The Needs of Military-Connected Students within the North Carolina Public School System

The present study assessed how the mental health needs of military-connected students are addressed within public schools in the state of North Carolina, particularly how aware and comfortable school staff are regarding issues common to military-connected students and what trainings have been offered to them. Participants were 71 school personnel (i.e. principals, school counselors, and teachers) from Camden County, Craven County, Cumberland County, and Richmond County schools. These participants also represented schools that serve families from all five branches of the armed forces (i.e. Air Force, Army, Coast Guard, Marine Corps, and Navy). The ability of these personnel to identify issues highly correlated with military-connected students was assessed via an eighteen item electronic survey. This survey also addressed which related training programs participants have attended, as well as which related services schools currently have in place. Findings indicated that more than half of participants were unable to identify the needs common to military-connected students. Also, more than half (80.00%) of participants had not received any training related to the needs of military-connected students. Those participants who had received formal training perceived themselves as more confident in their abilities to serve this population of students than did their colleagues who had not. Funding for those training programs was predominantly financed by a branch of service or a military-connected organization (52.38%), followed by individual school districts (38.10%). Lastly, findings indicated that many schools are using a related service (i.e. welcome packet, buddy system, support groups) designed to assist their military-connected student population

Helium-3 in the Guaymas Basin: Evidence for injection of mantle volatiles in the Gulf of California

Helium isotope measurements in six major basins in the Gulf of California show that the deep Guaymas Basin has 3He/4He 65–70% higher than atmospheric helium, clear evidence of mantle helium injection. Smaller 3He excesses observed in the Carmen and Farallon basins may be derived from this Guaymas Basin anomaly. The 3He concentrations in the Mazatlan Basin in the mouth of the Gulf of California are similar to average eastern Pacific values, indicating that the Gulf does not provide a significant flux of 3He into the general Pacific circulation. On the basis of temperature and salinity measurements an upper limit of 0.28°C can be placed on the amount of geothermal heating observed in any of the basins. The isotopic ratio of the injected Guaymas Basin helium is found to be 3He/4He = (1.10±0.06) × 10−5, almost identical to the helium signature observed at the Galapagos Rift but somewhat lower than the average ratio in oceanic basalt glasses

Measurements of Electron Detection Efficiencies in Solid State Detectors

Detailed laboratory measurements have been made of the electron response of solid state detectors as a function of incident electron energy, detector depletion depth, and energy-loss discriminator threshold. These response functions were determined by exposing totally-depleted silicon surface barrier detectors with depletion depths between 50 μm and 1000 μm to the beam from a magnetic β-ray spectrometer. The data were extended to 5000 μm depletion depth using the results of previously published Monte Carlo electron calculations. When the electron counting efficiency of a given detector is plotted as a function of energy-loss threshold for various incident energies, the efficiency curves are bounded by a smooth envelope which represents the upper limit to the detection efficiency. These upper limit curves, which scale in a simple way, make it possible to easily estimate the electron sensitivity of solid state detector systems

A Modified Magnitude System that Produces Well-Behaved Magnitudes, Colors, and Errors Even for Low Signal-to-Noise Ratio Measurements

We describe a modification of the usual definition of astronomical magnitudes, replacing the usual logarithm with an inverse hyperbolic sine function; we call these modified magnitudes `asinh magnitudes'. For objects detected at signal-to-noise ratios of greater than about five, our modified definition is essentially identical to the traditional one; for fainter objects (including those with a formally negative flux) our definition is well behaved, tending to a definite value with finite errors as the flux goes to zero. This new definition is especially useful when considering the colors of faint objects, as the difference of two `asinh' magnitudes measures the usual flux ratio for bright objects, while avoiding the problems caused by dividing two very uncertain values for faint objects. The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) data products will use this scheme to express all magnitudes in their catalogs.Comment: 11 pages, including 3 postscript figures. Submitted to A

Wavelength Dependent PSFs and their impact on Weak Lensing Measurements

We measure and model the wavelength dependence of the PSF in the Hyper Suprime-Cam (HSC) Subaru Strategic Program (SSP) survey. We find that PSF chromaticity is present in that redder stars appear smaller than bluer stars in the $g, r,$ and $i$-bands at the 1-2 per cent level and in the $z$ and $y$-bands at the 0.1-0.2 per cent level. From the color dependence of the PSF, we fit a model between the monochromatic PSF trace radius, $R$, and wavelength of the form $R(\lambda)\propto \lambda^{b}$. We find values of $b$ between -0.2 and -0.5, depending on the epoch and filter. This is consistent with the expectations of a turbulent atmosphere with an outer scale length of $\sim 10-100$ m, indicating that the atmosphere is dominating the chromaticity. We find evidence in the best seeing data that the optical system and detector also contribute some wavelength dependence. Meyers and Burchat (2015) showed that $b$ must be measured to an accuracy of $\sim 0.02$ not to dominate the systematic error budget of the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) weak lensing (WL) survey. Using simple image simulations, we find that $b$ can be inferred with this accuracy in the $r$ and $i$-bands for all positions in the LSST field of view, assuming a stellar density of 1 star arcmin$^{-2}$ and that the optical PSF can be accurately modeled. Therefore, it is possible to correct for most, if not all, of the bias that the wavelength-dependent PSF will introduce into an LSST-like WL survey.Comment: 14 pages, 10 figures. Submitted to MNRAS. Comments welcom

Evolution of the south Pacific helium plume over the past three decades

Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2017. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems 18 (2017): 1810–1823, doi:10.1002/2017GC006848.The recent GEOTRACES Eastern Pacific Zonal Transect in 2013 crossed the East Pacific Rise at 15°S following the same track as the 1987 Helios Expedition along the core of the mid-depth helium plume that spreads westward from the East Pacific Rise (EPR) axis. The fact that several stations were co-located with the earlier Helios stations has allowed a detailed comparison of the changes in the helium plume over the intervening 26 years. While the plume in many areas is unchanged, there is a marked decrease in plume intensity at longitude 120°W in the 2013 data which was not present in 1987. Recent radioisotope measurements along the plume track suggest that this decrease is due to the intrusion of a different water mass into the plume, rather than a modulation of hydrothermal input on the EPR axis. Analysis of GEOTRACES hydrographic data shows excess heat present in the plume up to 0.04°C, corresponding to a 3He/heat ratio of ∼2.5 × 10−18 mol J−1, similar to that found in mature hydrothermal vents. RAFOS floats deployed in 1987 indicate an average westward transport of ∼0.3 cm s−1 at 2500 m depth in the off-axis plume, in agreement with recent estimates of ∼0.4 cm s−1 based on “aging” of the plume from 227Ac/3He ratios.Earth Ocean Interactions Program; NOAA Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory2017-11-0

Cretaceous-to-recent record of elevated 3He/4He along the Hawaiian-Emperor volcanic chain

Helium isotopes are a robust geochemical tracer of a primordial mantle component in hot spot volcanism. The high 3He/4He (up to 35 RA, where RA is the atmospheric 3He/4He ratio of 1.39 × 10−6) of some Hawaiian Island volcanism is perhaps the classic example. New results for picrites and basalts from the Hawaiian-Emperor seamount chain indicate that the hot spot has produced high 3He/4He lavas for at least the last 76 million years. Picrites erupted at 76 Ma have 3He/4He (10–14 RA), which is at the lower end of the range for the Hawaiian Islands but still above the range of modern mid-ocean ridge basalt (MORB; 6–10 RA). This was at a time when hot spot volcanism was occurring on thin lithosphere close to a spreading ridge and producing lava compositions otherwise nearly indistinguishable from MORB. After the hot spot and spreading center diverged during the Late Cretaceous, the hot spot produced lavas with significantly higher 3He/4He (up to 24 RA). Although 3He/4He ratios stabilized at relatively high values by 65 Ma, other chemical characteristics such as La/Yb and 87Sr/86Sr did not reach and stabilize at Hawaiian-Island-like values until ~45 Ma. Our limited 3He/4He record for the Hawaiian hot spot shows a poor correlation with plume flux estimates (calculated from bathymetry and residual gravity anomalies [Van Ark and Lin, 2004]). If 3He is a proxy for the quantity of primordial mantle material within the plume, then the lack of correlation between 3He/4He and calculated plume flux suggests that variation in primordial mantle flux is not the primary factor controlling total plume flux

Evidence for an extensive hydrothermal plume in the Tonga-Fiji region of the South Pacific

Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2004. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Geochemistry Geophysics Geosystems 5 (2004): Q01003, doi:10.1029/2003GC000607.Several hydrographic stations in the vicinity of the Samoa Islands have 3He/4He above the regional background in the depth range of 1500–1800 m, indicating injection of mantle helium from a local hydrothermal source. The highest δ(3He) = 43.4% was detected at 1726-m depth at 15.0°S, 173.1°W in the bathymetric gap between the Samoa Islands and the northern end of the Tonga-Kermadec Arc. The δ(3He) profile at this station decreases to δ(3He) = 26% at 2500-m depth. The relatively shallow depth of the maximum hydrothermal signal suggests a source different from the conventional Pacific basin helium plume centered at 2500 m that is carried westward from the East Pacific Rise. Stations to the west of this locality show a progressive decrease in the maximum δ(3He) values in the depth range of 1480–1790 m out to 169°E. Stations east of the Tonga-Fiji region show lower 3He values (<26%) at 1700 m and the profiles are dominated by a deeper maximum at 2500 m, presumably the distal traces of hydrothermal input from East Pacific Rise. This pattern in the 3He distribution suggests that the 1700-m deep helium plume is carried in a northwesterly direction some 2000 km from its source near the northern end of the Tonga-Kermadec Arc. At this time very little is known about the source of this hydrothermal plume or the details of its areal extent. Numerous seamounts and rift zones in the region are possible hydrothermal sources for the plume. The summit crater of Vailulu'u, a young seamount at the eastern end of the Samoa chain, was recently discovered to be hydrothermally active at ∼600 m depth [Hart et al., 2000]. However this shallow hydrothermal field on Vailulu'u is an unlikely source for the deeper 1700-m signal. The most likely source would appear to be the extensional zones of the northern Lau Basin system, such as the Mangatolo Triple Junction. Just as the helium plume emanating from Lo'ihi has helped our understanding of the circulation near the Hawaiian Islands [Lupton, 1996], this helium plume in the Tonga-Fiji region has great potential for delineating circulation in this area of the south Pacific.This work was supported by the NOAA Vents Program and by Grants OCE91-05884, OCE92-96237, OCE92-96169, and OCE98-20132 of the Ocean Sciences Division of the National Science Foundation

Family health narratives : midlife women’s concepts of vulnerability to illness

Perceptions of vulnerability to illness are strongly influenced by the salience given to personal experience of illness in the family. This article proposes that this salience is created through autobiographical narrative, both as individual life story and collectively shaped family history. The paper focuses on responses related to health in the family drawn from semi-structured interviews with women in a qualitative study exploring midlife women’s health. Uncertainty about the future was a major emergent theme. Most respondents were worried about a specified condition such as heart disease or breast cancer. Many women were uncertain about whether illness in the family was inherited. Some felt certain that illness in the family meant that they were more vulnerable to illness or that their relatives’ ageing would be mirrored in their own inevitable decline, while a few expressed cautious optimism about the future. In order to elucidate these responses, we focused on narratives in which family members’ appearance was discussed and compared to that of others in the family. The visualisation of both kinship and the effects of illness, led to strong similarities being seen as grounds for worry. This led to some women distancing themselves from the legacies of illness in their families. Women tended to look at the whole family as the context for their perceptions of vulnerability, developing complex patterns of resemblance or difference within their families