Channel rehabilitation to increase aquatic habitat and reestablish floodplain connectivity on the Upper Gila River

Stream restoration is an opportunity to recover a substantial amount of lost ecosystem structure and function. This may be particularly beneficial for perennial streams in semi-arid regions because of the striking differences in productivity and biodiversity between the riparian corridor and surrounding uplands. We develop a plan to restore floodplain connectivity along a channelized reach of the unregulated Upper Gila River in southwestern New Mexico, and evaluate its potential to provide additional aquatic habitat. To identify the extent of historical channelization, primary and secondary documents are examined. Signs of current geomorphic processes are also considered to formulate a restoration design. A high-resolution elevation model of the channel and floodplain is built from Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) and channel survey data, and an additional elevation model is created that includes the restoration plan. The plan consists of a new overflow channel in the disconnected floodplain, and is evaluated using a hydraulic model of open channel flow built with stream geometry information from the georeferenced elevation model. Flow levels for the study are chosen and characterized based on the 83-year record of daily mean discharge measured at the gaging station immediately upstream of the study site. The hydraulic simulation estimates for total area, total volume, and patterns of inundation in the study reach are used to evaluate the change in aquatic habitat availability and floodplain connectivity for the restoration plan. Results show that the reconfigured channel pattern would provide unique backwater habitat in the reach, and it also would increase total flooded area and floodplain connectivity throughout the entire range of modeled discharges

Diversity patterns, niches, and conservation: Herpetological case studies

Jesus Sigala's dissertationUnderstanding patterns of global diversity and their underlying causes has important implications for conservation. However, analyses at broad geographical scales with local natural history information are rarely undertaken, even when most conservation decisions are made at state or municipal levels. Here I cover three geographical scales and processes toward that end. Although latitudinal gradients of species richness have been explained in terms of water and energy, different groups respond differently to those variables. I describe patterns of species richness for 112 species of pitvipers throughout the Western Hemisphere and test five hypotheses that might explain those patterns, using geographical information systems and spatial statistics: area, water-energy, habitat heterogeneity, prey availability, and an index of phylogenetic diversity. The main explanatory factor was phylogenetic diversity, followed by prey diversity, then temperature, with other variables contributing only marginally. Next, I look at the factors that regulate patterns of species occurence at the Neotropic-Nearctic realms border as a way to understand distributional limits. I investigated potential limiting variables for two species of neotropical snakes as they reach the Nearctic realm by using ecological niche modeling. I identify limiting factors for the distribution of those species, the differential way they adapt to local conditions, and suggest marked niche separation for one species, but only moderate differences for the other. These results illustrate the need for intimate knowledge of the organisms to take full advantage of ecological niche modeling. Finally, I evaluate how humans impact the persistence of vertebrates at local and regional scales in central Mexico. By combining re-surveys with 50-year-old museum collections, field notes, and landscape photographs, I document an increase of species known for Aguascalientes and identify at least one species that might be eradicated. I also provide evidence for extensive habitat modification, and discuss the threat of local extinction at species? distributional limits has broader implications for regional biotas. My findings illustrate the conservation value of intensive small-scale studies, focused on the natural history of particular species and localities, as complements to large-scale biodiversity assessments.Consejo de Ciencia y Tecnolog?a del Estado de Aguascalientes (CONCYTEA), Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnolog?a (CONACYT), one semester Olin Fellowship at Cornell University, Latin American Studies Program at Cornell University, the Graduate School at Cornell University, the Andrew W. Mellon research fellowship at Cornell University, and the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Cornell University, The Lichen Fund, an a Research Fellowship for Visiting Scholars from the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology at UC Berkeley

NASA Tech Briefs, August 1990

Topics covered: New Product Ideas; NASA TU Services; Electronic Components and Circuits; Electronic Systems; Physical Sciences; Materials; Computer Programs; Mechanics; Machinery; Fabrication Technology; Mathematics and Information Sciences; Life Sciences

BLOCKAGE 2.5 reference manual

The BLOCKAGE 2.5 code was developed by the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) as a tool to evaluate license compliance regarding the design of suction strainers for emergency core cooling system (ECCS) pumps in boiling water reactors (BWR) as required by NRC Bulletin 96-03, ``Potential Plugging of Emergency Core Cooling Suction Strainers by Debris in Boiling Water Reactors``. Science and Engineering Associates, Inc. (SEA) and Software Edge, Inc. (SE) developed this PC-based code. The instructions to effectively use this code to evaluate the potential of debris to sufficiently block a pump suction strainer such that a pump could lose NPSH margin was documented in a User`s Manual (NRC, NUREG/CR-6370). The Reference Manual contains additional information that supports the use of BLOCKAGE 2.5. It contains descriptions of the analytical models contained in the code, programmer guides illustrating the structure of the code, and summaries of coding verification and model validation exercises that were performed to ensure that the analytical models were correctly coded and applicable to the evaluation of BWR pump suction strainers. The BLOCKAGE code was developed by SEA and programmed in FORTRAN as a code that can be executed from the DOS level on a PC. A graphical users interface (GUI) was then developed by SEA to make BLOCKAGE easier to use and to provide graphical output capability. The GUI was programmed in the C language. The user has the option of executing BLOCKAGE 2.5 with the GUI or from the DOS level and the Users Manual provides instruction for both methods of execution

TRANSFER RATES AND BACCALAUREATE ATTAINMENT: TWO-YEAR VERSUS HYBRID COLLEGES

This exploratory study examined how beginning at a hybrid college that offered baccalaureate degrees while retaining its subbaccalaureate mission of associate degrees and certificates (Floyd &;; Skolnik, 2005; Lorenzo, 2005), as compared to a beginning at a two-year college, affected transfer and baccalaureate attainment. Additionally, it determined how social background, other precollege personal characteristics, external demands as students enter college, and experiences during college affected transfer rates and baccalaureate attainment in the same manner as Dougherty and Kienzl (2006). This study assumed a quasiexperimental design with an ex post facto, causal-comparative case control analysis (Sprinthall, 2003). It used information from the Beginning Postsecondary Students (BPS) Longitudinal Study (NCES, 2008a) and the National Education Longitudinal Study (NELS) of 1988 (NCES, 2008b) and data was collected from 60 hybrid or treatment colleges and 469 two-year or control colleges where students had begun their postsecondary education. The treatment groups consisted of 149 students from the BPS dataset and 230 students from the NELS dataset. The control groups had 1,168 students from the BPS dataset and 2,354 students from the NELS dataset. Descriptive statistics and chi-square analyses were used to understand the differences between the treatment group and the control group in relation to transfer and baccalaureate attainment. Additionally, Pearson correlation and bivariate analyses via logistic regression were used to further understand transfer and baccalaureate attainment overall by controlling for students’ background characteristics. Students who attended hybrid colleges were significantly less likely to transfer (with mixed results between the chi-squared and logistic regressions), had a significantly higher likelihood of attaining baccalaureate degrees when combining the first and second degree attained, and had a significantly higher likelihood of obtaining a baccalaureate degree overall—even when the results controlled for a number of potentially confounding background and experiential factors— than students who attended two-year colleges. These results provided preliminary evidence for the need for further investigation in examining the influence of hybrid colleges on student transfer patterns and baccalaureate attainment

NASA Tech Briefs, August 1993

Topics include: Computer Graphics; Electronic Components and Circuits; Electronic Systems; Physical Sciences; Materials; Computer Programs; Mechanics; Machinery; Fabrication Technology; Mathematics and Information Sciences; Life Sciences; Books and Reports

A architecture for MHEG objects

Hypermedia applications are one of the most recent and most demanding computer uses. It is accepted that one of the main impediments to their widespread use is the lack of standards, and the lack of Open Systems with the possibility of having documents interchangeable between different hardware and software platforms. Several standards are emerging, one of which is the one being developed by the ISO/IEC WG12 known as the Multimedia and Hypermedia Information Coding Expert Group (MHEG). As desktop systems become more powerful, one of the main users of hypermedia applications is the home market. Therefore it is important to have standards and applications suitable for those platforms. This work reviews existing proposals for hypermedia architectures and interchange standards. It then assesses the suitability of the MHEG standard for use in open, distributed, and extensible hypermedia systems. An architecture for the implementa­tion of MHEG objects taking into account the limitations imposed by current desktop computers is also proposed. To assess the suitability of the proposed architecture, a prototype has been imple­mented. An analysis of the performance obtained in the prototype is presented and conclusions on the requirements for future implementations drawn. Finally, some suggestions to improve the MHEG standard are made

Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education: A guide to record series supporting epidemiologic studies conducted for the Department of Energy

This guide describes record series that pertain to epidemiologic and health-related studies at the Center for Epidemiologic Research (CER) of the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education (ORISE). These records document the health and safety monitoring of employees and contract employees of the Department of Energy (DOE) and its predecessor organizations, the Manhattan Engineer District (MED), the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), and the Energy Research and Development Administration (ERDA). History Associates Incorporated (HAI) prepared this guide as part of DOE`s Epidemiologic Records Inventory Project. This introduction briefly describes the Epidemiologic Records Inventory Project, HAI`s role in the project, the history of the DOE and its epidemiologic research program, and the history of the Oak Ridge Reservation and the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education. It also furnishes information on the procedures that HAI sued to select, inventory, and describe pertinent records; the methodology used to produce the guide; the arrangement of the record series descriptions; the location of the records; and procedures for accessing records repositories