Digital mapping of soil ecosystem services in Scotland using neural networks and relationship modelling. Part 2: Mapping of soil ecosystem services

A framework for estimating the distribution of soil ecosystem service (ES) supply is described that is based on the concept of matrix multiplication. This approach enables relationships between fundamental soil variables and associated environmental characteristics to be linked to soil processes, and hence to ecosystem functions and ecosystem services. The parameterization of these relationships was achieved using a combination of data from the Scottish Soils Database and expert knowledge. Baseline data to allow mapping of processes, functions and services across Scotland is given by digital maps of soil classes. The matrix multiplication approach constrains the relationship linkages to linear relationships and ignores potential synergies between factors at each stage, but does provide a mechanism for relating fundamental soil characteristics to ecosystem services. The approach has been tested by developing maps of selected ecosystem services in Scotland and comparing these with existing maps of the same or similar ESs. While the values and their ranges differ in each case, the spatial distribution of services is similar. The proposed mechanism is extensible at every level and can also be used to explore the impacts of land management options on environmental characteristics. This is demonstrated by using the model to estimate impacts of liming on three ecosystem services: Agricultural Capability, Carbon Sequestration and Drinking Water Provision. The model is shown to produce reasonable estimation of the impacts of this management option. Further discussion of improvements to the system and its potential applications is given.     

Stress in veterinary science students: a study at the University of Queensland

This paper reports on the results of a survey of selected University of Queensland (UQ) veterinary students aimed at elucidating factors causing stress during the five undergraduate years of the program. Students from each of the five years were asked to form six- or seven-member focus groups. Each focus group was then interviewed and their opinions sought on causes of ongoing stress and the ranking of those causes into predetermined categories. They were also asked to give their opinions on counseling services available within the university and what, if any, services they would like to see in place to help students with stress-related problems. Students in the first, third, and fourth years of the program rated academic issues as the most likely causes of ongoing stress, while students in the second and fifth years of the program ranked lifestyle and financial issues as more likely to cause ongoing stress. In most cases, students coped well with these causes of stress and tended not to use counseling services available to all UQ students. When faced with stressful issues, students looked to their classmates or family members for help and not to university counseling services. Students were also happy to approach staff members in the Veterinary School when faced with a problem. The authors nevertheless conclude that mechanisms set in place at the undergraduate level to help veterinary students cope with stress should particularly benefit those students when they become new graduates and are faced with the stresses of veterinary practice.     

Rapid, non-destructive selection of peanuts for high aflatoxin content by soaking and tandem mass spectrometry

Peanut lots are subject to aflatoxin levels high enough to cause concern to health agencies and trade channels. A possible solution would be to mechanically sort out high aflatoxin nuts from the process stream. Only highly contaminated nuts would need to be removed. However, there exists at present no sorting mechanism which meets commercial needs of adequate reduction and product preservation. To build such a sorter requires knowledge of the properties that can be used for sorting. The first step in the design is to select on the order of one hundred undamaged contaminated nuts which can be compared with noncontaminated ones. Because contaminated nuts are rare, a very large number of nuts needs to be examined nondestructively. We present a method to rapidly carry out such a selection. The method is based on dipping nuts into extraction fluid and examining the resulting fluid by tandem MS without preliminary cleanup. This method has been applied to examine over 65,000 nuts, yielding approximately 120 nuts, each containing more than 250-43000 ng/g aflatoxin (depending on process stream).