Fragmentation of Agricultural Land Parcels

This study seeks to take fragmentation research in a new direction by looking at exurban sprawl and fragmentation of ownership. The primary objective of this study is to identify the location and magnitude of fragmentation of agricultural land parcels sold in Oklahoma. This was accomplished by estimating two different models. The first model regressed a polynomial in time to determine whether or not fragmentation has been increasing over time. While it was hypothesized that parcel size was decreasing, this was not found to be the case. Over the 40 years of data, parcel size was found to only have decreased by one acre. The purpose of the second model was to verify whether or not a location premium exists for small parcels. It was found that a location premium does exist for smaller parcels with parcels in urban counties more likely to receive a premium than those located in more rural counties.fragmentation, land values, parcel size, Production Economics,

The Value of Grid-Scale Variable Renewable Energy Generation in Sub-Saharan Africa

This report was produced for the Green Growth Diagnostics for Africa project, funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council.Securing a sufficient supply of reliable and affordable electricity is a huge challenge for countries in sub-Saharan Africa. Many countries in the region are experiencing rapid increases in the size of their populations, and even more rapid growth in their economies. As a result, the region experienced a 45 per cent increase in annual energy consumption between the years 2000-2014, with the growth in some countries much higher. This article surveys the most relevant research, policies and sources of data relevant to generation adequacy assessment in two example SSA countries: Kenya and Ghana. It also includes an exploratory analysis of the temporal relationships between the hydro resource, wind resource and power demand in Kenya, with an emphasis on assessing the impact of limited data availability

Dynamics of Ions and Neutral Particles in the Sheath Region of Processing Plasmas

The path of ions traversing the sheath region of a radio frequency plasma is modelled using the Child-Langmuir approximation to the full sheath equation. The collective characteristics of many ions is obtained by Monte Carlo simulation, revealing structure in the relationship between many parameters. By performing a systematic calculation of ion impact energy versus initial energy and phase, a distinctive spiral shape has been observed. This provides additional insight into the mechanism that underlies the bimodal ion energy distributions that are widely reported in plasma processing systems. A further step has been taken from this observation, to see if it can be used to provide an analytic method for constructing ion energy distributions. A spiral shape that varies continuously across phase and initial ion energy space has been created, replicating that seen in Monte Carlo simulation. By sampling the result across the appropriate initial conditions, an ion energy distribution can be generated. A numerical solution to the full sheath equation has been implemented. This allows the inclusion of electrons into the area where the sheath region meets the plasma. It has been shown that this causes ions to follow a significantly different path through the sheath region. When an ion first enters the sheath region, it experiences a smaller force due to the reduction in electric field because of the presence of electrons. The effect of this propagates through to the ion energy distribution. Effects due to the high electric fields that are present in etched substrate features have been considered. Particles with an electric dipole moment are attracted along lines of increasing electric field strength under a mechanism called dielectrophoresis. An assessment of the significance of this force on neutral transport in substrate features has been made. It is found that particles with a typical dielectric moment are accelerated towards the central region of a trench and accelerated out of the trench in a fraction of time that it would take without a force due to dielectrophoresis

Regulatory and Financial Hurdles for the Installation of Energy Storage in UK Distribution Networks

This paper examines the feasibility of energy storage in in a low voltage distribution network to facilitate increased Distributed Generation (DG), and electricity demand. Modelling is used to quantify technical and financial benefits of storage over a 10 year period. Technical benefits are achieved through loss reduction, prevention of voltage rise and peak shaving. However, for energy storage to be financially feasible, all multi-stakeholder benefits need to be included in any investment strategy and regulation needs to be updated to foster energy storage adoption

Addressing patient treatment preferences at trial recruitment.

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The impact of competition on the ability of public schools to develop resiliency in abused and neglected children

"The dissertation will use an auto-ethnographical approach to the issues that surround the development of resiliency in abused and neglected children, with a focus on competition in schools and its effects on these children. An autoethnography is a genre of writing that features first-person accounts, aesthetic descriptions, dialogue, and self-consciousness to connect the personal and the cultural within a particular social context. Competition is best described as the elevation of one child over another, creating adversarial relationships that threaten cooperation and ideal learning conditions. Abused and neglected children's needs are not met in environments where they are forced to compete with children from more stable, nurturing homes. Comprising an estimated 10 to 15 percent of all students, abused and neglected children need communication and cooperation to establish resiliency, the network of protective factors that all need to overcome adversity. Because educational leaders and politicians never question the assumptions around competition, competitive practices such as awards ceremonies, high-stakes testing, athletics, and other forms of student differentiation are challenged. The reader is introduced to abused and neglected children from the author's perspective as an abused child and school administrator and asked to rethink how our competitive school system is leaving so many needy children behind. Support from numerous sources, pedagogical practices, teacher training, and curricular modifications are presented."--Abstract from author supplied metadata