Soil Erosion Study through Simulation: An Educational Tool

Abstract

The need for education and understanding about the continuing soil erosion problem is acute. Most segments of the population have little knowledge of the critical impacts erosion can have on the environment. The use of the Soil Conservation Service model for erosion determination, the Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE), is a good perceptual tool to show the impacts of human and natural action on the land. Micro-DYNAMO, a special-purpose computer simulation language, was programmed to simulate the USLE under several different environmental and farming practice scenarios. This type of simulation will never duplicate nature but will allow natural processes to be evaluated and this information to be used for rational decision making and understanding.     

Facilitating access to consumer health information: a collaborative approach employing applied research

Responsibility for the provision of consumer health information typically lies within the public library domain or the health sciences library arena. In many communities, both types of libraries provide support for consumer health information services, often with varying levels of expertise. Public library employees may or may not be trained in the use of health and biomedical information resources. Conversely, health sciences library staff may or may not be familiar with information needs of the lay public within their community. To offset these potential differences, a model was developed to assess the health information needs of community members and to provide training for public library staff regarding use of relevant electronic consumer health information resources.     

Femoral indicator injection for transpulmonary thermodilution using the EV1000/VolumeView®: do the same criteria apply as for the PiCCO®?

Objective

Comparison of global end-diastolic volume index (GEDVI) obtained by femoral and jugular transpulmonary thermodilution (TPTD) indicator injections using the EV1000/VolumnView® device (Edwards Lifesciences, Irvine, USA).

Methods

In an 87-year-old woman with hypovolemic shock and equipped with both jugular and femoral vein access and monitored with the EV1000/VolumeView® device, we recorded 10 datasets, each comprising duplicate TPTD via femoral access and duplicate TPTD (20 ml cold saline) via jugular access.

Results

Mean femoral GEDVI ((674.6±52.3) ml/m²) was significantly higher than jugular GEDVI ((552.3±69.7) ml/m²), with P=0.003. Bland-Altman analysis demonstrated a bias of (+122±61) ml/m², limits of agreement of ?16 and +260 ml/m², and a percentage error of 22%. Use of the correction-formula recently suggested for the PiCCO® device significantly reduced bias and percentage error. Similarly, mean values of parameters derived from GEDVI such as pulmonary vascular permeability index (PVPI; 1.244±0.101 vs. 1.522±0.139; P<0.001) and global ejection fraction (GEF; (24.7±1.6)% vs. (28.1±1.8)%; P<0.001) were significantly different in the case of femoral compared to jugular indicator injection. Furthermore, the mean cardiac index derived from femoral indicator injection ((4.50±0.36) L/(min·m²)) was significantly higher (P=0.02) than that derived from jugular indicator injection ((4.12±0.44) L/(min·m²)), resulting in a bias of (+0.38±0.37) L/(min·m²) and a percentage error of 19.4%.

Conclusions

Femoral access for indicator injection results in markedly altered values provided by the EV1000/VolumeView®, particularly for GEDVI, PVPI, and GEF.

     

The Fifth Paradox: Library Management’s Toughest Challenge

Library leaders are trained, experienced, and focused on solving problems. However, an often hidden challenge for library leadership teams is managing paradoxes. This article aims to highlight the difference between solving problems and managing paradoxes and to identify five major paradoxes that libraries face today and will continue to face in the future. A balanced strategy to proactively manage these paradoxes is suggested by embracing the true purpose of your library: transforming and improving the health and well-being of your communities as well as repurposing your library staff to support this strategy.     

Metaphors as blueprints of thinking about teaching and learning

This study analyses the metaphorical conceptions of learning based on the reflections of 50 experienced teachers in an evening course on instructional psychology. The metaphors were achieved by collaboration in small groups. “Co-reflection” of group members was well suited to promote metaphorical reconstructions of teachers’ tacit theories about learning. The results show that the majority of these teachers shares traditional metaphors depicting teaching and learning as transmission of knowledge, followed by a smaller group of teachers expressing constructivist metaphors. Only a minority seems to conceive of teaching and learning as a social process. These results are compared with metaphors formulated by 38 prospective teachers without classroom experience participating in a course on curriculum design. In further collaborations these metaphors should serve as stepping stones to broader and more profound conceptions of the nature of teaching and learning.     

Same Same,but Different: Word and Sentence Reading in German and English

The current study compared eye fixation patterns during word and sentence processing in a consistent and an inconsistent alphabetic orthography. German and English children as well as adults matched on word reading ability read matched sentences while their eye fixation behavior was recorded. Results indicated that German children read in a more small-unit plodder-like style with more diligent first-pass reading and less rereading. In contrast, English children read in a more large-unit explorer-like style with a greater tendency to skip words, and more regressions. It is important that these cross-linguistic processing differences largely persisted in the adult readers. Orthographic consistency thus influences both local word recognition and global sentence processing in developing and skilled readers.