Anchoring historical sequences using a new source of astro-chronological tie-points

The discovery of past spikes in atmospheric radiocarbon activity, caused by major solar energetic particle events, has opened up new possibilities for high-precision chronometry. The two spikes, or Miyake Events, have now been widely identified in tree-rings that grew in the years 775 and 994 CE. Furthermore, all other plant material that grew in these years would also have incorporated the anomalously high concentrations of radiocarbon. Crucially, some plant-based artefacts, such as papyrus documents, timber beams and linen garments, can also be allocated to specific positions within long, currently unfixed, historical sequences. Thus, Miyake Events represent a new source of tie-points that could provide the means for anchoring early chronologies to the absolute timescale. Here, we explore this possibility, outlining the most expeditious approaches, the current challenges and obstacles, and how they might best be overcome.Comment: 11 pages, accepted to Royal Society Proc

Diels-Alder Trapping of Photochemically Generated o-Quinodimethane Intermediates: An Alternative Route to Photocured Polymer Film Development

Photolysis of o-methylphenyl ketones generates bis-o-quinodimethane intermediates that can be trapped in situ by dienophiles through Diels-Alder cycloadditions. This well-known photochemical process is applied to a series of six new photoreactive monomers containing bis-(o-methylphenyl ketone) functionalities combined with diacrylate and triacrylate ester monomers for the development of acrylic ester copolymer blends. Irradiation of cyclohexanone solutions of the bis-(o-methylphenyl ketone)s and acrylate esters produce thin polymer films. Solid state 13C NMR data indicated 47- 100% reaction of the bis-(o-methylphenyl ketone)s, depending on experimental conditions, to yield the desired products. DSC and TGA analyses were performed to determine the glass transition temperature, T,, and onset of decomposition, Td, of the resulting polymer films. A statistical Design of Experiments approach was used to obtain a systematic understanding of the effects of experimental variables on the extent of polymerization and the final polymer properties

Evidence-based implementation practices applied to the intensive treatment of eating disorders: Summary of research and illustration of principles using a case example

Implementation of evidence‐based practices (EBPs) in intensive treatment settings poses a major challenge in the field of psychology. This is particularly true for eating disorder (ED) treatment, where multidisciplinary care is provided to a severe and complex patient population; almost no data exist concerning best practices in these settings. We summarize the research on EBP implementation science organized by existing frameworks and illustrate how these practices may be applied using a case example. We describe the recent successful implementation of EBPs in a community‐based intensive ED treatment network, which recently adapted and implemented transdiagnostic, empirically supported treatment for emotional disorders across its system of residential and day‐hospital programs. The research summary, implementation frameworks, and case example may inform future efforts to implement evidence‐based practice in intensive treatment settings.Published versio

On the Reprocessing and Reanalysis of Observations for Climate

The long observational record is critical to our understanding of the Earth s climate, but most observing systems were not developed with a climate objective in mind. As a result, tremendous efforts have gone into assessing and reprocessing the data records to improve their usefulness in climate studies. Many challenges remain, such as tracking the improvement of processing algorithms and limited spatial coverage. Reanalyses have fostered significant research, yet reliable global trends in many physical fields are not yet attainable, despite significant advances in data assimilation and numerical modeling. Communication of the strengths, limitations and uncertainties of reprocessed observations and reanalysis data, not only among the community of developers, but also with the extended research community, including the new generations of researchers and the decision makers is crucial for further advancement of the observational data records. WCRP provides the means to bridge the different motivating objectives on which national efforts focus

RAH 2016 Training Projections

Republic Airlines plans on approximately 700 pilots completing flight training in 2016

Doctor of Philosophy

dissertationCharter schools have become an important aspect of Utah's unique K-12 education system as they have increased in both popularity and number in recent years. The increase of charter schools has allowed for a higher degree of parental choice regarding their children's education as well as various effects on the traditional public schools. Economic theory suggests that increased competition may influence firms to increase quality and/or decrease price. The question remains if the same holds for the education market in Utah. Nationwide existing evidence in the literature is mixed, where many studies have shown positive competitive effects of charters on public schools while a few others have shown negative or negligible competitive effects. Further analysis for the Utah education market is therefore warranted. This research identifies and analyzes the competitive effects of charter schools on the academic achievement of students in traditional public schools (K-6) in Utah. School-level criterionreferenced test (CRT) scores serve as a measure of academic achievement for the years 2005 through 2010. For completeness, two broadly-accepted measures of competition are utilized. Results suggest positive and significant competitive effects on traditional public school achievement in the subjects of Language Arts and Science, and negative but mostly not significant effects on Mathematics

Ten priority science gaps in assessing climate data record quality

Decision makers need accessible robust evidence to introduce new policies in an effort to mitigate and adapt to climate change. There is an increasing amount of environmental information available to policy makers concerning observations and trends relating to the climate. However, this data is hosted across a multitude of websites often with inconsistent metadata and sparse information relating to the quality, accuracy and validity of the data. Subsequently, the task of comparing datasets to decide which is the most appropriate for a certain purpose is very complex and often infeasible. In support of the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) mission to provide authoritative information about the past, present and future climate in Europe and the rest of the world, each dataset to be provided through this service must undergo an evaluation of its climate relevance and scientific quality to help with data comparisons. This paper presents the framework for Evaluation and Quality Control (EQC) of climate data products derived from satellite and in situ observations to be catalogued within the C3S Climate Data Store (CDS). The EQC framework will be implemented by C3S as part of their operational quality assurance programme. It builds on past and present international investment in Quality Assurance for Earth Observation initiatives, extensive user requirements gathering exercises, as well as a broad evaluation of over 250 data products and a more in-depth evaluation of a selection of 24 individual data products derived from satellite and in situ observations across the land, ocean and atmosphere Essential Climate Variable (ECV) domains. A prototype Content Management System (CMS) to facilitate the process of collating, evaluating and presenting the quality aspects and status of each data product to data users is also described. The development of the EQC framework has highlighted cross-domain as well as ECV specific science knowledge gaps in relation to addressing the quality of climate data sets derived from satellite and in situ observations. We discuss 10 common priority science knowledge gaps that will require further research investment to ensure all quality aspects of climate data sets can be ascertained and provide users with the range of information necessary to confidently select relevant products for their specific application

An analysis of age, technology usage, and cognitive characteristics within information retrieval tasks

This work presents two studies that aim to discover whether age can be used as a suitable metric for distinguishing performance between individuals or if other factors can provide greater insight. Information retrieval tasks are used to test the performance of these factors. First, a study is introduced that examines the effect that fluid intelligence and Internet usage has on individuals. Second, a larger study is reported on that examines a collection of Internet and cognitive factors in order to determine to what extent each of these metrics can account for disorientation in users. This work adds to growing evidence showing that age is not a suitable metric to distinguish between individuals within the field of human-computer interaction. It shows that factors such as previous Internet experience and fluid-based cognitive abilities can be used to gain better insight into users' reported browsing experience during information retrieval tasks