US copper supply : An economic/engineering analysis of cost—supply relationships

The authors present short- and long-term supply schedules for the primary US copper industry. These schedules are based on the economic theory of supply, and are derived from site- and input-specific cost data. Cost figures are arrived at by a combination of engineering process analysis and statistical cost estimation. The supply functions can be used to evaluate the effects of changes in market, policy, or other variables on US copper supply.     

Employee influence on decisions: An analysis

Attitude data from a national sample of 2300 working adults are reported. The data show that employees feel they should have more influence on a number of decisions. This feeling is stronger for decisions affecting how their job is done, than for matters of corporate policy and personnel decisions. However, it is in the policy and personnel areas that they perceive the greatest discrepancy between the amount of influence they presently have and the amount of influence they feel they should have. Older, better educated, and higher-paid respondents felt they should have more influence on all decisions. The implications of these findings for the Quality of Work Life movement were considered. The data suggest a favourable future climate for certain types of employee influence/Quality of Work Life projects.     

The emergency care setting for screening and intervention for alcohol use problems among injured and high-risk drivers: a review

Each year thousands of people are treated in emergency departments and trauma centers for alcohol-related injuries, including those sustained in drinking driving crashes. Emergency departments and trauma centers provide an opportunity to screen for alcohol use problems and intervene with injured or high-risk drivers to reduce future alcohol-related traffic and injury risk. Recently physicians have expressed interest in exploring screening and intervention for alcohol use problems in these venues as a means of improving clinical care. This article reviews the literature that has examined screening and brief interventions in acute care settings to reduce future alcohol consumption and alcohol-related injury. The methodological and practical issues inherent in conducting these studies as well as in actual practice are discussed. The chaotic environment of acute care, the large numbers of patients required to be screened to obtain an adequate study sample, and high attrition rates make study in these settings difficult at best and are methodological problems that should be addressed in future research. A basic question that has not been adequately answered by research to date is whether reduction in alcohol consumption will translate to reduced alcohol-related harm, such as driving while impaired, or injurious or fatal crashes. Long-term studies that assess records-based outcomes in addition to alcohol-consumption levels are needed.     

Biodiversity consequences of alternative future land use scenarios in Greater Yellowstone.

Land use is rapidly expanding in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, primarily from growth in the number of rural homes. There is a need to project possible future land use and assess impacts on nature reserves as a guide to future management. We assessed the potential biodiversity impacts of alternative future land use scenarios in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. An existing regression-based simulation model was used to project three alternative scenarios of future rural home development. The spatial patterns of forecasted development were then compared to several biodiversity response variables that included cover types, species habitats, and biodiversity indices. We identified the four biodiversity responses most at risk of exurban development, designed growth management policies to protect these areas, and tested their effectiveness in two alternative future scenarios. We found that the measured biodiversity responses, including riparian habitat, elk winter range, migration corridors, and eight other land cover, habitat, and biodiversity indices, are likely to undergo substantial conversion (between 5% and 40%) to exurban development by 2020. Future habitat conversion to exurban development outside the region's nature reserves is likely to impact wildlife populations within the reserves. Existing growth management policies will provide minimal protection to biodiversity in this region. We identified specific growth management policies, including incentives to cluster future growth near towns, that can protect "at risk" habitat types without limiting overall growth in housing.     

Connecting with Country in Mungo National Park,Australia: a case study to measure the emotional dimension of experience and place attachment

Connecting people with nature improves well-being, but how people connect with natural places is not well documented. We asked 43 people (19 Aboriginal Australians, 24 non-Aboriginal people) about the messages they received from Country during an interactive experience in the remote Mungo National Park, Australia, and analysed the physical senses, emotions and cognitive processes they mentioned. The physical senses mentioned by most respondents were sight, hearing and motion (particularly walking). These senses helped people receive messages from Country and connect with place. We used the primary-process emotional systems of Panksepp [2010. Dialogues in Clinical Neuroscience, 12 (4), 533–545] as a framework to capture the emotional dimension of experience. Most people reported positive emotions; they spoke about being nurtured by the group and the land (CARE), and the intense joy (PLAY) of being part of the community, being on Country and being accompanied by Aboriginal people. However, our results indicate the framework does not capture the breadth of positive emotions, particularly those associated with connection to place and spiritual experiences. Both groups mentioned cognitive processes reflecting their beliefs, existing knowledge, or sharing and acquiring new knowledge. Our results indicate that the emotional dimension of experience has the potential to measure connection to place, and provide a subjective measure of well-being. More research is needed to document this dimension of experience, and how it changes with context. Our case study provides further insight for those who manage protected areas and seek to enrich the experience of visitors.     

Effect of unfavorable trophic scenarios on amylase and protease activity of <Emphasis Type="Italic">Nephrops norvegicus</Emphasis> (L.) larvae during their first vertical migration: a laboratory approach

In Portuguese waters, Nephrops norvegicus larvae hatch at 400–800 m depth and need to perform a vertical migration to food-rich shallower waters to find suitable prey. The effect of suboptimal feeding on digestive enzymes activity of N. norvegicus larvae during this early period of their larval life remains unknown. Protease and amylase activities were investigated ex situ using flurometry in laboratory-hatched larvae exposed to different feeding and/or starving scenarios in the 24 h following hatching, the period during which they typically accomplish their upward vertical migration. Amylase activity was very low in comparison with protease activity, indicating that carbohydrates are not a primary energy reserve. Larvae starved for 12 h and subsequently fed displayed no increase in amylase activity, which suggests that feeding may be required before 12 h post-hatch to trigger amylase activity. Protease activity was high under all feeding conditions, and the increase in protease activity under sustained starvation indicated the catabolism of protein reserves. The ability of first-stage N. norvegicus larvae to metabolize protein reserves may play a decisive role for their survival during their first vertical migration, as it enables them to overcome the deleterious effects of short-term starvation and/or suboptimal feeding.     

The occurrence of Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli in bathing water of the Sierra de la Ventana region, Buenos Aires Province, Argentina

The region of Sierra de la Ventana is located in the southwest of Buenos Aires Province, Argentina. Traditionally, this area has been devoted to livestock and agriculture, but tourism has had a significant development in recent years. In the region, there are many rivers and streams that are used for swimming and bathing. A survey of the occurrence of Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC) in these waters was conducted, and the microbiological quality of rivers and streams was investigated. No E. coli O157 was recovered by immunomagnetic separation. Nevertheless, the Shiga toxin gene, exclusively stx2 genotype, was detected in four non-O157 E. coli strains. Two STEC strains carried eae factor, but none of them harbored the EHEC-hlyA gene. Three of the STEC isolates belonged to samples obtained in the warm months, and one to the winter sampling. In the sample sites where STEC strains were isolated the counts of E. coli/100 ml exceeded or were close to the limit recommended by the United States Environmental Protection Agency for bathing water. The relationship observed between the rainy season and E. coli counts suggests that among the main causes for the hygienic indicator increase is the runoff of manure deposited on soils that may also induce the entrance of pathogens into the aquatic environment. This research, the first reporting STEC isolation from recreational waters in this area, revealed that streams and rivers from a beef-producing area of Argentina are a reservoir of STEC strains.     

Secondary sexual characters and female quality in primates

Honest advertisement models of sexual selection propose that exaggerated secondary sexual ornaments are condition-dependent, and that only individuals with superior disease resistance will be able to express costly ornamentation. Studies of secondary sexual ornamentation and their maintenance by sexual selection tend to focus on males. However, females may also possess showy ornaments. We investigated whether female ornaments, in the form of sexual swellings, reliably signal female fitness in a semifree-ranging colony of mandrills (Mandrillus sphinx) at the Centre International de Recherches Médicales, Franceville (CIRMF), Gabon. We measured swelling height and width using photographs of periovulatory females over three mating seasons and compared swelling size with parasitism (using fecal analysis over one annual cycle), immune status (ratio of lymphocytes to neutrophils in blood smears made during captures), and genetic diversity (microsatellite heterozygosity). Swelling size varied by up to 10% between cycles in individual females, giving some support to the hypothesis that size differences may indicate the quality of individual swelling cycles. However, there was no significant difference in swelling size between conceptive and nonconceptive cycles. Measures of swelling size varied more between females than within females across swelling cycles, implying that swelling size was a relatively consistent characteristic of individual females. Swelling size was not significantly related to either general measures of parasitism and immune status, or to the closest available measures to each swelling cycle. Nor was swelling size significantly related to genetic diversity. The healthy, provisioned nature of the colony and problems associated with observational, correlational studies restrict interpretation of our data. However, in combination with previous findings that females of higher reproductive success do not show larger swellings, and that males do not allocate mating effort as a function of swelling size, these results imply that sexual swelling size does not indicate female quality in these semifree-ranging mandrills.     

Changes in Extractable Metal Concentrations During Storage of Surface Water Samples Containing Sediments1

ABSTRACT: Changes in metal concentrations during storage of acidified water samples were studied. Water samples with high concentrations of suspended sediment were collected from the Fraser River, British Columbia. These samples were analyzed for “extractable” metals, which are defined to be the dissolved metals plus those metals extracted from suspended sediment by dilute mineral acid. Concentrations of extractable Cu, Fe, Pb, Zn, Ni, Co, Mn, and Cd were determined over time. Metal concentrations in these water samples were not stable and showed significant increases throughout the storage period. These results suggest that the extractable metal technique is inappropriate for the analysis of water samples containing suspended sediment.