The role of technology as air transportation faces the fuel situation

Perspectives on the air transportation fuel stituation are discussed including intercity air traffic, airline fuel consumption, fuel price effects on ticket price, and projected traffic and fuel useage between now and the year 2000. Actions taken by the airlines to reduce consumption are reviewed, as well as efforts currently underway to improve fuel consumption. Longer range technology payoffs resulting from NASA research programs are reviewed and results from studies on the use of alternate fuels are discussed

Progress in supersonic cruise aircraft technology

The supersonic cruise aircraft research program identified significant improvements in the technology areas of propulsion, aerodynamics, structures, takeoff and landing procedures, and advanced configuration concepts. Application of these technology areas to a commercial aircraft is discussed. An advanced SST family of aircraft which may be environmentally acceptable, have flexible range-payload capability, and be economically viable is projected

Yang-Mills theory and the Segal-Bargmann transform

We use a variant of the classical Segal-Bargmann transform to understand the canonical quantization of Yang-Mills theory on a space-time cylinder. This transform gives a rigorous way to make sense of the Hamiltonian on the gauge-invariant subspace. Our results are a rigorous version of the widely accepted notion that on the gauge-invariant subspace the Hamiltonian should reduce to the Laplacian on the compact structure group. We show that the infinite-dimensional classical Segal-Bargmann transform for the space of connections, when restricted to the gauge-invariant subspace, becomes the generalized Segal-Bargmann transform for the the structure group

Late Pleistocene Collared Lemming (Dicrostonyx torquatus) from Northeastern British Columbia

Charlie Lake Cave is a terminal Pleistocene/Holocene archaeological and paleontological site in northeastern British Columbia (Driver, 1988; Fladmark et al., 1988; Driver et al., 1996). Located in the Peace River District to the east of the Rocky Mountains (56°16\u2735"N, 120°56\u27 15"W), the major feature of the site is a deep gully in front of a cave formed in a low sandstone escarpment. The gully runs parallel to the hillside, and has been filled with sediments moving down the hill since 10,500 B.P., resulting in up to 4.5 m thick deposits. The site is well stratified, and there is a strong correlation of radiocarbon age and depth, suggesting stratigraphic integrity. The site contains vertebrate assemblages deposited by natural agencies and human hunters, and there is also a long sequence of archaeological components at the site . The importance of the site was demonstrated by Fladmark\u27s excavations in 1983 (Fladmark et al., 1988). Further excavations at the site were undertaken in 1990-1991, and remains of collared lemming (Dicrostonyx torquatus) were recovered during the second series of excavations. The specimens are described and their significance evaluated.   Article Summary by Jonathan C. Driver, May 2015               This short paper provides information on an unexpected and unusual find from the lower layers at the site. After the 1991 excavations were finished we began to work on identifying the animal bones that were recovered. Somewhat to our surprise we found a few specimens of the collared lemming, an animal that today only inhabits the high tundra of the arctic. This wasn’t out of line with other species that indicated a cold and/or open unforested landscape during the earliest period of occupation – bison, ground squirrels and hares – but as collared lemming had not been found before in British Columbia it warranted a paper to itself.             The paper describes the specimens, noting that they were somewhat larger than modern lemmings, and then looks at the known distribution of lemmings at the end of the ice age. There are a number of specimens from fossil sites (mainly caves) well outside their modern distribution. This presumably suggests  lemming populations were able to colonize cold, open landscapes around the expanding ice sheets, and had enough time to move south as the ice sheets expanded and in turn created new habitat that was suitable for lemmings.             As the climate changed and as forests moved in, lemmings were unable to survive and their populations dwindled and soon became extinct in the Peace River region

The Makeenko-Migdal equation for Yang-Mills theory on compact surfaces

We prove the Makeenko-Migdal equation for two-dimensional Euclidean Yang-Mills theory on an arbitrary compact surface, possibly with boundary. In particular, we show that two of the proofs given by the first, third, and fourth authors for the plane case extend essentially without change to compact surfaces.Comment: Final version, minor typographical corrections. To appear in Comm. Math. Phy

The Significance of the Fauna from the Charlie Lake Cave Site

Article Summary by Jonathan C. Driver, May 2015               This paper and The Prehistory of Charlie Lake Cave by Knut R. Fladmark, are excerpts from Early Human Occupation in British Columbia, an archaeological book published in 1996. In 1988 the annual meeting of the Canadian Archaeological Association was held in Whistler, B.C. As part of the meeting, Roy Carlson, a professor at SFU, organized a symposium on the early human presence in British Columbia. Knut Fladmark and I each gave a paper on our work at Tse’K’wa, based on the 1983 excavation season.             Although it was intended to publish the book quickly, there were various delays, and Fladmark and I went back to Tse’K’wa in 1990 and 1991 before the proceedings of the Whistler symposium were finally published in 1996. We updated our papers slightly based on the later excavations, but both of these papers really reflect our thinking prior to the full analysis of the material from 1990 and 1991.             Fladmark’s paper is a good introduction to the location and geology of the site, and it provides an account of the cultural materials recovered in 1983.             Driver’s paper summarizes the animal bones from the 1983 excavations, and devotes more time to considering how the wide variety of animals were brought to the site. I noted that the bison bone was found in locations with lower amounts of small mammals and birds and suggested that most of the smaller animals were brought to the site by non-human predators, such as owls

Late Pleistocene and Holocene Vertebrates and Palaeoenvironments from Charlie Lake Cave, Northeast British Columbia

Excavations outside Charlie Lake Cave, Peace River District, British Columbia, revealed deposits dating from 10 700 BP to the present. The earliest fauna (10700 - 10000 BP) was deposited when the newly deglaciated landscape was largely unforested and included bison (Bison sp.), ground squirrel (Spermophilus sp.), a large hare (Lepus sp.), snowshoe hare (Lepus americanus), and a variety of birds, including the Cliff Swallow (Hirundo pyrrhonota). By 10000 BP snowshoe hare (Lepus americanus) was the most numerous mammal, indi cating the development of forested conditions. By 9000 BP the fauna resembled the modern Peace River fauna prior to European settlem ment, typical of a largely forested landscape, with wetland areas indicated by aquatic avian species. Subsequent Holocene climatic fluctuations are not evident in the faunal record.   Article Summary by Jonathan C. Driver, May 2015               This article provides a historical interpretation of the animals and natural environment of Tse’K’wa and surrounding regions. The animal bones from Tse’K’wa are special for a number of reasons. This is one of the few sites in northern BC or Alberta that preserves a complete record of animal bones from the end of the last ice age to modern times. As a result, we have a glimpse into the local and regional environment around the site. Furthermore, the bones and teeth are preserved very well, especially in the earliest (oldest) layers.             Because the animal bones tell us a lot about past environments, I decided to publish a description and interpretation in an earth sciences journal.  The paper complements the 1988 paper in American Antiquity that focused on the early archaeological materials. These are the two main journal articles that resulted from the 1983 excavations.             There are two major environmental periods represented. During the late glacial and early post-glacial period the landscape was less forested than today, and there do not seem to have been wetlands near the site. Animals present include an extinct form of bison, quite a large number of ground squirrels, and a few bones of a large hare that is not the common snowshoe hare found in the region today. These all indicate a largely treeless environment. However, this period was relatively short-lived, and the second period at the site reflects many thousands of years in which the landscape was mainly forested, and included nearby wetlands. The mammals and birds of the second period are typical of the region and, with the exception of passenger pigeon that became extinct in the 19th century, could all be found within a few kilometres of the site today