A new method for monitoring global volcanic activity

The ERTS Data Collection System makes it feasible for the first time to monitor the level of activity at widely separated volcanoes and to relay these data rapidly to one central office for analysis. While prediction of specific eruptions is still an evasive goal, early warning of a reawakening of quiescent volcanoes is now a distinct possibility. A prototypical global volcano surveillance system was established under the ERTS program. Instruments were installed in cooperation with local scientists on 15 volcanoes in Alaska, Hawaii, Washington, California, Iceland, Guatemala, El Salvador and Nicaragua. The sensors include 19 seismic event counters that count four different sizes of earthquakes and six biaxial borehole tiltmeters that measure ground tilt with a resolution of 1 microradian. Only seismic and tilt data are collected because these have been shown in the past to indicate most reliably the level of volcano activity at many different volcanoes. Furthermore, these parameters can be measured relatively easily with new instrumentation

Burst avalanches in solvable models of fibrous materials

We review limiting models for fracture in bundles of fibers, with statistically distributed thresholds for breakdown of individual fibers. During the breakdown process, avalanches consisting of simultaneous rupture of several fibers occur, and the distribution $D(\Delta)$ of the magnitude $\Delta$ of such avalanches is the central characteristics in our analysis. For a bundle of parallel fibers two limiting models of load sharing are studied and contrasted: the global model in which the load carried by a bursting fiber is equally distributed among the surviving members, and the local model in which the nearest surviving neighbors take up the load. For the global model we investigate in particular the conditions on the threshold distribution which would lead to anomalous behavior, i.e. deviations from the asymptotics $D(\Delta) \sim \Delta^{-5/2}$, known to be the generic behavior. For the local model no universal power-law asymptotics exists, but we show for a particular threshold distribution how the avalanche distribution can nevertheless be explicitly calculated in the large-bundle limit.Comment: 28 pages, RevTeX, 3 Postscript figure

Development and evaluation of a prototype global volcano surveillance system utilizing the ERTS-1 satellite data collection system

There are no author-identified significant results in this report

Capturing age-related changes in functional contrast sensitivity with decreasing light levels in monocular and binocular vision

Purpose: It is challenging to separate the effects of normal aging of the retina and visual pathways independently from optical factors, decreased retinal illuminance and early stage disease. This study determined limits to describe the effect of light level on normal, age-related changes in monocular and binocular functional contrast sensitivity. Methods: 95 participants aged 20 to 85 were recruited. Contrast thresholds for correct orientation discrimination of the gap in a Landolt C optotype were measured using a 4 four-alternative, forced-choice (4AFC) procedure at screen luminances from 34 to 0.12 cd/m2, at the fovea and parafovea (0° and ±4°). Pupil size was measured continuously. The Health of the Retina index (HRindex) was computed to capture the loss of contrast sensitivity with decreasing light level. Participants were excluded if they exhibited performance outside the normal limits of interocular differences or HRindex values, or signs of ocular disease. Results: Parafoveal contrast thresholds showed a steeper decline and higher correlation with age at the parafovea than the fovea. 83% of participants with clinical signs of ocular disease had HRindex values outside the normal limits. Binocular summation of contrast signals declined with age, independent of interocular differences. Conclusion: The HRindex worsens more rapidly with age at the parafovea, consistent with histological findings of rod loss and its link to age-related degenerative disease of the retina. The HRindex, and interocular differences could be used to screen for and separate the earliest stages of sub-clinical disease from changes caused by normal aging

Introduction to finite-difference methods for numerical fluid dynamics

This work is intended to be a beginner`s exercise book for the study of basic finite-difference techniques in computational fluid dynamics. It is written for a student level ranging from high-school senior to university senior. Equations are derived from basic principles using algebra. Some discussion of partial-differential equations is included, but knowledge of calculus is not essential. The student is expected, however, to have some familiarity with the FORTRAN computer language, as the syntax of the computer codes themselves is not discussed. Topics examined in this work include: one-dimensional heat flow, one-dimensional compressible fluid flow, two-dimensional compressible fluid flow, and two-dimensional incompressible fluid flow with additions of the equations of heat flow and the {Kappa}-{epsilon} model for turbulence transport. Emphasis is placed on numerical instabilities and methods by which they can be avoided, techniques that can be used to evaluate the accuracy of finite-difference approximations, and the writing of the finite-difference codes themselves. Concepts introduced in this work include: flux and conservation, implicit and explicit methods, Lagrangian and Eulerian methods, shocks and rarefactions, donor-cell and cell-centered advective fluxes, compressible and incompressible fluids, the Boussinesq approximation for heat flow, Cartesian tensor notation, the Boussinesq approximation for the Reynolds stress tensor, and the modeling of transport equations. A glossary is provided which defines these and other terms

Recent Legal Literature

Langdell: A Brief Survey of Equity Jurisdiction; Vance: Handbook of the Law of Insurance; Collier: The Law and Practice in Bankruptcy Under the National Bankruptcy Act of 1898; Yearbook of Legislation, 1903

Bounds for the time to failure of hierarchical systems of fracture

For years limited Monte Carlo simulations have led to the suspicion that the time to failure of hierarchically organized load-transfer models of fracture is non-zero for sets of infinite size. This fact could have a profound significance in engineering practice and also in geophysics. Here, we develop an exact algebraic iterative method to compute the successive time intervals for individual breaking in systems of height $n$ in terms of the information calculated in the previous height $n-1$. As a byproduct of this method, rigorous lower and higher bounds for the time to failure of very large systems are easily obtained. The asymptotic behavior of the resulting lower bound leads to the evidence that the above mentioned suspicion is actually true.Comment: Final version. To appear in Phys. Rev. E, Feb 199

Effect of Dietary Starch Source and Concentration on Equine Fecal Microbiota

Starch from corn is less susceptible to equine small intestinal digestion than starch from oats, and starch that reaches the hindgut can be utilized by the microbiota. The objective of the current study was to examine the effects of starch source on equine fecal microbiota. Thirty horses were assigned to treatments: control (hay only), HC (high corn), HO (high oats), LC (low corn), LO (low oats), and LW (low pelleted wheat middlings). Horses received an all-forage diet (2 wk; d -14 to d -1) before the treatment diets (2 wk; d 1 to 14). Starch was introduced gradually so that horses received 50% of the assigned starch amount (high = 2 g starch/kg BW; low = 1 g starch/kg BW) by d 4 and 100% by d 11. Fecal samples were obtained at the end of the forage-only period (S0; d -2), and on d 6 (S1) and d 13 (S2) of the treatment period. Cellulolytics, lactobacilli, Group D Gram-positive cocci (GPC), lactate-utilizers and amylolytics were enumerated. Enumeration data were log transformed and analyzed by repeated measures ANOVA. There were sample day × treatment interactions (P \u3c 0.0001) for all bacteria enumerated. Enumerations from control horses did not change during the sampling period (P \u3e 0.05). All treatments except LO resulted in increased amylolytics and decreased cellulolytics, but the changes were larger in horses fed corn and wheat middlings (P \u3c 0.05). Feeding oats resulted in increased lactobacilli and decreased GPC (P \u3c 0.05), while corn had the opposite effects. LW had increased lactobacilli and GPC (P \u3c 0.05). The predominant amylolytic isolates from HC, LC and LW on S2 were identified by 16S RNA gene sequencing as Enterococcus faecalis, but other species were found in oat fed horses. These results demonstrate that starch source can have a differential effect on the equine fecal microbiota

Scaling in the time-dependent failure of a fiber bundle with local load sharing

We study the scaling behaviors of a time-dependent fiber-bundle model with local load sharing. Upon approaching the complete failure of the bundle, the breaking rate of fibers diverges according to $r(t)\propto (T_f-t)^{-\xi}$, where $T_f$ is the lifetime of the bundle, and $\xi \approx 1.0$ is a quite universal scaling exponent. The average lifetime of the bundle $$ scales with the system size as $N^{-\delta}$, where $\delta$ depends on the distribution of individual fiber as well as the breakdown rule.Comment: 5 pages, 4 eps figures; to appear in Phys. Rev.

Effect of Dietary Starch Source and Concentration on Equine Fecal Microbiota

Starch from corn is less susceptible to equine small intestinal digestion than starch from oats, and starch that reaches the hindgut can be utilized by the microbiota. The objective of the current study was to examine the effects of starch source on equine fecal microbiota. Thirty horses were assigned to treatments: control (hay only), HC (high corn), HO (high oats), LC (low corn), LO (low oats), and LW (low pelleted wheat middlings). Horses received an all-forage diet (2 wk; d -14 to d -1) before the treatment diets (2 wk; d 1 to 14). Starch was introduced gradually so that horses received 50% of the assigned starch amount (high = 2 g starch/kg BW; low = 1 g starch/kg BW) by d 4 and 100% by d 11. Fecal samples were obtained at the end of the forage-only period (S0; d -2), and on d 6 (S1) and d 13 (S2) of the treatment period. Cellulolytics, lactobacilli, Group D Gram-positive cocci (GPC), lactate-utilizers and amylolytics were enumerated. Enumeration data were log transformed and analyzed by repeated measures ANOVA. There were sample day × treatment interactions (P \u3c 0.0001) for all bacteria enumerated. Enumerations from control horses did not change during the sampling period (P \u3e 0.05). All treatments except LO resulted in increased amylolytics and decreased cellulolytics, but the changes were larger in horses fed corn and wheat middlings (P \u3c 0.05). Feeding oats resulted in increased lactobacilli and decreased GPC (P \u3c 0.05), while corn had the opposite effects. LW had increased lactobacilli and GPC (P \u3c 0.05). The predominant amylolytic isolates from HC, LC and LW on S2 were identified by 16S RNA gene sequencing as Enterococcus faecalis, but other species were found in oat fed horses. These results demonstrate that starch source can have a differential effect on the equine fecal microbiota