The Battle for Higher Standards

In the aftermath of the federal mandates imposed through No Child Left Behind, the state-led effort to establish common math and English standards across states—known as the Common Core State Standards—seemed a welcome change in the approach to improving student achievement and success. However, the effort to ensure that students were ready for college or the workforce became the political target of those who distrust federal mandates and fear a nationalized education agenda bent on social engineering. The standards became intertwined with NSA spying, data mining, and federal grants for education with strings attached

Determination of agro-environmental zones in Spain and sensitivity to global climatic change

Póster presentado en la Conferencia EGU 2013, 07-12 Abril 2013, Viena, AustriaSoil has a key role in the regulation of carbon, water and nutrient cycles. Traditionally, agricultural soil management was oriented towards optimizing productivity. Nowadays, mitigation of climate change effects and maintaining long-term soil quality are evenly important. Developing policy guidelines for best management practices need to be site-specific, given the large spatial variability of environmental conditions within the EU. Therefore, it is necessary to classify the different farming zones that are susceptible to soil degradation. Especially in Mediterranean areas, this variability and its susceptibility to degradation is higher than in other areas of the EU. The objective of this study is therefore to delineate current agro-environmental zones in Spain and to determine the effect of global climate change on this classification in the future. The final objective is to assist policy makers in scenario analysis with respect to soil conservation. Our classification scheme is based on soil, topography and climate (seasonal temperature and rainfall) variables. We calculated slope and elevation based on a SRTM-derived DEM, soil texture was extracted from the European Soil Database and seasonal mean, minimum and maximum precipitation and temperature data were gridded from publically available weather station data (Aemet). Global change scenarios are average downscaled ensemble predictions for the emission scenarios A2 and B2. The k-means method was used for classification of the 10 km x 10 km gridded variables. Using the before-mentioned input variables, the optimal number of agro-environmental zones we obtained is 8. The classification corresponds well with the observed distribution of farming typologies in Spain. The advantage of this method is that it is a simple, objective method which uses only readily available, public data. As such, its extrapolation to other countries of the EU is straightforward. Finally, it presents a tool for policy makers to assess the impact of global change on farming systems and to plan soil conservation measures

Earthquake Assessment of Critical Structures for Route US 60 Missouri

The Missouri Department of Transportation initiated a study of that segment of Route US 60 that has been officially designated as “emergency vehicle priority access”. The objectives were to establish a current subsurface and earthquake design geographic information systems (GIS) database for the designated US 60 corridor, and to conduct detailed earthquake assessments at two critical bridge sites along US 60. Databases have been established for current subsurface and earthquake data for the US Route 60 corridor in Butler, Stoddard and New Madrid Counties. These databases serve as the beginning of a larger regional or statewide database for future development and usage by MoDOT. Detailed earthquake site assessments have been conducted for two critical US 60 roadway bridge sites (Wahite Ditch and St. Francis River Bridge). Liquefaction potential, slope stability, abutment stability, and structure stability analysis were performed at both sites for selected “worst case scenario synthetic bedrock ground motions” based on New Madrid source zone earthquakes with 2% and 10% probabilities of exceedance in fifty years. Site assessments indicate that both the Wahite Ditch and St. Francis River bridges could be rendered unusable by strong ground motion with a 2% probability of exceedance in the next fifty years. Studies indicate that the bridge themselves would not fail - rather they would probably be rendered unusable because of damage to their abutments and the failure of their approaches (as a result of slope instability and liquefaction). Problems could be exacerbated by the localized flooding as a result of levee failure and/or damage to the Wappapello Dam. A scheme of retrofit of these structures will be developed later

Some problems of the determination of best management practices to maintain the quality of agricultural soils

Póster presentado en la Conferencia ELS 2014, 22-25 Septiembre 2014, Bari, ItaliaIn spite of the great effort of scientific research exploring the influence of agricultural practices on soil quality, many aspects remain unclear, possibly precluding a more general adoption of the best management systems by farmers and land use planners. Among other causes of this knowledge gap, the wide variety of agricultural practices due to different climates, landforms, soils, and crop types make hard to find either a general best management system or at least common rules of larger applicability. Nevertheless the more important problem is that we usually consider soil as an invariant entity which does not change, or if it does, its changes are controlled. The purpose of this report is the discussion of the results of a meta-analysis of the effects of agricultural management practices on physical aspects of soil quality, throughout the published research data of countries of the central and western part of the European continent. Soil physical quality was evaluated through several indicators which were evaluated in the research reports found. The indicators were: bulk density, resistance to penetration, stability of aggregates, permeability and water and sediment yield. The results indicate that there are agricultural practices which could be classified as convenient, although their possible advantages are not always evident, as, for instance, direct drilling as compared to conventional tillage, where the farm operations induce a certain compaction not always alleviated in absence of tillage. To further explore some of the results, the evolution of some properties of a clay soil subject to a long term experiment in dry farming conditions in southern Spain is considered. The evolution of the soil properties must be taken into account, for a more precise evaluation of the efficiency of management practices

Earthquake Hazard Assessment along Designated Emergency Vehicle Priority Access Routes

Because of the compelling need to reopen vehicular access routes to Sikeston, Cape Girardeau and St. Louis following a devastating earthquake, Missouri Department of Transportation initiated a study of those portions of US 60 and MO 100 that have been officially designated as emergency vehicle priority access routes. The primary objectives of this study were twofold. Objective 1 was to establish a current subsurface and earthquake design geographic information systems (GIS) database for areas in proximity to designated portions of US 60 and MO 100 (includes counties of Butler, Stoddard, New Madrid, Franklin and St. Louis). Objective 2 was to conduct detailed earthquake assessments at two sites along designated emergency access route US 60. Databases have been established for current subsurface and earthquake design data for the US 60 corridor in Butler, Stoddard and New Madrid counties and for the MO 100 corridor in Franklin and St. Louis counties. These databases serve as the beginning of a larger regional or statewide database for future development and usage by Missouri Department of Transportation. Detailed earthquake site assessments were conducted for two critical US 60 roadway bridge sites (Wahite Ditch Bridge and St. Francis River Bridge). Liquifaction potential, slope stability, flooding potential, abutment stability, and structure stability analyses were performed at both sites for selected worst case scenario synthetic bedrock ground motions based on New Madrid source zone earthquakes with 2% and 10 % probabilities of exceedance in fifty years

Prognosis for long-term survival and renal recovery in critically ill patients with severe acute renal failure: a population-based study

INTRODUCTION: Severe acute renal failure (sARF) is associated with considerable morbidity, mortality and use of healthcare resources; however, its precise epidemiology and long-term outcomes have not been well described in a non-specified population. METHODS: Population-based surveillance was conducted among all adult residents of the Calgary Health Region (population 1 million) admitted to multidisciplinary and cardiovascular surgical intensive care units between May 1 1999 and April 30 2002. Clinical records were reviewed and outcome at 1 year was assessed. RESULTS: sARF occurred in 240 patients (11.0 per 100,000 population/year). Rates were highest in males and older patients (≥65 years of age). Risk factors for development of sARF included previous heart disease, stroke, pulmonary disease, diabetes mellitus, cancer, connective tissue disease, chronic renal dysfunction, and alcoholism. The annual mortality rate was 7.3 per 100,000 population with rates highest in males and those ≥65 years. The 28-day, 90-day, and 1-year case-fatality rates were 51%, 60%, and 64%, respectively. Increased Charlson co-morbidity index, presence of liver disease, higher APACHE II score, septic shock, and need for continuous renal replacement therapy were independently associated with death at 1 year. Renal recovery occurred in 78% (68/87) of survivors at 1 year. CONCLUSION: sARF is common and males, older patients, and those with underlying medical conditions are at greatest risk. Although the majority of patients with sARF will die, most survivors will become independent from renal replacement therapy within a year

Inhaled nitric oxide therapy in neonates and children: reaching a European consensus

Inhaled nitric oxide (iNO) was first used in neonatal practice in 1992 and has subsequently been used extensively in the management of neonates and children with cardiorespiratory failure. This paper assesses evidence for the use of iNO in this population as presented to a consensus meeting jointly organised by the European Society of Paediatric and Neonatal Intensive Care, the European Society of Paediatric Research and the European Society of Neonatology. Consensus Guidelines on the Use of iNO in Neonates and Children were produced following discussion of the evidence at the consensus meeting

Performance of a fully‐automated system on a WHO malaria microscopy evaluation slide set

Background: Manual microscopy remains a widely-used tool for malaria diagnosis and clinical studies, but it has inconsistent quality in the field due to variability in training and field practices. Automated diagnostic systems based on machine learning hold promise to improve quality and reproducibility of field microscopy. The World Health Organization (WHO) has designed a 55-slide set (WHO 55) for their External Competence Assessment of Malaria Microscopists (ECAMM) programme, which can also serve as a valuable benchmark for automated systems. The performance of a fully-automated malaria diagnostic system, EasyScan GO, on a WHO 55 slide set was evaluated. Methods: The WHO 55 slide set is designed to evaluate microscopist competence in three areas of malaria diagnosis using Giemsa-stained blood films, focused on crucial field needs: malaria parasite detection, malaria parasite species identification (ID), and malaria parasite quantitation. The EasyScan GO is a fully-automated system that combines scanning of Giemsa-stained blood films with assessment algorithms to deliver malaria diagnoses. This system was tested on a WHO 55 slide set. Results: The EasyScan GO achieved 94.3 % detection accuracy, 82.9 % species ID accuracy, and 50 % quantitation accuracy, corresponding to WHO microscopy competence Levels 1, 2, and 1, respectively. This is, to our knowledge, the best performance of a fully-automated system on a WHO 55 set. Conclusions: EasyScan GO’s expert ratings in detection and quantitation on the WHO 55 slide set point towards its potential value in drug efficacy use-cases, as well as in some case management situations with less stringent species ID needs. Improved runtime may enable use in general case management settings