Can a wormhole supported by only small amounts of exotic matter really be traversable?

Recent studies have shown that (a) quantum effects may be sufficient to support a wormhole throat and (b) the total amount of "exotic matter" can be made arbitrarily small. Unfortunately, using only small amounts of exotic matter may result in a wormhole that flares out too slowly to be traversable in a reasonable length of time. Combined with the Ford-Roman constraints, the wormhole may also come close to having an event horizon at the throat. This paper examines a model that overcomes these difficulties, while satisfying the usual traversability conditions. This model also confirms that the total amount of exotic matter can indeed be made arbitrarily small.Comment: 8 pages, AMSTe

Food incentives to improve completion of tuberculosis treatment: randomised controlled trial in Dili, Timor-Leste

Objective To determine the effectiveness of the provision of whole food to enhance completion of treatment for tuberculosis

Field-calibrated model of melt, refreezing, and runoff for polar ice caps : Application to Devon Ice Cap

Acknowledgments R.M.M. was supported by the Scottish Alliance for Geoscience, Environment and Society (SAGES). The field data collection contributed to the validation of the European Space Agency Cryosat mission and was supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council, Canada, the Meteorological Service of Canada (CRYSYS program), the Polar Continental Shelf Project (an agency of Natural Resources Canada), and by UK Natural Environment Research Council consortium grant NER/O/S/2003/00620. Support for D.O.B. was provided by the Canadian Circumpolar Institute and the Climate Change Geoscience Program, Earth Sciences Sector, Natural Resources Canada (ESS contribution 20130371). Thanks are also due to the Nunavut Research Institute and the communities of Resolute Bay and Grise Fjord for permission to conduct fieldwork on Devon Ice Cap. M.J. Sharp, A. Gardner, F. Cawkwell, R. Bingham, S. Williamson, L. Colgan, J. Davis, B. Danielson, J. Sekerka, L. Gray, and J. Zheng are thanked for logistical support and field assistance during the data collection. We thank Ruzica Dadic, two other anonymous reviewers, and the Editor, Bryn Hubbard, for their helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper and which resulted in significant improvements.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

New Continuous Monitoring Technologies for Vapor Intrusion,

Typically, site investigation is carried out by using handheld or transportable field instruments coupled with offsite lab analyses. When using field instruments, the data generated represents a snapshot in time and space. Often, as with a PID or FID, data is presented as a total of contaminates present at that time and place. More sophisticated field equipment such as GC/MS can provide speciation, but still suffer from poor spatial and temporal resolution. As an alternative, investigators can choose methods such as Summa canisters that sample for a fixed period, say 24 hours, followed by lab analysis. The data generated provides speciation but the concentrations represent an average for the sampling period. Investigators are aware that environmental conditions such as pressure, temperature, water level and air movement substantially affect concentrations on a range of timescales, therefore uncertainty will always exist when using methods that lack temporal resolution. The presentation describes instrumentation that provides real time continuous data both down hole and ambient for multiple parameters such as VOCs, methane, oxygen, carbon dioxide, hydrogen sulfide and carbon monoxide together with atmospheric and borehole pressure. Data is presented from field work carried out by, among other, the Maine DEP, for applications such as vapor intrusion, recovery well monitoring and landfill gas migration. A comparison between spot sampling and continuous monitoring raises questions about the value of limited spot sampling

Proglacial erosion rates and processes in a glacierized catchment in the Swiss Alps

In the Swiss Alps, climatic changes have not only caused glacier retreat, but also likely increased sedimentation downstream of glaciers. This material either originates from below the glacier or from periglacial environments, which are exposed as glaciers retreat, and often consist of easily erodible sediment. Griesgletscher's catchment in the Swiss Alps was examined to quantify erosion in the proglacial area, possible hydrological drivers and contributions of the sub- and periglacial sources. Digital elevation models, created from annual aerial photographs, were subtracted to determine annual volume changes in the proglacial area from 1986 to 2014. These data show a strong increase in proglacial erosion in the decade prior to 2012, coincident with increasing proglacial area size. However, examination of the gradient between discharge and sediment evacuation, and modeled sediment transport, could suggest that the proglacial area began to stabilize and sediment supply is limited. The large influx of sediment into the proglacial reservoir, which is roughly 2.5 times greater than the amount of sediment eroded from the proglacial area, demonstrates the importance of subglacial erosion to the catchment's sediment budget. Although far more sediment originates subglacially, erosion rates in the proglacial area are over 50 times greater than the rest of the catchment. In turn, both sub- and periglacial processes, in addition to constraining sediment supply, must be considered for assessing future sediment dynamics as glacier area shrinks and proglacial areas grow

Novel Family of Gynecologic Cancer Antigens Detected by Anti-HIV Antibody

Objective: The reactivity of gynecologic cancer proteins with monoclonal antibody (MAb) directed against the human immunodeficiency virus I (HIV-I) was tested

Plantain (\u3cem\u3ePlantago lanceolata\u3c/em\u3e) Outperforms Chicory (\u3cem\u3eCichorium intybus\u3c/em\u3e) under Moisture Stress in Glasshouse

Forage chicory (Cichorium intybus) and plantain (Plantago lanceolata) are now widely used throughout the world as high feed quality perennial herbage (Sanderson et al. 2003; Labreveux et al. 2006; Li et al. 2010; Golding et al. 2011; Hutton et al. 2011). Both are taprooted plants and are thus likely to confer a degree of drought tolerance through accessing water deeper in the soil profile (Kemp et al. 2010). Nie et al. (2008) reported chicory can tolerate moisture stress to a greater degree than plantain. However, overall little is known about the effect of moisture stress on plantain and chicory persistence under defoliated conditions. The objective was to compare plantain and chicory un-der moisture stress and defoliation under glasshouse conditions