385 research outputs found
An Understanding of Factors Controlling Isotopic Ratios of Wine as a Potential Surrogate of Past Precipitation
Precipitation, vapor water, ground water, soil water, grape berry and grape leaf water, grape must, and vintage wines were collected from northern California for stable isotopic analysis. An understanding of factors controlling isotopic ratios of wine allows evaluation of wine as a surrogate of past precipitation. Stable isotopic compositions of grape berry waters collected at Charles Krug Winery in Napa Valley. CA range from -31 to -17 per mil in 8D and +7.2 to +15.3 per mil in 8180, and plot along a transpiration line of slope 2. 7. Grape leaf waters range from -25 to +5 per mil in 8D and +0.9 to +12.4 per mil in 8180, and plot along a transpiration line of slope 2.1. Isotopic compositions of wine range from -3 to +20 per mil in 1\D and +4.6 to +10.2 per mil in 8180 and plot along a wine line of slope 3.5. Similar samples collected from Concannon Vineyard in Livermore Valley, CA show similar variations as those from Napa Valley, CA.
Grape berry and grape leaf waters are up to 59 per mil in 8D and 18 per mil in 8180 more enriched than soil water. Grape leaf water was more responsive to pre-harvest precipitation, shifting 15 per mil in 8D and 8.1 per mil in 8180, than grape berries which showed a delayed shift of 13 per mil in 8D and 4.6 per mil in 8180.
Yearly variations in isotopic values for wines produced in Napa Valley in the last 30 years range from 0 to 13 per mil in 8D and 0.1 to 4.8 per mil in o180. Variations average 6 per mil in oD and 1. 7 per mil in o180 between each consecutive year. Strong correlations are observed between isotopic ratios of wine and temperature (0.94). relative humidity (·0.93), and ET (0.93) for approximately 1-3 months prior to harvest. The correlation with annual precipitation (0.30) suggests that amount of rainfall has nominal affect on stable isotopic ratios of wine. And the correlation observed between compositions of wine and wine quality (0.43) has no practical predictive capabilities.
Wines do not provide sufficient information for annual weather data In verification of climate models. Nevertheless. variations in stable isotopic ratios of wine represent changes in weather conditions during the growing season
From Campus to Community: Making the Case for Open Access by Bringing Nonprofits to Academic Libraries
Summary: Describes how librarians developed a workshop for nonprofit organizations (NPOs) to help NPOs access peer-reviewed publications behind paywalls, develop skills in searching (information retrieval), and improve awareness of how academic libraries can support community organizations. NPOs who participated gave feedback in a number of ways, from written surveys to short recorded video interviews. With permission, their feedback was used to develop promotional and informational materials intended for the campus about the value of open access to those working in the local community
Open Access on Campus: Bringing Nonprofits to the Libraries
Low attendance at Open Access Week events caused academic librarians to ask: What can we do to further open access without asking faculty and students to attend events during such a busy time of the semester? Instead of reaching out to faculty directly, librarians at the University of Tennessee Libraries are reaching out beyond the campus community. Health sciences, social sciences, and scholarly communication librarians offer a workshop to East Tennessee nonprofit organizations to assist them in finding and accessing scholarly research. After the workshops, participants are invited to be interviewed on camera about why public access to research matters, giving the Libraries’ important personal stories for Open Access advocacy. After hearing these stories, do faculty ask librarians more questions about how to publish openly? What else can we do to increase the desire to share research publicly
The survey of planetary nebulae in Andromeda (M31) III. Constraints from deep planetary nebula luminosity functions on the origin of the inner halo substructures in M31
The Andromeda (M31) galaxy displays several substructures in its inner halo
whose origin as remnants of accreted satellites or perturbations of the
pre-existing disc are encoded in the properties of their stellar populations
(SPs), leaving traces on their deep [OIII] 5007 \AA planetary nebulae
luminosity functions (PNLFs). By characterizing the morphology of the PNLFs, we
constrain their origin. From our 54 sq. deg. deep narrow-band [OIII] survey of
M31, we identify planetary nebulae (PNe) in the M31 disc and six major
inner-halo substructures - the Giant Stream, North East Shelf, G1-Clump,
Northern Clump, Western Shelf and Stream-D. We measure PNLF parameters from
cumulative fits and statistically compare the PNLFs in each substructure and
the disc. We link the PNLF parameters and those for the Large Magellanic Cloud
to published metallicities and age measurements for their parent SPs. The
absolute magnitudes of the PNLF bright cut-off () for these
sub-populations span a significant magnitude range, despite having similar
distance and line-of-sight extinction. for the Giant Stream, W-shelf
and Stream-D PNLFs are fainter than those predicted by PN evolution models for
the metallicity of the parent SPs. The faint-end slope of the PNLF increases
linearly with decreasing fraction of stellar mass younger than 5 Gyr across the
M31 regions and the LMC. From their PNLFs, the Giant Stream and NE-shelf are
consistent with being stellar debris from an infalling satellite, while the G1
Clump appears to be linked with the pre-merger disc. The SPs of the
substructures are consistent with those predicted by simulations of a single
massive merger event that took place 2--3 Gyr ago in M31. Stream-D has an
unrelated, distinct, origin. Furthermore, this study provides independent
evidence that the faint-end of the PNLF is preferentially populated by PNe
evolved from older stars.Comment: 14 pages, 7 figures, 4 tables; Abstract abridged; Accepted for
publication at Astronomy & Astrophysic
Adolescent substance use: a prospective longitudinal model of substance use onset among South African adolescents
Substance use onset among Colored adolescents between eighth and ninth grades in an urban area of Cape Town, South Africa was examined using latent transition analysis. Longitudinal self-report data regarding substance use (N = 1118, 50.9% female) were collected in 2004 and 2005. Results indicated that the pattern of onset was similar across genders; adolescents first tried either alcohol or cigarettes, followed by both, then dagga (cannabis), and then inhalants. The prevalence of lifetime cigarette use was slightly greater for females; dagga (cannabis) and inhalant use were greater for males. The similarity of developmental onset in the current sample to previous international work supports the promise of adapting prevention programs across contexts. The study’s limitations are noted.Web of Scienc
A Search for Exozodiacal Clouds with Kepler
Planets embedded within dust disks may drive the formation of large scale
clumpy dust structures by trapping dust into resonant orbits. Detection and
subsequent modeling of the dust structures would help constrain the mass and
orbit of the planet and the disk architecture, give clues to the history of the
planetary system, and provide a statistical estimate of disk asymmetry for
future exoEarth-imaging missions. Here we present the first search for these
resonant structures in the inner regions of planetary systems by analyzing the
light curves of hot Jupiter planetary candidates identified by the Kepler
mission. We detect only one candidate disk structure associated with KOI 838.01
at the 3-sigma confidence level, but subsequent radial velocity measurements
reveal that KOI 838.01 is a grazing eclipsing binary and the candidate disk
structure is a false positive. Using our null result, we place an upper limit
on the frequency of dense exozodi structures created by hot Jupiters. We find
that at the 90% confidence level, less than 21% of Kepler hot Jupiters create
resonant dust clumps that lead and trail the planet by ~90 degrees with optical
depths >~5*10^-6, which corresponds to the resonant structure expected for a
lone hot Jupiter perturbing a dynamically cold dust disk 50 times as dense as
the zodiacal cloud.Comment: 22 pages, 6 figures, Accepted for publication in Ap
WFI J2026-4536 and WFI J2033-4723: Two New Quadruple Gravitational Lenses
We report the discovery of two new gravitationally lensed quasars, WFI
J2026-4536 and WFI J2033-4723, at respective source redshifts of z=2.23 and
z=1.66. Both systems are quadruply imaged and have similar PG1115-like image
configurations. WFI J2026-4536 has a maximum image separation of 1.4", a total
brightness of g = 16.5, and a relatively simple lensing environment, while WFI
J2033-4723 has a maximum image separation of 2.5", an estimated total
brightness of g = 17.9, and a more complicated environment of at least six
galaxies within 20". The primary lensing galaxies are detected for both systems
after PSF subtraction. Several of the broadband flux ratios for the two lenses
show a strong (0.1-0.4 mags) trend with wavelength, suggesting either
microlensing or differential extinction through the lensing galaxy. For WFI
J2026-4536, the total quasar flux has dimmed by 0.1 mag in the blue but only
half as much in the red over three months, suggestive of microlensing-induced
variations. For WFI J2033-4723, resolved spectra of some of the quasar
components reveal emission line flux ratios that agree better with the
macromodel predictions than either the broadband or continuum ratios, also
indicative of microlensing. The predicted differential time delays for WFI
J2026-4536 are short, ranging from 1-2 weeks for the long delay, but are longer
for WFI J2033-4723, ranging from 1-2 months. Both systems hold promise for
future monitoring campaigns aimed at microlensing or time delay studies.Comment: 34 pages, including 9 postscript figures. Submitted to A
Understanding leisure-related program effects by using process data in the HealthWise South Africa Project
As the push for evidence-based programming gathers
momentum, many human services programs and interventions are under
increased scrutiny to justify their effectiveness across different conditions
and populations. Government agencies and the public want to be assured
that their resources are being put to good use on programs that are effective
and efficient. Thus, programs are increasingly based on theory and evaluated
through randomized control trials using longitudinal data. Despite this progress,
hypothesized outcomes are often not detected and/or their effect sizes
are small. Moreover, findings may go against intuition or “gut feelings” on
the part of project staff. Given the need to understand how program implementation
issues relate to outcomes, this study focuses on whether process
measures that focus on program implementation and fidelity can shed light
on associated outcomes. In particular, we linked the process evaluation of the
HealthWise motivation lesson with outcomes across four waves of data collection.
We hypothesized that HealthWise would increase learners’ intrinsic
and identified forms of motivation, and decrease amotivation and extrinsic
motivation. We did not hypothesize a direction of effects on introjected motivation
due to its conceptual ambiguity. Data came from youth in four intervention
schools (n = 902, 41.1%) and five control schools (n = 1291, 58.9%)
who were participating in a multi-cohort, longitudinal study. The schools
were in a township near Cape Town, South Africa. For each cohort, baseline
data are collected on learners as they begin grade 8. We currently have four
waves of data collected on the first cohort, which is the focus of this paper.
The mean age of the sample at wave 3 was 15.0 years (SD = .86) and 51%
of students were female. Results suggested that there was evidence of an
overall program effect of the curriculum on amotivation regardless of fidelity
of implementation. Compared to the control schools, all treatment school
learners reported lower levels of amotivation in wave 4 compared to wave 3,
as hypothesized. Using process evaluation data to monitor implementation fi147
delity, however, we also conclude that the school with better trained teachers
who also reported higher levels of program fidelity had better outcomes than
the other schools. We discuss the implications of linking process data with outcome
data and the associated methodological challenges in linking these data.Web of Scienc
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