Collaborative Research: Long Records of Paleoclimate from Florida

Long Records of Paleoclimate from Florida Recent research on a continuous 50,000-year sediment record from eastern North America has revealed a striking correlation between Heinrich events (large surges in flow of ice streams feeding from the Laurentide ice sheet into the North Atlantic) and major changes in vegetation in peninsular Florida. These events are expressed at Lake Tulane, Florida, as abrupt shifts between pine-dominated and oak-dominated communities, which likely correspond with times of moist climate alternating with periods of extreme drought. Those results suggest that the Heinrich events involved important changes in ocean-atmosphere circulation, and thus forcing other than internal dynamics of the ice sheet. This award supports a research project designed with the following objectives: (1) To establish a higher-resolution AMS-radiocarbon chronology for the sediments of Lake Tulane. The record will verify whether the vegetational shifts in Florida are indeed synchronous with Heinrich events; (2) To reconstruct the history of lake-level fluctuations in Lake Tulane; (3) To extend the regional and temporal records of vegetation and climate for peninsular Florida by studying the pollen stratigraphy of new long cores (already collected) from several in-filled sinkholes. These sediments appear likely to span much more than the 50,000 years covered by the Lake Tulane record, and thus have excellent potential to produce the first record of changes in vegetation and climate spanning the last complete glacial/interglacial cycle in eastern North America

EMG and Motion Analysis of Swiss Ball Abdominal Exercises and Pilates Multi-Chair Exercises

As the second most common reason for visits to primary care doctors, and a symptom that affects 80% of the general United States population, low back pain and its\u27 treatment is a burdening cost on the American economy every year. Various spinal stabilization exercises have emerged as a means to treat low back pain. One of the most recent fonns of these stabilization exercises used in the physical therapy arena is Pilates, a fonn of dynamic spinal stabilization. Although numerous electromyographic (EMG) studies have been completed on abdominal exercises for spinal stabilization, minimal scientific research can be found on the efficacy of Pilates equipment in this realm. The purpose of this study is to analyze and evaluate the EMG activity in the rectus abdominis, external obliques, and internal obliques using four abdominal exercises: the abdominal crunch on a ball, the abdominal crunch with rotation on a ball, the abdominal crunch on the Pilates Multi-Chair, and the abdominal crunch with rotation on the Pilates Multi-Chair. Fourteen, healthy subjects between the ages of 18 and 45 years of age performed a maximal voluntary contraction (MVC) and one trial of each abdominal exercise. Abdominal EMG activity was recorded through surface electrodes and then normalized to percent MVC (%MVC) by comparing the muscle activity in the trial with the muscle activity during the reference MVC. Results of this study showed a significant difference in % MVC among exercises in the left external oblique, upper rectus abdominis, and lower rectus abdominis. There was no significant difference in % MVC among exercises in the right external oblique, and the right and left internal obliques. In general, exercises on the ball produced a higher % MVC in the rectus abdominis and the exercises on the Pilates Multi-Chair produced a higher % MVC in the external obliques

Peculiarities in produced particles emission in 208Pb + Ag(Br) interactions at 158 A GeV/c

The angular structures of particles produced in 208Pb induced collisions with Ag(Br) nuclei in an emulsion detector at 158 A GeV/c have been investigated. Nonstatistical ring-like substructures in azimuthal plane of the collision have been found and their parameters have been determined. The indication on the formation of the ring-like substructures from two symmetrical emission cones - one in the forward and other in the backward direction in the center-of mass system have been obtained. The ring-like substructures parameters have been determined. The experimental results are in an agreement with I.M. Dremin idea, that mechanism of the ring-like substructures formation in nuclear collisions is similar to that of Cherenkov electromagnetic radiation.Comment: 10 pages, 7 figures, Report at the HADRON STRUCTURE'04 Conference, Smolenice, Slovakia, 30.8.-3.9.200

Parton cascade description of relativistic heavy-ion collisions at CERN SPS energies ?

We examine Pb+Pb collisions at CERN SPS energy 158 A GeV, by employing the earlier developed and recently refined parton-cascade/cluster-hadronization model and its Monte Carlo implementation. This space-time model involves the dynamical interplay of perturbative QCD parton production and evolution, with non-perturbative parton-cluster formation and hadron production through cluster decays. Using computer simulations, we are able to follow the entwined time-evolution of parton and hadron degrees of freedom in both position and momentum space, from the instant of nuclear overlap to the final yield of particles. We present and discuss results for the multiplicity distributions, which agree well with the measured data from the CERN SPS, including those for K mesons. The transverse momentum distributions of the produced hadrons are also found to be in good agreement with the preliminary data measured by the NA49 and the WA98 collaboration for the collision of lead nuclei at the CERN SPS. The analysis of the time evolution of transverse energy deposited in the collision zone and the energy density suggests an existence of partonic matter for a time of more than 5 fm.Comment: 16 pages including 7 postscript figure

Synergistic and antagonistic effects of land use and non‐native species on community responses to climate change

Climate change, land‐use change and introductions of non‐native species are key determinants of biodiversity change worldwide. However, the extent to which anthropogenic drivers of environmental change interact to affect biological communities is largely unknown, especially over longer time periods. Here, we show that plant community composition in 996 Swedish landscapes has consistently shifted to reflect the warmer and wetter climate that the region has experienced during the second half of the 20th century. Using community climatic indices, which reflect the average climatic associations of the species within each landscape at each time period, we found that species compositions in 74% of landscapes now have a higher representation of warm‐associated species than they did previously, while 84% of landscapes now host more species associated with higher levels of precipitation. In addition to a warmer and wetter climate, there have also been large shifts in land use across the region, while the fraction of non‐native species has increased in the majority of landscapes. Climatic warming at the landscape level appeared to favour the colonization of warm‐associated species, while also potentially driving losses in cool‐associated species. However, the resulting increases in community thermal means were apparently buffered by landscape simplification (reduction in habitat heterogeneity within landscapes) in the form of increased forest cover. Increases in non‐native species, which generally originate from warmer climates than Sweden, were a strong driver of community‐level warming. In terms of precipitation, both landscape simplification and increases in non‐natives appeared to favour species associated with drier climatic conditions, to some extent counteracting the climate‐driven shift towards wetter communities. Anthropogenic drivers can act both synergistically and antagonistically to determine trajectories of change in biological communities over time. Therefore, it is important to consider multiple drivers of global change when trying to understand, manage and predict biodiversity in the future

Measurements of knee rotation-reliability of an external device in vivo

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Knee rotation plays an important part in knee kinematics during weight-bearing activities. An external device for measuring knee rotation (the Rottometer) has previously been evaluated for validity by simultaneous measurements of skeletal movements with Roentgen Stereometric Analysis (RSA). The aim of this study was to investigate the reliability of the device.</p> <p>Method</p> <p>The within-day and test-retest reliability as well as intertester reliability of the device in vivo was calculated. Torques of 3, 6 and 9 Nm and the examiner's apprehension of end-feel were used at 90°, 60° and 30° of knee flexion. Intraclass Correlation Coefficient _2,1(ICC _2,1), 95% confidence interval (CI) of ICC and 95% CI between test trials and examiners were used as statistical tests.</p> <p>Result</p> <p>ICC_2,1ranged from 0.50 to 0.94 at all three flexion angles at 6 and 9 Nm as well as end-feel, and from 0.22 to 0.75 at 3 Nm applied torque.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The Rottometer was a reliable measurement instrument concerning knee rotation at the three different flexion angles (90°, 60° and 30°) with 6 and 9 Nm applied torques as well as the examiner's apprehension of end-feel. Three Nm was not a reliable torque. The most reliable measurements were made at 9 Nm applied torque.</p

Relativistic Heavy--Ion Collisions in the Dynamical String--Parton Model

We develop and extend the dynamical string parton model. This model, which is based on the salient features of QCD, uses classical Nambu-Got\=o strings with the endpoints identified as partons, an invariant string breaking model of the hadronization process, and interactions described as quark-quark interactions. In this work, the original model is extended to include a phenomenological quantization of the mass of the strings, an analytical technique for treating the incident nucleons as a distribution of string configurations determined by the experimentally measured structure function, the inclusion of the gluonic content of the nucleon through the introduction of purely gluonic strings, and the use of a hard parton-parton interaction taken from perturbative QCD combined with a phenomenological soft interaction. The limited number of parameters in the model are adjusted to $e^+e^-$ and $p$--$p$ data. Utilizing these parameters, the first calculations of the model for $p$--$A$ and $A$--$A$ collisions are presented and found to be in reasonable agreement with a broad set of data.Comment: 26 pages of text with 23 Postscript figures placed in tex

Determinants of serum levels of vitamin D: a study of life-style, menopausal status, dietary intake, serum calcium, and PTH

Background: Low blood levels of vitamin D (25-hydroxy D3, 25OHD3) in women have been associated with an increased risk of several diseases. A large part of the population may have suboptimal 25OHD3 levels but high-risk groups are not well known. The aim of the present study was to identify determinants for serum levels of 25OHD3 in women, i.e. factors such as lifestyle, menopausal status, diet and selected biochemical variables. Methods: The study was based on women from the Malmo Diet and Cancer Study (MDCS), a prospective, population-based cohort study in Malmo, Sweden. In a previous case-control study on breast cancer, 25OHD3 concentrations had been measured in 727 women. In these, quartiles of serum 25OHD3 were compared with regard to age at baseline, BMI (Body Max Index), menopausal status, use of oral contraceptives or menopausal hormone therapy (MHT), life-style (e. g. smoking and alcohol consumption), socio-demographic factors, season, biochemical variables (i.e. calcium, PTH, albumin, creatinine, and phosphate), and dietary intake of vitamin D and calcium. In order to test differences in mean vitamin D concentrations between different categories of the studied factors, an ANOVA test was used followed by a t-test. The relation between different factors and 25OHD3 was further investigated using multiple linear regression analysis and a logistic regression analysis. Results: We found a positive association between serum levels of 25OHD3 and age, oral contraceptive use, moderate alcohol consumption, blood collection during summer/autumn, creatinine, phosphate, calcium, and a high intake of vitamin D. Low vitamin D levels were associated with obesity, being born outside Sweden and high PTH levels. Conclusions: The present population-based study found a positive association between serum levels of 25OHD3 and to several socio-demographic, life-style and biochemical factors. The study may have implications e. g. for dietary recommendations. However, the analysis is a cross-sectional and it is difficult to suggest Lifestyle changes as cause-effect relationships are difficult to assess