Optical linear polarization measurements of quasars obtained with the 3.6m telescope at the La Silla Observatory

We report 192 previously unpublished optical linear polarization measurements of quasars obtained in April 2003, April 2007, and October 2007 with the European Southern Observatory Faint Object Spectrograph and Camera (EFOSC2) instrument attached to the 3.6m telescope at the La Silla Observatory. Each quasar was observed once. Among the 192 quasars, 89 have a polarization degree $p \geq 0.6\%$, 18 have $p \geq 2\%$, and two have $p \geq 10\%$.Comment: Accepted for publication in A&

Contracting an element from a cocircuit

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Mineral precipitation in north slope aufeis

The Canning and Shaviovik river aufeis fields were studied on the ground and with aircraft data. Powdered calcium carbonate (CaCO3) patches, a few cm in thickness, were found in discrete locations on both aufeis fields. This is indicative of chemical weathering of limestone bedrock which is known to underlie much of the eastern arctic coastal plain of Alaska. Spring or river water which remains unfrozen throughout much of the winter carries CaCO3 in solution; as the river ice freezes more deeply the CaCO3 in solution is forced upwards through cracks in the river ice. Upon exposure to the cold air CaCO3 is excluded as the water freezes, forming successive layers during aufeis growth. In the melt season CaCO3, slush/powder accumulates in patches on top of the ice as the aufeis melts downward

Utilization of remote sensing in Alaska permafrost studies

Permafrost related features such as: aufeis, tundra, thaw lakes and subsurface ice features were studied. LANDSAT imagery was used to measure the extent and distribution of aufeis in Arctic Slope rivers over a period of 7 years. Interannual extent of large aufeis fields was found to vary significantly. Digital LANDSAT data were used to study the short term effects of a tundra fire which burned a 48 sq km area in northwestern Alaska. Vegetation regrowth was inferred from Landsat spectral reflectance increases and compared to in-situ measurements. Aircraft SAR (Synethic Aperture Radar) imagery was used in conjunction with LANDSAT imagery used in conjunction with LANDSAT imagery to qualitatively determine depth categories for thaw lakes in northern Alaska

Use of LANDSAT data for river and lake ice engineering studies

There are no author-identified significant results in this report

Propulsion beam divergence effects Quarterly technical report

Chemical effects of rocket exhaust impingement on spacecraft surface

Geomorphic processes on the North Slope of Alaska

Three physiographic provinces comprise the North Slope of Alaska: the Arctic Mountains, the Arctic Foothills and the Arctic Coastal Plain Provinces. The features and processes in the Arctic Coastal Plain, a zone of continuous permafrost, are stressed in this paper. The evidence for and mechanisms of the geomorphic cycle are discussed starting with frost cracks. Frost cracks may form polygonal ground which leads to low-centered ice wedge polygons in areas having ice-rich permafrost. As the low-centered ice wedge polygons enlarge due to thermal erosion they may evolve into thaw lakes which are largely oriented in a northwest-southeast direction on the Arctic Coastal Plain. Eventual drainage of a deep lake may result in a closed-system pingo. Evidence of the various stages of the geomorphic cycle is ubiquitous on the Alaskan Arctic Coastal Plain and indicates the ice content of the permafrost in some areas

A critical autoethnographic study of compliance and resilience

This critical autoethnographic thesis questions how teachers can reconcile themselves within the system of education by identifying the underlying political context of their role and suggesting methods of navigation in creating an agentic and professional self-identity. At the heart of this work is the fictional story of Miss Kenny, a young, resilient Northern teacher, who offers the reader a redemptive thread of hope, despite her daily struggles with compliance and performativity in teaching. Aiming to connect emotionally with the reader, this narrative synthesis created through a number of critical incidents creates both space and dialogue in the form of a messy text so that the transformative journey may be felt on a more personal and connective basis. The findings conclude that Miss Kenny perceives the government to be leading education astray, creating a misalignment between the rhetoric of professionalism and the reality of teaching but is able to address her concern by improving her emotional well-being and resilience, creating an agentic self, forged in research. This enables her to become a miraculé of her lived domain. The implications of this research provide a way in which teachers can not only survive, but thrive in education by understanding their personal positioning in relation to values and identity, as well as considering their own moral purpose as they negotiate notions of compliance and resilience in a transformative journey of research

An extension to GUM methodology: degrees-of-freedom calculations for correlated multidimensional estimates

The Guide to the Expression of Uncertainty in Measurement advocates the use of an 'effective number of degrees of freedom' for the calculation of an interval of measurement uncertainty. However, it does not describe how this number is to be calculated when (i) the measurand is a vector quantity or (ii) when the errors in the estimates of the quantities defining the measurand (the 'input quantities') are not incurred independently. An appropriate analysis for a vector-valued measurand has been described (Metrologia 39 (2002) 361-9), and a method for a one-dimensional measurand with dependent errors has also been given (Metrologia 44 (2007) 340-9). This paper builds on those analyses to present a method for the situation where the problem is multidimensional and involves correlated errors. The result is an explicit general procedure that reduces to simpler procedures where appropriate. The example studied is from the field of radio-frequency metrology, where measured quantities are often complex-valued and can be regarded as vectors of two elements.Comment: 30 pages with 2 embedded figure