Assessment of a satellite power system and six alternative technologies

The satellite power system is assessed in comparison to six alternative technologies. The alternatives are: central-station terrestrial photovoltaic systems, conventional coal-fired power plants, coal-gasification/combined-cycle power plants, light water reactor power plants, liquid-metal fast-breeder reactors, and fusion. The comparison is made regarding issues of cost and performance, health and safety, environmental effects, resources, socio-economic factors, and institutional issues. The criteria for selecting the issues and the alternative technologies are given, and the methodology of the comparison is discussed. Brief descriptions of each of the technologies considered are included

Burden of Proof and Choice of Forum in Tax Litigation

Since the burden of proof may be a decisive factor in tax litigation, it is important that the taxpayer be aware of the different rules in the various forums to which he may take a tax controversy, and it is essential that those rules operate fairly and consistently to enable the taxpayer to choose his forum intelligently. It is the purpose of this article to examine the burden of proof in tax litigation as it affects the choice of forum problem

Olfactory variation in mouse husbandry and its implications for refinement and standardisation: UK survey of non-animal scents

With their highly sensitive olfactory system, the behaviour and physiology of mice are not only influenced by the scents of conspecifics and other species, but also by many other chemicals in the environment. The constraints of laboratory housing limit a mouse’s capacity to avoid aversive odours that could be present in the environment. Potentially odorous items routinely used for husbandry procedures, such as sanitizing products and gloves, could be perceived by mice as aversive or attractive, and affect their behaviour, physiology and experimental results. A survey was sent to research institutions in the UK to enquire about husbandry practices that could impact on the olfactory environment of the mouse. Responses were obtained from 80 individuals working in 51 institutions. Husbandry practices varied considerably. Seventy percent of respondents reported always wearing gloves for handling mice, with nitrile being the most common glove material (94%) followed by latex (23%) and vinyl (14%). Over six different products were listed for cleaning surfaces, floors, anaesthesia and euthanasia chambers and behavioural apparatus. In all cases Trigene™ (now called Anistel™) was the most common cleaning product used (43, 41, 40 and 49%, respectively). Depending on the attribute considered, between 7 and 19% of respondents thought that cleaning products definitely, or were likely to, have strong effects on standardization, mouse health, physiology or behaviour. Understanding whether and how these odours affect mouse welfare will help to refine mouse husbandry and experimental procedures through practical recommendations, to improve the quality of life of laboratory animals and the experimental data obtained

An examination of the impacts of volunteering and community contribution at a community festival through the lens of the Five Ways to Wellbeing

The aim of this study was to examine the perceptions, motivations and wellbeing impacts for volunteers and contributors to Broadstairs Folk Week. The study utilised questionnaires with a mix of quantitative and qualitative measures, within a single cohort (n = 152). Analysis was conducted using IBM SPSS 24 to produce descriptive statistics, and cross-tabulations were used to interrogate key variables. NVivo 11 software was used to analyse qualitative comments. A thematic analysis (thematic development) approach further identified codes and themes that fitted well with the Five Ways to Wellbeing (Aked, J., Marks, N., Cordon, C. and Thompson, S. (2008). Five ways to wellbeing: a report presented to the Foresight Project on communicating the evidence base for improving people's well-being, New Economics Foundation. Retrieved from https://b.3cdn.net/nefoundation/8984c5089d5c2285ee_t4m6bhqq5.pdf). Findings demonstrate that older-adult festival volunteers had a higher sense of subjective wellbeing prior to the festival than might ordinarily be expected in a similar group. Participants reported their sense of wellbeing increased during the festival. The Five Ways to Wellbeing model is suggested as a useful way to frame the results, linking a sense of 'connection' and 'giving' as participant motivators. This paper argues that festival volunteers derive personal benefits, including sense of connection and reciprocity, and access to resources with potential health and wellbeing benefits. This may be beneficial to the public health agenda of community development, reducing isolation and supporting healthy ageing. The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s42413-021-00154-2. [Abstract copyright: © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021.

Effects of live-bait shrimp trawling on seagrass beds and fish bycatch in Tampa Bay, Florida

The use of live shrimp for bait in recreational fishing has resulted in a controversial fishery for shrimp in Florida. In this fishery, night collections are conducted over seagrass beds with roller beam trawls to capture live shrimp, primarily pink shrimp, Penaeus duorarum. These shrimp are culled from the catch on sorting tables and placed in onboard aerated “live” wells. Beds of turtlegrass, Thalassia testudinum, a species that has highest growth rates and biomass during summer and lowest during the winter (Fonseca et al., 1996) are predominant areas for live-bait shrimp trawling (Tabb and Kenny, 1969). Our study objectives were 1) to determine effects of a roller beam trawl on turtlegrass biomass and morphometrics during intensive (up to 18 trawls over a turtlegrass bed), short-term (3-hour duration) use and 2) to examine the mortality of bycatch finfish following capture by a trawl

Pullet flock management

Proper feeding and management of the laying flock is the producer’s responsibility. Well fed, healthy flocks, housed in adequate quarters should average 50 to 70 percent production during the entire laying season. If this production is not attained with proper management practices, the flock owner should give more careful consideration to the type of stock being purchased. Rigorous culling several times during the season should be practiced to eliminate the poor layers and those that drop out of production early. Information available from Extension Service, Iowa State College, in bulletin form, will serve as a guide to proper culling techniques. The amount of feed consumed by a flock o f laying hens depends largely on the breed, body size and the rate of production. The feed intake of the hen is used (1) to maintain the body and supply body warmth, (2) to increase body weight and (3) to produce eggs. Flocks in heavy production consume much more feed than those producing only a few eggs. Table 2 may be used as a guide to calculate the yearly feed requirement. The proportion of grain, mash and green feed necessary to make up the yearly diet will vary according to the method of feeding and the amount of protein in the mash. It will be noted that the word ration applies to all the feed elements eaten by the flock from any source

Methodology for the comparative assessment of the Satellite Power System (SPS) and alternative technologies

The energy systems concerned are the satellite power system, several coal technologies, geothermal energy, fission, fusion, terrestrial solar systems, and ocean thermal energy conversion. Guidelines are suggested for the characterization of these systems, side-by-side analysis, alternative futures analysis, and integration and aggregation of data. A description of the methods for assessing the technical, economic, environmental, societal, and institutional issues surrounding the development of the selected energy technologies is presented

Health and criminal justice system involvement among African American siblings

Importance: Health disparities between African Americans and Whites have persisted in the United States. Researchers have recently hypothesized that the relatively poor health of African Americans may be caused, in part, by African American overrepresentation in the criminal justice system. Objectives: To test the hypothesis that criminal justice system involvement is associated with poor health and greater health risk when controlling for unobserved family factors through a discordant sibling design. Methods: Subjects were drawn from the Carolina African American Twin Study of Aging (CAATSA). Criminal conviction records were extracted from North Carolina\u27s Department of Public Safety. Six measures of health and one measure of health risk were analyzed. The health of convicted respondents was compared to that of unrelated non-convicted respondents matched on childhood and demographic factors (“matched sample”). Convicted respondents were also compared to non-convicted siblings (“discordant sibling sample”). Results: The matched sample included 134 CAATSA respondents. On average, convicted CAATSA respondents, compared to matched non-convicted respondents, were in worse health. Convicted respondents had worse mean self-reported health, worse lung function, more depressive symptoms, and smoked more. The discordant sibling sample included 74 respondents. Convicted siblings and non-convicted siblings had similar self-reported health, depressive symptoms, and smoking. In general, non-convicted siblings were in worse health than non-convicted respondents from the matched sample, implying that poor health runs in families. Conclusions: This study provided preliminary evidence that some of the association between a criminal record and poor health is confounded by family factors. Though more research is needed to support these results, the study suggests that criminal involvement may not be associated with the surfeit of health problems observed among African Americans. The criminal justice system, nonetheless, could be used to decrease the health disparity

Semiparametric approach to characterize unique gene expression trajectories across time

BACKGROUND: A semiparametric approach was used to identify groups of cDNAs and genes with distinct expression profiles across time and overcome the limitations of clustering to identify groups. The semiparametric approach allows the generalization of mixtures of distributions while making no specific parametric assumptions about the distribution of the hidden heterogeneity of the cDNAs. The semiparametric approach was applied to study gene expression in the brains of Apis mellifera ligustica honey bees raised in two colonies (A. m. mellifera and ligustica) with consistent patterns across five maturation ages. RESULTS: The semiparametric approach provided unambiguous criteria to detect groups of genes, trajectories and probability of gene membership to groups. The semiparametric results were cross-validated in both colony data sets. Gene Ontology analysis enhanced by genome annotation helped to confirm the semiparametric results and revealed that most genes with similar or related neurobiological function were assigned to the same group or groups with similar trajectories. Ten groups of genes were identified and nine groups had highly similar trajectories in both data sets. Differences in the trajectory of the reminder group were consistent with reports of accelerated maturation in ligustica colonies compared to mellifera colonies. CONCLUSION: The combination of microarray technology, genomic information and semiparametric analysis provided insights into the genomic plasticity and gene networks linked to behavioral maturation in the honey bee