In situ gas treatment technology demonstration test plan

This document defines the objectives and requirements associated with undertaking a field demonstration of an in situ gas treatment appoach to remediation chromate-contaminated soil. The major tasks presented in this plan include the design and development of the surface gas treatment system, performance of permitting activities, and completion of site preparation and field testing activities

On The Low Frequency Quasi Periodic Oscillations of X-ray Sources

Based on the interpretation of the twin kilohertz Quasi Periodic Oscillations (kHz QPOs) of X-ray spectra of Low Mass X-Ray Binaries (LMXBs) to the Keplerian and the periastron precession frequencies at the magnetosphere-disk of X-ray neutron star (NS) respectively, we ascribe the low frequency Quasi Periodic Oscillations (LFQPO) and HBO (15-60 Hz QPO for Z sources or Atoll sources) to the periastron precession at some outer disk radius. The obtained conclusions include: all QPO frequencies increase with increasing the accretion rate. The obtained theoretical relations between HBO (LFQPO) frequency and the kHz QPO frequency are similar to the measured empirical formula. Further, the possible dynamical mechanism for QPO production is discussed.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures, accepted by APSS, 200

Evidence for a three-nucleon-force effect in proton-deuteron elastic scattering

Developments in spin-polarized internal targets for storage rings have permitted measurements of 197 MeV polarized protons scattering from vector polarized deuterons. This work presents measurements of the polarization observables A_y, iT_11, and C_y,y in proton-deuteron elastic scattering. When compared to calculations with and without three-nucleon forces, the measurements indicate that three-nucleon forces make a significant contribution to the observables. This work indicates that three-body forces derived from static nuclear properties appear to be crucial to the description of dynamical properties.Comment: 8 pages 2 figures Latex, submitted to Phys. Rev. Letter

Diet selectivity in a terrestrial forest invertebrate, the Auckland tree wētā, across three habitat zones.

Insects are important but overlooked components of forest ecosystems of New Zealand. For many invertebrate species, information on foraging patterns and trophic relationships is lacking. We examined diet composition and selectivity in a large bodied invertebrate, the Auckland tree wētā, in three habitat zones in a lowland New Zealand forest. We asked if Hemideina thoracica selectively forage from available plant food sources, and if these choices were lipid-rich compared to non-preferred available plants. We also identified the proportion of invertebrates in their frass as a proxy for omnivory. From reconnaissance plot sampling, together with faecal fragment analysis, we report that more than 93% of individual wētā had eaten other invertebrates before capture. Wētā in the highest elevation hillslope habitat consumed significantly fewer plants on average than wētā on either the low elevation terrace or mid-slope habitat. Hillslope wētā also had the highest average number of invertebrate fragments in their frass, significantly more than wētā in the low elevation terrace habitat. Wētā showed high variability in the consumption of fruit and seeds across all habitats. Generally, we did not observe diet differences between the sexes (although it appears that male wētā in the mid hillslope habitat ate fruits and seeds more voraciously than females), suggesting that the sexes have similar niche breadths and display similar degrees of omnivorous behaviour. Extraction of leaf lipids demonstrated a range of lipid content values in available plants, and Ivlev’s electivity index indicated that plant species which demonstrated high electivity, tended to have higher concentrations of lipids in their leaves. Our findings indicate that H. thoracica forage omnivorously and selectively, and hence play multiple roles in native ecosystems and food webs

Agenda-Setting With Local and National Issues

Three factors lead to the hypothesis that agenda-setting should be weaker at the local political level compared to the national level: (1) the more directly observable nature of local political problems, (2) the nature and strength of local interpersonal political communication networks, and (3) the relatively heavier media coverage of national political issues. This hypothesis was supported with data from respondents assigned at random to either local or national issue conditions and from a content analysis of television and newspaper coverage in Toledo, Ohio, of local and national issues. Contrary to the findings of certain previous studies, network television was found to exercise a stronger agenda-setting influence than newspapers at the national level. Newspapers, on the other hand, were the dominant agenda-setter at the local level. The relative agenda-setting influences of television versus newspapers are consistent with other data from this study concerning the relative strengths of the various media as sources of issue information.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/67066/2/10.1177_009365027700400404.pd

The AMANDA Neutrino Telescope

With an effective telescope area of order $10^4$ m$^2$ for TeV neutrinos, a threshold near $\sim$50 GeV and a pointing accuracy of 2.5 degrees per muon track, the AMANDA detector represents the first of a new generation of high energy neutrino telescopes, reaching a scale envisaged over 25 years ago. We describe early results on the calibration of natural deep ice as a particle detector as well as on AMANDA's performance as a neutrino telescope.Comment: 12 pages, Latex2.09, uses espcrc2.sty and epsf.sty, 13 postscript files included. Talk presented at the 18th International Conference on Neutrino Physics and Astrophysics (Neutrino 98), Takayama, Japan, June 199

Fast variability from black-hole binaries

Currently available information on fast variability of the X-ray emission from accreting collapsed objects constitutes a complex phenomenology which is difficult to interpret. We review the current observational standpoint for black-hole binaries and survey models that have been proposed to interpret it. Despite the complex structure of the accretion flow, key observational diagnostics have been identified which can provide direct access to the dynamics of matter motions in the close vicinity of black holes and thus to the some of fundamental properties of curved spacetimes, where strong-field general relativistic effects can be observed.Comment: 20 pages, 11 figures. Accepted for publication in Space Science Reviews. Also to appear in hard cover in the Space Sciences Series of ISSI "The Physics of Accretion onto Black Holes" (Springer Publisher

Atomic X-ray Spectroscopy of Accreting Black Holes

Current astrophysical research suggests that the most persistently luminous objects in the Universe are powered by the flow of matter through accretion disks onto black holes. Accretion disk systems are observed to emit copious radiation across the electromagnetic spectrum, each energy band providing access to rather distinct regimes of physical conditions and geometric scale. X-ray emission probes the innermost regions of the accretion disk, where relativistic effects prevail. While this has been known for decades, it also has been acknowledged that inferring physical conditions in the relativistic regime from the behavior of the X-ray continuum is problematic and not satisfactorily constraining. With the discovery in the 1990s of iron X-ray lines bearing signatures of relativistic distortion came the hope that such emission would more firmly constrain models of disk accretion near black holes, as well as provide observational criteria by which to test general relativity in the strong field limit. Here we provide an introduction to this phenomenon. While the presentation is intended to be primarily tutorial in nature, we aim also to acquaint the reader with trends in current research. To achieve these ends, we present the basic applications of general relativity that pertain to X-ray spectroscopic observations of black hole accretion disk systems, focusing on the Schwarzschild and Kerr solutions to the Einstein field equations. To this we add treatments of the fundamental concepts associated with the theoretical and modeling aspects of accretion disks, as well as relevant topics from observational and theoretical X-ray spectroscopy.Comment: 63 pages, 21 figures, Einstein Centennial Review Article, Canadian Journal of Physics, in pres

Overlap functions in correlation methods and quasifree nucleon knockout from 16^{16}O

The cross sections of the ($e,e'N$) and ($\gamma,p$) reactions on $^{16}$O are calculated, for the transitions to the $1/2^{-}$ ground state and the first $3/2^{-}$ excited state of the residual nucleus, using single-particle overlap functions obtained on the basis of one-body density matrices within different correlation methods. The electron-induced one-nucleon knockout reaction is treated within a nonrelativistic DWIA framework. The theoretical treatment of the ($\gamma,p$) reaction includes both contributions of the direct knockout mechanism and of meson-exchange currents. The results are sensitive to details of the different overlap functions. The consistent analysis of the reaction cross sections and the comparison with the experimental data make it possible to study the nucleon--nucleon correlation effects.Comment: 26 pages, LaTeX, 5 Postscript figures, submitted to PR

Association between the CHRM2 gene and intelligence in a sample of 304 Dutch families.

The CHRM2 gene is thought to be involved in neuronal excitability, synaptic plasticity and feedback regulation of acetylcholine release and has previously been implicated in higher cognitive processing. In a sample of 667 individuals from 304 families, we genotyped three singlenucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the CHRM2 gene on 7q31–35. From all individuals, standardized intelligence measures were available. Using a test of within-family association, which controls for the possible effects of population stratification, a highly significant association was found between the CHRM2 gene and intelligence. The strongest association was between rs324650 and performance IQ (PIQ), where the T allele was associated with an increase of 4.6 PIQ points. In parallel with a large familybased association, we observed an attenuated – although still significant – population-based association, illustrating that population stratification may decrease our chances of detecting allele–trait associations. Such a mechanism has been predicted earlier, and this article is one of the first to empirically show that family-based association methods are not only needed to guard against false positives, but are also invaluable in guarding against false negatives