Narrative of Benjamin MacDonald

"The first Hudson's Bay Company fort on the west side managed by Archibald MacDonald [the narrator's father] was that of Langley on the Fraser River in British Columbia… The next fort [he] was placed in charge of was Nisqually… The next fort conducted by [him] for the Hudson's Bay Company was that at Colville on the Columbia River.

Guano morphology has the potential to inform conservation strategies in British bats

Bats are primary consumers of nocturnal insects, disperse nutrients across landscapes, and are excellent bioindicators of an ecosystem’s health, however four of the seventeen Great British species are listed as declining. In this study we aim to investigate the link between bat guano morphology and diet, specifically looking at the ability to predict 1) species, 2) dietary guild, and 3) bat size, using guano morphology alone. Guano from 16 bat species sampled from across Great Britain were analysed to determine various morphological metrics. These data were coupled with diet data obtained by an extensive literature review. It was found that guano morphology overlapped too much to make predictions on the species of bat which deposited the guano, however, in some cases, it could be used to indicate the dietary guild to which the bat belonged. In general, guano morphology seems more correlated to diet than species. This enables the identification of the most important prey taxa within a local environment; a crucial step for informing conservation strategies

Flexible Basis Representations for Modeling High-Dimensional Hierarchical Spatial Data

Nonstationary and non-Gaussian spatial data are prevalent across many fields (e.g., counts of animal species, disease incidences in susceptible regions, and remotely-sensed satellite imagery). Due to modern data collection methods, the size of these datasets have grown considerably. Spatial generalized linear mixed models (SGLMMs) are a flexible class of models used to model nonstationary and non-Gaussian datasets. Despite their utility, SGLMMs can be computationally prohibitive for even moderately large datasets. To circumvent this issue, past studies have embedded nested radial basis functions into the SGLMM. However, two crucial specifications (knot placement and bandwidth parameters), which directly affect model performance, are typically fixed prior to model-fitting. We propose a novel approach to model large nonstationary and non-Gaussian spatial datasets using adaptive radial basis functions. Our approach: (1) partitions the spatial domain into subregions; (2) employs reversible-jump Markov chain Monte Carlo (RJMCMC) to infer the number and location of the knots within each partition; and (3) models the latent spatial surface using partition-varying and adaptive basis functions. Through an extensive simulation study, we show that our approach provides more accurate predictions than competing methods while preserving computational efficiency. We demonstrate our approach on two environmental datasets - incidences of plant species and counts of bird species in the United States

A geostationary equivalent Polar observation system

Various potential polar observation systems are evaluated and compared against a set of requirements to develop a system capable of providing geostationary equivalent coverage of the Earth‟s high-latitude regions. Consideration is given to Non-Keplerian orbits, where it is found that the orbit altitudes are restrictively high, and traditional highly-elliptical Molniya orbits where it is found that no single spacecraft can provide observations „over the pole‟ to 55 degrees latitude of equal quality to those produced by geostationary systems. Subsequent analysis of the Taranis concept reveals the ability of these systems to adequately view the target region with a reduction in the required number of spacecraft. Mass budget analysis reveals a possible payload mass of 151 – 379 kg for a single platform launched using the Soyuz launcher to a 16 hour, 90 degree inclination Taranis orbit for an 8.5 year mission. Four spacecraft, capable of observing continuously to 55 degrees latitude using single imagery, can be launched on the Ariane 5, which results in a payload mass range of 193 – 482 kg for an 8.5 year mission

Narrative of Benjamin MacDonald

"The first Hudson's Bay Company fort on the west side managed by Archibald MacDonald [the narrator's father] was that of Langley on the Fraser River in British Columbia… The next fort [he] was placed in charge of was Nisqually… The next fort conducted by [him] for the Hudson's Bay Company was that at Colville on the Columbia River.