Remote sensing of wetlands, marshes, and shorelines in Michigan including St. John's Marsh

Remote sensing data are used to show the strategic relationship of the endangered marsh to population centers of SE Michigan. The potential ecological consequences and the impact of past development and changing lake levels are discussed. Applications of remote sensing are presented showing its usefulness for preparing statewide infrared wetland and forest mapping

A nanoradian differential VLBI tracking demonstration

The shift due to Jovian gravitational deflection in the apparent angular position of the radio source P 0201+113 was measured with very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) to demonstrate a differential angular tracking technique with nanoradian accuracy. The raypath of the radio source P 0201+113 passed within 1 mrad of Jupiter (approximately 10 Jovian radii) on 21 Mar. 1988. Its angular position was measured 10 times over 4 hours on that date, with a similar measurement set on 2 Apr. 1988, to track the differential angular gravitational deflection of the raypath. According to general relativity, the expected gravitational bend of the raypath averaged over the duration of the March experiment was approximately 1.45 nrad projected onto the two California-Australia baselines over which it was measured. Measurement accuracies on the order of 0.78 nrad were obtained for each of the ten differential measurements. The chi(exp 2) per degree of freedom of the data for the hypothesis of general relativity was 0.6, which suggests that the modeled dominant errors due to system noise and tropospheric fluctuations fully accounted for the scatter in the measured angular deflections. The chi(exp 2) per degree of freedom for the hypothesis of no gravitational deflection by Jupiter was 4.1, which rejects the no-deflection hypothesis with greater than 99.999 percent confidence. The system noise contributed about 0.34 nrad per combined-baseline differential measurement and tropospheric fluctuations contributed about 0.70 nrad. Unmodeled errors were assessed, which could potentially increase the 0.78 nrad error by about 8 percent. The above chi(exp 2) values, which result from the full accounting of errors, suggest that the nanoradian gravitational deflection signature was successfully tracked

Guide to the nature and methods of analysis of the clay fraction of tephras from the South Auckland region, New Zealand.

The manual outlines some of the more common laboratory procedures available for qualitatively and quantitatively analysing the composition of the tephric clays, many of which are difficult to determine because of their short range order or 'amorphous' nature. Techniques described and assessed in terms of their rapidity and quantitativeness include XRD, IR, DTA, TEM and SEM, sodium fluoride reactivity, chemical dissolution analyses, and surface area measurements. No one technique alone produces a definitive clay fraction analysis of tephric deposits. -from Author

Remote sensing utilization of developing countries: An appropriate technology

The activities of the Agency for international development were discussed. Regional and national training centers were established to create an understanding of the role and impact of remote sensing on the developing process. Workshops, training seminars, and demonstration projects were conducted. Research on application was carried out and financial and technical assistance to build or strengthen a country's capability were granted

Stratigraphy and reserves of pumiceous sand deposits in Perry's 'Asparagus Block' at Horotiu

The stratigraphic relationships between the deposits of the Hinuera Formation and the Taupo Pumice Alluvium are described over a 16 ha plot of land known as the 'Asparagus Block' at Horotiu. The Hinuera Formation is exposed at the surface at the southern end of this block, and is overlain by a wedge of Taupo Pumice Alluvium which increases in thickness from 0 to 8 m northwards across the block. Lithofacies in the Hinuera Formation are dominated by trough cross-bedded gravelly sands (lithofacies AI), with common cross-laminated sands (lithofacies B) and massive to horizontally laminated silts (lithofacies D). The pumice content of these deposits is mainly 70%. Lithofacies in the Taupo Pumice Alluvium are dominated by horizontally to inclined (tabular cross-) bedded slightly gravelly sands and sands (lithofacies G 1/2), with common occurrences of horizontally bedded to massive sandy silts (lithofacies D). The pumice content of these Taupo deposits is high, typically >80%. Cross-sections are presented showing an interpreted subsurface distribution of these lithofacies from south to north through the 'Asparagus Block'. The estimated reserve of extractable pumice sand from the block is of the order of about 400,000 to 450,000 m³

Prolonged elevations in haemostatic and rheological responses following psychological stress in low socioeconomic status men and women

Low socioeconomic status (SES) and psychological stress are associated with increased risk of coronary heart disease, and both may influence haemostatic responses. Von Willebrand factor (vWF), Factor VIII, plasma viscosity, haematocrit, blood viscosity, tissue plasminogen activator (t-PA) and fibrin D- dimer were measured at rest and following stressful tasks in 238 middle-aged British civil servants. SES was defined by grade of employment. Lower SES was associated with higher resting vWF, Factor VIII and plasma viscosity. Psychological stress stimulated increases in haemostatic and rheological factors. Initial stress responses did not vary with SES, but Factor VIII, plasma viscosity and blood viscosity remained more elevated 45 minutes post-stress in lower SES participants. High blood pressure stress reactivity was also associated with greater haemostatic responses. We conclude that lower SES is characterised by more prolonged elevations in procoagulant responses following psychological stress, and that these processes might contribute to increased cardiac risk

Obituary − Emeritus Professor Dr John Davidson McCraw (1925−2014) MBE, MSc NZ, DSc Well, CRSNZ, FNZSSS.

John McCraw was an Earth scientist who began working as a pedologist with Soil Bureau, DSIR, then became the Foundation Professor of Earth Sciences at the University of Waikato in Hamilton, inspiring a new generation to study and work in Earth sciences . In retirement, John McCraw was an author and historian with a special emphasis on Central Otago as well as the Waikato region. Throughout his career, marked especially by exemplary leadership, accomplished administration, and commitment to his staff and students at the University of Waikato, John McCraw also contributed to the communities in which he lived through public service organizations and as a public speaker. He received a number of awards including an MBE, fellowship, and companionship, and, uniquely, is commemorated also with a glacier, a fossil, and a museum-based research room named for him. Emeritus Professor John McCraw passed away on the 14th of December, 2014. An obituary, entitled “Dedicated to earth science and his students”, was published in the Waikato Times on the 10th of January, 2015

Exploring Deep Space: Learning Personalized Ranking in a Semantic Space

Recommender systems leverage both content and user interactions to generate recommendations that fit users' preferences. The recent surge of interest in deep learning presents new opportunities for exploiting these two sources of information. To recommend items we propose to first learn a user-independent high-dimensional semantic space in which items are positioned according to their substitutability, and then learn a user-specific transformation function to transform this space into a ranking according to the user's past preferences. An advantage of the proposed architecture is that it can be used to effectively recommend items using either content that describes the items or user-item ratings. We show that this approach significantly outperforms state-of-the-art recommender systems on the MovieLens 1M dataset.Comment: 6 pages, RecSys 2016 RSDL worksho