1,204 research outputs found

    Softening the Lower Crust: Modes of Syn-Transport Transposition Around and Adjacent to a Deep Crustal Granulite Nappe, Parry Sound Domain, Grenville Province, Ontario, Canada

    Get PDF
    The Parry Sound domain is a granulite nappe-stack transported cratonward during reactivation of the ductile lower and middle crust in the late convergence of the Mesoproterozoic Grenville orogeny. Field observations suggest the following with respect to the ductile sheath: (1) Formation of a carapace of transposed amphibolite facies gneiss derived from and enveloping the western extremity of the Parry Sound domain and separating it from high-strain gneiss of adjacent allochthons. This ductile sheath formed dynamically around the moving granulite nappe through the development of systems of progressively linked shear zones. (2) Transposition initiated by hydration (amphibolization) of granulite facies gneiss by introduction of fluid along cracks accompanying pegmatite emplacement. Shear zones nucleated along pegmatite margins and subsequently linked and rotated. The source of the pegmatites was most likely subjacent migmatitic and pegmatite-rich units or units over which Parry Sound domain was transported. Comparison of gneisses of the ductile sheath with high-strain layered gneiss of adjacent allochthons show the mode of transposition of penetratively layered gneiss depended on whether or not the gneiss protoliths were amphibolite or granulite facies tectonites before initiation of transposition, resulting in, e.g., folding before shearing, no folding before shearing, respectively. Meter-scale truncation along high-strain gradients at the margins of both types of transposition-related shear zones observed within and marginal to Parry Sound domain mimic features at kilometer scales, implying that apparent truncation by transposition originating in a manner similar to the ductile sheath may be a common feature of deep crustal ductile reworking. Citation: Culshaw, N., C. Gerbi, and J. Marsh (2010), Softening the lower crust: Modes of syn-transport transposition around and adjacent to a deep crustal granulite nappe, Parry Sound domain, Grenville Province, Ontario, Canada, Tectonics, 29, TC5013, doi:10.1029/2009TC002537

    Operating and Managing a Backup Control Center

    Get PDF
    Due to the criticality of continuous mission operations, some control centers must plan for alternate locations in the event an emergency shuts down the primary control center. Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston, Texas is the Mission Control Center (MCC) for the International Space Station (ISS). Due to Houston s proximity to the Gulf of Mexico, JSC is prone to threats from hurricanes which could cause flooding, wind damage, and electrical outages to the buildings supporting the MCC. Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) has the capability to be the Backup Control Center for the ISS if the situation is needed. While the MSFC Huntsville Operations Support Center (HOSC) does house the BCC, the prime customer and operator of the ISS is still the JSC flight operations team. To satisfy the customer and maintain continuous mission operations, the BCC has critical infrastructure that hosts ISS ground systems and flight operations equipment that mirrors the prime mission control facility. However, a complete duplicate of Mission Control Center in another remote location is very expensive to recreate. The HOSC has infrastructure and services that MCC utilized for its backup control center to reduce the costs of a somewhat redundant service. While labor talents are equivalent, experiences are not. Certain operations are maintained in a redundant mode, while others are simply maintained as single string with adequate sparing levels of equipment. Personnel at the BCC facility must be trained and certified to an adequate level on primary MCC systems. Negotiations with the customer were done to match requirements with existing capabilities, and to prioritize resources for appropriate level of service. Because some of these systems are shared, an activation of the backup control center will cause a suspension of scheduled HOSC activities that may share resources needed by the BCC. For example, the MCC is monitoring a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico. As the threat to MCC increases, HOSC must begin a phased activation of the BCC, while working resource conflicts with normal HOSC activities. In a long duration outage to the MCC, this could cause serious impacts to the BCC host facility s primary mission support activities. This management of a BCC is worked based on customer expectations and negotiations done before emergencies occur. I

    Sleep, Alcohol, and Cannabis Use in College Student Drinkers with and without ADHD

    Get PDF
    Background: Heavy drinking college students are at risk for experiencing poor sleep and negative alcohol-and cannabis-related consequences. College students with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are uniquely vulnerable to both poor sleep and negative consequences from alcohol and cannabis use. Thus, it is critical to consider relations between ADHD, sleep and alcohol-related negative consequences together in a single study. In the present study, we examined: (1) the associations among ADHD status, sleep and alcohol- and cannabis-related consequences; (2) the independent and interactive effects of sleep and ADHD on negative alcohol-related consequences. Finally, we explored the independent and interactive effects of sleep and ADHD on negative cannabis-related consequences. Method: College student drinkers with (n=51) and without (n=50) ADHD completed a 2-hour assessment that included measures of sleep quality, alcohol and cannabis use, and alcohol/cannabis-related negative consequences. Analyses utilized a series of hierarchical linear regression models to examine study aims. Results: College student drinkers with ADHD reported significantly worse sleep quality relative to non-ADHD student drinkers. Students with ADHD also experienced more negative alcohol-related consequences, relative to student drinkers without ADHD. When ADHD and sleep quality were included in the model together, ADHD—but not sleep quality—was independently associated with negative alcohol consequences, but not negative cannabis consequences. There were no moderating effects of ADHD on the associations among sleep and negative consequences resulting from either alcohol or cannabis use. Conclusion: This is the first study to examine sleep quality in college students with and without ADHD engaging in heavy drinking, as well as the first to examine the independent and interactive effects of sleep and ADHD on alcohol- and cannabis-related consequences. Results demonstrated that college drinkers with ADHD are particularly vulnerable to experiencing poor sleep and negative consequences from their alcohol and cannabis use, compared to their heavy drinking peers without ADHD. Future, larger scale studies should consider longitudinal effects as well as underlying mechanisms of risk

    Basal conditions of two Transantarctic Mountains outlet glaciers from observation-constrained diagnostic modelling

    Get PDF
    This is the published version. Copyright 2014 International Glaciological SocietyWe present a diagnostic glacier flowline model parameterized and constrained by new velocity data from ice-surface GPS installations and speckle tracking of TerraSAR-X satellite images, newly acquired airborne-radar data, and continental gridded datasets of topography and geothermal heat flux, in order to better understand two outlet glaciers of the East Antarctic ice sheet. Our observational data are employed as primary inputs to a modelling procedure that first calculates the basal thermal regime of each glacier, then iterates the basal sliding coefficient and deformation rate parameter until the fit of simulated to observed surface velocities is optimized. We find that the two glaciers have both frozen and thawed areas at their beds, facilitating partial sliding. Glacier flow arises from a balance between sliding and deformation that fluctuates along the length of each glacier, with the amount of sliding typically varying by up to two orders of magnitude but with deformation rates far more constant. Beardmore Glacier is warmer and faster-flowing than Skelton Glacier, but an up-glacier deepening bed at the grounding line, coupled with ice thicknesses close to flotation, lead us to infer a greater vulnerability of Skelton Glacier to grounding-line recession if affected by ocean-forced thinning and concomitant acceleration

    Analysis of post-operative changes in serum protein expression profiles from colorectal cancer patients by MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry: a pilot methodological study

    Get PDF
    Background: Mass spectrometry-based protein expression profiling of blood sera can be used to discriminate colorectal cancer (CRC) patients from unaffected individuals. In a pilot methodological study, we have evaluated the changes in protein expression profiles of sera from CRC patients that occur following surgery to establish the potential of this approach for monitoring post-surgical response and possible early prediction of disease recurrence. Methods: In this initial pilot study, serum specimens from 11 cancer patients taken immediately prior to surgery and at approximately 6 weeks following surgery were analysed alongside 10 normal control sera by matrix-assisted laser desorption ionisation time of-flight-mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS). Using a two-sided t-test the top 20 ranked protein peaks that discriminate normal from pre-operative sera were identified. These were used to classify postoperative sera by hierarchical clustering analysis (Spearman's Rank correlation) and, as an independent `test' dataset, by k-nearest neighbour and weighted voting supervised learning algorithms. Results: Hierarchical cluster analysis classified post-operative sera from all six early Dukes' stage (A and B) patients as normal. The remaining five post-operative sera from more advanced Dukes' stages (C1 and C2) were classified as cancer. Analysis by supervised learning algorithms similarly grouped all advanced Dukes' stages as cancer, with four of the six post-operative sera from early Dukes' stages being classified as normal (P = 0.045; Fisher's exact test). Conclusions: The results of this pilot methodological study illustrate the proof-of-concept of using protein expression profiling of post-surgical blood sera from individual patients to monitor disease course. Further validation on a larger patient cohort and using an independent post-operative sera dataset would be required to evaluate the potential clinical relevance of this approach. Prospective data, including follow-up on patient survival, could in the future, then be evaluated to inform decisions on individualised treatment modalities
    • …
    corecore