Tour of the Ruin

The Poems in this collection trace natural and urban spaces as well as real and dream-like worlds. The poems are interested in loose form. Narrative is employed, especially in the prose poems, as a definition of experience. All the poems pull physical details from the natural world, from the speaker's family, and from several literary sources in an effort to quietly detail, on the whole an often flat tone

Postoperative pulmonary embolism in a three year old with Klippel–Trenaunay syndrome

Massive pulmonary embolism (PE) in a small child is a rare event and unified guidelines for its treatment are missing. Timely diagnosis and management of massive pulmonary embolism is of crucial importance for a good outcome. We describe a unique management of PE causing oxygenation failure using a combination of catheter extraction technique, and regional thrombolysis on top of systemic heparin administration and inferior vena cava filter placement. Pulmonary hypertension was treated with inhaled nitric oxide. We believe that catheter extraction technique and regional thrombolysis is an option to consider provided that resources and expertise are available. Preoperative placement of an inferior vena cava filter should be contemplated in such high risk situations

Differential herbivory on disk and ray flowers of gynomonoecious asters and goldenrods (Asteraceae)

The selective advantage of gynomonoecy, the sexual system wherein plants produce a mixture of female and bisexual flowers, is poorly understood. One hypothesis for the evolution of this system is that the absence of androecia from female flowers reduces herbivore damage to the gynoecia of these flowers. Here, we examined patterns of herbivore damage in 53 collections representing 25 species of asters and goldenrods from Massachusetts, USA. In these taxa flowers are crowded into compact capitula, with bisexual flowers occupying the centre and female flowers situated on the periphery. Damage to gynoecia of bisexual flowers was significantly greater than damage to gynoecia of female flowers overall, and in about half of the individual populations. We also compared damage to central and peripheral flowers in the heads of 16 collections of other Asteraceae that produce only bisexual flowers to see whether the location of flowers rather than their sex might determine the patterns of herbivory. In only one of these 16 collections did we find a significant difference in herbivory between flower positions. We conclude that herbivore damage is influenced by flower type in asters and goldenrods, a pattern consistent with a role for herbivory in the evolution and maintenance of gynomonoecy. © 2010 The Linnean Society of London, Biological Journal of the Linnean Society

Chemical nonlinearities in relating intercontinental ozone pollution to anthropogenic emissions

Model studies typically estimate intercontinental influence on surface ozone by perturbing emissions from a source continent and diagnosing the ozone response in the receptor continent. Since the response to perturbations is non-linear due to chemistry, conclusions drawn from different studies may depend on the magnitude of the applied perturbation. We investigate this issue for intercontinental transport between North America, Europe, and Asia with sensitivity simulations in three global chemical transport models. In each region, we decrease anthropogenic emissions of NOx and nonmethane volatile organic compounds (NMVOCs) by 20% and 100%. We find strong nonlinearity in the response to NOx perturbations outside summer, reflecting transitions in the chemical regime for ozone production. In contrast, we find no significant nonlinearity to NOx perturbations in summer or to NMVOC perturbations year-round. The relative benefit of decreasing NOx vs. NMVOC from current levels to abate intercontinental pollution increases with the magnitude of emission reductions

A Catalog of Spectroscopically Confirmed White Dwarfs from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 4

We present a catalog of 9316 spectroscopically confirmed white dwarfs from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 4. We have selected the stars through photometric cuts and spectroscopic modeling, backed up by a set of visual inspections. Roughly 6000 of the stars are new discoveries, roughly doubling the number of spectroscopically confirmed white dwarfs. We analyze the stars by performing temperature and surface gravity fits to grids of pure hydrogen and helium atmospheres. Among the rare outliers are a set of presumed helium-core DA white dwarfs with estimated masses below 0.3 Msun, including two candidates that may be the lowest masses yet found. We also present a list of 928 hot subdwarfs.Comment: Accepted by the Astrophysical Journal Supplements, 25 pages, 24 figures, LaTeX. The electronic catalog, as well as diagnostic figures and links to the spectra, is available at http://das.sdss.org/wdcat/dr4

SDSS J092455.87+021924.9: an Interesting Gravitationally Lensed Quasar from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey

We report the discovery of a new gravitationally lensed quasar from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, SDSS J092455.87+021924.9 (SDSS J0924+0219). This object was selected from among known SDSS quasars by an algorithm that was designed to select another known SDSS lensed quasar (SDSS 1226-0006A,B). Five separate components, three of which are unresolved, are identified in photometric follow-up observations obtained with the Magellan Consortium's 6.5m Walter Baade telescope at Las Campanas Observatory. Two of the unresolved components (designated A and B) are confirmed to be quasars with z=1.524; the velocity difference is less than 100 km sec^{-1} according to spectra taken with the W. M. Keck Observatory's Keck II telescope on Mauna Kea. A third stellar component, designated C, has the colors of a quasar with redshift similar to components A and B. The maximum separation of the point sources is 1.78". The other two sources, designated G and D, are resolved. Component G appears to be the best candidate for the lensing galaxy. Although component D is near the expected position of the fourth lensed component in a four image lens system, its properties are not consistent with being the image of a quasar at z~1.5. Nevertheless, the identical redshifts of components A and B and the presence of component C strongly suggest that this object is a gravitational lens. Our observations support the idea that a foreground object reddens the fourth lensed component and that another unmodeled effect (such as micro- or milli-lensing) demagnificates it, but we cannot rule out the possibility that SDSS0924+0219 is an example of the relatively rare class of ``three component'' lens systems.Comment: 24 pages, 6 figures, accepted by A