Impact of pig slurry amendments on phosphorus, suspended sediment and metal losses in laboratory runoff boxes under simulated rainfall

peer-reviewedLosses of phosphorus (P) when pig slurry applications to land are followed by a rainfall event or losses from soils with high P contents can contribute to eutrophication of receiving waters. The addition of amendments to pig slurry spread on high P Index soils may reduce P and suspended sediment (SS) losses. This hypothesis was tested at laboratory-scale using runoff boxes under simulated rainfall conditions. Intact grassed soil samples, 100 cm-long, 22.5 cm-wide and 5 cm-deep, were placed in runoff boxes and pig slurry or amended pig slurry was applied to the soil surface. The amendments examined were: (1) commercial grade liquid alum (8% Al2O3) applied at a rate of 0.88:1 [Al:total phosphorus (TP)] (2) commercial-grade liquid ferric chloride (38% FeCl3) applied at a rate of 0.89:1 [Fe:TP] and (3) commercial-grade liquid poly-aluminium chloride (PAC) (10% Al2O3) applied at a rate of 0.72:1 [Al:TP]. The grassed soil was then subjected to three rainfall events (10.3 ± 0.15 mm h−1) at time intervals of 48, 72, and 96 h following slurry application. Each sod received rainfall on 3 occasions. Results across three rainfall events showed that for the control treatment, the average flow weighted mean concentration (FWMC) of TP was 0.61 mg L−1, of which 31% was particulate phosphorus (PP), and the average FWMC of SS was 38.1 mg L−1. For the slurry treatment, there was an average FWMC of 2.2 mg TP L−1, 47% of which was PP, and the average FWMC of SS was 71.5 mg L−1. Ranked in order of effectiveness from best to worst, PAC reduced the average FWMC of TP to 0.64 mg L−1 (42% PP), FeCl3 reduced TP to 0.91 mg L−1 (52% PP) and alum reduced TP to 1.08 mg L−1 (56% PP). The amendments were in the same order when ranked for effectiveness at reducing SS: PAC (74%), FeCl3 (66%) and alum (39%). Total phosphorus levels in runoff plots receiving amended slurry remained above those from soil only, indicating that, although incidental losses could be mitigated by chemical amendment, chronic losses from the high P index soil in the current study could not be reduced.The first author gratefully acknowledges the award of the EMBARK scholarship from IRCSET to support this study

Endoscopic Management of an Internal Laryngopyocele Presenting with Acute Airway Obstruction

Statement of Problem. Laryngocele is a rare laryngeal disease, where there is an abnormal dilatation of the saccule of the laryngeal ventricle. It can either be internal or external, and a laryngopyocele is a rare complication of this anomaly. Internal laryngopyoceles can prove difficult to manage, as they often present with airway compromise. Method of Study. Case Report. Results. We present a case of a laryngopyocele that was successfully managed with suspension laryngoscopy and endoscopic marsupialisation and resection. To our knowledge, this is the first such case described in the literature. Conclusions. Surgical drainage of a laryngopyocele via the external approach is well documented in the literature. We feel that endoscopic resection of laryngopyoceles in an emergency situation is a viable alternative and also prevents the associated surgical morbidity

Relevance of anatomy to medical education and clinical practice: perspectives of medical students, clinicians, and educators

Introduction: Against a backdrop of ever-changing diagnostic and treatment modalities, stakeholder perceptions (medical students, clinicians, anatomy educators) are crucial for the design of an anatomy curriculum which fulfils the criteria required for safe medical practice. This study compared perceptions of students, practising clinicians, and anatomy educators with respect to the relevance of anatomy education to medicine. Methods: A quantitative survey was administered to undergraduate entry (n = 352) and graduate entry students (n = 219) at two Irish medical schools, recently graduated Irish clinicians (n = 146), and anatomy educators based in Irish and British medical schools (n = 30). Areas addressed included the association of anatomy with medical education and clinical practice, mode of instruction, and curriculum duration. Results: Graduate-entry students were less likely to associate anatomy with the development of professionalism, teamwork skills, or improved awareness of ethics in medicine. Clinicians highlighted the challenge of tailoring anatomy education to increase student readiness to function effectively in a clinical role. Anatomy educators indicated dissatisfaction with the time available for anatomy within medical curricula, and were equivocal about whether curriculum content should be responsive to societal feedback. Conclusions: The group differences identified in the current study highlight areas and requirements which medical education curriculum developers should be sensitive to when designing anatomy courses

Flexible antenna on polymer-conductive textile composite for epidermal electronics

In this paper, we investigate the applicability of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS)-conductive textile composite for realization of a robust flexible antenna for skin-mounted applications. For this purpose, we present the design, manufacture, and testing of an ultra high frequency (UHF) 868 MHz loop antenna with the specified material. The antenna performance has been investigated through simulations and measurements on a human forearm phantom. Apart from having a low-profile implementation and being mechanically flexible, and thus comfortable for on-skin use, the novel antenna presented demonstrates a wide operating bandwidth with acceptable gain for epidermal electronics

A concertina-shaped vibration energy harvester-assisted NFC sensor with improved wireless communication range

The explosive growth of wireless sensor platforms and their emerging wide range of application areas make the development of a sustainable and robust power source, an essential requirement to enable widespread deployment of these wireless devices. As a solution to this cardinal issue, this paper reports the design and fabrication of a resonant Vibration Energy Harvester (VEH) that comprises interleaved springs, manifesting a concertina shaped structure that can enable large mechanical amplitudes of oscillation. Within a relatively small footprint (9cm3), this concertina-VEH yields a large power density of 455.6μW/cm3g2 while operating at a resonant frequency of 75Hz. Additionally, the feasibility of the implemented VEH to support NFC based wireless sensor platform, that is yet uncharted, is also investigated in this work. A very low-power consumption Near Field Communication (NFC) wireless sensor node has been designed and developed for this purpose. The developed concertina VEH has been employed to power the electronics interface of this NFC sensor. Using mechanical energy derived from as low as 0.2g excitation, our study shows that the VEH can enhance the electromagnetic interaction between the transmitting antenna and the reader, resulting in a 120% increase in wireless communication range for the NFC sensor node. Such a high-performance energy harvester assisted NFC sensor node has the potential to be used in a wide range of Internet of Things (IoT) platforms as a reliable and sustainable power solution

3D interconnection by FIB assisted Pt deposition and electroless nickel deposition on the sides and edges of an I-Seed

This paper reports on the development of a 3D interconnection process leading to the successful assembly of a five-layer 3-D 1mm cube module. This proof of concept module demonstrates the capability for successful integration and interconnection of commercial off the shelf components to fabricate functional modules in 1mm cube dimensions. It also demonstrates that use of established volume scale technologies like Flip-chip, dicing and patterning techniques are viable for fabricating these 1mm modules. The demonstrator consists of LED's bonded to the six sides of the 1mm cube, interconnected and powered up. The work will particularly report on two different processes to fabricate the interconnection pattern using direct Focused Ion Beam (FIB) assisted Pt deposition and electroless metal deposition, which again patterned by FIB. Uniform thickness of the deposit and excellent coverage on all six sides is achieved by electroless nickel deposition. Voltage current characterisation of the deposited Pt shows a resistivity value of 1864 +/- 100 mu Omega cm, whereas electroless Ni film shows a resistivity of 25 mu Omega cm due to boron inclusion. 100 nm An layer is deposited by chemical displacement reaction to enhance the conductivity and solderability of the film

Screen printed epidermal antenna for IoT health monitoring

In this paper, we investigate the applicability of screen printable elastic silver ink on thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) substrate for the realization of a flexible/stretchable antenna for direct implementation on human skin. For this purpose, we present the design, manufacture, and testing of an ultra- high frequency (UHF) 868 MHz loop antenna with the specified material. The antenna performance has been investigated through simulations and measurements on a human forearm phantom, including indoor wireless communication tests, demonstrating its potential for short-range IoT health monitoring applications

Adam Smith’s Green Thumb and Malthus’ Three Horsemen: Cautionary tales from classical political economy

This essay identifies a contradiction between the flourishing interest in the environmental economics of the classical period and a lack of critical parsing of the works of its leading representatives. Its focus is the work of Adam Smith and Thomas Malthus. It offers a critical analysis of their contribution to environmental thought and surveys the work of their contemporary devotees. It scrutinizes Smith's contribution to what Karl Polanyi termed the "economistic fallacy," as well as his defenses of class hierarchy, the "growth imperative" and consumerism. It subjects to critical appraisal Malthus's enthusiasm for private property and the market system, and his opposition to market regulation. While Malthus's principal attraction to ecological economists lies in his having allegedly broadened the scope of economics, and in his narrative of scarcity, this article shows that he, in fact, narrowed the scope of the discipline and conceptualized scarcity in a reified and pseudo-scientific way

Rising to Ostrom’s challenge:An invitation to walk on the bright side of public governance and public service

In this programmatic essay, we argue that public governance scholarship would benefit from developing a self-conscious and cohesive strand of "positive" scholarship, akin to social science subfields like positive psychology, positive organizational studies, and positive evaluation. We call for a program of research devoted to uncovering the factors and mechanisms that enable high performing public policies and public service delivery mechanisms; procedurally and distributively fair processes of tackling societal conflicts; and robust and resilient ways of coping with threats and risks. The core question driving positive public administration scholarship should be: Why is it that particular public policies, programs, organizations, networks, or partnerships manage do much better than others to produce widely valued societal outcomes, and how might knowledge of this be used to advance institutional learning from positives

Inside out: Fusing 3D imaging modalities for the internal and external investigation of multi-material museum objects

3D imaging methods are increasingly employed in cultural heritage research to analyse and document objects in museum collections. In this work, we provide an interactive visualisation plugin for the open-source software Blender, to combine and inspect two complementary 3D imaging modalities: CT images, which capture the interior; and surface scans, which capture the exterior. 3D CT scan data can be visualised, both as volumetric representation and as orthogonal slices, and a 3D surface scan can be registered onto the CT data. It allows users to simultaneously and interactively inspect these modalities and to virtually cut through an object. It also provides tools for generating output images and videos for research and public outreach purposes. The plugin workflow was applied to four case studies from the collections of the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, and the British Museum, London. The plugin is published open-source together with detailed guidelines and a practice dataset