3,964 research outputs found
Creating Successful Vernal Pools: A Literature Review and Advice for Practitioners
Vernal pools provide critical breeding habitat for amphibians adapted to temporary waters, but they seldom receive the same level of protection as permanent wetlands. In response to continued degradation and loss of pools, managers often attempt to mitigate losses through pool creation or restoration. However, mitigation efforts often fail to provide suitable aquatic habitat for vernal pool amphibians. We review the literature on pool creation in northeastern and central North America, highlighting how and why constructed pools often fail to support amphibian-related objectives. We recommend that practitioners consider the complex ecology of pool ecosystems and the historical and current distribution of pools and other wetlands in their local context before designing pool mitigation projects. Using vernal pool creation as a mitigation option should be a last resort (i.e., when elimination of natural pools is unavoidable). Monitoring should be target-specific and conducted for at least 5 years. Topographic, geologic, and other local factors affecting pool hydrology and ecology vary regionally; pool creation remains an imperfect science that will only advance by documenting failures and successes. We recommend an adaptive management approach to vernal pool creation in which the effectiveness of techniques is evaluated and refined based on research
Parents, children and the porous boundaries of the sexual family in law and popular culture
This article focuses on a perceived ideological overlap between popular cultural and judicial treatments of sex and conjugality that contributes to a discursive construction of parenthood and parenting. The author perceives that in both legal and popular cultural texts, there is a sense in which notions of ânaturalâ childhood are discursively constituted as being put at risk by those who reproduce outside of dominant sexual norms, and that signs of normative sexuality (typically in the form of heterosexual coupling) may be treated as a sign of safety. These ideas are rooted in ancient associations between fertility, sexuality and femininity that can also be traced in the historical development of the English language. With the help of commentators such as Martha Fineman, the article situates parents and children within a discourse of family which prioritises conjugality, with consequences for the ways in which the internal and external boundaries of families are delineated
Characteristics of Lightning Within Electrified Snowfall Events Using Total Lightning Measurements
No abstract availabl
GPU Accelerated Adaptive Wave Propagation Algorithm
The GPU performance of the adaptive wave propagation algorithm is critical to its effectiveness in simulating wave propagation in complex media. This algorithm employs adaptive mesh refinement to improve resolution in areas where the wavefield is changing rapidly. The algorithm\u27s performance is significantly improved by the use of graphics processing units (GPUs), which offer faster computation times than traditional central processing units (CPUs). According to the studies in this poster, GPU acceleration of the adaptive wave propagation algorithm provides significant improvements in simulation speed and scalability, as seen in the simulated examples: scalar advection, shallow water equations, euler, and acoustics. When compared to traditional CPU-based algorithms, the algorithm can handle larger models and produce higher resolution results at a faster rate. The algorithm\u27s efficiency and effectiveness are determined by the specific hardware and software configuration of the GPU used; for this study, we used INL Borah
Scholar-activists in an expanding European food sovereignty movement
This article analyzes the roles, relations, and positions of scholar-activists in the European food sovereignty movement. In doing so, we document, make visible and question the political dimensions of researchers' participation in the movement. We argue that scholar-activists are part of the movement, but are distinct from the affected constituencies, put in place to ensure adequate representation of key movement actors. This is because scholar-activists lack a collective identity, have no processes to formulate collective demands, and no mechanisms for inter-researcher and researchers-movement communication. We reflect on whether and how scholar-activists could organize, and discuss possible pathways for a more cohesive and stronger researcher engagement in the movement.</p
Reduced executive and default network functional connectivity in cigarette smokers
Altered functional connectivity has been associated with acute and chronic nicotine use. Connectivity alterations, specifically in the right and left executive control networks (RECN/LECN) and the default mode network (DMN), may contribute to the addiction cycle. The objective of this study was to determine if executive control network (ECN) and DMN connectivity is different between nonâsmokers and smokers and whether reductions in connectivity are related to chronic cigarette use. The RECN, LECN, and DMN were identified in resting state functional magnetic resonance imaging data in 650 subjects. Analyses tested for group differences in network connectivity strength, controlling for age and alcohol use. There was a significant group effect on LECN and DMN connectivity strength with smokers (nâ=â452) having lower network strengths than nonâsmokers (nâ=â198). Smokers had lower connectivity than nonâsmokers associated with key network hubs: the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, and parietal nodes within ECNs. Further, ECN connectivity strength was negatively associated with pack years of cigarette use. Our data suggest that chronic nicotine use negatively impacts functional connectivity within control networks that may contribute to the difficulty smokers have in quitting. Hum Brain Mapp 36:872â882, 2015. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/110754/1/hbm22672.pd
Joint and individual analysis of breast cancer histologic images and genomic covariates
A key challenge in modern data analysis is understanding connections between
complex and differing modalities of data. For example, two of the main
approaches to the study of breast cancer are histopathology (analyzing visual
characteristics of tumors) and genetics. While histopathology is the gold
standard for diagnostics and there have been many recent breakthroughs in
genetics, there is little overlap between these two fields. We aim to bridge
this gap by developing methods based on Angle-based Joint and Individual
Variation Explained (AJIVE) to directly explore similarities and differences
between these two modalities. Our approach exploits Convolutional Neural
Networks (CNNs) as a powerful, automatic method for image feature extraction to
address some of the challenges presented by statistical analysis of
histopathology image data. CNNs raise issues of interpretability that we
address by developing novel methods to explore visual modes of variation
captured by statistical algorithms (e.g. PCA or AJIVE) applied to CNN features.
Our results provide many interpretable connections and contrasts between
histopathology and genetics
FINJ: A Fault Injection Tool for HPC Systems
We present FINJ, a high-level fault injection tool for High-Performance
Computing (HPC) systems, with a focus on the management of complex experiments.
FINJ provides support for custom workloads and allows generation of anomalous
conditions through the use of fault-triggering executable programs. FINJ can
also be integrated seamlessly with most other lower-level fault injection
tools, allowing users to create and monitor a variety of highly-complex and
diverse fault conditions in HPC systems that would be difficult to recreate in
practice. FINJ is suitable for experiments involving many, potentially
interacting nodes, making it a very versatile design and evaluation tool.Comment: To be presented at the 11th Resilience Workshop in the 2018 Euro-Par
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