Acoustic Scattering from Mud Volcanoes and Carbonate Mounts

Submarine mud volcanoes occur in many parts of the world’s oceans and form an aperture for gas and fluidized mud emission from within the earth’s crust. Their characteristics are of considerable interest to the geology, geophysics, geochemistry, and underwater acoustics communities. For the latter, mud volcanoes are of interest in part because they pose a potential source of clutter for active sonar. Close-range (single-interaction) scattering measurements from a mud volcano in the Straits of Sicily show scattering10–15dB above the background. Three hypotheses were examined concerning the scattering mechanism: (1) gas entrained in sediment at/near mud volcano, (2) gas bubbles and/or particulates (emitted) in the water column, (3) the carbonate bio-construction covering the mud volcano edifice. The experimental evidence, including visual, acoustic, and nonacoustic sensors, rules out the second hypothesis (at least during the observation time) and suggests that, for this particular mud volcano the dominant mechanism is associated with carbonate chimneys on the mud volcano. In terms of scattering levels, target strengths of 4–14dB were observed from 800to3600Hz for a monostatic geometry with grazing angles of 3–5°. Similar target strengths were measured for vertically bistatic paths with incident and scattered grazing angles of 3–5° and 33–50°, respectively

Analysis of Exhumed Skull of Marilyn Sheppard

Expert report on the exhumed skull of Marilyn Sheppard sent from forensic anthropologist Thomas Holland to Prosecutor William Mason. Dr. Holland examined the condition of the bones and the fractures, concluding that it was the skull of a young, Caucasian female who had experienced blunt force trauma to the face, forehead, and right side of the head. However plaster of Paris inserted into the cranial cavity by the mortuary at the time of embalming and the absence of several frontal bone pieces made Holland unable to accurately determine the number of impact sites on the skull

Error analysis of Dobson spectrophotometer measurements of the total ozone content

A study of techniques for measuring atmospheric ozone is reported. This study represents the second phase of a program designed to improve techniques for the measurement of atmospheric ozone. This phase of the program studied the sensitivity of Dobson direct sun measurements and the ozone amounts inferred from those measurements to variation in the atmospheric temperature profile. The study used the plane - parallel Monte-Carlo model developed and tested under the initial phase of this program, and a series of standard model atmospheres

Partnerships and Innovations-DPAA

https://digitalcommons.cwu.edu/sdfrancisco_documents/1014/thumbnail.jp

Partitioning Method for Emergent Behavior Systems Modeled by Agent-Based Simulations

Used to describe some interesting and usually unanticipated pattern or behavior, the term emergence is often associated with time-evolutionary systems comprised of relatively large numbers of interacting yet simple entities. A significant amount of previous research has recognized the emergence phenomena in many real-world applications such as collaborative robotics, supply chain analysis, social science, economics and ecology. As improvements in computational technologies combined with new modeling paradigms allow the simulation of ever more dynamic and complex systems, the generation of data from simulations of these systems can provide data to explore the phenomena of emergence. To explore some of the modeling implications of systems where emergent phenomena tend to dominate, this research examines three simulations based on familiar natural systems where each is readily recognized as exhibiting emergent phenomena. To facilitate this exploration, a taxonomy of Emergent Behavior Systems (EBS) is developed and a modeling formalism consisting of an EBS lexicon and a formal specification for models of EBS is synthesized from the long history of theories and observations concerning emergence. This modeling formalism is applied to each of the systems and then each is simulated using an agent-based modeling framework. To develop quantifiable measures, associations are asserted: 1) between agent-based models of EBS and graph-theoretical methods, 2) with respect to the formation of relationships between entities comprising a system and 3) concerning the change in uncertainty of organization as the system evolves. These associations form the basis for three measurements related to the information flow, entity complexity, and spatial entropy of the simulated systems. These measurements are used to: 1) detect the existence of emergence and 2) differentiate amongst the three systems. The results suggest that the taxonomy and formal specification developed provide a workable, simulation-centric definition of emergent behavior systems consistent with both historical concepts concerning the emergence phenomena and modern ideas in complexity science. Furthermore, the results support a structured approach to modeling these systems using agent-based methods and offers quantitative measures useful for characterizing the emergence phenomena in the simulations

Deposition of Dr. Thomas D. Holland

Deposition of Dr. Thomas D. Holland, forensic anthropologist and Scientific Director of the U.S. Army Central Identification Laboratory in Honolulu, Hawaii. Terry H. Gilbert appeared for the Plantiff and Assistant Prosecutor Dean Boland represented the Defendant. Deposition was taken in Honolulu, with examination occurring via telephone