USCID regional meetings -- 1989

Presented at Planning for water shortages: water reallocations and transfers drought management: proceedings from the 1989 regional meetings held on August 24-25, 1989 in Boise, Idaho and on October 19-21, 1989 in St. Louis, Missouri.Some irrigation projects in the Pacific Northwest are 50 - 70 years old. Storage and delivery facilities were originally constructed based on the best available data and permanent water allocations were made to meet the identified agricultural water needs. The intervening years have brought changes in farming practices and associated water needs, as well as the identification of new competing demands for water. When water supplies are fully allocated to existing users, the opportunities to develop new uses may be very limited. Water banking provides an opportunity to temporarily transfer water from an established water right holder to another. Two water banks are presently functioning within the State of Idaho. These banks enable water users to transfer their storage entitlements to other users. Water banking is expressly authorized by Idaho law and the existing water banks function with the support and assistance of the Bureau of Reclamation and the Idaho Department of Water Resources

Whose Shared Destiny?

THE ‘COMMUNITY OF SHARED DESTINY’ is not a completely new concept in Chinese foreign policy — the Communist Party first used the term in 2007 in relation to cross Strait relations. But it is one that has gained greater prominence over the past year. A key development during this period was Xi Jinping’s October 2013 keynote speech at the ‘Workshop on Diplomatic Work with Neighbouring Countries’ 周边国家外交工作座谈会, during which he elaborated on the ‘shared destiny’ theme (sometimes translated into English as ‘common destiny’): it was then that the term officially entered the Chinese foreign policy lexicon

Water banking in Idaho

Presented at Emerging challenges and opportunities for irrigation managers: energy, efficiency and infrastructure: a USCID water management conference held on April 26-29, 2011 in Albuquerque, New Mexico.Idaho authorized water banking in 1979. Today, a statewide water bank functions as well as local rental pools. Stored water and natural flows are traded. The water bank and local rental pools are used to meet the needs of irrigators suffering from drought induced water shortages, to meet instream flow needs of endangered species, and to meet the needs of water users having junior priority surface or ground water rights. Both lessors and lessees have benefited from water rentals. This paper will focus mainly on recent experiences in the Upper Snake (the Snake River above Milner Dam near Burley, Idaho) and Payette Rental Pools, the two most active in the State. Both Rental Pools have been very successful. Particularly in the Payette Basin, income from rentals has enabled water users to upgrade their irrigation systems with resulting significant improvements in water management. The Upper Snake Rental Pool, while also experiencing significant rentals and opportunities for water users, has had to deal with drought induced competition for water that seriously challenged rental pool managers. Setting prices in changing economic conditions, addressing impacts to non-participating water users, and determining priorities among prospective uses were all addressed. Conflicts have not ended, but it is fair to say that through the persistence and dedication of rental pool managers and participants, the challenges were successfully addressed

Impact of biliary stent-related events in patients diagnosed with advanced pancreatobiliary tumours receiving palliative chemotherapy.

AIM: To determine the impact (morbidity/mortality) of biliary stent-related events (SRE) (cholangitis or stent obstruction) in chemotherapy-treated pancreatico-biliary patients. METHODS: All consecutive patients with advanced pancreatobiliary cancer and a biliary stent in-situ prior to starting palliative chemotherapy were identified retrospectively from local electronic case-note records (Jan 13 to Jan 15). The primary end-point was SRE rate and the time-to-SRE (defined as time from first stenting before chemotherapy to date of SRE). Progression-free survival and overall survival were measured from the time of starting chemotherapy. Kaplan-Meier, Cox and Fine-Gray regression (univariate and multivariable) analyses were employed, as appropriate. For the analysis of time-to-SRE, death was considered as a competing event. RESULTS: Ninety-six out of 693 screened patients were eligible; 89% had a metal stent (the remainder were plastic). The median time of follow-up was 9.6 mo (range 2.2 to 26.4). Forty-one patients (43%) developed a SRE during follow-up [cholangitis (39%), stent obstruction (29%), both (32%)]. There were no significant differences in baseline characteristics between the SRE group and no-SRE groups. Recorded SRE-consequences were: none (37%), chemotherapy delay (24%), discontinuation (17%) and death (22%). The median time-to-SRE was 4.4 mo (95%CI: 3.6-5.5). Patients with severe comorbidities (P < 0.001) and patients with ≥ 2 baseline stents/biliary procedures [HR = 2.3 (95%CI: 1.2-4.44), P = 0.010] had a shorter time-to-SRE on multivariable analysis. Stage was an independent prognostic factor for overall survival (P = 0.029) in the multivariable analysis adjusted for primary tumour site, performance status and development of SRE (SRE group vs no-SRE group). CONCLUSION: SREs are common and impact on patient’s morbidity. Our results highlight the need for prospective studies exploring the role of prophylactic strategies to prevent/delay SREs

Foreign Policy For A Global China

IS RISING China becoming ‘civilised’ or is it becoming a civilising force? Analysts of Chinese foreign policy have long grappled with this question. During the mid-1990s, for instance, the American analyst Denny Roy described China as a ‘hegemon on the horizon’, a rising power bent on dominating the Asia-Pacific over the longer term — through the use of force if necessary. By contrast, a more optimistic analysis by Princeton academic G. John Ikenberry in 2008 suggested that China could be ‘civilised’ and effectively incorporated into the Western-led liberal order. The larger debate is unresolved, and may remain so for years, perhaps even decades to come. Acknowledging the enormity of the task, this chapter seeks to shed additional light on the question by examining what we judge to be the five major foreign policy issues that China faced in the 2012–2013 period

A criterion audit of women's awareness of blood transfusion in pregnancy

BACKGROUND: In the Confidential Enquiry into Maternal Deaths (CEMD) Report, the very high risk of mortality in women who refuse blood transfusions is highlighted. The objectives were to establish current knowledge about, and views of transfusion in our pregnant population and to establish the level of compliance with the set audit standard. METHOD: Questionnaire survey of 228 women, including both high and low risk pregnancies, attending ante-natal clinic between 2–9 May 2000 at the North Staffordshire Maternity Hospital, Stoke on Trent. RESULTS: The response rate was 100%. Only 43% were aware of the possible need for blood transfusion in pregnancy. If a blood transfusion was required, 92% stated that they would accept a blood transfusion in pregnancy. Four percent stated that they would not accept a transfusion because of religious reasons and risk of infection and the remaining four percent did not declare a reason. CONCLUSIONS: This short survey identified that 57% of women were not aware of the possible need for blood transfusion during pregnancy. There is a need for more information to be shared on this subject with all antenatal women. Women who would refuse a transfusion need to be identified at booking and be referred for counselling and a management plan made for pregnancy, labour and delivery

Spitzer and Hubble Constraints on the Physical Properties of the z~7 Galaxy Strongly Lensed by Abell 2218

We report the detection of a z~7 galaxy strongly lensed by the massive galaxy cluster Abell 2218 (z=0.175) at 3.6 and 4.5 um using the Spitzer Observatory and at 1.1 um using the Hubble Space Telescope. The new data indicate a refined photometric redshift in the range of 6.6-6.8 depending on the presence of Ly-alpha emission. The spectral energy distribution is consistent with having a significant Balmer break, suggesting that the galaxy is in the poststarburst stage with an age of at least ~50 Myr and quite possibly a few hundred Myr. This suggests the possibility that a mature stellar population is already in place at such a high redshift. Compared with typical Lyman break galaxies at z~3-4, the stellar mass is an order of magnitude smaller (~10^{9} Msun), but the specific star formation rate (star formation rate/M_{star}) is similarly large (> 10^{-9} yr^{-1}), indicating equally vigorous star-forming activity.Comment: 11 pages, 2 figures, 2 tables; Accepted for publication in ApJ

The Physical Conditions of a Lensed Star-forming Galaxy at z=1.7

We report rest-frame optical Keck/NIRSPEC spectroscopy of the bright lensed galaxy RCSGA 032727-132609 at z=1.7037. From precise measurements of the nebular lines, we infer a number of physical properties: redshift, extinction, star formation rate, ionization parameter, electron density, electron temperature, oxygen abundance, and N/O, Ne/O, and Ar/O abundance ratios. The limit on [O III]~4363 A tightly constrains the oxygen abundance via the "direct" or electron temperature method, for the first time in an average-metallicity galaxy at z~2. We compare this result to several standard "bright-line" O abundance diagnostics, thereby testing these empirically-calibrated diagnostics in situ. Finally, we explore the positions of lensed and unlensed galaxies in standard diagnostic diagrams, and explore the diversity of ionization conditions and mass--metallicity ratios at z=2.Comment: ApJ in press. 15 pages, 7 figure