Present day challenges in understanding the geomagnetic hazard to national power grids

Power grids and pipeline networks at all latitudes are known to be at risk from the natural hazard of geomagnetically induced currents. At a recent workshop in South Africa, UK and South African scientists and engineers discussed the current understanding of this hazard, as it affects major power systems in Europe and Africa. They also summarised, to better inform the public and industry, what can be said with some certainty about the hazard and what research is yet required to develop useful tools for geomagnetic hazard mitigation

A preferred vision for administering elementary schools: A reflective essay

How it all began ... July 31, 1991 (8:30 PM) 1 After a long and busy day, the phone rings. It is Kathi, a friend of mine, calling to see if I had a teaching job for the upcoming school year. Kathi had recently visited with a former colleague who was concerned that her school would not have a principal for the new school year. The principal of this small parochial school 25 miles from Storm Lake had just resigned to take another principalship in Eastern Iowa. Kathi had talked to the priest/superintendent and had mentioned my name. He requested a call from me if I was interested in the job

National Space Biomedical Research Institute Apprenticeship Exit Presentation

No abstract availabl

Eye blink correction: a test on the preservation of common ERP components using a regression based technique

Eye blinks are a pervasive problem in electroencephalography research as they contaminate the brain signal. This paper tests the merits of a software tool employing the regression-based Gratton method that claims to remove the detrimental effects of the eye blink and leaves the activity of the brain. The efficacy of the correction tool was tested on five common stimulus-locked Event Related Potential (ERP) components used in a standard Go/Nogo task. Results suggested that the ‘corrected’ data could be predicted from data containing no eye blinks, suggesting the tool does not distort the data to great extent. This effect was found significant for all components, except for the P3. The conclusion is that this tool distorts the data at acceptable levels, yet caution should be taken when interpreting later components, like the P3

Spatial Drift Dynamics of Shovelnose Sturgeon and Pallid Sturgeon Prelarvae in the Transition Zone of Ft. Peck Reservoir

Habitats in reservoir headwaters may cause high mortality of sturgeon prelarvae. Short inter-reservoir reaches export drifting prelarvae from hatch locations into reservoirs. However, flooded vegetation could entrain prelarvae. We used 2 day post hatch (dph) shovelnose sturgeon (Scaphirhynchus platorynchus) and 1-dph pallid sturgeon (Scaphirhynchus albus) to determine the spatial dynamics of drifting prelarvae.We released 220,000 2-dph shovelnose sturgeon 4 km upstream of Ft. Peck Reservoir and 135,000 1-dph pallid sturgeon 2.5 km upstream of the reservoir the following day. We recaptured shovelnose sturgeon prelarvae with nets deployed along three transects of the transition zone and within the headwaters of the reservoir.We sampled 5148.2 m3 of water and recaptured 323 prelarval shovelnose sturgeon for a recapture rate of 0.14 percent. Fifty-nine percent of recaptured prelarvae were recaptured from the thalweg, 12 percent from the flooded vegetation-main channel interface, 9 percent from the channel border, and 19 percent from the zero-velocity area of Ft. Peck Reservoir. We recaptured pallid sturgeon prelarvae with nets deployed along one transect of the transition zone and within the headwaters of the reservoir. We sampled 6608.5 m3 of water and recaptured 397 pallid sturgeon prelarvae for a recapture rate of 0.29 percent. Twenty one percent of prelarvae were recaptured within the thalweg, 0.25 percent were recaptured along the channel margins, and 79 percent from the zero-velocity area of Ft. Peck Reservoir. Although recapture rates were low, the majority of prelarvae were captured in the thalweg and transported to the headwaters of Ft. Peck Reservoir. The drift dynamics observed in this study provide a springboard for further research

Attachment style moderates partner presence effects on pain : A laser-evoked potentials study

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly citedSocial support is crucial for psychological and physical well-being. Yet, in experimental and clinical pain research, the presence of others has been found to both attenuate and intensify pain. To investigate the factors underlying these mixed effects, we administered noxious laser stimuli to 39 healthy women while their romantic partner was present or absent, and measured pain ratings and laser-evoked potentials to assess the effects of partner presence on subjective pain experience and underlying neural processes. Further, we examined whether individual differences in adult attachment style, alone or in interaction with the partner's level of attentional focus (manipulated to be either on or away from the participant) might modulate these effects. We found that the effects of partner presence versus absence on pain-related measures depended on adult attachment style but not partner attentional focus. The higher participants' attachment avoidance, the higher pain ratings and N2 and P2 local peak amplitudes were in the presence compared to the absence of the romantic partner. As laser-evoked potentials are thought to reflect activity relating to the salience of events, our data suggest that partner presence may influence the perceived salience of events threatening the body, particularly in individuals who tend to mistrust others.Peer reviewedFinal Published versio

The economic impact of space weather – where do we stand?

Space w eather describes the way in which the Sun, and conditions in space more generally, impact human activity and technology both in space and on the ground. It is now well understood that space weather represents a significant threat to infrastructure resilien ce, and is a source of risk which is wide - ranging in its impact and the pathways by which this impact may occur. Although s pace weather is growing rapidly as a field, work rigorously assessing the overall economic cost of space weather appears to be in its infancy. Here we provide an initial literature review to gather and assess the quality of any published assessments of space weather impa cts and socio - economic studies. Generally speaking there is a good volume of scientific peer - reviewed literature detai ling the likelihood and statistics of different types of space weather phenomena. These phenomena all typically exhibit ‘power - law’ behaviour in their severity. The literature on documented impacts is not as extensive with many case studies, but few statis tical studies. The literature on the economic impacts of space weather is rather sparse and not as well developed when compared to the other sections , most probably due to the somewhat limited data that is available from end - users . The major risk is attach ed to power distribution systems and there is disagreement as to the severity of the technological footprint. This strongly controls the economic impact. Consequently, urgent work is required to better quantify the risk of future space weather events