Hats for the newborn infant.

The efficacy of a Gamgee-lined hat in reducing the rate of fall in rectal temperature of infants during the first 30 minutes of life was studied. The trial, which included 211 infants, was randomised, prospective, and controlled. One hundred and seven infants were exposed to overhead radiantheaters. Of these, only 30 had normal deliveries, so the analysis was confined to the infants who were not subjected to radiant heat, and in this group no conclusions were drawn about the efficacy of a hat or a radiant heater. In the 104 infants not subjected to radiant heat, body weight, initial rectal temperature, the application of hat, the environmental temperature, and the duration of exposure while naked were all found to influence measureably the rate of fall in rectal temperature during the first 30 minutes. Gamgee-lined hats should be routinely used to minimise heat loss, especially in small infants exposed at birth, during surgical operations, and during investigations necessitating prolonged exposure.     

The World Unwraps from Tiny Bags: Measuring Landscapes in Miniature

Taking its cue from the combination of life-size and miniature re-enactment that takes place in living history settings, this paper explores human play with scale, focusing in particular on what happens when historical and fantasy figures are made to dwell in miniature landscapes. I discuss relations between modellers and the miniatures that they display in dioramas or manipulate in war games, drawing on multi-sited fieldwork leading up to a small-scale exhibition I organised in Aberdeen in 2008. Taking issue with a discourse of disenchantment in modernity, which has led to a renewed interest in embodied human presence in a material world, I argue that the pleasure that modellers derive from miniature landscaping is a quintessentially contemporary pleasure that owes as much to contact and immersion in materials as to a distancing and abstracting from the miniature terrain through different forms of measurement and layers of representation. This interplay between closeness and distance is brought into sharper focus through discussion with an artist who has made playful use of railway modelling materials in his artwork.     

Functional Materials from Paper Wastes: I. From Waste Newsprint Paper and Cardboard to High-Grade Cellulose Fibers

Russian Journal of Bioorganic Chemistry - Utilization of paper wastes as renewable resource of lignocellulosic constituents has the opportunity to promote a cleaner environment and to prepare...     

但愿,这不是织布机的绝唱

这里每个村寨都是在喀斯特峰丛的包围之中,村寨里的每间房子都有一个小小的窗口,每个窗口内都有一台织布机,每台织布机都传唱着一个织布女的故事。     

Spatial Variability of Plant Litter Decomposition in Stream Networks: from Litter Bags to Watersheds

The decomposition of plant litter plays a fundamental role in the cycling of carbon and nutrients and is driven by complex interactions of biological and physical controls, yet little is known about its variability and controls across spatial scales. Here we address the indirect effects of riparian canopy cover on litter decomposition and decomposers and their variability within a set of hierarchical scales (watershed, stream segments and reaches) controlling for confounding factors that could co-vary with canopy cover (for example, temperature and nutrients), in high-altitude subtropical streams. Total, microbial and invertebrate-driven decomposition rates were approximately 1.4–6.6 times higher in closed-canopy than in open-canopy watersheds. Riparian canopy cover accounted for 62–69% of total variability of decomposition rates and indirectly (via light availability and litter inputs) promoted fungal facilitation of shredders through leaf litter conditioning. In contrast to what we expected, much of the spatial variability in the decomposition occurred at smaller scale (4–20% of total variability among reaches versus <1% among watersheds) and coincided with the greatest variability in shredder abundance and fungal biomass (70 and 17% among reaches, respectively). We conclude that riparian canopy cover may be an important control of natural variability of litter decomposition at the watershed scale through its effects on fungal decomposers and shredder consumption. We also provide evidence of higher reach and minor watershed variability of litter decomposition in stream networks. Our results point to the importance of identifying the sources of natural variability of decomposition and how they interact within and among spatial scales.     

Uncertainty and Sensitivity in the Carbon Footprint of Shopping Bags

Carbon footprints for several shopping bag alternatives (polyethylene, paper, cotton, biodegradable modified starch, and recycled polyethylene) were compared with life cycle assessment. Stochastic uncertainty analysis was used to study the sensitivity of the comparison to scenario and parameter uncertainty. On the basis of the results, we could give only a few robust conclusions without choosing a waste treatment scenario or limiting the parameter space. Given the scenario of current waste infrastructure in Finland, recycled polyethylene bags seem to be the most preferable (?7 to 24 g CO₂ eq./bag) and biodegradable bags the least preferable (38 to 60 g CO₂ eq./bag) option. In each analyzed waste treatment scenario, a few parameters dominated the uncertainty of results. Most of these parameters were downstream of the shopping bag manufacturing (consumer behavior, landfill conditions, method of waste combustion, etc.). The choice of waste treatment scenario had a greater effect on the ranking of bags than parameter uncertainty within scenarios. This result highlights the importance of including several scenarios in comparative life cycle assessments.