A solar cycle lost in 1793--1800: Early sunspot observations resolve the old mystery

Because of the lack of reliable sunspot observation, the quality of sunspot number series is poor in the late 18th century, leading to the abnormally long solar cycle (1784--1799) before the Dalton minimum. Using the newly recovered solar drawings by the 18--19th century observers Staudacher and Hamilton, we construct the solar butterfly diagram, i.e. the latitudinal distribution of sunspots in the 1790's. The sudden, systematic occurrence of sunspots at high solar latitudes in 1793--1796 unambiguously shows that a new cycle started in 1793, which was lost in traditional Wolf's sunspot series. This finally confirms the existence of the lost cycle that has been proposed earlier, thus resolving an old mystery. This letter brings the attention of the scientific community to the need of revising the sunspot series in the 18th century. The presence of a new short, asymmetric cycle implies changes and constraints to sunspot cycle statistics, solar activity predictions, solar dynamo theories as well as for solar-terrestrial relations.Comment: Published by Astrophys. J. Let

Effects of light and soil moisture on forest tree seedling establishment

The present studies were designed to aid in the solution of forest tree seedling establishment problems common to stand conversion practices in Iowa. The primary objectives were: (1) to determine the minimum treatment needed to insure successful survival and growth; (2) to study the relationships of light and soil moisture in plant competition resulting from stand conversion; and (3) to evaluate five species of conifers - European larch, Scotch pine, eastern white pine, Norway spruce and red pine - for adaptability to region, site and underplanting. Field studies were made at the Brayton Forest in northeastern Iowa and consisted of ( 1 ) practical understory treatments to increase survival and growth of five underplanted conifers and (2) controlled experiments to evaluate overstory and understory competition in such plantings. Studies at the State Forest Nursery near Ames were planned to determine the relative growth and photosynthetic characteristics of three of the underplanted conifers (European larch, eastern white pine and Norway spruce) and two shrubby hardwood species ( dogwood and hazel) which offer serious understory competition in the forest

Field-scale permeation testing of jet-grouted buried waste sites

The Idaho National Engineering Laboratory (INEL) conducted field-scale hydraulic conductivity testing of simulated buried waste sites with improved confinement. The improved confinement was achieved by jet grouting the buried waste, thus creating solid monoliths. The hydraulic conductivity of the monoliths was determined using both the packer technique and the falling head method. The testing was performed on simulated buried waste sites utilizing a variety of encapsulating grouts, including high-sulfate-resistant Portland cement, TECT, (a proprietary iron oxide cement) and molten paraffin. By creating monoliths using in-situ jet grouting of encapsulating materials, the waste is simultaneously protected from subsidence and contained against further migration of contaminants. At the INEL alone there is 56,000 m{sup 3} of buried transuranic waste commingled with 170,000--224,000 m{sup 3} of soil in shallow land burial. One of the options for this buried waste is to improve the confinement and leave it in place for final disposal. Knowledge of the hydraulic conductivity for these monoliths is important for decision-makers. The packer tests involved coring the monolith, sealing off positions within the core with inflatable packers, applying pressurized water to the matrix behind the seal, and observing the water flow rate. The falling head tests were performed in full-scale 3-m-diameter, 3-m-high field-scale permeameters. In these permeameters, both water inflow and outflow were measured and equated to a hydraulic conductivity

Uniformity of V minus Near Infrared Color Evolution of Type Ia Supernovae, and Implications for Host Galaxy Extinction Determination

From an analysis of SNe 1972E, 1980N, 1981B, 1981D, 1983R, 1998bu, 1999cl, and 1999cp we find that the intrinsic V-K colors of Type Ia SNe with multi-color light curve shape (MLCS) parameter -0.4 < Delta < +0.2 suggest a uniform color curve. V-K colors become bluer linearly with time from roughly one week before B-band maximum until one week after maximum, after which they redden linearly until four weeks after maximum. V-H colors exhibit very similar color evolution. V-J colors exhibit slightly more complex evolution, with greater scatter. The existence of V minus near infrared color relations allows the construction of near infrared light curve templates that are an improvement on those of Elias et al. (1985). We provide optical BVRI and infrared JHK photometry of the Type Ia supernovae 1999aa, 1999cl, and 1999cp. SN 1999aa is an overluminous "slow decliner" (with Delta = -0.47 mag). SN 1999cp is a moderately bright SN unreddened in its host. SN 1999cl is extremely reddened in its host. The V minus near infrared colors of SN 1999cl yield A_V = 2.01 +/- 0.11 mag. This leads to a distance for its host galaxy (M 88) in agreement with other distance measurements for members of the Virgo cluster.Comment: 57 pages, 13 postscript figures, to appear in the August 20, 2000, issue of the Astrophysical Journal. Contains updated references and a number of minor corrections dealt with when page proofs were correcte

Modality-independent coding of spatial layout in the human brain

SummaryIn many nonhuman species, neural computations of navigational information such as position and orientation are not tied to a specific sensory modality [1, 2]. Rather, spatial signals are integrated from multiple input sources, likely leading to abstract representations of space. In contrast, the potential for abstract spatial representations in humans is not known, because most neuroscientific experiments on human navigation have focused exclusively on visual cues. Here, we tested the modality independence hypothesis with two functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) experiments that characterized computations in regions implicated in processing spatial layout [3]. According to the hypothesis, such regions should be recruited for spatial computation of 3D geometric configuration, independent of a specific sensory modality. In support of this view, sighted participants showed strong activation of the parahippocampal place area (PPA) and the retrosplenial cortex (RSC) for visual and haptic exploration of information-matched scenes but not objects. Functional connectivity analyses suggested that these effects were not related to visual recoding, which was further supported by a similar preference for haptic scenes found with blind participants. Taken together, these findings establish the PPA/RSC network as critical in modality-independent spatial computations and provide important evidence for a theory of high-level abstract spatial information processing in the human brain

Enhancing e-Infrastructures with Advanced Technical Computing: Parallel MATLAB® on the Grid

MATLAB® is widely used within the engineering and scientific fields as the language and environment for technical computing, while collaborative Grid computing on e-Infrastructures is used by scientific communities to deliver a faster time to solution. MATLAB allows users to express parallelism in their applications, and then execute code on multiprocessor environments such as large-scale e-Infrastructures. This paper demonstrates the integration of MATLAB and Grid technology with a representative implementation that uses gLite middleware to run parallel programs. Experimental results highlight the increases in productivity and performance that users obtain with MATLAB parallel computing on Grids

Shock formation and the ideal shape of ramp compression waves

We derive expressions for shock formation based on the local curvature of the flow characteristics during dynamic compression. Given a specific ramp adiabat, calculated for instance from the equation of state for a substance, the ideal nonlinear shape for an applied ramp loading history can be determined. We discuss the region affected by lateral release, which can be presented in compact form for the ideal loading history. Example calculations are given for representative metals and plastic ablators. Continuum dynamics (hydrocode) simulations were in good agreement with the algebraic forms. Example applications are presented for several classes of laser-loading experiment, identifying conditions where shocks are desired but not formed, and where long duration ramps are desired

Chromospheric Variability in SDSS M Dwarfs. II. Short-Timescale H-alpha Variability

[Abridged] We present the first comprehensive study of short-timescale chromospheric H-alpha variability in M dwarfs using the individual 15 min spectroscopic exposures for 52,392 objects from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. Our sample contains about 10^3-10^4 objects per spectral type bin in the range M0-M9, with a total of about 206,000 spectra and a typical number of 3 exposures per object (ranging up to a maximum of 30 exposures). Using this extensive data set we find that about 16% of the sources exhibit H-alpha emission in at least one exposure, and of those about 45% exhibit H-alpha emission in all of the available exposures. Within the sample of objects with H-alpha emission, only 26% are consistent with non-variable emission, independent of spectral type. The H-alpha variability, quantified in terms of the ratio of maximum to minimum H-alpha equivalent width (R_EW), and the ratio of the standard deviation to the mean (sigma_EW/), exhibits a rapid rise from M0 to M5, followed by a plateau and a possible decline in M9 objects. In particular, R_EW increases from a median value of about 1.8 for M0-M3 to about 2.5 for M7-M9, and variability with R_EW>10 is only observed in objects later than M5. For the combined sample we find that the R_EW values follow an exponential distribution with N(R_EW) exp[-(R_EW-1)/2]; for M5-M9 objects the characteristic scale is R_EW-1\approx 2.7, indicative of stronger variability. In addition, we find that objects with persistent H-alpha emission exhibit smaller values of R_EW than those with intermittent H-alpha emission. Based on these results we conclude that H-alpha variability in M dwarfs on timescales of 15 min to 1 hr increases with later spectral type, and that the variability is larger for intermittent sources.Comment: Submitted to ApJ; 20 pages, 15 figure