Ohio Livestock Waste Management Guide

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Library Cooperation and Change

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Report CR-A-219-B - Cabo Verde Estudo do Sector Agrícola

A. A Singularidade de Cabo Verde Cabo Verde e unica entre a familia de na90es. ~ uma republica de ilhas (Fig. 1.1) suficientemente distanciadas umas das outras e do continente africano (600 km) para dissuadir visitas imprevistas ou fortuitas. Seu isolamento serviu para fortalecer sua singular cultura crioula, porem a cllsta de contactos frequentes com influencias e inforrna90es externas. Cabo Verde e muito pequeno. Sua popula9ao de 300.000 habitantes, que mal chegaria para tornar uma cidade auto-suficiente num complexo industrial, esta dividida entre nove ilhas. A capital, Praia, conta somente com 23.000 habitantes, e e, essencialmente, urna pequena e simpatica cidade onde a maior parte dos vercursos pode ser feita a pe e onde encontros casuais entre funcionarios do governo sao provavelmente tao irnportantes quanto os formais meios de comunica9ao pelo telefone ou por escrito. Cabo Verde e tambem pequeno ern termos de area territorial, embora ocupe urna area relativamente grande de ocea~o. Sua superficie total e pouco mais de 4.000 km2 , porem suas nove ilhas principais estao espalhadas por uma POr9aO grande, quadrangular, do Atlantico medindo aproximadamente 240 qUilometros de urn lado. A superficie total (nao incluindo partes da plataforma continental que se estende para alem do litoral externo das ilhas) e comparavel as republicas de Togo ou Sri Lanka, ou cerca de metade da Guatemala. A nao ser pelo servi90 de barcas entre Fogo e Brava, e entre Sao Vicente e Santo Antao, as ilhas estao demasiado distantes entre si para urn conveniente transporte maritimo. Avioes sao, portanto, essenciais as comunica90es e trafego entre as ilhas, embora para transac90es lentas e volurnosas 0 transporte maritimo, seja por embarca90es a vela ou a motor, e sempre urna alternativa devido aos ventos constantes e condi90es atmosfericas geralmente boas

Angiopoietin-2 attenuates angiotensin II-induced aortic aneurysm and atherosclerosis in apolipoprotein E-deficient mice

Angiogenesis and inflammation are implicated in aortic aneurysm and atherosclerosis and regulated by angiopoietin-2 (Angpt2). The effect of Angpt2 administration on experimental aortic aneurysm and atherosclerosis was examined. Six-month-old male apolipoprotein E deficient (ApoE⁻/⁻) mice were infused with angiotensin II (AngII) and administered subcutaneous human Fc-protein (control) or recombinant Angpt2 (rAngpt2) over 14 days. Administration of rAngpt2 significantly inhibited AngII-induced aortic dilatation and rupture of the suprarenal aorta (SRA), and development of atherosclerosis within the aortic arch. These effects were blood pressure and plasma lipoprotein independent and associated with Tie2 activation and down-regulation of monocyte chemotactic protein-1 (MCP-1) within the SRA. Plasma concentrations of MCP-1 and interleukin-6 were significantly lower in mice receiving rAngpt2. Immunostaining for the monocyte/macrophage marker MOMA-2 and the angiogenesis marker CD31 within the SRA were less in mice receiving rAngpt2 than controls. The percentage of inflammatory (Ly6Cʰⁱ) monocytes within the bone marrow was increased while that in peripheral blood was decreased by rAngpt2 administration. In conclusion, administration of rAngpt2 attenuated angiotensin II-induced aortic aneurysm and atherosclerosis in ApoE⁻/⁻ mice associated with reduced aortic inflammation and angiogenesis. Up-regulation of Angpt2 may have potential therapeutic value in patients with aortic aneurysm and atherosclerosis

The service delivery process : An examination of how consumers evaluate technology-assisted service encounters in the retail banking industry

This study examined consumers\u27 perceptions post-adoption of technology and how these perceptions affect their levels of dis/satisfaction and their continued use of technology·assisted service encounters. To this end, this study investigated the criteria that consumers in Western Australia\u27s retail banking industry are likely to use when evaluating banking transactions involving EFTPOS, ATM, telephone, and Online banking modes. II examined whether these criteria changed with the mode of electronic banking in use and whether the significance of the criteria changed with consumers\u27 demographic characteristics. In addition, this study explored whether consumers who use these modes of electronic banking experience the paradoxes of technology adoption identified by Mick and Foumier (1998). Previous studies have shown that when evaluating the quality of services provided by organizations and their levels of dis/satisfaction with these services. Consumers are likely to base their judgements on their perceptions of the service delivery process (Lehtinen & Lehtinen, 1982; Brogowicz, Delene, & Lyth, 1990; Dllllllher & Mattsson, 1994; Danaher & Mattsson, 1998; Gronroos, 1998; Swam:, 1998). In particular, the studies have shown that the most significant element of the service delivery process is personal contact, that Is the interactions between organisations\u27 personnel and their customers (Sclmeider & Bowen, 1985; LeBIIUic & Nguyen, 1988; Parasuraman, Zeithaml, & Beny, 198fl; Howcroft, 1993; Donner & Dudley, 1997; Nichols, Gilbert, & Roslow, 1998; Tan, Beaumont, \u26 Freeman, 1999; Gabbott & Hogg, 2000). However, technological advancements have meant that some service organisations have changed their service delivery processes by substituting contact personnel with service delivery technologies. Consequently, consumers have been producing and delivering services for themselves by interacting with the service delivery technologies that are available (Bancel-charensol, 1999). Researchers assert that changing the characteristics of the service delivery process can result in changes in how consumers evaluate the quality of services provided by organisations and how they assess their resulting levels of dis/satisfaction (Chase, 1978; Lovelock & Young, 1979; Gronroos, 1984; Zeithaml, Parasuraman, & Beny, 1990). As such, this study examined the effects that retail banking technologies have on consumers\u27 evaluations of the service encounter and how these evaluations translate into usage patterns. Data were collected using qualitative and quantitative research methodologies. The minimum of the qualitative phase of the study was to identify the criteria that consumers are likely to use when evaluating their technology-based banking transactions and the paradoxes of technology adoption that they are likely to experience. Twenty in-depth interviews were conducted with consumers who reported they use at least one of the four modes of electronic banking. The interviews were tape-recorded and analysed using N.U.D.I.S.T. software. The second phase of the study examined consumers\u27 opinions towards relevant criteria identified in the qualitative phase and the effect these criteria have on consumers\u27 use of the four modes of el«1ronic banking. Data for this stage were collected through a mail survey questionnaire that was mailed out to a sample of 1700 Western Australians. In total, 453 useable questionnaires were returned. The data were imported into SPSS v. 10 and analysed using non-parametric statistics. This study showed that consumers are likely to evaluate their electronic banking service encounters on the basis of perceived convenience, transaction aids available, and perceived risk. The findings also indicate that these criteria have sub dimensions. Perceived convenience relates to the perceived ease of transactions, perceived speed of transactions, and accessibility to consumers\u27 transaction accounts from different locations and beyond the bank\u27s traditional operating hours. The transaction aids include the voice prompts available with telephone banking and the visual cues available with Online banking. Perceived risk dimensions include psychological, performance, financial, and physical risks. The present study also showed that some criteria have a greater effect on consumers\u27 use of some modes of electronic banking than others. For instance, in regards to voice prompts, psychological and performance risks appeared to have an effect on the number of tell-phone banking transactions consumers are likely to conduct. Consumers who use electronic banking can experience six of the eight paradoxes of technology adoption identified by Mick and Fournier (199g): freedom/enslavement, control/chaos, engaging/disengaging, efficiency/inefficiency, fulfils/create needs, and competence/incompetence. The findings showed that in most case one side of the paradox dominates. It appears that existing theories, instruments, and techniques of evaluating the service encounter need to be adapted to be applicable to technology-assisted service encounter;. Specifically, these theories, instruments, and techniques need to minimise or exclude elements that require consumers to evaluate their interactions with and perceptions of organisations\u27 customer service personnel and replace them with dimensions relating to consumers’ interactions with the technologies that facilitate the service delivery process. However, an exception needs to be made for technology-assisted service encounters conducted using the telephone because in these service encounters consumers can access organisations\u27 customer service representatives, The findings were used to propose the TASE (technology-assisted service encounters) model, which includes items relating to the three main dimensions of perceived convenience, transaction aids, and perceived risk. The TASE model can be adapted and used to measure consumers’ evaluation of the service delivery processes of organisations in various service industries. The findings of this study have significant managerial applications. Organisations can use these findings to assess the viability of commercial technologies that they intend to implement by examining consumers\u27 perceptions of new technologies based on the relevant criteria and paradoxes identified in this study. In addition, organizations can use these findings to develop promotional strategies that address consumers\u27 concerns about using technology-based service delivery options in order to encourage them to participate more in the service delivery process. In addition the proposed T ASE model can be used to develop an instrument for measuring consumers\u27 levels of dis/satisfaction with technology-based service encounters in general

Exploiting NMR spectroscopy for the study of disorder in solids

Although the solid state is typically characterised by inherent periodicity, many interesting physical and chemical properties of solids arise from a variation in this, i.e.,changes in the nature of the atom occupying a particular site in a crystal structure or variation in the position of an atom (or group of atoms) in different parts of a structure, or variation as a function of time. This lack of long-range order poses significant challenges,not just for the characterisation of the structure of disordered materials, but also simply for its description. The sensitivity of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy to the local, atomic-scale environment, without the requirement for long-range order, makes it a powerful tool for the study of disorder in the solid state. Information on the number and type(s) of coordinating atoms or through-space and through-bond connectivity between atomic species enables the construction of a detailed picture of the structure. After a brief description of the background theory of NMR spectroscopy, and the experimental methods employed, we will describe the effects of disorder on NMR spectra and the use of calculations to help interpret experimental measurements. We will then review a range of applications to different types of disordered materials, including oxides and ceramics,minerals, porous materials, biomaterials, energy materials, pharmaceuticals, polymers and glasses. We will discuss the most successful approaches for studying different materials,and illustrate the type of information available and the structural insight gained.PostprintPeer reviewe

\u3csup\u3e230\u3c/sup\u3eTh and \u3csup\u3e231\u3c/sup\u3ePa on GEOTRACES GA03, the U.S. GEOTRACES North Atlantic transect, and implications for modern and paleoceanographic chemical fluxes

The long-lived uranium decay products 230Th and 231Pa are widely used as quantitative tracers of adsorption to sinking particles (scavenging) in the ocean by exploiting the principles of radioactive disequilibria. Because of their preservation in the Pleistocene sediment record and through largely untested assumptions about their chemical behavior in the water column, the two radionuclides have also been used as proxies for a variety of chemical fluxes in the past ocean. This includes the vertical flux of particulate matter to the seafloor, the lateral flux of insoluble elements to continental margins (boundary scavenging), and the southward flux of water out of the deep North Atlantic. In a section of unprecedented vertical and zonal resolution, the distributions of 230Th and 231Pa across the North Atlantic shed light on the marine cycling of these radionuclides and further inform their use as tracers of chemical flux. Enhanced scavenging intensities are observed in benthic layers of resuspended sediments on the eastern and western margins and in a hydrothermal plume emanating from the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Boundary scavenging is clearly expressed in the water column along a transect between Mauritania and Cape Verde which is used to quantify a bias in sediment fluxes calculated using 230Th-normalization and to demonstrate enhanced 231Pa removal from the deep North Atlantic by this mechanism. The influence of deep ocean ventilation that leads to the southward export of 231Pa is apparent. The 231Pa/230Th ratio, however, predominantly reflects spatial variability in scavenging intensity, complicating its applicability as a proxy for the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation

230Th and 231Pa on GEOTRACES GA03, the U.S. GEOTRACES North Atlantic transect, and implications for modern and paleoceanographic chemical fluxes

The long-lived uranium decay products 230Th and 231Pa are widely used as quantitative tracers of adsorption to sinking particles (scavenging) in the ocean by exploiting the principles of radioactive disequilibria. Because of their preservation in the Pleistocene sediment record and through largely untested assumptions about their chemical behavior in the water column, the two radionuclides have also been used as proxies for a variety of chemical fluxes in the past ocean. This includes the vertical flux of particulate matter to the seafloor, the lateral flux of insoluble elements to continental margins (boundary scavenging), and the southward flux of water out of the deep North Atlantic. In a section of unprecedented vertical and zonal resolution, the distributions of 230Th and 231Pa across the North Atlantic shed light on the marine cycling of these radionuclides and further inform their use as tracers of chemical flux. Enhanced scavenging intensities are observed in benthic layers of resuspended sediments on the eastern and western margins and in a hydrothermal plume emanating from the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Boundary scavenging is clearly expressed in the water column along a transect between Mauritania and Cape Verde which is used to quantify a bias in sediment fluxes calculated using 230Th-normalization and to demonstrate enhanced 231Pa removal from the deep North Atlantic by this mechanism. The influence of deep ocean ventilation that leads to the southward export of 231Pa is apparent. The 231Pa/230Th ratio, however, predominantly reflects spatial variability in scavenging intensity, complicating its applicability as a proxy for the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation

Phase distribution, composition and disorder in Y2(Hf,Sn)2O7 ceramics : insights from solid-state NMR spectroscopy and first-principles calculations

The authors would like to thank the ERC (EU FP7 Consolidator Grant 614290 “‘EXONMR’”), and EPSRC for support for SS and ASG (EP/L005581/1). SEA would like to thank the Royal Society and Wolfson Foundation for a merit award. We acknowledge support from the Collaborative Computational Project on NMR Crystallography CCP-NC funded by EPSRC (EP/M022501/1).A NMR crystallographic approach, combining 89Y, 119Sn and 17O NMR spectroscopy with X-ray diffraction and first-principles calculations has been used investigate the number and type of phases present, and the local structure and disorder in Y2Hf2–xSnxO7 ceramics. Although a phase change is predicted with increasing Hf content, NMR spectra clearly show the presence of a significant two-phase region, with a Sn-rich pyrochlore and relatively Hf-rich defect fluorite phase co-existing for much of the compositional series. A single-phase pyrochlore is found only for the Sn end member, and a single defect fluorite phase only for x = 0 to 0.2. A solid-solution limit of ~10% is seen for the substitution of Hf into Y2Sn2O7, although no evidence is seen for any cation ordering or antisite disorder in this phase. In the defect fluorite phase there is preferential ordering of oxygen vacancies around Sn, which is only ever seen in a six-coordinate environment. The remaining vacancies are more likely to be associated with Hf than with Y, although this distinction is less apparent at higher Sn concentrations. To acquire 17O NMR spectra samples were post-synthetically exchanged with 17O2(g), although high temperatures (> 900 ºC) were required to ensure uniform enrichment of different chemical species. although these 17O NMR spectra confirm the formation of mixed-metal materials and the presence of two phases, more quantitative analysis is hindered by the overlap of signals from pyrochlore and defect fluorite phases. In all cases, DFT calculations play a vital role in the interpretation and assignment of the NMR spectra, and in understanding the local structure and disorder in these complex multi-phase materials.PostprintPostprintPeer reviewe

Did Ebola emerge in West Africa by a policy-driven phase change in agroecology? Ebola's social context

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