Avon Park Air Force Range project: distribution and abundance of sensitive wildlife species at Avone Park Force Range

Executive Summary. We surveyed for seven species ofsensitve wildlife (Florida gopher frogs, gopher tortoise, eastern indigo snake, eastern diamondback rattlesnake, Florida mouse, Florida roundtail muskrat, Sherman's fox squirrel) between October 1996 and May 1998 at Avon Park Air Force Range (APR). The presence of 87 other species ofamphibians, reptiles, and mammals also were detected. Selected species ofbirds were noted, particularly if they were found dead on APR roads. We recorded nine new county records ofamphibians and reptiles from Polk and Highlands counties, based on range maps presented in Ashton and Ashton (1981, 1985, 1988). We discuss a biogeographic model based on the vertebrates recorded from APR, the Lake Wales Ridge, and the low dune region along SR 64 to explain some of the distributional anomalies associated with the Bombing Range Ridge and vicinity. (199 page document

Cirrus clouds, contrails, and ice supersaturated regions: observations by lidar and radiosonde in Lindenberg/Germany

From April to October 2003 measurements have been performed with a mobile Aerosol Raman Lidar (MARL) at the Meteorological Observatory in Lindenberg(14.5 E, 52.5 N) . The aim of this extensive campaign was the investigation of tropospheric water vapour, cirrus clouds and contrails over a longer period of time. The lidar system detects aerosols and clouds in the troposphere and lower stratosphere. Cirrus clouds are detected by the large depolarisation of the backscattered laser beam. The lidar operates day and night, during daytime contrails may be identified with the help of a video camera. In the upper troposphere cirrus has been detected in 55% of the measured time. Radiosonde (Vaisala RS 80) data are available four times a day form the routine observational program at the site. They frequently detect ice supersaturatedregions (ISSR) in the upper troposphere. The comparison of the RS 80 andthe MARL data shows that the correlation between ISSR and the occurrence of cirrus and contrails is rather week. On the other hand there is a strong link between the occurrence of subvisual cirrus and contrails in the upper troposphere

Two-electron atoms, ions and molecules

The quantum mechanics of two-electron systems is reviewed, starting with the ground state of the helium atom and helium-like ions, with central charge $Z\ge 2$. For Z=1, demonstrating the stability of the negative hydrogen ion, H$^-$, cannot be achieved using a mere product of individual electron wave functions, and requires instead an explicit account for the anticorrelation among the two electrons. The wave function proposed by Chandrasekhar is revisited, where the permutation symmetry is first broken and then restored by a counter-term. More delicate problems can be studied using the same strategy: the stability of hydrogen-like ions $(M^+,m^-,m^-)$ for any value of the proton-to-electron mass ratio $M/m$; the energy of the lowest spin-triplet state of helium and helium-like ions; the stability of the doubly-excited hydrogen ion with unnatural parity. The positronium molecule $(e^+,e^+,e^-,e^-)$, which has been predicted years ago and discovered recently, can also be shown to be stable against spontaneous dissociation, though the calculation is a little more involved. Emphasis is put on symmetry breaking which can either spoil or improve the stability of systems.Comment: 16 pages, 2 figure

Body-Weight Fluctuations and Outcomes in Coronary Disease.

BackgroundBody-weight fluctuation is a risk factor for death and coronary events in patients without cardiovascular disease. It is not known whether variability in body weight affects outcomes in patients with coronary artery disease.MethodsWe determined intraindividual fluctuations in body weight from baseline weight and follow-up visits and performed a post hoc analysis of the Treating to New Targets trial, which involved assessment of the efficacy and safety of lowering low-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels with atorvastatin. The primary outcome was any coronary event (a composite of death from coronary heart disease, nonfatal myocardial infarction, resuscitated cardiac arrest, revascularization, or angina). Secondary outcomes were any cardiovascular event (a composite of any coronary event, a cerebrovascular event, peripheral vascular disease, or heart failure), death, myocardial infarction, or stroke.ResultsAmong 9509 participants, after adjustment for risk factors, baseline lipid levels, mean body weight, and weight change, each increase of 1 SD in body-weight variability (measured according to average successive variability and used as a time-dependent covariate) was associated with an increase in the risk of any coronary event (2091 events; hazard ratio, 1.04; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.01 to 1.07; P=0.01), any cardiovascular event (2727 events; hazard ratio, 1.04; 95% CI, 1.02 to 1.07; P<0.001), and death (487 events; hazard ratio,1.09; 95% CI, 1.07 to 1.12; P<0.001). Among patients in the quintile with the highest variation in body weight, the risk of a coronary event was 64% higher, the risk of a cardiovascular event 85% higher, death 124% higher, myocardial infarction 117% higher, and stroke 136% higher than it was among those in the quintile with the lowest variation in body weight in adjusted models.ConclusionsAmong participants with coronary artery disease, fluctuation in body weight was associated with higher mortality and a higher rate of cardiovascular events independent of traditional cardiovascular risk factors. (Funded by Pfizer; ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT00327691 .)

Overweight and sudden death increased ventricular ectopy in cardiopathy of obesity

besity has been documented to be an independent risk factor for sudden death and other cardiovascular mortality. The present study was designed to monitor and quantify cardiac arrhythmias in obese subjects with and without eccentric left ventricular hypertrophy, who were matched with regard to arterial pressure, age, sex, and height with lean subjects. Prevalence of premature ventricular (but not atrial) contractions was 30 times higher in obese patients with eccentric left ventricular hypertrophy compared with lean subjects. Similarly, obese patients with left ventricular hypertrophy scored higher with regard to the classification of Lown and Wolf than those without left ventricular hypertrophy and lean subjects having the same level of arterial pressure. Patients' class in the Lown and Wolf system correlated with ventricular diastolic diameter and left ventricular mass. Thus, heart enlargement of the eccentric type as a consequence of obesity predisposes to excessive ventricular ectopy. Echocardiographic assessment and electrocardiographic monitoring allow us to identify the patients who are at highest risk of more serious arrhythmias or possibly sudden death and to subject them to the most specific preventive and therapeutic measures

Glassy behaviour in a simple topological model

In this article we study a simple, purely topological, cellular model which is allowed to evolve through a Glauber-Kawasaki process. We find a non-thermodynamic transition to a glassy phase in which the energy (defined as the square of the local cell topological charge) fails to reach the equilibrium value below a characteristic temperature which is dependent on the cooling rate. We investigate a correlation function which exhibits aging behaviour, and follows a master curve in the stationary regime when time is rescaled by a factor of the relaxation time t_r. This master curve can be fitted by a von Schweidler law in the late beta-relaxation regime. The relaxation times can be well-fitted at all temperatures by an offset Arrhenius law. A power law can be fitted to an intermediate temperature regime; the exponent of the power law and the von Schweidler law roughly agree with the relationship predicted by Mode-coupling Theory. By defining a suitable response function, we find that the fluctuation-dissipation ratio is held until sometime later than the appearance of the plateaux; non-monotonicity of the response is observed after this ratio is broken, a feature which has been observed in other models with dynamics involving activated processes.Comment: 11 pages LaTeX; minor textual corrcetions, minor corrections to figs 4 & 7

Redundant Representations in Evolutionary Computation

Redundanz , Evolutionary programmin

Observation of Long-Lived Muonic Hydrogen in the 2S State

The kinetic energy distribution of ground state muonic hydrogen atoms mu-p(1S) is determined from time-of-flight spectra measured at 4, 16, and 64 hPa H2 room-temperature gas. A 0.9 keV-component is discovered and attributed to radiationless deexcitation of long-lived mu-p(2S) atoms in collisions with H2 molecules. The analysis reveals a relative population of about 1%, and a pressure-dependent lifetime (e.g. (30.4 +21.4 -9.7) ns at 64 hPa) of the long-lived mu-p(2S) population, equivalent to a 2S-quench rate in mu-p(2S) + H2 collisions of (4.4 +2.1 -1.8) 10^11 s^-1 at liquid hydrogen density.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, accepted for publication in Physical Review Letter

Spatiotemporal predictions of soil properties and states in variably saturated landscapes

Understanding greenhouse gas (GHG) fluxes from landscapes with variably saturated soil conditions is challenging given the highly dynamic nature of GHG fluxes in both space and time, dubbed hot spots, and hot moments. On one hand, our ability to directly monitor these processes is limited by sparse in situ and surface chamber observational networks. On the other hand, remote sensing approaches provide spatial data sets but are limited by infrequent imaging over time. We use a robust statistical framework to merge sparse sensor network observations with reconnaissance style hydrogeophysical mapping at a well‐characterized site in Ohio. We find that combining time‐lapse electromagnetic induction surveys with empirical orthogonal functions provides additional environmental covariates related to soil properties and states at high spatial resolutions (~5 m). A cross‐validation experiment using eight different spatial interpolation methods versus 120 in situ soil cores indicated an ~30% reduction in root‐mean‐square error for soil properties (clay weight percent and total soil carbon weight percent) using hydrogeophysical derived environmental covariates with regression kriging. In addition, the hydrogeophysical derived environmental covariates were found to be good predictors of soil states (soil temperature, soil water content, and soil oxygen). The presented framework allows for temporal gap filling of individual sensor data sets as well as provides flexible geometric interpolation to complex areas/volumes. We anticipate that the framework, with its flexible temporal and spatial monitoring options, will be useful in designing future monitoring networks as well as support the next generation of hyper‐resolution hydrologic and biogeochemical models