Trace Element Geochemistry of Iowa Coal

Coal samples were collected from four coal mines in Iowa and analyzed by instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA) for La, Ce, Sm, Eu, Tb, Yb, Lu, Sc, Cr, Co, As, Th, and U. A comparison of the compositions of whole coals to their high-temperature ashes indicates that essentially all of these elements reside in the ash. The abundance of most elements is consistent with a trend of decreasing elemental concentrations from east to west in United States coals. Pyrite separates were found to concentrate As, Cr and Co, while calcite separates were found to concentrate Sc. Rare earth element (REE) patterns are given for the Iowa coals

Fault-tolerant quantum computation with high threshold in two dimensions

We present a scheme of fault-tolerant quantum computation for a local architecture in two spatial dimensions. The error threshold is 0.75% for each source in an error model with preparation, gate, storage and measurement errors.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures; v2: A single 2D layer of qubits (simple square lattice) with nearest-neighbor translation-invariant Ising interaction suffices. Slightly improved threshol

Effects of SUSY-QCD in hadronic Higgs production at next-to-next-to-leading order

An estimate of the NNLO supersymmetric QCD effects for Higgs production at hadron colliders is given. Assuming an effective gluon-Higgs interaction, these corrections enter only in terms of process-independent, factorizable terms. We argue that the current knowledge of these terms up to NLO is sufficient to derive the NNLO hadronic cross section within the limitations of the standard theoretical uncertainties arising mainly from renormalization and factorization scale variations. The SUSY contributions are small with respect to the QCD effects, which means that the NNLO corrections to Higgs production are very similar in the Standard Model and the MSSM.Comment: LaTeX, 5 pages, 3 embedded PostScript figure

Spherical f-Tilings by Two Noncongruent Classes of Isosceles Triangles

The study of spherical dihedral f-tilings when the prototiles are twononcongruent isosceles triangles was started in two previous papers. Here,we complete the classication, characterizing the f-tilings that satisfy theremaining case of adjacency. As it will be shown, this class is composed bytwo three-parameter families denoted by An;m; and Bn;m; and a relatedfour-parameter family denoted by Bp;q;p′;q′, where p > p′ 0; q′> q 0;two isolated tilings denoted by P and Q; and six distinct discrete familiesdenoted by J k;Lk; Mk;Nk(k 3); and Fk;Kk with k 4

New Evidence on the Palaeobiology of the Eureka Sound Formation, Arctic Canada

The Eureka Sound Formation, a thick sedimentary unit in the Canadian Arctic having a late Cretaceous and/or early Tertiary age, is known to contain plant fossils indicative of a continental origin of deposition and a relatively temperate climate. The Formation was selected for a palaeontological survey in order to determine whether it could, as suggested by distribution of fossil vertebrates in other areas and from evidence of plate tectonics, provide evidence on terrestrial migrations between North America and Europe in the Palaeogene. Fossils of plants, invertebrates and fish were found. They indicated that large parts of the Formation are marine in origin, although other parts are continental and thus could still be interpreted as representing part of a land connection between the northern landmasses

Validity, reliability, and responsiveness of a self-reported foot and ankle score (SEFAS)

Background and purpose A questionnaire was introduced by the New Zealand Arthroplasty Registry for use when evaluating the outcome of total ankle replacement surgery. We evaluated the reliability, validity, and responsiveness of the modified Swedish version of the questionnaire (SEFAS) in patients with osteoarthritis or inflammatory arthritis before and/or after their ankle was replaced or fused. Patients and methods The questionnaire was translated into Swedish and cross-culturally adapted according to a standardized procedure. It was sent to 135 patients with ankle arthritis who were scheduled for or had undergone surgery, together with the foot and ankle outcome score (FAOS), the short form 36 (SF-36) score, and the EuroQol (EQ-5D) score. Construct validity was evaluated with Spearman's correlation coefficient when comparing SEFAS with FAOS, SF-36, and EQ-5D, content validity by calculating floor and ceiling effects, test-retest reliability with intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC), internal consistency with Cronbach's alpha (n = 62), agreement by Bland-Altman plot, and responsiveness by effect size and standardized response mean (n = 37). Results For construct validity, we correlated SEFAS with the other scores and 70% or more of our predefined hypotheses concerning correlations could be confirmed. There were no floor or ceiling effects. ICC was 0.92 (CI 95%: 0.88-0.95), Cronbach's alpha 0.96, effect size was 1.44, and the standardized response mean was 1.00. Interpretation SEFAS is a self-reported foot and ankle score with good validity, reliability and responsiveness, indicating that the score can be used to evaluate patients with osteoarthritis or inflammatory arthritis of the ankle and outcome of surgery

HydroTest: a web-based toolbox of evaluation metrics for the standardised assessment of hydrological forecasts

This paper presents details of an open access web site that can be used by hydrologists and other scientists to evaluate time series models. There is at present a general lack of consistency in the way in which hydrological models are assessed that handicaps the comparison of reported studies and hinders the development of superior models. The HydroTest web site provides a wide range of objective metrics and consistent tests of model performance to assess forecasting skill. This resource is designed to promote future transparency and consistency between reported models and includes an open forum that is intended to encourage further discussion and debate on the topic of hydrological performance evaluation metrics. It is envisaged that the provision of such facilities will lead to the creation of superior forecasting metrics and the development of international benchmark time series datasets