Arctic marine climate of the early nineteenth century

The climate of the early nineteenth century is likely to have been significantly cooler than that of today, as it was a period of low solar activity (the Dalton minimum) and followed a series of large volcanic eruptions. Proxy reconstructions of the temperature of the period do not agree well on the size of the temperature change, so other observational records from the period are particularly valuable. Weather observations have been extracted from the reports of the noted whaling captain William Scoresby Jr., and from the records of a series of Royal Navy expeditions to the Arctic, preserved in the UK National Archives. They demonstrate that marine climate in 1810 - 1825 was marked by consistently cold summers, with abundant sea-ice. But although the period was significantly colder than the modern average, there was considerable variability: in the Greenland Sea the summers following the Tambora eruption (1816 and 1817) were noticeably warmer, and had less sea-ice coverage, than the years immediately preceding them; and the sea-ice coverage in Lancaster Sound in 1819 and 1820 was low even by modern standards. © 2010 Author(s)

The Influences of Buddhism and Development on the Well-Being of Bhutan\u27s Street Dogs

Bhutan is the only country that has implemented a nationwide capture-neuter- vaccinate-release (CNVR) program to manage its street dog population. To explore motivations for the implementation of the program and the extent to which it is successful, face-to-face interviews were conducted with representatives of all three animal sanctuaries in Bhutan that focus on the well-being of street dogs. Results suggest that Bhutan’s transition to democracy, coinciding with increases in socioeconomic development and tourism from the West, and incorporation of Buddhist teachings in its consideration of street dog management strategies guided the implementation of a nationwide CNVR program. A lack of both resources and a plan to acquire them, along with inexperience with democratic practices, however, may interfere with successful management of the program, resulting in a growing street dog population. Development in Bhutan also poses risks to the well-being of street dogs

NGO Legitimacy: Four Models

The aim of this paper is to examine NGOs’ legitimacy in the context of global politics. In order to yield a better understanding of NGOs’ legitimacy at the international level it is important to examine how their legitimacy claims are evaluated. This paper proposes dividing the literature into four models based on the theoretical and analytical approaches to their legitimacy claims: the market model, social change model, new institutionalism model and the critical model. The legitimacy criteria generated by the models are significantly different in their analytical scope of how one is to assess the role of NGOs operating as political actors contributing to democracy. The paper argues that the models present incomplete, and sometimes conflicting, views of NGOs’ legitimacy and that this poses a legitimacy dilemma for those assessing the political agency of NGOs in world politics. The paper concludes that only by approaching their legitimacy holistically can the democratic role of NGOs be explored and analysed in the context of world politics

Assessing the level of spatial homogeneity of the agronomic Indian monsoon onset

Over monsoon regions, such as the Indian subcontinent, the local onset of persistent rainfall is a crucial event in the annual climate for agricultural planning. Recent work suggested that local onset dates are spatially coherent to a practical level over West Africa; a similar assessment is undertaken here for the Indian subcontinent. Areas of coherent onset, defined as local onset regions or LORs, exist over the studied region. These LORs are significant up to the 95% confidence interval and are primarily clustered around the Arabian Sea (adjacent to and extending over the Western Ghats), the Monsoon Trough (north central India), and the Bay of Bengal. These LORs capture regions where synoptic scale controls of onset may be present and identifiable. In other regions, the absence of LORs is indicative of regions where local and stochastic factors may dominate onset. A potential link between sea surface temperature anomalies and LOR variability is presented. Finally, Kerala, which is often used as a representative onset location, is not contained within an LOR suggesting that variability here may not be representative of wider onset variability

Seeking the Goal in the Process, the Process for the Goal: Organizational Learning in a Public Sector Change Project

This paper describes how a combination of process modelling and goal modelling techniques has been used to facilitate organizational learning. The case study comes from the public sector in the UK. The modelling techniques have helped users to rationalise about the existing processes and then to design how they would like the process to work. The paper describes how the users have been able to confront the complex issues involved. The experience suggests that the combination of the modelling techniques is important to the learning experience of the users involved

Exploratory laparotomy in the management of confirmed necrotizing enterocolitis

Introduction: Necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) is a serious gastrointestinal emergency in newborn infants. Surgical management includes primary peritoneal drainage and/or exploratory laparotomy with bowel resection. This study describes obstetric complications, postnatal comorbidities, surgical care and intermediate postoperative outcomes in all infants with surgically and/or histologically proven NEC, who underwent exploratory laparotomy at our tertiary referral centre.Materials and methods: We conducted a retrospective review between January 2005 and December 2010. Results are reported as median (range). Fisher’s exact test (two tailed) was used for statistical analysis. A P-value of 0.05 or less was considered statistically significant.Results: A total of 71 infants had suspected (Bell’s stageZ1) NEC. Of them, 32 infants underwent laparotomy for stage 2–3 NEC. We excluded 11 infants with surgically and/or histologically proven spontaneous intestinal perforation. In the remaining 21 infants with confirmed NEC, median gestational age was 27 weeks (23–39 weeks) and median birth weight was 720 g (440–3510 g). NEC was suspected after a median 14 days of life (1–49 days of life). Fifteen patients (71%) were initially managed medically for a median total of 8 days (1–25 days). Laparotomy was performed after a median of 7 days (<1–35 days) from the suspicion of NEC. Eleven infants (52%) underwent bowel resection and enterostomy, four infants (19%) underwent  bowel resection with primary anastomosis and one infant (5%) underwent proximal diverting jejunostomy. Bowel perforation was seen in seven patients (33%). Necrosis totalis was evident in five patients (24%). There were 12 postoperative deaths (57% mortality), and seven deaths (58%) occurred during the first 30 days. Infants who died were more likely to have had absent/reversed enddiastolic flow (n=5, P= 0.64), intrauterine growth retardation (n=5, P = 0.18) or a gestational birth weight between 501 and 750 g (n=9, P = 0.08). In the surviving children (n= 9), the median length of hospital stay was 134 days (87–190 days) and postoperative sequelae were frequently seen.Conclusion: The morbidity and mortality for infants with confirmed NEC who undergo laparotomy remain high in infants despite optimal medical and surgical care. Keywords: exploratory laparotomy, necrotizing enterocolitis, surger

The politics of valuation and payment for regenerative medicine products in the UK

The field of regenerative medicine (RM) faces many challenges, including funding. Framing the analysis in terms of institutional politics, valuation studies and ‘technologies of knowledge’, the paper highlights growing debates about payment for RM in the UK, setting this alongside escalating policy debates about ‘value’. We draw on interviews and publicly available material to identify the interacting and conflicting positions of institutional stakeholders. It is concluded that while there is some common ground between institutional stakeholders such as industry and health system gatekeepers, there is significant conflict about reward systems, technology assessment methodologies and payment scenarios; a range of mostly conditional payment schemes and non-mainstream routes are being experimented with. We argue that current developments highlight a fundamental conflict between a concern for the societal value of medical technologies in a resource-limited system and a concern for engineering new reward and payment models to accommodate RM innovations

Impact of Immersive Training on Senior Chemical Engineering Students\u27 Prioritization of Process Safety Decision Criteria

Every year new safety features and regulations are employed within the process industry to reduce risks associated with operations. Despite these advancements chemical plants remain hazardous places, and the role of the engineer will always involve risk mitigation through real time decision making. Results from a previous study by Kongsvik et al., 2015 indicated that there were three types of decisions in major chemical plants: strategic decisions, operational decisions, and instantaneous decisions. The study showed the importance for improving upon engineers’ operational and instantaneous choices when tasked with quick solutions in the workforce. In this research study, we dive deeper to understand how senior chemical engineering students’ prioritize components of decision making such as budget, productivity, relationships, safety, and time, and how this prioritization may change as a result of participation in a digital immersive training environment called Contents Under Pressure. More specifically, we seek to address the following two research questions: (1) How do senior chemical engineering students prioritize safety in comparison to criteria such as budget, personal relationships, plant productivity, and time in a process safety context, and (2) How does senior chemical engineering students’ prioritization of decision making criteria (budget, personal relationships, plant productivity, safety, and time) change after exposure to a virtual process safety decision making environment? As part of this study, 187 senior chemical engineering students from three separate institutions completed a pre- and post-reflection survey around their engagement with Contents Under Pressure and asked them to rank their prioritizations of budget, productivity, relationships, safety, and time. Data was analyzed using descriptive statistics, and Friedman and Wilcoxon-sign-rank post hoc analyses were completed to determine any statistical differences between the rankings of decision making factors before and after engagement with Contents Under Pressure. Simulating process safety decision making with interactive educational supports may increase students’ understanding of genuine workplace environments and factors that contribute to process safety, without the real world hazards that result from poor decision making. By understanding how students prioritize these factors, chemical engineering curricula can be adapted to focus on the areas of process safety decision making where students need the largest improvement, thereby better preparing them to enter the engineering workforce