Lloyd C. Everson of Dunseith: Germany, World War II

North Dakota Prisoner of War Report by Lloyd Everson (1924-1997) of Dunseith. Everson was a POW of Germany in the Second World War. 18 page

South Dakota\u27s Big Sioux and Vermillion River Basins: Economic Value of Irrigation Water

The primary objective of this study was to estimate the value of water used for irrigation in the Big Sioux and Vermillion river basins of eastern South Dakota. These estimates were made by imputing a residual value of water. Data were acquired through personal interviews with irrigators in the study area which was partitioned into two rainfall regions and two soil areas per rainfall region. Crop enterprise budgets were derived from the data and used to calculate net returns to management and water. These figures were compared with net returns to management from dryland farming obtained from secondary sources to arrive at the final water value estimates

Minkowski compactness measure

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from the publisher via the DOI in this record.Published in: Computational Intelligence (UKCI), 2013, 13th UK Workshop, Guildford UK. Date of Conference: 9-11 Sept. 2013Many compactness measures are available in the literature. In this paper we present a generalised compactness measure Cq(S) which unifies previously existing definitions of compactness. The new measure is based on Minkowski distances and incorporates a parameter q which modifies the behaviour of the compactness measure. Different shapes are considered to be most compact depending on the value of q: for q = 2, the most compact shape in 2D (3D) is a circle (a sphere); for q → ∞, the most compact shape is a square (a cube); and for q = 1, the most compact shape is a square (a octahedron). For a given shape S, measure Cq(S) can be understood as a function of q and as such it is possible to calculate a spectum of Cq(S) for a range of q. This produces a particular compactness signature for the shape S, which provides additional shape information. The experiments section of this paper provides illustrative examples where measure Cq(S) is applied to various shapes and describes how measure and its spectrum can be used for image processing applications

Lawn Seed or Grass Seed- Which Do You Buy?

Only about a third of the lawn seed and grass seed mixtures offered for sale for lawn seeding purposes last year in nine of the state\u27s larger cities were suitable for establishing even-textured, fine-leaved lawns

Are there hopeless neighborhoods? An exploration of environmental associations between individual-level feelings of hopelessness and neighborhood characteristics

http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/109742/1/Are there hopeless .pd

The Bayesian Decision Tree Technique with a Sweeping Strategy

The uncertainty of classification outcomes is of crucial importance for many safety critical applications including, for example, medical diagnostics. In such applications the uncertainty of classification can be reliably estimated within a Bayesian model averaging technique that allows the use of prior information. Decision Tree (DT) classification models used within such a technique gives experts additional information by making this classification scheme observable. The use of the Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methodology of stochastic sampling makes the Bayesian DT technique feasible to perform. However, in practice, the MCMC technique may become stuck in a particular DT which is far away from a region with a maximal posterior. Sampling such DTs causes bias in the posterior estimates, and as a result the evaluation of classification uncertainty may be incorrect. In a particular case, the negative effect of such sampling may be reduced by giving additional prior information on the shape of DTs. In this paper we describe a new approach based on sweeping the DTs without additional priors on the favorite shape of DTs. The performances of Bayesian DT techniques with the standard and sweeping strategies are compared on a synthetic data as well as on real datasets. Quantitatively evaluating the uncertainty in terms of entropy of class posterior probabilities, we found that the sweeping strategy is superior to the standard strategy

Mortality in a Migrating Mennonite Church Congregation

Preston\u27s two-census method of demographic estimation is applied to three pairs of reconstructed censuses from the records of a migrating Mennonite church congregation covering the period 1780-1890, The three pairs of censuses correspond to three periods (1780-1790, 1850-1860, and 1880-1890) and to stays in three settings (Prussia, Russia, and Kansas, respectively). The Mennonites\u27 stay in Prussia was a period of hardship. In Russia they expanded their economic base and developed new farming methods, dramatically increasing their productivity. The Mennonites took these skills to Kansas, where they continued to be successful. The increase in life expectancy at age 5 corroborates this picture. The Prussian period exhibits the shortest life expectancy for both sexes. After the move to Russia, life expectancy increased for both sexes and continued to increase with the move to Kansas. The model also provides limited evidence for fertility depression following the move to Kansas

The hydrological characterisation and water budget of a South African rehabilitated headwater wetland system

This paper presents a synopsis of the findings of a valley bottom wetland monitoring study in which dominant hydrological processes maintaining the system are quantitatively defined. The Craigieburn-Manalana is a wetland subjected to technical rehabilitation, at the headwaters of the Sand River in the lowveld savanna region of South Africa.Findings include the identification of a rapid water delivery mechanism from the surrounding hillslopes to the wetland following a threshold-exceeding precipitation event, when hillslope-toe soil matric potential is close to 0, leading to a raising of the wetland water table by >0.7 m within 3 h. A summary of quantified fluxes and associated water budget of the wetland and its contributing catchment is developed. It is revealed that this wetland does not necessarily conform to the typical assumptions that wetlands augment low flows. Surface layer scintillometry shows actual wetland evapotranspiration to dominate the water budget during the dry season (2.3–3.5 mm/d) compared to its contributing catchment (0.9–2.2 mm/d), whilst stream discharge had ceased. Hydrograph separation, based on stable isotopes (18O), revealed that the wetland does not attenuate peak flows during the summer rains when the wetlands soil moisture deficit is close to 0, since more than 66% of stream discharge comprised event water. These results are discussed within the context of current hydrological understanding of southern African headwater wetlands, such as dambos.Keywords: hillslope processes, hydro-geomorphology, water budget, dambos, rehabilitation, wetland

Water-use dynamics of an alien-invaded riparian forest within the summer rainfall zone of South Africa

In South Africa the invasion of riparian forests by alien trees has the potential to affect the country's limited water resources. Tree water-use measurements have therefore become an important component of recent hydrological studies. It is difficult for South African government initiatives, such as the Working for Water (WfW) alien clearing programme, to justify alien tree removal and implement rehabilitation unless hydrological benefits are known. The objective of this study was to investigate the water use (transpiration rates) of a selection of introduced and indigenous tree species and quantify the hydrological benefit that could be achieved through a suitable rehabilitation programme. Consequently water use within a riparian forest in the upper Mgeni catchment of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa was monitored over a 2-year period. The site consisted of an indigenous stand of eastern mistbelt forest that had been invaded by Acacia mearnsii, Eucalyptus nitens and Solanum mauritianum. The heat ratio method of the heat pulse velocity (HPV) sap flow technique and the stem steady state (SSS) techniques were used to measure the sap flow of a selection of indigenous and introduced species. The indigenous trees at New Forest, South Africa, showed clear seasonal trends in the daily sap flow rates varying from 8 to 25&thinsp;L&thinsp;day−1 in summer (sap flow being directly proportional to tree size). In the winter periods this was reduced to between 3 and 6&thinsp;L&thinsp;day−1 when limited energy flux was available to drive the transpiration process. The water use in the A. mearnsii and E. grandis trees showed a slight seasonal trend, with a high flow during the winter months in contrast to the indigenous species. The water use in the understorey indicated that multi-stemmed species used up to 12&thinsp;L&thinsp;day−1. Small alien trees (&lt;&thinsp;30&thinsp;mm) A. mearnsii and S. mauritianum used up to 4&thinsp;L&thinsp;day−1 each. The total accumulated sap flow per year for the three individual A. mearnsii and E. grandis trees was 6548 and 7405&thinsp;L&thinsp;a−1 respectively. In contrast, the indigenous species averaged 2934&thinsp;L&thinsp;a−1, clearly demonstrating the higher water use of the introduced species. After spatial upscaling, it was concluded that, at the current state of invasion (21&thinsp;% of the stand being alien species), the stand used 40&thinsp;% more water per unit area than if the stand were in a pristine state. If the stand were to be heavily invaded at the same stem density of the indigenous forest, a 100&thinsp;% increase in water use would occur over an average rainfall year.</p