EFFECTS OF COVER BOARD AGE, SEASON, AND HABITAT ON THE OBSERVED ABUNDANCE OF EASTERN RED-BACKED SALAMANDERS (PLETHODON CINEREUS)

Plethodontid salamanders are potentially good ecological indicator species in woodland habitats due to their abundance and sensitivity to changes in the environment. The use of terrestrial salamanders as ecological indicators depends on effective means of surveying their abundance and distribution. Our study examined the use of old and new artificial cover boards by Eastern Red-backed Salamanders (Plethodon cinereus). We also considered the effects of season (spring vs. fall) and habitat type (deciduous vs. coniferous vs. mixed) on cover board use by P. cinereus. Our results indicated that P. cinereus abundance was greater under old cover boards compared to new cover boards. However, the difference between the use of old and new cover boards was greater during the spring than the fall, suggesting that the effect of cover board age became weaker over time. Plethodon cinereus showed strong seasonal variation in observed abundance, with peaks during the spring and fall seasons and very low surface activity during the summer. Plethodon cinereus had higher observed abundance in deciduous habitats than in coniferous and mixed habitats. Our results suggested that care should be taken to account for cover board age in long-term monitoring programs, especially if cover boards are replaced during a study

On the detection of newly created CN radicals and comets

Laboratory investigations of CN radical formation by photodissociation of parent molecules have suggested the possibility of observing emission lines in cometary spectra from newly formed CN radicals. These laboratory studies have shown that high initial internal excitation of CN is the rule with excitation of rotational levels N up to 70. In the collisionless environment of the cometary atmosphere this initial excitation would yield a corresponding distribution for the lowest vibrational level of the ground X(2) Sigma (+) state. Our calculations show that it is feasible with present observational techniques to detect photochemically excited lines with N approx. equal to 30 in the 0-0 band of the violet system

CASPR: Judiciously Using the Cloud for Wide-Area Packet Recovery

We revisit a classic networking problem -- how to recover from lost packets in the best-effort Internet. We propose CASPR, a system that judiciously leverages the cloud to recover from lost or delayed packets. CASPR supplements and protects best-effort connections by sending a small number of coded packets along the highly reliable but expensive cloud paths. When receivers detect packet loss, they recover packets with the help of the nearby data center, not the sender, thus providing quick and reliable packet recovery for latency-sensitive applications. Using a prototype implementation and its deployment on the public cloud and the PlanetLab testbed, we quantify the benefits of CASPR in providing fast, cost effective packet recovery. Using controlled experiments, we also explore how these benefits translate into improvements up and down the network stack

Influences of Forest Edges on the Growth and Health of Old-Growth Coast Redwood Forests

Coast redwood (Sequoia sempervirens) is the tallest species in the world, frequently attaining heights greater than 300 ft. The unique characteristics of the redwoods has led to the establishment of several preservation areas including national and state parks. However, abrupt forests edges created by previous logging and landcover changes has left the remaining stands exposed to elevated temperature, sunlight, and wind intensities, thereby making redwoods along the forest edge more susceptible to windthrow and drought stress. Despite the rarity of old-growth coast redwood forests and their ecological and cultural significance, very few studies have investigated how forests edges have impacted the productivity and health of these forests. In these studies, we combine dendrochronology with remote sensing methods to better understand the spatial and temporal patterns of redwood stress and how it has been impacted by habitat fragmentation. In the first study, we investigated how a previous road expansion has impacted the growth and drought stress of nearby redwoods. In the second study, we mapped declines in redwood crown health to better understand the relationship between crown health and environmental variables such as distance to forest edge, local tree density, and overall tree height. Our results indicated that previous road expansions caused growth declines in adjacent trees and caused elevated drought stress in the subsequent decades. Our results also indicated that taller trees were more susceptible to declines in crown health and crown dieback was found in higher concentrations where multiple roads and previously logged areas intersect old-growth stands

Lillian Smith, Richard Wright, And Walker Percy\u27s Ontological Vision: Gnosticism, Cartesian Dualism, And The Split Of The Southern Self

With the advent of the New Southern Studies and its critiques of Southern Exceptionalism, the critic of Southern Literature has felt the necessity to both look within and outside the American South to re-contextualize the parameters of the study in order to avoid the pitfalls of totalizing and whitewashed narratives it is accused of perpetrating. As Matthew Lassiter and Joseph Crespino note in their study The Myth of Southern Exceptionalism, such a shift may be accomplished through the consideration of more salient measures of identity and belonging, such as religion, class, and gender. In this paper, I examine how religious taxonomies of being, an ontological dualism rooted in Christian Fundamentalism, can be explored in order tie together a multiplicity of narratives of the South while simultaneously allowing these different Souths to maintain cultural integrity. Through putting the works of Walker Percy, Lillian Smith, and Richard Wright in conversation with one another, the careful critic can establish a common thread of dualistic ontologies through three differing, Southern perspectives. Although by no means totally representative of their respective communities, Wright, Smith, and Percy all identify and contend with the splitting of the soul (or mind) from the body and how this ontology was used by their communities to establish systems of control. Although all three authors deal with and illustrate these systems of ontological control differently, the splitting of the body from the soul proves an essential aspect of each author’s consideration of what it means to be categorized as Southern

Consumer-Driven Nutrient Recycling in Arctic Alaskan Lakes: Controls, Importance for Primary Productivity, and Influence on Nutirient Limitation

In lakes, fish and zooplankton can be both sources and sinks of nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) through the consumption of organic N and P, and subsequent excretion of bioavailable inorganic forms. These source/sink dynamics, known as consumer-driven nutrient recycling (CNR), may, in turn, control the availability of potentially limiting nutrients for algal primary production. In this dissertation I investigate the importance and controls of CNR as a source of inorganic N and P for primary production (Chapter 2). I then examine zooplankton CNR as a mechanism for increasing nutrient mean resident time (MRT) in the mixed layer of lakes (Chapter 3). Finally, I assess whether zooplankton communities dominated by different taxa can affect N versus P deficient conditions for phytoplankton production through differential N and P recycling rates (Chapter 4). Direct excretion of N and P by fish communities was modest in arctic lakes, and accounted for \u3c 4 % of the N and P required for primary production. Recycling of N and P by zooplankton communities was relatively high, and the fraction of algal N and P demand supplied by zooplankton CNR ranged from 4 - 90% for N and 7 - 107% for P. MRT of 15N, measured in the mixed layer of an arctic lake, was ~16 days, compared to 14 days predicted by a ecosystem model simulation with zooplankton N recycling and 8 days in a model simulation where zooplankton N recycling was absent. The 75% increase in N MRT between model simulations with and without zooplankton recycling suggests that zooplankton N recycling is an important mechanism for retaining N in lake ecosystems. I observed relatively high negative correlations between precipitation and phytoplankton N (r = -0.33) and P (r = -0.30) deficiencies. I also observed a significant positive correlation (r = 0.42, p = 0.03) between zooplankton communities with higher copepod biomass, relative to cladoceran biomass, and phytoplankton N-deficient conditions. These results suggest that when precipitation is high N and P deficiency is low in the phytoplankton. When precipitation is low, however, zooplankton communities composed primarily of copepods contribute to N-deficient conditions for phytoplankton production

Histological investigation of infection processes of Discula destructiva on Cornus florida leaves and influence of pH on growth of Discula destructiva and an undescribed Discula species

The infection process and colonization of Discula species in greenhouse grown Cornus florida L. leaves were studied histologically. Penetration of Discula destructiva Redlin isolate (TN 1) hyphae through natural openings, wounds, or directly through the leaf surface was not observed. Infection, detected by fungal colonization of leaf tissue, occurred between one and eight days postinoculation in wounded and non-wounded leaves inoculated with TN 1 conidia. Fungal colonization was not observed in wounded or non-wounded leaves misted with water (controls). Leaves inoculated with the D. destructiva isolate and an undescribed Discula species isolate (NC 2) developed symptoms of dogwood anthracnose after two wks. Disease symptoms induced by both isolates were similar to those previously described for dogwood anthracnose caused by Discula destructiva. This is the first report that the undescribed Discula sp. is pathogenic on C. florida. The influence of pH on the growth of three D. destructiva isolates (GA 1, TN 1 and MA 11) and an undescribed Discula species isolate (VA 17B) in buffered liquid culture media was studied. Citrate-phosphate buffer was used to adjust culture media to 4.0, 5.0, 6.0 or 7.0. The pH of the media remained at the initial level two wks after inoculation with the fungus. Growth of the undescribed Discula sp. isolate and D. destructiva isolate (GA 1) decreased significantly from pH 4.0 to 7.0; whereas, D. destructiva isolates (MA 11 and TN 1) grew at similar rates regardless of the pH of the growth media

Nazism and Eric Voegelin’s Politische Religionen: An Approach to Exploring Nazism’s Roots in Modern Thought

The Holocaust shook the core assumptions many held regarding human progress and human nature. This paper seeks to track how the ideas of modernist philosophers may have laid the fundamental political and moral assumptions that allowed the Holocaust to occur. I will offer an analysis of 20th century German-American political scientist and philosopher Eric Voegelin’s theory of Political Religions to assess whether philosophy emerging from the Modern era led Germany to eschew Christianity, a world-transcendent religion as the source of the West’s “first principles,” and adopt the world-imminent religion of Nazism in its place. If this proves to be the case, with Nazism showing the problem of rights derived from the State, then Voegelin’s work can help us understand the shortcomings of modern thought through a novel philosophical and anthropological lens