Chasing Nutrients and Algal Blooms in Gulf and Caribbean Waters: A Personal Story

Over the past 5 decades, coastal waters have experienced unprecedented global change, including widespread eutrophication, harmful algal blooms (HAB), dead zones, and loss of biodiversity. During this period, I have studied the effects of nutrients (N, P) on HAB dynamics in tropical seagrass and coral reef ecosystems. Important findings that emerged from my research include: 1) a primary role of anthropogenic nitrogen (N) relative to phosphorus (P) as a driving factor in algal blooms and coastal eutrophication; 2) altered N:P stoichiometry that results in greater P—limitation and metabolic stress in reef corals; 3) recognition that macroalgal blooms be considered as a type of HAB because of their increasingly negative impacts on oceans and human health; and 4) mitigation of anthropogenic N inputs can increase resiliency of seagrass and coral reef ecosystems relative to population growth and climate change. Major developments during the research involved the use of computers and software; EAN NITROX, dive computers, and high resolution underwater video to make SCUBA surveys safer and more effective; analysis of stable nitrogen isotopes, sucralose, and other human tracers to discriminate between natural and anthropogenic N sources; and satellite remote sensing to better monitor the large—scale HAB phenomena. My research sparked considerable debate about the root cause(s) of algal blooms on Caribbean coral reefs, as several senior coral reef biologists had concluded this problem was caused solely by the reduction of reef grazers. Since 2011, the massive Sargassum influx to the Caribbean region appears to be a eutrophication response to increasing nutrients in the tropical Atlantic Ocean and is now considered the largest HAB on the planet. Going forward, early career scientists need to extend research on declining coastal ecosystem health to upland watersheds to better understand and mitigate nutrient pollution at its source(s) to enhance resilience of seagrass and coral reef ecosystems to climate change

Tapered, tubular polyester fabric

A tapered tubular polyester sleeve is described to serve as the flexible foundation for a spacesuit limb covering. The tube has a large end and a small end with a length to be determined. The ratio of taper is also determined by scale factors. All the warp yarns extend to the large end. A requisite number of warp yarns extend the full length of the sleeve. Other warp yarns extend from the large end but are terminated along the length of the sleeve. It is then woven with a filling yarn which extends in a full circle along the full length of the sleeve to thereby define the tapered sleeve. The sleeve after fabrication is then placed on a mandrel, heated in an oven, and then attached to the arm or other limb of the spacesuit

Tuning the exciton g-factor in single InAs/InP quantum dots

Photoluminescence data from single, self-assembled InAs/InP quantum dots in magnetic fields up to 7 T are presented. Exciton g-factors are obtained for dots of varying height, corresponding to ground state emission energies ranging from 780 meV to 1100 meV. A monotonic increase of the g-factor from -2 to +1.2 is observed as the dot height decreases. The trend is well reproduced by sp3 tight binding calculations, which show that the hole g-factor is sensitive to confinement effects through orbital angular momentum mixing between the light-hole and heavy-hole valence bands. We demonstrate tunability of the exciton g-factor by manipulating the quantum dot dimensions using pyramidal InP nanotemplates

Re-imagining Your Professional Boundaries and Future Patrons: Are You Ready for Your Second Life?

Question/Purpose: To describe and demonstrate the virtual online world Second Life (SL) in the context of education, library, and health seeking behavior. Setting/Participants: An educator, a librarian, and a health seeking SL resident participate in a learner -oriented vignette on the SL Health Info Island. Brief Description: The authors will briefly describe the online virtual world SL, the relevant information seeking uses of the world, how the authors became interested in applying the online setting to health education and information dissemination, a few of the technological and social shortcomings of the site, and show a pre-recorded health education vignette in SL. Outcome: Over 7 million people worldwide have experienced SL. In many ways, the SL residents are using the virtual world in a manner similar to the geographically bounded world: meeting and communicating life experiences with new people, participating in an astonishing variety of educational sessions, and seeking informed and meaningful interaction with health professionals. Conclusion: As the world matures and SL locations become standardized with rules and interaction protocols, there will be a definite need for accurate and timely informational exchanges. There is already an information revolution occurring in SL, are you ready?https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/hslic-posters-presentations/1042/thumbnail.jp

Magnetic structure of the antiferromagnetic half-Heusler compound NdBiPt

We present results of single crystal neutron diffraction experiments on the rare-earth, half-Heusler antiferromagnet (AFM) NdBiPt. This compound exhibits an AFM phase transition at $T_{\mathrm N}=2.18$~K with an ordered moment of $1.78(9)$~$\mu_{\mathrm B}$ per Nd atom. The magnetic moments are aligned along the $[001]$-direction, arranged in a type-I AFM structure with ferromagnetic planes, alternating antiferromagnetically along a propagation vector $\tau$ of $(100)$. The $R$BiPt ($R$= Ce-Lu) family of materials has been proposed as candidates of a new family of antiferromagnetic topological insulators (AFTI) with magnetic space group that corresponds to a type-II AFM structure where ferromagnetic sheets are stacked along the space diagonal. The resolved structure makes it unlikely, that NdBiPt qualifies as an AFTI.Comment: As resubmitted to PRB, corrected typos and changed symbols in Fig.