A Method for siting and prioritizing the removal of derelict vessels in Florida Coastal Waters: test applications in the Florida Keys

Increased boating activities and new waterfront developments have contributed an estimated 3,000 dismantled, abandoned, junked, wrecked, derelict vessels to Florida coastal waters. This report outlines a method of siting and prioritizing derelict vessel removal using the Florida Keys as a test area. The data base was information on 240 vessels, obtained from Florida Marine Patrol files. Vessel location was plotted on 1:250,000 regional and 1:5,000 and 1:12,000 site maps. Type of vessel, length, hull material, engine, fuel tanks, overall condition, afloat and submerged characteristics, and accessibility, were used to derive parametric site indices of removal priority and removal difficulty. Results indicate 59 top priority cases which should be the focus of immediate clean up efforts in the Florida Keys. Half of these cases are rated low to moderate in removal difficulty; the remainder are difficult to remove. Removal difficulty is a surrogate for removal cost: low difficulty -low cost, high difficulty - high cost. The rating scheme offers coastal planners options of focusing removal operations either on (1) specific areas with clusters of high priority derelict vessels or on (2) selected targeted derelicts at various, specific locations. (PDF has 59 pages.

A Study of Mormon Errors in View of the Holy Bible

https://digitalcommons.acu.edu/crs_books/1261/thumbnail.jp

A double-slit `which-way' experiment on the complementarity--uncertainty debate

A which-way measurement in Young's double-slit will destroy the interference pattern. Bohr claimed this complementarity between wave- and particle behaviour is enforced by Heisenberg's uncertainty principle: distinguishing two positions a distance s apart transfers a random momentum q \sim \hbar/s to the particle. This claim has been subject to debate: Scully et al. asserted that in some situations interference can be destroyed with no momentum transfer, while Storey et al. asserted that Bohr's stance is always valid. We address this issue using the experimental technique of weak measurement. We measure a distribution for q that spreads well beyond [-\hbar/s, \hbar/s], but nevertheless has a variance consistent with zero. This weakvalued momentum-transfer distribution P_{wv}(q) thus reflects both sides of the debate.Comment: 13 pages, 4 figure

Enhancing the Influence of Distal Primes on Creativity: The Role of Contextual and Personal Variables – Study 1

Environmental primes promote both the quantity and quality of consumer creativity. More importantly, primes interact with mood and gender. Study 1 revealed an interaction between prime type and mood where distal primes enhanced the quantity but not the quality of creative solutions for those in a negative mood. Additionally, there was a gender and mood interaction

Elevated transgelin reduces function of endothelial colony forming cells from gestational diabetic pregnancies

poster abstractFetal exposure to maternal diabetes predisposes children to future complications including hypertension and cardiovascular disease. A key mechanism by which these complications are thought to occur and persist is through the functional impairment of vascular progenitor cells, including endothelial colony forming cells (ECFCs). Previously, we showed that ECFCs exposed to gestational diabetes exhibit functional deficits, such as impaired vessel formation, but also differential gene expression compared to uncomplicated controls. One gene that was confirmed to be significantly upregulated in ECFCS from diabetic pregnancies was transgelin, an actin-binding smooth muscle protein. However, the functional consequences of increased transgelin in ECFCs are unknown. Therefore, to determine if transgelin is sufficient and required to induce dysfunction of ECFCs from diabetic pregnancies, transgelin protein levels were manipulated using genetic methods. Specifically, lentiviral overexpression and siRNA knockdown techniques were used in ECFCs from control and diabetic pregnancies respectively. Network formation assays and trans-well migration assays were performed to assess whether alteration of transgelin levels impact ECFC vasculogenesis and migration. Decreasing transgelin expression in diabetes-exposed ECFCs increased network formation (n=15, p<0.05) and cell migration (n=12, p<0.05). Conversely, overexpression of transgelin in ECFCs from uncomplicated pregnancies decreased network formation (n=12, p<0.05). Additional studies are underway to further elucidate intracellular signaling altered as a result of increased transgelin expression in diabetes-exposed ECFCs. Delineating the mechanisms underlying ECFC functional deficits will aid in the understanding of how and why chronic vascular complications persist in children born to mothers with diabetes

Dark Energy in an Axion Model with Explicit Z(N) Symmetry Breaking

We point out that a well known axion model with an explicit Z(N) symmetry breaking term predicts both dark energy and cold dark matter. We estimate the parameters of this model which fit the observed densities of the dark components of the universe. We find that the parameters do not conflict with any observations.Comment: 5 pages, minor change

Photocatalytic/Magnetic Composite Particles

Photocatalytic/magnetic composite particles have been invented as improved means of exploiting established methods of photocatalysis for removal of chemical and biological pollutants from air and water. The photocatalytic components of the composite particles are formulated for high levels of photocatalytic activity, while the magnetic components make it possible to control the movements of the particles through the application of magnetic fields. The combination of photocatalytic and magnetic properties can be exploited in designing improved air- and water treatment reactors

Measuring measurement--disturbance relationships with weak values

Using formal definitions for measurement precision {\epsilon} and disturbance (measurement backaction) {\eta}, Ozawa [Phys. Rev. A 67, 042105 (2003)] has shown that Heisenberg's claimed relation between these quantities is false in general. Here we show that the quantities introduced by Ozawa can be determined experimentally, using no prior knowledge of the measurement under investigation --- both quantities correspond to the root-mean-squared difference given by a weak-valued probability distribution. We propose a simple three-qubit experiment which would illustrate the failure of Heisenberg's measurement--disturbance relation, and the validity of an alternative relation proposed by Ozawa