Public receptiveness to policies promoting plant-based diets: framing effects and social psychological and structural influences

Governmental and non-governmental organizations, social movements, and academics have called for reductions in meat consumption due to the environmental, animal welfare, and public health consequences of industrial animal agribusiness. An impactful move toward plant-based diets would require changes in public policy. First, we assess if there are different social and structural factors that influence support for policies that promote plant-based diets. We look at four categories of policies (action frames) that will likely reduce meat consumption: environmental, animal welfare, public health, and direct meat reduction. Second, we use a manipulation rhetorical frame to see if support can be altered by providing individuals with information about meat reduction, framing the issue in terms of environmental protection, animal welfare, or public health. Different social and structural factors predict support for different policy groupings, meaning that it matters how policies are enclosed in action frames. However, providing information to individuals about a particular impact (rhetorical frame) has limited influence on policy support.     

HOMINIDS: An agent-based spatial simulation model to evaluate behavioral patterns of early Pleistocene hominids

The HOMINIDS ABM is a new Agent Based Model that simulates the actions of two species of proto-human agents defined by a few, simple parameters. These proto-human agents attempt to subsist by foraging and nesting on dynamic, spatially explicit landscapes. The landscapes are described with a number of parameters based on empirical field data collected in habitats in East Africa. The results of three separate scenarios with 1 year model runs repeated 30 times each, for a total of 90 simulations, are presented and discussed to illustrate both the capacity and flexibility of our ABM modeling environment. The simulations show that the model food preferences and anatomy ascribed to Australopithecus boisei resulted in different expressions of foraging behaviors and subsistence strategies in two distinct ecological settings, and that adding tubers to the diet significantly increases the chances of the hominid agents meeting their daily caloric requirements year-round. In addition, this paper provides links to the open-source implementation code, along with the user documentation, design document, java API, and all datasets required to replicate the simulations.     

Full-Scale Evaluation of Mercury Control with Sorbent Injection and COHPAC at Alabama Power E.C. Gaston

Abstract

The overall objective of this project was to determine the cost and impacts of Hg control using sorbent injection into a Compact Hybrid Particulate Collector (COHPAC) at Alabama Power’s Gaston Unit 3. This test is part of a program funded by the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) to obtain the necessary information to assess the costs of controlling Hg from coal-fired utility plants that do not have scrubbers for SO₂ control. The economics will be developed based on various levels of Hg control.

Gaston Unit 3 was chosen for testing because COHPAC represents a cost-effective retrofit option for utilities with existing electrostatic precipitators (ESPs). COHPAC is an EPRI-patented concept that places a high air-to-cloth ratio baghouse downstream of an existing ESP to improve overall particulate collection efficiency. Activated carbons were injected upstream of COHPAC and downstream of the ESP to obtain performance and operational data.

Results were very encouraging, with up to 90% removal of Hg for short operating periods using powdered activated carbon (PAC). During the long-term tests, an average Hg removal efficiency of 78% was measured. The PAC injection rate for the long-term tests was chosen to maintain COHPAC cleaning frequency at less than 1.5 pulses/bag/hr.     

A Methodology for Assessing Blast Protection in Explosive Ordnance Disposal Bomb Suits

To reduce human casualties associated with explosive ordnance disposal, a wide range of protective wear has been designed to shield against the blast effects of improvised explosive devices and munitions. In this study, 4 commercially available bomb suits, representing a range of materials and armor masses, were evaluated against 0.227 and 0.567 kg of spherical C-4 explosives to determine the level of protection offered to the head, neck, and thorax.

A Hybrid III dummy, an instrumented human surrogate [1], was tested with and without protection from the 4 commercially available bomb suits. 20 tests with the dummy torso mounted to simulate a kneeling position were performed to confirm repeatability and robustness of the dummies, as well as to evaluate the 4 suits. Correlations between injury risk assessments based on past human or animal injury model data and various parameters such as bomb suit mass, projected area, and dummy coverage area were drawn.     

Enhanced reductive dechlorination in columns treated with edible oil emulsion

The effect of edible oil emulsion treatment on enhanced reductive dechlorination was evaluated in a 14 month laboratory column study. Experimental treatments included: (1) emulsified soybean oil and dilute HCl to inhibit biological activity; (2) emulsified oil only; (3) emulsified oil and anaerobic digester sludge; and (4) continuously feeding soluble substrate. A single application of emulsified oil was effective in generating strongly reducing, anaerobic conditions for over 14 months. PCE was rapidly reduced to cis-DCE in all three live columns. Bioaugmentation with a halorespiring enrichment culture resulted in complete dechlorination of PCE to ethene in the soluble substrate column (yeast extract and lactate). However, an additional treatment with a pulse of yeast extract and bioaugmentation culture was required to stimulate complete dechlorination in the emulsion treated columns. Once the dechlorinating population was established, the emulsion only column degraded PCE from 90-120 microM to below detection with concurrent ethene production in a 33 day contact time. The lower biodegradation rates in the emulsion treated columns compared to the soluble substrate column suggest that emulsified oil barriers may require a somewhat longer contact time for effective treatment. In the HCl inhibited column, partitioning of PCE to the retained oil substantially delayed PCE breakthrough. However, reduction of PCE to more soluble degradation products (cis-DCE, VC and ethene) greatly reduced the impact of oil-water partitioning in live columns. There was only a small decline in the hydraulic conductivity (K) of column #1 (low pH+emulsion, K(final)/K(initial)=0.57) and column #2 (live+emulsion, K(final)/K(initial)=0.73) indicating emulsion injection did not result in appreciable clogging of the clayey sand. However, K loss was greater in column #3 (sludge+emulsion, K(final)/K(initial)=0.12) and column #4 (soluble substrate, K(final)/K(initial)=0.03) indicating clogging due to biomass and/or gas production can be significant.     

Linking biosensor responses to Cd, Cu and Zn partitioning in soils

Soils bind heavy metals according to fundamental physico-chemical parameters. Bioassays, using bacterial biosensors, were performed in pore waters extracted from 19 contrasting soils individually amended with Cd, Cu and Zn concentrations related to the EU Sewage Sludge Directive. The biosensors were responsive to pore waters extracted from Zn amended soils but less so to those of Cu and showed no toxicity to pore water Cd at these environmentally relevant amended concentrations. Across the range of soils, the solid-solution heavy metal partitioning coefficient (K(d)) decreased (p<0.01) with increasing amendments of Cu and Zn; Cu exhibited the highest K(d) values. Gompertz functions of Cu and Zn, K(d) values against luminescence explained the relationship between heavy metals and biosensors. Consequently, biosensors provide a link between biologically defined hazard assessments of metals and standard soil-metal physico-chemical parameters for determining critical metal loadings in soils.     

Mycorrhizal fungal identity and diversity relaxes plant-plant competition

There is a great interest in ecology in understanding the role of soil microbial diversity for plant productivity and coexistence. Recent research has shown increases in species richness of mutualistic soil fungi, the arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF), to be related to increases in aboveground productivity of plant communities. However, the impact of AMF richness on plant-plant interactions has not been determined. Moreover, it is unknown whether species-rich AMF communities can act as insurance to maintain productivity in a fluctuating environment (e.g., upon changing soil conditions). We tested the impact of four different AMF taxa and of AMF diversity (no AMF, single AMF taxa, and all four together) on competitive interactions between the legume Trifolium pratense and the grass Lolium multiflorum grown under two different soil conditions of low and high sand content. We hypothesized that more diverse mutualistic interactions (e.g., when four AMF taxa are present) can ease competitive effects between plants, increase plant growth, and maintain plant productivity across different soil environments. We used quantitative PCR to verify that AMF taxa inoculated at the beginning of the experiment were still present at the end. The presence of AMF reduced the competitive inequality between the two plant species by reducing the growth suppression of the legume by the grass. High AMF richness enhanced the combined biomass production of the two plant species and the yield of the legume, particularly in the more productive soil with low sand content. In the less productive (high sand content) soil, the single most effective AMF had an equally beneficial effect on plant productivity as the mixture of four AMF. Since contributions of single AMF to plant productivity varied between both soils, higher AMF richness would be required to maintain plant productivity in heterogeneous environments. Overall this work shows that AMF diversity promotes plant productivity and that AMF diversity can act as insurance to sustain plant productivity under changing environmental conditions.     

Biodegradation of superabsorbent polymers in soil

Biodegradation of two superabsorbent polymers, a crosslinked, insoluble polyacrylate and an insoluble polyacrylate/ polyacrylamide copolymer, in soil by the white-rot fungus, Phanerochaete chrysosporium was investigated. The polymers were both solubilized and mineralized by the fungus but solubilization and mineralization of the copolymer was much more rapid than of the polyacrylate. Soil microbes poorly solublized the polymers and were unable to mineralize either intact polymer. However, soil microbes cooperated with the fungus during polymer degradation in soil, with the fungus solubilizing the polymers and the soil microbes stimulating mineralization. Further, soil microbes were able to significantly mineralize both polymers after solubilization by P. chrysosporium grown under conditions that produced fungal peroxidases or cellobiose dehydrogenase, or after solubilization by photochemically generated Fenton reagent. The results suggest that biodegradation of these polymers in soil is best under conditions that maximize solubilization.