The Economic and Health Impacts of Community Gardens on Refugee Populations: CRIC Garden Case Study

The purpose of this paper is to examine the economic benefits of community gardens and incubator farms, both of which support the populations they serve from an economic viewpoint as well as socially, and as a benefit to public health and nutrition. The findings were gathered from the large body of research concerning the benefits of community gardens as well as program evaluation responses conducted with gardeners at the Cache Refugee and Immigrant Connection (CRIC) garden in Logan, Utah in 2020. They are also informed by experiences had and lessons learned while working as the garden manager. There is a wealth of information being circulated by researchers in the field about how the many ways community gardens help members of a community, especially those who are considered disadvantaged groups such as increased feelings of wellbeing associated with being outside in green spaces and an increase in the amount of nutritious foods consumed by those who participate in community gardens. This wealth of information is most likely only rivaled by the abundance of food produced at the CRIC garden, which is consumed by those who grow it and their families and is also freely given in gratitude for the opportunities presented to them. It is true that many people come together to gather the resources that are needed to make the garden possible. Without grant money and donations of time and capital the garden would not be possible. But when looked at through the lens of what it gives back, the amount of wealth spread around is hard to fully understand. The purpose of this paper is to look at the benefits to those who are involved with a specific community garden in Logan, Utah. The total value of this garden in terms of saving and contributions to users and the surrounding community has been established. These findings seek to quantify and qualify the full extent of the impacts the garden has on the gardeners and the community as a whole

Digital Identity Formation: How Social Networking Sites Affect Real World Authenticity

The purpose of this paper is to explore the application of Heidegger\u27s authenticity to online identity formation. This paper will attempt to determine if there is any way in which an authentic identity can be created, either online or offline, by using social networking sites. It will examine the positive and negative consequences of social networking sites to determine if these sites can help to contribute to our overall being, or determine if these sites serve only as a dangerous distraction to an authentic personal identity. To do this, this paper will analyze Heidegger\u27s philosophy to see if it is possible for his philosophy, which was written pre-SNS, to be applicable to identity formation online. If so, then we shall explore how we form our identities both online and offline. By looking at selected philosophical and sociological works, we will determine what it means to form a personal identity in the offline world. We will look at the effects of public and private sphere convergence, over sharing online, online data commodification, and normative online culture to determine how the self is created and formed online. We will then determine if this online self has the ability to share any personal growth acquired through online interactions to the offline self and thereby allowing for a way to form an authentic self offline using online social networking

The Downfall of Transmar Cocoa

As a large cocoa bean trader, Transmar group ltd. bought millions of dollars’ worth of beans relying on financing from a syndicate of banks. To monitor amounts of eligible collateral, the banks required Transmar prepare periodic borrowing base (BB) reports. At some point, Transmar developed a discrepancy in collateral recorded on the BB report versus the amount of funds borrowed. The case discusses how this discrepancy grew larger as many questionable and fraudulent entries were included on subsequent BB reports. The case is written from the perspective of Peter B. Johnson, head of Transmar’s European affiliate and son of CEO and founder of Transmar, Peter G. Johnson. In late 2014, Peter B. Johnson first learned about the deceptive practices being employed in preparing the BB reports. How will he react? The case is also rich in details surrounding the cocoa industry supply chain and history of cocoa production

Intravenous clevidipine for management of hypertension

Hypertension remains one of the most prevalent diseases affecting our society, and its complications lead the list of causes of mortality all over the world. Most efforts to control the disease are unsuccessful, failing in at least two-thirds of affected patients, despite the availability of multiple drugs for its treatment. The limited number of medications available for aggressive management of hypertensive crises has intensified the search for novel drugs that can achieve a rapid decrease in blood pressure without increasing the possible complications. Clevidipine is a novel, vasculoselective, dihydropyridine calcium channel blocker characterized by a very fast onset and offset of action. Metabolism of clevidipine does not occur in the liver or kidneys, and thus there are no restrictions to using clevidipine in patients with hepatic or renal dysfunction. This agent has been widely used to reduce blood pressure when oral therapy is not appropriate, and its use in the perioperative setting has been shown to be beneficial. This manuscript reviews the key characteristics of clevidipine and its role in the management of acute hypertension

Nutrient Addition Effects on Phytoplankton Communities in the Amazon River Plume

The types and abundance of phytoplankton is largely controlled by availability of sunlight and bioavailable nutrients. Phytoplankton require essential nutrients including nitrate, phosphate, and silicate to grow, so understanding the role of these macronutrients in limiting the growth phytoplankton communitiesand the way this may differ depending on community compositionis key to understanding the controls on phytoplankton biomass and community structure. We aimed to explore how the availability of these nutrients affects the health and composition of phytoplankton communities by conducting a series of nutrient amendment experiments (NAEs) with samples from the Western Tropical North Atlantic, which is heavily influenced by the nutrient-rich, low salinity waters of the Amazon River Plume. These experiments, conducted at five locations in and around the plume, provide greater resolution and further our understanding about the ways nutrients affect communities in dynamic coastal regions

Amazon River infl uence on nitrogen fi xation in the western tropical North Atlantic

We measured rates of N- and C-fixation with a direct tracer method in regions of the western tropical North Atlantic influenced by the Amazon River plume during the high flow period of 2010 (May–June 2010). We found distinct regional variations in N-fixation activity, with the lowest rates in the plume proper and the highest rates in the plume margins and in offshore waters. A comparison of our N- and C-fixation measurements showed that the relative contribution of N-fixation to total primary production increased from the plume core toward oceanic waters, and that most of the C-fixation in this system was supported by sources of nitrogen other than those derived from biological N-fixation, or diazotrophy. We complemented these rate experiments with measurements of the δ15N of suspended particles (δ15PN), which documented the important and often dominant role of diazotrophs in supplying nitrogen to particulate organic matter in the water column. These coupled measurements revealed that small phytoplankton contributed more new nitrogen to the particulate nitrogen pool than larger phytoplankton. We used a habitat classification method to assess the fac- tors that control diazotrophic activity and contribution to the suspended particle pool, both of which increased from the plume toward oceanic waters. Our findings provide an important constraint on the role of the Amazon plume in creating distinct niches and roles for diazotrophs in the nutrient and carbon budgets of the western tropical North Atlantic

Upward nitrate transport by phytoplankton in oceanic waters : balancing nutrient budgets in oligotrophic seas

© The Author(s), 2014. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in PeerJ 2 (2014): e302, doi:10.7717/peerj.302.In oceanic subtropical gyres, primary producers are numerically dominated by small (1–5 µm diameter) pro- and eukaryotic cells that primarily utilize recycled nutrients produced by rapid grazing turnover in a highly efficient microbial loop. Continuous losses of nitrogen (N) to depth by sinking, either as single cells, aggregates or fecal pellets, are balanced by both nitrate inputs at the base of the euphotic zone and N2-fixation. This input of new N to balance export losses (the biological pump) is a fundamental aspect of N cycling and central to understanding carbon fluxes in the ocean. In the Pacific Ocean, detailed N budgets at the time-series station HOT require upward transport of nitrate from the nutricline (80–100 m) into the surface layer (∼0–40 m) to balance productivity and export needs. However, concentration gradients are negligible and cannot support the fluxes. Physical processes can inject nitrate into the base of the euphotic zone, but the mechanisms for transporting this nitrate into the surface layer across many 10s of m in highly stratified systems are unknown. In these seas, vertical migration by the very largest (102–103 µm diameter) phytoplankton is common as a survival strategy to obtain N from sub-euphotic zone depths. This vertical migration is driven by buoyancy changes rather than by flagellated movement and can provide upward N transport as nitrate (mM concentrations) in the cells. However, the contribution of vertical migration to nitrate transport has been difficult to quantify over the required basin scales. In this study, we use towed optical systems and isotopic tracers to show that migrating diatom (Rhizosolenia) mats are widespread in the N. Pacific Ocean from 140°W to 175°E and together with other migrating phytoplankton (Ethmodiscus, Halosphaera, Pyrocystis, and solitary Rhizosolenia) can mediate time-averaged transport of N (235 µmol N m-2 d-1) equivalent to eddy nitrate injections (242 µmol NO3− m-2 d-1). This upward biotic transport can close N budgets in the upper 250 m of the central Pacific Ocean and together with diazotrophy creates a surface zone where biological nutrient inputs rather than physical processes dominate the new N flux. In addition to these numerically rare large migrators, there is evidence in the literature of ascending behavior in small phytoplankton that could contribute to upward flux as well. Although passive downward movement has dominated models of phytoplankton flux, there is now sufficient evidence to require a rethinking of this paradigm. Quantifying these fluxes is a challenge for the future and requires a reexamination of individual phytoplankton sinking rates as well as methods for capturing and enumerating ascending phytoplankton in the sea.This work has been funded by the National Science Foundation: OCE-0726726, OCE-0094591, OCE-9414372, OCE-9100888 and OCE-9415923 to TAV, and OCE-9423471 to CHP

The Role of Reference Points in Machine-Learned Atomistic Simulation Models

This paper introduces the Chemical Environment Modeling Theory (CEMT), a novel, generalized framework designed to overcome the limitations inherent in traditional atom-centered Machine Learning Force Field (MLFF) models, widely used in atomistic simulations of chemical systems. CEMT demonstrated enhanced flexibility and adaptability by allowing reference points to exist anywhere within the modeled domain and thus, enabling the study of various model architectures. Utilizing Gaussian Multipole (GMP) featurization functions, several models with different reference point sets, including finite difference grid-centered and bond-centered models, were tested to analyze the variance in capabilities intrinsic to models built on distinct reference points. The results underscore the potential of non-atom-centered reference points in force training, revealing variations in prediction accuracy, inference speed and learning efficiency. Finally, a unique connection between CEMT and real-space orbital-free finite element Density Functional Theory (FE-DFT) is established, and the implications include the enhancement of data efficiency and robustness. It allows the leveraging of spatially-resolved energy densities and charge densities from FE-DFT calculations, as well as serving as a pivotal step towards integrating known quantum-mechanical laws into the architecture of ML models

Advancing science from plankton to whales—Celebrating the contributions of James J. McCarthy

Hailing from Sweet Home, Oregon, where his father introduced him to the fascinations of pondwater (McCarthy 2018), Jim McCarthy graduated from Gonzaga University, and in the late 1960s joined the Food Chain Research Group at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, where he received his doctorate in 1971. The Food Chain Research Group, which was becoming recognized as the premier research group on plankton, was at that time directed by such distinguished scientists as John Strickland and Dick Eppley, among others. The goal of the Food Chain Group was to understand plankton dynamics and trophodynamics, “to a degree that will enable man to exercise satisfactory control of the environment and make useful predictions” (Institute of Marine Resources annual report, 1968, cited in Shor 1978:143) and “to predict the formation and transfer of nutrients through the full cycle of life in the ocean” (Shor 1978:140). It was there that Jim became immersed in all aspects of nutrients, plankton, and the marine food web

Concurrent determination of U, Np, Pu, Am, and Cm in clay systems at ultra-trace levels with accelerator mass spectrometry

The geochemistry of actinides under reducing conditions in a deep geological nuclear waste repository is characterized by low solubility and strong sorption to mineral surfaces. The quantification of actinide migration (i.e. diffusion) at resulting concentration levels requires an analytical method able to determine actinide concentrations down to ultra-trace levels (≈fg g$^{-1}$). In the actual study, such an analytical procedure was tested by using accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS), one of the very few analytical techniques that can presently meet those requirements. Specimens simulating the sample matrix representative for a diffusion experiment in natural clay rock were produced by spiking clay rock powders (Opalinus Clay or Callovo-Oxfordian Clay) and aliquots of corresponding pore waters with the actinide nuclides $^{233}$U, $^{237}$Np, $^{244}$Pu, and $^{248}$Cm in amounts ranging from approximately 3 × 10$^{-19}$ to 5 × 10$^{-15}$ mol per sample (≈0.07–1000 fg per sample). The actinide nuclides were separated as group via Fe(OH)$_{3}$ co-precipitation and then analyzed sequentially with AMS. During such analysis a decrease in count rates by up to a factor of 6 was observed in high-matrix clay rock samples compared to low-matrix standard solutions. Since the chemical yield of the actinides in the Fe(OH)$_{3}$ co-precipitation step prior to analysis turned out to be quantitative, this observation must originate from a reduction of the sputter rate of the actinide nuclides in the AMS ion source, which can be described partly as a dilution effect. By determining chemical-ionization-yield factors, suitable non-isotopic tracers were identified for $^{237}$Np and $^{243}$Am. This allowed for the concurrent determination of all actinide nuclides at levels down to 3 × 10−19 mol per sample. Different actinides in a deep geological formation may be present in concentration ranges differing by orders of magnitude depending on their chemical form and solubility. Such concentration spreads were simulated by preparing clay rock/pore water samples where each individual sample contained $^{233}$U, $^{237}$Np, $^{244}$Pu, $^{243}$Am, and $^{248}$Cm at quantities ranging from approximately 3 × 10$^{-19}$ to 4 × 10$^{-15}$ mol per sample. The presented sample preparation procedure, in combination with the extraordinary detection sensitivity of AMS allows for the simultaneous determination of diffusion profiles of several actinides at ultra-trace levels within one experiment