Gauging Support for Innovative Farmland Preservation Techniques

This paper describes four innovative farmland preservation techniques and gauges support through interviews of key stakeholders: program administrators, lawmakers, and landowners. Four techniques were selected for assessment from approximately 30 novel techniques: rights of first refusal; term conservation easements; land preservation tontines; and agricultural conservation pension. Rights of first refusal was the most favored, although respondents thought effective implementation would need targeting of land and a dedicated funding source. Agricultural conservation pension was also viewed favorably, although considered administratively difficult to implement. Tontines were perceived to be an interesting concept, but confusing, difficult to implement, and ill-defined. Term easements were viewed unfavorably because they did not preserve land permanently.Land Economics/Use,

Investigation of dam wall deformation surveys

Dam walls are monitored by surveyors periodically to ensure that there is no deformation movement within the dam wall. Surveyors have been doing these for years but what determines the quality of these measurements. This research project aims to evaluate Hunter and Fells guidelines using monitoring data and how this guideline can be enhanced with a survey field procedure to produce the best results in the shortest time. Dam Walls are extremely important assets to the community but pose a large threat to both the environment and people living downstream if the dam wall were to fail. Cressbrook Dam, Cooby Dam and Lake Perseverance are all maintained by Toowoomba Regional Council all situated to the North of Toowoomba. These dam walls need to be monitored using qualitative and quantitative data to ensure they don’t have a breach. There are many varying opinions on what is the best survey method to conduct a valid deformation survey. The case study data will be utilised to evaluate whether or not Hunter and Fells movement guidelines can be applied for the general surveyor to use. This will involve developing a spreadsheet that can interpret coordinates and organise them in a way to aid the process. Secondly observations have been done using a robotic and a non-robotic total station. The data has been processed so that the different methods of survey can be analysed in a least squares adjustment using Starnet Software. These survey methods will then be applied to the literature guidelines to determine the most effective procedure of dam wall monitoring. The key outcomes of this project have been that a suitable excel spreadsheet has been created for easy analysis of survey data to Hunter and Fells guideline. The field work has been completed and the result processed. Some interesting patterns emerged with the robotic total station being much easier to measure, record and export the data. The non-robotic total station produced substandard results but partially produced results similar to the robotic machine. An interesting outcome was that the stations below the monitoring points delivered a height that was differing to the station situated above the monitoring points

Relating to students through young adult literature

No passionate reader, or lifetime reader, goes around reading books that they hate. They are what they enjoy. No single book can meet the individual likes and dislikes of each student. So why can students not read what they choose, and still learn? Based on the works of Donald Gallo, an interview with Jennifer Bueler, and the writers own personal experience with children and literacy, strictly as giving students choice in what they read. Choosing and evaluating books is part of reading, and it is part of teaching reading. Young Adult Literature (YAL) should not be excluded from student choice, it should encourage, especially among students who are struggling with reading, or finding enjoyment in reading. YAL is a great way to teach students many important aspects of reading, including character development, imagery, poetic language, citing text, plot development, irony, philosophical issues and much more. YAL deals with issues as relevant as rape, race, The Holocaust, justice, coming of age, personal growth and more. With YAL teachers are able to teach both important English concepts and instill genuine appreciation for literature

Trains, Games, and Complexity: 0/1/2-Player Motion Planning through Input/Output Gadgets

We analyze the computational complexity of motion planning through local "input/output" gadgets with separate entrances and exits, and a subset of allowed traversals from entrances to exits, each of which changes the state of the gadget and thereby the allowed traversals. We study such gadgets in the 0-, 1-, and 2-player settings, in particular extending past motion-planning-through-gadgets work to 0-player games for the first time, by considering "branchless" connections between gadgets that route every gadget's exit to a unique gadget's entrance. Our complexity results include containment in L, NL, P, NP, and PSPACE; as well as hardness for NL, P, NP, and PSPACE. We apply these results to show PSPACE-completeness for certain mechanics in Factorio, [the Sequence], and a restricted version of Trainyard, improving prior results. This work strengthens prior results on switching graphs and reachability switching games.Comment: 37 pages, 36 figure

Eccentric debris disc morphologies II: Surface brightness variations from overlapping orbits in narrow eccentric discs

We present Paper II of the Eccentric Debris Disc Morphologies series to explore the effects that significant free and forced eccentricities have on high-resolution millimetre-wavelength observations of debris discs, motivated by recent ALMA images of HD53143's disc. In this work, we explore the effects of free eccentricity, and by varying disc fractional widths and observational resolutions, show for a range of narrow eccentric discs, orbital overlaps result in dust emission distributions that have either one or two radial peaks at apocentre and/or pericentre. The narrowest discs contain two radial peaks, whereas the broadest discs contain just one radial peak. For fixed eccentricities, as fractional disc widths are increased, we show that these peaks merge first at apocentre (producing apocentre glow), and then at pericentre (producing pericentre glow). Our work thus demonstrates that apocentre/pericentre glows in models with constant free and forced eccentricities can be both width and resolution dependent at millimetre wavelengths, challenging the classical assertion that apocentre/pericentre glows are purely wavelength dependent. We discuss future high-resolution observations that can distinguish between competing interpretations of underlying debris disc eccentricity distributions.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures. Accepted for publication in MNRAS Letter

The Computational Complexity of Portal and Other 3D Video Games

We classify the computational complexity of the popular video games Portal and Portal 2. We isolate individual mechanics of the game and prove NP-hardness, PSPACE-completeness, or pseudo-polynomiality depending on the specific game mechanics allowed. One of our proofs generalizes to prove NP-hardness of many other video games such as Half-Life 2, Halo, Doom, Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Grand Theft Auto, Left 4 Dead, Mass Effect, Deus Ex, Metal Gear Solid, and Resident Evil. These results build on the established literature on the complexity of video games [Aloupis et al., 2014][Cormode, 2004][Forisek, 2010][Viglietta, 2014]

Restriction Site-Associated DNA Sequencing (RAD-seq) Reveals an Extraordinary Number of Transitions among Gecko Sex-Determining Systems

Sex chromosomes have evolved many times in animals and studying these replicate evolutionary “experiments” can help broaden our understanding of the general forces driving the origin and evolution of sex chromosomes. However this plan of study has been hindered by the inability to identify the sex chromosome systems in the large number of species with cryptic, homomorphic sex chromosomes. Restriction site-associated DNA sequencing (RAD-seq) is a critical enabling technology that can identify the sex chromosome systems in many species where traditional cytogenetic methods have failed. Using newly generated RAD-seq data from 12 gecko species, along with data from the literature, we reinterpret the evolution of sex-determining systems in lizards and snakes and test the hypothesis that sex chromosomes can routinely act as evolutionary traps. We uncovered between 17 and 25 transitions among gecko sex-determining systems. This is approximately one-half to two-thirds of the total number of transitions observed among all lizards and snakes. We find support for the hypothesis that sex chromosome systems can readily become trap-like and show that adding even a small number of species from understudied clades can greatly enhance hypothesis testing in a model-based phylogenetic framework. RAD-seq will undoubtedly prove useful in evaluating other species for male or female heterogamety, particularly the majority of fish, amphibian, and reptile species that lack visibly heteromorphic sex chromosomes, and will significantly accelerate the pace of biological discovery

Digital Public Library of America Service Hub Website Analysis

This whitepaper discusses the results of an analysis of Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) service hub websites in order to prepare for developing a website for the Illinois Digital Heritage Hub (IDHH). Service hub websites were examined in order to develop an understanding of possible audiences, content and features, and design and presentation among other service hub websites. In order to analyze websites, an evaluation rubric and database were created in order to collect data. Analysis of the data provided insight into user bases, content, and presentation choices common across service hub sites that laid the ground for design recommendations, maintenance strategies, and web development platform options for the IDHH website.Illinois State LibraryOpe

Exploring the Function and Adaptive Context of Paleo-Arctic Projectile Points

This dissertation presents new data on projectile point variability, technological organization, and site distribution in Upper Paleolithic Siberia and late Pleistocene/early Holocene Beringia, relating projectile point morphology, weapon systems, use wear data, and site assemblage variability to functional and cultural application spaces of prehistoric technologies. This research is divided into three related articles, first focusing on experimental investigations of the relationships between Beringian projectile point forms and prehistoric weapon systems. Lithic bifacial, simple osseous, and composite projectile point forms observed in the Beringian record are tested as arming elements of three weapon-delivery systems allowing for quantitative comparing of efficiency and lethality performances for each individual combination of weapon system and projectile-point morphology. Results indicate lithic bifacial and composite projectile points are most effective hafted as spear thrower points and hand-thrust spear tips, respectively. Better defined functional characterizations of prehistoric hunting toolkits furthers understandings of adaptive responses to resource fluctuation, landscape use, and technological organization. Next, this dissertation updates the geochronology and occupation record of the Blair Lakes Archaeological District, specifically the north shore of Blair Lake south, to contribute to our understanding of understudied landscapes in interior Alaska. Testing and excavation results confirm regional occupations that began nearly 11,000 calendar years ago and continued through the historic period. Together these results demonstrate the significance of the Blair Lakes Archaeological District and enhance our understanding of Holocene technological variability, site distribution, mobility, and landscape use in interior Alaska. This research concludes with a comparative morphological and use wear analysis of 11 osseous artifact assemblages from Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic sites across Siberia and Beringia, focusing on the relationships between raw material, point morphology, and function. Results show that raw material significantly influences point morphology, morphological variability increases during the late Upper Paleolithic, and osseous artifacts offer an avenue for exploring prehistoric cultural application spaces. Ultimately, this dissertation provides insight into functional and cultural application spaces of Beringian projectile points, providing a better understanding of prehistoric hunting tool kits and technological organization of Beringian foragers and the relation of these adaptations to changing ecological conditions. This dissertation presents new data on projectile-point variability, technological organization, and site distribution in Upper Paleolithic Siberia and late Pleistocene/early Holocene Beringia, relating projectile-point morphology, weapon systems, use-wear data, and site-assemblage variability to functional and cultural application spaces of prehistoric technologies. This research is divided into three related articles, first focusing on experimental investigations of the relationships between Beringian projectile point forms and prehistoric weapon systems. Lithic bifacial, simple osseous, and composite projectile point forms observed in the Beringian record are tested as arming elements of three weapon-delivery systems allowing for quantitative comparison of efficiency and lethality performances for each individual combination of weapon system and projectile-point morphology. Results indicate lithic bifacial and composite projectile points are most effective hafted as spear-thrower points and hand-thrust spear tips, respectively. Better defined functional characterizations of prehistoric hunting toolkits furthers understandings of adaptive responses to resource fluctuation, landscape use, and technological organization. Next, this dissertation updates the geochronology and occupation record of the Blair Lakes Archaeological District, specifically the north shore of Blair Lake south, to contribute to our understanding of understudied landscapes in interior Alaska. The field project was designed in part to provide the author with an important experience directing a project in which new archaeological materials relevant to other facets of the dissertation were obtained. Testing and excavation results confirm regional occupations that began nearly 11,000 calendar years ago and continued through the historic period. Together these results demonstrate the significance of the Blair Lakes Archaeological District and enhance our understanding of Holocene technological variability, site distribution, mobility, and landscape use in interior Alaska. This research concludes with a comparative morphological and use wear analysis of 11 osseous artifact assemblages from Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic sites across Siberia and Beringia, focusing on the relationships between raw material, point morphology, and function. Results show that raw material significantly influenced point morphology, significant morphological variability existed during the late Upper Paleolithic, and osseous artifacts offer an avenue for exploring prehistoric cultural application spaces. Specifically, this stud shows that osseous projectile points inset with microblades were an extremely lethal weapon tip, as also indicated in the experimental work presented earlier in the dissertation. Ultimately, this dissertation provides insight into functional and cultural application spaces of Beringian projectile points, providing a better understanding of prehistoric hunting tool kits and technological organization of Beringian foragers and the relation of these adaptations to changing ecological conditions