Managing Saline Groundwater Impacts from Irrigation - Designing and Testing Emissions Trading in Coleambally Irrigation Area

Irrigated agriculture often leads to recharge to local and regional groundwater systems greater than what the systems can absorb, resulting in the development of shallow watertables causing salinity and waterlogging. Policy based on emissions trading offers one option for effective management of existing recharge externalities if effective property rights to diffuse emissions can be defined. In this paper we combine the conclusions drawn from biophysical research with economic principles underpinning emissions trading to present such a system. Allocation of net recharge contracts to irrigation farms will internalize the costs associated with saline aquifer impacts. Irrigators may reduce their compliance costs by creating or purchasing credits that reduce recharge through perennial vegetation, engineering solutions or crop rotation options. We discuss the economic impacts of adopting such a policy in the Coleambally Irrigation Area in southwestern New South Wales, Australia. We also demonstrate some of the conclusions drawn from our research using experimental economics.salinity, irrigation, recharge, tradeable emissions, cap and trade, hydrologic-economic modelling, experimental economics

(Chloromethyl)pentacarbonylmanganese(I): a crystal structure with a non-crystallographic centre of symmetry

There are two molecules in the asymmetric unit of the P2₁/c unit cell of ClCH₂Mn(CO)₅, the first halomethyl complex of manganese to be structurally determined. The molecules are crystallographically independent, despite an apparent local centre of symmetry. The average bond parameters include Mn–Calkyl 2.128(8) Å, C–Cl 1.811(8) Å and Mn–C–Cl 116.4(4)

Four forms of 'offender' rehabilitation: Towards an interdisciplinary perspective

This paper aims to advance the case for a more fully interdisciplinary understanding of offender rehabilitation, partly as a means of shedding light upon and moving beyond contemporary ‘paradigm conflicts’. It begins with a review of current arguments about what a credible ‘offender’ rehabilitation theory requires and by exploring some aspects of current debates about different theories. It goes on to locate this specific kind of contemporary theory building in the context of historical arguments about and critiques of rehabilitation as a concept and in practice. In the third part of the paper, I explore the nature of the relationship between desistance theories and rehabilitation theories, so as to develop my concluding argument; that is, that debates about psychological rehabilitation have been hampered by a failure to engage fully with debates about at least three other forms of rehabilitation (legal, moral, and social) that emerge as being equally important in the process of desistance fr

Macroinvertebrate diversity in fragmented Alpine streams: implications for freshwater conservation

Abstract.: Lakes and reservoirs disrupt the longitudinal connectivity of streams, considerably affecting benthic macroinvertebrate assemblages and diversity. Changes in assemblage composition within fragments can result from habitat alteration and reduced dispersal between fragments. We investigated the effects of habitat fragmentation in 10 Alpine streams, examining 69 taxa of benthic macroinvertebrates from 22 sites in fragmented and freeflowing streams. Total taxon richness (α-diversity) ranged from 6 to 27 in individual sites, and total richness was not significantly affected by fragmentation. However, Ephemeroptera and Diptera (excluding Simuliidae) richness was significantly reduced in stream fragments. Beta-diversity indicated a high degree of taxon turnover among sites within streams, but was not significantly different between fragmented and unfragmented streams. Characterizing the biological, physiological, and ecological traits of Ephemeroptera showed that communities in reservoir-fragmented streams had a higher affinity for fine sediments, increased temperatures, and reduced current velocity. Taxon assemblages in fragments were not nested subsets of unfragmented site assemblages. Thus, species turnover and species replacement in fragments is common, suggesting that most taxa are able to freely disperse among fragments. We suggest that habitat alteration was the primary cause of changes in assemblage structure in these streams. Consequently, habitat-based conservation is likely to be successful in maintaining populations of all but the weakest disperser

The Twisted Photon Associated to Hyper-Hermitian Four-Manifolds

The Lax formulation of the hyper-Hermiticity condition in four dimensions is used to derive a potential that generalises Plebanski's second heavenly equation for hyper-Kahler 4-manifolds. A class of examples of hyper-Hermitian metrics which depend on two arbitrary functions of two complex variables is given. The twistor theory of four-dimensional hyper-Hermitian manifolds is formulated as a combination of the Nonlinear Graviton Construction with the Ward transform for anti-self-dual Maxwell fields.Comment: 12 pages, LaTex, no figure

Modeling the Infrared Spectrum of the Earth-Moon System: Implications for the Detection and Characterization of Earthlike Extrasolar Planets and their Moonlike Companions

Large surface temperatures on the illuminated hemisphere of the Moon can lead it to contribute a significant amount of flux to spatially unresolved infrared (IR) observations of the Earth-Moon system, especially at wavelengths where Earth's atmosphere is absorbing. We have paired the NASA Astrobiology Institute's Virtual Planetary Laboratory three-dimensional spectral Earth model with a model of the phase dependent IR spectrum of a Moonlike satellite to investigate the effects of an unresolved companion on IR observations of Earthlike extrasolar planets. For an extrasolar twin Earth-Moon system observed at full phase at IR wavelengths, the Moon consistently comprises about 20% of the total signal, approaches 30% of the signal in the 9.6 micron ozone band and the 15 micron carbon dioxide band, makes up as much as 80% of the total signal in the 6.3 micron water band, and more than 90% of the signal in the 4.3 micron carbon dioxide band. These excesses translate to inferred brightness temperatures for Earth that are too large by about 20-40 K, and demonstrate that the presence of an undetected satellite can have a significant impact on the spectroscopic characterization of terrestrial exoplanets. The thermal flux contribution from an airless companion depends strongly on the star-planet-observer angle (i.e., the phase angle), allowing moons to mimic or mask seasonal variations in the host planet's IR spectrum, and implying that observations of exoplanets should be taken when the phase angle is as small as feasibly possible if contributions from airless companions are to be minimized. We show that, by differencing IR observations of an Earth twin with a companion taken at both gibbous phase and at crescent phase, Moonlike satellites may be detectable by future exoplanet characterization missions for a wide range of system inclinations.Comment: 23 pages, 1 table, 5 figures; appearing in Ap

Migration of Gas Giant Planets in Gravitationally Unstable Disks

Characterization of migration in gravitationally unstable disks is necessary to understand the fate of protoplanets formed by disk instability. As part of a larger study, we are using a 3D radiative hydrodynamics code to investigate how an embedded gas giant planet interacts with a gas disk that undergoes gravitational instabilities (GIs). This Letter presents results from simulations with a Jupiter-mass planet placed in orbit at 25 AU within a 0.14 $M_{\odot}$ disk. The disk spans 5 to 40 AU around a 1 $M_{\odot}$ star and is initially marginally unstable. In one simulation, the planet is inserted prior to the eruption of GIs; in another, it is inserted only after the disk has settled into a quasi-steady GI-active state, where heating by GIs roughly balances radiative cooling. When the planet is present from the beginning, its own wake stimulates growth of a particular global mode with which it strongly interacts, and the planet plunges inward six AU in about 10$^3$ years. In both cases with embedded planets, there are times when the planet's radial motion is slow and varies in direction. At other times, when the planet appears to be interacting with strong spiral modes, migration both inward and outward can be relatively rapid, covering several AUs over hundreds of years. Migration in both cases appears to stall near the inner Lindblad resonance of a dominant low-order mode. Planet orbit eccentricities fluctuate rapidly between about 0.02 to 0.1 throughout the GI-active phases of the simulations.Comment: Submitted to ApJ

An improved synthesis, crystal structures, and metallochromism of salts of [Ru(tolyl-terpy)(CN)(3)](-)

The previously reported complex [Ru(ttpy)(CN)(3)] [ttpy = 4'(p-tolyl)-2,2':6',2"-terpyridine] is conveniently synthesised by reaction of ttpy with Ru(dmso)(4)Cl-2 to give [Ru(ttpy)(dmso)Cl-2], which reacts in turn with KCN in aqueous ethanol to afford [Ru(ttpy)(CN)(3)] which was isolated and crystallographically characterised as both its (PPN)(+) and K+ salts. The K+ salt contains clusters containing three complex anions and three K+ cations connected by end-on and side-on cyanide ligation to the K+ ions. The solution speciation behaviour of [Ru(ttpy)(CN)(3)] was investigated with both Zn2+ and K+ salts in MeCN, a solvent sufficiently non-competitive to allow the added metal cations to associate with the complex anion via the externally-directed cyanide lone pairs. UV-Vis spectroscopic titration of (PPN)[Ru(ttpy)(CN)(3)] with Zn(ClO4)(2) showed a blue shift of 2900 cm (1) in the (MLCT)-M-1 absorption manifold due to the ` metallochromism' effect; a series of distinct binding events could be discerned corresponding to formation of 4:1, 1:1 and then 1:3 anion: cation adducts, all with high formation constants, as the titration proceeded. In contrast titration of (PPN)[Ru(ttpy)(CN)(3)] with the more weakly Lewis-acidic KPF6 resulted in a much smaller blue-shift of the 1MLCT absorptions, and the titration data corresponded to formation of 1:1 and then 2: 1 cation: anion adducts with weaker stepwise association constants of the order of 10(4) and then 10(3) M (1). Although association of [Ru(ttpy)(CN)(3)] resulted in a blue-shift of the (MLCT)-M-1 absorptions, the luminescence was steadily quenched, as raising the (MLCT)-M-3 level makes radiationless decay via a lowlying (MC)-M-3 state possible. (C) 2010 Elsevier B. V. All rights reserved

Extranuclear X-ray Emission in the Edge-on Seyfert Galaxy NGC 2992

We found several extranuclear (r >~ 3") X-ray nebulae within 40" (6.3 kpc at 32.5 Mpc) of the nucleus of the Seyfert galaxy NGC 2992. The net X-ray luminosity from the extranuclear sources is ~2-3 E39 erg/s (0.3-8.0 keV). The X-ray core itself (r <~ 1") is positioned at 9:45:41.95 -14:19:34.8 (J2000) and has a remarkably simple power-law spectrum with photon index Gamma=1.86 and Nh=7E21 /cm2. The near-nuclear (3" <~ r <~ 18") Chandra spectrum is best modelled by three components: (1) a direct AGN component with Gamma fixed at 1.86, (2) cold Compton reflection of the AGN component, and (3) a 0.5 keV low-abundance (Z < 0.03 Zsolar) "thermal plasma," with ~10% of the flux of either of the first two components. The X-ray luminosity of the 3rd component (the "soft excess") is ~1.4E40 erg/s, or ~5X that of all of the detected extranuclear X-ray sources. We suggest that most (~75-80%) of the soft excess emission originates from 1" < r < 3", which is not imaged in our observation due to severe CCD pile-up. We also require the cold reflector to be positioned at least 1" (158 pc) from the nucleus, since there is no reflection component in the X-ray core spectrum. Much of the extranuclear X-ray emission is coincident with radio structures (nuclear radio bubbles and large-scale radio features), and its soft X-ray luminosity is generally consistent with luminosities expected from a starburst-driven wind (with the starburst scaled from L_FIR). However, the AGN in NGC 2992 seems equally likely to power the galactic wind in that object. Furthermore, AGN photoionization and photoexcitation processes could dominate the soft excess, especially the \~75-80% which is not imaged by our observations.Comment: 34 pages AASTEX, 9 (low-res) PS figures, ApJ, in press. For full-resolution postscript file, visit http://www.pha.jhu.edu/~colbert/n2992_chandra.ps.g

Provision of physiotherapy rehabilitation following neck dissection in the UK

Background Neck dissection is associated with post-operative shoulder dysfunction in a substantial number of patients, affecting quality of life and return to work. There is no current UK national practice regarding physiotherapy after neck dissection. Method Nine regional centres were surveyed to determine their standard physiotherapy practice pre- and post-neck dissection, and to determine pre-emptive physiotherapy for any patients. Results Eighty-nine per cent of centres never arranged any pre-emptive physiotherapy for any patients. Thirty-three per cent of centres offered routine in-patient physiotherapy after surgery. No centres offered out-patient physiotherapy for all patients regardless of symptoms. Seventy-eight per cent offered physiotherapy for patients with any symptoms, with 11 per cent offering physiotherapy for those with severe dysfunction only. Eleven per cent of centres never offered physiotherapy for any dysfunction. Conclusion The provision of physiotherapy is most commonly reactive rather than proactive, and usually driven by patient request. There is little evidence of pre-arranged physiotherapy for patients to treat or prevent shoulder dysfunction in the UK