Multi-population comparison of resource exploitation by island foxes: implications for conservation

Imperiled island foxes are inherently resource-limited by their insular ecology. We examined food use on all 6 islands where they occur to assess resource exploitation patterns. Over 40 different food items were identified with item use varying among islands. Sixteen items occurred with ≥10% frequency in annual fox diets: deer mice, birds, lizards, beetles, beetle larvae, Jerusalem crickets, silk-spinning sand crickets, grasshoppers, earwigs, snails, and fruits of toyon, manzanita, prickly pear cactus, ice plant, Australian saltbush, and summer holly. Foxes used a diversity of food items with variations among islands attributable to island-specific availabilities. Deer mice in particular appeared to be preferred. Foxes also exhibited extensive use of non-native items, such as ice plant fruits, European snails, and earwigs, and foxes may even be dependent on these items on some islands. To increase food security and promote population stability, we recommend (1) continuing and enhancing habitat restoration efforts on all islands, (2) increasing the abundance of native items in association with any removals of non-native species used by foxes, and (3) monitoring annual trends in abundance of key food items as well as periodic monitoring of item use by foxes to determine functional responses to changes in item availability

High throughput imaging cytometer with acoustic focussing

We demonstrate an imaging flow cytometer that uses acoustic levitation to assemble cells and other particles into a sheet structure. This technique enables a high resolution, low noise CMOS camera to capture images of thousands of cells with each frame. While ultrasonic focussing has previously been demonstrated for 1D cytometry systems, extending the technology to a planar, much higher throughput format and integrating imaging is non-trivial, and represents a significant jump forward in capability, leading to diagnostic possibilities not achievable with current systems. A galvo mirror is used to track the images of the moving cells permitting exposure times of 10 ms at frame rates of 50 fps with motion blur of only a few pixels. At 80 fps, we demonstrate a throughput of 208 000 beads per second. We investigate the factors affecting motion blur and throughput, and demonstrate the system with fluorescent beads, leukaemia cells and a chondrocyte cell line. Cells require more time to reach the acoustic focus than beads, resulting in lower throughputs; however a longer device would remove this constraint

Predicting the cost of the consequences of a large nuclear accident in the UK

Nuclear accidents have the potential to lead to significant off-site effects that require actions to minimise the radiological impacts on people. Such countermeasures may include sheltering, evacuation, restrictions on the sale of locally-grown food, and long-term relocation of the population amongst others. Countries with nuclear facilities draw up emergency preparedness plans, and put in place such provisions as distributing instructions and iodine prophylaxis to the local population. Their plans are applied in simulated exercises on a regular basis. The costs associated with emergency preparedness and the safety provisions to reduce the likelihood of an accident, and/or mitigate the consequences, are justified on the basis of the health risks and accident costs averted. There is, of course, only limited actual experience to indicate the likely costs so that much of the costing of accidents is based on calculations. This paper reviews the methodologies used, in particular the approach that has been developed in the UK, to appraise the costs of a hypothetical nuclear accident. Results of analysing a hypothetical nuclear accident at a fictitious reactor site within the United Kingdom are discussed in relation to the accidents at Three Mile Island 2, Chernobyl and Fukushima Dai-ichi

SERS multiplexing of methylxanthine drug isomers via host-guest size matching and machine learning

Multiplexed detection and quantification of structurally similar drug molecules, methylxanthine MeX, incl. theobromine TBR, theophylline TPH and caffeine CAF, have been demonstrated via solution-based surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS), achieving highly reproducible SERS signals with detection limits down to ∼50 nM for TBR and TPH, and ∼1 μM for CAF. Our SERS substrates are formed by aqueous self-assembly of gold nanoparticles (Au NPs) and supramolecular host molecules, cucurbit[n]urils (CBn, n = 7, 8). We demonstrate that the binding constants can be significantly increased using a host–guest size matching approach, which enables effective enrichment of analyte molecules in close proximity to the plasmonic hotspots. The dynamic range and the robustness of the sensing scheme can be extended using machine learning algorithms, which shows promise for potential applications in therapeutic drug monitoring, food processing, forensics and veterinary science

Technology, organisation and productivity performance in services : lessons from Britain and the United States since 1870

This paper documents the comparative productivity performance of the United States and Britain since 1870, showing the importance of developments in services. We identify the transition in market services from customised, low-volume, high-margin business organised on a network basis to standardised, high-volume, low-margin business with hierarchical management, as a key factor. A model of the interaction between technology, organisation and economic performance is then provided, focusing on the transition from networks to hierarchies. Four general lessons are drawn: (1) developments in services must be analysed if the major changes in comparative productivity performance among nations are to be understood fully; (2) different technologies and organisational forms can co-exist efficiently; (3) technological change can cause difficulties of adjustment in technology-using sectors if it is not suited to the social capabilities of the society; (4) reversal of technological trends can lead to reversal of comparative productivity performance

The public health benefits of insulation retrofits in existing housing in the United States

BACKGROUND: Methodological limitations make it difficult to quantify the public health benefits of energy efficiency programs. To address this issue, we developed a risk-based model to estimate the health benefits associated with marginal energy usage reductions and applied the model to a hypothetical case study of insulation retrofits in single-family homes in the United States. METHODS: We modeled energy savings with a regression model that extrapolated findings from an energy simulation program. Reductions of fine particulate matter (PM(2.5)) emissions and particle precursors (SO(2 )and NOx) were quantified using fuel-specific emission factors and marginal electricity analyses. Estimates of population exposure per unit emissions, varying by location and source type, were extrapolated from past dispersion model runs. Concentration-response functions for morbidity and mortality from PM(2.5 )were derived from the epidemiological literature, and economic values were assigned to health outcomes based on willingness to pay studies. RESULTS: In total, the insulation retrofits would save 800 TBTU (8 × 10(14 )British Thermal Units) per year across 46 million homes, resulting in 3,100 fewer tons of PM(2.5), 100,000 fewer tons of NOx, and 190,000 fewer tons of SO(2 )per year. These emission reductions are associated with outcomes including 240 fewer deaths, 6,500 fewer asthma attacks, and 110,000 fewer restricted activity days per year. At a state level, the health benefits per unit energy savings vary by an order of magnitude, illustrating that multiple factors (including population patterns and energy sources) influence health benefit estimates. The health benefits correspond to $1.3 billion per year in externalities averted, compared with$5.9 billion per year in economic savings. CONCLUSION: In spite of significant uncertainties related to the interpretation of PM(2.5 )health effects and other dimensions of the model, our analysis demonstrates that a risk-based methodology is viable for national-level energy efficiency programs

Security: Collective good or commodity?

This is the author's accepted manuscript. The final published article is available from the link below. Copyright @ 2008 Sage.The state monopoly on the legitimate use of violence in Europe and North America has been central to the development of security as a collective good. Not only has it institutionalized the state as the prime national and international security provider, it has helped to reduce the threat from other actors by either prohibiting or limiting their use of violence. The recent growth of the private security industry appears to undermine this view. Not only are private security firms proliferating at the national level; private military companies are also taking over an increasing range of military functions in both national defence and international interventions. This article seeks to provide an examination of the theoretical and practical implications of the shift from states to markets in the provision of security. Specifically, it discusses how the conceptualization of security as a commodity rather than a collective good affects the meaning and implementation of security in Western democracies.ESR

Relinquishing and Governing the Volatile: The Many Afghanistans and Critical Research Agendas of NATO's Governance

This article invites academics and policy analysts to examine the mechanisms and legacy of NATO's security and development governance of Afghan social spaces by using critical theory concepts. It argues that such scholarly endeavors are growing in importance as the United States and NATO gradually pull their troops out of Afghanistan. Thus, the article suggests a broad twofold research agenda. First, it points out that researching social spaces such as towns, villages, marketplaces, and neighborhoods beyond the realm of intergovernmental politics can lead to thick descriptions of how such places have been governed from within by agents external to them. Second, the study argues for a multifaceted examination of instruments, strategies, and institutions of security governance, its conduct and social effects by deploying critical and Foucauldian concepts such as the rationality and apparatuses of power relations. Thereby, it proposes an inquiry into Provincial Reconstruction Teams and Afghan National Security Forces as spatially and temporally specific apparatuses of surveillance and security