Honoring Veterans Means Funding Suicide Prevention

Many Americans may not know that it was Dwight D. Eisenhower who in 1954 issued the official proclamation celebrating the service of all veterans by designating Nov. 11, formerly known as Armistice Day, in honor of our vets. Eisenhower, of course, was supreme commander of Allied Forces in Europe during World War II and commander in chief as the 34th president of the United States. In Ike’s words, “on that day let us solemnly remember the sacrifices of all those who fought so valiantly, on the seas, in the air, and on foreign shores, to preserve our heritage of freedom, and let us reconsecrate ourselves to the task of promoting an enduring peace so that their efforts shall not have been in vain.” This Veterans Day, millions of Americans thank a veteran for serving our nation, but during the hour-long service at the local elementary school or church cemetery, a veteran or active-duty member of the armed forces will take his own life: The harsh reality is that the average suicide rate today among all those who are serving or have served is more than 20 per day — 17 are veterans. [excerpt

Metric Redefinitions in Einstein-Aether Theory

`Einstein-Aether' theory, in which gravity couples to a dynamical, time-like, unit-norm vector field, provides a means for studying Lorentz violation in a generally covariant setting. Demonstrated here is the effect of a redefinition of the metric and vector field in terms of the original fields and two free parameters. The net effect is a change of the coupling constants appearing in the action. Using such a redefinition, one of the coupling constants can be set to zero, simplifying studies of solutions of the theory.Comment: 11 pages; v.2: Some clarifying remarks added, to appear in PR

Seasonal changes in abundance of brown trout (Salmo trutta) and rainbow trout (s. gairdnerii) assessed by drift diving in the Rangitikei river, New Zealand

Numbers and approximate sizes of brown trout (Salmo trutta L.) and rainbow trout (5. gairdnerii Richardson) were estimated by snorkel divers at 6 sites in the middle reaches of the Rangitikei River, North Island, New Zealand, over 14 months. The results showed that different species and sizes of trout varied in abundance with time. The species of fingerling trout (6-12 cm FL) could not be identified because of their small size and shoaling behaviour. Rainbow trout abundance varied seasonally and was greatest in January and April (between 18 and 60 fish per kilometre) when fish between 23 and 38 cm FL were the most abundant size class. Brown trout abundance showed much less variation with time (between 5 and 36 fish per kilometre at most sites). Also in contrast to rainbow trout, the majority of brown trout were > 38 cm FL, and in June, when the greatest density was observed (56 fish per kilometre), 70 redds were seen at the same site. Two sites were dived within a 48 h period to test the variability of the method. Comparisons between the 3 dives at each site revealed no significant differences between the numbers offish in different species and size classes

Quinnat salmon (oncorhynchus tshawytscha) spawning in the Rangitikei river

The occurrence of adult quinnat salmon {Oncorhynchus tshawytscha (Walbaum)) in the Rangitikei River, North Island, New Zealand, has been confirmed on several occasions since 1922, but juvenile salmon have not previously been recorded. In late February 1981 a 79-mm-fork-length smolt was caught in a stranded side channel 180 km upstream from the mouth. This suggests that quinnat salmon can spawn successfully in this river

Relationship between dairy cow genetic merit and profit on commercial spring calving dairy farms

peer-reviewedBecause not all animal factors influencing profitability can be included in total merit breeding indices for profitability, the association between animal total merit index and true profitability, taking cognisance of all factors associated with costs and revenues, is generally not known. One method to estimate such associations is at the herd level, associating herd average genetic merit with herd profitability. The objective of this study was to primarily relate herd average genetic merit for a range of traits, including the Irish total merit index, with indicators of performance, including profitability, using correlation and multiple regression analyses. Physical, genetic and financial performance data from 1131 Irish seasonal calving pasture-based dairy farms were available following edits; data on some herds were available for more than 1 year of the 3-year study period (2007 to 2009). Herd average economic breeding index (EBI) was associated with reduced herd average phenotypic milk yield but with greater milk composition, resulting in higher milk prices. Moderate positive correlations (0.26 to 0.61) existed between genetic merit for an individual trait and average herd performance for that trait (e.g. genetic merit for milk yield and average per cow milk yield). Following adjustment for year, stocking rate, herd size and quantity of purchased feed in the multiple regression analysis, average herd EBI was positively and linearly associated with net margin per cow and per litre as well as gross revenue output per cow and per litre. The change in net margin per cow per unit change in the total merit index was h1.94 (s.e.50.42), which was not different from the expectation of h2. This study, based on a large data set of commercial herds with accurate information on profitability and genetic merit, confirms that, after accounting for confounding factors, the change in herd profitability per unit change in herd genetic merit for the total merit index is within expectations

Some Economic Implications of a Federal Ireland. ESRI Memorandum Series No. 97 1974

Economists are frequently accused of building elaborate structures out of the most unlikely set of hypotheses. One cannot help suspecting that this charge will be levelled against this paper which makes no attempt to assess the political probability of any agreement on a Federal relationship between Northern Ireland and the Republic. In defense it can be argued that the object of this paper is to examine some of the economic issues that would arise under a federal arrangement while recognising that economic factors are unlikely to be the sole, or dominant, influences in the future political position of Northern Ireland. It would not, of course, be possible to explore every aspect of the economic consequences of a Federal Ireland even under the assumption that the structure of the economy of Northern Ireland and the Republic remains as it is today. Rather we shall have to be content to examine some of the major problems that would face any proposed federation. Thus, to some extent, the bias of this paper will be pessimistic since it will not concentrate on any credit side of the balance sheet. However it must be stated that most of the benefits, if they exist, flow from the assumed dynamic effects of federation; which effects seem to owe more to wishful thinking than an analysis of the present structure of both economies

Permittivity measurement of thermoplastic composites at elevated temperature

[Abstract]: The material properties of greatest importance in microwave processing of a dielectric are the complex relative permittivity Epsilon = Epsilon' - jEpsilon'', and the loss tangent, tan Delta = Epsilon'/Epsilon''. This paper describes two convenient laboratory based methods to obtain Epsilon', Epsilon'' and hence tan Delta of fibre-reinforced thermoplastic (FRTP) composites. One method employs a microwave network analyser in conjunction with a waveguide transmission technique, chosen because it provides the widest possible frequency range with high accuracy. The values of the dielectric constant and dielectric loss of glass fibre reinforced (33%) low density polyethylene, LDPE/GF (33%), polystyrene, PS/GF (33%), and Nylon 66/GF (33%), were obtained. Results are compared with those obtained by another method using a high-temperature dielectric probe

Seasonality and Unemployment in Ireland. Quarterly Economic Commentary, October 1975

It is widely known that many statistical series exhibit a distinct seasonal pattern. That is, they tend to rise or fall according to the time of the year even when the underlying levels of the series are constant. Such seasonal movements are often a reflection of variations in the climate-ice-cream sales peak in the summer and coal-sales peak in the winter-or of traditional holiday periods. Obviously we would wish to remove the seasonal variation in order to examine the underlying trend of any given economic' series. If we do not correct data for seasonality it becomes quite difficult to distinguish between movements which reflect the normal seasonal pattern and other underlying movements

Employees high in personal intelligence differ in workplace perceptions and behavior from their colleagues

Personal intelligence (PI) involves the ability to recognize, reason, and use information about personality to understand oneself and other people. Employees in two studies (Ns = 394, 482) completed the Test of Personal Intelligence (TOPI; e.g., Mayer, Panter, & Caruso, 2017a) and assessments of workplace perception and behavior. Higher PI was associated with higher perceived workplace support and lower counterproductive work behavior. These relationships continued to hold after controlling for other key variables. The results indicate the TOPI, although still in research trials, shows promise as a screening device for selecting employees and targeting individuals for training

Human and embodied energy analysis applied to water source protection and household water treatment interventions used in Mali, West Africa

As water quality interventions are scaled up to meet the Millennium Development Goal of halving the proportion of the population without access to safe drinking water by 2015 there has been much discussion on the merits of household- and source-level interventions. This study furthers the discussion by examining specific interventions through the use of embodied human and material energy. Embodied energy quantifies the total energy required to produce and use an intervention, including all upstream energy transactions. This model uses material quantities and prices to calculate embodied energy using national economic input/output-based models from China, the United States and Mali. Embodied energy is a measure of aggregate environmental impacts of the interventions. Human energy quantifies the caloric expenditure associated with the installation and operation of an intervention is calculated using the physical activity ratios (PARs) and basal metabolic rates (BMRs). Human energy is a measure of aggregate social impacts of an intervention. A total of four household treatment interventions – biosand filtration, chlorination, ceramic filtration and boiling – and four water source-level interventions – an improved well, a rope pump, a hand pump and a solar pump – are evaluated in the context of Mali, West Africa. Source-level interventions slightly out-perform household-level interventions in terms of having less total embodied energy. Human energy, typically assumed to be a negligible portion of total embodied energy, is shown to be significant to all eight interventions, and contributing over half of total embodied energy in four of the interventions. Traditional gender roles in Mali dictate the types of work performed by men and women. When the human energy is disaggregated by gender, it is seen that women perform over 99% of the work associated with seven of the eight interventions. This has profound implications for gender equality in the context of water quality interventions, and may justify investment in interventions that reduce human energy burdens