Sea Level Rise in the Samoan Islands Escalated by Viscoelastic Relaxation After the 2009 Samoa-Tonga Earthquake

The Samoan islands are an archipelago hosting a quarter million people mostly residing inthree major islands, Savai'i and Upolu (Samoa), and Tutuila (American Samoa). The islands haveexperienced sea level rise by 2-3 mm/year during the last half century. The rate, however, has dramaticallyincreased following the Mw 8.1 SamoaTonga earthquake doublet (megathrust + normal faulting) inSeptember 2009. Since the earthquake, we found largescale gravity increase (0.5 Gal/year) around theislands and ongoing subsidence (8-16 mm/year) of the islands from our analysis of Gravity Recovery AndClimate Experiment gravity and GPS displacement data. The postseismic horizontal displacement is faster inSamoa, while the postseismic subsidence rate is considerably larger in American Samoa. The analysis oflocal tide gauge records and satellite altimeter data also identified that the relative sea level rise becomesfaster by 7-9 mm/year in American Samoa than Samoa. A simple viscoelastic model with a Maxwellviscosity of 2310(exp 18) Pa s for the asthenosphere explained postseismic deformation at nearby GPS sites aswell as Gravity Recovery And Climate Experiment gravity change. It is found that the constructiveinterference of viscoelastic relaxation from both megathrust and normal faulting has intensified thepostseismic subsidence at American Samoa, causing ~5 times faster sea level rise than the global average.Our model indicates that this trend is likely to continue for decades and result in sea level rise of 30-40 cm,which is independent of and in addition to anticipated climaterelated sea level rise. It will worsen coastalflooding on the islands leading to regular nuisance flooding

The Propagation of a Surge Front on Bering Glacier, Alaska, 2001-2011

Bering Glacier, Alaska, USA, has a 20 year surge cycle, with its most recent surge reaching the terminus in 2011. To study this most recent activity a time series of ice velocity maps was produced by applying optical feature-tracking methods to Landsat-7 ETM+ imagery spanning 2001-11. The velocity maps show a yearly increase in ice surface velocity associated with the down-glacier movement of a surge front. In 2008/09 the maximum ice surface velocity was 1.5 plus or minus 0.017 kilometers per a in the mid-ablation zone, which decreased to 1.2 plus or minus 0.015 kilometers per a in 2009/10 in the lower ablation zone, and then increased to nearly 4.4 plus or minus 0.03 kilometers per a in summer 2011 when the surge front reached the glacier terminus. The surge front propagated down-glacier as a kinematic wave at an average rate of 4.4 plus or minus 2.0 kilometers per a between September 2002 and April 2009, then accelerated to 13.9 plus or minus 2.0 kilometers per a as it entered the piedmont lobe between April 2009 and September 2010. Thewave seems to have initiated near the confluence of Bering Glacier and Bagley Ice Valley as early as 2001, and the surge was triggered in 2008 further down-glacier in the mid-ablation zone after the wave passed an ice reservoir area

Plate Margin Deformation and Active Tectonics Along the Northern Edge of the Yakutat Terrane in the Saint Elias Orogen, Alaska and Yukon, Canada

The northwest directed motion of the Pacific plate is accompanied by migration and collision of the Yakutat terrane into the cusp of southern Alaska. The nature and magnitude of accretion and translation on upper crustal faults and folds is poorly constrained, however, due to pervasive glaciation. In this study we used high-resolution topography, geodetic imaging, seismic, and geologic data to advance understanding of the transition from strike-slip motion on the Fairweather fault to plate margin deformation on the Bagley fault, which cuts through the upper plate of the collisional suture above the subduction megathrust. The Fairweather fault terminates by oblique-extensional splay faulting within a structural syntaxis, allowing rapid tectonic upwelling of rocks driven by thrust faulting and crustal contraction. Plate motion is partly transferred from the Fairweather to the Bagley fault, which extends 125 km farther west as a dextral shear zone that is partly reactivated by reverse faulting. The Bagley fault dips steeply through the upper plate to intersect the subduction megathrust at depth, forming a narrow fault-bounded crustal sliver in the obliquely convergent plate margin. Since . 20 Ma the Bagley fault has accommodated more than 50 km of dextral shearing and several kilometers of reverse motion along its southern flank during terrane accretion. The fault is considered capable of generating earthquakes because it is linked to faults that generated large historic earthquakes, suitably oriented for reactivation in the contemporary stress field, and locally marked by seismicity. The fault may generate earthquakes of Mw <= 7.5

Die Abstraktion im israelitischen Recht.

Doctoral thesis at a German university (Erlangen?) about Israelite jurisprudence.Karl Richard Sauber, Die Abstraktion im israelitischen Recht, unpublished Ms; LBI-NY/MF 25

Impact Of Amino Acid Regimen on Milk Nutrient Yields by Sows Differing in Genetic Capacity for Lean Tissue Growth

The impact of dietary amino acid regimen on the milk nutrient yield of sows differing in genetic capacity for lean tissue growth was determined. Primiparous sows with a high (.77 to .85 lb/day) or low (.53 to .62 lb/day) genetic capacity for lean tissue growth from 40 to 240 pounds body weight were evaluated. During lactation, sows were offered daily 14.3 pounds of one of four fortified corn-soybean meal diets containing .58, .77, .96 and 1.15% lysine (L). Litters were standardized to 14 pigs within eight hours postpartum. Milk yield (via a deuterium oxide dilution technique) and composition were determined over four-day intervals from day 2 to 26 postpartum. Based on net feed consumption and the composition of mobilized body tissues (via a comparative slaughter technique), the daily supplies of lysine and metabolizable energy (ME) available for milk synthesis were calculated. The bodies of high lean growth (LG) sows possessed more proteinaceous tissues and protein and less fat tissue and lipid than low LG sows at the initiation of lactation. During lactation (days 2 to 28 postpartum), high LG sows (pooled across dietary regimens) consumed more feed, mobilized more body protein, and catabolized less body lipid than low LG sows, whereas milk yields were similar between genotypes. As total daily lysine supplies (from diet and mobilized tissues) increased, daily yields of milk, milk energy, and milk lysine increased, but the magnitude of the responses were less in the high LG sows. At low dietary lysine intakes, total lysine supply was limiting milk synthesis in both genotypes. As dietary lysine intake increased, total ME supply became more limiting than lysine, particularly in the high LG sows because of their inability to provide sufficient energy from mobilized body fat tissues. Based on these data, milk, milk energy, and lysine yields of high and low lean growth genotype sows are similar when similar total supplies of lysine and energy are available. When energy supplies do not limit milk synthesis, the efficiency of utilization of digestible lysine for milk lysine production is similar between genotypes. Specifically, .85 to .87 Mcal ME and 1.95 to 2.05 grams (g) of digestible lysine are needed per pound of milk produced in sows nursing large litters. If it is assumed that each nursing pig requires daily 1.8 pounds of milk, then lactating sows require about 1.5 to 1.6 Mcal ME and 4.3 to 4.5 g of digestible lysine (5.0 to 5.3 g lysine from a cornsoy diet) for each pig nursed. Because of the limited supplies of mobilizable fat tissues in high lean growth sows, the provision of adequate dietary energy intakes to the sows is more critical in order to allow their maximum lactational capacity to be expressed.</p

Signaling through the type 2 cannabinoid receptor regulates the severity of acute and chronic graft-versus-host disease.

Graft versus host disease (GVHD) pathophysiology is a complex interplay between cells that comprise the adaptive and innate arms of the immune system. Effective prophylactic strategies are therefore contingent upon approaches that address contributions from both immune cell compartments. In the current study, we examined the role of the type 2 cannabinoid receptor (CB2R) which is expressed on nearly all immune cells and demonstrated that absence of the CB2R on donor CD4+ or CD8+ T cells, or administration of a selective CB2R pharmacological antagonist, exacerbated acute GVHD lethality. This was accompanied primarily by the expansion of proinflammatory CD8+ T cells indicating that constitutive CB2R expression on T cells preferentially regulated CD8+ T cell alloreactivity. Using a novel CB2REGFP reporter mouse, we observed significant loss of CB2R expression on T cells, but not macrophages, during acute GVHD, indicative of differential alterations in receptor expression under inflammatory conditions. Therapeutic targeting of the CB2R with the agonists, tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and JWH- 133, revealed that only THC mitigated lethal T cell-mediated acute GVHD. Conversely, only JWH-133 was effective in a sclerodermatous chronic GVHD model where macrophages contribute to disease biology. In vitro, both THC and JWH-133 induced arrestin recruitment and ERK phosphorylation via CB2R, but THC had no effect on CB2R-mediated inhibition of adenylyl cyclase. These studies demonstrate that the CB2R plays a critical role in the regulation of GVHD and suggest that effective therapeutic targeting is dependent upon agonist signaling characteristics and receptor selectivity in conjunction with the composition of pathogenic immune effector cells.pre-print2070 K