Cultural Resources Remote-Sensing Survey Of Areas Adjacent To Shamrock Island, Corpus Christi Bay, Nueces County, Texas

Coastal Environments Inc. (CEI) conducted a cultural resources remote-sensing survey of two areas adjacent to Shamrock Island, Nueces County, Texas. The northern-most of these covers 56.38 hectares (139.31 acres), while the southern-most survey area encompasses 44.8 hectares (110.69 acres). These are proposed locations of sand borrow areas to be used by the Nature Conservancy, Texas Coast Office for the Shamrock Island Restoration Project. Data were collected by Naismith Marine of Houston, Texas on December 15th and 17th, 2014 and supervised by the principal investigator and the remotesensing specialist from CEI. Remote-sensing equipment used in the project include a Geometrics 882 cesium magnetometer, an Edgetech 4125 dual frequency side-scan sonar system, and a digital recording fathometer. Positioning was performed with a differential global positioning system (DGPS) with corrections provided by a Virtual Reference Station (VRS). Upon delivery to CEI, additional processing and analysis was performed on the data and relevant archival work performed in order to determine the cultural significance of remote-sensing anomalies. While the remote-sensing data delineate an array of modern oil targets, two targets of possible cultural significance (designated anomalies M11 and M16) were identified. It is recommended that these targets either be avoided or that further investigations are carried out to determine their cultural significance

Let Freedom Read: Exploring Banned Books and Intellectual Freedom in Florida

On October 5, 2023, the FIU Libraries’ Academic and Intellectual Freedom Committee hosted a crucial discussion on the current state of book banning and censorship in the United States, with a specific focus on Florida. This special session was part of the First Thursdays Library lecture series. During the event, attendees were presented with startling statistics from the American Libraries Association\u27s Office for Intellectual Freedom (ALA OIF), PEN America, the Florida Freedom to Read Foundation (FFTRF), and the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) that led experts to declare 2022 the worst year for book bans in history. The committee also delved into the impact of recent state legislation, which has enabled increased demands for censorship. The session also explored effective strategies that libraries can employ to foster thoughtful dialogue even amidst dissenting viewpoints. By reviewing the concerning trends and offering reflective responses, the event sought to shed light on current intellectual freedom challenges and equip libraries to uphold access to information

The Threat to Academic & Intellectual Freedom

The Academic and Intellectual Freedom Ad Hoc Committee presented a First Thursday discussion on May 4 about academic and intellectual freedom. Starting with a brief definition of these terms, they traced the history of Academic Freedom and how current events affect us at FIU. The committee posed several real-life scenarios threatening Academic/Intellectual Freedom in libraries. All library staff were invited to attend this lively discussion

Feasibility of detecting orthopaedic screw overtightening using acoustic emission

A preliminary study of acoustic emission during orthopaedic screw fixation was performed using polyurethane foam as the bone-simulating material. Three sets of screws, a dynamic hip screw, a small fragment screw and a large fragment screw, were investigated, monitoring acoustic-emission activity during the screw tightening. In some specimens, screws were deliberately overtightened in order to investigate the feasibility of detecting the stripping torque in advance. One set of data was supported by load cell measurements to directly measure the axial load through the screw. Data showed that acoustic emission can give good indications of impending screw stripping; such indications are not available to the surgeon at the current state of the art using traditional torque measuring devices, and current practice relies on the surgeon’s experience alone. The results suggest that acoustic emission may have the potential to prevent screw overtightening and bone tissue damage, eliminating one of the commonest sources of human error in such scenarios

Sensemaking and Success in the Transition from Community Colleges to University IS/CS/CE Programs

Increasing the enrollment of women, minority, and other underrepresented populations in undergraduate information systems and computing programs is an important social issue. We explore ways of attracting and retaining community college transfer students—an important source of underrepresented students —by examining their sensemaking efforts as they transition to four-year universities. We conducted a qualitative study to test sensemaking theory and develop recommendations for retaining community college transfer students in undergraduate information systems, computer science, and computer engineering programs

On the dynamics of nitrite, nitrate and other biomarkers of nitric oxide production in inflammatory bowel disease

Nitrite and nitrate are frequently used surrogate markers of nitric oxide (NO) production. Using rat models of acute and chronic DSS-induced colitis we examined the applicability of these and other NO-related metabolites, in tissues and blood, for the characterization of inflammatory bowel disease. Global NO dynamics were assessed by simultaneous quantification of nitrite, nitrate, nitroso and nitrosyl species over time in multiple compartments. NO metabolite levels were compared to a composite disease activity index (DAI) and contrasted with measurements of platelet aggregability, ascorbate redox status and the effects of 5-aminosalicylic acid (5-ASA). Nitroso products in the colon and in other organs responded in a manner consistent with the DAI. In contrast, nitrite and nitrate, in both intra- and extravascular compartments, exhibited variations that were not always in step with the DAI. Extravascular nitrite, in particular, demonstrated significant temporal instabilities, ranging from systemic drops to marked increases. The latter was particularly evident after cessation of the inflammatory stimulus and accompanied by profound ascorbate oxidation. Treatment with 5-ASA effectively reversed these fluctuations and the associated oxidative and nitrosative stress. Platelet activation was enhanced in both the acute and chronic model. Our results offer a first glimpse into the systemic nature of DSS-induced inflammation and reveal a greater complexity of NO metabolism than previously envisioned, with a clear dissociation of nitrite from other markers of NO production. The remarkable effectiveness of 5-ASA to abrogate the observed pattern of nitrite instability suggests a hitherto unrecognized role of this molecule in either development or resolution of inflammation. Its possible link to tissue oxygen consumption and the hypoxia that tends to accompany the inflammatory process warrants further investigation

Estimating carbon stock in lowland Papua New Guinean forest – low density of large trees results in lower than global average carbon stock

Papua New Guinean forests (PNG), sequestering up to 3% of global forest carbon, are a focus of climate change mitigation initiatives yet few field-based studies have quantified forest biomass and carbon for lowland PNG forest. We provide an estimate for the 10,770 hectare Wanang Conservation Area (WCA) to investigate effect of calculation methodology and choice of allometric equation on estimates of above ground live biomass (AGLB) and carbon. We estimated AGLB and carbon from 43 nested plots at the WCA. Our biomass estimate of 292.2 Mg AGLB ha-1 (95% CI 233.4-350.6) and carbon at 137.3 MgCha-1 (95% CI 109.8-164.8) is higher than most estimates for PNG but lower than mean global estimates for tropical forest. Calculation method and choice of allometric model do not significantly influence mean biomass estimates, however the most recently calibrated allometric equation generates estimates 13% higher for lower 95% confidence intervals of mean biomass than previous allometric models – a value often used as a conservative estimate of biomass. Although large trees at WCA (>70 cm DBH) accounted for 1/5 total biomass their density was lower than that seen in SE Asian and Australia forests. Lower density of large trees accounts for lower above-ground live biomass than in neighbouring forests - as large trees contribute disproportionately to forest biomass. Reduced frequency of larger trees at WCA is explained by the lack of diversity of large dipterocarp species common to neighboring SE Asian forests and, potentially, higher rates of local disturbance dynamics. PNG is susceptible to the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) extreme drought events to which large trees are particularly sensitive and, with still over 20% carbon in large trees, differential mortality under increasing ENSO drought stress raises the risk of PNG forest switching from carbon sink to source with reduced long term carbon storage capacity

Evidence for new physics from clusters ?

The abundance of local clusters is a traditional way to derive the amplitude of matter fluctuations. In the present work, by assuming that the observed baryon content of clusters is representative of the universe, we show that the mass temperature relation (M-T) can be specified for any cosmological model. This approach allows one to remove most of the uncertainty coming from M-T relation, and to provide an estimation of sigma\_8 whose uncertainty is essentially statistical. The values we obtain are fortuitously almost independent of the matter density of the Universe (sigma\_8 ~ 0.6-0.63) with an accuracy better than 5%. Quite remarkably, the amplitude of matter fluctuations can be also tightly constrained to similar accuracy from existing CMB measurements alone. However, the amplitude inferred in this way in a concordance model (Lambda-CDM) is significantly larger than the value derived from the above method based on X-ray clusters. Such a discrepancy would almost disappear if the actual optical thickness of the Universe was 0 but could also be alleviated from more exotic solutions: the existence of a new dark component in the Universe as massive neutrinos. However, recent other indications of sigma\_8 favor a high normalization. In this case, the assumption that the baryonic content observed in clusters actually reflects the primordial value has to be relaxed : either there exists a large baryonic dark component in the Universe or baryons in clusters have undergone a large depletion during the formation of these structures. We concluded that the baryon fraction in clusters is not representative and therefore that an essential piece of the physics of baryons in clusters is missing in standard structure formation scenario.Comment: New version including changes and typos corrected, accepted for publication in A&

Lensing Magnification: Implications for Counts of Submillimeter Galaxies and SZ Clusters

We study lensing magnification of source galaxies by intervening galaxy groups and clusters using a halo model. Halos are modeled with truncated NFW profiles with ellipticity added to their lensing potential and propagated to observable lensing statistics. We present the formalism to calculate observable effects due to a distribution of halos of different masses at different redshifts along the l ine of sight. We calculate the effects of magnification on the number counts of high-redshift galaxies. Using BLAST survey data for submillimeter galaxies (SMGs), we find that magnification affects the steep, high flux par t of the counts by about 60%. The effect becomes much stronger if the intrinsic distribution is signi ficantly steeper than observed. We also consider the effect of this high-redshift galaxy population on contaminating the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (SZ) signal of massive clusters using the halo model approach. We find that for the majority of clusters expected to be detected with ongoing SZ surveys, there is significant contamination from the Poisson noise due to background SMGs. This contr ibution can be comparable to the SZ increment for typical clusters and can also contaminate the SZ decrement of low mass clusters. Thus SZ observations, especially for the increment part of the SZ spectrum, need to include careful modeling of this irreducible contamination for mass estimation. Lensing further enhances the contamination, especially close to the cores of massive clusters and for very disturbed clusters with large magnification cross-section.Comment: 21 pages, 14 figures, Submitted to MNRA