AN ASSESSMENT OF MUNICIPAL WATER RIGHTS AND WATER SYSTEMS IN THE CLARK FORK RIVER BASIN

In the semi-arid Inland Northwest, water is undoubtedly the most important natural resource. Western Montana’s Clark Fork River basin is no exception. As the population of western Montana continues to grow, the Clark Fork River basin below the Flathead Indian Reservation is largely in de facto closure to the establishment of new water rights. Communities face a great amount of uncertainty with respect to their ability to establish new water rights to accommodate future growth due to the de facto closure, along with the ongoing adjudication process and the inability for communities to grow into their claimed water rights established before July 1, 1973. It is therefore essential for communities, and water resources planners and managers, to know their legal and physical entitlements to water. This assessment of municipal water rights and systems in the Clark Fork River basin was conducted by ascertaining the volumes and maximum flows of each community’s water right, analyzing the volume of water used annually, and projecting future water consumption amounts for the next 20 years based on projected county population growth rates. Other information gathered includes water conservation measures, water-related infrastructure, and metering. Interviews of water system managers and operators were conducted to gauge their level of understanding of water resource issues and policies that might play a significant role in each community’s ability to provide water to its residents. It appears that while the vast majority of communities in the Clark Fork River basin will have sufficient water right amounts for the next 20 years, other communities, e.g., Seeley Lake, Hamilton, and Missoula are more likely to experience difficulties in meeting future population growth with their current rights. Some communities, e.g., Butte, Columbia Falls, Superior, and Thompson Falls, may be limited in using their water rights due to water quality issues, while others, e.g., Hamilton, Missoula, and Stevensville, will be limited due to the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation’s rules regarding where water rights are able to be used

Klimaprojektionen für das Modellgebiet Lüneburger Heide

Für das Modellgebiet der Lüneburger Heide werden zur Mitte des 21. Jahrhunderts für alle Jahreszeiten höhere Mitteltemperaturen projiziert. Zum Ende des 21. Jahrhunderts sind noch größere Temperaturzunahmen zu erwarten. Im Winter steigen die Temperaturen jeweils am stärksten, im Frühjahr am geringsten. Dabei nehmen im Winter die niedrigen Tagesmitteltemperaturen stärker zu als die höheren und Eis- und Frosttage treten deutlich seltener auf. Im Sommer können Tage mit extremen Temperaturen wie Hitzetage und Tropentage bzw. -nächte deutlich häufiger auftreten. Im Jahr nimmt die Anzahl der Tage mit Temperaturen höher als 5° C deutlich zu, was eine wichtige physiologische Schwelle für das Wachstum von Pflanzen ist. Im Verlauf des Jahrhunderts unterscheiden sich die für das B1 Szenario simulierten Temperaturen immer deutlicher von den Ergebnissen für die A1B und A2 Szenarien. Das bedeutet, wenn es gelingt, die Treibhausgasemissionen zu vermindern, deutlich geringere Klimaänderungen zu erwarten sind. Die projizierten Niederschläge nehmen 2036-2065 in allen Jahreszeiten für alle Szenarien leicht zu, mit Ausnahme abnehmender Niederschläge für das A1B Szenario im Sommer. Insgesamt sind die Veränderungen im Sommer sehr gering und zeigen keinen klaren Trend. Zum Ende des 21. Jahrhunderts dagegen zeigen die meisten Simulationen im Sommer eine Niederschlagsabnahme mit den stärksten Änderungen im A1B Szenario. In Winter und Herbst verstärkt sich die Niederschlagszunahme, sodass eine Umverteilung der Niederschläge im Jahresverlauf stattfindet mit insgesamt im Jahresmittel leicht steigenden Werten. Zudem zeigt sich im Sommer trotz abnehmender Niederschläge eine Zunahme der Intensität von starken Niederschlägen

Comparison of Organic and Conventional Crops at the Neely-Kinyon Long-term Agroecological Research Site

The Neely-Kinyon Long-term Agroecological Research (LTAR) site was established in 1998 to study the long-term effects of organic production in Iowa. Treatments at the LTAR site, replicated four times in a completely randomized design, include the following rotations: conventional Corn-Soybean (C-S), organic Corn-Soybean-Oats/Alfalfa (C-SO/A), organic Corn-Soybean-Oats/AlfalfaAlfalfa (C-S-O/A-A) and Corn-SoybeanCorn-Oats/Alfalfa (C-SB-C-O/A). On April 13, 2011, Badger oats were underseeded with BR Goldfinch alfalfa at a rate of 90 lb/acre and 15 lb/acre, respectively. Following harvest of the organic corn plots in 2010, winter rye was no-till drilled at a rate of 75 lb/acre on October 20, 2010

Photoacoustic guided ultrasound wavefront shaping for targeted acousto-optic imaging

To overcome speed of sound aberrations that negatively impact the acoustic focus in acousto-optic imaging, received photoacoustic signals are used to guide the formation of ultrasound wavefronts to compensate for acoustic inhomogeneities. Photoacoustic point sources composed of gold and superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles are used to generate acoustic waves that acoustically probe the medium as they propagate to the detector. By utilizing cross-correlation techniques with the received photoacoustic signal, transmitted ultrasound wavefronts compensate for the aberration, allowing for optimized and configurable ultrasound transmission to targeted locations. It is demonstrated that utilizing a portable commercially available ultrasound system using customized software, photoacoustic guided ultrasound wavefront shaping for targeted acousto-optic imaging is robust in the presence of large, highly attenuating acoustic aberration

Verification of State/Event Systems by Quotienting

A rather new approach towards compositional verification of concurrent systems is the quotient technique, where components are gradually removed from the concurrent system while transforming the specification accordingly. When the intermediate specifications can be kept small using heuristics for minimization, the state explosion problemis avoided and there are already promising experimental results for systems with an interleaving semantics, including real-time systems. This paper extends the quotienting approach to deal with a synchronous framework in the shape of state/event systems. A state/event system is a concurrent system with a set of interdependent components operating synchronously according to stimuli (input events) provided by an environment while producing output events in return for the environment. A compositional modal logic M suitable for expressing general safety and liveness properties subsystems is introduced. A quotient construction for building components from a state/event system into the specification is presented and heuristics for minimizing formulae are proposed. The techniques are demonstrated on an example. The correctness of the techniques are justified by proofs in an appendix

Towards Error Handling in a DSL for Robot Assembly Tasks

This work-in-progress paper presents our work with a domain specific language (DSL) for tackling the issue of programming robots for small-sized batch production. We observe that as the complexity of assembly increases so does the likelihood of errors, and these errors need to be addressed. Nevertheless, it is essential that programming and setting up the assembly remains fast, allows quick changeovers, easy adjustments and reconfigurations. In this paper we present an initial design and implementation of extending an existing DSL for assembly operations with error specification, error handling and advanced move commands incorporating error tolerance. The DSL is used as part of a framework that aims at tackling uncertainties through a probabilistic approach.Comment: Presented at DSLRob 2014 (arXiv:cs/1411.7148

EN MINORITET SØGER IDENTITET: Drusisk religiøs identitet i den libanesiske offentlighed

Jakob Skovgaard-Petersen: A Minority in Search of Identity. Druze Religions Identity in the context of the Lebanese Public In recent years a number of Middle Eastem religious minorities have been engaged in redefinitions of their religious identities. One of the impulses for this activity has been the growth of Islamic movements that give strict and narrow definitions of what constitutes proper Islam. Another impulse has been the growing awareness of civil and religious rights of minorities. The Druze in Lebanon constitute such a minority that seeks to establish its proper identity in the aftermath of the Lebanese civil war 1975-90 and the general upheavals in the Lebanese national consciousness. Tracing the history of publications about the once-so-secretive Druze religion, the article explores the tendency to stress an Islamic identity for the Druze religion. This Islamization of Druze religion became apparent in a number of publications in the 1960s but has received a new impetus after the end of the civil war. Since this period more sophisticated arguments have centered on the Sufi character of the Druze holy writings and defended their Islamic character along the lines of Sufi apologetics. The article argues that this increased sophistication and professionalization of the agrument is partly due to the polemics against an Islamic identity of the Druze coming from Sunni and Maronite thinkers, some of whom were writing under Druze pseudonyms during the war. It is also due to a novel understanding of the Druze as a religious public which must be leamt about and adapt its Islamic identity through a public debate