Canada’s Most Decisive Victory: An Analysis of Canada’s Role in the Hundred Days Offensive, 8 August - 11 November 1918

Of Canada’s long military history, Vimy is the one battle that most Canadians will know. Some will be familiar with Passchendaele, D-Day or the disasters at Hong Kong and Dieppe. Canadians should know the Hundred Days because the battles that constitute that offensive were almost certainly the most important victories ever won by Canadian soldiers. This article analyses the various reasons for the stunning Canadian successes of that war-winning offensive: chiefly the Canadian experience and doctrine; the state of the enemy and the Allies; artillery and counter-battery fire (the most important tactical arm); and logistics and administration. Ultimately, as the Hundred Days’ spearhead with replenishable manpower and with near unmatched firepower, experience, ingenuity, organisation, leadership, reputation and material resources, the Canadian Corps was the decisive war-winning formation on the Western Front

The foraging ecology of greyheaded mollymawks at Marion Island: in relation to known longline fishing activity

Incidental mortality due to longline fishing has been implicated as the main cause for the global population decline in grey-headed mollymawks (Thalassarche chrysostoma). Two of these fisheries, within the potential foraging range of grey-headed mollymawks breeding on Marion Island, have increased drastically over the past 5–10 years. In order to understand the impacts of these fisheries on the grey-headed mollymawk population breeding on Marion Island, we studied their foraging ecology by tracking their foraging trips and sampling their diets. During the incubation stage, birds made long foraging trips, mostly towards the subtropical convergence and sub-Antarctic zones, bringing them into contact with areas of intense southern blue-fin tuna (Thunnus maccoyii) longline fishing. Females spent a higher proportion of their time within these areas than males, thus exposing themselves to a higher risk of incidental mortality from this fishery. During the early chick-rearing stage, foraging trips were shorter and to the southwest of the island in the Polar frontal and Antarctic zones, thus avoiding any contact with the southern blue-fin tuna industry. However, short foraging trips (<2 days) were made within the boundary of known Patagonian toothfish (Dissostichus eleginoides) longline sets around Marion Island. Males made a higher proportion of short foraging trips and spent more time within the boundaries of the toothfish fishery than females. These differences may account for the male-biased mortality of grey-headed mollymawks observed in the toothfish fishery around Marion Island. Although a decrease in the annual breeding population has not been detected on Marion Island as yet, we warn that the methods used to detect these changes are inaccurate in measuring short term population changes (<10 years) and that the impacts of these fisheries may already have altered the demographic structure of this population

Inhomogeneous Big Bang Nucleosynthesis and Mutual Ion Diffusion

We present a study of inhomogeneous big bang nucleosynthesis with emphasis on transport phenomena. We combine a hydrodynamic treatment to a nuclear reaction network and compute the light element abundances for a range of inhomogeneity parameters. We find that shortly after annihilation of electron-positron pairs, Thomson scattering on background photons prevents the diffusion of the remaining electrons. Protons and multiply charged ions then tend to diffuse into opposite directions so that no net charge is carried. Ions with Z>1 get enriched in the overdense regions, while protons diffuse out into regions of lower density. This leads to a second burst of nucleosynthesis in the overdense regions at T<20 keV, leading to enhanched destruction of deuterium and lithium. We find a region in the parameter space at 2.1E-10<eta<5.2E-10 where constraints 7Li/H<10^{-9.7} and D/H<10^{-4.4} are satisfied simultaneously.Comment: 9 pages, minor changes to match the PRD versio

Molecular analysis of fungal communities and laccase genes in decomposing litter reveals differences among forest types but no impact of nitrogen deposition

The fungal community of the forest floor was examined as the cause of previously reported increases in soil organic matter due to experimental N deposition in ecosystems producing predominantly high-lignin litter, and the opposite response in ecosystems producing low-lignin litter. The mechanism proposed to explain this phenomenon was that white-rot basidiomycetes are more important in the degradation of high-lignin litter than of low-lignin litter, and that their activity is suppressed by N deposition. We found that forest floor mass in the low-lignin sugar-maple dominated system decreased in October due to experimental N deposition, whereas forest floor mass of high-lignin oak-dominated ecosystems was unaffected by N deposition. Increased relative abundance of basidiomycetes in high-lignin forest floor was confirmed by denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE) and sequencing. Abundance of basidiomycete laccase genes, encoding an enzyme used by white-rot basidiomycetes in the degradation of lignin, was 5–10 times greater in high-lignin forest floor than in low-lignin forest floor. While the differences between the fungal communities in different ecosystems were consistent with the proposed mechanism, no significant effects of N deposition were detected on DGGE profiles, laccase gene abundance, laccase length heterogeneity profiles, or phenol oxidase activity. Our observations indicate that the previously detected accumulation of soil organic matter in the high-lignin system may be driven by effects of N deposition on organisms in the mineral soil, rather than on organisms residing in the forest floor. However, studies of in situ gene expression and temporal and spatial variability within forest floor communities will be necessary to further relate the ecosystem dynamics of organic carbon to microbial communities and atmospheric N deposition.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/72825/1/j.1462-2920.2007.01250.x.pd

A Review of Controlling Motivational Strategies from a Self-Determination Theory Perspective: Implications for Sports Coaches

The aim of this paper is to present a preliminary taxonomy of six controlling strategies, primarily based on the parental and educational literatures, which we believe are employed by coaches in sport contexts. Research in the sport and physical education literature has primarily focused on coaches’ autonomysupportive behaviours. Surprisingly, there has been very little research on the use of controlling strategies. A brief overview of the research which delineates each proposed strategy is presented, as are examples of the potential manifestation of the behaviours associated with each strategy in the context of sports coaching. In line with self-determination theory (Deci & Ryan, 1985; Ryan & Deci, 2002), we propose that coach behaviours employed to pressure or control athletes have the potential to thwart athletes’ feelings of autonomy, competence,and relatedness, which, in turn, undermine athletes’ self-determined motivation and contribute to the development of controlled motives. When athletes feel pressured to behave in a certain way, a variety of negative consequences are expected to ensue which are to the detriment of the athletes’ well-being. The purpose of this paper is to raise awareness and interest in the darker side of sport participation and to offer suggestions for future research in this area

Quantum Collapse of a Small Dust Shell

The full quantum mechanical collapse of a small relativistic dust shell is studied analytically, asymptotically and numerically starting from the exact finite dimensional classical reduced Hamiltonian recently derived by H\'aj{\'\i}\v{c}ek and Kucha\v{r}. The formulation of the quantum mechanics encounters two problems. The first is the multivalued nature of the Hamiltonian and the second is the construction of an appropriate self adjoint momentum operator in the space of the shell motion which is confined to a half line. The first problem is solved by identifying and neglecting orbits of small action in order to obtain a single valued Hamiltonian. The second problem is solved by introducing an appropriate lapse function. The resulting quantum mechanics is then studied by means of analytical and numerical techniques. We find that the region of total collapse has very small probability. We also find that the solution concentrates around the classical Schwarzschild radius. The present work obtains from first principles a quantum mechanics for the shell and provides numerical solutions, whose behavior is explained by a detailed WKB analysis for a wide class of collapsing shells.Comment: 23 pages, 8 figures, Revtex4 fil

Glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase regulation in the hepatopancreas of the anoxia-tolerant marine mollusc, Littorina littorea

Glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PDH) gates flux through the pentose phosphate pathway and is key to cellular antioxidant defense due to its role in producing NADPH. Good antioxidant defenses are crucial for anoxia-tolerant organisms that experience wide variations in oxygen availability. The marine mollusc, Littorina littorea, is an intertidal snail that experiences daily bouts of anoxia/hypoxia with the tide cycle and shows multiple metabolic and enzymatic adaptations that support anaerobiosis. This study investigated the kinetic, physical and regulatory properties of G6PDH fromhepatopancreas of L. littorea to determine if the enzyme is differentially regulated in response to anoxia, thereby providing altered pentose phosphate pathway functionality under oxygen stress conditions. Several kinetic properties of G6PDH differed significantly between aerobic and 24 h anoxic conditions; compared with the aerobic state, anoxic G6PDH (assayed at pH 8) showed a 38% decrease in Km G6P and enhanced inhibition by urea, whereas in pH 6 assays Km NADP and maximal activity changed significantly between the two states. The mechanism underlying anoxia-responsive changes in enzyme properties proved to be a change in the phosphorylation state of G6PDH. This was documented with immunoblotting using an anti-phosphoserine antibody, in vitro incubations that stimulated endogenous protein kinases versus protein phosphatases and significantly changed Km G6P, and phosphorylation of the enzyme with 32P-ATP. All these data indicated that the aerobic and anoxic forms of G6PDH were the high and low phosphate forms, respectively, and that phosphorylation state was modulated in response to selected endogenous protein kinases (PKA or PKG) and protein phosphatases (PP1 or PP2C). Anoxia-induced changes in the phosphorylation state of G6PDH may facilitate sustained or increased production of NADPH to enhance antioxidant defense during long term anaerobiosis and/or during the transition back to aerobic conditions when the reintroduction of oxygen causes a rapid increase in oxidative stress

SuperWIMP Dark Matter Signals from the Early Universe

Cold dark matter may be made of superweakly-interacting massive particles, superWIMPs, that naturally inherit the desired relic density from late decays of metastable WIMPs. Well-motivated examples are weak-scale gravitinos in supergravity and Kaluza-Klein gravitons from extra dimensions. These particles are impossible to detect in all dark matter experiments. We find, however, that superWIMP dark matter may be discovered through cosmological signatures from the early universe. In particular, superWIMP dark matter has observable consequences for Big Bang nucleosynthesis and the cosmic microwave background (CMB), and may explain the observed underabundance of 7Li without upsetting the concordance between deuterium and CMB baryometers. We discuss implications for future probes of CMB black body distortions and collider searches for new particles. In the course of this study, we also present a model-independent analysis of entropy production from late-decaying particles in light of WMAP data.Comment: 19 pages, 5 figures, typos correcte

Wildland fire in ecosystems: Effects of fire on soil and water

This state-of-knowledge review about the effects of fire on soils and water can assist land and fire managers with information on the physical, chemical, and biological effects of fire needed to successfully conduct ecosystem management, and effectively inform others about the role and impacts of wildland fire. Chapter topics include the soil resource, soil physical properties and fire, soil chemistry effects, soil biology responses, the hydrologic cycle and water resources, water quality, aquatic biology, fire effectson wetland and riparian systems, fire effects models, and watershed rehabilitation

AltitudeOmics: The Integrative Physiology of Human Acclimatization to Hypobaric Hypoxia and Its Retention upon Reascent.

An understanding of human responses to hypoxia is important for the health of millions of people worldwide who visit, live, or work in the hypoxic environment encountered at high altitudes. In spite of dozens of studies over the last 100 years, the basic mechanisms controlling acclimatization to hypoxia remain largely unknown. The AltitudeOmics project aimed to bridge this gap. Our goals were 1) to describe a phenotype for successful acclimatization and assess its retention and 2) use these findings as a foundation for companion mechanistic studies. Our approach was to characterize acclimatization by measuring changes in arterial oxygenation and hemoglobin concentration [Hb], acute mountain sickness (AMS), cognitive function, and exercise performance in 21 subjects as they acclimatized to 5260 m over 16 days. We then focused on the retention of acclimatization by having subjects reascend to 5260 m after either 7 (n = 14) or 21 (n = 7) days at 1525 m. At 16 days at 5260 m we observed: 1) increases in arterial oxygenation and [Hb] (compared to acute hypoxia: PaO2 rose 9±4 mmHg to 45±4 while PaCO2 dropped a further 6±3 mmHg to 21±3, and [Hb] rose 1.8±0.7 g/dL to 16±2 g/dL; 2) no AMS; 3) improved cognitive function; and 4) improved exercise performance by 8±8% (all changes p&lt;0.01). Upon reascent, we observed retention of arterial oxygenation but not [Hb], protection from AMS, retention of exercise performance, less retention of cognitive function; and noted that some of these effects lasted for 21 days. Taken together, these findings reveal new information about retention of acclimatization, and can be used as a physiological foundation to explore the molecular mechanisms of acclimatization and its retention