Spatial land-use inventory, modeling, and projection/Denver metropolitan area, with inputs from existing maps, airphotos, and LANDSAT imagery

A landscape model was constructed with 34 land-use, physiographic, socioeconomic, and transportation maps. A simple Markov land-use trend model was constructed from observed rates of change and nonchange from photointerpreted 1963 and 1970 airphotos. Seven multivariate land-use projection models predicting 1970 spatial land-use changes achieved accuracies from 42 to 57 percent. A final modeling strategy was designed, which combines both Markov trend and multivariate spatial projection processes. Landsat-1 image preprocessing included geometric rectification/resampling, spectral-band, and band/insolation ratioing operations. A new, systematic grid-sampled point training-set approach proved to be useful when tested on the four orginal MSS bands, ten image bands and ratios, and all 48 image and map variables (less land use). Ten variable accuracy was raised over 15 percentage points from 38.4 to 53.9 percent, with the use of the 31 ancillary variables. A land-use classification map was produced with an optimal ten-channel subset of four image bands and six ancillary map variables. Point-by-point verification of 331,776 points against a 1972/1973 U.S. Geological Survey (UGSG) land-use map prepared with airphotos and the same classification scheme showed average first-, second-, and third-order accuracies of 76.3, 58.4, and 33.0 percent, respectively

From Gunboats to Good Neighbors: U.S. Naval Diplomacy in Peru, 1919-1942

This dissertation examines the role naval power played in the evolution of U.S. policy toward Latin America during the interwar period, when the United States abandoned armed interventionism in favor of the policy of the Good Neighbor. Specifically, it focuses on two oft-overlooked types of naval diplomacy the United States used to exercise influence in the South American nation of Peru: the employment of U.S. personnel as naval advisers to the Peruvian government, and the use of U.S. naval vessels as agents of public diplomacy on goodwill cruises and port visits in Peruvian waters. It argues that the United States relied on the former while interventionism remained the accepted policy toward much of Latin America but was considered untenable south of the Caribbean (roughly 1919-1932), and embraced the latter after renouncing intervention in the interests of becoming a Good Neighbor (roughly 1933 through World War II). This research demonstrates that naval power was a much more flexible, integral part of U.S. diplomacy in Latin America during the 1920s and 1930s than historians have recognized. And importantly, it begins to bridge a persistent gap between the literatures on American diplomatic and naval history -- neither of which captures the full extent of the nation\u27s efforts at naval diplomacy in the interwar period or adequately addresses the broader significance of those efforts to U.S. foreign relations

Integrating remote sensing with nutrient management plans to calculate nitrogen parameters for swine CAFOs at the sprayfield and sub-watershed scales

No Abstract

Ice Layer Spreading along a Solid Substrate during Solidification of Supercooled Water: Experiments and Modeling

The thermal influence of a solid wall on the solidification of a sessile supercooled water drop is experimentally investigated. The velocity of the initial ice layer propagating along the solid substrate prior to dendritic solidification is determined from videos captured using a high-speed video system. Experiments are performed for varying substrate materials and liquid supercooling. In contrast to recent studies at moderate supercooling, in the case of metallic substrates only a weak influence of the substrate’s thermal properties on the ice layer velocity is observed. Using the analytical solution of the two-phase Stefan problem, a semiempirical model for the ice layer velocity is developed. The experimental data are well described for all supercooling levels in the entire diffusion limited solidification regime. For higher supercooling, the model overestimates the freezing velocity due to kinetic effects during molecular attachment at the solid–liquid interface, which are not accounted for in the model. The experimental findings of the present work offer a new perspective on the design of anti-icing systems

Bohr's complementarity relation and the violation of the CP symmetry in high energy physics

We test Bohr's complementary relation, which captures the most counterintuitive difference of a classical and a quantum world, for single and bipartite neutral kaons. They present a system that is naturally interfering, oscillating and decaying. Moreover, kaons break the CP symmetry (C...charge conjugation, P...parity). In detail we discuss the effect of the CP violation on Bohr's relation, i.e. the effect on the "particle-like" information and the "wave-like" information. Further we show that the quantity that complements the single partite information for bipartite kaons is indeed concurrence, a measure of entanglement, strengthening our concept of entanglement. We find that the defined entanglement measure is independent of CP violation while it has been shown that nonlocality is sensitive to CP violation.Comment: 8 pages, 2 figure

Atrial fibrillation impairs the diagnostic performance of cardiac natriuretic peptides in dyspneic patients. results from the BACH Study (Biomarkers in ACute Heart Failure)

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to assess the impact of atrial fibrillation (AF) on the performance of mid-region amino terminal pro-atrial natriuretic peptide (MR-proANP) in comparison with the B-type peptides (BNP and NT-proBNP) for diagnosis of acute heart failure (HF) in dyspneic patients. Background: The effects of AF on the diagnostic and prognostic performance of MR-proANP in comparison with the B type natriuretic peptides have not been previously reported. Methods: A total of 1,445 patients attending the emergency department with acute dyspnea had measurements taken of MR-proANP, BNP, and NT-proBNP values on enrollment to the BACH trial and were grouped according to presence or absence of AF and HF. Results: AF was present in 242 patients. Plasma concentrations of all three peptides were lowest in those with neither AF nor HF and AF without HF was associated with markedly increased levels (p < 0.00001). HF with or without AF was associated with a significant further increment (p < 0.00001 for all three markers). Areas under receiver operator characteristic curves (AUCs) for discrimination of acute HF were similar and powerful for all peptides without AF (0.893 to 0.912; all p < 0.001) with substantial and similar reductions (0.701 to 0.757) in the presence of AF. All 3 peptides were independently prognostic but there was no interaction between any peptide and AF for prediction of all-cause mortality. Conclusions: AF is associated with increased plasma natriuretic peptide (MR-proANP, BNP and NT-proBNP) levels in the absence of HF. The diagnostic performance of all three peptides is impaired by AF. This warrants consideration of adjusted peptide thresholds for diagnostic use in AF and mandates the continued search for markers free of confounding by AF

Success With Extended-Infusion Meropenem After Recurrence of Baclofen Pump-Related Achromobacter Xylosoxidans Meningitis in an Adolescent

A 13-year-old female experienced a recurrence of baclofen pump-related central nervous system (CNS) infection caused by Achromobacter, despite absence of retained foreign material. Due to the failure of meropenem (120 mg/kg/d in divided doses every 8 hours and infused over 30 minutes) in the initial infection, the dose was infused over 4 hours during the recurrence. Meropenem is an antibiotic for which efficacy is time dependent, and 4-hour versus 30-minute infusions have been shown to prolong the time the concentration of the antibiotic exceeds the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) of the organism at the site of infection (T\u3eMIC). Meropenem serum concentrations were obtained and indicated that T\u3eMIC was at least 75% of the dosing interval. Our patient improved with no noted recurrences or adverse effects on the extended-infusion meropenem regimen. Utilization of extended-infusion beta-lactam dosing whenever possible in the treatment of serious infections caused by gram-negative organisms should be considered, as this dosing appears to be safe and improves the probability of achieving pharmacokinetic/pharmacodynamic goals