Integrating management tools and concepts to develop an estuarine planning support system: A case study of the Humber Estuary, Eastern England

© 2015. Estuaries are important because of their multiple uses and users which often makes them challenging to manage since management must strike a balance between the needs of users, the estuaries' ecological and economic value and the context of multiple legislative drivers. To facilitate management we have therefore developed an Estuarine Planning Support System (EPSS) framework using the Humber Estuary, Eastern England, as a case study which integrates the current legislation tools and concepts. This integrated EPSS framework is an improvement on previous approaches for assessing cumulative impacts as it takes into account legislative drivers, management tools and other mechanisms for controlling plans/projects specific to the estuary. It therefore enables managers and users to assess and address both the current state and the way in which a new industrial, port or urban development could impact an estuary in an accessible and understandable framework

A synopsis of test results and knowledge gained from the Phase-0 CSI evolutionary model

The Phase-0 CSI Evolutionary Model (CEM) is a testbed for the study of space platform global line-of-sight (LOS) pointing. Now that the tests have been completed, a summary of hardware and closed-loop test experiences is necessary to insure a timely dissemination of the knowledge gained. The testbed is described and modeling experiences are presented followed by a summary of the research performed by various investigators. Some early lessons on implementing the closed-loop controllers are described with particular emphasis on real-time computing requirements. A summary of closed-loop studies and a synopsis of test results are presented. Plans for evolving the CEM from phase 0 to phases 1 and 2 are also described. Subsequently, a summary of knowledge gained from the design and testing of the Phase-0 CEM is made

ECONOMICS OF AGRICULTURAL SOIL CARBON SEQUESTRATION IN THE NORTHERN GREAT PLAINS

Under the Kyoto protocol of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change the United States is charged with reducing emissions of greenhouse gases to seven percent below their 1990 levels by the period 2008-2012. These reductions could be met from many industries including agriculture. In this paper, an economic simulation model is linked to the CENTURY ecosystem model to quantify the economic efficiency of policies that might be used to sequester carbon (C) in agricultural soils in the Northern Great Plains region. Model outputs are combined to assess the costs of inducing changes in equilibrium levels of soil C through three types of policies. The first is a CRP-style policy that provides producers with per-acre payments for converting crop-land to permanent grass; the second is a policy that provides per-acre payments to all farmers that use continuous cropping, regardless of the land's cropping history; the third is a policy that provides per-acre payments for the use of continuous cropping only on land units that had previously been in a crop/fallow rotation. The analysis shows that a CRP-style policy is found to be an inefficient means to increase soil C resulting in costs that typically exceed $100 per MT (metric ton) of C. In contrast, payments to adopt continuous cropping were found to produce increases in soil C for between$5 to $70/MT depending on the geographic area and degree of targeting of the payments. The most efficient, lowest cost policy is achieved when payments are targeted to land that was previously in a crop/fallow rotation. In this range, soil C sequestration appears to be competitive with C sequestered from other sources.policy design, economic efficiency, soil carbon, sequestration, valuing soil carbon, Great Plains agriculture, Environmental Economics and Policy, Q2,

ECONOMICS OF AGRICULTURAL SOIL CARBON SEQUESTRATION IN THE NORTHERN PLAINS

Under the Kyoto protocol of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change the United States is charged with reducing emissions of greenhouse gases to seven percent below their 1990 levels by the period 2008-2012. These reductions could be met from many industries including agriculture. In this paper, an economic simulation model is linked to an ecosystem model to quantify the economic efficiency of policies that might be used to sequester carbon (C) in agricultural soils in the Northern Plains region. Simulations with the Century ecosystem model show that long-term soil C levels associated with a crop/fallow system are less than those for grass alone, but that soil C levels for grass-clover-pasture are greater than for continuously cropped grains. The analysis shows that a CRP-style policy is found to be an inefficient means to increase soil C because the per acre payments to convert crop-land to grass-only draw land from both the crop/fallow system and the continuous cropping system, and costs typically exceed $100 per MT (metric ton) of C. In contrast, payments to adopt continuous cropping were found to produce increases in soil C for between$5 to $70 depending on area and degree of targeting of the payments. The most efficient, lowest cost policy is achieved when payments are targeted to land that was previously in a crop/fallow rotation. In this range, soil C sequestration appears to be competitive with C sequestered from other sources.policy design, economic efficiency, soil carbon, sequestration, valuing soil carbon, Great Plains agriculture, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy, Q2,

Langley's CSI evolutionary model: Phase O

A testbed for the development of Controls Structures Interaction (CSI) technology to improve space science platform pointing is described. The evolutionary nature of the testbed will permit the study of global line-of-sight pointing in phases 0 and 1, whereas, multipayload pointing systems will be studied beginning with phase 2. The design, capabilities, and typical dynamic behavior of the phase 0 version of the CSI evolutionary model (CEM) is documented for investigator both internal and external to NASA. The model description includes line-of-sight pointing measurement, testbed structure, actuators, sensors, and real time computers, as well as finite element and state space models of major components

A merocyanine-based conductive polymer

We report the first example of a conducting polymer with a merocyanine incorporated into the polymer backbone by electropolymerisation of a spiropyran moiety covalently linked between two alkoxythiophene units. Utilising the known metal coordination capabilities of merocyanines, introduction of cobalt ions into the electropolymerisation led to an enhancement of the conductivity, morphology and optical properties of the polymer films

Determination of the proximate factors in nest site selection of three species of waders within a large, dry salt marsh

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The musical life of Artie Shaw

Artie Shaw (1910-2004) was born to a poverty-stricken family of Jewish immigrants. In addition to his family’s economic standing, Shaw faced many hardships during his youth including abuse, sickness, and discrimination. Through all of these adversities, Artie came to rely on music to fit in and be successful. After gaining a reputation as a skilled sideman on clarinet and saxophone, Artie launched a career as a bandleader, which spanned nearly two decades. During his career, Shaw gained more wealth and fame than he ever imagined as a troubled child growing up in New Haven, Connecticut; but early in his career, he came to detest the dealings of the music business, of which he was at the forefront by 1938, and the pressures of being a celebrity. Although Artie made several attempts to leave the music business, he continuously returned either because of contractual obligations or to make money. In addition to Artie’s complex musical life, he also led a difficult personal life. In a 53- year period, Shaw had eight marriages, all ending in divorce or annulment. Half of these marriages were with Hollywood actresses, and he allegedly had dozens of more affairs. In 1954, Artie Shaw made his final retirement from performing. He lived another 50 years working as an author and following other pursuits outside of music.Thesis (M.M.

Hyperlexia in a 4-year-old boy with Autistic Spectrum Disorder

This paper presents a case study of a 4-year-old boy with Autistic Spectrum Disorder and a mental age of approximately 1:5 who demonstrates precocious oral-reading behaviour in the absence of spontaneous speech. Tests of reading regular and irregular words, pseudowords, homographic heterophones, single sentences and texts were carried out. Performance on a variety of reading tasks suggests the ability to use grapheme–phoneme correspondences and whole word reading for decoding single words. In addition, successful reading of some homographic heterophones and semantic paraphrasing of texts suggests a level of lexical, syntactic, semantic and pragmatic development far beyond his mental or chronological age. The realisation of highly developed reading ability is paradoxical in the context of profound impairment in cognitive development and an absence of spoken language

A comparison of AC and HVDC options for the connection of offshore wind generation in Great Britain

This paper presents a comparison of two forms of cable connection of a distant offshore wind farm to a transmission system: AC and HVDC. The requirements of relevant industry standards in Great Britain (GB) that drive a connection design and, hence, its cost are highlighted along with an analysis of the ways in which AC cable connections might be made to comply while facilitating export of active power. Dynamic studies investigating responses to grid-side short circuit faults show that, in the particular scenarios studied, an AC connection of a wind farm in the place of a large synchronous generator is marginally detrimental while an HVDC connection is beneficial. A comparison of costs shows that the cross-over distance at which HVDC is cheaper than AC for wind farms of different sizes occurs at longer distances than have hitherto commonly been assumed, and AC connections benefit from reactive compensation not only at the point of common coupling and wind farm end but also at the connection mid-point