Discover Mojave Forever Earth Curriculum

The Discover Mojave Forever Earth program is more than a field trip to Lake Mead National Recreation Area (NRA). The program takes place aboard the Forever Earth, a floating environmental learning center. It is designed to give students the rare opportunity to study different facets of water in the desert—such as its characteristics and quality, the species that rely on it, its ability to change a landscape, and much more. This educational experience complements traditional classroom studies with engaging, participatory, on-site activities and support lessons based upon a solid framework for inquiry and discovery. On-site activities and the supporting lessons described herein align with Clark County School District curriculum and are correlated to Nevada State Science Standards and Clark County School District Curriculum Essentials Framework and Science Objectives. Pre-visit lessons prepare students for their trip, introducing important background concepts, key questions, and themes. Post-visit lessons follow up on and reinforce the on-site learning, and more importantly, encourage “big-picture” synthesis and options for stewardship

Mirror formation control in the vicinity of an asteroid

Two strategies are presented for the positioning and control of a spacecraft formation designed to focus sunlight onto a point on the surface of asteroid, thereby sublimating the material and ejecting debris creating thrust. In the first approach, the formation is located at artficial equilibrium points around the asteroid and controlled using the force from the solar radiation pressure. The second approach determines the optimal periodic formation orbits, subject to the gravitational perturbations from the asteroid, the solar radiation pressure and the control acceleration derived from a control law

Parallel Ant Colony Optimization on the University Course-Faculty Timetabling Problem in MSU-IIT Distributed Application in Erlang/OTP

The University Course-Faculty Timetabling Problem (UCFTP) occurs in the Mindanao State University-Iligan Institute of Technology (MSU-IIT) as the delegation of classrooms for available subjects including time schedule and appropriate faculty personnel, taking into consideration constraints such as classroom capacities, location, and faculty preferences, etc. It is a more difficult variant of the classical University Course Timetabling Problem, which is an assignment problem and known to be NP-hard. This paper presents parallel Ant Colony Optimization Max-Min Ant System (ACO-MMAS) algorithm as an approach in solving the UCFTP instance in the institute. ACO employs virtual ants moving across a search space and using an indirect form of constructive feedback by depositing pheromones on the paths they traverse in order to influence other ants in their searches. We have developed an application to automate the timetabling process using Erlang/OTP, a functional language specializing in concurrent and distributed systems. UCFTP was successfully represented into a mathematical problem instance and solved using the ACO-MMAS algorithm applied on a distributed network setup under Parallel Independent Run and Unidirectional Ring topologies. Extensive testing was performed to properly analyze the search behavior under different parameter settings

Global Health and Economic Impacts of Future Ozone Pollution

Abstract and PDF report are also available on the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change website (http://globalchange.mit.edu/).We assess the human health and economic impacts of projected 2000-2050 changes in ozone pollution using the MIT Emissions Prediction and Policy Analysis-Health Effects (EPPA-HE) model, in combination with results from the GEOS-Chem global tropospheric chemistry model that simulated climate and chemistry effects of IPCC SRES emissions. We use EPPA to assess the human health damages (including acute mortality and morbidity outcomes) caused by ozone pollution and quantify their economic impacts in sixteen world regions. We compare the costs of ozone pollution under scenarios with 2000 and 2050 ozone precursor and greenhouse gas emissions (SRES A1B scenario). We estimate that health costs due to global ozone pollution above pre-industrial levels by 2050 will be $580 billion (year 2000$) and that acute mortalities will exceed 2 million. We find that previous methodologies underestimate costs of air pollution by more than a third because they do not take into account the long-term, compounding effects of health costs. The economic effects of emissions changes far exceed the influence of climate alone.United States Department of Energy, Office of Science (BER) grants DE-FG02-94ER61937 and DE-FG02-93ER61677, the United States Environmental Protection Agency grant EPA-XA-83344601-0, and the industrial and foundation sponsors of the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change

Identification of mantle peridotite as a possible Iapetan ophiolite sliver in south Shetland, Scottish Caledonides

The Neoproterozoic Dunrossness Spilite Subgroup of south Shetland, Scotland, has been interpreted as a series of komatiitic and mafic lava flows formed in a marginal basin in response to Laurentian continental margin rifting. We show that ultramafic rocks previously identified as komatiites are depleted mantle peridotites that experienced seafloor hydrothermal alteration. The presence of positive Bouguer gravity and aeromagnetic anomalies extending from the Dunrossness Spilite Subgroup northward to the Shetland Ophiolite Complex suggests instead that these rocks may form part of an extensive ophiolite sliver, obducted during Iapetus Ocean closure in a forearc setting

Sampling Effort and Uncertainty in Leaf Litterfall Mass and Nutrient Flux in Northern Hardwood Forests

Designs for litterfall sampling can be improved by understanding the sources of uncertainty in litterfall mass and nutrient concentration. We compared the coefficient of variation of leaf litterfall mass and nutrient concentrations (nitrogen, phosphorus, calcium, magnesium, and potassium) at different spatial scales and across years for six northern hardwood species from 23 stands in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, USA. Stands with steeper slopes (P = 0.01), higher elevations (P = 0.05), and more westerly aspect (P = 0.002) had higher interannual variation in litter mass, probably due to a litter trap design that allowed litter to blow into traps in windy years. The spatial variation of nutrient concentrations varied more across stands than within stands for all elements (P \u3c 0.001). Phosphorus was the most spatially variable of all nutrients across stands (P \u3c 0.001). Litter nutrient concentrations varied less from year to year than litter mass, but the magnitude of difference depended on the element and tree species. We compared the relative importance of variation in mass vs. concentration to estimates of nutrient flux by simulating different sampling intensities of one while holding the other constant. In this dataset, interannual variability of leaf litter mass contributed more to uncertainty in litterfall flux calculations than interannual variation in nutrient concentrations. Optimal sampling schemes will depend on the elements of interest and local factors affecting spatial and temporal variability

Scale‐dependent strategies for coexistence of mesocarnivores in human‐dominated landscapes

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