Texas Forestry Paper No. 27

Number of 8.7 - foot veneer bolts in loblolly pine trees of old-field plantations in the interior west gulf coastal plainhttps://scholarworks.sfasu.edu/texas_forestry_papers/1015/thumbnail.jp

Texas Forestry Paper No. 17

Ovendry weights for loblolly pine trees in old-field plantations in the interior west gulf coastal plainhttps://scholarworks.sfasu.edu/texas_forestry_papers/1008/thumbnail.jp

Investigation of the Energy Source for an Early Dynamo in Vesta from Experiments on Electrical Resistivity of Liquid Fe-10wt%Ni at High Pressures

Investigation of energy sources in an early dynamo in Vesta has been carried out using high pressure-temperature experimental studies. Electrical resistivity of Fe‐10wt%Ni was measured at 2-5 GPa up to 2082 K in the liquid state and compared to previous results of pure Fe and pure Ni. Thermal conductivity was calculated from electrical resistivity to determine adiabatic core heat flux. The results are applied to determine whether thermal convection could be responsible for the putative dynamo in early Vesta’s core. An adiabatic core heat flux of ~300 MW at the top of Vesta’s core is estimated from this study and compared to a range of estimates of heat flux through the CMB of 1.5-78 GW. It is concluded that thermal convection would have occurred, playing an important role as an energy source of dynamo action that generated a magnetic field for tens of millions of years in Vesta’s early history

Viscosity solutions associated with impulse control problems for piecewise-deterministic processes

This paper considers existence and uniqueness results for viscosity solutions of integro-differential equations associated with the impulse control problem for piecewise-deterministic processes on bounded domains and on Rn

Influence of large offshore wind farms on North German climate

Wind farms impact the local meteorology by taking up kinetic energy from the wind field and by creating a large wake. The wake influences mean flow, turbulent fluxes and vertical mixing. In the present study, the influences of large offshore wind farms on the local summer climate are investigated by employing the mesoscale numerical model METRAS with and without wind farm scenarios. For this purpose, a parametrisation for wind turbines is implemented in METRAS. Simulations are done for a domain covering the northern part of Germany with focus on the urban summer climate of Hamburg. A statistical-dynamical downscaling is applied using a skill score to determine the required number of days to simulate the climate and the influence of large wind farms situated in the German Bight, about 100 km away from Hamburg.Depending on the weather situation, the impact of large offshore wind farms varies from nearly no influence up to cloud cover changes over land. The decrease in the wind speed is most pronounced in the local areas in and around the wind farms. Inside the wind farms, the sensible heat flux is reduced. This results in cooling of the climate summer mean for a large area in the northern part of Germany. Due to smaller momentum fluxes the latent heat flux is also reduced. Therefore, the specific humidity is lower but because of the cooling, the relative humidity has no clear signal. The changes in temperature and relative humidity are more wide spread than the decrease of wind speed. Hamburg is located in the margins of the influenced region. Even if the influences are small, the urban effects of Hamburg become more relevant than in the present and the off-shore wind farms slightly intensify the summer urban heat island

Loss of receptor activity-modifying protein 2 in mice causes placental dysfunction and alters PTH1R regulation

Receptor activity-modifying protein 2 (Ramp2) is a single-pass transmembrane protein that heterodimerizes with several family B G-protein coupled receptors to alter their function. Ramp2 has been primarily characterized in association with calcitonin receptor-like receptor (Calcrl, CLR), forming the canonical receptor complex for the endocrine peptide adrenomedullin (Adm, AM). However, we previously demonstrated that Ramp2+/- female mice display a constellation of endocrine-related phenotypes that are distinct from those of Adm+/- and Calcrl+/- mice, implying that RAMP2 has physiological functions beyond its canonical complex. Here, we localize Ramp2 expression in the mouse placenta, finding that Ramp2 is robustly expressed in the fetal labyrinth layer, and then characterize the effects of loss of Ramp2 on placental development. Consistent with the expression pattern of Ramp2 in the placenta, Ramp2-/- placentas have a thinner labyrinth layer with significantly fewer trophoblast cells secondary to a reduction in trophoblast proliferation. We also find that absence of Ramp2 leads to failed spiral artery remodeling unaccompanied by changes in the uterine natural killer cell population. Furthermore, we assess changes in gene expression of other RAMP2-associated G-protein coupled receptors (GPCRs), concluding that Ramp2 loss decreases parathyroid hormone 1 receptor (Pthr1) expression and causes a blunted response to systemic parathyroid hormone (PTH) administration in mice. Ultimately, these studies provide in vivo evidence of a role for RAMP2 in placental development distinct from the RAMP2-CLR/AM signaling paradigm and identify additional pathways underlying the endocrine and fertility defects of the previously characterized Ramp2 heterozygous adult females