Cultural Resources Report for the Cane Island Branch Section of the Buffalo Bayou Project Between Katy-Flewellen Road and Kingsland Boulevard in Fort Bend County, Texas

Gray & Pape, Inc., of Houston, Texas, under contract with BIO-WEST, Inc., has prepared the following report on cultural resources management activities in Fort Bend County, Texas. The project includes an archaeological survey of a total of approximately 0.93 kilometers (0.58 miles) along Buffalo Bayou between Katy-Flewellen Road and Kingsland Boulevard in Katy, Texas. The archaeological Area of Potential Effects is defined as the maintenance corridor, 30 to 60 meters (98 to 196 feet) long. The goal of this study was to assist Fort Bend County, the Texas Historical Commission, and the lead federal agency in determining whether or not intact cultural resources are present within areas for construction, and if so to provide management recommendations for these resources. All activities described herein were subject to Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act and issuance of an Antiquities Permit for Archeology (Permit 9319) applied for by Gray & Pape, Inc. on February 13, 2020, and issued by the Texas Historical Commission. No diagnostic or non-diagnostic artifacts were collected in the course of the current survey. As a project permitted through the Texas Historical Commission; however, Gray & Pape, Inc. submitted project records to the Center of Archaeological Studies at Texas State University. The Natural Resource Conservation Service is the lead federal agency for the project. Fieldwork was conducted between March 12 and March 16, 2020 and required approximately 40- person hours to complete. Subsurface testing included a combination of systematic shovel testing and judgement sample auger probing. The site file research revealed two previously recorded archaeological sites (41FB101 and 41FB102) are located within the project area. At the beginning of the survey, an initial attempt was made to relocate previously recorded Sites 41FB101 and 41FB102 through surface inspection and limited shovel testing across the Area of Potential Effects along both sides of Buffalo Bayou. Recent disturbances from mechanical excavation along the channel slopes, the dumping of spoil across the surface of the two-track right-of-way along the bayou, and the active installation of sheet piling were photographed and mapped. Sites 41FB101 and 41FB102 could not be relocated within the Area of Potential Effects during the surface inspection, shovel testing or auger probing. No other historic or prehistoric artifacts or cultural features were identified as a result of this survey. During the initial reconnaissance, Rangia shells (n=8), including whole (closed) specimens and half shell, were observed on the surface in an area recently disturbed by heavy machinery. The shells were located east of Site 41FB101 along the two-track right-of-way and slope of the east bank of Buffalo Bayou. The majority of them were smaller than 3 centimeters (1.2 inches), with one whole specimen measuring approximately 6 centimeters (2.4 inches). Surface and subsurface inspection in the immediate area of these specimens failed to find evidence of associated cultural features or artifacts on the surface or in a buried context. A variety of modern bricks and brick fragments were also observed along the inner slopes of the east bank near the shell scatter. These same materials were later observed among the variety of riprap materials along the west bank of the bayou west of Site 41FB102 near a residential property immediately adjacent to the Area of Potential Effects. No additional cultural materials were observed on the surface with the exception of modern debris including plastics and aluminum cans. Gray & Pape, Inc. is not recommending a site designation for the Rangia shell or brick scatter observed during the survey for the foregoing reasons:1) there were no intact, buried deposits or features found; 2) there was no material that could be positively identified as artifacts; 3) the bricks observed were modern and likely deposited by landowners in attempts to prevent erosion; 4) the size, quantity, and inclusion of whole Rangia identified on the surface appear to be natural occurrences as opposed to the remains of an archaeological deposit or feature; and 5) it is impossible to determine the original location of the shell specimens at this time. Based on the results of this investigation, Sites 41FB101 and 41FB102 do not appear to extend into the existing easement belonging to the Fort Bend County Drainage District. Instead, both sites appear to be located on private property outside of the project Area of Potential Effects. As such, these sites have not been evaluated for National Register eligibility, but Gray & Pape, Inc. recommends that there will be no direct impact to these sites. It is also recommended that because the majority of project impacts will occur within sediments that have been repeatedly impacted by past channelization activities, the potential to identify intact, significant cultural resources is low. Gray & Pape, Inc. recommends the project be allowed to proceed as currently planned. As a protective measure during construction, highvisibility temporary fencing should be installed against the edge of the Area of Potential Effects in the vicinity of the two known sites. No additional cultural resources activities are recommended unless project plans change

Keith M. Murphy: Swedish Design. An Ethnography

Dansk design, finsk design, svensk design. Ingen andre steder på kloden er design så tæt vævet sammen med nationalstaten som i Skandinavien. Sådan en national branding peger på forbindelsen mellem æstetik og velfærdsstatsnationalisme. For hvordan bliver forestillingen om medborgerskab og nation building knyttet sammen med æstetiske idealer? Hvordan tager kulturel identitet i bogstavelig forstand form? Det er det centrale spørgsmål, antropologen Keith Murphy prøver at besvare i sin bog Swedish Design. An Ethnography

Ecosystem metabolism of benthic and pelagic zones of a shallow productive estuary : spatio-temporal variability

Long-term deterioration of water quality is known to reduce the importance of benthic ecosystem metabolism in shallow coastal ecosystems, but drivers of spatial and short-term variability in ecosystem metabolism are poorly understood. We addressed this knowledge gap through detailed seasonal measurements of ecosystem metabolism across depth gradients from shallow (2 to 3 m) eelgrass-dominated to deeper (4 to 5 m) muddy regions of a shallow, productive estuary. Combined measurements of gross primary production (GPP), respiration (R) and, by difference, net ecosystem production (NEP) by the open-water diel oxygen technique and in situ chamber incubations showed high importance of shallow eelgrass habitats for metabolism at the system scale. Seasonal variations in GPP, R and NEP increased with light availability and temperature with highest NEP in all habitats during the warm and sunny mid-summer. The shallow eelgrass-dominated and neighboring habitats were seasonally net autotrophic (NEP = 0.54 and 0.31 mg O2 m-2 d-1, respectively), compared to net heterotrophy (NEP = -0.26 mg O2 m-2 d-1) at the deeper muddy site. Detailed studies along depth gradients further confirmed the role of eelgrass as a key driver of spatial differences in ecosystem metabolism across the estuary. Strong northerly winds (>8 m s-1) caused short-term (<24 h) periods of similar oxygen dynamics and similar apparent productivity in shallow and deeper waters, indicative of efficient lateral mixing, while calm periods (<4 m s-1) enabled formation of ‘pockets’, i.e. water masses with limited connectivity, which exacerbated the metabolic differences between shallow and deep sites.Peer reviewe

Soziale Repräsentation psychologischer Intervention unter Armutsbedingungen

Die wichtigsten Ergebnisse einer qualitativen Studie über soziale Repräsentationen professioneller Hilfsangebote bei psychischen Problemen in einem als arm gekennzeichneten Bezirk von Santiago de Chile werden dargestellt. Zunächst werden unterschiedliche Definitionen und Merkmale von Armut diskutiert und Daten über das Ausmaß der Armut in Chile vorgestellt. Dann wird die Verbindung zwischen Armut und psychologischen Interventionen beleuchtet in Bezug auf die Verteilung psychischer Störungen und als Diskussion der Schwierigkeiten, mit denen psychologische Hilfe in armen Bevölkerungsgruppen verbunden ist. Bezüglich der vorgestellten Ergebnisse, die auf der Transkription von 17 Interviews basieren, wird zwischen Inhalten und Einflussquellen unterschieden. Inhaltlich beziehen sich die Ergebnisse auf die Repräsentation der psychologischen Hilfe, die Konzeptualisierung der eigenen Probleme, insbesondere jener, die die Hilfesuche rechtfertigen, und die Repräsentation des Zugangs zu den Hilfsangeboten. Als Einflussquelle auf die sozialen Repräsentationen sind die Massenmedien sowie die eigene Erfahrung mit professioneller Hilfe oder die von Menschen aus dem engeren sozialen Umfeld zu sehen

An objective framework to test the quality of candidate indicators of good environmental status

Large efforts are on-going within the EU to prepare the Marine Strategy Framework Directive's (MSFD) assessment of the environmental status of the European seas. This assessment will only be as good as the indicators chosen to monitor the 11 descriptors of good environmental status (GEnS). An objective and transparent framework to determine whether chosen indicators actually support the aims of this policy is, however, not yet in place. Such frameworks are needed to ensure that the limited resources available to this assessment optimize the likelihood of achieving GEnS within collaborating states. Here, we developed a hypothesis-based protocol to evaluate whether candidate indicators meet quality criteria explicit to the MSFD, which the assessment community aspires to. Eight quality criteria are distilled from existing initiatives, and a testing and scoring protocol for each of them is presented. We exemplify its application in three worked examples, covering indicators for three GEnS descriptors (1, 5, and 6), various habitat components (seaweeds, seagrasses, benthic macrofauna, and plankton), and assessment regions (Danish, Lithuanian, and UK waters). We argue that this framework provides a necessary, transparent and standardized structure to support the comparison of candidate indicators, and the decision-making process leading to indicator selection. Its application could help identify potential limitations in currently available candidate metrics and, in such cases, help focus the development of more adequate indicators. Use of such standardized approaches will facilitate the sharing of knowledge gained across the MSFD parties despite context-specificity across assessment regions, and support the evidence-based management of European seas

Turing Patterning in Stratified Domains

Reaction-diffusion processes across layered media arise in several scientific domains such as pattern-forming E. coli on agar substrates, epidermal-mesenchymal coupling in development, and symmetry-breaking in cell polarisation. We develop a modelling framework for bi-layer reaction-diffusion systems and relate it to a range of existing models. We derive conditions for diffusion-driven instability of a spatially homogeneous equilibrium analogous to the classical conditions for a Turing instability in the simplest nontrivial setting where one domain has a standard reaction-diffusion system, and the other permits only diffusion. Due to the transverse coupling between these two regions, standard techniques for computing eigenfunctions of the Laplacian cannot be applied, and so we propose an alternative method to compute the dispersion relation directly. We compare instability conditions with full numerical simulations to demonstrate impacts of the geometry and coupling parameters on patterning, and explore various experimentally-relevant asymptotic regimes. In the regime where the first domain is suitably thin, we recover a simple modulation of the standard Turing conditions, and find that often the broad impact of the diffusion-only domain is to reduce the ability of the system to form patterns. We also demonstrate complex impacts of this coupling on pattern formation. For instance, we exhibit non-monotonicity of pattern-forming instabilities with respect to geometric and coupling parameters, and highlight an instability from a nontrivial interaction between kinetics in one domain and diffusion in the other. These results are valuable for informing design choices in applications such as synthetic engineering of Turing patterns, but also for understanding the role of stratified media in modulating pattern-forming processes in developmental biology and beyond.Comment: 25 pages, 7 figure