A review of agriculture and health policies in Uganda with implications for the dissemination of biofortified crops:

Micronutrient deficiency is a widespread health problem in the developing world. Most efforts to combat this issue have focused on providing vitamin and mineral supplements to vulnerable population groups and/or fortifying foods through postproduction processing. The outcome of these interventions has not always been successful; particularly as isolated communities are often not reached due to logistical problems or do not regularly consume processed products. Also, supplementation interventions are frequently dependent on external funding and thus their sustainability is questionable.Micronutrient malnutrition, Government policy, General Biofortification, household food security, Nutrition policies,

Truthfulness in transplantation: non-heart-beating organ donation

The current practice of organ transplantation has been criticized on several fronts. The philosophical and scientific foundations for brain death criteria have been crumbling. In addition, donation after cardiac death, or non-heartbeating-organ donation (NHBD) has been attacked on grounds that it mistreats the dying patient and uses that patient only as a means to an end for someone else's benefit

Integration of QUAL2Kw and ArcGIS for Silver Bow Creek, Montana

The purpose of this project is to take preliminary steps towards the development of a QUAL2Kw model for Silver Bow Creek, MT. These preliminary steps include initial research and familiarization with QUAL2Kw, use of ArcGIS to fill in geospatial data gaps, and integration of QUAL2Kw and ArcGIS. The integration involves improvement of the QUAL2Kw model output through adding functionality to the model itself, and development of a QUAL2Kw specific tool in ArcGIS. These improvements are designed to help expedite and simplify the viewing of QUAL2Kw output data spatially in ArcGIS as opposed to graphically within QUAL2Kw. These improvements will allow users to quickly and easily view the many output parameters of each model run geographically within ArcGIS. This will make locating potential problem areas or “hot spots” much quicker and easier than interpreting the QUAL2Kw output data from a graph alone. The added functionality of QUAL2KW was achieved through the development of an excel Macro, and the tool in ArcGIS was developed using python scripting and the model builder feature in ArcGIS

Approximating differentiable relationships between delay embedded dynamical systems with radical basis functions

This thesis is about the study of relationships between experimental dynamical systems. The basic approach is to fit radial basis function maps between time delay embeddings of manifolds. We have shown that under certain conditions these maps are generically diffeomorphisms, and can be analysed to determine whether or not the manifolds in question are diffeomorphically related to each other. If not, a study of the distribution of errors may provide information about the lack of equivalence between the two. The method has applications wherever two or more sensors are used to measure a single system, or where a single sensor can respond on more than one time scale: their respective time series can be tested to determine whether or not they are coupled, and to what degree. One application which we have explored is the determination of a minimum embedding dimension for dynamical system reconstruction. In this special case the diffeomorphism in question is closely related to the predictor for the time series itself. Linear transformations of delay embedded manifolds can also be shown to have nonlinear inverses under the right conditions, and we have used radial basis functions to approximate these inverse maps in a variety of contexts. This method is particularly useful when the linear transformation corresponds to the delay embedding of a finite impulse response filtered time series. One application of fitting an inverse to this linear map is the detection of periodic orbits in chaotic attractors, using suitably tuned filters. This method has also been used to separate signals with known bandwidths from deterministic noise, by tuning a filter to stop the signal and then recovering the chaos with the nonlinear inverse. The method may have applications to the cancellation of noise generated by mechanical or electrical systems. In the course of this research a sophisticated piece of software has been developed. The program allows the construction of a hierarchy of delay embeddings from scalar and multi-valued time series. The embedded objects can be analysed graphically, and radial basis function maps can be fitted between them asynchronously, in parallel, on a multi-processor machine. In addition to a graphical user interface, the program can be driven by a batch mode command language, incorporating the concept of parallel and sequential instruction groups and enabling complex sequences of experiments to be performed in parallel in a resource-efficient manner

Population assessment of the vermilion snapper, Rhomboplites aurorubens, from the Southeastern United States

Changes in the age structure and population size of vermilion snapper, Rhornboplites aurorubens, from North Carolina through the Florida Keys were examined using records of landings and size frequencies of fish from commercial, recreational, and headboat fisheries from 1986-1996. Population size in numbers at age was estimated for each year by applying separable virtual population analysis (SVPA) to the landings in numbers at age. SVPA was used to estimate annual, age-specific fishing mortality (F) for four levels of natural mortality (M = 0.20, 0.25, 0.30, and 0.35). Although landings of vermilion snapper for the three fisheries have declined, minimum fish size regulations have resulted in an increase in the mean size of fish landed. Age at entry and age at full recruitment were age-1 andage-3 fDr 1986-1991, compared with age-1 and age-4, respectively, for 1992-1996. Levels of mortality from fishing (F) ranged from 0.38 - 0.61 for the entire period. Current spawning potential ratio (SPR) is 21% or 27% depending on the natural mortality estimate. SPR could be raised to 30% or 40% with a reduction in F, or by increasing the age at entry to the fisheries. The latter could be enhanced now if fishermen, particularly recreational, comply with minimum size regulations. However, released fish mortality, modeled in the assessment at 27%, will continue to make the achievement of 30% and 40% SPR more difficult. (PDF contains 63 pages