Issues in Forest Restoration: Full Cost Accounting of the 2010 Schultz Fire

The Schultz Fire of 2010 burned just over 15,000 forested acres and caused the evacuation of hundreds of homes. Heavy floods followed the fire, resulting in extensive damage to property downstream from the charred hillsides. Nearly three years later, seasonal flooding is still a concern and residents continue to live under the threat of swift floodwaters that may carve unanticipated pathways through their sloping neighborhoods. Official reports form city, county, state, and federal governments have listed response and mitigation costs of the fire and flood at nearly $60 million. This study adds to those costs, exploring the impacts on private property owners, as well as societal costs that are often overlooked when quantifying the full impact of disasters. Through analysis of Coconino County Assessor’s records, a survey of residents in the fire/flood impact area, and the perceived value of both endangered species habitat and human life, this study conservatively estimates the total impact of the Schultz Fire at between$133 million and $147 million

Introduction to HOBIT, a b-Jet Identification Tagger at the CDF Experiment Optimized for Light Higgs Boson Searches

We present the development and validation of the Higgs Optimized b Identification Tagger (HOBIT), a multivariate b-jet identification algorithm optimized for Higgs boson searches at the CDF experiment at the Fermilab Tevatron. At collider experiments, b taggers allow one to distinguish particle jets containing B hadrons from other jets; these algorithms have been used for many years with great success at CDF. HOBIT has been designed specifically for use in searches for light Higgs bosons decaying via H ! b\bar{b}. This fact combined with the extent to which HOBIT synthesizes and extends the best ideas of previous taggers makes HOBIT unique among CDF b-tagging algorithms. Employing feed-forward neural network architectures, HOBIT provides an output value ranging from approximately -1 ("light-jet like") to 1 ("b-jet like"); this continuous output value has been tuned to provide maximum sensitivity in light Higgs boson search analyses. When tuned to the equivalent light jet rejection rate, HOBIT tags 54% of b jets in simulated 120 GeV/c2 Higgs boson events compared to 39% for SecVtx, the most commonly used b tagger at CDF. We present features of the tagger as well as its characterization in the form of b-jet finding efficiencies and false (light-jet) tag rates.Comment: 40 pages, 16 figue

A digital long pulse integrator

A prototype digital integrator with very long integration capabilities has been developed and field tested on an inductive magnetic sensor on the DIII-D Tokamak. The integrator is being developed for use on ITER with a pulse length of 1000 s, and has direct applications for other long pulse Tokamaks. Inductive magnetic sensors are routinely used on existing Tokamaks, are well understood, and are extremely robust, however, they require integration of the signal to determine the magnetic field strength. The next generation of Tokamaks, will have pulse lengths of 1000 s or longer, require integrators with drift and noise characteristics compatible with the very long pulse lengths. This paper will discuss the architecture, algorithms, and programming of the Long Pulse Integrator (LPI). Of particular interest are the noise control and the built-in offset correction techniques used in this application

Coordinated induction of cell survival signaling in the inflamed microenvironment of the prostate

PURPOSE: Both prostate cancer and benign prostatic hyperplasia are associated with inflammatory microenvironments. Inflammation is damaging to tissues, but it is unclear how the inflammatory microenvironment protects specialized epithelial cells that function to proliferate and repair the tissue. The objective of this study is to characterize the cell death and cell survival response of the prostatic epithelium in response to inflammation. METHODS: We assessed induction of cell death (TNF, TRAIL, TWEAK, FasL) and cell survival factors (IGFs, hedgehogs, IL-6, FGFs, and TGFs) in inflamed and control mouse prostates by ELISA. Cell death mechanisms were determined by immunoblotting and immunofluorescence for cleavage of caspases and TUNEL. Survival pathway activation was assessed by immunoblotting and immunofluorescence for Mcl-1, Bcl-2, Bcl-XL, and survivin. Autophagy was determined by immunoblotting and immunofluorescence for free and membrane associated light chain 3 (LC-3). RESULTS: Cleavage of all four caspases was significantly increased during the first 2 days of inflammation, and survival protein expression was substantially increased subsequently, maximizing at 3 days. By 5 days of inflammation, 50% of prostatic epithelial cells expressed survivin. Autophagy was also evident during the recovery phase (3 days). Finally, immunofluorescent staining of human specimens indicates strong activation of survival proteins juxtaposed to inflammation in inflamed prostate specimens. CONCLUSIONS: The prostate responds to deleterious inflammation with induction of cell survival mechanisms, most notably survivin and autophagy, demonstrating a coordinated induction of survival factors that protects and expands a specialized set of prostatic epithelial cells as part of the repair and recovery process during inflammation

Optical and Infrared Photometry of the Unusual Type Ia Supernova 2000cx

We present optical and infrared photometry of the unusual Type Ia supernova 2000cx. With the data of Li et al. (2001) and Jha (2002), this comprises the largest dataset ever assembled for a Type Ia SN, more than 600 points in UBVRIJHK. We confirm the finding of Li et al. regarding the unusually blue B-V colors as SN 2000cx entered the nebular phase. Its I-band secondary hump was extremely weak given its B-band decline rate. The V minus near infrared colors likewise do not match loci based on other slowly declining Type Ia SNe, though V-K is the least ``abnormal''. In several ways SN 2000cx resembles other slow decliners, given its B-band decline rate (Delta m_15(B) = 0.93), the appearance of Fe III lines and weakness of Si II in its pre-maximum spectrum, the V-K colors and post-maximum V-H colors. If the distance modulus derived from Surface Brightness Fluctuations of the host galaxy is correct, we find that the rate of light increase prior to maximum, the characteristics of the bolometric light curve, and the implied absolute magnitude at maximum are all consistent with a sub-luminous object with Delta m_15(B) ~ 1.6-1.7 having a higher than normal kinetic energy.Comment: 46 pages, 17 figures, to be published in Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacifi

Quantized charge transport through a static quantum dot using a surface acoustic wave

We present a detailed study of the surface acoustic wave mediated quantized transport of electrons through a split gate device containing an impurity potential defined quantum dot within the split gate channel. A new regime of quantized transport is observed at low RF powers where the surface acoustic wave amplitude is comparable to the quantum dot charging energy. In this regime resonant transport through the single-electron dot state occurs which we interpret as turnstile-like operation in which the traveling wave amplitude modulates the entrance and exit barriers of the quantum dot in a cyclic fashion at GHz frequencies. For high RF powers, where the amplitude of the surface acoustic wave is much larger than the quantum dot energies, the quantized acoustoelectric current transport shows behavior consistent with previously reported results. However, in this regime, the number of quantized current plateaus observed and the plateau widths are determined by the properties of the quantum dot, demonstrating that the microscopic detail of the potential landscape in the split gate channel has a profound influence on the quantized acoustoelectric current transport.Comment: 9 page

A hybrid digital-analog long pulse integrator

A digital-analog integrator has been developed for use with inductive magnetic sensors in long-pulse tokamaks. Continuous compensation of input offsets is accomplished by alternating analog-to-digital convertor samples from the sensor and a dummy load, while an RC network provides passive integration between samples. Typically a sampling rate of 10 kHz is used. In operational tests on the DIII-D tokamak, digital and analog integration of tokamak data show good agreement. The output drift error during a 1200 s integration interval corresponds to a few percent of the anticipated signal for poloidal field probes in International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), and bench tests suggest that the error can be reduced further

Space-time versus particle-hole symmetry in quantum Enskog equations

The non-local scattering-in and -out integrals of the Enskog equation have reversed displacements of colliding particles reflecting that the -in and -out processes are conjugated by the space and time inversions. Generalisations of the Enskog equation to Fermi liquid systems are hindered by a request of the particle-hole symmetry which contradicts the reversed displacements. We resolve this problem with the help of the optical theorem. It is found that space-time and particle-hole symmetry can only be fulfilled simultaneously for the Bruckner-type of internal Pauli-blocking while the Feynman-Galitskii form allows only for particle-hole symmetry but not for space-time symmetry due to a stimulated emission of Bosons

Plasma mass density, species mix and fluctuation diagnostics using fast Alfven wave

The authors propose to employ a fast Alfven wave interferometer and reflectometer as a tokamak diagnostic to measure the plasma mass density, D-T species mix profile, and density fluctuations. Utilize the property that the phase velocity of the fast wave propagating across the magnetic field is the Alfven speed with thermal correction, this fast wave interferometer on the DIII-D tokamak was successfully used to obtain the line integrated density. Since the position of the ion-ion hybrid cut-off in tokamaks is uniquely determined by the species mix ratio and the wave frequency, the reflectometer arrangement finds the species mix profile. The inversion method of reflectometry is discussed. The multiple chord interferometer also measures the mass density fluctuation profile

The source ambiguity problem: Distinguishing the effects of grammar and processing on acceptability judgments

Judgments of linguistic unacceptability may theoretically arise from either grammatical deviance or significant processing difficulty. Acceptability data are thus naturally ambiguous in theories that explicitly distinguish formal and functional constraints. Here, we consider this source ambiguity problem in the context of Superiority effects: the dispreference for ordering a wh-phrase in front of a syntactically “superior” wh-phrase in multiple wh-questions, e.g., What did who buy? More specifically, we consider the acceptability contrast between such examples and so-called D-linked examples, e.g., Which toys did which parents buy? Evidence from acceptability and self-paced reading experiments demonstrates that (i) judgments and processing times for Superiority violations vary in parallel, as determined by the kind of wh-phrases they contain, (ii) judgments increase with exposure, while processing times decrease, (iii) reading times are highly predictive of acceptability judgments for the same items, and (iv) the effects of the complexity of the wh-phrases combine in both acceptability judgments and reading times. This evidence supports the conclusion that D-linking effects are likely reducible to independently motivated cognitive mechanisms whose effects emerge in a wide range of sentence contexts. This in turn suggests that Superiority effects, in general, may owe their character to differential processing difficulty