Geochemical Study of Lake Erie Water near Cleveland, Ohio

Author Institution: Department of Geological Sciences, Cleveland State UniversityIn August 1981, 88 surface, intermediate-depth, and near-bottom water samples from 30 locations near Cleveland, Ohio, were collected from Lake Erie. The distribution of K, Na, Ca, and Mg with respect to water depth and location was investigated. Surface water generally had higher K, Na, Ca, and Mg contents than near-bottom water. Elemental concentrations increased sharply near the mouths of the Cuyahoga and Rocky Rivers, and these higher levels are probably the result of cultural inputs from residential and industrial wastes. The average concentrations of K, Na, Ca, and Mg were 1.5, 12.0, 38.2, and 9.6 ppm, respectively, in Lake Erie water far from the river mouths. These values are comparable with those reported for mid-lake water of Lake Erie but are considerably lower than values found for water near the mouths of the Cuyahoga and Rocky Rivers

Geochemical Investigation of the Lower Cuyahoga River, Cleveland, Ohio

Author Institution: Department of Geology, Cleveland State UniversityFifty-four surface and near-bottom water samples from the lower Cuyahoga River were collected in the early spring of 1974. The distribution of K, Na, Ca, Mg and Zn with respect to water depth and location in the river was investigated. The average concentrations of K, Na, and Zn of the surface samples are slightly higher than those of the near-bottom samples. Correlation between element concentration and distance along the river indicates that Mg stays nearly constant and other elements fluctuate, particularly along the sections with local industries. The sharp drop of K and Na contents in near-bottom samples near the river's mouth could be caused by the intrusion of cooler lake water. pH values of water samples were slightly alkaline, ranging from 6.98 to 7.45. The average concentrations of K, Na, Ca, Mg, and Zn of the lower Cuyahoga River were 6.2, 60.8, 58.2, 15.0, and 0.020 ppm respectively. These values are considerably higher than those of the mid-lake water of Lake Erie

Chemical Composition of the Rocky River Near Cleveland, Ohio

Author Institution: Department of Geological Sciences, Cleveland State UniversityOn 29 and 30 October 1978, 44 water samples were collected from the Rocky River and selected tributaries. We investigated the distribution of K, Na, Ca and Sr with respect to location along the river and found that the Lower Rocky River has the highest average concentrations of K, Na and Ca, compared to the East Branch and West Branch, a finding probably attributable to cultural inputs from waste water and industrial dumps. The higher average concentrations of K, Na and Ca in the West Branch relative to the East Branch of the Rocky River may be caused by the agricultural and industrial input. The sharp drop of element concentrations near the mouth of the Rocky River may be the result or mixing of lake water with the river water. The average concentrations of K, Na, Ca and Sr found in the Lower Rocky River were 7.4, 62.0, 59.0, and 0.15 ppm, respectively. These values are comparable with those of the Lower Cuyahoga River but are considerably higher than those reported for the midlake water of Lake Erie

A multiwavelength survey of interacting galaxies

Galaxy-galaxy collisions are known to produce drastic changes in morphology and, in many cases, enhance the level of star formation activity in galaxies. In order to better quantify the effects that interactions have on the star formation characteristics of galaxies the authors undertook a multiwavelength survey of a large sample of interacting disk-type galaxies. The sample is optically-selected, the inclusion of systems having been based upon the presence of unusual morphological features--such as tidal tails, plumes, rings, warped disks--suggestive of tidal interaction. The sample is composed of about 115 systems, most of which are spiral-spiral pairs, with a few spiral-elliptical pairs and a few merging systems (see Bushouse 1986 for more details of the sample selection). This sample has now been studied in the optical, infrared, and radio regimes, including optical spectra and H alpha images, near-infrared photometry and imaging, far-infrared photometry, H I 21 cm emission-line measurements, Very Large Array (VLA) 20 cm maps, and CO emission-line measurements. This paper presents an overview and comparison of the results of the optical, infrared and CO surveys. With these data the authors can compare the far-infrared and CO properties of the galaxies with the classic optical and radio indicators of star formation activity and thereby determine what, if any, relationships exist between star formation activity and the far-infrared and CO properties of the galaxies

Recovering a Basic Space from Issue Scales in<i>R</i>

Basicspace is an R package that conducts Aldrich-McKelvey and Blackbox scaling to recover estimates of the underlying latent dimensions of issue scale data. We illustrate several applications of the package to survey data commonly used in the social sciences. Monte Carlo tests demonstrate that the procedure can recover latent dimensions and reproduce the matrix of responses at moderate levels of error and missing data

Implicit sequence learning in people with Parkinson\u27s disease

Implicit sequence learning involves learning about dependencies in sequences of events without intent to learn or awareness of what has been learned. Sequence learning is related to striatal dopamine levels, striatal activation, and integrity of white matter connections. People with Parkinson’s disease (PD) have degeneration of dopamine-producing neurons, leading to dopamine deficiency and therefore striatal deficits, and they have difficulties with sequencing, including complex language comprehension and postural stability. Most research on implicit sequence learning in PD has used motor-based tasks. However, because PD presents with motor deficits, it is difficult to assess whether learning itself is impaired in these tasks. The present study used an implicit sequence learning task with a reduced motor component, the Triplets Learning Task (TLT). People with PD and age- and education-matched healthy older adults completed three sessions (each consisting of 10 blocks of 50 trials) of the TLT. Results revealed that the PD group was able to learn the sequence, however, when learning was examined using a Half Blocks analysis (Nemeth et al., 2013), which compared learning in the 1st 25/50 trials of all blocks to that in the 2nd 25/50 trials, the PD group showed significantly less learning than Controls in the 2nd Half Blocks, but not in the 1st. Nemeth et al. (2013) hypothesized that the 1st Half Blocks involve recall and reactivation of the sequence learned, thus reflecting hippocampal-dependent learning, while the 2nd Half Blocks involve proceduralized behavior of learned sequences, reflecting striatal-based learning. The present results suggest that the PD group had intact hippocampal-dependent implicit sequence learning, but impaired striatal-dependent learning. Thus, sequencing deficits in PD are likely due to striatal impairments, but other brain systems, such as the hippocampus, may be able to partially compensate for striatal decline to improve performance

Assessing the climate resilience of community-managed water supplies in Ethiopia and Nepal

Understanding the resilience of water supplies to climate change is becoming an urgent priority to ensure health targets are met. Addressing systemic issues and building the resilience of community-managed supplies, which serve millions of people in rural LMIC settings, will be critical to improve access to safe drinking water. The How Tough is WASH (HTIW) framework to assess resilience was applied to community-managed water supplies in Ethiopia and Nepal to assess the effectiveness of this framework in field conditions. The resilience of these water supplies was measured along six domains&mdash;the environment, infrastructure, management, institutional support, community governance and supply chains&mdash;that can affect how they respond to climate change effects. We found that the HTIW framework provided an objective measure of resilience and could be used to rank water supplies in order of priority for action. We also found that systemic issues could be identified. The tools and methods used in the framework were easy to deploy by field research teams. The water supplies studied in Ethiopia and Nepal had low to moderate resilience to climate change. Service management and institutional support were weak in both countries. The data from Ethiopia and Nepal suggests that many water supplies in rural and small-town communities are unlikely to be resilient to future climate change without increased investment and support. The use of simple frameworks such as HTIW will be important in supporting decisions around such investments by identifying priority communities and actions

A new cold sub-Saturnian candidate planet orbiting GJ 221

Mikko Tuomi, 'A new cold sub-Saturnian candidate planet orbiting GJ 22', Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Letters, Vol 440: L1-L5, advanced access publication 11 February 2014. The version of record is available at doi: 10.1093/mnrasl/slu014 © 2014 The Author. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society.We re-analyse the recently published HARPS and PFS velocities of the nearby K dwarf GJ 221 that have been reported to contain the signatures of two planets orbiting the star. Our goal is to see whether the earlier studies discussing the system fell victims of false negative detections. We perform the analyses by using an independent statistical method based on posterior samplings and model comparisons in the Bayesian framework that is known to be more sensitive to weak signals of low-mass planets. According to our analyses, we find strong evidence in favour of a third candidate planet in the system corresponding to a cold sub-Saturnian planet with an orbital period of 500 days and a minimum mass of 29 $M_{\oplus}$. Application of sub-optimal signal detection methods can leave low-amplitude signals undetected in radial velocity time-series. Our results suggest that the estimated statistical properties of low-mass planets can thus be biased because several signals corresponding to low-mass candidate planets may have gone unnoticed. This also suggests that the occurrence rates of such planets based on radial velocity surveys might be underestimated.Peer reviewe