Contributions of labile and resistant organic materials to the immobilization of inorganic soil N when used in the restoration of abandoned agricultural fields

We have examined the contributions sucrose and sawdust make to the net immobilization of inorganic soil N and assimilation of both C and N into microbial biomass when they are used as part of a restoration plan to promote the establishment of indigenous vegetation on abandoned agricultural fields on the Central Hungarian Plain. Both amendments led to net N immobilization. Sucrose addition also led to mobilization of N from the soil organic N pool and its immobilization into microbial biomass, whereas sawdust addition apparently immobilized soil N into a non-biomass compartment or a biomass component that was not detected by the conventional biomass N assay (CHCl3 fumigation and extraction). This suggests that the N was either cycled through the biomass, but not immobilized within it, or that it was immobilized in a protected biomass fraction different to the fraction into which N was immobilized in response to sucrose addition.

Contributions of labile and resistant organic materials to the immobilization of inorganic soil N when used in the restoration of abandoned agricultural fields

We have examined the contributions sucrose and sawdust make to the net immobilization of inorganic soil N and assimilation of both C and N into microbial biomass when they are used as part of a restoration plan to promote the establishment of indigenous vegetation on abandoned agricultural fields on the Central Hungarian Plain. Both amendments led to net N immobilization. Sucrose addition also led to mobilization of N from the soil organic N pool and its immobilization into microbial biomass, whereas sawdust addition apparently immobilized soil N into a non-biomass compartment or a biomass component that was not detected by the conventional biomass N assay (CHCl3 fumigation and extraction). This suggests that the N was either cycled through the biomass, but not immobilized within it, or that it was immobilized in a protected biomass fraction different to the fraction into which N was immobilized in response to sucrose addition.

Construction management research: a field of application

Research in construction management is diverse in content and in quality. There is much to be learned from more fundamental disciplines. Construction is a sub-set of human experience rather than a completely separate phenomenon. Therefore, it is likely that there are few problems in construction requiring the invention of a completely new theory. If construction researchers base their work only on that of other construction researchers, our academic community will become less relevant to the world at large. The theories that we develop or test must be of wider applicability to be of any real interest. In undertaking research, researchers learn a lot about themselves. Perhaps the only difference between research and education is that if we are learning about something which no-one else knows, then it is research, otherwise it is education. Self-awareness of this will help to reduce the chances of publishing work which only reveals a researcher’s own learning curve. Scientific method is not as simplistic as non-scientists claim and is the only real way of overcoming methodological weaknesses in our work. The reporting of research may convey the false impression that it is undertaken in the sequence in which it is written. Construction is not so unique and special as to require a completely different set of methods from other fields of enquiry. Until our research is reported in mainstream journals and conferences, there is little chance that we will influence the wider academic community and a concomitant danger that it will become irrelevant. The most useful insights will come from research which challenges the current orthodoxy rather than research which merely reports it.

Construction research: a field of application

Research in construction management is diverse in content and in quality. There is much to be learned from more fundamental disciplines. Construction is a sub-set of human experience rather than a completely separate phenomenon. Therefore, it is likely that there are few problems in construction requiring the invention of a completely new theory. If construction researchers base their work only on that of other construction researchers, our academic community will become less relevant to the world at large. The theories that we develop or test must be of wider applicability to be of any real interest. In undertaking research, researchers learn a lot about themselves. Perhaps the only difference between research and education is that if we are learning about something which no-one else knows, then it is research, otherwise it is education. Self-awareness of this will help to reduce the chances of publishing work which only reveals a researcher’s own learning curve. Scientific method is not as simplistic as non-scientists claim and is the only real way of overcoming methodological weaknesses in our work. The reporting of research may convey the false impression that it is undertaken in the sequence in which it is written. Construction is not so unique and special as to require a completely different set of methods from other fields of enquiry. Until our research is reported in mainstream journals and conferences, there is little chance that we will influence the wider academic community and a concomitant danger that it will become irrelevant. The most useful insights will come from research which challenges the current orthodoxy rather than research which merely reports it.

Viewing the body modulates tactile receptive fields

Tactile discrimination performance depends on the receptive field (RF) size of somatosensory cortical (SI) neurons. Psychophysical masking effects can reveal the RF of an idealized "virtual" somatosensory neuron. Previous studies show that top-down factors strongly affect tactile discrimination performance. Here, we show that non-informative vision of the touched body part influences tactile discrimination by modulating tactile RFs. Ten subjects performed spatial discrimination between touch locations on the forearm. Performance was improved when subjects saw their forearm compared to viewing a neutral object in the same location. The extent of visual information was relevant, since restricted view of the forearm did not have this enhancing effect. Vibrotactile maskers were placed symmetrically on either side of the tactile target locations, at two different distances. Overall, masking significantly impaired discrimination performance, but the spatial gradient of masking depended on what subjects viewed. Viewing the body reduced the effect of distant maskers, but enhanced the effect of close maskers, as compared to viewing a neutral object. We propose that viewing the body improves functional touch by sharpening tactile RFs in an early somatosensory map. Top-down modulation of lateral inhibition could underlie these effects.

Assessing the uncertainty associated with intermittent rainfall fields

[1] In many practical situations where spatial rainfall estimates are needed, rainfall occurs as a spatially intermittent phenomenon. An efficient geostatistical method for rainfall estimation in the case of intermittency has previously been published and comprises the estimation of two independent components: a binary random function for modeling the intermittency and a continuous random function that models the rainfall inside the rainy areas. The final rainfall estimates are obtained as the product of the estimates of these two random functions. However the published approach does not contain a method for estimation of uncertainties. The contribution of this paper is the presentation of the indicator maximum likelihood estimator from which the local conditional distribution of the rainfall value at any location may be derived using an ensemble approach. From the conditional distribution, representations of uncertainty such as the estimation variance and confidence intervals can be obtained. An approximation to the variance can be calculated more simply by assuming rainfall intensity is independent of location within the rainy area. The methodology has been validated using simulated and real rainfall data sets. The results of these case studies show good agreement between predicted uncertainties and measured errors obtained from the validation data.

The impact of a closed-loop electronic prescribing and administration system on prescribing errors, administration errors and staff time: a before-and-after study

Objectives: To assess the impact of a closed-loop electronic prescribing, automated dispensing, barcode patient identification and electronic medication administration record (EMAR) system on prescribing and administration errors, confirmation of patient identity before administration, and staff time. Design, setting and participants: Before-and-after study in a surgical ward of a teaching hospital, involving patients and staff of that ward. Intervention: Closed-loop electronic prescribing, automated dispensing, barcode patient identification and EMAR system. Main outcome measures: Percentage of new medication orders with a prescribing error, percentage of doses with medication administration errors (MAEs) and percentage given without checking patient identity. Time spent prescribing and providing a ward pharmacy service. Nursing time on medication tasks. Results: Prescribing errors were identified in 3.8% of 2450 medication orders pre-intervention and 2.0% of 2353 orders afterwards (p<0.001; χ2 test). MAEs occurred in 7.0% of 1473 non-intravenous doses pre-intervention and 4.3% of 1139 afterwards (p = 0.005; χ2 test). Patient identity was not checked for 82.6% of 1344 doses pre-intervention and 18.9% of 1291 afterwards (p<0.001; χ2 test). Medical staff required 15 s to prescribe a regular inpatient drug pre-intervention and 39 s afterwards (p = 0.03; t test). Time spent providing a ward pharmacy service increased from 68 min to 98 min each weekday (p = 0.001; t test); 22% of drug charts were unavailable pre-intervention. Time per drug administration round decreased from 50 min to 40 min (p = 0.006; t test); nursing time on medication tasks outside of drug rounds increased from 21.1% to 28.7% (p = 0.006; χ2 test). Conclusions: A closed-loop electronic prescribing, dispensing and barcode patient identification system reduced prescribing errors and MAEs, and increased confirmation of patient identity before administration. Time spent on medication-related tasks increased.

The impact of a closed-loop electronic prescribing and automated dispensing system on the ward pharmacist’s time and activities

Objective To assess the impact of a closed-loop electronic prescribing and automated dispensing system on the time spent providing a ward pharmacy service and the activities carried out. Setting Surgical ward, London teaching hospital. Method All data were collected two months pre- and one year post-intervention. First, the ward pharmacist recorded the time taken each day for four weeks. Second, an observational study was conducted over 10 weekdays, using two-dimensional work sampling, to identify the ward pharmacist's activities. Finally, medication orders were examined to identify pharmacists' endorsements that should have been, and were actually, made. Key findings Mean time to provide a weekday ward pharmacy service increased from 1 h 8 min to 1 h 38 min per day (P = 0.001; unpaired t-test). There were significant increases in time spent prescription monitoring, recommending changes in therapy/monitoring, giving advice or information, and non-productive time. There were decreases for supply, looking for charts and checking patients' own drugs. There was an increase in the amount of time spent with medical and pharmacy staff, and with 'self'. Seventy-eight per cent of patients' medication records could be assessed for endorsements pre- and 100% post-intervention. Endorsements were required for 390 (50%) of 787 medication orders pre-intervention and 190 (21%) of 897 afterwards (P < 0.0001; chi-square test). Endorsements were made for 214 (55%) of endorsement opportunities pre-intervention and 57 (30%) afterwards (P < 0.0001; chi-square test). Conclusion The intervention increased the overall time required to provide a ward pharmacy service and changed the types of activity undertaken. Contact time with medical and pharmacy staff increased. There was no significant change in time spent with patients. Fewer pharmacy endorsements were required post-intervention, but a lower percentage were actually made. The findings have important implications for the design, introduction and use of similar systems.

Conservative upwind difference schemes for the Euler equations for real gas flows in a duct

In a recent paper [P. Glaister, Conservative upwind difference schemes for compressible flows in a Duct, Comput. Math. Appl. 56 (2008) 1787–1796] numerical schemes based on a conservative linearisation are presented for the Euler equations governing compressible flows of an ideal gas in a duct of variable cross-section, and in [P. Glaister, Conservative upwind difference schemes for compressible flows of a real gas, Comput. Math. Appl. 48 (2004) 469–480] schemes based on this philosophy are presented for real gas flows with slab symmetry. In this paper we seek to extend these ideas to encompass compressible flows of real gases in a duct. This will incorporate the handling of additional terms arising out of the variable geometry and the non-ideal nature of the gas.

Quantifying mesoscale variability in ocean transient tracer fields

A powerful way to test the realism of ocean general circulation models is to systematically compare observations of passive tracer concentration with model predictions. The general circulation models used in this way cannot resolve a full range of vigorous mesoscale activity (on length scales between 10–100 km). In the real ocean, however, this activity causes important variability in tracer fields. Thus, in order to rationally compare tracer observations with model predictions these unresolved fluctuations (the model variability error) must be estimated. We have analyzed this variability using an eddy‐resolving reduced‐gravity model in a simple midlatitude double‐gyre configuration. We find that the wave number spectrum of tracer variance is only weakly sensitive to the distribution of (large scale slowly varying) tracer sources and sinks. This suggests that a universal passive tracer spectrum may exist in the ocean. We estimate the spectral shape using high‐resolution measurements of potential temperature on an isopycnal in the upper northeast Atlantic Ocean, finding a slope near k −1.7 between 10 and 500 km. The typical magnitude of the variance is estimated by comparing tracer simulations using different resolutions. For CFC‐ and tritium‐type transient tracers the peak magnitude of the model variability saturation error may reach 0.20 for scales shorter than 100 km. This is of the same order as the time mean saturation itself and well over an order of magnitude greater than the instrumental uncertainty.

The use of non-hypothetical experimental markets for measuring the acceptance of genetically modified foods

The findings from a study measuring consumer acceptance of genetically modified (GM) foods are presented. The empirical data were collected in an experimental market, an approach used extensively in experimental economics for measuring the monetary value of goods. The approach has several advantages over standard approaches used in sensory and marketing research (e.g., surveys and focus groups) because of its non-hypothetical nature and the realism introduced by using real goods, real money, and market discipline. In each of three US locations, we elicited the monetary compensation consumers required to consume a GM food. Providing positive information about the benefits of GM food production, in some cases, reduced the level of monetary compensation demanded to consume the GM food. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Post dispersal weed seed predation by avian and non-avian predators

Seed predation by avian and non-avian predators was quantified in the boundaries and cropped areas of cereal fields by presenting known quantities of seed with and without exclusion cages. Predator encounter-rates with the dishes exceeded 99%. Birds removed on average 6.7% seed from the dishes during the seven-day trials compared to 51% by non-avian predators. A comparison was made of the causal factors responsible for predation of Avena fatua, Chenopodium album and Cirsium arvense seeds. A. fatua seeds were preyed most heavily by both avian and non-avian predators. Seed removal by birds was greater in the cropped area than in the field boundary, non-avian predators being generally more active in the field boundary. Seed predation by birds was greater in spring than in any other season, whilst losses to other animals were greater during autumn and winter. Although, birds were not the main seed predators in cereal fields, they may contribute to weed seed depletion, of relevance to reduced-input farming systems where herbicides use is restricted.

An automated calibration method for non-see-through head mounted displays

Accurate calibration of a head mounted display (HMD) is essential both for research on the visual system and for realistic interaction with virtual objects. Yet, existing calibration methods are time consuming and depend on human judgements, making them error prone. The methods are also limited to optical see-through HMDs. Building on our existing HMD calibration method [1], we show here how it is possible to calibrate a non-see-through HMD. A camera is placed inside an HMD displaying an image of a regular grid, which is captured by the camera. The HMD is then removed and the camera, which remains fixed in position, is used to capture images of a tracked calibration object in various positions. The locations of image features on the calibration object are then re-expressed in relation to the HMD grid. This allows established camera calibration techniques to be used to recover estimates of the display’s intrinsic parameters (width, height, focal length) and extrinsic parameters (optic centre and orientation of the principal ray). We calibrated a HMD in this manner in both see-through and in non-see-through modes and report the magnitude of the errors between real image features and reprojected features. Our calibration method produces low reprojection errors and involves no error-prone human measurements.

An analysis of real time implementation of Fourier transform-based frequency recognition algorithms

Frequency recognition is an important task in many engineering fields such as audio signal processing and telecommunications engineering, for example in applications like Dual-Tone Multi-Frequency (DTMF) detection or the recognition of the carrier frequency of a Global Positioning, System (GPS) signal. This paper will present results of investigations on several common Fourier Transform-based frequency recognition algorithms implemented in real time on a Texas Instruments (TI) TMS320C6713 Digital Signal Processor (DSP) core. In addition, suitable metrics are going to be evaluated in order to ascertain which of these selected algorithms is appropriate for audio signal processing(1).

An efficient Riemann solver for unsteady flows with non-ideal gases

A Riemann solver is presented for the Euler equations of gas dynamics with real gases. This represents a more efficient version of an algorithm originally presented by the author.