Spatially resolved monthly riverine fluxes of oxidised nitrogen (nitrate and nitrite) to the European shelf seas, 1960-2005

This report documents the methodology developed for statistically modelling the spatial and temporal patterns of oxidised nitrogen (nitrate plus nitrite) riverine fluxes into the coastal waters of northwestern Europe, over the period 1960-2005. The purpose of the study was to provide boundary data for a modelling study of new primary production in European waters. For the UK and Ireland, monthly freshwater discharges to a set of grid cells around the coastline were modelled from rainfall data and calibrated from detailed analyses performed for a subset of years with contrasting climatology. The mean and long-term trends in nitrate and nitrite content of the river discharges were modelled from Harmonised Monitoring Scheme data and flux estimates for each of the years of contrasting climateology. The product of the discharge rate and nitrogen content provided estimates of the monthly flux to each grid cell. Scandinavian inputs of nitrate and nitrite to the North Sea, Skagerrak and Kattegat were assembled from a composite of statistically modelled freshwater discharge, and recent estimates of nitrogen flux from national monitoring agencies. Fluxes of nitrate and nitrite from the rivers flowing into the North Sea from Germany, Netherlands and Belgium during 1960-2005 were assembled from previous analyses by researchers at the University of Hamburg. Nitrate and nitrite fluxes from French rivers flowing into the English Channel, in particular the Seine, were indirectly derived by correlation with the River Scheldt, calibrated from published estimates of annual fluxes. The results show the total oxidised nitrogen input to European shelf seas increasing from approximately 0.6Mt pa. in the 1960's to 1.2Mt pa. in the mid-1980's. Recent estimates of the annual flux since 2000 have been approximately 1.1Mt pa. Around 60-70% of the total annual flux to the northwest European shelf enters via the North Sea. Winter input rates are approximately twice those in the summer in all areas except the Skagerrak/Kattegat

Communique, 26 January 2004

Main story: "Netware? Beware!". Second story: "Web cache-'n'-carry shuts up shop". Item: "Basement jacks for self-service musicians...". Item: "No-strings-attached networking". Feature: "ISS-Windows98 relationship: the 5-year ditch?". Contact information: "Contacting Information Systems Services"

Is My Exercise Partner Similar Enough? Partner Characteristics as a Moderator of the Köhler Effect in Exergames

Objective: Recent research has shown the Köhler motivation gain effect (working at a task with a more capable partner where one's performance is indispensable to the group) leads to greater effort in partnered exercise videogame play. The purpose of this article was to examine potential moderators of the Köhler effect by exploring dissimilarities in one's partner's appearance, namely, having an older partner (compared with a same-age partner) and having a heavier-weight partner (compared with a same-weight partner). Subjects and Methods: One hundred fifty-three male and female college students completed a series of plank exercises using the “EyeToy: Kinetic™” for the PlayStation® 2 (Sony, Tokyo, Japan). Participants first completed the exercises individually and, after a rest, completed the same exercises with a virtually present partner. Exercise persistence, subjective effort, self-efficacy beliefs, enjoyment, and intentions to exercise were recorded and analyzed. Results: A significant Köhler motivation gain was observed in all partner conditions (compared with individual controls) such that participants with a partner held the plank exercises longer (P<0.001) and reported higher subjective effort (P<0.01). These results were unmoderated by partner's age and weight, with one exception: Males tended to persist longer when paired with an obese partner (P=0.08). Conclusions: These results suggest that differences in age and weight do not attenuate the Köhler effect in exergames and may even strengthen it

Boston University Medical Center: Perspectives on Health Policy

Report of a symposium held at the Boston University Medical Center

Persistent punishment : users views of short prison sentences

Semi-structured interviews were conducted of 22 prisoners to gather information about the characteristic features of short prison sentences. Themes raised in comments included: the frequency and quality of sentences, addiction, family, and penal legitimacy. Most of the participants had extensive experience of prison, and the effects of this played out across sentences and years, accumulating and amplifying impacts. And, despite expressions of guilt and remorse, most participants saw their sentence as unjust, and mainly a reaction to offending history. We conclude by suggesting the need for research to shift focus from evaluating individual penal interventions towards more holistic and narrative accounts that cut across sentences

The President\u27s Task Force on 21st Century Policing: Final Report

The task force recommendations are presented under six topics: Building Trust and Legitimacy, Policy and Oversight, Technology and Social Media, Community Policing and Crime Reduction, Officer Training and Education, and Officer Safety and Wellness. Each of the recommendations in these topic areas include suggested action steps. One of two overarching recommendations is that the President support the establishment of a National Crime and Justice Task Force to examine all areas of criminal justice and pose reforms. As a corollary to this recommendation, the second overarching recommendation is that the President support programs that take a comprehensive and inclusive look at community-based initiatives that address core issues such as poverty, education, and health and safety. The basic principle underlying the task force\u27s recommendations is that Trust between law enforcement agencies and the people they protect and serve is essential in a democracy. It is key to the stability of our communities, the integrity of our criminal justice system, and the safe and effective delivery of policing services. There are a total of 59 recommendations for research, action, and further study. Together they are designed to bring long-term improvement in the ways law enforcement agencies interact with and bring positive change to their communities Some proposals are designated for immediate action. The task force held seven listening sessions, which were conducted in Washington, DC; Phoenix, AZ; and Cincinnati, OH. These sessions involved approximately 100 individuals from diverse stakeholder groups. Appended listing of session witnesses, biographies of task force members, and individuals and organizations that submitted written testimon

Emission-aware Energy Storage Scheduling for a Greener Grid

Reducing our reliance on carbon-intensive energy sources is vital for reducing the carbon footprint of the electric grid. Although the grid is seeing increasing deployments of clean, renewable sources of energy, a significant portion of the grid demand is still met using traditional carbon-intensive energy sources. In this paper, we study the problem of using energy storage deployed in the grid to reduce the grid's carbon emissions. While energy storage has previously been used for grid optimizations such as peak shaving and smoothing intermittent sources, our insight is to use distributed storage to enable utilities to reduce their reliance on their less efficient and most carbon-intensive power plants and thereby reduce their overall emission footprint. We formulate the problem of emission-aware scheduling of distributed energy storage as an optimization problem, and use a robust optimization approach that is well-suited for handling the uncertainty in load predictions, especially in the presence of intermittent renewables such as solar and wind. We evaluate our approach using a state of the art neural network load forecasting technique and real load traces from a distribution grid with 1,341 homes. Our results show a reduction of >0.5 million kg in annual carbon emissions -- equivalent to a drop of 23.3% in our electric grid emissions.Comment: 11 pages, 7 figure, This paper will appear in the Proceedings of the ACM International Conference on Future Energy Systems (e-Energy 20) June 2020, Australi

Getting the inactive active : implications for public health policy

Epidemiological data have established that a sedentary lifestyle increases the incidence of at least 17 medical conditions. The evidence is strongest for coronary heart disease. A sedentary lifestyle is now the normal lifestyle for the majority of the populations in developed countries and relapse from regular physical activity is also high. Thus there is clear need for public policy aimed at increasing the physical activity levels in the population. Policy makers have begun to respond to this need and recently Scottish and English plans for increasing physical activity levels in the populations have been published

Decreasing spatial disorientation in care-home settings: How psychology can guide the development of dementia friendly design guidelines

Alzheimer’s disease results in marked declines in navigation skills that are particularly pronounced in unfamiliar environments. However, many people with Alzheimer’s disease eventually face the challenge of having to learn their way around unfamiliar environments when moving into assisted living or care-homes. People with Alzheimer’s disease would have an easier transition moving to new residences if these larger, and often more institutional, environments were designed to compensate for decreasing orientation skills. However, few existing dementia friendly design guidelines specifically address orientation and wayfinding. Those that do are often based on custom, practice or intuition and not well integrated with psychological and neuroscientific knowledge or navigation research, therefore often remaining unspecific. This paper discusses current dementia friendly design guidelines, reports findings from psychological and neuropsychological experiments on navigation and evaluates their potential for informing design guidelines that decrease spatial disorientation for people with dementia