The Cuban Missle Crisis and Soviet Naval Developemant: Myths and Realities

To many Western analysts, one of the most significant and long, term effects of the United States-Soviet confrontation in the Caribbean during the October 1962 Cuban missile crisis was on the Soviet Navy and its subsequent expansion in terms of capability and in scope of operations. According to this argument. the Soviet leadership, seeing its policies outflanked and overrun because of its maritime inferiority vis-a-vis the United States, embarked on a deliberate plan to develop and to procure a naval force capable of both supporting foreign policy objectives and protecting state interests almost anywhere on the world\u27s oceans

Suitability of South Dakota Locations for Straw Pulping Plants

An improved pulping process has been developed by the USDA which uses straw as the basic ingredient in the production of boxboard and corrugating paper. If a plant or plants using this pulping process could be built in the state, a use would have been found for a product produced by farmers that has very limited commercial value to them at present. The Northern Utilization Research Branch of the Agricultural Research Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, has been selected the Experiment Station of South Dakota State College to undertake a research contract to determine availability of surplus wheat, rye, and flax straw in South Dakota where the dominant industry is agriculture and a need has been felt for the “balancing of agriculture with industry” and especially in view of the recent industrial conference at Huron, April 13 and 14, 1955, which launched a program to encourage all industrial development in South Dakota. The purpose of this study is to determine whether any area or areas in the state have all the necessary requirements for the operation of a plant. From experience with the Peoria laboratory, it was found that the following information would be needed. More discussion of these aspects will be taken up in later chapters. 1. The harvested acreage of wheat, rye, and flax by counties. 2. The amount of surplus straw by counties. 3. The present off-farm use of surplus straw by counties. 4. The area or areas in which it is possible to collect 50,000 tons of straw per year in an area having a radius of approximately 50 miles as local conditions warrant. In this connection it is necessary to determine: a. Crop practice prevalent in these areas that have a bearing on the utilization of the straw, including the yield and quality of the straw. b. Areas affected by extensive rust, weeds, and similar contaminants, and their severity. c. Amounts of actual surplus straw not needed on the farm or for soil fertility purposes. d. History of wheat production showing how frequently crop failures or other factors affect the quality and availability of straw. e. Estimates of maximum and minimum quantities of straw available for industrial use over a period of years, representing at least one normal cycle of maximum and minimum production. f. Value of straw for purposes of soil fertility. 5. For any areas in which approximately 50,000 tons of straw can be collected and baled for industrial utilization, information must be obtained on the additional requirements for location of a hypothetical paper mill producing 70 tons a day of board (boxboard or insulating board) or 59 tons per day bleached paper or straw pulp. This requirement includes the following: a. Water requirement of approximately 3,000,000 gallons per day. b. Provisions for disposal of mill effluents: 300,000 gallons per day alkaline cooking liquors, highbiological oxygen demand (BBOD) and about 2,00,000 gallons of water containing spent bleach liquors and some filler. i. Ponding. ii. Sewage disposal facilities. c. Electric power required; for example, 25,000 kilowatt hours per day. d. Fuel for steam i. Coal availability. ii. Gas availability. e. Labor requirement. (It is estimated that 660 farm labors are required 2 weeks for straw collection, etc. and 90 men full time for pulp and paper mill operation, or a total equivalent of 115 men full time.) i. Availability of farm, mechanical and common labor in accordance with the above requirements. ii. Wage rates for the above requirements. f. Transportation facilities. i. Hard roads, trucking rates and available farm trucks. ii. Railroads. g. Community conditions. i. Other industries and skilled labor pool. h. Costs of straw collection in the location. i. Costs of mowing and baling. ii. Costs of loading and trucking 25, 50, and 100 miles from the site

Scaling K2. I. Revised Parameters for 222,088 K2 Stars and a K2 Planet Radius Valley at 1.9 R_⊕

Previous measurements of stellar properties for K2 stars in the Ecliptic Plane Input Catalog largely relied on photometry and proper motion measurements, with some added information from available spectra and parallaxes. Combining Gaia DR2 distances with spectroscopic measurements of effective temperatures, surface gravities, and metallicities from the Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fibre Spectroscopic Telescope (LAMOST) DR5, we computed updated stellar radii and masses for 26,838 K2 stars. For 195,250 targets without a LAMOST spectrum, we derived stellar parameters using random forest regression on photometric colors trained on the LAMOST sample. In total, we measured spectral types, effective temperatures, surface gravities, metallicities, radii, and masses for 222,088 A, F, G, K, and M-type K2 stars. With these new stellar radii, we performed a simple reanalysis of 299 confirmed and 517 candidate K2 planet radii from Campaigns 1–13, elucidating a distinct planet radius valley around 1.9 R_⊕, a feature thus far only conclusively identified with Kepler planets, and tentatively identified with K2 planets. These updated stellar parameters are a crucial step in the process toward computing K2 planet occurrence rates

Earliest Holocene south Greenland ice sheet retreat within its late Holocene extent

Early Holocene summer warmth drove dramatic Greenland ice sheet (GIS) retreat. Subsequent insolation-driven cooling caused GIS margin readvance to late Holocene maxima, from which ice margins are now retreating. We use 10Be surface exposure ages from four locations between 69.4°N and 61.2°N to date when in the early Holocene south to west GIS margins retreated to within these late Holocene maximum extents. We find that this occurred at 11.1 ± 0.2 ka to 10.6 ± 0.5 ka in south Greenland, significantly earlier than previous estimates, and 6.8 ± 0.1 ka to 7.9 ± 0.1 ka in southwest to west Greenland, consistent with existing 10Be ages. At least in south Greenland, these 10Be ages likely provide a minimum constraint for when on a multicentury timescale summer temperatures after the last deglaciation warmed above late Holocene temperatures in the early Holocene. Current south Greenland ice margin retreat suggests that south Greenland may have now warmed to or above earliest Holocene summer temperatures

Comparative Studies of Disordered Proteins with Similar Sequences: Application to Aβ40 and Aβ42

Quantitative comparisons of intrinsically disordered proteins (IDPs) with similar sequences, such as mutant forms of the same protein, may provide insights into IDP aggregation—a process that plays a role in several neurodegenerative disorders. Here we describe an approach for modeling IDPs with similar sequences that simplifies the comparison of the ensembles by utilizing a single library of structures. The relative population weights of the structures are estimated using a Bayesian formalism, which provides measures of uncertainty in the resulting ensembles. We applied this approach to the comparison of ensembles for Aβ40 and Aβ42. Bayesian hypothesis testing finds that although both Aβ species sample β-rich conformations in solution that may represent prefibrillar intermediates, the probability that Aβ42 samples these prefibrillar states is roughly an order of magnitude larger than the frequency in which Aβ40 samples such structures. Moreover, the structure of the soluble prefibrillar state in our ensembles is similar to the experimentally determined structure of Aβ that has been implicated as an intermediate in the aggregation pathway. Overall, our approach for comparative studies of IDPs with similar sequences provides a platform for future studies on the effect of mutations on the structure and function of disordered proteins

Characterizing mid-type M dwarfs in the Kepler field with the Discovery Channel Telescope and WIYN

Planet occurrence rates increase with decreasing stellar mass (later spectral types); therefore, M dwarf systems are our most promising targets in the search for exoplanets. The identification and characterization of stars in the original Kepler field was accomplished using photometry alone, resulting in large uncertainties for late-type stars like M dwarfs. In order to more accurately compute the planet occurrence rate around mid- type M dwarfs, we need to better constrain their stellar radii and masses, properties which strongly correlate with other stellar parameters such as temperature and metallicity. These measurements need to be performed on a statistically significant population of stars including systems with and without planets. Therefore, we have begun to spectroscopically characterize the properties of the 559 probable mid-type M dwarfs in the Kepler field using red optical spectra obtained with the DeVeny Spectrograph on the Discovery Channel Telescope (DCT) and Hydra on the WIYN telescope in order to constrain the planet occurrence rate for such stars. We will be presenting initial results from our DCT and WIYN observations, including new temperature, radius, and mass estimates which we can use in occurrence rate calculations.http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017AAS...22912608HPublished versio

Characterization of mid-type M dwarfs in the Kepler field

The planet occurrence rate has been found to increase with decreasing stellar mass (later spectral types) in the original Kepler field, and one out of four M dwarfs are expected to host Earth-sized planets within their habitable zones. M dwarf systems are, therefore, our most promising targets in the search for exoplanets. Yet the identification and characterization of M dwarfs in the Kepler field was accomplished using photometry alone and unfortunately this method provides large uncertainties for late-type stars. Notably absent from planet occurrence calculations are single planet mid-type M dwarfs (~M2-M6). In order to make an accurate calculation of the planet occurrence rate around mid-type M dwarfs, we need to constrain stellar radii and masses which depend on other stellar parameters (e.g. temperature and metallicity). We have identified 559 probable mid-type M dwarfs using photometric color selection criteria and have started to gather spectra of these objects in order to better constrain stellar properties and refine planet occurrence rates for this population. Here we outline the methods we are using for stellar classification and characterization and present some results from our initial data.http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016AAS...22743012HPublished versio