The annual variation of water mass structure in the Gulf of Maine: 1986-1987

The annual variation in the structure and disposition of the principal water masses in the Gulf of Maine has been investigated with a set of water property observations using five shipboard surveys and four moored arrays with data telemetry. The time series observations document the cooling-induced destratification of the upper water column during autumn and the subsequent mixed-layer deepening in the western Gulf—primarily in Wilkinson Basin— during winter 1987. Unusually large amounts of fresher Scotian Shelf Water inflow inhibited winter 1987 vertical mixing in the eastern Gulf relative to the deep mixing in and around Wilkinson Basin in the western Gulf. The net result of these processes was a 1987 Gulf that was colder and fresher than the 1986 Gulf. Detailed histories of the thicknesses of the principal water masses in the Gulf—namely, Maine Surface Water, Maine Intermediate Water, and Maine Bottom Water—at the mooring sites reveal the early summer progression of Slope and Bottom Water from the Northeast Channel to Georges Basin and on to Jordan Basin. Maine Intermediate Water made up nearly 50% of the entire volume of the Gulf in early spring 1987. During the summer, Maine Intermediate Water in the eastern Gulf was replaced by a warmer water mass we call Summer Intermediate Water. A spring-summer 1987 sequence of CTD-derived water mass distribution maps documents (1) the retreat of Maine Intermediate Water into Wilkinson Basin, (2) the westward spread of Summer Intermediate Water, and (3) the inflow of Slope Water. A simple water mass conservation model indicates that 72% of the Maine Intermediate Water loss flows out of the observation domain at a rate of 0.21 × 106 m3/s, while the other 28% contributes, through mixing with Surface Water and Bottom Water in the eastern Gulf, to the production of Summer Intermediate Water. The combined inflow of Slope Water (0.11 × 106 m3/s), Bottom Water (0.03 × 106 m3/s), and Summer Intermediate Water (0.07 × 106 m3/s) appears to have balanced the April-July outflow of Maine Intermediate Water

Responding to Sea Level Rise: Does Short-Term Risk Reduction Inhibit Successful Long-Term Adaptation?

Most existing coastal climate-adaptation planning processes, and the research supporting them, tightly focus on how to use land use planning, policy tools, and infrastructure spending to reduce risks from rising seas and changing storm conditions. While central to community response to sea level rise, we argue that the exclusive nature of this focus biases against and delays decisions to take more discontinuous, yet proactive, actions to adapt—for example, relocation and aggressive individual protection investments. Public policies should anticipate real estate market responses to risk reduction to avoid large costs—social and financial—when and if sea level rise and other climate-related factors elevate the risks to such high levels that discontinuous responses become the least bad alternative

New broadband methods for resonance classification and high-resolution imagery of fish with swimbladders using a modified commercial broadband echosounder

© 2010 The Authors. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial License. The definitive version was published in ICES Journal of Marine Science: Journal du Conseil 67 (2010): 365-378, doi:10.1093/icesjms/fsp262.A commercial acoustic system, originally designed for seafloor applications, has been adapted for studying fish with swimbladders. The towed system contains broadband acoustic channels collectively spanning the frequency range 1.7–100 kHz, with some gaps. Using a pulse-compression technique, the range resolution of the echoes is ~20 and 3 cm in the lower and upper ranges of the frequencies, respectively, allowing high-resolution imaging of patches and resolving fish near the seafloor. Measuring the swimbladder resonance at the lower frequencies eliminates major ambiguities normally associated with the interpretation of fish echo data: (i) the resonance frequency can be used to estimate the volume of the swimbladder (inferring the size of fish), and (ii) signals at the lower frequencies do not depend strongly on the orientation of the fish. At-sea studies of Atlantic herring demonstrate the potential for routine measurements of fish size and density, with significant improvements in accuracy over traditional high-frequency narrowband echosounders. The system also detected patches of scatterers, presumably zooplankton, at the higher frequencies. New techniques for quantitative use of broadband systems are presented, including broadband calibration and relating target strength and volume-scattering strength to quantities associated with broadband signal processing.The research was supported by the US Office of Naval Research, grants number N00014-04-1-0440 and N00014-04-1-0475, NOAA/CICOR cooperative agreement NA17RJ1223, NOAA/ National Marine Fisheries Service, and the J. Seward Johnson Chair of the WHOI Academic Programs Office

Dynamics of a two-level system strongly coupled to a high-frequency quantum oscillator

Recent experiments on quantum behavior in microfabricated solid-state systems suggest tantalizing connections to quantum optics. Several of these experiments address the prototypical problem of cavity quantum electrodynamics: a two-level system coupled to a quantum harmonic oscillator. Such devices may allow the exploration of parameter regimes outside the near-resonance and weak-coupling assumptions of the ubiquitous rotating-wave approximation (RWA), necessitating other theoretical approaches. One such approach is an adiabatic approximation in the limit that the oscillator frequency is much larger than the characteristic frequency of the two-level system. A derivation of the approximation is presented and the time evolution of the two-level-system occupation probability is calculated using both thermal- and coherent-state initial conditions for the oscillator. Closed-form evaluation of the time evolution in the weak-coupling limit provides insight into the differences between the thermal- and coherent-state models. Finally, potential experimental observations in solid-state systems, particularly the Cooper-pair box--nanomechanical resonator system, are discussed and found to be promising.Comment: 16 pages, 11 figures; revised abstract; some text revisions; added two figures and combined others; added references. Submitted to Phys. Rev.

How Can Every Organization Manage the Operational Risk?

This article describe how every organization (generally) and Australian Organizations (specifically) can manage the operational risks. Recently, the operational risks are the significant issues in every organization because every organization will suffer from poor operational performance due to risks, failure, and problems such as a number of losses which are likely to be made worse. Basically, the operational risk management process has five steps, identification, analysis, treatment, controlling, and communication/consulting. Generally, many organizations (in particularly in Australia and New Zealand) have already used AS/NZS 4360-Risk Management System, AS/NZS 4801-Occupational Health and Safety Management System, ISO 14001: Effective Environmental Management System, ISO 9001: Quality Management System, AS/NZS 7799: Information Security Management, AS/NZS 3806: Compliance Management System for reducing/mitigating/managing the operational risks. Based on the SAI Certification Register, the number of Australian Organizations got the AS/NZS ISO 9000 series, AS/NZS 14000 series, AS/NZS 4801 and AS/NZS 7799.2:2000 Certifications are 3338, 30, 20 and 5 respectively. It can conclude that Australian Organizations prefer used AS/NZS ISO 9000 series rather than AS/NZS ISO 14000 series, AS/NZS 4801 and AS/NZS 7799.2:2000

Analysis of Advantages and Disadvantages of Current Operational Risk Management Models (AS/NZS 4360, AS/NZS ISO 9000, AS/NZS ISO 14000, AS/NZS 4801, AS/NZS 3806, AS/NZS 4444)

This paper will describe about the analysis of advantages and disadvantages of current operational risk management models (AS/NZS 4360: Risk Management, AS/NZS 4801: Occupational Health and Safety Management Systems, AS/NZS ISO 9001: Quality Management System, AS/NZS ISO 14001: Environment Management System, AS/NZS 3806: Compliance Management System, AS/NZS 4444: Information Security Management) based on expert experiences and extracting the literature review. The advantages of most current models are widely adopted by industries of various of sizes as the basis for their operational risk management. In addition, they may help the organizations to improve the operations and competitiveness. However, there are some disadvantages of most current models such as the models are very general (guidance only), not specific to cover particular risks of industries. And they don\u27t have the specific tools and processes. In addition, they may not be able to integrate all elements of the management systems such as safety, health, environment, quality, security, and compliance

Temporal and spatial dynamics of CO2 air-sea flux in the Gulf of Maine

Ocean surface layer carbon dioxide (CO2) data collected in the Gulf of Maine from 2004 to 2008 are presented. Monthly shipboard observations are combined with additional higher‐resolution CO2 observations to characterize CO2 fugacity ( fCO2) and CO2 flux over hourly to interannual time scales. Observed fCO2 andCO2 flux dynamics are dominated by a seasonal cycle, with a large spring influx of CO2 and a fall‐to‐winter efflux back to the atmosphere. The temporal results at inner, middle, and outer shelf locations are highly correlated, and observed spatial variability is generally small relative to the monthly to seasonal temporal changes. The averaged annual flux is in near balance and is a net source of carbon to the atmosphere over 5 years, with a value of +0.38 mol m−2 yr−1. However, moderate interannual variation is also observed, where years 2005 and 2007 represent cases of regional source (+0.71) and sink (−0.11) anomalies. We use moored daily CO2 measurements to quantify aliasing due to temporal undersampling, an important error budget term that is typically unresolved. The uncertainty of our derived annual flux measurement is ±0.26 mol m−2 yr−1 and is dominated by this aliasing term. Comparison of results to the neighboring Middle and South Atlantic Bight coastal shelf systems indicates that the Gulf of Maine exhibits a similar annual cycle and range of oceanic fCO2 magnitude but differs in the seasonal phase. It also differs by enhanced fCO2 controls by factors other than temperature‐driven solubility, including biological drawdown, fall‐to‐winter vertical mixing, and river runoff

Do dental nonmetric traits actually work as proxies for neutral genomic data? Some answers from continental- and global-level analyses

Objectives: Crown and root traits, like those in the Arizona State University Dental Anthropology System (ASUDAS), are seemingly useful as genetic proxies. However, recent studies report mixed results concerning their heritability, and ability to assess variation to the level of genomic data. The aim is to test further if such traits can approximate genetic relatedness, among continental and global samples. Materials and Methods: First, for 12 African populations, Mantel correlations were calculated between mean measure of divergence (MMD) distances from up to 36 ASUDAS traits, and FST distances from >350,000 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) among matched dental and genetic samples. Second, among 32 global samples, MMD and FST distances were again compared. Correlations were also calculated between them and inter-sample geographic distances to further evaluate correspondence. Results: A close ASUDAS/SNP association, based on MMD and FST correlations, is evident, with rm-values between .72 globally and .84 in Africa. The same is true concerning their association with geographic distances, from .68 for a 36-trait African MMD to .77 for FST globally; one exception is FST and African geographic distances, rm = 0.49. Partial MMD/FST correlations controlling for geographic distances are strong for Africa (.78) and moderate globally (.4). Discussion: Relative to prior studies, MMD/FST correlations imply greater dental and genetic correspondence; for studies allowing direct comparison, the present correlations are markedly stronger. The implication is that ASUDAS traits are reliable proxies for genetic data—a positive conclusion, meaning they can be used with or instead of genomic markers when the latter are unavailable

A prospective randomized trial comparing sequential ganciclovir-high dose acyclovir to high dose acyclovir for prevention of cytomegalovirus disease in adult liver transplant recipients

Cytomegalovirus disease is an important cause of morbidity following liver transplantation. To date there has not been an effective prophylaxis for CMV disease after liver transplantation. One hundred forty-three patients were randomized to receive either high dose oral acyclovir (800 mg 4 times a day) alone for 3 months after transplantation (acyclovir group) or intravenous ganciclovir (5 mg/kg twice a day) for 14 days followed by high dose oral acyclovir to complete a 3-month regimen (ganciclovir group). Of 139 patients available for evaluation, 43 of 71 (61%) patients from the acyclovir group developed CMV infection compared with 16 of 68 (24%) from the ganciclovir group (relative risk, 3.69; 95% confidence interval, 2.07-6.56; PcO.OOOOl). Of those randomized, CMV disease was seen in 20 (28%) of the acyclovir group compared with 6 (9%) of the ganciclovir group (relative risk, 5.11; 95% confidence interval, 2.05-12.75; P=0.0001). The median time to onset of CMV infection was 45 days in the acyclovir group compared with 78 days in the ganciclovir group (P=0.004). The median time to onset of CMV disease was 40 days in the acyclovir group compared with 78 days in the ganciclovir patients (P=0.02). With respect to primary CMV infection, there was no difference in the rates in the 2 groups, but tissue invasive disease and recurrent CMV disease were less frequent in the ganciclovir group. It is concluded that a course of 2 weeks of ganciclovir immediately after transplantation followed by high dose oral acyclovir for 10 weeks is superior to a 12-week course of high dose oral acyclovir alone for prevention of both CMV infection and CMV disease after liver transplantation. However, the lack of significant effect in seronegative recipients who received grafts from seropositive donors suggests that other strategies are needed to prevent CMV infection in this high risk population. © 1994 by Williams & Wilkins