Ships Observing Marine Climate: a catalogue of the VOS participating in the VSOP-NA

Our present knowledge of the marine climate, as represented by data sets such as COADS (Woodruff et al., 1987), is based on meteorological observations from the Voluntary Observing Ships (VOS). Because the VOS are merchant ships, rather than specially designed meteorological platforms, errors and biases exist in the data. However there is little information readily available to the climatologist either on the nature of the VOS fleet or on the observing practises which are used. This report, describing the forty-six ships that participated in the Voluntary Observing Ships' Special Observing Project - North Atlantic (VSOP-NA), therefore serves two purposes:(i) it provides a reference document to aid analysis of the VSOP-NA data set,(ii) it gives a detailed description of a subset of the VOS, which will be of value in the interpretation of marine climate data sets.This report is in two parts, Part 1 is an overall summary of the ship characteristics, Part 2 is a ship by ship description. The next section will briefly describe the VSOP-NA project, followed by a summary of the characteristics of the VSOP-NA ships (Section 3). Since these ships were specially selected (Section 2.2), the degree to which they are representative of the whole VOS fleet will be carefully considered. The meteorological instrumentation used by the VOS varies depending on which meteorological agency recruited the ships. That used on the chosen VSOP-NA ships is typical of VOS recruited by the countries bordering the North Atlantic, and will be described in Section 4. Section 5 is a summary of Part 1 of the report.Part 2 presents the VSOP-NA ship catalogue. This includes, for each ship, diagrams of the layout (indicating in particular the exposure of the sensors), a summary of the geographical positions at which observations were obtained, and details of the instrumentation used.<br/

Reasoning with Spider Diagrams

Spider diagrams combine and extend Venn diagrams and Euler circles to express constraints on sets and their relationships with other sets. These diagrams can usefully be used in conjunction with object-oriented modelling notations such as the Unified Modelling Language. This paper summarises the main syntax and semantics of spider diagrams and introduces four inference rules for reasoning with spider diagrams and a rule governing the equivalence of Venn and Euler forms of spider diagrams. This paper also details rules for combining two spider diagrams to produce a single diagram which retains as much of their combined semantic information as possible and discusses disjunctive diagrams as one possible way of enriching the system in order to combine spider diagrams so that no semantic information is lost

The Effect of Range Condition Upon the Production, Nutritive Intake and Digestibility of Desert Range Forage in Southwestern Utah

The 65 million acres of winter range in the Intermountain region furnish forage for about five million sheep and four million cattle each winter for approximately six months. These arid ranges are well suited for winter grazing, and are of paramount importance to the livestock industry. Many of these ranges were fully stocked by 1900 and as livestock continued to increase, many winter ranges were seriously over-grazed (Hutchings and Stewart, 1953). Today many of these ranges remain in a deteriorated condition. Forage production has decreased and desirable plants have been replaced by less desirable species. Little is known about the relative production, palatability, digestibility, and nutrient content of forage plants found on ranges in poor condition compared to ranges in good condition, yet such information is fundamental to good range and livestock management. In order to learn more about the effect of range condition upon the forage intake and nutrient content for sheep a study was conducted on typical winter range in southwestern Utah during the winter grazing seasons of 1957-58

Should I Stay or Should I Go? Exploring the Crisis of Faith Process of Former Members of the CJLDS within the United States

Christians are experiencing a crisis of religious faith throughout the United States at an alarming rate, especially among millennials. For members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, there were 20 primary and secondary reasons that created a crisis of religious faith and there were 13 reasons that motivated each participant to eventually abandon their Church membership. Over 80% of the reasons why the participants left the Church were directly and indirectly tied to the Prophet Joseph Smith and to the authenticity of the Book of Mormon. The use of the Internet played a significant role in expediting a person’s crisis of religious faith. Of the 13 participants in this study, nine were self-described as an atheist or being agnostic; three as a spiritualist, but not religious; and one was self-described as a Deist. In all cases, each participant felt suspicious and resentful of religions in general, and they had no desire to seek out a differing religious denomination, a phenomenon not previously documented in prior research studies. When a participant experienced a crisis of religious faith, each individual went through a transitional phase that was highlighted by Six-Stages of Religious Transition that went from questioning and then doubting Church dogma to leaving the Church by forming a new identity through self-determination with the goal of reaching a state of sovereignty or autonomy by becoming agents unto themselves. The average length of time from first questioning and doubting Church dogma to eventually leaving the Church was 6.5 years

Induction Of Antigen-specific, Isotype-selective Suppression Of Immunoglobulin-e Responses With Glutaraldehyde - Polymerized Ovalbumin

Polymerization of protein allergens with glutaraldehyde (GA) has been shown to lead to decreased local or systemic adverse reactions when used in human hyposensitization therapy. At the same time, clinical trials have revealed that their immunotherapeutic value was at least as good, and in many cases significantly better than that of the corresponding conventional native allergen extracts. Despite these advantages their mechanism of action remains unclear.;The purpose of this study was to determine the characteristics and classification of immunosuoppressive activity established as a consequence of treatment with GA-proteins.;Treatment of mice, a widely accepted animal prototype for human allergy, with GA-polymerized ovalbumin (OA-POL) led to highly efficient antigen-specific suppression of primary and secondary IgE responses. On the other hand, IgG antibody and delayed hypersensitivity responses were not suppressed. Decreased binding to antibodies against the native OA molecule occurred with all GA-modified OA preparations regardless of whether they were polymerized or not. On the other hand, the ability to suppress IgE responses appeared to correlate directly with the size of the polymers used. Suppression was transferable to syngeneic recipients and depended upon the presence in the donor spleens of live Thy 1.2+ and Lyt 1+ lymphocytes.;OA-POL treatment of mice previously immunized with OA (alum) abrogated ongoing IgE responses. Not only were IgE anti-OA responses 8-10 fold lower in the treated group, but anamnestic IgE responses were prevented. Abrogation persisted for over 300 days despite multiple OA (alum) boosters. These results, taken in combination with experiments demonstrating undiminished antigen- and IgE isotype-specific suppression more than seven months after a single course of OA-POL pretreatment, suggested the existence of memory suppressor T cells. Direct evidence for such cells was obtained in adoptive transfer experiments where memory Ts cells were shown to be long-lived ((GREATERTHEQ) 200 d), rapidly recallable and displaying greater suppressive activity than conventional primary suppressor cells.;The study suggests that homeostasis of IgE responses may be maintained, at least in part, by long-lived and boosterable antigen-specific, isotype-selective suppressor T cells. The experimental manipulation of such cells indicates that increasing their activity may provide a useful approach for the selective regulation of IgE- mediated hypersensitivity

NEW BELGIUM BREWING COMPANY AND B CORPORATION CERTIFICATION

This case discusses the American craft-brewing company New Belgium Brewing (NBB), where the director of sustainability, Katie Wallace, must decide whether to invest significant company resources into becoming a B Corp certified company. More specifically, she must present her recommendation to the board of directors and to employees who are also shareholders. B Corporation is part of a non-profit organization encouraging sustainable business similar to LEED certification for construction or Fair Trade certification for coffee and chocolate. The idea behind B Corp certification is to use the power of business to solve social and environmental problems. New Belgium Brewing has always operated from a triple-bottom-line perspective, and given NBB’s impressive record Katie must make a recommendation on whether it is worth the commitment and investment in becoming B Corp certified. On the one hand the certification is demanding and includes things such as hundreds of questions around governance and how the company is run including interviews with workers and customers, investigations into their hiring practices, visits from inspectors, changing legal documents, and more. On the other hand, third party verification allows the company to communicate their values to customers and the greater business community, and the assessment process helps to identify, manage, and make progress towards, important goals through the use of B Corp metrics and benchmarks. Lastly, upon certification NBB becomes part of a larger business community with similar values and goals