Resource development,rural communities and rapid growth: Managing social change in the modern boomtown

Resource development in the western United States of America offers the prospect of rapid population and economic growth which may dramatically alter the traditional social bases of these rural communities. Reports from other western boomtowns suggests that such rapid growth can lead to substantial community disruption with a disproportionate increase in social problems and an eventual lowered productivity in the synthetic fuels industry. Changes related to population growth need not produce such disruptive results. Cooperation among industry, government, and community and well planned and coordinated human services and programs designed to relieve the stresses of change, to provide a sense of community, and to integrate newcomers into the community can reduce or prevent many of the negative impacts as well as reduce overall costs by building on existing resources.     

Play behavior and exercise in young ponies (Equus caballus L.)

Summary Play behavior of young ponies accounted for two-thirds of total running exercise and over 95% of all high-speed turns in ten animals from birth to age six weeks. The classical supposition, never previously demonstrated, that most exercise of young mammals occurs in play, is confirmed in these subjects.     

PSM in Böden:

The fate of pesticides in soil is incompletely described by the analytical determination of applied pesticides because a differentiation between the processes degradation and sorption which determine pesticide concentration in soils is not possible. By analyzing corresponding metabolites, degradation can be confirmed. Detailed mass balances considering the mineralization and formation of non-extractable residues are set up in closed model systems applying radiotracer techniques. This complex laboratory data can only be transferred to field conditions by mathematical modeling.     

Mass transfer limitation of photosynthesis of coral reef algal turfs

Algal turfs are the major primary producing component on many coral reefs and this production supports higher levels in the complex reef trophic web. Rates of metabolism of algal turfs are related positively to water motion, consistent with limitation by the diffusion of a substance through a boundary layer. Based on engineering mass transfer theory, we hypothesized that photosynthesis of algal turfs is controlled by rates of mass transfer and responses of photosynthesis to increasing flow speed should be predicted by engineering correlations. This hypothesis was tested in ten experiments where photosynthesis was estimated in a flume/respirometer from changes in dissolved oxygen at eight flow speeds between 0.08 and 0.52 m/s. Flow in the flume and over the reef at Kaneohe Bay, Oahu, Hawaii was estimated using hot-film thermistor and electromagnetic current meters. Rates of photosynthesis were related positively to flow in all experiments and plots of the log of the average Sherwood number (Sh _meas) versus log Reynolds number (Re _D) for each experiment are lower than predicted for mass transfer through a turbulent boundary layer. Algal turf-covered plates are characterized as hydrodynamically transitional to fully rough surfaces and the lower than predicted slopes suggest that roughness reduces rates of mass transfer. A negative correlation between algal turf biomass and slopes of the log Sh _meas−log Re _D plots suggests that mass transfer to algal turfs is affected significantly by the physical structure of the algal community. Patterns of photosynthesis based on changes in dissolved oxygen and dissolved inorganic carbon concentrations (DIC) indicate that the flow speed effect is not the result of increased flux of oxygen from the algal turfs, and combined with the short response time to flow speed, suggest that DIC may limit rates of photosynthesis. Although there are differences between flow in the flume and flow over algal turfs on the reef, these results suggest that photosynthesis is controlled, at least in part, by mass transfer. The chemical engineering approach provides a framework to pose further testable hypotheses about how algal canopy height, flow oscillation, turbulence, and substratum roughness may modulate rates of metabolism of coral reef algal turfs.     

Physiological stress responses in the edible crab, <Emphasis Type="Italic">Cancer pagurus</Emphasis>, to the fishery practice of de-clawing

We examined physiological stress responses in the edible crab, Cancer pagurus, subjected to the commercial fishery practice of manual de-clawing. We measured haemolymph glucose and lactate, plus muscular glycogen and glycogen mobilisation, in three experiments where the crabs had one claw removed. In the first, crabs showed physiological stress responses when ‘de-clawed’ as compared to ‘handled only’ over the short term of 1–10 min. In the second, de-clawing and the presence of a conspecific both increased the physiological stress responses over the longer term of 24 h. In the third, de-clawing was shown to be more stressful than ‘induced autotomy’ of claws. Further, the former practice caused larger wounds to the body and significantly higher mortality than the latter. Since the fishery practice is to remove both claws, the stress response observed and mortality data reported are conservative.     

Do Tidal-Channel Turbulence Measurements Support k−5/3?

We seriously challenge the belief that tidal-channel data of Grant et al. support the theory for the classical energy-spectrum behavior, k ^–5/3 in the inertial subrange [where k is wave number and (k) is the one-dimensional energy-spectrum function]. The behavior revealed by our re-examination is explained in terms of a more recent theory.