Carsey Perspectives: Polling and the New Hampshire Primary

As of this writing, the New Hampshire primary is scheduled to take place in just about two months—on Tuesday, February 9, just eight days after the first nomination contest, the Iowa caucuses. Numerous polls have already told us what the voters are contemplating "if the election were held today." In interpreting what the polls mean for the actual primary election, however, we need to take into consideration several caveats

Is sea-basing a viable method of providing logistic support to the UK amphibious force?

Maritime power has traditionally been a central part of the UK’s defence planning and is well suited to supporting a wide range of military operations. The littoral area has always created problems for naval planners as most landings historically have had to endure a tactical separation of the naval and land components, and hence an artificial seam between the Navy and the Marines. With the end of the Cold War, amphibious operations are going to be more difficult to conduct than in the past, and amphibious forces are going to have to adopt manoeuvre warfare capabilities in order to successfully complete their missions. It is very likely that amphibious forces will have to conduct operations against a numerically superior enemy, who is on his own terrain, and be surrounded by a neutral, if not hostile populace. As such, the concept of Operational Manoeuvre From The Sea (OMFTS) whereby the sea is used as a manoeuvre space, and command and control is fast enough to cope with large amounts of information, but at the same time allow subordinates maximum flexibility to use their initiative, is increasingly attractive. It will be important not only for the combat elements to be able to use this new concept, but the Combat Service Support (CSS) elements as well

Evaluation Gauge for Heat Sink Interface Material

Manufacturing facilities often need a way of evaluating the suitability of Thermal Interface Material (TIM) used with a heat sink. A technique is disclosed that evaluates heat sink Thermal Interface Material (TIM) for usability by using a gauge constructed to emulate a heat sink

Dynamical model of the dielectric screening of conjugated polymers

A dynamical model of the dielectric screening of conjugated polymers is introduced and solved using the density matrix renormalization group method. The model consists of a line of quantized dipoles interacting with a polymer chain. The polymer is modelled by the Pariser-Parr-Pople (P-P-P) model. It is found that: (1) Compared to isolated, unscreened single chains, the screened 1Bu- exciton binding energy is typically reduced by ca. 1 eV to just over 1 eV; (2) Covalent (magnon and bi-magnon) states are very weakly screened compared to ionic (exciton) states; (3) Screening of the 1Bu- exciton is closer to the dispersion than solvation limit.Comment: 12 pages, 2 figure

The First Primary: Why New Hampshire?

In this brief, authors David Moore and Andrew Smith describe the origin of the New Hampshire presidential primary and the Iowa presidential caucuses. The developments by which these two small states came to hold the first nominating contests every four years were accidental, generated by a variety of events not at all intended to educate future leaders and certainly not adopted with any expectation that these states would emerge with the enormous influence that comes with being first. But once Iowa and New Hampshire were first, and once they realized the extensive benefits the position brought to them, their leaders fought tenaciously to hold on to their advantage

Learning to Link Research, Practice, and Disciplinary Literacies: An Interview With Darin Stockdill

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/88013/1/JAAL.54.8.7.pd

Dynamics of buckbrush populations under simulated forest restoration alternatives

Plant population models are valuable tools for assessing ecological tradeoffs between forest management approaches. In addition, these models can provide insight on plant life history patterns and processes important for persistence and recovery of populations in changing environments. In this study, we evaluated a set of ecological restoration alternatives for their long-term effects on buckbrush (Ceanothus fendleri Gray), a shrub common in understories of ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa Laws. var. scopulorum Engelm.) forests of the southwestern United States. The field data were collected from a set of forest restoration units located on the Fort Valley Experimental Forest. We constructed simple stage-based models in order to simulate 25-year population dynamics. Results showed that scenarios that included overstory thinning, herbivore protection, and prescribed fire resulted in buckbrush populations with significantly greater numbers of aboveground stems than populations in the other alternatives. Vegetative stem recruitment, flowering, and seedling emergence were important in producing these results. For alternatives that included protection from herbivores, burning at 2-year frequencies resulted in populations with significantly greater numbers of aboveground stems than scenarios with longer intervals between burning. In contrast, frequent burning in alternatives without herbivore protection resulted in population decline. These results indicate that protecting buckbrush from large herbivores allowed plants to complete life cycles and fully express these life history traits. This research demonstrates that population modeling can help illuminate ecological tradeoffs associated with land management alternative