people's sibling and twin relationships in the Minority World

This paper examines the contributions that the sociological study of sibship and twinship in the Minority World can make to childhood studies. It argues that, in providing one forum within which to explore children and young people's social relationships, we can add to our understanding of children and young people's interdependence and develop a more nuanced understanding of agency. As emergent subjects, children, young people and adults are in a process of ‘becoming’. However, this does not mean that they can ‘become’ anything they choose to. The notion of negotiated interdependence (Punch 2002) is useful in helping us to grasp the contingent nature of children and young people's agency

The Chlamydomonas reinhardtii proteins Ccp1 and Ccp2 are required for long-term growth, but are not necessary for efficient photosynthesis, in a low-CO\u3csub\u3e2\u3c/sub\u3e environment

The unicellular green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii acclimates to a low-CO2 environment by modifying the expression of a number of messages. Many of the genes that increase in abundance during acclimation to low-CO2 are under the control of the putative transcription factor Cia5. C. reinhardtii mutants null for cia5 do not express several of the known low-CO2 inducible genes and do not grow in a low-CO2 environment. Two of the genes under the control of Cia5, Ccp1 and Ccp2, encode polypeptides that are localized to the chloroplast envelope and have a high degree of similarity to members of the mitochondrial carrier family of proteins. Since their discovery, Ccp1/2 have been candidates for bicarbonate uptake proteins of the chloroplast envelope membrane. In this report, RNA interference was successful in dramatically decreasing the abundance of the mRNAs for Ccp1 and Ccp2. The abundance of the Ccp1 and Ccp2 proteins were also reduced in the RNAi strains. The RNAi strains grew slower than WT in a low-CO2 environment, but did not exhibit a mutant carbon concentrating phenotype as determined by the cells\u27 apparent affinity for dissolved inorganic carbon. Possible explanations of this RNAi phenotype are discussed

Energy-sensitive GaSb/AlAsSb separate absorption and multiplication avalanche photodiodes for X-Ray and gamma-ray detection

Demonstrated are antimony‐based (Sb‐based) separate absorption and multiplication avalanche photodiodes (SAM‐APDs) for X‐ray and gamma‐ray detection, which are composed of GaSb absorbers and large bandgap AlAsSb multiplication regions in order to enhance the probability of stopping high‐energy photons while drastically suppressing the minority carrier diffusion. Well‐defined X‐ray and gamma‐ray photopeaks are observed under exposure to 241Am radioactive sources, demonstrating the desirable energy‐sensitive detector performance. Spectroscopic characterizations show a significant improvement of measured energy resolution due to reduced high‐peak electric field in the absorbers and suppressed nonradiative recombination on surfaces. Additionally, the GaSb/AlAsSb SAM‐APDs clearly exhibit energy response linearity up to 59.5 keV with a minimum full‐width half‐maximum of 1.283 keV. A further analysis of the spectroscopic measurement suggests that the device performance is intrinsically limited by the noise from the readout electronics rather than that from the photodiodes. This study provides a first understanding of Sb‐based energy‐sensitive SAM‐APDs and paves the way to achieving efficient detection of high‐energy photons for X‐ray and gamma‐ray spectroscopy

Children's understandings of obesity, a thematic analysis

Childhood obesity is a major concern in today’s society. Research suggests the inclusion of the views and understandings of a target group facilitates strategies that have better efficacy. The objective of this study was to explore the concepts and themes that make up children’s understandings of the causes and consequences of obesity. Participants were selected from Reception (4-5 years old) and Year 6 (10-11 years old), and attended a school in an area of Sunderland, in North East England. Participants were separated according to age and gender, resulting in four focus groups, run across two sessions. A thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006) identified overarching themes evident across all groups, suggesting the key concepts that contribute to children’s understandings of obesity are ‘‘Knowledge through Education,’’ ‘‘Role Models,’’ ‘‘Fat is Bad,’’ and ‘‘Mixed Messages.’’ The implications of these findings and considerations of the methodology are discussed in full