Notes on Some of the Rarer Birds of the Ames Region

While the writer was living at Ames during several past years he took various notes on birds observed in that vicinity. During the years 1917, 1918, 1919 and 1920, regular excursions were taken, sometimes alone, sometimes accompanied with other bird enthusiasts and sometimes with his college students in bird study. It was only during the year 1919 that the writer taught the course in bird study for the Department of Zoology at the Iowa State College. While this course was taught by Professor H. A. Scullen and later by Professor J. E. Guthrie, the writer frequently accompanied the classes on field trips

Mites Affecting the Poison Oak

According to the plan of nature animals are compelled either directly or indirectly to lay under tribute the plant world in order to obtain food; and so completely have they done so that it is doubtful if any, among the many thousands of species of the latter, are exempt from attack. Being thus exposed to the wholesale appetites of higher creation plants have been forced into the evolution of devices for warding off animal attacks

The Life and Behavior of the House Spider

Few species of invertebrates come under our everyday observation more than the common house spider, Theridion tepidariorum K. It is a familiar object in attics and in basements, in cellars and in outhouses of all kinds, in fact it will be found in almost any of the situations where there is shelter and moisture, and where insects may be found in sufficient numbers for food. In looking up the literature relating to this spider the writer was surprised to find that no one, apparently, had worked out its life history or made systematic observations on its habits

OH species, U ions, and CO/CO2 in thermally annealed metamict zircon (ZrSiO4)

Metamict zircon crystals have been thermally annealed between 500 and 1800 K and analyzed\ud using infrared and optical spectroscopy in the spectral region of 1400–7000 cm–1. Recrystallization\ud and dehydroxylation via complex proton/OH diffusion, redistribution, and incorporations of additional\ud hydrogen-related species within the crystal structure of zircon occur at temperatures above 700 K\ud in partially metamict zircon and above 1200 K in heavily amorphized material. Thermally induced\ud changes in O-H stretching spectra are different between E || c and E ⊥ c in weakly metamict zircon. The\ud O-H stretching band near 3342 cm–1 (with E ⊥ c) in an untreated sample shifts to 3277 cm–1 at 1200 K,\ud where the frequency of O-H stretching bands with E || c increases. Conversions of hydrogen-related\ud species were observed and extra OH bands were found at temperatures between 1200 and 1600 K. A\ud dramatic change of OH spectra was recorded between 1600 and 1800 K in partially metamict crystals,\ud resulting in additional absorption features (near 3098 and 2998 cm–1 along E ⊥ c). U4+ and U5+ related\ud spectra are also affected by high-temperature annealing. For highly metamict zircon, the U4+ band\ud near 4830 cm–1 shows an increase in intensity above 1200 K. Additional IR bands at 2146 and 2344\ud cm–1 appear in the spectra of metamict zircon annealed at high temperatures. Their frequencies are\ud consistent with stretching vibrations of CO and CO2

Detailed study of dissipative quantum dynamics of K-2 attached to helium nanodroplets

We thoroughly investigate vibrational quantum dynamics of dimers attached to He droplets motivated by recent measurements with K-2 [1]. For those femtosecond pump-probe experiments, crucial observed features are not reproduced by gas phase calculations but agreement is found using a description based on dissipative quantum dynamics, as briefly shown in [2]. Here we present a detailed study of the influence of possible effects induced by the droplet. The helium droplet causes electronic decoherence, shifts of potential surfaces, and relaxation of wave packets in attached dimers. Moreover, a realistic description of (stochastic) desorption of dimers off the droplet needs to be taken into account. Step by step we include and study the importance of these effects in our full quantum calculation. This allows us to reproduce and explain all major experimental findings. We find that desorption is fast and occurs already within 2-10 ps after electronic excitation. A further finding is that slow vibrational motion in the ground state can be considered frictionless.Comment: 17 pages, 5 figure

Recovering the state sequence of hidden Markov models using mean-field approximations

Inferring the sequence of states from observations is one of the most fundamental problems in Hidden Markov Models. In statistical physics language, this problem is equivalent to computing the marginals of a one-dimensional model with a random external field. While this task can be accomplished through transfer matrix methods, it becomes quickly intractable when the underlying state space is large. This paper develops several low-complexity approximate algorithms to address this inference problem when the state space becomes large. The new algorithms are based on various mean-field approximations of the transfer matrix. Their performances are studied in detail on a simple realistic model for DNA pyrosequencing.Comment: 43 pages, 41 figure

Descriptions of new species and varieties from Iowa, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio

p. 149-172 : ill. ; 24 cm

General considerations and descriptions of new species from Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan

p. 93-121, [2] leaves of plates : ill. ; 24 cm.Includes 1 bibliographical reference (p. 106)