Water Quality Project Evaluation A Handbook for Objectives-Based Evaluation of Water Quality Projects

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Anglo-Saxon England

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Seasonal Consumptive Demand and Prey Use by Stocked Saugeyes in Ohio Reservoirs

Community structure and species composition may be strongly influenced by predator-prey interactions resulting from and leading to episodes of population abundance or scarcity. We quantified diets of stocked saugeyes (female walleye Sander vitreus × male sauger S. canadensis) and estimated biomass of their primary prey, gizzard shad Dorosoma cepedianum, in three Ohio reservoirs at quarterly intervals during July 2002-July 2003 to determine whether saugeye consumptive demand could exceed the supply of available gizzard shad prey, resulting in a shift to alternative prey. We incorporated water temperature and saugeye diet composition, growth, and mortality into walleye bioenergetics models, which allowed us to compare estimated prey-specific consumption rates by saugeyes with gizzard shad standing stocks estimated with acoustics. Spring and summer were critical seasons. During spring, gizzard shad biomass was low, saugeye consumptive demand was low, and saugeyes consumed primarily alternative prey. During summer, when age-0 gizzard shad became available as prey, saugeyes consumed similar proportions of gizzard shad and alternative prey. Saugeye cumulative consumptive demand in summer was high and approached the gizzard shad standing stock. However, during fall and winter, gizzard shad supply was adequate to support high (fall) or declining (winter) saugeye consumptive demand. Across reservoirs and seasons, saugeyes consumed alternative prey to varying degrees, primarily sunfishes Lepomis spp., yellow perch Perca flavescens, logperch Percina caprodes, and minnows Pimephales spp. Seasonal asynchrony between saugeye consumptive demand and gizzard shad biomass during spring and summer indicated that a saugeye population with high survival, growth, and consumptive demand will opportunistically increase use of prey other than gizzard shad. The manner in which saugeye predation quantitatively influences these prey species could not be assessed. However, overexploitation of gizzard shad prey appears to be unlikely at current saugeye population sizes, particularly considering the opportunistic use of alternative prey and the high reproductive potential of gizzard shad.Funding for this research was provided by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, Division of Wildlife; Federal Aid in Sport Fish Restoration Project F-69-P, Fish Management in Ohio; and the Department of Evolution, Ecology, and Organismal Biology at The Ohio State University

Multicenter experience from the UK and Ireland of use of lumen-apposing metal stent for transluminal drainage of pancreatic fluid collections

Background and study aims: Pancreatic fluid collection (PFC) is a common complication of pancreatitis for which endoscopic ultrasound-guided drainage is first-line treatment. A new single-device, lumen-apposing, covered self-expanding metal stent (LAMS) has been licensed for PFC drainage. We therefore present our multicenter experience with the LAMS for PFC drainage in a multicenter prospective case series to assess success and complication rates. Patients and methods: All adult patients from 11 tertiary centers who had LAMS placement for PFC from July 2015 to July 2016 were included. Data including indications, technical success, clinical success, collection resolution, stent removal, early and late adverse events (AEs), mortality and recurrence at 6 months were collected. Results: 116 patients, median age 52.5 years (range 16 – 80) and 67 % male, were treated with a single LAMS in each case. The indication was walled off necrosis (WON) in 70 and pseudocyst in 46. Median size of the PFC was 11 cm (5 – 21 cm) and the estimated median necrotic volume in WON was 30 % (5 % – 90 %). Stent insertion was technically successful in 115 (99.1 %) and clinically successful in 109 (94 %). Early serious AEs (SAEs): n = 7 sepsis, n = 1 stent blockage with food, n = 1 stent migration requiring laparotomy, n = 1 stent dislodgement and n = 1 bleeding requiring emboliZation. Late AEs: n = 1 buried stent and n = 1 esophageal fistula. Non-procedure-related deaths: n = 3 (2.5 %). Conclusion: This multicenter case series demonstrates that use of the new LAMS is feasible, effective and relatively safe in draining PFC with a technical success rate of 99 % and cumulative SAE rate of 11.2 %

From Provider to Enabler of Care: Reconfiguring Local Authority Support for Older People and Carers in Leeds, 2008 to 2013

This article explores developments in the support available to older people and carers (i.e., caregivers) in the city of Leeds, United Kingdom, and examines provision changes during a period characterized by unprecedented resource constraint and new developments in national-local governance. Using documentary evidence, official statistics and findings from recent studies led by the author, the effects of these changes on service planning and delivery and the approach taken by local actors to mitigate their impact are highlighted. The statistical data show a marked decline in some types of services for older people during a five year period during which the city council took steps to mobilize citizens and develop new services and system improvements. The analysis focuses on theories of social quality as a framework for analysis of the complex picture of change related to service provision. It concludes that although citizen involvement and consultations exerted a positive influence in delivering support to some older people and carers, research over a longer timescale is needed to show if these changes are adequate to protect older people and carers from the effects of ongoing budgetary constraints

‘Sons of athelings given to the earth’: Infant Mortality within Anglo-Saxon Mortuary Geography

FOR 20 OR MORE YEARS early Anglo-Saxon archaeologists have believed children are underrepresented in the cemetery evidence. They conclude that excavation misses small bones, that previous attitudes to reporting overlook the very young, or that infants and children were buried elsewhere. This is all well and good, but we must be careful of oversimplifying compound social and cultural responses to childhood and infant mortality. Previous approaches have offered methodological quandaries in the face of this under-representation. However, proportionally more infants were placed in large cemeteries and sometimes in specific zones. This trend is statistically significant and is therefore unlikely to result entirely from preservation or excavation problems. Early medieval cemeteries were part of regional mortuary geographies and provided places to stage events that promoted social cohesion across kinship systems extending over tribal territories. This paper argues that patterns in early Anglo-Saxon infant burial were the result of female mobility. Many women probably travelled locally to marry in a union which reinforced existing social networks. For an expectant mother, however, the safest place to give birth was with experience women in her maternal home. Infant identities were affected by personal and legal association with their mother’s parental kindred, so when an infant died in childbirth or months and years later, it was their mother’s identity which dictated burial location. As a result, cemeteries central to tribal identities became places to bury the sons and daughters of a regional tribal aristocracy

When agreement-accepting free-riders are a necessary evil for the evolution of cooperation

Agreements and commitments have provided a novel mechanism to promote cooperation in social dilemmas in both one-shot and repeated games. Individuals requesting others to commit to cooperate (proposers) incur a cost, while their co-players are not necessarily required to pay any, allowing them to free-ride on the proposal investment cost (acceptors). Although there is a clear complementarity in these behaviours, no dynamic evidence is currently available that proves that they coexist in different forms of commitment creation. Using a stochastic evolutionary model allowing for mixed population states, we identify non-trivial roles of acceptors as well as the importance of intention recognition in commitments. In the one-shot prisoner's dilemma, alliances between proposers and acceptors are necessary to isolate defectors when proposers do not know the acceptance intentions of the others. However, when the intentions are clear beforehand, the proposers can emerge by themselves. In repeated games with noise, the incapacity of proposers and acceptors to set up alliances makes the emergence of the first harder whenever the latter are present. As a result, acceptors will exploit proposers and take over the population when an apology-forgiveness mechanism with too low apology cost is introduced, and hence reduce the overall cooperation level.SCOPUS: ar.jinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe