SOCIAL OVERHEAD CAPITAL COSTS OF IRRIGATION DEVELOPMENT IN WASHINGTON STATE1

ABSTRACT: Increased irrigation as a means of achieving economic development can impose significant social costs on the state or region of growth. The growth in population induced by additional irrigation will require new roads, water and sewage facilities, schools, fire and police protection, etc. Also the increased energy demands due to irrigation and growth in economic activity must be met. Capital investments required to service these needs of new development can become very large. This study attempts to measure such social overhead costs or irrigation development for some specific irrigation project areas of Eastern Washington. It is shown that investment costs in overhead items can reach $2,000 per acre irrigated or $70,000 per job created. Alternatively, the annual costs can equal $180 per acre or $6,700 per worker. These costs must be paid locally through increased taxes, utility rates, or costs for services.     

Energy analysis and the coupling of man and estuaries

New concepts and insights concerning human and natural systems in the coastal zone are emerging from recent energy analysis and synthesis studies. By using new concepts for measuring the quality of energy, one can express the work of ecosystems and human economies in equivalent terms. From energy models and new energy quality evaluations, one can learn what kinds of coastal systems maximize power, are competitive, economically vital, and likely to have a survival advantage.Energy analysis and synthesis is aided by energy circuit diagrams. Models of the coastal zone that emphasize the change in external driving functions related to world energy sources provide insights and some predictive abilities that are not found in economic studies, since money flows alone do not evaluate external driving energies.This paper suggests four procedures for coastal planning: 1) calculation of investment ratio in units of equal quality to determine which projects are economic in a broad sense, 2) development of energy signatures for coastal ecosystems, 3) determination of which interface ecosystems develop the best energy flows, and 4) development of regional models that include the main features of human and natural ecosystems.     

Slash fire hazard analysis on the Siskiyou National Forest

Potential increase in fire hazard as a result of timber harvesting is a concern of forest managers throughout the United States. Treating fuels can help reduce unacceptable fire hazards. To evaluate alternative fuel treatments, managers need to know their effects on fire hazard. A decision analysis approach to estimating fire hazard in terms of expected burned area was applied to a watershed in the Siskiyou National Forest (Oregon). Three treatment alternatives (do nothing and two levels of yarding unmerchantable material) were evaluated, and the effects of the treatments were projected over a 90-yr period. Initially, the effects of applying a treatment are small. After 50 years of treatment, the most intense alternative can be expected to show almost a 50% reduction in burned area compared to no treatment. The procedure also estimates burned are by fire size and fire intensity classes. Managers may find this useful for estimating expected fire effects associated with a particular fuel treatment regime.     

Recent Electrostatic Precipitator Experience with Ammonia Conditioning of Power Boiler Flue Gases

Motivated by heightened recent interest, Koppers Co. has been experimenting with ammonia conditioning of power boiler flue gases for the purpose of improving the precipitability of the emitted fly ash. Chemical reactions resulting from ammonia injection are postulated. Measurements on three pulverized coal and two cyclone fired boilers, all of which emit acidic ash, are described. In all five cases, considerable but varying, increase in precipitator power input and collection efficiency resulted when gaseous ammonia in the amount of 1 5 ppm was injected between the economizer and air preheater. The conditioned fly ash showed decreased acidity and inconsistent change in electrical resistivity. Unless air heater temperatures were unusually high (>400°F), tendency of the air heater to plug was an additional, but unwanted, result. At one station with high air heater outlet temperature ammonia injection has been adopted as a permanent solution to community pressure for reduction of stack discharge. Ammonia injection downstream of the air heater produced no effect. Future plans are presented to continue the program beyond results described here.     

Objective Evaluation of Emergency Plans for Oxidant Control

Emergency plans for oxidant controls provide the basis for taking preventive action to protect public health. Historic oxidant data (1970 to Sept. 1974) from the South Coast Air Basin (SCAB), were evaluated to assess episode characteristics in an area where emergency strategies are most likely to be enforced. These findings, together with an objective study of a test case episode (June 1974) using a photochemical air quality simulation model, suggest that the currently conceived emergency plans for oxidant control are unlikely to be effective. It is concluded that, because of the chemical and mefeorofogfcal complexities of the episodes, they are extremely difficult both to predict and concurrently to control over their short-lived duration.     

Non-invasive fetal genotyping for maternal alleles with droplet digital PCR: A comparative study of analytical approaches

Objectives

To develop a flexible droplet digital PCR (ddPCR) workflow to perform non-invasive prenatal diagnosis via relative mutation dosage (RMD) for maternal pathogenic variants with a range of inheritance patterns, and to compare the accuracy of multiple analytical approaches.

Methods

Cell free DNA (cfDNA) was tested from 124 archived maternal plasma samples: 88 cases for sickle cell disease and 36 for rare Mendelian conditions. Three analytical methods were compared: sequential probability ratio testing (SPRT), Bayesian and z-score analyses.

Results

The SPRT, Bayesian and z-score analyses performed similarly well with correct prediction rates of 96%, 97% and 98%, respectively. However, there were high rates of inconclusive results for each cohort, particularly for z-score analysis which was 31% overall. Two samples were incorrectly classified by all three analytical methods; a false negative result predicted for a fetus affected with sickle cell disease and a false positive result predicting the presence of an X-linked IDS variant in an unaffected fetus.

Conclusions

ddPCR can be applied to RMD for diverse conditions and inheritance patterns, but all methods carry a small risk of erroneous results. Further evaluation is required both to reduce the rate of inconclusive results and explore discordant results in more detail.     

Chemical composition of the slippery epicuticular wax blooms on Macaranga (Euphorbiaceae) ant-plants

Summary. The stems of many Macaranga ant-plants (Euphorbiaceae) are covered by epicuticular wax crystals rendering the surface very slippery for most insects. These wax blooms act as selective barriers protecting the symbiotic ant partners, which are specialized “wax-runners”, against the competition of other ants. Glaucous stems occur almost exclusively among the ant-plants of the genus Macaranga (). We analyzed the cuticular lipids of 16 Macaranga species by GC-MS and investigated the wax crystal morphology using SEM. Presence of crystalline wax blooms was strongly correlated with high concentrations (52%–88%) of triterpenoids. In contrast epicuticular waxes of glossy Macaranga surfaces contained only 0% to 36% of these dominant components. Therefore we conclude that triterpenoids are responsible for the formation of the thread-like Macaranga wax crystals. In all Macaranga ant-plants investigated, the principal components were epitaraxerol and taraxerone accompanied by smaller portions of taraxerol, β-amyrin and friedelin. Only in the case of the non-myrmecophytic M. tanarius did β-amyrin predominate. Moreover, we found that only in M. tanarius, the dense wax crystal lacework is torn into large mosaic-like pieces in the course of secondary stem diameter growth. Both chemical and macroscopic differences may contribute to a reduced slipperiness of M. tanarius stems and appear to be functionally important. The distribution of wax crystals and their composition amongst different sections of the genus suggests that glaucousness is a polyphyletic character within Macaranga. Received 7 October 1999; accepted 3 December 1999     

Kriterien für eine ökologisch nachhaltige Stoff-und Gentechnikpolitik

Based on the precautionary principles and the functional model of the environment, the meaning of the criterion of sustainability is explained and applied on organic chemicals and genetically modified organisms (GMOs). It is shown that the criterion permits the sustainability of an operationalization of the precautionary principle as interpreted strictly and the ecological component records the sustainability for the respective areas of environmental problems. Using examples from the field of chemistry, it has been demonstrated that problems have arisen through the substituted substances which are recognized as being ecologically harmful, since the sustainability was not applied as the central criterion for the environmental evaluation of organic materials. The conventions on ‘Persistent Organic Pollutants’ (POPs) which have been agreed upon provide a chance to revive the research on the sustainability of organic chemicals. Similar findings are seen for the GMOs, whose ecosystemic risks should not merely be defined based upon their human toxicological and already recognized ecological aspects.