Extension at the Wildland-Urban Interface: A Case Study of Community Fire Planning

The recent nationwide emphasis on community fire planning provides an important new opportunity for Extension. This article presents a case study of Extension involvement in neighborhood fire planning. We describe how intensive neighborhood outreach, design, and delivery of educational programs and facilitation of a steering committee have improved neighborhood cohesion and interagency coordination in addressing wildfire issues in a 250,000-acre watershed

Would You Live Here? Making the Growth Areas communities of choice

This book aims to promote a better understanding of who will live in the Growth Areas, what their aspirations and needs will be, and how we can meet them

Combinatorial aspects of braids with applications to cryptography

This thesis is a collection of different results on braids, and draws connections between them. We first introduce braids by showcasing a number of equivalent ways of describing what a braid is, and how those representations are related. Then, while uncovering enumerative properties of the positive braid monoid, we consider algorithms to compute the lcm of a set of braids. This leads to more than one elegant solution to the word problem. We explore some efficient algorithms which solve the word problem for braids, and then also explore the conjugacy problem and the cryptosystems that rely on the hardness of it in their proofs of security

Purinergic junctional transmission and propagation of calcium waves in cultured spinal cord microglial networks

In order to elucidate the mechanisms of purinergic transmission of calcium (Ca(2 + )) waves between microglial cells, we have employed micro-photolithographic methods to form discrete patterns of microglia that allow quantitative measurements of Ca(2 + ) wave propagation. Microglia were confined to lanes 20–100 [Formula: see text] wide and Ca(2 + ) waves propagated from a point of mechanical stimulation, with a diminution in amplitude, for about 120 [Formula: see text]. The number of cells participating in propagation also decreased over this distance. Ca(2 + ) waves could propagate across a cell-free lane from one microglia lane to another if this distance of separation was less than about 60 [Formula: see text] , indicating that propagation involved diffusion of a chemical transmitter. This transmitter was identified as ATP since all Ca(2 + ) wave propagation was blocked by the purinoceptor antagonist suramin, which blocks P2Y(2) and P2Y(12) at relatively low concentrations. Antibodies to P2Y(12) showed these at very high density compared with P2Y(2), indicating a role for P2Y(12) receptors. These observations were quantitatively accounted for by a model in which the main determinants are the diffusion of ATP released from a stimulated microglial cell and differences in the dissociation constant of the purinoceptors on the microglial cells

On the Price Spread of Benchmark Crude Oils: A Spatial Price Equilibrium Model

Benchmark crude oils exhibited dramatic fluctuations in price spreads in the recent decade, a phenomenon that rarely occurred in earlier decades. This paper develops a rational expectations two-period model of spatial price equilibrium, and departs from standard models by assuming increasing marginal costs of transportation and storage. We econometrically validate our model using a dataset that covers an extended time period. The model allows us to determine the underlying causes of the unique phenomenon of drastically changing crude oil price spreads over the past decade

Mapping the CMB I: the first flight of the QMAP experiment

We report on the first flight of the balloon-borne QMAP experiment. The experiment is designed to make a map of the cosmic microwave background anisotropy on angular scales from 0.7 to several degrees. Using the map we determine the angular power spectrum of the anisotropy in multipole bands from l~40 to l~140. The results are consistent with the Saskatoon (SK) measurements. The frequency spectral index (measured at low l) is consistent with that of CMB and inconsistent with either Galactic synchrotron or free-free emission. The instrument, measurement, analysis of the angular power spectrum, and possible systematic errors are discussed.Comment: 4 pages, with 5 figures included. Submitted to ApJL. Window functions and color figures are available at http://pupgg.princeton.edu/~cmb/welcome.htm

Timber harvesting and marketing practices on NIPF lands in western Oregon

Two hundred and fifty-four nonindustrial private forest landowners in western Oregon were surveyed to develop baseline information about harvesting practices and to examine the influence of marketing procedures on delivered log prices. Most respondents harvested to meet income or silvicultural objectives. Harvests on ownerships less than 50 acres in size accounted for over one third of the harvest volume. The majority of harvests were partial cuts; salvage harvests comprised about 20 percent of the sales. Most respondents managed their own sales or relied on the logger or timber buyer. Consultants managed only six percent of the sales. Respondents who left the sale details to the logger were significantly less satisfied with the sale results and earned lower prices than other landowners. A regression analysis was performed to evaluate the relationships between sale procedures and the delivered log price. The model indicated that sale to export buyers and the number of buyers contacted were positively associated with sale price; payment of the logger on a percentage basis, lack of familiarity with price levels and trends, and buyer-initiated sales were negatively associated with the sales price. Analysis of the relationships between ownership characteristics and sale procedures indicated that experienced landowners with larger holdings were better timber marketers by normative standards