Wet atmospheric generation apparatus

The invention described relates to an apparatus for providing a selectively humidified gas to a camera canister containing cameras and film used in space. A source of pressurized gas (leak test gas or motive gas) is selected by a valve, regulated to a desired pressure by a regulator, and routed through an ejector (venturi device). A regulated source of water vapor in the form of steam from a heated reservoir is coupled to a low pressure region of the ejector which mixes with high velocity gas flow through the ejector. This mixture is sampled by a dew point sensor to obtain dew point thereof (ratio of water vapor to gas) and the apparatus adjusted by varying gas pressure or water vapor to provide a mixture at a connector having selected humidity content

The fishery for California market squid (Loligo opalescens) (Cephalopoda: Myopsida), from 1981 through 2003

The California market squid (Loligo opalescens) has been harvested since the 1860s and it has become the largest fishery in California in terms of tonnage and dollars since 1993. The fishery began in Monterey Bay and then shifted to southern California, where effort has increased steadily since 1983. The California Department of Fish and Game (CDFG) collects information on landings of squid, including tonnage, location, and date of capture. We compared landings data gathered by CDFG with sea surface temperature (SST), upwelling index (UI), the southern oscillation index (SOI), and their respective anomalies. We found that the squid fishery in Monterey Bay expends twice the effort of that in southern California. Squid landings decreased substantially following large El Niño events in 1982−83 and 1997−98, but not following the smaller El Niño events of 1987 and 1992. Spectral analysis revealed autocorrelation at annual and 4.5-year intervals (similar to the time period between El Niño cycles). But this analysis did not reveal any fortnightly or monthly spawning peaks, thus squid spawning did not correlate with tides. A paralarvae density index (PDI) for February correlated well with catch per unit of effort (CPUE) for the following November recruitment of adults to the spawning grounds. This stock– recruitment analysis was significant for 2000−03 (CPUE=8.42+0.41PDI, adjusted coefficient of determination, r2=0.978, P=0.0074). Surveys of squid paralarvae explained 97.8% of the variance for catches of adult squid nine months later. The regression of CPUE on PDI could be used to manage the fishery. Catch limits for the fishery could be set on the basis of paralarvae abundance surveyed nine months earlier

Phase Winding a Two-Component BEC in an Elongated Trap: Experimental Observation of Moving Magnetic Orders and Dark-bright Solitons

We experimentally investigate the phase winding dynamics of a harmonically trapped two-component BEC subject to microwave induced Rabi oscillations between two pseudospin components. While the single particle dynamics can be explained by mapping the system to a two-component Bose-Hubbard model, nonlinearities due to the interatomic repulsion lead to new effects observed in the experiments: In the presence of a linear magnetic field gradient, a qualitatively stable moving magnetic order that is similar to antiferromagnetic order is observed after critical winding is achieved. We also demonstrate how the phase winding can be used as a new tool to generate copious dark-bright solitons in a two-component BEC, opening the door for new experimental studies of these nonlinear features.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure

Four Strategies to Find a Good Job: Advice from Job Seekers with Disabilities

[Excerpt] Finding a job is hard work. Even though there are a lot of agencies out there that can provide help, it can still be a difficult process. The Institute for Community Inclusion (ICI) talked to adults with disabilities who used a state or local agency to find a job. ICI asked these individuals about their experience using an agency. ICI also asked them to explain other things that were helpful while they searched for a job. These nineteen job seekers told ICI that the following strategies helped them to find jobs that they liked

Environmental impact on host-parasite interactions. A study on the adaptive value of host castration and gigantism when hosts can regain reproduction

The aim of this thesis was to investigate how altering the external environment affects life history strategies of hosts and their parasites, and to gain a better understanding of evolutionary theories on castration and gigantism in parasitized hosts. We found that maintaining Daphnia magna in a high resource growth medium resulted in increased reproduction and decreased survival, suggesting that reproduction is costly for this organism. However, within growth mediums we found a positive association between reproduction and survival, suggesting that high quality individual were able to invest more in both aspects of life history compared to low quality individuals. These findings may seem contradictory, but one would only expect to be able to detect cost of reproduction when the increase in reproductive investment outweighs the differences in individual quality. In addition, we found that increased resources led to reproduction more closely resembling reproduction under natural conditions than under standard laboratory conditions. This illustrates the importance of studying host-parasite interactions under differing resource levels. When infecting the crustacean D. magna with the bacterial parasite Pasteuria ramosa we found that a substantial percentage of infected animals regained reproduction. Such a regain has never been reported before in this host-parasite system. We attribute this finding to the fact that we used a natural source of growth medium in our experiments, while previous experiments have used an artificial growth medium. In addition, our findings suggest that increasing the resources available to the host can be of great benefit to the host, while being of no or only a limited benefit to the parasite. This differs from previous findings, which have shown that both hosts and parasites benefit greatly from increased resources. The findings from the system suggest that the impact of additional resources on the life histories of the host and parasite is dependent upon the resource in question. Castration of parasitized hosts has received substantial attention with respect to its adaptive value and has been suggested to be adaptive to the parasite, the host, both or neither. However, for castration to be a host adaptation the host has to be able to regain the ability to reproduce. Our finding that P. ramosa infected D. magna could regain reproduction enabled us to test for the adaptive value of castration in this system. For two different clones, one sympatric and one allopatric, we found that host castration was only adaptive to the parasite. This supports findings from previous studies, in which the hosts were permanently castrated. In addition, our results support the existence of local adaptation in host-parasite interactions, as the parasite was more successful in the host it was locally adapted to. Gigantism of the host often accompanies castration and has also been suggested to be adaptive to the parasite, the host, both or neither. In the D. magna-P. ramosa system, this phenomenon has been viewed as adaptive to the parasite since the parasite benefits from infecting large host, and there has been found a positive correlation between host size and parasite fitness. However, we found that the hosts which regained reproduction were larger and contained fewer spores than the hosts which were permanently castrated. This finding questions whether host gigantism is adaptive to the parasite when the host can regain reproduction. We also suggest that permanent castration is not the norm under natural conditions in this host-parasite system. It is therefore important to further investigate the adaptive value of host gigantism, especially when hosts can regain reproduction and under natural conditions. Finally, the fact that these studies show that P. ramosa infected D. magna can regain reproduction opens for the possibility that the parasite could be transmitted vertically, which would alter our understanding of this host-parasite system

Despite heavy rhetoric, partisan considerations had little influence on states’ decisions to make voting easier.

Recent efforts in a number of Republican-controlled states to roll back previous reforms that make the act of voting easier, combined with the adoption of voter identification laws, signal the strong partisan divisions on matters of election administration. By examining the factors that explain the initial adoption of two common convenience voting methods (no-excuse absentee voting and in-person early voting), Daniel Biggers and Michael Hanmer find that partisan considerations were much more limited than one might expect. Republican governors were less likely to adopt in-person early voting but not no-excuse absentee voting and control of or party strength in the state legislature exerted little influence on this decision. Instead, enactment of both reforms seems to have been affected by utility, with elderly and rural population size, as well as geographic size, influencing adoption. These findings contrast with the heightened partisan debate on these matters and provide important insights into the history and future of these reform