Database Analysis to Support Nutrient Criteria Development (Phase I)

The intent of this publication of the Arkansas Water Resources Center is to provide a location whereby a final report on water research to a funding agency can be archived. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) contracted with University of Arkansas researchers for a multiple year project titled “Database Analysis to Support Nutrient Criteria Development”. This publication covers the first of three phases of that project and has maintained the original format of the report as submitted to TCEQ. This report can be cited either as an AWRC publication (see below) or directly as the final report to TCEQ

Database Analysis to Support Nutrient Criteria Development (Phase II)

The intent of this publication of the Arkansas Water Resources Center is to provide a location whereby a final report on water research to a funding agency can be archived. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) contracted with University of Arkansas researchers for a multiple year project titled “Database Analysis to Support Nutrient Criteria Development”. This publication covers the second of three phases of that project and has maintained the original format of the report as submitted to TCEQ. This report can be cited either as an AWRC publication (see below) or directly as the final report to TCEQ

Migration and the epidemiological transition: insights from the Agincourt sub-district of northeast South Africa

KIMBACKGROUND: Migration and urbanization are central to sustainable development and health, but data on temporal trends in defined populations are scarce. Healthy men and women migrate because opportunities for employment and betterment are not equally distributed geographically. The disruption can result in unhealthy exposures and environments and income returns for the origin household. OBJECTIVES: The objectives of the paper are to describe the patterns, levels, and trends of temporary migration in rural northeast South Africa; the mortality trends by cause category over the period 2000-2011; and the associations between temporary migration and mortality by broad cause of death categories. METHOD: Longitudinal, Agincourt Health and Demographic Surveillance System data are used in a continuous, survival time, competing-risk model. FINDINGS: In rural, northeast South Africa, temporary migration, which involves migrants relocating mainly for work purposes and remaining linked to the rural household, is more important than age and sex in explaining variations in mortality, whatever the cause. In this setting, the changing relationship between temporary migration and communicable disease mortality is primarily affected by reduced exposure of the migrant to unhealthy conditions. The study suggests that the changing relationship between temporary migration and non-communicable disease mortality is mainly affected by increased livelihood benefits of longer duration migration. CONCLUSION: Since temporary migration is not associated with communicable diseases only, public health policies should account for population mobility whatever the targeted health risk. There is a need to strengthen the rural health care system, because migrants tend to return to the rural households when they need health care

Phase Diagram of the 2-Leg Heisenberg Ladder with Alternating Dimerization

Using the Lanczos method we determine the phase diagram of the 2-leg AF-Heisenberg ladder with alternating dimerization. It consists of a resonating valence bond phase and a dimer phase separated by a critical line. Our results are in good agreement with previous conjectures obtained with the non linear sigma model.Comment: REVTEX file, 10 pages, 3 figures. To appear in PL

Positive professional practice: A strength-based reflective practice teaching model

AbstractWhile positive education research has grown over the past decade, making strides in measurement, interventions, and applications, it has also been criticised for lacking consistent guiding theoretical frameworks, heavily emphasising psychology over education, and being driven by unacknowledged pedagogical assumptions. This chapter argues that a particular stumbling block has been ignoring the professional practice of positive education; that is, what positive education teachers do and how they know they are having an impact. To addresses this gap, this chapter introduces a strength-based reflective practice model for teachers that integrates the Values in Action classification of character strengths with Brookfield’s four lenses for reflective practice, which consists of: (1) the students’ eyes, (2) colleagues’ perceptions, (3) personal experience, and (4) theory. The model aims to provide a method for critical self-reflection, thereby helping to enable effective professional practice. Through this model, perhaps positive education can become a pedagogy that has found its practice.Mathew A. Whit

Evaluating the outcomes of payments for ecosystem services programmes using a capital asset framework

There is a limited understanding of the conditions under which payments for ecosystem services (PES) programmes achieve improvements in ecosystem service (ES) flows, enhance natural resource sustainability or foster sustainable livelihoods. We used a capital asset framework to evaluate PES programmes in terms of their social, environmental, economic and institutional outcomes, focusing on efficiency, effectiveness and equity trade-offs. We found that PES schemes can provide positive conservation and development outcomes with respect to livelihoods, land-use change, household and community incomes, and governance. However, programmes differ with regards to contract agreements, payment modes, and compliance, and have diverse cross-sector institutional arrangements that remain primarily state-structured and external donor-financed. There is a consistent lack of focus on evaluating and fostering human, social and institutional capital. This reflects general inattention to how PES programmes consider the causal links between ES and outcomes. To enhance ES production and PES scheme accessibility and participation, we recommend strengthening the linkages between ES production and land-use practices, boosting private and voluntary sector involvement, encouraging property rights and tenure reform, improving financial viability, and adequately accounting for the distribution of programme costs and benefits among participants

Home country effects of offshoring. A critical survey on empirical literature.

The International fragmentation of production processes is of rising importance. One part of this fragmentation involves the relocation of a production process from a home- to a new host country. This literature survey deals with the effects of such relocations on the home country. First of all, we try to conceptualize the terms and definitions most frequently used in this context which are "outsourcing", "offshore outsourcing" and "offshoring". Despite the fact that there is little textual documentation dealing directly with the phenomena of offshoring and offshore outsourcing we try to give an overview of possible empirical literature to which one can regard to. Including FDI literature we try to cover empirical literature which can provide helpful insight on the effects of a relocation to foreign countries on the home country in connection with wages, skill upgrading, prices, profits, taxes and unions. (author's abstract)Series: Discussion Papers SFB International Tax Coordinatio

Submicron active-passive integration for InP-based membranes on silicon

The high vertical index contrast and the small thickness of thin InP-based membrane structures bonded with BCB on Silicon allow the realization of very small devices. To make photonic integrated circuits with both passive and active components in these membranes, active-passive integration on a small scale is essential. In this paper we will present our results on sub-micrometer active areas for membrane applications

Modelling the effect of temperature on the seasonal population dynamics of temperate mosquitoes

Mosquito-borne diseases cause substantial mortality and morbidity worldwide. These impacts are widely predicted to increase as temperatures warm and extreme precipitation events become more frequent, since mosquito biology and disease ecology are strongly linked to environmental conditions. However, direct evidence linking environmental change to changes in mosquito-borne disease is rare, and the ecological mechanisms that may underpin such changes are poorly understood. Environmental drivers, such as temperature, can have non-linear, opposing impacts on the demographic rates of different mosquito life cycle stages. As such, model frameworks that can deal with fluctuations in temperature explicitly are required to predict seasonal mosquito abundance, on which the intensity and persistence of disease transmission under different environmental scenarios depends. We present a novel, temperature-dependent, delay-differential equation model, which incorporates diapause and the differential effects of temperature on the duration and mortality of each life stage and demonstrates the sensitivity of seasonal abundance patterns to inter- and intra-annual changes in temperature. Likely changes in seasonal abundance and exposure to mosquitoes under projected changes in UK temperatures are presented, showing an increase in peak vector abundance with warming that potentially increases the risk of disease outbreaks