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Animal liquid manure contains large amounts of phosphorus (P), which is susceptible to runoff losses when manure is surface-applied on farms as a soil amendment. Even very small quantities of P can have a large impact on waterways and lead to eutrophication. Previous studies have shown that flue gas desulfurization (FGD) gypsum, a coal combustion by-product, can reduce P losses from runoff in soils. Therefore, the authors hypothesize that FGD gypsum could reduce nutrients in liquid manure prior to field applications. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the effect of FGD gypsum to reduce P and suspended solids (SS) concentrations in liquid manure, also determining its proper rate(s) and minimum time of reaction.

The experimental design was completely randomized with three replicates. Each plot was constituted by a polyvinyl chloride (PVC) column (1 m height and 0.15 m diameter). Dairy liquid manure and FGD gypsum rates (0, 0.62, 1.25 and 2.5 mgl⁻¹) were added to the PVC columns and manually shaken for two minutes. Sampling was performed at 0.35, 0.65 and 0.95 m depths after 0 (immediately after shaking), 4, 8, 16 and 24 hours. Amount of phosphorus was determined by a colorimetric method and solids concentration by mass difference.

FGD gypsum reduced P concentrations in the liquid manure after four hours of reaction. The most effective rate was 0.62 mgl⁻¹at a 0.35 m depth. FGD gypsum increased SS concentrations in depth in all treatments.

There are growing concerns regarding the fate of nutrients, especially phosphorus, from land application of animal waste. The results indicated that treating liquid manure in the settling tanks with FGD gypsum before field application can be particularly useful on farms where surface-manure is applied, reducing potential losses of P following manure applications, and consequently the eutrophication risk to waterways.

Although it is widely acknowledged that health care delivery systems are complex adaptive systems, there are gaps in understanding the application of systems engineering approaches to systems analysis and redesign in the health care domain. Commonly employed methods, such as statistical analysis of risk factors and outcomes, are simply not adequate to robustly characterize all system requirements and facilitate reliable design of complex care delivery systems. This is especially apparent in institutional-level systems, such as patient safety programs that must mitigate the risk of infections and other complications that can occur in virtually any setting providing direct and indirect patient care. The case example presented here illustrates the application of various system engineering methods to identify requirements and intervention candidates for a critical patient safety problem known as failure to rescue. Detailed descriptions of the analysis methods and their application are presented along with specific analysis artifacts related to the failure to rescue case study. Given the prevalence of complex systems in health care, this practical and effective approach provides an important example of how systems engineering methods can effectively address the shortcomings in current health care analysis and design, where complex systems are increasingly prevalent.

Efforts to make the television landscape more equitable for people of color have been evident both within and outside the industry as early as the 1940s. These advancements made by individuals within broadcasting were an attempt to allow more people of color to get opportunities to prove themselves competent in front of and behind the scenes in broadcast television. While these early attempts were ultimately unsuccessful, they laid the groundwork for future diversity initiative efforts. The purpose of this chapter is to expose the landmark events that introduced changes in diversity policy that eventually resulted from diversity initiatives at NBC despite the racial barriers within its corporate structure. This chapter will show that the trajectory of these early events exhibits that the diversity initiatives seen today resulted from decades of pressure from the government, the press and outside citizen activist groups.

Despite its stated intention to be independent, impartial and thorough, the 9-11 Commission was none of the three. The Commission was structurally compromised by bias-inducing connections to subjects of the investigation, and procedurally compromised, among other reasons, by (1) its failure to take up promising lines of inquiry and its failure to try to force the release of key documents that were closely guarded by the Bush administration, the FBI and various intelligence agencies; (2) its distortion of information about pre-9-11 military preparedness, foreknowledge of the attacks or attacks of like-kind; and (3) omissions of information related to the funding of the plot and the specific whereabouts of key officials on the morning of September 11, 2001.

These structural compromises and procedural failings converged to assure that the Commission would not challenge core elements of the “official story” of the 9-11 attacks. This failure was compounded by the Commission's desire to produce a final report that would read as a “historical narrative” rather than as an exhaustive set of findings on the critical unanswered questions that arose after the attacks. The Commission's unquestioning acceptance of the official narrative also meant that it missed a perhaps larger opportunity to challenge key myths associated with American exceptionalism. Thus, the 9-11 Commission ultimately functioned as an instrument of cultural hegemony, extending and deepening the official version of events under the guise of independence and impartiality.

Although none of the new music reference books of the past year totally replaces the old stand‐bys, some significant works did appear, especially in the areas of contemporary music, opera, and classical music discography.

This study examines how various characteristics of the discount retail environment and the overall attitude towards a discount retail store, considered to be an abstract and global image component, influence consumers’ satisfaction and how consumers’ satisfaction, in turn, affects store loyalty. The data, collected from a sample of 517 discount retail customers in Daegu, Korea, indicate that: (1) forming the overall attitude is more closely related to in‐store services: atmosphere, employee service, after sales service and merchandising, (2) store satisfaction is formed through perceived store atmosphere and value, (3) the overall attitude has strong influence on satisfaction and loyalty and its impact is much stronger on loyalty than on satisfaction, (4) store loyalty is directly affected by most significantly location, merchandising and after sale service in order, (5) satisfaction is not related to customers’ committed store revisiting behavior. The applications in management and implications for future research are discussed.

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