First Assessment of Mountains on Northwestern Ellesmere Island, Nunavut, as Potential Astronomical Observing Sites

Ellesmere Island, at the most northerly tip of Canada, possesses the highest mountain peaks within 10 degrees of the pole. The highest is 2616 m, with many summits over 1000 m, high enough to place them above a stable low-elevation thermal inversion that persists through winter darkness. Our group has studied four mountains along the northwestern coast which have the additional benefit of smooth onshore airflow from the ice-locked Arctic Ocean. We deployed small robotic site testing stations at three sites, the highest of which is over 1600 m and within 8 degrees of the pole. Basic weather and sky clarity data for over three years beginning in 2006 are presented here, and compared with available nearby sea-level data and one manned mid-elevation site. Our results point to coastal mountain sites experiencing good weather: low median wind speed, high clear-sky fraction and the expectation of excellent seeing. Some practical aspects of access to these remote locations and operation and maintenance of equipment there are also discussed.Comment: 21 pages, 2 tables, 15 figures; accepted for publication in PAS

An ecological analysis of rockfish (Sebastes spp.) assemblages in the North Pacific Ocean along broad-scale environmental gradients

Environmental variability affects the distributions of most marine fish species. In this analysis, assemblages of rockfish (Sebastes spp.) species were defined on the basis of similarities in their distributions along environmental gradients. Data from 14 bottom trawl surveys of the Gulf of Alaska and Aleutian Islands (n=6767) were used. Five distinct assemblages of rockfish were defined by geographical position, depth, and temperature. The 180-m and 275-m depth contours were major divisions between assemblages inhabiting the shelf, shelf break, and lower continental slope. Another noticeable division was between species centered in southeastern Alaska and those found in the northern Gulf of Alaska and Aleutian Islands. The use of environmental variables to define the species composition of assemblages is different from the use of traditional methods based on clustering and nonparametric statistics and as such, environmentally based analyses should result in predictable assemblages of species that are useful for ecosystem-based management

རི་བོ་བཞི་དང་སྤུན་བཞི་ཡི་གཏམ་རྒྱུད།

.wav audio fileThis narrative states that four brothers divided from four mountains, and received different family names. After they divided they met many difficulties but at last obtained a peaceful life. The four mountains are called: Woniliedi, Rinidacuo, Guemisengzhu, and Beriwodi. 这个故事讲述了四兄弟从四座山上分离，而且得到了不同的姓。他们被分离以后遇到很多的困难，但在最后获得了安宁的生活。四座山被称为：沃聂烈地和日尼达措、谷米僧祝、贝日沃地。 སྒྲུང་གཏམ་འདི་རུ་སྤུན་བཞི་པོ་རི་བོ་བཞིའི་སྟེང་ནས་ཁ་བྲལ་བ་དང་རུས་མི་འདྲ་བ་རེ་ཐོགས། ཁོ་ཚོ་བྲལ་རྗེས་དཀའ་ངལ་མང་པོ་ཞིག་ལ་འཕྲད་ནའང་མཇུག་མཐར་ལྷང་འཇགས་ཀྱི་འཚོ་བ་རོལ་ཐུབ་བྱུང་། རི་བོ་འདི་དག་གི་མིང་ལ་ཨི་ཉེ་ལེ་ཏེ་དང་རི་ཉི་དར་མཚོ། གོ་མེ་ཟིན་བྲུ། པེ་རི་ཨོ་ཏེ་བཅས་ཟེར། This collection contains forty-six audio files including numerous interviews and various genres of traditional songs recorded by Hu Qianma in the Pumi village of Wangjiagou, Jinmian Township, Ninglang County, Lijiang City, Yunnan Province, PR China

Abundance, condition, and diet of juvenile Pacific ocean perch (Sebastes alutus) in the Aleutian Islands

T he relative value of pelagic habitat for three size classes of juvenile Pacific ocean perch (Sebastes alutus) was investigated by comparing their abundance and condition in two areas of the Aleutian Islands. Diet, zooplankton biomass, and water column temperatures were examined as potential factors affecting observed differences. Juvenile Pacific ocean perch abundance and condition, and zooplankton biomass varied significantly between areas, whereas juvenile Pacific ocean perch diet varied only by size class. Observed differences in fish condition may have been due to the quantity or quality of pelagic prey items consumed. For the delineation of essential demersal fish habitat, important ecological features of the pelagic habitat must therefore be considered

Collateral Damage: Private Merger Lawsuits in the Wake of Section 2’s Contraction

For over 100 years, the Clayton Act has ostensibly prohibited anticompetitive mergers and acquisitions. Yet, as fears of market concentration and market power grow, it seems high time for a boost in enforcement. Armed with statutory causes of action for injunctive relief and treble damages, private plaintiffs could provide that needed boost. However, these plaintiffs face an unexpected hurdle to enforcing the merger laws: section 2 of the Sherman Act. This Note argues that the narrowing of liability under section 2 over the past three decades has had a collateral impact on private plaintiffs’—especially rival firms’—ability to satisfy the antitrust injury requirement to challenge an anticompetitive merger. The 1986 Supreme Court decision in Cargill, Inc. v. Monfort of Colorado, Inc. requires plaintiffs to allege that newly merged firms will act anticompetitively in a way that injures the plaintiffs. To make such allegations successfully, plaintiffs must rely on accepted theories of antitrust liability, which will often sound in the predatory behaviors prohibited by section 2. But as section 2 has shrunk, so too has the ability to challenge the merger

Genetic variation of rougheye rockfish (Sebastes aleutianus) and shortraker rockfish (S. borealis) inferred from allozymes

Rougheye rockfish (Sebastes aleutianus) and shortraker rockfish (Sebastes borealis) were collected from the Washington coast, the Gulf of Alaska, the southern Bering Sea, and the eastern Kamchatka coast of Russia (areas encompassing most of their geographic distribution) for population genetic analyses. Using starch gel electrophoresis, we analyzed 1027 rougheye rockfish and 615 shortraker rockfish for variation at 29 proteincoding loci. No genetic heterogeneity was found among shortraker rockfish throughout the sampled regions, although shortraker in the Aleutian Islands region, captured at deeper depths, were found to be significantly smaller in size than the shortraker caught in shallower waters from Southeast Alaska. Genetic analysis of the rougheye rockfish revealed two evolutionary lineages that exist in sympatry with little or no gene f low between them. When analyzed as two distinct species, neither lineage exhibited heterogeneity among regions. Sebastes aleutianus seems to inhabit waters throughout the Gulf of Alaska and more southern waters, whereas S. sp. cf. aleutianus inhabits waters throughout the Gulf of Alaska, Aleutian Islands, and Asia. The distribution of the two rougheye rockfish lineages may be related to depth where they are sympatric. The paler color morph, S. aleutianus, is found more abundantly in shallower waters and the darker color morph, Sebastes sp. cf. aleutianus, inhabits deeper waters. Sebastes sp. cf. aleutianus, also exhibited a significantly higher prevalence of two parasites, N. robusta and T. trituba, than did Sebastes aleutianus, in the 2001 samples, indicating a possible difference in habitat and (or) resource use between the two lineages

May You Walk in Beauty: The Decline of Navajo Land and Culture

The Navajo homeland, Dinetah, is bordered by four mountains that are sacred to the Navajo people: two in Colorado, one in New Mexico, and one in Arizona. Historically, Navajo medicine men have traveled to these mountains to renew prayers and collect medicinal herbs. Today, the mountains, which exist outside of the reservation boundaries, are used for resource extraction and various recreational pursuits. While many Navajo are fighting for the protection of these sacred lands and their traditional culture, others are disinterested. Traditional practices and beliefs are slowly disappearing within the Navajo Nation. The land-use issues associated with these sacred mountains illustrate that the decline of Dinetah and the decline of the Navajo culture are inextricably connected

Comparison of habitat-based indices of abundance with fishery-independent biomass estimates from bottom trawl surveys

Rockfish species are notoriously difficult to sample with multispecies bottom trawl survey methods. Typically, biomass estimates have high coefficients of variation and can fluctuate outside the bounds of biological reality from year to year. This variation may be due in part to their patchy distribution related to very specific habitat preferences. We successfully modeled the distribution of five commercially important and abundant rockf ish species. A two-stage modeling method (modeling both presence-absence and abundance) and a collection of important habitat variables were used to predict bottom trawl survey catch per unit of effort. The resulting models explained between 22% and 66% of the variation in rockfish distribution. The models were largely driven by depth, local slope, bottom temperature, abundance of coral and sponge, and measures of water column productivity (i.e., phytoplankton and zooplankton). A year-effect in the models was back-transformed and used as an index of the time series of abundance. The abundance index trajectories of three of five species were similar to the existing estimates of their biomass. In the majority of cases the habitat-based indices exhibited less interannual variability and similar precision when compared with stratified survey-based biomass estimates. These indices may provide for stock assessment models a more stable alternative to current biomass estimates produced by the multispecies bottom trawl survey in the Gulf of Alaska