The Hudson’s Bay Company as a Context for Science in the Columbia Department

This article aims to elucidate and analyze the links between science, specifically natural history, and the imperialist project in what is now the northwestern United States and western Canada. Imperialism in this region found its expression through institutions such as the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC). I examine the activities of naturalists such as David Douglas and William Tolmie Fraser in the context of the fur trade in the Columbia Department. Here I show how natural history aided Britain in achieving its economic and political goals in the region. The key to this interpretation is to extend the role of the HBC as an imperial factor to encompass its role as a patron for natural history. This gives a better understanding of the ways in which imperialism—construed as mercantile, rather than military—delineated research priorities and activities of the naturalists who worked in the Columbia Department.Cet article travail vise à élucider et analyser les liens entre la science — spécialement l’histoire naturelle — et le projet impérialiste dans ce que nous appellons aujourd’hui le Nord-ouest américain et l’Ouest canadien. L’impé-rialisme dans cette région s’exprime par l’entremise d’institutions telle la Compagnie de la Baie d’Hudson (HBC). J’examine les pratiques de naturalistes tels David Douglas et William Tolmie Fraser dans le contexte du commerce de la fourrure au sein du ‘Columbia Department’. Je démontre ici comment l’histoire naturelle sert la Grande-Bretagne dans l’accomplissement de ses objectifs politiques et économiques dans la région. La clé de cette interprétation réside dans l’extension du rôle de la HBC comme facteur impérial pour englober son rôle de patron des sciences naturelles. Cette approche favorise une meilleure compréhension des voies par lesquelles l’impérialisme — ici conçu comme mercantile, plutôt que militaire — délimite les priorités et les activités de recherche des naturalistes qui travaillent dans le ‘Columbia Department’

Patterns of Tree Defoliation and Mortality from Insect Damage Using Multi-Scale Remote Sensing

With the climate rapidly changing, coniferous trees in North America face many threats, and both native and invasive insects are contributing to their decline and mortality. As insects, particularly bark beetles, successfully attack trees, the foliage of those trees undergoes a color shift from green to red to gray. Attacks from other insects, such as defoliators, can result in defoliation, crown thinning, and loss of needles. These changes may be detected by remote sensing instruments such as satellites and drones. Tree mortality may also come from multiple other variables, such as fire or drought, which then causes tree stress, making plants more susceptible to insect infestation. I analyzed an area with tree disturbance and mortality from three distinct types of insects in Montana, United States to study the detection of forest disturbance by insect outbreaks. This study aims to examine the patterns displayed across a section of forest at different spatial resolutions and scales. Field studies consisted of measuring variables such as diameter, health, and needle color on both trees inside eight-meter fixed-radius plots as well as individual trees not within plots. I analyzed and classified imagery from various sensors, including data from an unmanned aerial vehicle and multiple satellites. Pixels from these data sets are classified using two modeling techniques: maximum likelihood and random forest. This resulted in maps of different tree health classes and other land classes such as bare ground and herbaceous vegetation. I evaluated tree disturbance with classifications of finer spatial resolution pixels (subpixels), which were aggregated to the size of coarser spatial resolution pixels (superpixels) by calculating the percentage of unhealthy trees within, and then comparing them to the classification of the actual classified superpixels. By comparing classification results at different resolution levels, it is possible to extract what information was retained or lost at each step down in spatial resolution, and field measurements provided corroborating evidence of tree disturbance.Random forest models outperformed maximum likelihood models based on accuracy of withheld evaluation points, with overall accuracies ranging from 81.5% to 94.5%. Corroboration of individual trees from the field data was only easily feasible with UAV data, plausible with WorldView-3 data, and not possible with any imagery of 10-m spatial resolution or coarser. Total percent area affected of unhealthy trees was not consistent across resolutions, although coarser imagery tended to underestimate mortality or damage for most intensities of finer imagery disturbance when grouped into distinct disturbance bins but predict more mortality or disturbance across an entire landscape. This study will assist forest managers and natural resource scientists in understanding detection of insect-affected forests, in particular when insect outbreaks are more diffuse and not severe across the entire landscape, giving managers guidelines for where to invest time and resources. This research will also allow for general trends for areas with insect-specific mortality, allowing for potential future comparisons with other causes of tree mortality

Parental Guide for Supporting Non-Binary Children

A series of infographics seeking to educate parents on non-binary individuals. This series goes through what it means to be non-binary, identifies common terms and vocabulary used within the LGBTQ+ community, how to support a non-binary individual as a parent, and how to support yourself as a parent while navigating one\u27s child\u27s gender identity

An Argument for Recording Stock Options as Stockholders Equity

Disclosing the hidden executive compensation known as stock options has been the goal of the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) since 1984. This initiative has been met with great resistance from the corporate world who would like to keep this compensation off of the books. The purpose of this paper is to explore the basic arguments of each side, and then come up with a compromise plan. The 100 page exposure draft by the FASB was my first source, and then further research from articles was researched for the opposing viewpoints. An appendix is included highlighting 13 various companies current footnote and/or financial statement disclosure of stock options. Neither the FASB nor the opponents discussed a willingness to compromise, which I propose they consider in this paper. My compromise entails recording the stock options, but not taking the amount out of earnings. This will allow for the disclosure the FASB wants without the negative impact on the income statement that would prevent many companies from issuing stock options and attracting good personnel.B.S. (Bachelor of Science

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Morality and materialism : American conservatives and science, 1945-1964

Following World War II, the United States enjoyed unprecedented power and prestige. The wartime alliance with the Soviet Union quickly collapsed amid mutual suspicion and fear, however, resulting in the Cold War. Science was a significant political component in that ideological conflict. In the United States, inspired by Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal, many placed their confidence in the ability of science to improve the human condition. By contrast, American conservatives viewed the New Deal much more negatively; they were also ambivalent about the promise of modem science. A few even saw a troubling acceptance of the superiority of science over other forms of knowledge, a view they labeled as "scientism." Conservatives like Richard M. Weaver, the economist Friedrich A. Hayek, and others attempted to criticize scientism, but this critique did not take hold. Ultimately, conservatives were unable to enlist scientists in their criticism of scientism; moreover, the overriding importance of anticommunism to the postwar conservative resurgence blunted conservative antiscientism. Conservative scientists, while dissenting from their left-liberal peers in the realm of politics, nonetheless shared with those peers a strong belief in the positive values of science. In addition, conservative scientists often emphasized the importance of Western science to freedom, in contrast to communist science supposedly tainted by ideology. As conservatives recognized the value of science to their own political goals, the antiscientistic critique faded. This conservative view, hitherto neglected in the historical literature, was and remains an important part of the interaction of science and politics in America during the twentieth century

A Gaseous Argon-Based Near Detector to Enhance the Physics Capabilities of DUNE

This document presents the concept and physics case for a magnetized gaseous argon-based detector system (ND-GAr) for the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) Near Detector. This detector system is required in order for DUNE to reach its full physics potential in the measurement of CP violation and in delivering precision measurements of oscillation parameters. In addition to its critical role in the long-baseline oscillation program, ND-GAr will extend the overall physics program of DUNE. The LBNF high-intensity proton beam will provide a large flux of neutrinos that is sampled by ND-GAr, enabling DUNE to discover new particles and search for new interactions and symmetries beyond those predicted in the Standard Model

Snowmass Neutrino Frontier: DUNE Physics Summary

The Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) is a next-generation long-baseline neutrino oscillation experiment with a primary physics goal of observing neutrino and antineutrino oscillation patterns to precisely measure the parameters governing long-baseline neutrino oscillation in a single experiment, and to test the three-flavor paradigm. DUNE's design has been developed by a large, international collaboration of scientists and engineers to have unique capability to measure neutrino oscillation as a function of energy in a broadband beam, to resolve degeneracy among oscillation parameters, and to control systematic uncertainty using the exquisite imaging capability of massive LArTPC far detector modules and an argon-based near detector. DUNE's neutrino oscillation measurements will unambiguously resolve the neutrino mass ordering and provide the sensitivity to discover CP violation in neutrinos for a wide range of possible values of δCP. DUNE is also uniquely sensitive to electron neutrinos from a galactic supernova burst, and to a broad range of physics beyond the Standard Model (BSM), including nucleon decays. DUNE is anticipated to begin collecting physics data with Phase I, an initial experiment configuration consisting of two far detector modules and a minimal suite of near detector components, with a 1.2 MW proton beam. To realize its extensive, world-leading physics potential requires the full scope of DUNE be completed in Phase II. The three Phase II upgrades are all necessary to achieve DUNE's physics goals: (1) addition of far detector modules three and four for a total FD fiducial mass of at least 40 kt, (2) upgrade of the proton beam power from 1.2 MW to 2.4 MW, and (3) replacement of the near detector's temporary muon spectrometer with a magnetized, high-pressure gaseous argon TPC and calorimeter

Scintillation light detection in the 6-m drift-length ProtoDUNE Dual Phase liquid argon TPC

DUNE is a dual-site experiment for long-baseline neutrino oscillation studies, neutrino astrophysics and nucleon decay searches. ProtoDUNE Dual Phase (DP) is a 6  ×  6  ×  6 m 3 liquid argon time-projection-chamber (LArTPC) that recorded cosmic-muon data at the CERN Neutrino Platform in 2019-2020 as a prototype of the DUNE Far Detector. Charged particles propagating through the LArTPC produce ionization and scintillation light. The scintillation light signal in these detectors can provide the trigger for non-beam events. In addition, it adds precise timing capabilities and improves the calorimetry measurements. In ProtoDUNE-DP, scintillation and electroluminescence light produced by cosmic muons in the LArTPC is collected by photomultiplier tubes placed up to 7 m away from the ionizing track. In this paper, the ProtoDUNE-DP photon detection system performance is evaluated with a particular focus on the different wavelength shifters, such as PEN and TPB, and the use of Xe-doped LAr, considering its future use in giant LArTPCs. The scintillation light production and propagation processes are analyzed and a comparison of simulation to data is performed, improving understanding of the liquid argon properties

A Gaseous Argon-Based Near Detector to Enhance the Physics Capabilities of DUNE

This document presents the concept and physics case for a magnetized gaseous argon-based detector system (ND-GAr) for the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) Near Detector. This detector system is required in order for DUNE to reach its full physics potential in the measurement of CP violation and in delivering precision measurements of oscillation parameters. In addition to its critical role in the long-baseline oscillation program, ND-GAr will extend the overall physics program of DUNE. The LBNF high-intensity proton beam will provide a large flux of neutrinos that is sampled by ND-GAr, enabling DUNE to discover new particles and search for new interactions and symmetries beyond those predicted in the Standard Model.Comment: Contribution to Snowmass 202