Climate change: Pro-poor adaptation, risk management, and mitigation strategies

Poverty reduction, Hunger, Climate change, Pro-poor strategies, Development planning, Adaptation measures, Policies, Land use and agriculture, Risk management,

Comparison of flexural properties of aramid-reinforced pultrusions having varied matrices, pretreatments and postcures

Aramid-reinforced composite materials of equal fiber volume and varied polymer thermoset matrices were pultruded and flexurally tested to failure. The objective was to improve the flexural properties of aramid-reinforced pultrusions. Pultrusions of both sized and unsized aramid fiber with four different resin systems were compared to determine the effects of sizing compounds and postcuring on flexural strength, fiber wettability, and fiber-to-resin interface bonding. Improvements in flexural strength resulting from pretreatments with the sizing solutions used were marginal. The most significant improvements in flexural properties resulted from postcuring. Flexural strengths ranged from a low of 39,647 psi (273MPa) to a high of 80,390 psi (554 MPa), an overall increase of 103 percent. The fact that postcuring improved the flexural properties of the pultrusions of the four resin systems indicates that a full cure did not occur in any of the resin systems during the pultrusion process. The increased flexural strengths of the polyester and vinyl ester pultrusions were the most surprising. The four resin systems examined were Interplastic Corporation VE 8300 vinyl ester, Ashland Chemical Company Aropol 7430 Polyester, and Shell Chemical Company Epon 9302 and Epon 9310 epoxides

Potential for on-orbit manufacture of large space structures using the pultrusion process

On-orbit manufacture of lightweight, high-strength, advanced-composite structures using the pultrusion process is proposed. This process is adaptable to a zero-gravity environment by using preimpregnated graphite-fiber reinforcement systems. The reinforcement material is preimpregnated with a high-performance thermoplastic resin at a ground station, is coiled on spools for compact storage, and is transported into Earth orbit. A pultrusion machine is installed in the Shuttle cargo bay from which very long lengths of the desired structure is fabricated on-orbit. Potential structural profiles include rods, angles, channels, hat sections, tubes, honeycomb-cored panels, and T, H, and I beams. A potential pultrudable thermoplastic/graphite composite material is presented as a model for determining the effect on Earth-to-orbit package density of an on-orbit manufacture, the package density is increased by 132 percent, and payload volume requirement is decreased by 56.3 percent. The fabrication method has the potential for on-orbit manufacture of structural members for space platforms, large space antennas, and long tethers

Non-thermal X-ray Emission: An Alternative to Cluster Cooling Flows?

We report the results of experiments aimed at reducing the major problem with cooling flow models of rich cluster X-ray sources: the fact that most of the cooled gas or its products have not been found. Here we show that much of the X-ray emission usually attributed to cooling flows can, in fact, be modeled by a power-law component which is indicative of a source(s) other than thermal bremsstrahlung from the intracluster medium. We find that adequate simultaneous fits to ROSAT PSPCB and ASCA GIS/SIS spectra of the central regions of ten clusters are obtained for two-component models that include a thermal plasma component that is attributable to hot intracluster gas and a power-law component that is likely generated by compact sources and/or extended non-thermal emission. For five of the clusters that purportedly have massive cooling flows, the best-fit models have power-law components that contribute $\sim$ 30 % of the total flux (0.14 - 10.0 keV) within the central 3 arcminutes. Because cooling flow mass deposition rates are inferred from X-ray fluxes, our finding opens the possibility of significantly reducing cooling rates.Comment: 11 pages, 3 figures, emulateapj style. Accepted for publication in Ap

Quality assessment tools for evidence from environmental science

Assessment of the quality of studies is a critical component of evidence syntheses such as systematic reviews (SRs) that are used to inform policy decisions. To reduce the potential for reviewer bias, and to ensure that the findings of SRs are transparent and reproducible, organisations such as the Cochrane Collaboration, the Campbell Collaboration, and the Collaboration for Environmental Evidence, recommend the use of formal quality assessment tools as opposed to informal expert judgment. However, there is a bewildering array of around 300 formal quality assessment tools that have been identified in the literature, and it has been demonstrated that the use of different tools for the assessment of the same studies can result in different estimates of quality, which can potentially reverse the conclusions of a SR. It is therefore important to consider carefully, the choice of quality assessment tool. We argue that quality assessment tools should: (1) have proven construct validity (i.e. the assessment criteria have demonstrable link with what they purport to measure), (2) facilitate inter-reviewer agreement, (3) be applicable across study designs, and (4) be quick and easy to use. Our aim was to examine current best practice for quality assessment in healthcare and investigate the extent to which these best practices could be useful for assessing the quality of environmental science studies. The feasibility of this transfer is demonstrated in a number of existing SRs on environmental topics. We propose that environmental practitioners should revise, test and adopt the best practice quality assessment tools used in healthcare as a recommended approach for application to environmental science. We provide pilot versions of quality assessment tools, modified from the best practice tools used in healthcare, for application on studies from environmental science.</p

Students with Late Emerging Reading Difficulties: Reading Engagement, Motivation, and Intervention Issues

This paper investigates the needs of students with late emerging reading difficulties focusing on the motivation requirements of these students. It is argued that educators need to enhance the readers' sense of self-worth and competence by providing materials and a learning environment that is challenging yet manageable. Because students with reading difficulties experience failure over a considerable period of time and have formed negative reading self-concepts, lower expectations, and a decreased incentive to try, this paper outlines suggestions on how teachers can better understand and address these problems, based on the authors' research using tutoring programs for students with reading and comprehension difficulties

Climate Change and Asian Agriculture

Asian and global agriculture will be under significant pressure to meet the demands of rising populations, using finite and often degraded soil and water resources that are predicted to be further stressed by the impacts of climate change. In addition, agriculture and land use change are prominent sources of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Fertilizer application, livestock rearing, and land management affect levels of GHG in the atmosphere and the amount of carbon storage and sequestration potential. Therefore, while some impending climatic changes will have negative effects on agricultural production in parts of Asia, and especially on resource-poor farmers, the sector also presents opportunities for emission reductions. Warming across the Asian continent will be unevenly distributed, but will certainly lead to crop yield losses in much of the region and subsequent impacts on prices, trade, and food security—disproportionately affecting poor people. Most projections indicate that agriculture in South, Central, and West Asia will be hardest hit.

The new English A Levels 2015: a guide to the specs

Ian Cushing, Marcello Giovanelli and Gary Snapper summarise the changes at A Level from September 2015 and explore the features of each of the new specs in all three A Level English subjects