Conservation status of New Zealand freshwater invertebrates, 2013

The conservation status of 644 freshwater invertebrate taxa, across five Phyla, 28 Orders and 75 Families, was assessed using the New Zealand Threat Classification System (NZTCS) criteria. Forty-six species were ranked Nationally Critical, 11 Nationally Endangered and 16 Nationally Vulnerable. One hundred and seventy-two taxa were listed as Data Deficient. A full list is presented, along with summaries and brief notes on the most important changes. This list replaces all previous NZTCS lists for freshwater invertebrates

IMPLEMENTING CONDITION-BASED MAINTENANCE PLUS AS A GROUND MAINTENANCE STRATEGY IN THE MARINE CORPS

In 2020, Marine Corps Order 4151.22 and Commandant White Letter 2–20 was published to implement Condition-Based Maintenance Plus (CBM+) as a ground maintenance strategy to improve operational availability and reduce life-cycle costs. The Fleet Marine Force is still operating under preventative and corrective maintenance strategies instead of CBM+ strategies. Organizational inertia, such as competing priorities, legacy processes, and inspections, has slowed the integration of CBM+ strategies. We reviewed key policy documents and interviewed fifteen subject-matter experts relevant to Marine Corps ground transport maintenance policies and practices. Based on this information, we conducted a thematic analysis using an organizational change approach to identify barriers and opportunities that impact CBM+ implementation. We found that immediate gains from CBM+ implementation in the Marine Corps can be achieved through a focus on people and process improvements while technology integration continues. The CBM+ strategy supports Force Design 2030 and Talent Management 2030 objectives and emphasizing this alignment can build momentum for CBM+. In this paper, we make six specific recommendations that apply organizational change concepts to enable effective CBM+ implementation as a ground maintenance strategy in the Marine Corps.NPS Naval Research ProgramThis project was funded in part by the NPS Naval Research Program.Major, United States Marine CorpsMajor, United States Marine CorpsApproved for public release. Distribution is unlimited

Thermospheric Weather as Observed by Ground‐Based FPIs and Modeled by GITM

The first long‐term comparison of day‐to‐day variability (i.e., weather) in the thermospheric winds between a first‐principles model and data is presented. The definition of weather adopted here is the difference between daily observations and long‐term averages at the same UT. A year‐long run of the Global Ionosphere Thermosphere Model is evaluated against a nighttime neutral wind data set compiled from six Fabry‐Perot interferometers at middle and low latitudes. First, the temporal persistence of quiet‐time fluctuations above the background climate is evaluated, and the decorrelation time (the time lag at which the autocorrelation function drops to e−1) is found to be in good agreement between the data (1.8 hr) and the model (1.9 hr). Next, comparisons between sites are made to determine the decorrelation distance (the distance at which the cross‐correlation drops to e−1). Larger Fabry‐Perot interferometer networks are needed to conclusively determine the decorrelation distance, but the current data set suggests that it is ∼1,000 km. In the model the decorrelation distance is much larger, indicating that the model results contain too little spatial structure. The measured decorrelation time and distance are useful to tune assimilative models and are notably shorter than the scales expected if tidal forcing were responsible for the variability, suggesting that some other source is dominating the weather. Finally, the model‐data correlation is poor (−0.07 < ρ < 0.36), and the magnitude of the weather is underestimated in the model by 65%.Plain Language SummaryMuch like in the lower atmosphere, weather in the upper atmosphere is harder to predict than climate. Physics‐based models are becoming sophisticated enough that they can in principle predict the weather, and we present the first long‐term evaluation of how well a particular model, Global Ionosphere Thermosphere Model, performs. To evaluate the model, we compare it with a year of data from six ground‐based sites that measure the thermospheric wind. First, we calculate statistics of the weather, such as the decorrelation time, which characterizes how long weather fluctuations persist (1.8 hr in the data and 1.9 hr in the model). We also characterize the spatial decorrelation by comparing weather at different sites. The model predicts that the weather is much more widespread than the data indicates; sites that are 790 km apart have a measured correlation of 0.4, while the modeled correlation is 0.8. In terms of being able to actually predict a weather fluctuation on a particular day, the model performs poorly, with a correlation that is near zero at the low latitude sites, but reaches an average of 0.19 at the midlatitude sites, which are closer to the source that most likely dominates the weather: heating in the auroral zone.Key PointsA long‐term data‐model comparison of day‐to‐day thermospheric variability finds that GITM represents the weather poorly (−0.07 < ρ < 0.36)The average measured decorrelation time of 1.8 hr agrees with the modeled time of 1.9 hrThe weather in GITM contains too little spatial structure, when compared with the measured ∼1,000‐km decorrelation distancePeer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/148359/1/jgra54757_am.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/148359/2/jgra54757.pd

Midlatitude thermospheric wind and temperature: networked Fabry-Perot interferometer observations and radiative transfer modeling

This dissertation presents studies of the midlatitude and low-latitude thermosphere, primarily using networks of Fabry-Perot interferometers (FPIs). First, we describe an algorithm which estimates thermospheric line-of-sight wind and temperature from raw FPI data. This new algorithm has the advantage over previous work in that it provides accurate temperature estimates and uncertainties. We then present a novel regularization-based technique to estimate the thermospheric wind field from an FPI network's line-of-sight wind measurements. This technique makes no explicit assumptions about the functional form of the wind field, and instead lets the data inform the shape. We apply this technique to study the wind dynamics associated with the equatorial midnight temperature maximum, finding direct evidence of a converging wind field during its development. Next, we apply this technique to study the midlatitude thermospheric response to the geomagnetic storm of 01-02 Oct 2013. Though the horizontal wind and temperature measurements corroborate previous observations and theory in a broad sense, the downward vertical winds measured by six independent FPIs are unreasonably large (>100 m/s) and sustained (5 hours). A superposed epoch analysis of 15 different storms shows that such downward winds are commonly measured during the main phase. Using radiative transfer modeling, we show that these vertical winds are not real, and instead are artifacts of the scattering of airglow radiation in the lower atmosphere. This is the likely explanation for the large midlatitude vertical winds and horizontal convergences previously reported in the literature. We also show that some of the vertical winds repeatedly observed at equatorial latitudes may be explained as artifacts of atmospheric scattering. These results suggest that the effects of the lower atmosphere should be accounted for in any quantitative ground-based airglow measurement

The Role of Moral Philosophy in Promoting Academic Integrity Among Engineering Students

Academic dishonesty is nothing new, yet it is particularly disturbing to find among engineering students, whose professional lives need to be guided by the highest ethical standards. Moral philosophy may illuminate some of the conditions for recovering a sense of the ethical for engineering students. Classical moral philosophers held that people belong to communities in ways that inform their sense of obligation. Recognition of these communities would make concrete the engineer\u27s responsibility for the health, safety and welfare of the public. A further difficulty is that the primary community that students know is simply that of their peers in school or the workplace, which does not form a sufficient context for the sense of moral obligation inherent in the engineer\u27s role. This paper seeks to define the moral obligation of the engineer using traditional moral philosophy and describe how this obligation might be translated into a more positive definition of success. It also addresses means by which educators can help engineering students to better understand their moral obligation

Field Assessment Form Evaluation Focusing on Updating for Student Success

The purpose of this assessment mini grant was to evaluate and modify the Field Assessment Form (FAF) allowing us to better serve a diverse student population with integrity. The FAF was created and implemented a decade ago and thanks to this mini grant has been updated taking diversity, equity, and the progressive change of education into account. The FAF is completed during practicum and student teaching experiences for students in the Early Childhood, undergraduate Professional Teacher Education, and graduate Professional Teacher Education programs. The FAF is a School of Teacher Education evaluation tool. The FAF is a rubric evaluation that is intended to evaluate teaching in the elementary classroom, and it is utilized by the mentor teacher (the elementary classroom teacher where our student is located) and the supervisor (UNC faculty). The results are then shared with the student to improve teaching. The previous rubric covers criteria of content knowledge, instruction, assessment, classroom management, affective skills, and professionalism. These criteria were then evaluated on five levels: developing, partially proficient, proficient, accomplished, and exemplary. There are then indicators describing the specifics of what this looks like in the classroom. Students need to score in the proficient or above to meet Teacher Quality Standards demonstrating they have achieved this requirement for teaching licensure. This assessment grant allowed the outdated FAF to be updated based upon stakeholder input in the form of focus groups and current research on evaluating preservice teachers. The primary purpose and goal for this project was to improve student learning through effective and efficient feedback given to students after watching them teach in an elementary classroom

Ionosphere-thermosphere coupling via global-scale waves: new insights from two-years of concurrent in situ and remotely-sensed satellite observations

Growing evidence indicates that a selected group of global-scale waves from the lower atmosphere constitute a significant source of ionosphere-thermosphere (IT, 100–600 km) variability. Due to the geometry of the magnetic field lines, this IT coupling occurs mainly at low latitudes (&lt; 30°) and is driven by waves originating in the tropical troposphere such as the diurnal eastward propagating tide with zonal wave number s = −3 (DE3) and the quasi-3-day ultra-fast Kelvin wave with s = −1 (UFKW1). In this work, over 2 years of simultaneous in situ ion densities from Ion Velocity Meters (IVMs) onboard the Ionospheric Connection Explorer (ICON) near 590 km and the Scintillation Observations and Response of the Ionosphere to Electrodynamics (SORTIE) CubeSat near 420 km, along with remotely-sensed lower (ca. 105 km) and middle (ca. 220 km) thermospheric horizontal winds from ICON’s Michelson Interferometer for Global High-resolution Thermospheric Imaging (MIGHTI) are employed to demonstrate a rich spectrum of waves coupling these IT regions. Strong DE3 and UFKW1 topside ionospheric variations are traced to lower thermospheric zonal winds, while large diurnal s = 2 (DW2) and zonally symmetric (D0) variations are traced to middle thermospheric winds generated in situ. Analyses of diurnal tides from the Climatological Tidal Model of the Thermosphere (CTMT) reveal general agreement near 105 km, with larger discrepancies near 220 km due to in situ tidal generation not captured by CTMT. This study highlights the utility of simultaneous satellite measurements for studies of IT coupling via global-scale waves

Short GRB 130603B: Discovery of a jet break in the optical and radio afterglows, and a mysterious late-time X-ray excess

We present radio, optical/NIR, and X-ray observations of the afterglow of the short-duration 130603B, and uncover a break in the radio and optical bands at 0.5 d after the burst, best explained as a jet break with an inferred jet opening angle of 4-8 deg. GRB 130603B is only the third short GRB with a radio afterglow detection to date, and the first time that a jet break is evident in the radio band. We model the temporal evolution of the spectral energy distribution to determine the burst explosion properties and find an isotropic-equivalent kinetic energy of (0.6-1.7) x 10^51 erg and a circumburst density of 5 x 10^-3-30 cm^-3. From the inferred opening angle of GRB 130603B, we calculate beaming-corrected energies of Egamma (0.5-2) x 10^49 erg and EK (0.1-1.6) x 10^49 erg. Along with previous measurements and lower limits we find a median short GRB opening angle of 10 deg. Using the all-sky observed rate of 10 Gpc^-3 yr^-1, this implies a true short GRB rate of 20 yr^-1 within 200 Mpc, the Advanced LIGO/VIRGO sensitivity range for neutron star binary mergers. Finally, we uncover evidence for significant excess emission in the X-ray afterglow of GRB 130603B at >1 d and conclude that the additional energy component could be due to fall-back accretion or spin-down energy from a magnetar formed following the merger.Comment: Submitted to ApJ; emulateapj style; 10 pages, 1 table, 3 figure

Spoofing GPS Receiver Clock Offset of Phasor Measurement Units

We demonstrate the feasibility of a spoofing attack on the GPS receiver of a phasor measurement unit (PMU). We formulate the attack as an optimization problem where the objective is to maximize the difference between the time offset of the PMU’s receiver clock before and after the attack. Since the PMU uses this clock offset to compute a time stamp for its measurements, an error in the receiver clock offset introduces a proportional phase error in the voltage or current phase measurements provided by the PMU, with a phase-wrap of 2pi (in practice, the computed maximum receiver clock offset error is never large enough to induce a phase error that requires a phase-wrap of 2pi) . The decision variables in the optimization problem are the satellites’ ephemerides, pseudoranges, and the receiver coordinates. The constraints are cast such that the receiver and satellite positions computed from the solution of the optimization problem will be close to their pre-attack values to avoid detection. We show that the spoofing attack is feasible for any number of visible satellites. Simulation results, in which four and seven satellites are spoofed, are presented to illustrate the effect of the attack on the phase measurement provided by a PMU.Department of Energy and Department of Homeland Security / DE-OE0000097Ope

Multistatic Specular Meteor Radar Network in Peru: System Description and Initial Results

The mesosphere and lower thermosphere (MLT) region is dominated globally by dynamics at various scales: planetary waves, tides, gravity waves, and stratified turbulence. The latter two can coexist and be significant at horizontal scales less than 500 km, scales that are difficult to measure. This study presents a recently deployed multistatic specular meteor radar system, SIMONe Peru, which can be used to observe these scales. The radars are positioned at and around the Jicamarca Radio Observatory, which is located at the magnetic equator. Besides presenting preliminary results of typically reported large‐scale features, like the dominant diurnal tide at low latitudes, we show results on selected days of spatially and temporally resolved winds obtained with two methods based on: (a) estimation of mean wind and their gradients (gradient method), and (b) an inverse theory with Tikhonov regularization (regularized wind field inversion method). The gradient method allows improved MLT vertical velocities and, for the first time, low‐latitude wind field parameters such as horizontal divergence and relative vorticity. The regularized wind field inversion method allows the estimation of spatial structure within the observed area and has the potential to outperform the gradient method, in particular when more detections are available or when fine adaptive tuning of the regularization factor is done. SIMONe Peru adds important information at low latitudes to currently scarce MLT continuous observing capabilities. Results contribute to studies of the MLT dynamics at different scales inherently connected to lower atmospheric forcing and E‐region dynamo related ionospheric variability