Petrology, petrogenesis, and tectonic setting of Jurassic rocks of the central Cascades, Washington, and western Klamath Mountains, California-Oregon

This dissertation consists of four independent, yet related projects: (1) the petrology, geochemistry, and original tectonic setting of the Galice Formation, Klamath Mountains, Oregon-California; (2) the geochemistry, tectonic setting, and possible regional correlations of the Iron Mountain and Esmeralda Peaks units of the Ingalls ophiolite complex, central Cascades, Washington; (3) the provenance and original tectonic setting of sedimentary serpentinites and ophiolite breccias within the sedimentary rocks of the Ingalls ophiolite complex; and (4) geology, tectonics, and possible regional correlations of pre-Cenozoic rocks, central Cascades, Washington. This research indicates that the Galice Formation represents continuous Late Jurassic deposition (Oxfordian-Kimmeridgian), within the Josephine backarc basin. Source; areas for the Galice Formation included active Jurassic arcs, older Klamath terranes, and the North American craton. The Early Jurassic Iron Mountain unit of the Ingalls ophiolite complex originated as a seamount in close proximity to an oceanic spreading ridge. The Late Jurassic Esmeralda Peaks unit of the Ingalls ophiolite complex originated in a backarc basin that included a fracture zone. The Iron Mountain unit is the rifted basement of the Esmeralda Peaks unit, and both units correlate to similar rocks within the Klamath Mountains. Cr-spinel compositions, geochemistry, and petrography indicate that sedimentary serpentinites and ophiolite breccias within the Ingalls sedimentary rocks were locally derived. These rocks were originally deposited in a Late Jurassic fracture zone. The Manastash inlier consists of the Hereford Meadow amphibolite, Lookout Mountain Formation, Quartz Mountain stock, and Helena-Haystack mélange. Hereford Meadow amphibolite is, in part, a dismembered pre-Jurassic ophiolite that originated in a supra-subduction zone setting. The Lookout Mountain Formation is Late Jurassic in age, had cratonic sources, and was originally located in the Klamath Mountains region, Oregon-California. The Quartz Mountain stock is Late Jurassic in age, and the remnants of an island arc. The Helena-Haystack mélange is a major suture between Cascade terranes, and suggests that ∼98 km of right-lateral displacement has occurred along the Straight Creek fault. The De Roux unit consists of metaigneous and metasedimentary rocks. Metaigneous rocks have calc-alkaline, within-plate, and mid-ocean ridge basalt affinities. The De Roux unit correlates with other Cascade mélanges

Decision-making without a brain: how an amoeboid organism solves the two-armed bandit

Several recent studies hint at shared patterns in decision-making between taxonomically distant organisms, yet few studies demonstrate and dissect mechanisms of decision-making in simpler organisms. We examine decision-making in the unicellular slime mould Physarum polycephalum using a classical decision problem adapted from human and animal decision-making studies: the two-armed bandit problem. This problem has previously only been used to study organisms with brains, yet here we demonstrate that a brainless unicellular organism compares the relative qualities of multiple options, integrates over repeated samplings to perform well in random environments, and combines information on reward frequency and magnitude in order to make correct and adaptive decisions. We extend our inquiry by using Bayesian model selection to determine the most likely algorithm used by the cell when making decisions. We deduce that this algorithm centres around a tendency to exploit environments in proportion to their reward experienced through past sampling. The algorithm is intermediate in computational complexity between simple, reactionary heuristics and calculation-intensive optimal performance algorithms, yet it has very good relative performance. Our study provides insight into ancestral mechanisms of decision-making and suggests that fundamental principles of decision-making, information processing and even cognition are shared among diverse biological systems

Weight Vectors of the Basic A_1^(1)-Module and the Littlewood-Richardson Rule

The basic representation of \A is studied. The weight vectors are represented in terms of Schur functions. A suitable base of any weight space is given. Littlewood-Richardson rule appears in the linear relations among weight vectors.Comment: February 1995, 7pages, Using AMS-Te

Performance of an environmental test to detect Mycobacterium bovis infection in badger social groups

A study by Courtenay and others (2006) demonstrated that the probability of detecting Mycobacterium bovis by PCR in soil samples from the spoil heaps of main badger setts correlated with the prevalence of excretion (infectiousness) of captured badgers belonging to the social group. It has been proposed that such a test could be used to target badger culling to setts containing infectious animals (Anon 2007). This short communication discusses the issues surrounding this concept, with the intention of dispelling any misconceptions among relevant stakeholders (farmers, policy makers and conservationists)

Forage Evaluation of Crested Wheatgrass

An experiment evaluated the forage value of crested wheatgrass (CWG) harvested throughout the grazing season near Sidney, Nebraska over a two-year period (2019-2020). The purpose of the evaluation was to determine forage quality and rumen undegradable protein (RUP) content to help producers with supplementation decisions for cattle grazing monoculture CWG pastures. In vitro dry matter disappearance quadratically decreased from 54% in May to 37% in September of 2019, with no changes throughout 2020, averaging 43%. In both years, crude protein (CP) decreased throughout the growing season while rumen undegradable protein (RUP) increased (as % CP). Digestible RUP was less than 0.50% of DM for all samples collected. Producers with cattle grazing CWG monoculture pastures could use these data to assist with supplementation decisions

Strong stability preserving explicit Runge-Kutta methods of maximal effective order

We apply the concept of effective order to strong stability preserving (SSP) explicit Runge-Kutta methods. Relative to classical Runge-Kutta methods, methods with an effective order of accuracy are designed to satisfy a relaxed set of order conditions, but yield higher order accuracy when composed with special starting and stopping methods. We show that this allows the construction of four-stage SSP methods with effective order four (such methods cannot have classical order four). However, we also prove that effective order five methods - like classical order five methods - require the use of non-positive weights and so cannot be SSP. By numerical optimization, we construct explicit SSP Runge-Kutta methods up to effective order four and establish the optimality of many of them. Numerical experiments demonstrate the validity of these methods in practice.Comment: 17 pages, 3 figures, 8 table

Falling Incapacity Benefit claims in a former industrial city: policy impacts or labour market improvement?

This article provides an in-depth study of Incapacity Benefit (IB) claims in a major city and of the factors behind their changing level. It relates to the regime prior to the introduction of the Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) in 2008. Glasgow has had one of the highest levels of IB in Britain with a peak of almost one fifth of the working age population on IB or Severe Disablement Allowance (SDA). However, over the past decade the number of IB claimants in Glasgow, as in other high claiming areas, has fallen at a faster rate than elsewhere, and Glasgow now has twice the national proportion of working-age people on IB/SDA rather than its peak of three times. The rise in IB in Glasgow can be attributed primarily to deindustrialisation; between 1971 and 1991, over 100,000 manufacturing jobs were lost in the city. Policy response was belated. Lack of local statistics on IB led to a lengthy delay in official recognition of the scale of the issue, and targeted programmes to divert or return IB claimants to work did not begin on any scale until around 2004. Evidence presented in the article suggests that the reduction in claims, which has mainly occurred since about 2003, has been due more to a strengthening labour market than to national policy changes or local programmes. This gives strong support to the view that excess IB claims are a form of disguised unemployment. Further detailed evaluation of ongoing programmes is required to develop the evidence base for this complex area. However, the study casts some doubt on the need for the post-2006 round of IB reforms in high-claim areas, since rapid decline in the number of claimants was already occurring in these areas. The article also indicates the importance of close joint working between national and local agencies, and further development of local level statistics on IB claimants

Impact of Feeding Syngenta Enogen® Feed Corn Compared to Control Corn in Different Diet Scenarios to Finishing Beef Cattle

The objective of this pooled statistical analysis was to evaluate Syngenta Enogen® Feed Corn (EFC) versus conventional corn (CON) when fed as either dry-rolled corn (DRC) or highmoisture corn (HMC) for effects on finishing beef cattle performance and carcass characteristics. Corns were evaluated in diets with byproduct inclusion rates of 0, 15, 18, 20, and 30% distiller grains or 25 and 35% Sweet Bran® (a commercial corn gluten feed product). Seven trials (n = 1856) consisting of 200 pen means comparing 26 diet treatments were analyzed using regression in a pooled analysis. When EFC was processed as DRC, the gain efficiency (G:F) improved compared with CON, but the response to feeding EFC decreased from a 4.8% improvement to no improvement compared to CON as distiller grains increased from 0 to 30%, but was significantly improved due to feeding EFC in diets with 0 to 18% distiller grains. Feeding cattle EFC as DRC increased the average daily gain (ADG) and G:F by 4.5% compared with CON corn in diets containing Sweet Bran®. No improvements in animal performance were observed when cattle were fed EFC compared to CON when processed as HMC in any situation. Feeding Enogen® corn improved the gain efficiency of finishing cattle compared with conventional corn when processed as dry-rolled corn and fed in diets with less than 20% distillers or diets that include Sweet Bran®