Search

The article explores the role of purser-pharmacist mates in the American Merchant Marine during World War II. These individuals were responsible for managing paperwork, finances, and providing medical care to the crew. Despite their importance, they were often overlooked and underappreciated. The article discusses the reasons for this, including misconceptions about merchant mariners and their pay compared to the armed forces. It also traces the history of the purser position and highlights the challenges faced by the United States merchant marine during the war. The work of purser-pharmacist mates had a significant impact on ship operations and post-war medical competency efforts. [Extracted from the article]

Harmful algal blooms (HABs) are a recurring problem in many temperate large lake and coastal marine ecosystems, caused mainly by anthropogenic eutrophication. Implementation of agricultural conservation practices (ACPs) offers a means to reduce non-point source nutrient runoff and mitigate HABs. However, the effectiveness of ACPs in a changing climate remains uncertain. We used an integrated biophysical modeling approach to predict how Lake Erie cyanobacterial HAB severity (bloom biomass) may change under several climate and ACP implementation scenarios, using western Lake Erie and its largely agricultural watershed as our study system. An ensemble of general circulation model projections was used to drive spatially explicit land use and hydrology models of the Maumee River watershed, the output of which informed a predictive model of Lake Erie HAB severity. Results show that, in the absence of changes in ACPs, the frequency of severe HABs is projected to increase during coming decades, owing to increased inputs of nutrients from the watershed. These anticipated increases are due to increased total precipitation and more frequent higher-magnitude rainfall events. While further implementation of ACPs appears capable of reducing severe HAB events, widespread implementation would be necessary to reduce HAB severity below current management targets. This study highlights how continued climate change will only exacerbate the need for land management practices that can reduce nutrient runoff in agriculturally dominated ecosystems, such as Lake Erie. It also shows how interdisciplinary, biophysical modeling approaches can help identify strategies to mitigate HABs in the face of anthropogenic stressors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2015, 48 permitted Confined Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) housed approximately 90% of poultry and 20% of swine and cattle within the Ohio portion of the Maumee River watershed. Recently, concerns about the impact CAFOs may have on nutrient loading in the watershed have been raised. In this study, we used manure management plans and inspection reports obtained from the Ohio Department of Agriculture Division of Livestock Environmental Permitting (ODA-DLEP) to assess how these CAFOs managed their manure for the years 2014 and 2015. A majority of liquid manure was applied between April and October, closely matching the amount of liquid manure planned to be applied during this period. Approximately 79% of the acres under control of the CAFOs that received manure had Bray P1 soil test phosphorus values below 50 ppm. The average distance between a swine CAFO's livestock holding barn to the fields they control that can receive manure was 1.43 miles while for cattle CAFOs this distance was 1.91 miles. Approximately 78% of manure phosphorus generated on CAFOs was planned to be transferred through Distribution and Utilization, a process in which ownership of manure changes hands, including virtually all solid poultry manure phosphorus. While publicly available data show that, in general, CAFOs in the region are adhering to their state-approved permits, a knowledge gap regarding the management of approximately 80% of manure phosphorus exists due to manure transferred through Distribution and Utilization and manure produced from non-permitted livestock operations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Harmful Algal Blooms (HABs), which were largely absent from Lake Erie from the 1980s until the mid-late 1990s, have been growing steadily worse in intensity. While much of the phosphorus loading into the lake prior to 1972 was caused by point-source pollution, approximately 88% to 93% of current loading comes from nonpoint sources, of which agriculture is the dominant land use. A reduction target of 860 metric tons, or 40% of the total phosphorus spring loading in 2008, has been set with the expectation that such a reduction could limit the size and associated impact of HABs in 9 out of every 10 years. We review the effectiveness of recommended practices aimed at reducing phosphorus loss in agriculture and pair this knowledge with behavioral data on likely adoption to identify how best to achieve the reduction target. The data suggests that the target is feasible as a majority of the farming population is willing to consider many of the recommended practices. However, increases in adoption over time have been minimal, and farmers will need better cost-benefit information, site-specific decision support tools, and technical assistance in order to more rapidly adopt and execute the placement of recommended practices. A combination of voluntary and mandatory approaches may be needed, but policies and programs promoting voluntary adoption should be designed to better target known barriers and maximize voluntary program effectiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Boxy and with ‘unseaworthy form’, the sailing scow was not the most aesthetically pleasing of watercraft. Yet the durable hull design based upon European predecessors found a new home in North America where it proliferated on the Atlantic, Gulf, Pacific and Great Lakes coasts because of its practicality for largely unimproved waterways. Scows were widely used on the Great Lakes in the nineteenth century, moving beyond shallow waters and gaining a reputation for reliability in long-distance trade. Late in the century, the technology arrived in New Zealand, where it prospered in a niche market that combined open water voyages and shallow river, port, or beach loading and unloading. The Great Lakes scows presented an alternative for entry into ship ownership on the North American frontier. The development of the New Zealand scow confirmed these findings comparatively in an international context during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Microcystin (MC) is a cyanobacteria-produced liver toxin that has been found in fish from Lake Erie, sometimes in excess of World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines for safe consumption. Even so, few studies have quantified MCs in Lake Erie fishes, and these studies have drawn different conclusions concerning the risk that fish consumption poses to public health. To address this gap in knowledge, we used Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbant Assay (ELISA) to evaluate the MC concentration in muscle tissue from three commonly harvested fish in Lake Erie: walleye ( Sander vitreus , n = 29); yellow perch ( Perca flavescens , n = 52); and white perch ( Morone americana , n = 55), collected during summer 2013. Satellite remote sensing was used to compare MC concentrations in fish tissue to bloom conditions in Lake Erie at the time of harvest. We found a significant difference among mean MC concentrations in walleye (71 ng MC/g wet weight), white perch (37 ng MC/g), and yellow perch (8.1 ng MC/g). In addition, MC levels in white perch appeared to depend on local bloom conditions. While few of the fish collected contained MC in excess of WHO guidelines, our results indicate that more toxic blooms could increase MC in fish to levels that pose a greater risk to public health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In response to degraded water quality, federal policy makers in the US and Canada called for a 40% reduction in phosphorus (P) loads to Lake Erie, and state and provincial policy makers in the Great Lakes region set a load-reduction target for the year 2025. Here, we configured five separate SWAT ( US Department of Agriculture's Soil and Water Assessment Tool) models to assess load reduction strategies for the agriculturally dominated Maumee River watershed, the largest P source contributing to toxic algal blooms in Lake Erie. Although several potential pathways may achieve the target loads, our results show that any successful pathway will require large-scale implementation of multiple practices. For example, one successful pathway involved targeting 50% of row cropland that has the highest P loss in the watershed with a combination of three practices: subsurface application of P fertilizers, planting cereal rye as a winter cover crop, and installing buffer strips. Achieving these levels of implementation will require local, state/provincial, and federal agencies to collaborate with the private sector to set shared implementation goals and to demand innovation and honest assessments of water quality-related programs, policies, and partnerships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Phosphorus loadings from the Maumee River watershed have significantly compromised the Lake Erie ecosystem, as evidenced by the most severe harmful algal bloom in Lake Erie in 2015 and the shut-down of Toledo drinking water supply in 2014. Despite government payments for adoption of voluntary conservation practices, excess nutrient runoff from agricultural production remains a substantial challenge. The right timing of nutrient application is a critical best management practice (BMP). Using a unique survey of 2540 farmer respondents in the Maumee River watershed, this paper analyzes how socio-psychological, socio-demographic, and field-based spatial characteristics impact farmers' adoption of timing-related best practices for nutrient management, including delaying broadcast application before a storm event, avoiding winter application of nutrients, and avoiding fall application of nutrients. Results reveal three unique classes of farmers for each of the timing-related management decisions. While the significance of most farmer and field characteristics varies across the three BMP adoption decisions, perceived efficacy—the belief that the particular practice will actually reduce dissolved phosphorus runoff from farm fields—is positively correlated with a higher likelihood of adopting each of the BMPs across almost all classes of farmers. For example, results from the ordered logit model suggest that a 20% increase in perceived efficacy would result in the likelihood of actual adoption of delaying broadcast from 35% to 48%. An implication is that policies and outreach efforts aimed at increasing farmers' perceived efficacy of practices could lead to higher adoption levels, but the effectiveness may vary across different classes of farmers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change holds great potential to affect the Lake Erie ecosystem by altering the timing and magnitude of precipitation driven river discharge and nutrient runoff in its highly agricultural watershed. Using the SWAT hydrologic model and an ensemble of global climate models, we predicted Maumee River (Ohio) discharge during the 21st century under two Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) greenhouse gas emissions scenarios: RCP4.5 (mid-range, moderate reductions) and RCP8.5 (high, “business as usual”). Annual discharge was projected to increase under both scenarios, both in the near-century (RCP4.5 = 6.5%; RCP8.5 = 2.0%) and late-century (RCP4.5 = 9.2%; RCP8.5 = 15.9%), owing to increased precipitation and reduced plant stomatal conductance. Holding fertilizer application rates at baseline levels, we found that reduced winter surface runoff and increased plant phosphorus (P) uptake led to a respective decrease in annual total P (TP) runoff in the near-century (RCP4.5 = − 4.3%; RCP8.5 = − 6.6%) and by the late-century (RCP4.5 = − 14.6%; RCP8.5 = − 7.8%). Likewise, soluble reactive P (SRP) runoff was predicted to decrease under both scenarios in the near-century (RCP4.5 = − 0.5%; RCP8.5 = − 3.5%) and by the late-century (RCP4.5 = − 11.8%; RCP8.5 = − 8.6%). By contrast, when fertilizer application was modeled to increase at the same rate as plant P uptake, TP loading increased 4.0% (0.9%) in the near-century and 9.9% (24.6%) by the late-century and SRP loading increased 10.5% (6.1%) in the near-century and 26.7% (42.0%) by the late-century under RCP4.5 (RCP8.5). Our findings suggest that changes in agricultural practices (e.g., fertilization rates) will be key determinants of Maumee River discharge during the 21st century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To reduce the intensity and frequency of harmful algal blooms in western Lake Erie, it has been recommended to reduce the phosphorus load, contributed by the Maumee River watershed (MRW) in northwest Ohio. As the largest contributor of phosphorus to Lake Erie, the dominantly agricultural MRW in northwest Ohio has been recommended to reduce phosphorus loads by 40%. To achieve such reductions, three agricultural nutrient management practices, (1) fertilizer placement within the soil, (2) adjusted seasonal timing of fertilizer application, and (3) adjusted date of fertilizer application to drier days have been recommended. To determine the potential phosphorus load reduction from implementing these three management practices, a SWAT model of the MRW was developed to evaluate the effectiveness of each practice for reducing SRP and total phosphorus (TP) load to the lake. Management scenarios were modeled with variations of the three practices from 2007 to 2012, and compared to historical data. Overall, maximum fertilizer placement had the greatest potential to influence SRP and TP loads; reducing spring SRP and TP loading by 42% and 27%, respectively compared to baseline levels. Seasonal fertilizer application timing also impacted spring SRP and TP loads, but to a lesser degree. Changing the date of application from wetter days to drier days across the watershed did not significantly affect SRP or TP loads, but this result is likely due to limitations of the SWAT simulation. These results indicate that maximizing fertilizer placement has a great potential to reduce TP and SRP runoff from the MRW. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this exploratory research is to document the level of personal assistance support provided to students with severe physical disabilities by disability support services in higher education institutions across the United States. A national survey was conducted of members of the Association of Higher Education And Disability (AHEAD) via an online survey. Of the 326 respondents with usable responses, 36 (14.1%) stated they provided some level of personal assistance services to students with severe physical disabilities, ranging from providing emergency services (25 or 69.4%) to providing residential services with in-house personal assistants (4 or 11.1%). Personal assistance support to students with severe physical disabilities were more likely to be provided at master's, comprehensive, and research universities and less likely to be provided at bachelor's, associate's, and trade/technical schools. Those who provided personal assistant support were more likely to be able to identify students with severe physical dis- abilities who were negatively impacted by the lack of personal assistance support, were more satisfied with their personal assistance support services, had longer tenure in disability support services, and had greater numbers of part-time staff. Implications for service providers and future research are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the process in extending the definition of a binomial coefficient for negative integers and Pascal's Triangle. It notes that such process may be of interest to students of calculus who have studied binomial coefficients and Pascal's Triangle. An elaboration of the construction of a triangular array of nonzero integers known as the Pascal's Triangle Extended is also offered.

Individuals with disabilities are underrepresented in postsecondary education; in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) majors; in graduate and post-doctoral work; and in faculty positions, particularly in STEM. Despite these lags behind their non-disabled counterparts, few organizations recruit persons with disabilities into postsecondary education and/or STEM careers and, thus, scant literature exists on targeted recruitment efforts. The intent of this article is to examine data concerning these lags, to review what literature does exist on recruitment of students with disabilities, and to report on promising practices developed by the Midwest Alliance, an NSF-funded endeavor to increase the number of individuals with disabilities in STEM. It is believed that these efforts and descriptions may help other organizations recruit individuals with disabilities into their postsecondary programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article describes the ecosystem degradation and poverty of the Lacandon Maya, an indigeneous group of people who live in Chiapas, Mexico. It presents the Lacandon traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) for agroforestry and describe the plant community and the associated soil ecology. It is also noted the knowledge of the Lacandon concerning the immediate use of plant species and soil fertility enhancement. In fact, woody plant diversity increases during the successional stages of the Lacandon system.

This article discusses the use of ecological treatment systems which use plant-based methods to reduce coliforms bacteria in dairy wastewater treatment. According to the authors, an ecological treatment system consisting of a series of anaerobic, aerobic, and clarifier reactors before passing through a wetlands cell was effective in significantly reducing E. coli coliforms. They argue that even though EPA discharge requirements were not always met, ecological treatment systems have the potential to meet those requirements.

Discusses the application of strategic alliances in the energy industry. Definition of strategic alliances; Reasons for the proliferation of strategic alliances; Identity of the specific entities through which joint venturers will participate in the venture.