Frozen Soils: A Perspective On Past And Future Research For Promoting Sustainable Agricultural Systems

Frozen soils impact many industries which rely· on soil, water, and .air resources in developing and manufacturing products. Most noteworthy is the agricultural industry in the northern United States where soils, which sustain food and fiber production, are subjected to frequent freezing and thawing. Soil freezing and thawing influences soil erodibility, surface and ground water quality, air quality, and biological activity. Many strides toward understanding frozen soil processes and managing lands to minimize the adverse effects of freezing and thawing have been made over the last two decades. Yet, further efforts to identify frozen soil processes which influence wind and water erosion, soil faunal adaptation, soil quality, movement of agricultural chemicals,· and rural and urban water supplies will aid industry and society in meeting future needs for food and water

Spatial accessibility and social inclusion: The impact of Portugal's last health reform

Health policies seek to promote access to health care and should provide appropriate geographical accessibility to each demographical functional group. The dispersal demand of health‐careservices and the provision for such services atfixed locations contribute to the growth of inequality intheir access. Therefore, the optimal distribution of health facilities over the space/area can lead toaccessibility improvements and to the mitigation of the social exclusion of the groups considered mostvulnerable. Requiring for such, the use of planning practices joined with accessibility measures. However,the capacities of Geographic Information Systems in determining and evaluating spatial accessibility inhealth system planning have not yet been fully exploited. This paper focuses on health‐care services planningbased on accessibility measures grounded on the network analysis. The case study hinges on mainlandPortugal. Different scenarios were developed to measure and compare impact on the population'saccessibility. It distinguishes itself from other studies of accessibility measures by integrating network data ina spatial accessibility measure: the enhanced two‐stepfloating catchment area. The convenient location forhealth‐care facilities can increase the accessibility standards of the population and consequently reducethe economic and social costs incurred. Recently, the Portuguese government implemented a reform thataimed to improve, namely, the access and equity in meeting with the most urgent patients. It envisaged,in terms of equity, the allocation of 89 emergency network points that ensured more than 90% of thepopulation be within 30 min from any one point in the network. Consequently, several emergency serviceswere closed, namely, in rural areas. This reform highlighted the need to improve the quality of the emergencycare, accessibility to each care facility, and equity in their access. Hence, accessibility measures becomean efficient decision‐making tool, despite its absence in effective practice planning. According to anapplication of this type of measure, it was possible to verify which levels of accessibility were decreased,including the most disadvantaged people, with a larger time of dislocation of 12 min between 2001 and 2011

Разработка технических средств повышения эффективности солнечных установок

In this paper a method and means of increasing the power generated by solar installations during the day are considered. It is recommended to use acrylic concentrator and solar tracker with active type of tracking based on the control board without microcontrollers. This feature allows using DC commutator motor as an electric drive component, which simplifies the construction of the whole system significantly

Laboratory Focus on Improving the Culture of Biosafety: Statewide Risk Assessment of Clinical Laboratories That Process Specimens for Microbiologic Analysis

The Wisconsin State Laboratory of Hygiene challenged Wisconsin laboratories to examine their biosafety practices and improve their culture of biosafety. One hundred three clinical and public health laboratories completed a questionnaire-based, microbiology-focused biosafety risk assessment. Greater than 96% of the respondents performed activities related to specimen processing, direct microscopic examination, and rapid nonmolecular testing, while approximately 60% performed culture interpretation. Although they are important to the assessment of risk, data specific to patient occupation, symptoms, and travel history were often unavailable to the laboratory and, therefore, less contributory to a microbiology-focused biosafety risk assessment than information on the specimen source and test requisition. Over 88% of the respondents complied with more than three-quarters of the mitigation control measures listed in the survey. Facility assessment revealed that subsets of laboratories that claim biosafety level 1, 2, or 3 status did not possess all of the biosafety elements considered minimally standard for their respective classifications. Many laboratories reported being able to quickly correct the minor deficiencies identified. Task assessment identified deficiencies that trended higher within the general (not microbiology-specific) laboratory for core activities, such as packaging and shipping, direct microscopic examination, and culture modalities solely involving screens for organism growth. For traditional microbiology departments, opportunities for improvement in the cultivation and management of highly infectious agents, such as acid-fast bacilli and systemic fungi, were revealed. These results derived from a survey of a large cohort of small- and large-scale laboratories suggest the necessity for continued microbiology-based understanding of biosafety practices, vigilance toward biosafety, and enforcement of biosafety practices throughout the laboratory setting

Properties of the Volume Operator in Loop Quantum Gravity II: Detailed Presentation

The properties of the Volume operator in Loop Quantum Gravity, as constructed by Ashtekar and Lewandowski, are analyzed for the first time at generic vertices of valence greater than four. The present analysis benefits from the general simplified formula for matrix elements of the Volume operator derived in gr-qc/0405060, making it feasible to implement it on a computer as a matrix which is then diagonalized numerically. The resulting eigenvalues serve as a database to investigate the spectral properties of the volume operator. Analytical results on the spectrum at 4-valent vertices are included. This is a companion paper to arXiv:0706.0469, providing details of the analysis presented there.Comment: Companion to arXiv:0706.0469. Version as published in CQG in 2008. More compact presentation. Sign factor combinatorics now much better understood in context of oriented matroids, see arXiv:1003.2348, where also important remarks given regarding sigma configurations. Subsequent computations revealed some minor errors, which do not change qualitative results but modify some numbers presented her

Recent Perspectives on Sex Differences in Compulsion-Like and Binge Alcohol Drinking

Alcohol use disorder remains a substantial social, health, and economic problem and problem drinking levels in women have been increasing in recent years. Understanding whether and how the underlying mechanisms that drive drinking vary by sex is critical and could provide novel, more targeted therapeutic treatments. Here, we examine recent results from our laboratories and others which we believe provide useful insights into similarities and differences in alcohol drinking patterns across the sexes. Findings for binge intake and aversion-resistant, compulsion-like alcohol drinking are considered, since both are likely significant contributors to alcohol problems in humans. We also describe studies regarding mechanisms that may underlie sex differences in maladaptive alcohol drinking, with some focus on the importance of nucleus accumbens (NAcb) core and shell regions, several receptor types (dopamine, orexin, AMPA-type glutamate), and possible contributions of sex hormones. Finally, we discuss how stressors such as early life stress and anxiety-like states may interact with sex differences to contribute to alcohol drinking. Together, these findings underscore the importance and critical relevance of studying female and male mechanisms for alcohol and co-morbid conditions to gain a true and clinically useful understanding of addiction and neuropsychiatric mechanisms and treatment