An Illustrated Flora of the Northern United States, Canada and the British Possessions

v.2 (1897

Suspension of Disbelief

This thesis is an invitation to participate in the viewership and operation of fictional narratives. The making of this work is an attempt to understand the dichotomy of enjoying the trick and knowing its method. In construction and content of this work, I have satisfied my desire to make and my imagination to conceive fictional stories. I create dramatic narratives that function as singular frames of a film that I have never seen. I don't have to know everything that is going to happen with any of the characters I have found along the way. Each photograph is intended to provide possibilities rather than a definitive story

Pressure Regulator for a High Altitude Balloon

High altitude balloons are large latex balloons filled with gas that carry a payload to near space. Because they can travel to around 100,000 feet, they provide a convenient way to study the Earth’s atmosphere. Per Boyle’s Law, the pressure and volume of a confined gas are inversely proportional. Thus, as the balloon ascends and the atmospheric pressure decreases, the gas inside the balloon expands. This pressure difference allows the balloon to ascend, but it also causes it to continuously expand until it bursts. For some observations, one might want their balloon to remain at about the same altitude for a period of time. One way to do this is to periodically release gas from the balloon, decreasing the volume of gas in the balloon. The objective of this experiment was to design a valve with a sensor to regulate the pressure inside the balloon and in turn, prolong its flight. To do this, we designed an automated pressure valve that will be tested in the near future by way of a tethered flight

Pressure Regulator for a High Altitude Balloon

High altitude balloons are large latex balloons filled with gas that carry a payload to near space. Because they can travel to around 100,000 feet, they provide a convenient way to study the Earth’s atmosphere. Per Boyle’s Law, the pressure and volume of a confined gas are inversely proportional. Thus, as the balloon ascends and the atmospheric pressure decreases, the gas inside the balloon expands. This pressure difference allows the balloon to ascend, but it also causes it to continuously expand until it bursts. For some observations, one might want their balloon to remain at about the same altitude for a period of time. One way to do this is to periodically release gas from the balloon, decreasing the volume of gas in the balloon. The objective of this experiment was to design a valve with a sensor to regulate the pressure inside the balloon and in turn, prolong its flight. To do this, we designed an automated pressure valve that will be tested in the near future by way of a tethered flight

Professional body and regulatory organisation guidance on the use of social media for registered healthcare professionals: a systematic review protocol.

Registered healthcare professionals are expected to adhere to a code of conduct. Where a concern is raised about an individual's social media behaviour, this has the potential to be tested against professional expectations of behaviours and may have implications for the individual's fitness to practise. The aims of this review are: to critically appraise, synthesize and present the available evidence on professional body and regulatory organisation guidance on the use of social media for registered healthcare professionals; to describe how professional body and regulatory organisations have derived and provided guidance on the use of social media for registered healthcare professionals; to describe the similarities and differences in terms of the nature and content of the guidance, and; to describe the emphasis placed on implementation and evaluation within the professional body and regulatory organisation guidance

Poly[diaqua-μ3-4-nitro­phthalato-copper(II)]

In the title complex, [Cu(C8H3NO6)(H2O)2]n, the two carboxyl­ate groups of the 4-nitro­phthalate dianion ligands have monodentate and 1,3-bridging bonding modes, respectively. The Cu atom shows an approximate square-pyramidal coordination as it is bonded to O atoms from the carboxyl­ate groups of three 4-nitro­phthalate ligands and two O atoms of the non-equivalent coordinated water mol­ecules. Other Cu atoms in the coordination polymer are connected into a two-dimensional layer in the ab plane. The layers are aggregated to a three-dimensional structure through inter­layer hydrogen bonding involving an O atom of a nitro group. The whole three-dimensional structure is further maintained and stabilized by intra­layer hydrogen bonds between the O atoms of the carboxyl­ate groups and the coordinated water mol­ecules

Tidal disruption of inclined or eccentric binaries by massive black holes

Binary stars that are on close orbits around massive black holes (MBHs) such as Sgr A∗ in the centre of the Milky Way are liable to undergo tidal disruption and eject a hypervelocity star. We study the interaction between such an MBH and circular binaries for general binary orientations and penetration depths (i.e. binaries penetrate into the tidal radius around the BH). We show that for very deep penetrators, almost all binaries are disrupted when the binary rotation axis is roughly oriented towards the BH or it is in the opposite direction. The surviving chance becomes significant when the angle between the binary rotation axis and the BH direction is between 0.15π and 0.85π. The surviving chance is as high as ∼20 per cent when the binary rotation axis is perpendicular to the BH direction. However, for shallow penetrators, the highest disruption chance is found in such a perpendicular case, especially in the prograde case. This is because the dynamics of shallow penetrators is more sensitive to the relative orientation of the binary and orbital angular momenta. We provide numerical fits to the disruption probability and energy gain at the BH encounter as a function of the penetration depth. The latter can be simply rescaled in terms of binary masses, their initial separation, and the binary-to-BH mass ratio to evaluate the ejection velocity of a binary members in various systems. We also investigate the disruption of coplanar, eccentric binaries by an MBH. It is shown that for highly eccentric binaries retrograde orbits have a significantly increased disruption probability and ejection velocities compared to the circular binaries

Refining China's grassland policies: an interdisciplinary and ex-ante analysis

China is about to embark on a new round of grassland policies as part of its 14th Five-Year-Plan. While current grassland policies have generally been perceived positively in arresting widespread grassland degradation, concerns have arisen that the current policies may not be effective in achieving the desired reduction in livestock numbers. Furthermore there are concerns the incentive based payments that are part of these policy programs may not reflect herder opportunity costs or the marginal environmental benefits of the program with associated issues of herder satisfaction and compliance. Changes to current policy settings are being considered in response to these concerns. This paper reports on an interdisciplinary and ex-ante analysis of alternative policy settings affecting grazing and livestock management in terms of their environmental impacts, net social benefits and other impacts. The analysis finds that a bundle of instruments involving both positive and negative herder incentives is needed if desired stocking rates are to be achieved. The impact on herder incomes, both positive and negative depending on the grassland biome, along with transaction costs of implementing the policies, have the most influence on net social benefits

Constraints on a Stochastic Background of Primordial Magnetic Fields with WMAP and South Pole Telescope data

We constrain a stochastic background of primordial magnetic fields (PMF) by its contribution to the cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropy angular power spectrum with the combination of WMAP 7 year and South Pole Telescope (SPT) data. The contamination in the SPT data by unresolved point sources and by the Sunyaev Zeldovich (SZ) effect due to galaxy clusters has been taken into account as modelled by the SPT collaboration. With this combination of WMAP 7 yr and SPT data, we constrain the amplitude Gaussian smoothed over 1 Mpc scale of a stochatic background of non-helical PMF to $B_{\rm 1 Mpc}<3.5$ nG at 95% confidence level. Our analysis shows that SPT data up to $\ell=3000$ bring an improvement of almost a factor two with respect to results with previous CMB high-$\ell$ data. We then discuss the forecasted impact from unresolved points sources and SZ effect for {\sc Planck} capabilities in constraining PMF.Comment: 6 pages, 6 figures, matches the version published in Phys. Lett.

Age Differences in the Association of Obstructive Sleep Apnea Risk with Cognition and Quality of Life

Using a sample of 2925 stroke-free participants drawn from a national population-based study, we examined cross-sectional associations of obstructive sleep apnea risk (OSA) with cognition and quality of life and whether these vary with age, while controlling for demographics and co-morbidities. Included participants from the REasons for Geographic And Racial Differences in Stroke Study were aged 47-93. OSA risk was categorized as high or low based on responses to the Berlin Sleep Questionnaire. Cognitive function was assessed with standardized fluency and recall measures. Depressive symptoms were assessed with the four-item Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale. Health-related Quality of Life (HRQoL) was assessed with the Medical Outcomes Study Short Form-12 (SF-12). MANCOVA statistics were applied separately to the cognitive and quality of life dependent variables while accounting for potential confounders (demographics, co-morbidities). In fully adjusted models, those at high risk for OSA had significantly lower cognitive scores (Wilks’ Lambda = 0.996, F(3, 2786) = 3.31, p < .05) and lower quality of life (depressive symptoms and HRQoL) (Wilks’ Lambda = 0.989, F(3, 2786) = 10.02, p < .0001). However, some of the associations were age-dependent. Differences in cognition and quality of life between those at high and low obstructive sleep apnea risk were most pronounced during middle age, with attenuated effects after age 70