Soil Influence on Forest Vegetation Productivity and Patterns in the Eastern Cascades of Southern Oregon

Thesis (Master's)--University of Washington, 2016-06

Political science and public administration: The saga of a difficult relationship

This paper is based on 'The perennial ugly duckling-public sector education in tertiary institutions before and after Coombs, an invited contribution on management education delivered at the Sydney Academics Symposium on the Coombs Commission in Retrospect, IPAA National Conference, 28 November 2001.

On the role of magnesium and nitrogen in the infiltration of aluminium by aluminium for rapid prototyping applications

Selective laser sintering has been used to fabricate an aluminium alloy powder preform which is subsequently debound and infiltrated with a second aluminium alloy. This represents a new rapid manufacturing system for aluminium that can be used to fabricate large, intricate parts. The base powder is an alloy such as AA6061. The infiltrant is a binary or higher-order eutectic based on either Al-Cu or At-Si. To ensure that infiltration occurs without loss of dimensional precision, it is important that a rigid skeleton forms prior to infiltration. This can be achieved by the partial transformation of the aluminium to aluminium nitride. In order for this to occur throughout the component, magnesium powder must be added to the alumina support powder which surrounds the part in the furnace. The magnesium scavenges the oxygen and thereby creates a microclimate in which aluminium nitride can form. The replacement of the ionocovalent Al2O3 with the covalent AlN on the surface of the aluminium powders also facilitates wetting and thus spontaneous and complete infiltration. (C) 2004 Acta Materialia Inc. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

A commentary on the impacts of metals and metalloids in the environment upon the metabolism of drugs and chemicals

The salient feature of metals is that unlike organic compounds they do not degrade in the environment and barely move from one environmental matrix to another. Human interventions take these compounds from their stable and non-bioavailable geological matrix into situations of biological accessibility. Studies in the 1970s and the 1980s of metal bioavailability and impacts of metals and metalloids were driven by the process of abatement of lead in the environment. Humans have clear and identifiable sources of exposure from fuels, food and leaded water pipes to lead. Interventions started at that time have dramatically lowered human lead exposure. Attention has now shifted to other metals, in particular, cadmium, which has seen increasing use. It is generally accepted that food crops grown on cadmium containing soils or soils naturally rich in this metal are the major source of exposure to humans other than exposure from smoking of cigarettes. This mini-review gives a summary and commentary on early studies on effects of lead on haem metabolism that provide us the clue to why investigations of the impacts of other toxic heavy metals and metalloids such as cadmium and arsenic on different human cytochrome P450 forms have become of great interest at the current time. (C) 2003 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Investigating genetic discrimination in Australia: Opportunities and challenges in the early stages

Genetic discrimination, defined as the differential treatment of individuals or their relatives on the basis of actual or presumed genetic differences, is an emerging issue of interest in academic, clinical, social and legal contexts. While its potential significance has been discussed widely, verified empirical data are scarce. Genetic discrimination is a complex phenomenon to describe and investigate, as evidenced by the recent Australian Law Reform Commission inquiry in Australia. The authors research project, which commenced in 2002, aims to document the multiple perspectives and experiences regarding genetic discrimination in Australia and inform future policy development and law reform. Data are being collected from consumers, employers, insurers and the legal system. Attempted verification of alleged accounts of genetic discrimination will be a novel feature of the research. This paper overviews the early stages of the research, including conceptual challenges and their methodological implications.

The roles of depression and anxiety in the understanding and treatment of Obstructive Sleep Apnea Syndrome

Obstructive Sleep Apnea Syndrome (OSAS) is a debilitating condition stemming from disruption to the respiratory system during sleep. At present, the nature of the relationship between OSAS and mood, specifically depression and anxiety, is still unclear. The purpose of this paper is to shed some light on this relationship. PsycINFO was used to locate relevant papers on this topic. This literature search formed the basis of our investigation. Results showed that the anxiety and depression methodology is weak. It is now clear that there is an urgent need to better understand the roles of anxiety and depression in OSAS. For example, the research literature suggests that depression and anxiety covary with OSAS. However, because of methodological issues, such as difficulties involved in diagnosis and the use of inappropriate instruments, this conclusion remains tenuous. Future directions are discussed. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

History and habit in the mobilization of ICT resources

Evidence demonstrates that the digital divide is deepening despite strategies mobilized worldwide to reduce it. In disadvantaged communities, beyond training and infrastructural issues, there often lies a range of cultural and historically formed relationships that affect people's adoption of ICTs. This article presents an analysis of local resident's engagement with their council's pilot project to develop a computer facility in their community center. We ask, to what extent can people in poor urban communities, once trained, be expected to volunteer to work on furthering community education and development in ICTs in their local area? Findings indicate four patterns of individual engagement with the computer project: reflexive, utilitarian, distributive, and nonparticipatory. It is argued that local people engaged with the intervention in historically patterned and locally distinctive ways that served immediate personal and pragmatic ends. They did not adopt the long-term strategic goals of the council or university.

Preliminary evaluation of the occurrence of herbicides and PAHs in the Wet Tropics region of the Great Barrier Reef, Australia, using passive samplers

The proximity of the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) Marine Park to areas of intensive agriculture and increasing urbanisation places the park under potential threat of contamination by land-based pollutants. Passive samplers were deployed at inshore reef and river mouth sites in the Wet Tropics region of the GBR during a dry and a wet season to measure levels of land-based organic pollutants in this environment. Two types of passive sampling devices were deployed: (i) a polar sampler, which can be used to monitor polar herbicides and (ii) semipermeable membrane devices (SPMDs) which sequester more hydrophobic compounds (e.g. PAHs, chlorpyrifos). Herbicides (diuron, simazine, atrazine, hexazinone and/or flumeturon) were detected at low concentrations (ng L-1) at all sites sampled and in both seasons. Chlorpyrifos was not detected while PAHs were present in SPMDs at levels below limits of detection. The results show that the GBR environment does contain low levels of organic pollutants and that passive sampling provides a sensitive monitoring tool for measuring waterborne organic pollutants. (c) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Procedures and parameters in the real-time program refinement calculus

The real-time refinement calculus is a formal method for the systematic derivation of real-time programs from real-time specifications in a style similar to the non-real-time refinement calculi of Back and Morgan. In this paper we extend the real-time refinement calculus with procedures and provide refinement rules for refining real-time specifications to procedure calls. A real-time specification can include constraints on, not only what outputs are produced, but also when they are produced. The derived programs can also include time constraints oil when certain points in the program must be reached; these are expressed in the form of deadline commands. Such programs are machine independent. An important consequence of the approach taken is that, not only are the specifications machine independent, but the whole refinement process is machine independent. To implement the machine independent code on a target machine one has a separate task of showing that the compiled machine code will reach all its deadlines before they expire. For real-time programs, externally observable input and output variables are essential. These differ from local variables in that their values are observable over the duration of the execution of the program. Hence procedures require input and output parameter mechanisms that are references to the actual parameters so that changes to external inputs are observable within the procedure and changes to output parameters are externally observable. In addition, we allow value and result parameters. These may be auxiliary parameters, which are used for reasoning about the correctness of real-time programs as well as in the expression of timing deadlines, but do not lead to any code being generated for them by a compiler. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

The impact of spectral composition and light periodicity on the activity of two antioxidant enzymes (SOD and CAT) in the coral Favia favus

In oligotrophic waters the light spectrum is mostly blue, and therefore the physiological and biochemical responses to blue light occurring in the coral tissue and in the symbiotic algae are important. Examination of the wavelength dependence of two free radical scavenger enzyme activity revealed an increase in activity in the blue light range (440-480 nm) compared to the red (640680 nm) in the full visible light (400-700 nm) range. These data show for the first time the relationship between the action spectra of photosynthesis and the activity of two main antioxidant enzymes in the symbiotic coral Favia favus. It was found that in the animal (host) the enzyme response to the spectral distribution of light was higher than that of the zooxanthellae, probably due to accumulation of free radicals within the host tissue. Furthermore, we found that the activity of these enzymes is affected in nature by the length of the day and night, and in the laboratory, by the duration of the illumination. Changes in the pigment concentrations were also observed in response to growth under the blue region and the whole PAR spectrum, while fluorescence measurements with the fast repetition rate fluorometer (FRRF) showed a decrease in the sigma cross section and a decrease in the quantum yield also in the blue part of the spectrum. These changes of scavenger enzymes activity, pigment concentration and fluorescence yield at different light spectra are vital in acclimatization and survival of corals in shallow water environments with high light radiation. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.