History of whaling in and near North Carolina

This study aims to reconstruct the history of shore whaling in the southeastern United States, emphasizing statistics on the catch of right whales, Eubalaena glacialis, the preferred targets. The earliest record of whaling in North Carolina is of a proposed voyage from New York in 1667. Early settlers on the Outer Banks utilized whale strandings by trying out the blubber of carcasses that came ashore, and some whale oil was exported from the 1660s onward. New England whalemen whaled along the North Carolina coast during the 1720s, and possibly earlier. As some of the whalemen from the northern colonies moved to Nortb Carolina, a shore-based whale fishery developed. This activity apparently continued without interruption until the War of Independence in 1776, and continued or was reestablished after the war. The methods and techniques of the North Carolina shore whalers changed slowly: as late as the 1890s they used a drogue at the end of the harpoon line and refrained from staying fast to the harpooned whale, they seldom employed harpoon guns, and then only during the waning years of the fishery. The whaling season extended from late December to May, most successfully between February and May. Whalers believed they were intercepting whales migrating north along the coast. Although some whaling occurred as far north as Cape Hatteras, it centered on the outer coasts of Core, Shackleford, and Bogue banks, particularly near Cape Lookout. The capture of whales other than right whales was a rare event. The number of boat crews probably remained fairly stable during much of the 19th century, with some increase in effort in the late 1870s and early 1880s when numbers of boat crews reached 12 to 18. Then by the late 1880s and 1890s only about 6 crews were active. North Carolina whaling had become desultory by the early 1900s, and ended completely in 1917. Judging by export and tax records, some ocean-going vessels made good catches off this coast in about 1715-30, including an estimated 13 whales in 1719, 15 in one year during the early 1720s, 5-6 in a three-year period of the mid to late 1720s, 8 by one ship's crew in 1727, 17 by one group of whalers in 1728-29, and 8-9 by two boats working from Ocracoke prior to 1730. It is impossible to know how representative these fragmentary records are for the period as a whole. The Carolina coast declined in importance as a cruising ground for pelagic whalers by the 1740s or 1750s. Thereafter, shore whaling probably accounted for most of the (poorly documented) catch. Lifetime catches by individual whalemen on Shackleford Banks suggest that the average annual catch was at least one to two whales during 1830·80, perhaps about four during the late 1870s and early 1880s, and declining to about one by the late 1880s. Data are insufficient to estimate the hunting loss rate in the Outer Banks whale fishery. North Carolina is the only state south of New Jersey known to have had a long and well established shore whaling industry. Some whaling took place in Chesapeake Bay and along the coast of Virginia during the late 17th and early 18th centuries, but it is poorly documented. Most of the rigbt whales taken off South Carolina, Georgia, and northern Florida during the 19th century were killed by pelagic whalers. Florida is the only southeastern state with evidence of an aboriginal (pre-contact) whale fishery. Right whale calves may have been among the aboriginal whalers' principal targets. (PDF file contains 34 pages.

Planning, Property and Profit: The Use of Financial Viability Modelling in Urban Property Development

By drawing upon McAuslan’s analysis of the ideologies underpinning land use planning law, this paper examines financial viability modelling and legal processes in the context of local authority decision-making related to property development on large urban sites. A local authority can make a site ready for development by using ‘compulsory purchase’ powers to acquire land, by transferring that land to a property developer and by granting that developer planning permission to commence construction. Analysis of case law, academic criticism of viability modelling practices and a recent property development project highlights issues arising when local authority planning departments use viability appraisals to legitimise decisions purportedly taken in the public interest. An in-depth examination of viability modelling within local authority estates departments then opens a new site for critical inquiry of local authority land acquisition practices. The paper’s conclusions reflect upon how financial viability modelling shapes decision-making despite questions surrounding both modelling techniques and the outputs that viability appraisals produce

Adaptive and Topological Deep Learning with applications to Neuroscience

Deep Learning and neuroscience have developed a two way relationship with each informing the other. Neural networks, the main tools at the heart of Deep Learning, were originally inspired by connectivity in the brain and have now proven to be critical to state-of-the-art computational neuroscience methods. This dissertation explores this relationship, first, by developing an adaptive sampling method for a neural network-based partial different equation solver and then by developing a topological deep learning framework for neural spike decoding. We demonstrate that our adaptive scheme is convergent and more accurate than DGM -- as long as the residual mirrors the local error -- at the same number of training steps and using the same or less number of training points. We present a multitude of tests applied to selected PDEs discussing the robustness of our scheme. Next, we further illustrate the partnership between deep learning and neuroscience by decoding neural activity using a novel neural network architecture developed to exploit the underlying connectivity of the data by employing tools from Topological Data Analysis. Neurons encode information like external stimuli or allocentric location by generating firing patterns where specific ensembles of neurons fire simultaneously for one value. Understanding, representing, and decoding these neural structures require models that encompass higher order connectivity than traditional graph-based models may provide. Our framework combines unsupervised simplicial complex discovery with the power of deep learning via a new architecture we develop herein called a simplicial convolutional recurrent neural network (SCRNN). Simplicial complexes, topological spaces that use not only vertices and edges but also higher-dimensional objects, naturally generalize graphs and capture more than just pairwise relationships. The effectiveness and versatility of the SCRNN is demonstrated on head direction data to test its performance and then applied to grid cell datasets with the task to automatically predict trajectories

Climate change and nationally significant infrastructure projects: R (on the application of Plan B Earth) v Secretary of State for Transport

In R (on the application of Plan B Earth) v Secretary of State for Transport [2020] EWCA Civ 214, [2020] 2 WLUK 372, the Court of Appeal held that the Secretary of State had acted unlawfully by failing to take into account the UK’s commitments in the 2015 Paris Agreement when he decided to designate a policy formulated to enable the construction of a third runway at Heathrow airport as a ‘national policy statement’ under the Planning Act 2008. An appeal to the Supreme Court is pending. The outcome of that appeal should help to clarify the legal significance of the Paris Agreement and will have significant implications both for expansion at Heathrow airport, for other major infrastructure projects and for other planning and environmental litigation

The Rain Forests of Home: an Atlas of People and Place

pdf contains 31 page

Summer Ephemeroptera, Plecoptera, and Trichoptera (EPT) Species Richness and Community Structure in the Lower Illinois River Basin of Illinois

Ephemeroptera, Plecoptera, and Trichoptera (EPT) species richness is useful for monitoring stream health, but no published studies in Illinois quantitatively document EPT richness or assemblage structure. The objectives of this study were to characterize adult EPT richness and structure and relate these to relative water at eight stream sites (160-69,300 km3 area) in the lower Illinois River Adults were ultra-violet light trapped in June, July, and August 1997. Nutrient enrichment by nitrate and nitrite nitrogen was strongly evident, in smaller drainages, while critical loss of stable habitat was observed in water bodies. Seventy EPT species were identified from 17,889 specimens. Trichoptera were by far the most speciose (41 species), followed by Ephemeroptera (26), and Plecoptera (3). Caddisflies also dominated species richness across sites, contributing 18.0 of the average 28.9 total EPT species collected. Site EPT richness varied significantly (F =5.51, p 0.003, df 7), with smaller drainages supporting greater richness, generally. Differences were also evident for months (F = 21.7, p =0.0001, df =2), with June being lower (11.8 average) than either July (20.6) or August (18.1) values. Hilsenhoff biotic index (HBI) scores did not vary significantly across sites (F 0.7, p =0.7, df =7), but were different across months (F =5.4, p 0.02, df 2). June (4.23) and July (4.53) means were not different, but both were lower (of better quality) than August (5.33) scores. The relationship of EPT to HBI scores was not investigated statisti- cally due to problems of sample size and interdependance of monthly sam­ ples, but graphical analysis no consistent relationship. This sug- gested a decoupling of the the EPT and implied that the gain in taxonomic resolution achieved by adults outstripped the resolution of the HBI. Use of the HBI to characterize adult aquatic insect communities is discouraged. New state records and extensions for Ephemeroptera and Trichoptera are presented and loss of sensitive Plecoptera in the drainage is discussed

George Drouillard and John Colter: Heroes of the American West

A study of George Drouillard\u27s and John Colter\u27s involvement in the expansion and exploration of the American West. This thesis looks at their contributions as a part of the Corps of Discovery and during the American fur trade. The thesis will also look into why men such as Drouillard and Colter and their contributions have been overlooked in recent history

Photoproduction of the K⁺K⁻(1750)

While photoproduction has often been advertised as an important environment in which to study light meson spectroscopy, solid experimental results are sparse. In fact, beyond the relatively straightforward photoproduction of the p, w, and ¢ mesons, the few results of exclusive photoproduction that do exist are poorly understood, and several, perhaps, have even been misinterpreted. After extensively reviewing the sometimes tenuous history of the exclusive photoproduction of the p\u27(1600), the w1r0(1 2 50), the w(1650), and the K+ K-(1750), new results from the E 8 31/FOCUS photoproduction experiment at Fermilab are presented which address the interpretation of the K+ K-(1750). This enhancement in low-PT K+ K- pairs at a mass near 1750 Me V / c2 has been observed by several previous photoproduction experiments, but, despite several apparent inconsistencies, it has always been interpreted as the JPC = 1 -- ¢(1680) meson. With nearly two orders of magnitude more events than any previous observation of the K+ K-(1750), and based on precise measurements of its mass and width, and its absence from the K* K final state, the FOCUS data can finally render this interpretation implausible. In addition, several steps have been taken towards establishing a new interpretation. Based on limited angular analyses of its decay and the beam energy dependence of its production, we argue that, in the absence of any wild interference scenarios, the K+ K-(1 750) has JPC # 1--, and, in fact, the most likely assignment appears to be 2 ++ . It is hoped that this work can help set the stage for future reevaluations and new insights in photoproduction