Sedimentation and subsidence history of the Lomonosov Ridge

During the first scientific ocean drilling expedition to the Arctic Ocean (Arctic Coring Expedition [ACEX]; Integrated Ocean Drilling Program Expedition 302), four sites were drilled and cored atop the central part of the Lomonosov Ridge in the Arctic Ocean at ~88°N, 140°E (see Fig. F18 in the "Sites M0001–M0004" chapter). The ridge was rifted from the Eurasian continental margin at ~57 Ma (Fig. F1) (Jokat et al., 1992, 1995). Since the rifting event and the concurrent tilting and erosion of this sliver of the outer continental margin, the Lomonosov Ridge subsided while hemipelagic and pelagic sediments were deposited above the angular rifting unconformity (see Fig. F7A in the "Sites M0001–M0004" chapter).The sections recovered from the four sites drilled during Expedition 302 can be correlated using their seismic signature, physical properties (porosity, magnetic susceptibility, resistivity, and P-wave velocity), chemostratigraphy (ammonia content of pore waters), lithostratigraphy, and biostratigraphy. The lithostratigraphy of the composite section combined with biostratigraphy provides an insight into the complex history of deposition, erosion, and preservation of the biogenic fraction. Eventually, the ridge subsided to its present water depth as it drifted from the Eurasian margin. In this chapter, we compare a simple model of subsidence history with the sedimentary record recovered from atop the ridge

Expedition 302 geophysics: integrating past data with new results

In preparation for IODP Expedition 302, Arctic Coring Expedition (ACEX), a site survey database comprising geophysical and geological data from the Lomonosov Ridge was compiled. The accumulated database includes data collected from ice islands, icebreakers, and submarines from 1961 to 2001. In addition, seismic reflection profiles were collected during Expedition 302 that complement the existing seismic reflection data and facilitate integration between the acoustic stratigraphy and the Expedition 302 drill cores. An overview of these data is presented in this chapter.It is well recognized that collecting geophysical data in ice-covered seas, in particular the Arctic Ocean, is a challenging endeavor. This is because much of the Arctic Ocean is continuously covered with ice thicknesses that vary from 1 to 6 m. Over the continental shelves, sea ice can be absent during summer months, but it is present year-round in the central basins. This ice cover is the most dominant feature of the Arctic Ocean environment. It circulates in the ocean basin in two main circulation patterns: the Transpolar Drift and the Beaufort Gyre (see the "Expedition 302 summary" chapter; Rudels et al., 1996).Expedition 302 sites are located within the less severe of these two ice circulation systems, the Transpolar Drift, which primarily moves sea ice from the shelves where it is formed (the Laptev and East Siberian Seas) across the basin and exits through the Fram Strait. During late summer, concentrations of Arctic sea ice can be <100% (10/10 ice cover), making it possible for icebreakers to operate. Average ice concentrations in the central Arctic Ocean during summer months can locally vary from partially open water (6/10) to completely ice covered (10/10). This sea-ice cover can move at speeds up to 0.5 kt.Early Arctic Ocean geophysical exploration was performed from ice-drift stations (Weber and Roots, 1990). However, the tracks from these drifting ice stations were controlled "by the whims of nature" (Jackson et al., 1990), preventing detailed, systematic surveys of predetermined target areas. These ice-drift stations were set up on stable icebergs that were trapped in sea ice and moved generally with the large drift patterns, but locally they were erratic, so preselected locations could not be surveyed. In the late 1980s, single icebreakers began to be used for oceanographic survey work in the Arctic Ocean. Between 1991 and 2001, four scientific icebreaker expeditions to the Lomonosov Ridge took place. These cruises all experienced local sea-ice conditions varying between 8/10 and 10/10. During these expeditions, towed geophysical equipment was occasionally damaged or lost, either because of a rapidly closing wake caused by local ice pressure or because ice had cut the air gun array.Conventionally powered icebreakers reached as far as the North Pole for the first time during the 1991 Expedition (Andersen and Carlsonn, 1992; Fütterer, 1992). Geophysical results from this expedition collected two important reflection profiles, AWI-91090 and AWI-91091, that crossed the Lomonosov Ridge between 87° and 88°N. These profiles imaged a ~450 m thick, well-stratified and apparently undisturbed drape of sediments overlying a prominent acoustic unconformity (Jokat et al., 1992) that spawned the idea to conduct a paleoceanographic drilling expedition to this Ridge.The use of US Navy nuclear submarines for geophysical mapping was implemented through the Science Ice Exercise program (SCICEX) (Newton, 2000). The development of the Seafloor Characterization and Mapping Pods (SCAMP), which hold a Chirp subbottom profiler, swath bathymetric profiler, and side scan sonar, was an essential part of the SCICEX program (Chayes et al., 1996). In 1999, the Lomonosov Ridge geophysical database was augmented with acoustic data acquired during the SCICEX program using the SCAMP system mounted on the US nuclear submarine USS Hawkbill (Edwards and Coakley, 2003)

REFERQUAL: A pilot study of a new service quality assessment instrument in the GP Exercise Referral scheme setting

Background The development of an instrument accurately assessing service quality in the GP Exercise Referral Scheme (ERS) industry could potentially inform scheme organisers of the factors that affect adherence rates leading to the implementation of strategic interventions aimed at reducing client drop-out. Methods A modified version of the SERVQUAL instrument was designed for use in the ERS setting and subsequently piloted amongst 27 ERS clients. Results Test re-test correlations were calculated via Pearson's 'r' or Spearman's 'rho', depending on whether the variables were Normally Distributed, to show a significant (mean r = 0.957, SD = 0.02, p < 0.05; mean rho = 0.934, SD = 0.03, p < 0.05) relationship between all items within the questionnaire. In addition, satisfactory internal consistency was demonstrated via Cronbach's 'α'. Furthermore, clients responded favourably towards the usability, wording and applicability of the instrument's items. Conclusion REFERQUAL is considered to represent promise as a suitable tool for future evaluation of service quality within the ERS community. Future research should further assess the validity and reliability of this instrument through the use of a confirmatory factor analysis to scrutinise the proposed dimensional structure

Adaptation of an Evaluation System for e-Health Environments

Proceedings of: 14th International Conference, KES 2010, Cardiff, UK, September 8-10, 2010The increase in ageing of European population implies a high cost in economy and society in any European country and it can be reduced if we pay attention and develop home care systems. Evaluation of these systems is a critical and challenging issue but seldom tackled. It is important before evaluating a system to figure out what is the evaluation goal. In our case, such a goal is to evaluate enhanced user experience and beyond the evaluation goal it is also a central concern about what to evaluate. In this paper we propose a multi-agent home care system where we describe how agents coordinate their decisions to provide e-services to patients when at home after hospitalization. Finally we center our proposal on the adaptation of an evaluation system, previously developed, to support the challenges of an e-Health environment and also the multi-user evaluation. These evaluation methods (online/offline) will provide user's (patients, patient's relatives and healthcare professionals) feedback into the system.This work was supported in part by Projects CICYT TIN2008-06742-C02-02/ TSI, CICYT TEC2008-06732-C02-02/TEC, CAM CONTEXTS (S2009/ TIC-1485) and DPS2008-07029-C02-02.Publicad

On visual pigment templates and the spectral shape of invertebrate rhodopsins and metarhodopsins

The absorbance spectra of visual pigments can be approximated with mathematical expressions using as single parameter the absorbance peak wavelength. A comparison of the formulae of Stavenga et al. in Vision Res 33:1011–1017 (1993) and Govardovskii et al. in Vis Neurosci 17:509–528 (2000) applied to a number of invertebrate rhodopsins reveals that both templates well describe the normalized α-band of rhodopsins with peak wavelength > 400 nm; the template spectra are virtually indistinguishable in an absorbance range of about three log units. The template formulae of Govardovskii et al. in Vis Neurosci 17:509–528 (2000) describe the rhodopsin spectra better for absorbances below 10−3. The template predicted spectra deviate in the ultraviolet wavelength range from each other as well as from measured spectra, preventing a definite conclusion about the spectral shape in the wavelength range <400 nm. The metarhodopsin spectra of blowfly and fruitfly R1-6 photoreceptors derived from measured data appear to be virtually identical. The established templates describe the spectral shape of fly metarhodopsin reasonably well. However, the best fitting template spectrum slightly deviates from the experimental spectra near the peak and in the long-wavelength tail. Improved formulae for fitting the fly metarhodopsin spectra are proposed

Punctuated Chirality

Most biomolecules occur in mirror, or chiral, images of each other. However, life is homochiral: proteins contain almost exclusively levorotatory (L) amino acids, while only dextrorotatory (R) sugars appear in RNA and DNA. The mechanism behind this fundamental asymmetry of life remains an open problem. Coupling the spatiotemporal evolution of a general autocatalytic polymerization reaction network to external environmental effects, we show through a detailed statistical analysis that high intensity and long duration events may drive achiral initial conditions towards chirality. We argue that life's homochirality resulted from sequential chiral symmetry breaking triggered by environmental events, thus extending the theory of punctuated equilibrium to the prebiotic realm. Applying our arguments to other potentially life-bearing planetary platforms, we predict that a statistically representative sampling will be racemic on average.Comment: 13 pages, 4 color figures. Final version published in Origins of Life and Evolution of Biospheres. Typos corrected, figures improved, and a few definitions and word usage clarifie

Reductions in cardiovascular, cerebrovascular, and respiratory mortality following the national Irish smoking ban: Interrupted time-series analysis

Copyright @ 2013 Stallings-Smith et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.This article has been made available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund.Background: Previous studies have shown decreases in cardiovascular mortality following the implementation of comprehensive smoking bans. It is not known whether cerebrovascular or respiratory mortality decreases post-ban. On March 29, 2004, the Republic of Ireland became the first country in the world to implement a national workplace smoking ban. The aim of this study was to assess the effect of this policy on all-cause and cause-specific, non-trauma mortality. Methods: A time-series epidemiologic assessment was conducted, utilizing Poisson regression to examine weekly age and gender-standardized rates for 215,878 non-trauma deaths in the Irish population, ages ≥35 years. The study period was from January 1, 2000, to December 31, 2007, with a post-ban follow-up of 3.75 years. All models were adjusted for time trend, season, influenza, and smoking prevalence. Results: Following ban implementation, an immediate 13% decrease in all-cause mortality (RR: 0.87; 95% CI: 0.76-0.99), a 26% reduction in ischemic heart disease (IHD) (RR: 0.74; 95% CI: 0.63-0.88), a 32% reduction in stroke (RR: 0.68; 95% CI: 0.54-0.85), and a 38% reduction in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) (RR: 0.62; 95% CI: 0.46-0.83) mortality was observed. Post-ban reductions in IHD, stroke, and COPD mortalities were seen in ages ≥65 years, but not in ages 35-64 years. COPD mortality reductions were found only in females (RR: 0.47; 95% CI: 0.32-0.70). Post-ban annual trend reductions were not detected for any smoking-related causes of death. Unadjusted estimates indicate that 3,726 (95% CI: 2,305-4,629) smoking-related deaths were likely prevented post-ban. Mortality decreases were primarily due to reductions in passive smoking. Conclusions: The national Irish smoking ban was associated with immediate reductions in early mortality. Importantly, post-ban risk differences did not change with a longer follow-up period. This study corroborates previous evidence for cardiovascular causes, and is the first to demonstrate reductions in cerebrovascular and respiratory causes

Recommendation of an integrated index for the quality of educational services using multivariate statistics

In this work, the analysis of the surveys was carried out through a factorial analysis, which facilitates the evaluation of the validity of the selected construct for the case under study, as well as evaluating the quality of the service for each factor, with a view to determining the level of quality of the educational service, for which it integrates elements of descriptive and multivariate statistics with the management of the quality of the educational service. They are used as fundamental statistical techniques, descriptive analysis, factor analysis and analysis of variance. As a final result, it was concluded that the students of five UNITEC careers evaluated the educational service they receive as very satisfactory (4 points), highlighting the tangible elements as the most weighted factor. A significant aspect is that there are no significant differences in the perceptions of students from different careers and different sections

Chiral Polymerization in Open Systems From Chiral-Selective Reaction Rates

We investigate the possibility that prebiotic homochirality can be achieved exclusively through chiral-selective reaction rate parameters without any other explicit mechanism for chiral bias. Specifically, we examine an open network of polymerization reactions, where the reaction rates can have chiral-selective values. The reactions are neither autocatalytic nor do they contain explicit enantiomeric cross-inhibition terms. We are thus investigating how rare a set of chiral-selective reaction rates needs to be in order to generate a reasonable amount of chiral bias. We quantify our results adopting a statistical approach: varying both the mean value and the rms dispersion of the relevant reaction rates, we show that moderate to high levels of chiral excess can be achieved with fairly small chiral bias, below 10%. Considering the various unknowns related to prebiotic chemical networks in early Earth and the dependence of reaction rates to environmental properties such as temperature and pressure variations, we argue that homochirality could have been achieved from moderate amounts of chiral selectivity in the reaction rates.Comment: 15 pages, 6 figures, accepted for publication in Origins of Life and Evolution of Biosphere