16 research outputs found

    Terricolous Spiders (Araneae) of Insecticide-Treated Spruce-Fir Forests in West-Central Maine

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    Spiders of 12 families, 42 genera, and at least 62 species were captured in linear-pitfall traps placed in insecticide-treated (Sevin-4-Oil®, Dipel 4L ®, Thuricide 16B®) and untreated spruce-fIr forests of west-central Maine. Species richness per family ranged from 1 (Theridiidae, Araneidae, Salticidae) to 19 (Erigonidae). Most trapped species were web-spinners (67.2%); most trapped individuals were hunters (75.2%). Lycosidae accounted for 66.1 % of all (n = 887) captured spiders. Total trapped spiders varied among insecticide treatments, sampling dates, and study sites. However, comparison of mean prespray and postspray trap catches indicated no significant reduction (ANOVA, ANCOVA, P 0.05) in terricolous spiders following insecticide treatments. Increases in spider abundance during postspray sampling periods may have masked detection of treatment effects

    Overcoming challenges on an international project to advance systems engineering

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    The Body of Knowledge and Curriculum to Advance Systems Engineering (BKCASE) project's dual product development cycle spanned a three‐year period from the September 2009 to December, 2012. During this timeframe, BKCASE authors met quarterly at various locations, primarily in various regions of the United States, but also in Stockholm, Sweden; Toulouse, France; London, England; and Rome, Italy (BKCASE, 2009–2019). The team successfully worked through challenges and differences to produce The Guide to the Systems Engineering Body of Knowledge (SEBoK) wiki and a Graduate Reference Curriculum for Systems Engineering (GRCSE) publication. This article is a collection of personal stories from the team members that focus on overcoming obstacles to successfully produce the final published products

    The state of the Martian climate

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    60°N was +2.0°C, relative to the 1981–2010 average value (Fig. 5.1). This marks a new high for the record. The average annual surface air temperature (SAT) anomaly for 2016 for land stations north of starting in 1900, and is a significant increase over the previous highest value of +1.2°C, which was observed in 2007, 2011, and 2015. Average global annual temperatures also showed record values in 2015 and 2016. Currently, the Arctic is warming at more than twice the rate of lower latitudes

    An intensified seasonal transition in the Central U.S. that enhances summer drought

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    In the long term, precipitation in the Central U.S. decreases by 25% during the seasonal transition from June to July. This precipitation decrease has intensified since 1979 and such intensification could have enhanced spring drought occurrences in the Central U.S., in which conditions quickly evolve from being abnormally dry to exceptionally dry. Various atmospheric and land reanalysis data sets were analyzed to examine the trend in the June–July seasonal transition. The intensified deficit in precipitation is accompanied by increased downward shortwave radiation flux, tropospheric subsidence, enhanced evaporative fraction, and elevated planetary boundary layer height, all of which can lead to surface drying. The change in tropospheric circulation was characterized by an anomalous ridge over the western U.S. and a trough on either side—a pattern known to suppress rainfall in the Central U.S. This trending pattern shows similarity with the progression of the 2012 record drought

    Property as Institutions for Resources: Lessons from and for IP

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    The idea of property in land as the paradigm case of property exercises despotic dominion over property thinking. From the perspective of evolving political economy, however, a land-centric model of property makes very little sense. Property institutions coordinate access to resources, and so it is reasonable to expect them to differ in ways that respond to the characteristics of those resources. The debate about whether intellectual property (IP) is property is instructive. IP scholars have pursued the property debate using a conceptual framework derived from common law real property doctrines and organized around the practical and theoretical problems associated with property rights in land, but the resources at the center of debates about the appropriate extent of IP-rightholder control could not be more different from land. Intellectual resources are routinely sliced and diced, aggregated and fractionated, used and reused, in ways that land is not and could not be. This might mean that IP is not property, as some have argued, or it might mean that we have outgrown the monolithic, land-centric model — that in the postindustrial era of wealth production, the cosmology of property can no longer place terra firma at the center. This Article develops an account of property as a set of resource-dependent legal institutions characterized by overlapping sets of family resemblances and then reconsiders the IP question. Property in intellectual goods resembles property in land in some respects, property in natural resources in other respects, property in corporations in others, and property in intangible financial instruments in still others, but also systematically diverges from each of those other forms of property. Legal institutions for IP must accommodate four important points of divergence: the different incentives of creators and intermediaries; the variety of ways in which intellectual goods are produced; the central importance of intermediation within IP ecologies; and the widespread use of licensing to delineate rights and obligations

    Central America and the Caribbean

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    Título del documento: State of the climate in 2015. Dentro del archivo completo se encontra el apartado correspondiente a Central America and the Caribbean.This chapter provides summaries of the 2015 temperature and precipitation conditions across seven broad regions: North America, Central America and the Caribbean, South America, Africa, Europe, Asia, and Oceania. In most cases, summaries of notable weather events are also included. Local scientists provided the annual summary for their respective regions and, unless otherwise noted, the source of the data used is typically the agency affiliated with the authors. Please note that different nations, even within the same section, may use unique periods to define their normals. Section introductions will typically define the prevailing practices for that section, and exceptions will be noted within the text. In a similar way, many contributing authors use languages other than English as their primary professional language. To minimize additional loss of fidelity through reinterpretation after translation, editors have been conservative and careful to preserve the voice of the author. In some cases, this may result in abrupt transitions in style from section to section.U.S. Department of Energy/[DE-AC05-76RLO1830]//Estados UnidosUCR::Vicerrectoría de Investigación::Unidades de Investigación::Ciencias Básicas::Centro de Investigaciones Geofísicas (CIGEFI

    Meridional Overturning Circulation Observations in the Subtropical North Atlantic

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    Large-scale climate patterns influenced temperature and weather patterns around the globe in 2011. In particular, a moderate-to-strong La Niña at the beginning of the year dissipated during boreal spring but reemerged during fall. The phenomenon contributed to historical droughts in East Africa, the southern United States, and northern Mexico, as well the wettest two-year period (2010-11) on record for Australia, particularly remarkable as this follows a decade-long dry period. Precipitation patterns in South America were also influenced by La Niña. Heavy rain in Rio de Janeiro in January triggered the country's worst floods and landslides in Brazil's history. The 2011 combined average temperature across global land and ocean surfaces was the coolest since 2008, but was also among the 15 warmest years on record and above the 1981-2010 average. The global sea surface temperature cooled by 0.1°C from 2010 to 2011, associated with cooling influences of La Niña. Global integrals of upper ocean heat content for 2011 were higher than for all prior years, demonstrating the Earth's dominant role of the oceans in the Earth's energy budget. In the upper atmosphere, tropical stratospheric temperatures were anomalously warm, while polar temperatures were anomalously cold. This led to large springtime stratospheric ozone reductions in polar latitudes in both hemispheres. Ozone concentrations in the Arctic stratosphere during March were the lowest for that period since satellite records began in 1979. An extensive, deep, and persistent ozone hole over the Antarctic in September indicates that the recovery to pre-1980 conditions is proceeding very slowly. Atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations increased by 2.10 ppm in 2011, and exceeded 390 ppm for the first time since instrumental records began. Other greenhouse gases also continued to rise in concentration and the combined effect now represents a 30% increase in radiative forcing over a 1990 baseline. Most ozone depleting substances continued to fall. The global net ocean carbon dioxide uptake for the 2010 transition period from El Niño to La Niña, the most recent period for which analyzed data are available, was estimated to be 1.30 Pg C yr-1, almost 12% below the 29-year long-term average. Relative to the long-term trend, global sea level dropped noticeably in mid-2010 and reached a local minimum in 2011. The drop has been linked to the La Nina conditions that prevailed throughout much of 2010-11. Global sea level increased sharply during the second half of 2011. Global tropical cyclone activity during 2011 was wellbelow average, with a total of 74 storms compared with the 1981-2010 average of 89. Similar to 2010, the North Atlantic was the only basin that experienced abovenormal activity. For the first year since the widespread introduction of the Dvorak intensity-estimation method in the 1980s, only three tropical cyclones reached Category 5 intensity level-all in the Northwest Pacific basin. The Arctic continued to warm at about twice the rate compared with lower latitudes. Below-normal summer snowfall, a decreasing trend in surface albedo, and aboveaverage surface and upper air temperatures resulted in a continued pattern of extreme surface melting, and net snow and ice loss on the Greenland ice sheet. Warmerthan- normal temperatures over the Eurasian Arctic in spring resulted in a new record-low June snow cover extent and spring snow cover duration in this region. In the Canadian Arctic, the mass loss from glaciers and ice caps was the greatest since GRACE measurements began in 2002, continuing a negative trend that began in 1987. New record high temperatures occurred at 20 m below the land surface at all permafrost observatories on the North Slope of Alaska, where measurements began in the late 1970s. Arctic sea ice extent in September 2011 was the second-lowest on record, while the extent of old ice (four and five years) reached a new record minimum that was just 19% of normal. On the opposite pole, austral winter and spring temperatures were more than 3°C above normal over much of the Antarctic continent. However, winter temperatures were below normal in the northern Antarctic Peninsula, which continued the downward trend there during the last 15 years. In summer, an all-time record high temperature of -12.3°C was set at the South Pole station on 25 December, exceeding the previous record by more than a full degree. Antarctic sea ice extent anomalies increased steadily through much of the year, from briefly setting a record low in April, to well above average in December. The latter trend reflects the dispersive effects of low pressure on sea ice and the generally cool conditions around the Antarctic perimeter. © 2012 American Meteorological Society
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