With Whom Do We Speak? Building Transdisciplinary Collaborations in Rhetoric of Science

There is a necessary and growing preoccupation in rhetoric of science with the real-world consequences of our work and with the mediating role rhetoric should play at the nexus of science-publics-policy. Emerging from these discussions are calls by Gross, Ceccarelli, and Herndl for thoughtful and practical action. This paper builds from this preoccupation with thoughtful praxis, highlighting three funded collaborations that offer a vision for engaged, mutually beneficial, consequential collaborations in rhetoric of science. Taken together, these collaborations constitute an argument for Herndl’s “applied rhetoric of science.” They move beyond transactional models of collaboration and posit a transdisciplinary vision for rhetoric of science as an integral part of the practice of science itself

Implementing Write Compression in Flash Memory Using Zeckendorf Two-Round Rewriting Codes

Flash memory has become increasingly popular as the underlying storage technology for high-performance nonvolatile storage devices. However, while flash offers several benefits over alternative storage media, a number of limitations still exist within the current technology. One such limitation is that programming (altering a bit from its default value) and erasing (returning a bit to its default value) are asymmetric operations in flash memory devices: a flash memory can be programmed arbitrarily, but can only be erased in relatively large batches of storage bits called blocks, with block sizes ranging from 512K up to several megabytes. This creates a situation where relatively small write operations to the drive can potentially require reading out, erasing, and rewriting many times more data than the initial operation would normally require if that write would result in a bit erase operation. Prior work suggests that the performance impact of these costly block erase cycles can be mitigated by using a rewriting code, increasing the number of writes that can be performed on the same location in memory before an erase operation is required. This paper provides an implementation of this rewriting code, both as a software program written in C and as a SystemVerilog FPGA circuit specification, and discusses many of the additional design considerations that would be necessary to integrate such a rewriting code with current file storage techniques

The age, stratigraphy, and tectonic provenance of clastic deposits in the western Bikou terrane, southwestern Qinling Mountains, China

The Qinling Mountains of central China are the product of Late Paleozoic to Triassic collision between the North China Plate and the South China Plate. Located within the southwestern Qinling Mountains is the Bikou terrane, a low grade metamorphic assemblage of igneous and clastic sedimentary rocks located adjacent to the northern margin of the South China Plate. The age and tectonic setting of clastic deposits within the Bikou terrane have long been controversial, with age estimates ranging from Lower Proterozoic to Late Paleozoic, and tectonic provenance theories ranging from subduction arc to continental rift; The southeastern portion of the Bikou terrane is composed of a metamorphosed volcanic arc with minor marine volcaniclastic sediments, known as the Bikou Group, previously dated by SHRIMP U-Pb zircon and conventional U-Pb as Late Proterozoic in age (approximately 845 to 760 Ma). Separated by a NE/SW striking fault, the northwestern Bikou terrane consists of a turbidite dominated sedimentary basin known as the Hengdan Group; The Hengdan basin comprises a 10 to 15 km thick succession of coarsening upward, volcaniclastic sand-rich submarine fan deposits. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)

Why rhetoric matters for ecology

Increasingly, scientists and funding agencies such as the US National Science Foundation are recognizing the need for better science communication and more effective broader impacts activities. Compelled to make research more relevant to public stakeholders and policy makers, researchers look for ways to gain the necessary skillset to move their science from the field and laboratory into public forums. We suggest that the ancient discipline of rhetoric provides a useful – and underutilized – path forward. Building from the fundamental connections between ecology and rhetoric and drawing from practical examples at the intersection of these two fields, we demonstrate how rhetoric can inform training in science communication for better academic writing and broader impacts, and can promote interdisciplinary and cross‐institutional collaborations that support sustainability science. Integrating rhetoric and ecology helps to address complex and pressing sustainability problems through improved understanding, cooperation, and science and policy actions

The Skunkwork of Ecological Engagement

Ecological engagement is about attending to the possibilities of dwelling in a place; skunkwork is a way of orienting this dwelling. Skunkwork refers to creative, self-coordinated, collective work in informal spaces of learning and reminds us that ecologically attuned work in the world can promote unexpected, yet collectively desired, change. In this essay, we describe how we used skunkwork to orient our ecological engagement in two workshops on ‘community resilience.’ In both workshops, Boulder Creek became our commonplace, with its history of flooding and abatements as well as one city’s planning and management of crisis and sustainability. We draw from our respective home ecologies and our collective experiences in these workshops to highlight how four attributes of skunkwork and ecological engagement, namely proximity, movement, ecological narration, and weak theory, contribute to community engagement scholarship and advocacy

The Sheep Pass Formation, a record of late Cretaceous and paleogene extension within the Sevier hinterland, East-Central Nevada

The Sevier hinterland of western North America is considered by many to be an ancient proxy for the modern Andean Puna-Altiplano or Tibetan Plateau. However, controversies exist as tectonic setting and overall paleogeography of the Sevier hinterland during the Late Cretaceous and Paleogene. The Sheep Pass Formation type section within the southern Egan Range of east-central Nevada comprises a \u3e 1 km thick sedimentary succession spanning the latest Cretaceous to Eocene, and provides a rare opportunity to test prevailing tectonic and paleogeographic models for the Sevier hinterland. New 1:12,000 scale field mapping inthe southern Egan Range indicates that up to three km of stratigraphic throw occurred along the Ninemile fault, a presently low-angle down-to-the-northwest normal fault, during deposition of the Sheep Pass Formation type section. Subsequent reactivation of the Ninemile fault produced an additional ∼1 km ofstratigraphic throw during deposition of the Garrett Ranch Group, which unconformably overlies the Sheep Pass Formation type section. New U-Pb and (U-Th)/He detrital zircon dating and U-Pb carbonate age analyses from the Sheep Pass Formation type section indicate that the Ninemile fault system was active in latest Cretaceous time, and documents for the first time the presence of surface-breaking, synconvergent normal faults within the Sevier hinterland. New U-Pb detrital zircon and 40 Ar/39 Ar age analyses from the overlying Garrett Ranch Group document reactivation of the Ninemile fault in the middle to late Eocene, indicating that two discrete episodes of extension affected the Sevier hinterland. Movement along the Ninemile fault was coeval with Late Cretaceous and early Paleogene mid-crustal extension within the Sevier hinterland, and suggests a possible link. Middle to late Eocene extension was coeval with extension in the Sevier forelandof central Utah, and foundering of the Farallon slab. Evidence that extension significantly predated volcanismwithin the Sevier hinterland invalidates the theory that Paleogene volcanism drove coeval extension. Recognition of synconvergent extensional basins within the Sevier hinterland strengthens comparisons to themodern Puna-Altiplano and Tibetan plateau, where similar processes have been documented