Road safety management capacity review

Introduction Study Context Following on from the government’s manifesto to an annual reduction in road deaths and injuries, the British Road Safety Statement 2015 (BRSS) set out the government’s commitment to invest further in continuing road safety activity, and to conduct a Road Safety Management Capacity Review (RSMCR). A RSMCR is a strategic assessment, benchmarking and capacity building tool, originally developed by the World Bank's Global Road Safety Facility, to guide investments and assist countries in strengthening road safety management. It is recommended for use by the OECD/International Transport Forum and the World Road Association as a first step in further developing and extending effective Safe System investment strategies, plans and projects in all countries and contexts. In May 2017, the DfT commissioned a RSMCR to benchmark and understand the current status of institutional delivery of road safety in Britain, and to identify practical and actionable opportunities for strengthening joint working, local innovation, and efficiency on a national and local basis. Safe System The overarching theme of the BRSS is the government’s adoption of the recommended Safe System approach to preventing death and serious injuries in road collisions. Its application is cited as a key national priority in the UK. While building on current practice, some re-alignment in national road safety focus and activity will be necessary over time. Safe System implementation towards zero deaths and serious injuries is a long-term project and is in different stages of development in different countries and jurisdictions. Safe System comprises both an explicit goal and strategy. The long-term Safe System goal is for the ultimate prevention of deaths and serious injuries, through incremental targeted improvements within a specified safety performance framework. The Safe System strategy aims for a more forgiving road system that takes human fallibility and vulnerability into account. The road traffic system is planned, designed, operated and used such that people are protected from death and serious injury in road collisions. Aims and Objectives of the Review The overarching aim of the RSMCR is to identify practical and actionable opportunities for strengthening joint working, local innovation, and efficiency on a national and local basis. In particular the RSMCR seeks to understand the current status of institutional delivery of road safety in Britain by: Examining national, regional and local structures, responsibilities, accountabilities, relationships and coordination; Examining whether management effort and resources at all levels are being targeted effectively at designing, and enabling or delivering evidence-based interventions and initiatives that can have the greatest impact in preventing and reducing the number of road users killed and seriously injured; Assessing the current road safety delivery landscape against the Safe System road safety management assessment framework and determining whether there is an imbalance in resource effort for each element and at each level (national, regional and local); Investigating how institutional capacity can be cost-effectively strengthened, within the context of the BRSS, to deliver a Safe System approach to road safety; and Identifying areas and means for improved joint working, local innovation and efficiency

Managing small-acreage horse farms in central and eastern Oregon

Some good goals for a well-managed, small-acreage horse farm are: • A productive pasture with plenty of grass and few weeds • Less dust during the dry season and less mud during the wet season • Healthy horses free of problems associated with dust, manure, mud, and toxic plants • Manure managed as an important resource on the farm or recycled off the farm • Good stewardship of your property and the water that flows through, across, and below it • Satisfied owners who are able to conveniently care for their animals without dreading the chorePublished November 2007. Reviewed December 2013. Please look for up-to-date information in the OSU Extension Catalog: http://extension.oregonstate.edu/catalo

Recent visible light and metal free strategies in [2+2] and [4+2] photocycloadditions

When aiming to synthesize molecules with elevated molecular complexity starting from relatively simple starting materials, photochemical transformations represent an open avenue to circumvent analogous multistep procedures. Specifically, light-mediated cycloadditions remain as powerful tools to generate new bonds begotten from non-very intuitive disconnections, that alternative thermal protocols would not offer. In response to the current trend in both industrial and academic research pointing towards green and sustainable processes, several strategies that meet these requirements are currently available in the literature. This Minireview summarizes [2+2] and [4+2] photocycloadditions that do not require the use of metal photocatalysts by means of alternative strategies. It is segmented according to the cycloaddition type in order to give the reader a friendly approach and we primarily focus on the most recent developments in the field carried out using visible light, a general overview of the mechanism in each case is offered as wellFinancial support was provided by the European Research Council (ERC-CoG, Contract Number: 647550), the Spanish Government (RTI2018-095038-B-I00), the ‘Comunidad de Madrid’ and European Structural Funds (S2018/NMT-4367). R. I. R thanks Fundación Carolina for a graduate fellowshi

Developing engagement in Ultralab’s online communities of enquiry

This paper provides an account of the development of online communities at Ultralab for students engaged on masters‐level programmes, doctoral research and continuing professional learning. It considers the ways in which the engagement of learners, and their consequent participation, is seen to be dependent on several factors—the learners’ perception of purpose, their sense of identity and trust, framing of learning activities, interventions from learning facilitators and tutors, and the information architecture of the learning space. The notion of engagement in this online community in higher education (HE) is explored. The term ‘community of enquiry’ is used to indicate the key purpose of the community—that of practitioner‐based enquiry, or research

The eCrystals Federation - Management and publication of small molecule structure data for the whole crystallographic community

Belgium Herbarium image of Meise Botanic Garden

‘The eCrystals Federation’ management and publication of small molecule structure data for the whole crystallographic community

Recently the funding councils in the UK stated that ‘the data underpinning the published results of publicly-funded research should be made available as widely and rapidly as possible’. Thirty years ago research students would present about five crystal structures as their PhD thesis, however with modern technologies and good crystals this can now be achieved in the timespan of a single morning. This increase in pace of generation further exacerbates a problem in the communication of the results. Additionally, the general route for the publication of a crystal structure report is coupled with and often governed by the underlying chemistry and is therefore subject to the lengthy peer review process and tied to the timing of the publication as a whole. This bottleneck in the dissemination of crystal structure data hinders the potential growth of databases and the data mining studies that are reliant on these collections (just 500,000 small unit cell crystal structures are available in the CSD, ICSD & CRYSMET). In addition, publication in the mainstream literature still offers only indirect (and often subscription controlled) access. The eBank-UK (http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/projects/ebank-uk) project addressed this problem by establishing an institutional data repository that supports, manages and disseminates metadata relating to crystal structure data. The Southampton eCrystals repository (http://ecrystals.chem.soton.ac.uk) that arose from this project makes available all the derived and results data from a crystallographic experiment in a controllable manner and with little further researcher effort after the completion of a structure. This process alters the traditional method of peer review by openly providing crystal structure data where the reader or user may directly check correctness and validity. Not only does this approach allow rapid release of crystal structure data into the public domain, but it can also provide mechanisms for value added services that allow rapid discovery of the data for further studies and reuse, whilst ownership of the data is retained by the creator. Building on the success of this prototype repository, the eCrystals Federation project (http://wiki.ecrystals.chem.soton.ac.uk) will establish a network of such crystallographic data repositories across an international group of partner sites. Data from the Southampton repository has been harvested by CCDC and the CDS and the project is additionally working with IUCr, RSC, Chemistry Central and Nature to establish protocols for scaleable harvesting mechanisms across the network. By engaging data centres, librarians, researchers, publishers and third party information providers we will develop approaches to the preservation and curation of scientific data in open repositories (the UK based Digital Curation Centre is a partner in the project). A fully interactive demonstration of the Southampton eCrystals software will be possible at the meeting and strategies for the installation and population of repositories at new sites will also be outlined, based on the experience of early adopter sites

A hierarchical modeling approach to predict the distribution and density of Sierra Nevada Red Fox (Vulpes vulpes necator).

Carnivores play critical roles in ecosystems, yet many species are declining worldwide. The Sierra Nevada Red Fox (Vulpes vulpes necator; SNRF) is a rare and endangered subspecies of red fox limited to upper montane forests, subalpine, and alpine environments of California and Oregon, United States. Having experienced significant distribution contractions and population declines in the last century, the subspecies is listed as at-risk by relevant federal and state agencies. Updated information on its contemporary distribution and density is needed to guide and evaluate conservation and management actions. We combined 12 years (2009-2020) of detection and nondetection data collected throughout California and Oregon to model the potential distribution and density of SNRFs throughout their historical and contemporary ranges. We used an integrated species distribution and density modeling approach, which predicted SNRF density in sampled locations based on observed relationships between environmental covariates and detection frequencies, and then projected those predictions to unsampled locations based on the estimated correlations with environmental covariates. This approach provided predictions that serve as density estimates in sampled regions and projections in unsampled areas. Our model predicted a density of 1.06 (95% credible interval = 0.8-1.36) foxes per 100 km2 distributed throughout 22,926 km2 in three distinct regions of California and Oregon-Sierra Nevada, Lassen Peak, and Oregon Cascades. SNRFs were most likely to be found in areas with low minimum temperatures and high snow water equivalent. Our results provide a contemporary baseline to inform the development and evaluation of conservation and management actions, and guide future survey efforts

Contrasting genetic trajectories of endangered and expanding red fox populations in the western U.S.

As anthropogenic disturbances continue to drive habitat loss and range contractions, the maintenance of evolutionary processes will increasingly require targeting measures to the population level, even for common and widespread species. Doing so requires detailed knowledge of population genetic structure, both to identify populations of conservation need and value, as well as to evaluate suitability of potential donor populations. We conducted a range-wide analysis of the genetic structure of red foxes in the contiguous western U.S., including a federally endangered distinct population segment of the Sierra Nevada subspecies, with the objectives of contextualizing field observations of relative scarcity in the Pacific mountains and increasing abundance in the cold desert basins of the Intermountain West. Using 31 autosomal microsatellites, along with mitochondrial and Y-chromosome markers, we found that populations of the Pacific mountains were isolated from one another and genetically depauperate (e.g., estimated Ne range = 3-9). In contrast, red foxes in the Intermountain regions showed relatively high connectivity and genetic diversity. Although most Intermountain red foxes carried indigenous western matrilines (78%) and patrilines (85%), the presence of nonindigenous haplotypes at lower elevations indicated admixture with fur-farm foxes and possibly expanding midcontinent populations as well. Our findings suggest that some Pacific mountain populations could likely benefit from increased connectivity (i.e., genetic rescue) but that nonnative admixture makes expanding populations in the Intermountain basins a non-ideal source. However, our results also suggest contact between Pacific mountain and Intermountain basin populations is likely to increase regardless, warranting consideration of risks and benefits of proactive measures to mitigate against unwanted effects of Intermountain gene flow