The Fate of an Engineered Planet

Solar engineering and other exceptionally ambitious new technologies to deal with the reality of rising global temperatures come riddled with uncertainties. To illustrate how complex the problem is and what kind of challenges lie ahead, here are three contrasting, and somewhat fantastical, scenarios

Institutionalising XBRL for financial reporting:resorting to regulation

By integrating and streamlining financial information within and among various organisations, eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) has been developed with a view to enhancing the efficiency, accuracy, and transparency of corporate accounting information. Taking an inter-organisational focus, this paper investigates the process of how XBRL was institutionalised. It explains and offers insights on how institutional arrangements emerge and become relevant as heterogeneous organisations consider adopting accounting innovations while evidence concerning their benefits is unavailable. The original and overall contribution of this study is that it improves current understanding of coal-face actors' perceptions, behaviours, and strategies as they interact in the organisational field and become engaged in developing accounting innovations to produce the macro-level observations documented in existing institutional theory studies

Volatile organic compound flux from manure of cattle fed diets differing in grain processing method and co-product inclusion

Odor emissions from livestock production have become increasingly important in the past decade. Odors derived from animal feeding operations are caused by odorous VOC emitted from the mixture of feces and urine, as well as feed and silage which may be experiencing microbial fermentation. Distillers grains are a by-product of corn grain fermentation used to produce fuel ethanol, and this industry has grown rapidly throughout the U.S. in past years. Therefore, the use of wet distillers grains with solubles (WDGS) in feedlot cattle diets has also increased. The objective of this research was to determine specific VOC emissions from feces and urine or a mixture of both, from cattle fed steam flaked or dry-rolled corn (DRC)-based diets containing either 0% or 30% WDGS. Flux of dimethyl trisulfide was greater from feces of cattle fed DRC than steam-flaked corn (SFC) diets. No other differences in flux from feces were detected across dietary treatments for phenol, 4-methylphenol, indole, skatole, dimethyl disulfide, and flux of volatile fatty acids (VFA) such as acetic, propionic, isobutyric, butyric, isovaleric, and valeric acids (P \u3e 0.15). Flux of skatole, acetic acid, and valeric acid from urine was greater for cattle fed SFC than DRC diets (P \u3c 0.05). Moreover, dimethyl disulfide flux was greater for cattle fed DRC vs. SFC diets (P = 0.05). When evaluating WDGS inclusion in the diet, flux of acetic acid and heptanoic acid from urine was greater when cattle were fed diets containing 0% WDGS than 30% WDGS (P \u3c 0.05). When combining urine and feces in the ratio in which they were excreted from the animal, flux of propionic acid was greater when cattle were fed DRC vs. SFC diets (P = 0.05). Based on these results, the majority of the VOC, VFA, and odor flux from cattle feeding operations is from the urine. Therefore, dietary strategies to reduce odor from cattle feeding facilities should primarily focus on reducing excretion of odorous compounds in the urine

The spatiotemporal structure of precipitation in Indian monsoon depressions

Indian monsoon depressions are synoptic scale events typically spun up in the Bay of Bengal. They usually last 4–6 days, during which they propagate northwestward across the Indian subcontinent before dissipating over northwest India or Pakistan. They can have a significant effect on monsoon precipitation, particularly in primarily agrarian northern India, and therefore quantifying their structure and variability and evaluating these in NWP models and GCMs is of critical importance. In this study, satellite data from the CloudSat and recently concluded TRMM missions are used in conjunction with an independently evaluated tracking algorithm to form a three-dimensional composite image of cloud structure and precipitation within monsoon depressions. The composite comprises 34 depressions from the 1998–2014 TRMM mission and 12 from the 2007-present CloudSat mission, and is statistically robust enough to allow significant probing of the spatiotemporal characteristics of moisture and hydrometeor fields. Among the key results of this work are the discovery and characterisation of a bimodal, diurnal cycle in surface precipitation; the first picture of the structure of cloud type and density in depressions, showing that deep convection dominates south of the centre and prominent cirrus throughout; the first composite picture of vertical hydrometeor structure in depressions, showing significant precipitation for hundreds of kilometres outside the centre and well past the mid-troposphere; and novel discussion of drop size distributions (showing significant uniformity across the depression) and resulting latent heat profiles, showing average heating rates near the centre can reach 2K/hr

Informational Challenges in Early Disaster Response: The Massive Oso/SR530 Landslide 2014 as Case in Point

In disasters, and more so in catastrophes, one of the most daunting problems to professional responders is gaining situational awareness. Unfortunately, truly actionable information (intelligence) is missing in the first days and even weeks of responding. Consequently, incomplete situational awareness brings on a distorted common operating picture leading to suboptimal direction of responses, so more lives are lost, and more damage is inflicted. This study reports on the challenges emergency responders faced in the immediate aftermath of the 2014 massive landslide near Oso, WA. Over a hundred agencies were involved in the response, which presented a huge coordination task for the incident command. This study identifies and describes various challenges in the early response and also discusses recommendations on how to tackle and potentially mitigate the chal- lenges identified in future responses

Impacts of neighbourhood planning in England

Prof. Gavin Parker (University of Reading) Dr Matthew Wargent (University of Reading) Dr Kat Salter (University of Birmingham) Dr Mark Dobson (University of Reading) Dr Tessa Lynn (University of Reading) Dr Andy Yuille (Lancaster University) and Navigus Plannin

Analysis of White Adipose Tissue Gene Expression Reveals CREB1 Pathway Altered in Huntington's Disease.

In addition to classical neurological symptoms, Huntington's disease (HD) is complicated by peripheral pathology and both the mutant gene and the protein are found in cells and tissues throughout the body. Despite the adipose tissue gene expression alterations described in HD mouse models, adipose tissue and its gene expression signature have not been previously explored in human HD