Alien Registration- Levesque, Ludger S. (Portland, Cumberland County)

https://digitalmaine.com/alien_docs/22060/thumbnail.jp

Citizen science and natural resource governance: program design for vernal pool policy innovation

Effective natural resource policy depends on knowing what is needed to sustain a resource and building the capacity to identify, develop, and implement flexible policies. This retrospective case study applies resilience concepts to a 16-year citizen science program and vernal pool regulatory development process in Maine, USA. We describe how citizen science improved adaptive capacities for innovative and effective policies to regulate vernal pools. We identified two core program elements that allowed people to act within narrow windows of opportunity for policy transformation, including (1) the simultaneous generation of useful, credible scientific knowledge and construction of networks among diverse institutions, and (2) the formation of diverse leadership that promoted individual and collective abilities to identify problems and propose policy solutions. If citizen science program leaders want to promote social-ecological systems resilience and natural resource policies as outcomes, we recommend they create a system for internal project evaluation, publish scientific studies using citizen science data, pursue resources for program sustainability, and plan for leadership diversity and informal networks to foster adaptive governance. Effective natural resource policy depends on knowing what is needed to sustain a resource and building the capacity to identify, develop, and implement flexible policies. This retrospective case study applies resilience concepts to a 16-year citizen science program and vernal pool regulatory development process in Maine, USA. We describe how citizen science improved adaptive capacities for innovative and effective policies to regulate vernal pools. We identified two core program elements that allowed people to act within narrow windows of opportunity for policy transformation, including (1) the simultaneous generation of useful, credible scientific knowledge and construction of networks among diverse institutions, and (2) the formation of diverse leadership that promoted individual and collective abilities to identify problems and propose policy solutions. If citizen science program leaders want to promote social-ecological systems resilience and natural resource policies as outcomes, we recommend they create a system for internal project evaluation, publish scientific studies using citizen science data, pursue resources for program sustainability, and plan for leadership diversity and informal networks to foster adaptive governance

The impact of mass-loss on the evolution and pre-supernova properties of red supergiants

The post main-sequence evolution of massive stars is very sensitive to many parameters of the stellar models. Key parameters are the mixing processes, the metallicity, the mass-loss rate and the effect of a close companion. We study how the red supergiant lifetimes, the tracks in the Hertzsprung-Russel diagram (HRD), the positions in this diagram of the pre-supernova progenitor as well as the structure of the stars at that time change for various mass-loss rates during the red supergiant phase (RSG), and for two different initial rotation velocities. The surface abundances of RSGs are much more sensitive to rotation than to the mass-loss rates during that phase. A change of the RSG mass-loss rate has a strong impact on the RSG lifetimes and therefore on the luminosity function of RSGs. At solar metallicity, the enhanced mass-loss rate models do produce significant changes on the populations of blue, yellow and red supergiants. When extended blue loops or blue ward excursions are produced by enhanced mass-loss, the models predict that a majority of blue (yellow) supergiants are post RSG objects. These post RSG stars are predicted to show much smaller surface rotational velocities than similar blue supergiants on their first crossing of the HR gap. The position in the HRD of the end point of the evolution depends on the mass of the hydrogen envelope. More precisely, whenever, at the pre-supernova stage, the H-rich envelope contains more than about 5\% of the initial mass, the star is a red supergiant, and whenever the H-rich envelope contains less than 1\% of the total mass the star is a blue supergiant. For intermediate situations, intermediate colors/effective temperatures are obtained. Yellow progenitors for core collapse supernovae can be explained by the enhanced mass-loss rate models, while the red progenitors are better fitted by the standard mass-loss rate models.Comment: 19 pages, 11 figures, 6 tables, accepted for publication in Astronomy and Astrophysic

The answer is blowing in the wind: Simulating the interaction of jets with dynamic cluster atmospheres

We present numerical simulations investigating the interaction of AGN jets with galaxy clusters, for the first time taking into account the dynamic nature of the cluster gas and detailed cluster physics. The simulations successfully reproduce the observed morphologies of radio sources in clusters. We find that cluster inhomogeneities and large scale flows have significant impact on the morphology of the radio source and cannot be ignored a-priori when investigating radio source dynamics. Morphological comparison suggests that the gas in the centres of clusters like Virgo and Abell 4059 shows significant shear and/or rotation. We find that shear and rotation in the intra-cluster medium move large amounts of cold material back into the path of the jet, ensuring that subsequent jet outbursts encounter a sufficient column density of gas to couple with the inner cluster gas, thus alleviating the problem of evacuated channels discussed in the recent literature. The same effects redistribute the excess energy Delta_E deposited by the jets, making the distribution of Delta_E at late times consistent with being isotropic.Comment: 5 Pages, 5 figures, submitted to MNRAS Letter

Variable climates lead to varying phenotypes: ‘weird’ mammalian torpor and lessons from non-Holarctic species

Mammalian heterotherms, species that employ short or long periods of torpor, are found in many different climatic regions. Although the underlying physiological mechanisms of heterothermy in species from lower latitudes (i.e. the tropics and southern hemisphere) appear analogous to those of temperate and arctic heterotherms, the ultimate triggers and resulting patterns of energy expenditure and body temperature are often noticeably different. Phenotypic flexibility in the patterns of thermoregulation in non-Holarctic species can be extensive (depending on body condition, environmental parameters and species competition) and the factors responsible for inducing heterothermy are more variable in non-Holarctic species. As well as being a regular adaptation to seasonality, heterothermy can also be employed as a response to unpredictability in environmental parameters and as a response to emergency situations. Non-Holarctic heterotherms also challenge the notion that regular inter-bout arousals during hibernation are obligatory and suggest all that is necessary to maintain proper functioning during hibernation is an occasional passive return to -or maintenance of - a relatively high body temperature. The study of non-Holarctic heterotherms has led to the conclusion that heterothermy must be defined on the basis of mechanistic, physiological parameters, and not solely by body temperature; yet we are still limited in our abilities to record such mechanistic parameters in the field. It is now believed that homeothermy in mammals evolved in hot climates via an ancestral heterothermic state. Similar to extant warm-climate heterotherms, early mammals could have relied mainly on passive body temperature regulation with a capacity for short- to longer-term up-regulation of metabolism when needed. Hibernation, as seen in temperate and arctic species may then be a derived state of this ancestral heterothermy, and the study of torpor in warm climates can provide potential models for the energetics of early mammals

Radiative hydrodynamics simulations of red supergiant stars: II. simulations of convection on Betelgeuse match interferometric observations

Context. The red supergiant (RSG) Betelgeuse is an irregular variable star. Convection may play an important role in understanding this variability. Interferometric observations can be interpreted using sophisticated simulations of stellar convection. Aims. We compare the visibility curves and closure phases obtained from our 3D simulation of RSG convection with CO5BOLD to various interferometric observations of Betelgeuse from the optical to the H band in order to characterize and measure the convection pattern on this star. Methods. We use 3D radiative-hydrodynamics (RHD) simulation to compute intensity maps in different filters and we thus derive interferometric observables using the post-processing radiative transfer code OPTIM3D. The synthetic visibility curves and closure phases are compared to observations. Results. We provide a robust detection of the granulation pattern on the surface of Betelgeuse in the optical and in the H band based on excellent fits to the observed visibility points and closure phases. Moreover, we determine that the Betelgeuse surface in the H band is covered by small to medium scale (5-15 mas) convection-related surface structures and a large (30 mas) convective cell. In this spectral region, H2O molecules are the main absorbers and contribute to the small structures and to the position of the first null of the visibility curve (i.e. the apparent stellar radius).Comment: 11 pages, Accepted for publication on A&

Rituximab therapy for refractory interstitial lung disease related to antisynthetase syndrome

SummaryObjectiveTo report our experience using rituximab as therapy for refractory antisynthetase syndrome (ASS)-associated interstitial lung disease.MethodsWe retrospectively evaluated the medical records of 7 ASS patients with refractory interstitial lung disease, which had previously failed to respond to prednisone and/or other cytotoxic drugs. All 7 patients received rituximab therapy, i.e.: 1 g at days 0 and 14 and at 6-month follow-up. Data on pulmonary symptoms, pulmonary function tests and high resolution computed tomography (HRCT) scan of the lungs were collected: 1) before rituximab initiation; and 2) at 6-month and one-year follow-up after the first infusion of rituximab.ResultsAt one-year follow-up, ASS patients had resolution (n = 2) or improvement of pulmonary clinical manifestations. Patients also exhibited significant improvement of interstitial lung disease parameters: 1) on pulmonary function tests: FVC (p = 0.03) and DLCO (p = 2 × 10−5); 2) and HRCT-scan of the lungs. Due to clinical resolution/improvement of interstitial lung disease, the median daily dose of oral prednisone could be reduced in these 7 ASS patients at one-year follow-up, compared with baseline (20 mg/day vs. 9 mg/day; p = 0.015).ConclusionOur findings suggest that rituximab may be a helpful therapy for refractory interstitial lung disease in patients with ASS