Agroforestry interactions and soil water use in watersheds under corn-soybean management

Paper presented at the 11th North American Agroforesty Conference, which was held May 31-June 3, 2009 in Columbia, Missouri.In Gold, M.A. and M.M. Hall, eds. Agroforestry Comes of Age: Putting Science into Practice. Proceedings, 11th North American Agroforestry Conference, Columbia, Mo., May 31-June 3, 2009.Agroforestry and grass buffer practices reduce non point source pollution from corn-soybean watersheds, yet little is known about the processes and mechanisms involved. The objective of this study was to compare the soil water dynamics in crop, grass, and agroforestry areas throughout the growing season to understand soil water use and recharge differences among the treatments. The study was conducted on two corn (Zea mays L.)-soybean (Glycine max (L.) Merr.) rotational watersheds with grass and agroforestry buffers at the Greenley Research Center, Knox County, MO. Campbell soil moisture sensors were installed in crop, grass, and agroforestry areas with six replications at 5, 10, 20, and 40 cm depths to record volumetric soil water content at 10 minute intervals for 2004 through 2007. Initial soil moisture was lower in tree and grass buffer areas than crop areas probably due to water use by the permanent vegetation before crops were established. The differences were larger for shallower depths as compared to the 40 cm depth. The trend continued throughout the growing season. Weekly soil moisture content was significantly higher in the crop treatment as compared to the buffer treatments. During rain events water content increased in all depths and treatments and the differences in water content among treatments diminished. At the end of the growing season, soil water content increased when water use was low and as the profile recharged by rain events. The results of the study suggest that establishment of grass and agroforestry buffers help reduce non point source pollution from row crop agriculture by using additional water that would have otherwise have been lost in runoff carrying sediments, nutrients, and pesticides.Ranjith P. Udawatta (1,2), Stephen H. Anderson (1), Peter P. Motavalli (1), and Harold E. Garrett (2) ; 1. Department of Soil, Environmental and Atmospheric Sciences. 2. Center for Agroforestry, and University of Missouri, Columbia, MO 65211.Includes bibliographical references

Signature Change in Noncommutative FRW Cosmology

The conditions for which the no boundary proposal may have a classical realization of a continuous change of signature, are investigated for a cosmological model described by FRW metric coupled with a self interacting scalar field, having a noncommutative phase space of dynamical variables. The model is then quantized and a good correspondence is shown between the classical and quantum cosmology indicating that the noncommutativity does not destruct the classical-quantum correspondence. It is also shown that the quantum cosmology supports a signature transition where the bare cosmological constant takes a vast continuous spectrum of negative values. The bounds of bare cosmological constant are limited by the values of noncommutative parameters. Moreover, it turns out that the physical parameters are constrained by the noncommutativity parametres.Comment: 15 pages, 4 figures, Minor revision, references adde

Updated European Consensus Statement on diagnosis and treatment of adult ADHD

Background Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is among the most common psychiatric disorders of childhood that often persists into adulthood and old age. Yet ADHD is currently underdiagnosed and undertreated in many European countries, leading to chronicity of symptoms and impairment, due to lack of, or ineffective treatment, and higher costs of illness. Methods The European Network Adult ADHD and the Section for Neurodevelopmental Disorders Across the Lifespan (NDAL) of the European Psychiatric Association (EPA), aim to increase awareness and knowledge of adult ADHD in and outside Europe. This Updated European Consensus Statement aims to support clinicians with research evidence and clinical experience from 63 experts of European and other countries in which ADHD in adults is recognized and treated. Results Besides reviewing the latest research on prevalence, persistence, genetics and neurobiology of ADHD, three major questions are addressed: (1) What is the clinical picture of ADHD in adults? (2) How should ADHD be properly diagnosed in adults? (3) How should adult ADHDbe effectively treated? Conclusions ADHD often presents as a lifelong impairing condition. The stigma surrounding ADHD, mainly due to lack of knowledge, increases the suffering of patients. Education on the lifespan perspective, diagnostic assessment, and treatment of ADHD must increase for students of general and mental health, and for psychiatry professionals. Instruments for screening and diagnosis of ADHD in adults are available, as are effective evidence-based treatments for ADHD and its negative outcomes. More research is needed on gender differences, and in older adults with ADHD. (c) 2018 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Masson SAS.Peer reviewe

Fashioning Entitlements: A Comparative Law and Economic Analysis of the Judicial Role in Environmental Centralization in the U.S. and Europe

This paper identifies and evaluates, from an economic point of view, the role of the judiciary the steady shift of environmental regulatory authority to higher, more centralized levels of government in both the U.S. and Europe. We supply both a positive analysis of how the decisions made by judges have affected the incentives of both private and public actors to pollute the natural environment, and normative answers to the question of whether judges have acted so as to create incentives that move levels of pollution in an efficient direction, toward their optimal, cost-minimizing (or net-benefit-maximizing) levels. Highlights of the analysis include the following points: 1) Industrial-era local (state or national) legislation awarding entitlements to pollute was almost certainly inefficient due to a fundamental economic obstacle faced by those who suffer harm from the over-pollution of publicly owned natural resources: the inability to monetize and credibly commit to repay the future economic value of reducing pollution. 2) When industrial era pollution spilled across state lines in the US, the federal courts, in particular the Supreme Court, fashioned a federal common law of interstate nuisance that set up essentially the same sort of blurry, uncertain entitlements to pollute or be free of pollution that had been created by the state courts in resolving local pollution disputes. We argue that for the typical pollution problem, a legal regime of blurry interstate entitlements - with neither jurisdiction having a clear right either to pollute or be free of pollution from the other - is likely to generate efficient incentives for interjursidictional bargaining, even despite the public choice problems besetting majority-rule government. Interestingly, a very similar system of de facto entitlements arose and often stimulated interjursidictional bargaining in Europe as well as in the U.S. 3) The US federal courts have generally interpreted the federal environmental statutes in ways that give clear primacy to federal regulators. Through such judicial interpretation, state and local regulators face a continuing risk of having their decisions overridden by federal regulators. This reduces the incentives for regulatory innovation at the state and local level. Judicial authorization of federal overrides has thus weakened the economic rationale for cooperative federalism suggested by economic models of principal-agent relationships. As a result of the principle of attribution, there is less risk in Europe that (like in the US) courts would enlarge the federal purview and thereby limit the powers of the Member States. Despite this principle, the power of the European bureaucracy (that is, the European Commission) has steadily increased and led to a steady shift of environmental regulatory competencies to the European level. This shift is only sometimes normatively desirable, and yet there is little that the ECJ can or will do to slow it

Apparent Soil Electrical Conductivity Used to Determine Soil Phosphorus Variability in Poultry Litter-Amended Pastures

The objectives of this research were to determine the relationship between soil apparent electrical conductivity (ECa) and soil P distribution, and to compare the effectiveness of noncontact mobile electromagnetic induction (EM) and direct contact methods for relating ECa to soil P. Studies were conducted at two locations in Southwest Missouri on a longterm forage fertility plot site and three 1 to 1.5 ha sites within beef cattle pasture fields, all having received long-term poultry litter applications. For the long-term plot site, both the direct contact ECa sensor deep reading and the EM-38 (Geonics) sensor in the shallow mode had significant positive correlations with soil test Bray-1 P at both the 0 to 5 and 5 to 15 cm sampling depths. Significant spatial variation in soluble, soil test Bray-1 and total P were observed by landscape position within pasture fields. In general, soil ECa was not significantly correlated with soluble, soil test Bray-1 and total P at each individual pasture site, but when data was combined over all three sites, significant relationships were observed between ECa measured by the EM-38 sensor and soil soluble P, soil test Bray-1 P and total P, especially when the vertical (deep) mode was used. The difference in performance of the two sensors between the two studies was attributed to the proportion of coarse fragments contained in the soils and soil water content. These results suggest that soil ECa measurements may provide some useful information for evaluating spatial variation in soil P due to manure applications. However, further research is needed to assess the processes and factors affecting this relationship before it can be recommended for use for improved soil P management in individual farm fields with varying environmental conditions and management practices

Initial and Residual Effects of Organic and Inorganic Amendments on Soil Properties in a Potato-Based Cropping System in the Bolivian Andean Highlands

The objective of this study was to determine the effects of applications of organic and inorganic soil amendments on initial and residual soil chemical, physical and biological properties that may affect both short- and long-term soil fertility in a potato (Solanum tuberosum L.)-based cropping system of indigenous rural communities in the Bolivian Andean Highlands (Altiplano). Field experiments were conducted in four representative low and high elevation communities in the semi-arid Central Andean Region of Bolivia from 2006 to 2009. Treatments included a control, and applications of sheep and cow manure, a commercial household/urban compost product, a commercial biofertilizer soil amendment, urea and diammonium phosphate and combinations of these different treatments. Soil samples were taken from all the sites prior to application of treatments and planting of potatoes as well as during the growing season and prior to planting of a subsequent crop of quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa, Willd). Soil pH, soil total organic C, and total N increased due to application of organic fertilizers with or without inorganic fertilizers. Soil inorganic N and Bray-1 P were increased by inorganic fertilizers alone or when combined with organic fertilizers. The residual effect of most of the analyzed soil nutrients was detected in the subsequent growing season. In addition, lower soil bulk density was observed after organic fertilizers were applied with or without inorganic fertilizers and this residual effect persisted for the quinoa crop. In a controlled laboratory incubation experiment, soil potentially mineralizable C and N increased as organic fertilizers application rates rose from 0 to 30 Mg ha-1. These results highlight the importance of a balanced soil fertilization program in this region with use of optimum rates of both inorganic and organic soil amendments to increase short- and long-term soil fertility