Habitat Utilization and Vertical Distribution of the Great Barracuda Sphyraena barracuda (Edwards 1771) in the Western North Atlantic Using Electronic Archival Tags

The Great Barracuda Sphyraena barracuda is a large predatory teleost commonly seen in the tropics of the Western North Atlantic. Using pop-up satellite archival tags (PSATs), two large Great Barracuda (101 and 104 cm FL) were tagged off South Florida for a 15-day deployment period. Great Barracuda 88094 traveled 471 km minimum straight-line distance (MSLD) over the deployment duration, while Great Barracuda 88095 traveled 1231 km MSLD. Great barracuda 88094 achieved a maximum depth of 145.2 m, while 88095 to a maximum depth of 186.9 m, although such movements were for short time durations. The data obtained indicate significant differences in diel behavior, with both individuals utilizing deeper depths during nighttime periods. The results of this study show that great barracuda are capable of travelling great distances over short periods of time, with short-duration movements to depths greater than 100 meters

Who Owns the Law? Why We Must Restore Public Ownership of Legal Publishing

Each state has its own method for officially publishing the law. This article looks at the history of legal publishing for the fifty states before looking at how legal publishing even in moving to electronic publishing may not ensure public access to the law. The article addresses barriers to free access to the law in electronic publishing including copyright, contract law, and potentially, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. The article concludes with prescriptions for how different actors, including state governments, publishers, libraries, and others can ensure robust public access to the law moving forward

Child Sexual Abuse

Although definitions can vary across legal, clinical, and research contexts, sexual abuse is commonly defined as sexual acts between a youth and an older person (e.g., by 5 years or more) in which the dominance of the older person is used to exploit or coerce the youth. Behaviors may include noncontact (e.g., exposure) and contact (e.g., intercourse) offenses

Modal Properties and Stability of Bend-Twist Coupled Wind Turbine Blades

Coupling between bending and twist has a significant influence on the aeroelastic response of wind turbine blades. The coupling can arise from the blade geometry (e.g. sweep, prebending, or deflection under load) or from the anisotropic properties of the blade material. Bend–twist coupling can be utilized to reduce the fatigue loads of wind turbine blades. In this study the effects of material-based coupling on the aeroelastic modal properties and stability limits of the DTU 10 MW Reference Wind Turbine are investigated. The modal properties are determined by means of eigenvalue analysis around a steady-state equilibrium using the aero-servo-elastic tool HAWCStab2 which has been extended by a beam element that allows for fully coupled cross-sectional properties. Bend–twist coupling is introduced in the cross-sectional stiffness matrix by means of coupling coefficients that introduce twist for flapwise (flap–twist coupling) or edgewise (edge–twist coupling) bending. Edge–twist coupling can increase or decrease the damping of the edgewise mode relative to the reference blade, depending on the operational condition of the turbine. Edge–twist to feather coupling for edgewise deflection towards the leading edge reduces the inflow speed at which the blade becomes unstable. Flap–twist to feather coupling for flapwise deflections towards the suction side increase the frequency and reduce damping of the flapwise mode. Flap–twist to stall reduces frequency and increases damping. The reduction of blade root flapwise and tower bottom fore–aft moments due to variations in mean wind speed of a flap–twist to feather blade are confirmed by frequency response functions

A maximum-likelihood method for improving faint source flux and color estimates

Flux estimates for faint sources or transients are systematically biased high because there are far more truly faint sources than bright. Corrections which account for this effect are presented as a function of signal-to-noise ratio and the (true) slope of the faint-source number-flux relation. The corrections depend on the source being originally identified in the image in which it is being photometered. If a source has been identified in other data, the corrections are different; a prescription for calculating the corrections is presented. Implications of these corrections for analyses of surveys are discussed; the most important is that sources identified at signal-to-noise ratios of four or less are practically useless.Comment: 9 pp., accepted for publication in PAS

Optimal Guidance of a Relay Aircraft to Extend Small Unmanned Aircraft Range

This paper developed guidance laws to optimally and autonomously position a relay Micro Aerial Vehicle (MAV) to provide an operator with real-time Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) by relaying communication and video signals from a rover MAV to the base, thus extending the rover\u27s reach. The ISR system is comprised of two MAVs, the Relay and the Rover, and a Base. The Relay strives to position itself so as to minimize the radio frequency (RF) power required for maintaining communications between the Rover and the Base, while the Rover performs the ISR mission, which may maximize the required RF power. The optimal control of the Relay MAV then entails the solution of a differential game. Applying Pontryagin\u27s Maximum Principle yields a standard, albeit nonlinear, Two-Point Boundary Value Problem (TPBVP). Suboptimal solutions are first obtained as an aid in solving the TPBVP which yields the solution of the differential game. One suboptimal approach is based upon the geometry of the ISR system: The midpoint between the Rover and the Base is the ideal location which minimizes the RF power required, so the Relay heads toward that point—assuming that the Rover is stationary. At the same time, to maximize the rate of required RF power, the Rover moves in the opposite direction of the Relay—assuming the Relay is stationary. These are optimal strategies in the end-game, but it is suboptimal to use them throughout the game. Another suboptimal approach investigated envisions the Rover to remain stationary and solves for the optimal path for the Relay to minimize the RF power requirement. This one-sided optimization problem is analyzed using a Matlab-based optimization program, GPOCS, which uses the Gauss pseudospectral method of discretization. The results from GPOCS corroborated with the geometry-based suboptimal Relay strategy of heading straight toward the midpoint between the Rover and the Base. The suboptimal solutions are readily implementable for real-time operation and are used to facilitate the solutions of the TPBVP