Spatial scales of cirrus cloud properties

Research in studying the spatial scales of the cirrus, used data collected during the flight legs of the NCAR Sabreliner aircraft on four days during the FIRE Cirrus IFO to study the spatial scales of the cirrus, and will concentrate on the scales of horizontal wind. The spatial scales of the cloud features can be described by power spectra (or spectral density graphs) and cumulative variance graphs. The cumulative variance graphs were created by first using a Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) to create variance spectra. The variances were then summed in a cumulative fashion from the largest scalelengths (wavelengths) to the smallest. No detrending was done to the original data, and no smoothing or averaging was done to the spectral points. All the spectral points were included. This means that the values of the first five to ten spectral points of the large scalelengths should only be considered to be qualitatively correct. The cumulative variance at smaller scalelengths should be correct because a more accurate representation of the variance at the larger scalelengths should only redistribute the energy amongst the larger scalelengths

Blogs, Wikis, & More…

A presentation of ways to use social media platforms in libraries. The presentation first discusses blogs and wikis: an overview of what they are, examples, uses in libraries, considerations, and sources for more information. Next,, RSS is discussed: what it is, how it is used, tools required, and examples of RSS tools. Lastly, social tagging is discussed: what it is, why librarians/libraries/information professionals should care, sources for more information and examples

The Sound Science Amendment to the Endangered Species Act: Why It Fails to Resolve the Klamath Basin Conflict

The conflict in the Klamath Basin has pitted irrigators against environmentalists, tribes, and fishermen in a dramatic battle over a scarce resource: water. A 2001 court order allocated water to endangered and threatened fish while irrigation ditches and farms went dry. The incident became the rallying cry among those seeking to amend the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Legislators proposed the Sound Science for Endangered Species Act Planning Act to require that all ESA decisions be based upon peer-reviewed, “sound” science. However, as this Note attempts to explain, the amendment would serve only to delay agency decisionmaking while providing more opportunities for litigation, prolonging rather than helping the embittered conflict in the Klamath Basin

Quantum search algorithms on a regular lattice

Quantum algorithms for searching one or more marked items on a d-dimensional lattice provide an extension of Grover's search algorithm including a spatial component. We demonstrate that these lattice search algorithms can be viewed in terms of the level dynamics near an avoided crossing of a one-parameter family of quantum random walks. We give approximations for both the level-splitting at the avoided crossing and the effectively two-dimensional subspace of the full Hilbert space spanning the level crossing. This makes it possible to give the leading order behaviour for the search time and the localisation probability in the limit of large lattice size including the leading order coefficients. For d=2 and d=3, these coefficients are calculated explicitly. Closed form expressions are given for higher dimensions

Radiative properties of Cirrus clouds: FIRE IFO case October 28, 1986

A description of the radiative properties of two cirrus clouds sampled on 10/28/88 in the FIRE cirrus IFO is presented. The clouds are characterized in terms of the broadband infrared effective emittance, cloud fractional absorptance, shortwave heating rate, cloud albedo and vertical velocity. The broadband fluxes used in these calculations were obtained from measurements made by pyranometers and pyrgeometers. The shortwave irradiances were corrected to a horizontal plane and normalized to the same time by taking into account Sabreliner flight information (i.e., pitch, roll, heading and angle of attack), as well as sun-earth geometry considerations. Since only one aircraft was used, broadband fluxes at different levels in the cloud were not measured simultaneously. As a result, sampling errors may occur due to the nonsteady state of the cloud field or due to the possibility that the flight legs were not flown directly above or below each other. To minimize these errors and to simplify the analysis, the necessary variables were averaged and the averages used in the calculations. The downwelling shortwave and longwave irradiances were used as selection criteria to remove cloud free data encountered along the data sampling leg

Initial results of finger imaging using Photoacoustic Computed Tomography

We present a photoacoustic computed tomography investigation on a healthy human finger, to image blood vessels with a focus on vascularity across the interphalangeal joints. The cross-sectional images were acquired using an imager specifically developed for this purpose. The images show rich detail of the digital blood vessels with diameters between 100 $\mu$m and 1.5 mm in various orientations and at various depths. Different vascular layers in the skin including the subpapillary plexus could also be visualized. Acoustic reflections on the finger bone of photoacoustic signals from skin were visible in sequential slice images along the finger except at the location of the joint gaps. Not unexpectedly, the healthy synovial membrane at the joint gaps was not detected due to its small size and normal vascularization. Future research will concentrate on studying digits afflicted with rheumatoid arthritis to detect the inflamed synovium with its heightened vascularization, whose characteristics are potential markers for disease activity.Comment: 2 figure

Entanglement Witnesses for Graph States: General Theory and Examples

We present a general theory for the construction of witnesses that detect genuine multipartite entanglement in graph states. First, we present explicit witnesses for all graph states of up to six qubits which are better than all criteria so far. Therefore, lower fidelities are required in experiments that aim at the preparation of graph states. Building on these results, we develop analytical methods to construct two different types of entanglement witnesses for general graph states. For many classes of states, these operators exhibit white noise tolerances that converge to one when increasing the number of particles. We illustrate our approach for states such as the linear and the 2D cluster state. Finally, we study an entanglement monotone motivated by our approach for graph states.Comment: 12 pages + appendix, 7 figure

Wikifying Your Workplace

A presentation on adding an organizational wiki to your workplace drawing upon gardening analogies. What\u27s a Wiki?; Wiki your Work; Sowing the Seeds; Why Wiki?; Your Monitor?; Your Inbox?; Your Shared Drive?; Your Intranet?; Your People?; Choosing a Wiki; Planting; Growing; Weeding; Future Harvests; Criss Library Wiki; Criss Library Wiki Stats; New Crops and Cultivation for Criss Library; Keep Tilling

Activation of PKR by Bunyamwera virus is independent of the viral interferon antagonist NSs

Double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) is a by-product of viral RNA polymerase activity, and its recognition is one mechanism by which the innate immune system is activated. Cellular responses to dsRNA include induction of alpha/beta interferon (IFN) synthesis and activation of the enzyme PKR, which exerts its antiviral effect by phosphorylating the eukaryotic initiation factor eIF-2 alpha, thereby inhibiting translation. We have recently identified the nonstructural protein NSs of Bunyamwera virus (BUNV), the prototype of the family Bunyaviridae, as a virulence factor that blocks the induction of IFN by dsRNA. Here, we investigated the potential of NSs to inhibit PKR. We show that wild-type (wt) BUNV that expresses NSs triggered PKR-dependent phosphorylation of eIF-2 alpha to levels similar to those of a recombinant virus that does not express NSs (BUNdelNSs virus). Furthermore, the sensitivity of viruses in cell culture to IFN was independent of PKR and was not determined by NSs. PKR knockout mice, however, succumbed to infection approximately 1 day earlier than wt mice or mice deficient in expression of RNase L, another dsRNA-activated antiviral enzyme. Our data indicate that (i) bunyaviruses activate PKR, but are only marginally sensitive to its antiviral effect, and (ii) NSs is different from other IFN antagonists, since it inhibits dsRNA-dependent IFN induction but has no effect on the dsRNA-activated PKR and RNase L systems