Identification of Optimal Timber Harvest Locations

More than a century of fire suppression and mismanagement have severely affected the forest and fire ecology of the Blue Mountains of Oregon. To clear these forests and raise funds for restoration, the USDA Forest Service would like to conduct timber harvests of the unnaturally abundant tree species from these forests. Harvestable areas must be compliant with the Oregon Department of Forestry’s Forest Practice Rules. Once harvestable areas are identified, travel times from these areas to nearby timber mills must be generated. A tool was created with python scripting in ArcGIS to streamline this analysis. Of the 1617 square miles of the study area, 1391 square miles were found to be compliant with the Oregon Department of Forestry rules. Travel times from these compliant areas to 32 nearby timbers mills were generated with a mean travel time of 214 minutes, low travel time of less than one minute, and a high travel time of 443 minutes. The tool created by this project will be used for analysis of other forested areas in the future

A plurality of informational bases of social judgment to assess correctly inequalities in Lifelong Learning practices : the French APL process

Lifelong learning is promoted in a context of predominance of individual responsibility about employability: make people capable of finding a job, keeping it by means updating occupational skills. Nevertheless, to manage to give real individual opportunities of lifelong learning is very complex, asking the question of the "fair" sharing between collective and responsibility. The Accreditation of Prior Experience Process (VAE) is a pertinent illustration. This new right makes people responsible to put work experience to advantage, through getting qualification on the basis of experience. But, to open up a new legal way doesn't make this right a reality. Actually, the VAE itinerary is a complex process without certain outcome. The candidates have to mobilize some resources and factors to progress through the various difficult steps within the VAE path. But candidates are unequal and many disparities seem to exist between candidates' trajectories, depending of different individual, social and environmental opportunities and constraints. From a Capability perspective, we built an original framework to analyse VAE candidates' paths with regard to individual's structures of choice and action. Through confrontation between informational basis of employability and capabilities, the work's originality consists in highlighting existence of different types of individual logics of choice and action. This article is based on an econometric work using a new national sample of 4500 VAE candidates. Firstly, from an informational basis of employability, we measure the gross effect of standard economic factors (individual characteristics and financial resources, individual rights) on the candidates' pathway. Then, we assess the crossed effects between theses factors with conversion factors which have influences to put resources and rights into operation. In it adds a systematically observation of deliberate or suffered nature of choices during the VAE pathway. Candidates have the same right but not the same capability to put it into operation. To assess individual situations, on the hand with the basis informational of employability, and the other hand with the capability perspective, highlights overestimated, underestimated and invisible inequalities. Informational basis of employability is insufficient to assess correctly individual situation within the VAE process

Extraction of metals from contaminated land and industrial solid waste using a novel technology (servo process)

Selective Extraction and Recovery using Volatile Organic compounds is an emerging technology developed during the 1970s. This process can achieve the extraction of heavy metal contaminants from a matrix using a volatile organic reagent which passes through the feed material and reacts selectively with the desired metal salt, producing a volatile metal complex, removed from the matrix by a carrier gas. Such complexes may be decomposed to produce a pure metal product and regenerate the organic reagent for recycle. Previous studies demonstrated the possible extraction of nickel from low grade laterite ores using ß-diketones (2,4- pentanedione (Hacac)) and Schiff bases (bis(pentan-2,4-dionato)propan-1,2-diimine (H2pnaa). The current research is directed towards the selective extraction of different metals such as zinc, lead, cadmium, molybdenum, and vanadium from contaminated sediments and industrial wastes (Orimulsion ash, Municipal Solid Waste fly ash (MSW), Pulverized Coal Combustion technology fly ash (PCC)). New extractants and their metal complexes have been synthesised to determine their thermal stability and their volatility. Of those synthesised the metal complexes of tetra-propyldithiophosphoramide (Hprps) are the most thermally stable. Using a thermogravimetric analyser the reaction kinetics of the SERVO process have been studied. Equipment to study the SERVO process on a laboratory scale has been designed and constructed. This equipment has been used to study the extraction of metals from four different matrices (sediments, Orimulsion ash, and two types of fly ash) using three different extractants, with promising results. These sources have been ranked from the best to the least applicable for the technology: Orimulsion ash > sediments > MSW fly ash > PCC fly ash. Of the three extractants studied, Hacac, H2pnaa and Hprps, the latter is the most efficient in terms of the range of metals which can be extracted, the volatilisation temperature, the extent of degradation and reaction time, but unfortunately is also the most expensive. For the fly ashes, of the three ligands studied, Hprps is the preferred extractant followed by H2pnaa. Hacac is not recommended for these sources because extraction is too low

Motherwork, artwork: The mother/artist in fiction by Parton, Phelps, Chopin, Woolf, Drabble, and Walker

This study asks the question, What happens to a practicing (fictional) mother who also tries to be a practicing artist? How do literary texts represent such people? How do they represent the relationship between material and artistic work? The primary works studied are Sarah Parton\u27s Ruth Hall, (1855), Elizabeth Stuart Phelps\u27 The Story of Avis (1877), Kate Chopin\u27s The Awakening (1899), Virginia Woolf\u27s To the Lighthouse (1927), and Margaret Drabble\u27s The Millstone (1965). The conclusion focuses on Alice Walker\u27s short story, Everyday Use. Mother-artists finds themselves on the wrong side of the nature/culture binary, where ideologies about true womanhood and good mothering, as well as the role of the artist, play out in a variety of ways. The study finds striking similarities between the first and last novels studied: both Parton\u27s Ruth and Drabble\u27s Rosamund work successfully at their writing because they need to support their children. Rather than being a hindrance, the children are a motivation for these mothers to produce their writing. By working for the children, they can remain good mothers. However, neither mother claims to be an artist. The middle three novels focus on painters, who must deal with ideologies surrounding the artist: Sacred Fount and Ivory Tower, competing needs in a zero-sum game. This art/life binary defeats Phelp\u27s Avis, who can only hope life will be better for her daughter. Chopin\u27s Edna is even more thoroughly defeated: she drowns when she finds can be neither mother-woman nor artist. Finally, Woolf overcomes the art/life dilemma by dividing it between her two characters, Lily Bricoe (artist) and Mrs. Ramsay (mother and almost artist ). Significantly, this gap is healed, not by the middle-class White woman who gets her act together but by the Black woman who has been below the radar screen of ideologies about true womanhood or the artist. Edna\u27s Pontellier\u27s unnamed Black nursemaid, who actually does Edna\u27s mothering for her, seems to be resurrected in the mid-twentieth century as Alice Walker, whose quilting and gardening mothers can unite art and life in an aesthetic which values both community and immanence

Intervention Policy of the BoJ: A Unified Approach

Intervening in the FX market implies a complex decision process for central banks. Monetary authorities have to decide whether to intervene or not, and if so, when and how. Since the successive steps of this procedure are likely to be highly interdependent, we adopt a nested logit approach to capture their relationships and to characterize the prominent features of the various steps of the intervention decision. Our findings shed some light on the determinants of central bank interventions, on the so-called secrecy puzzle and on the identification of the variables influencing the detection of foreign exchange transactions by market traders.FX intervention, secrecy puzzle, market detection, nested logit

Matériaux isolants: Développement d'un produit expansé à base de cellulose

National audienceInsulation board market is largely dominated by mineral and iol based sources and presente a constant increase. Foamed products are expected to rise in the near future thanks to high performance products. However, the environmental impact is bad. As a consequence, WoTIM European project, funded by WoodWisdom–Net Research Program 2014, aims at developing insulation products based on cellulose obtained from wood. Two products are proposed: expending cellulose foam competing with polyurethane foams to be sprayed and boards of various dimensions. Thanks to highly porous and low density network, insulation performances are high. As an exemple, thermal conductivity as low as 0.035 W/K.m is obtained on under optimization products. During project, economic and environmental performance of products will be evaluated to propose competitive solutions. Partners are VTT in Finland; Holmen and Innventia in Sweden; Soprema and FCBA in France.Les matériaux d'isolation à base minérales ou issus de pétroressources sont actuellement les plus largement utilisés dans le monde et en croissance constante. Une augmentation est attendue dans le secteur de l'isolation à base de mousse plastique à cause de leurs hautes performances. Toutefois, d'un point de vue environnemental et durabilité, cette tendance est problématique. WoTIM, projet européen WoodWisdom–Net Research Programme 2014, propose de développer des matériaux d'isolation, à base de cellulose issue du bois, sous forme de mousses expansives ou panneaux. Grace à cette structure de très faible densité, les propriétés d'isolation sont augmentées en créant des espaces d'air dans une matrice. Le meilleur de ces démonstrateurs, en cours d'optimisation, présente une conductivité thermique de 0.035 W/K.m, illustrant ainsi la bonne performance de ces nouveaux produits d'isolation cellulosiques qui rivalise avec les produits courants issus de laine minérale

Designing Wiimprovisation for Mediation in Group Music Therapy with Children Suffering from Behavioral Disorders

International audienceWe present qualitative experimental evidence that the "Wiimprovisation" process of using Nintendo Wiimotes as virtual instruments linked to a musical sound system within the framework of Group Music Therapy sessions can provide effective psychodynamic mediation for patients. We designed and implemented specific modalities for movement-based sound control and tested our tool in two clinical settings with children (age 7 to 12) suffering from behavioral disorders. Our preliminary results show immediate acceptance of, long term motivation for and meaningful expression through our system by patients. Future work will focus on assessing the therapeutic potential of our platform's personalization features in a controlled experiment

First report of Grapevine fanleaf virus infecting grapevine in the United Kingdom

The UK wine industry is a fast-growing sector and in 2015 an area of c. 2,000 hectares had been planted with vines from which over five million bottles of wine were produced (Wine and Spirit Trade Association Market Overview, 2016). It is important to monitor the phytosanitary status of vines to ensure the sustainability of the industry in the UK

Dirhodium(II) Tetraacetamidate 1

International audienc