Active region evolution in the chromosphere and transtition region

Images in the C IV 1548 A and the Si II 1526 S lines taken with the ultraviolet spectrometer polarimeter (UVSP) instrument on board the Solar Maximum Mission (SMM) satellite were combined into movies showing the evolution of active regions and the neighboring supergranulation over several days. The data sets generally consist of 240 by 240 arc second rasters with 3 arc second pixels taken one per orbit (about every 90 minutes). The images are projected on a latitude/longitude grid to remove the forshortening as the region rotates across the solar disk and further processed to remove jitter and gain variations. Movies were made with and without differential rotation. Although there are occasional missing orbits, these series do not suffer from the long nighttime gaps that occur in observations taken at a single groundbased observatory and are excellent for studying changes on time scales of several hours. The longest sequence processed to date runs from 20 Oct. 1980 to 25 Oct. 1980. This was taken during an SMM flare buildup study on AR 2744. Several shorter sequences taken in 1980 and 1984 will also be shown. The results will be presented on a video disk which can be interactively controlled to view the movies

Abnormal connectivity between the default mode and the visual system underlies the manifestation of visual hallucinations in Parkinson’s disease:A task-based fMRI study

Background: The neural substrates of visual hallucinations remain an enigma, due primarily to the difficulties associated with directly interrogating the brain during hallucinatory episodes. Aims: To delineate the functional patterns of brain network activity and connectivity underlying visual hallucinations in Parkinson’s disease. Methods: In this study, we combined functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) with a behavioral task capable of eliciting visual misperceptions, a confirmed surrogate for visual hallucinations, in 35 patients with idiopathic Parkinson’s disease. We then applied an independent component analysis to extract time series information for large-scale neuronal networks that have been previously implicated in the pathophysiology of visual hallucinations. These data were subjected to a task-based functional connectivity analysis, thus providing the first objective description of the neural activity and connectivity during visual hallucinations in patients with Parkinson’s disease. Results: Correct performance of the task was associated with increased activity in primary visual regions; however, during visual misperceptions, this same visual network became actively coupled with the default mode network (DMN). Further, the frequency of misperception errors on the task was positively correlated with the strength of connectivity between these two systems, as well as with decreased activity in the dorsal attention network (DAN), and with impaired connectivity between the DAN and the DMNs, and ventral attention networks. Finally, each of the network abnormalities identified in our analysis were significantly correlated with two independent clinical measures of hallucination severity. Conclusions: Together, these results provide evidence that visual hallucinations are due to increased engagement of the DMN with the primary visual system, and emphasize the role of dysfunctional engagement of attentional networks in the pathophysiology of hallucinations

Consistency in eyewitness reports of aquatic "monsters"

Little work has been undertaken on the consistency/repeatabilityof reports of natural historical anomalies. Such information is usefulin understanding the reporting process associated with such accountsand distinguishing any underlying biological signal. Here we used intraclasscorrelation as a measure of consistency in descriptions of a variety of quantitative features from a large collection of firsthand accounts of apparentlyunknown aquatic animals (hereafter “monsters”) in each of two differentcases. In the first case, same observer, same encounter (sose), the correlationwas estimated from two different accounts of the same event from thesame witness. In the second case, the correlation was between two differentobservers of the same event (dose). Overall, levels of consistency weresurprisingly high, with length of monster, distance of monster to the witness,and duration of encounter varying between 0.63 and 1. Interestingly,there was no evidence that sose accounts generally had higher consistencythan dose accounts.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Interactions between metals and microbial communities in New Bedford Harbor, Massachusetts.

The fate of toxic metals in marine sediments depends on a combination of the physical, chemical, and biologic conditions encountered in any given environment. These conditions may vary dramatically, both spatially and temporally, in response to factors ranging from seasonal changes and storm events to human activities such as dredging or remediation efforts. This paper describes a program designed to evaluate the interrelationships between the microbial community and pollutants in the New Bedford Harbor, Massachusetts, area, a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency designated Superfund site. Research has focused on establishing distributional relationships between contaminant metals, fluxes of metals between sediments and the overlying water, changes in microbial diversity in response to metals, and potential use of the microbial community as a biomarker of contaminant availability. This research has shown that a significant flux of metals to the water column is mediated by benthic biologic activity, and that microbial communities may be a responsive marker of contaminant stress. A combination of biogeochemical studies and the use of molecular tools can be used to improve our understanding of the fate and effect of heavy metals released to aquatic systems

A Lagrangian analysis of ice-supersaturated air over the North Atlantic

Understanding the nature of air parcels that exhibit ice-supersaturation is important because they are the regions of potential formation of both cirrus and aircraft contrails, which affect the radiation balance. Ice-supersaturated air parcels in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere over the North Atlantic are investigated using Lagrangian trajectories. The trajectory calculations use ERA-Interim data for three winter and three summer seasons, resulting in approximately 200,000 trajectories with ice-supersaturation for each season. For both summer and winter, the median duration of ice-supersaturation along a trajectory is less than 6 hours. 5% of air which becomes ice-supersaturated in the troposphere, and 23% of air which becomes ice-supersaturated in the stratosphere will remain ice-supersaturated for at least 24 hours. Weighting the ice-supersaturation duration with the observed frequency indicates the likely overall importance of the longer duration ice-supersaturated trajectories. Ice-supersaturated air parcels typically experience a decrease in moisture content while ice-supersaturated, suggesting that cirrus clouds eventually form in the majority of such air. A comparison is made between short-lived (less than 24 h) and long-lived (greater than 24 h) ice-supersaturated air flows. For both air flows, ice-supersaturation occurs around the northernmost part of the trajectory. Short-lived ice-supersaturated air flows show no significant differences in speed or direction of movement to subsaturated air parcels. However, long-lived ice-supersaturated air occurs in slower moving air flows, which implies that they are not associated with the fastest moving air through a jet stream

Radiative forcing and climate metrics for ozone precursor emissions: the impact of multi-model averaging

Multi-model ensembles are frequently used to assess understanding of the response of ozone and methane lifetime to changes in emissions of ozone precursors such as NOx, VOCs (volatile organic compounds) and CO. When these ozone changes are used to calculate radiative forcing (RF) (and climate metrics such as the global warming potential (GWP) and global temperature-change potential (GTP)) there is a methodological choice, determined partly by the available computing resources, as to whether the mean ozone (and methane) concentration changes are input to the radiation code, or whether each model's ozone and methane changes are used as input, with the average RF computed from the individual model RFs. We use data from the Task Force on Hemispheric Transport of Air Pollution source–receptor global chemical transport model ensemble to assess the impact of this choice for emission changes in four regions (East Asia, Europe, North America and South Asia). We conclude that using the multi-model mean ozone and methane responses is accurate for calculating the mean RF, with differences up to 0.6% for CO, 0.7% for VOCs and 2% for NOx. Differences of up to 60% for NOx 7% for VOCs and 3% for CO are introduced into the 20 year GWP. The differences for the 20 year GTP are smaller than for the GWP for NOx, and similar for the other species. However, estimates of the standard deviation calculated from the ensemble-mean input fields (where the standard deviation at each point on the model grid is added to or subtracted from the mean field) are almost always substantially larger in RF, GWP and GTP metrics than the true standard deviation, and can be larger than the model range for short-lived ozone RF, and for the 20 and 100 year GWP and 100 year GTP. The order of averaging has most impact on the metrics for NOx, as the net values for these quantities is the residual of the sum of terms of opposing signs. For example, the standard deviation for the 20 year GWP is 2–3 times larger using the ensemble-mean fields than using the individual models to calculate the RF. The source of this effect is largely due to the construction of the input ozone fields, which overestimate the true ensemble spread. Hence, while the average of multi-model fields are normally appropriate for calculating mean RF, GWP and GTP, they are not a reliable method for calculating the uncertainty in these fields, and in general overestimate the uncertainty

On photospheric flows and chromospheric corks

Proper motions of granules are measured by local correlation tracking on a 4.5 h image sequence obtained with the Swedish Vacuum Tower Telescope at La Palma. A 2arcsec spati l low- pass filter is applied to obtain meso-scale flow patterns.We find that their characteristic lifetime (1 /e value)has a lower limit of five to six hours.Comparison with a simultaneous co-spatial sequence of chromospheric K 2V images shows that these flows sweep supergranulation cells clean in about the s me period. A chromospheric "persistent flasher", seen during three hours in K 2V , migrates to the magnetic network as if it were photospheric cork

Phylogeography and dispersal in the velvet gecko (Oedura lesueurii), and potential implications for conservation of an endangered snake (Hoplocephalus bungaroides).

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND: To conserve critically endangered predators, we also need to conserve the prey species upon which they depend. Velvet geckos (Oedura lesueurii) are a primary prey for the endangered broad-headed snake (Hoplocephalus bungaroides), which is restricted to sandstone habitats in southeastern Australia. We sequenced the ND2 gene from 179 velvet geckos, to clarify the lizards' phylogeographic history and landscape genetics. We also analysed 260 records from a longterm (3-year) capture-mark-recapture program at three sites, to evaluate dispersal rates of geckos as a function of locality, sex and body size. RESULTS: The genetic analyses revealed three ancient lineages in the north, south and centre of the species' current range. Estimates of gene flow suggest low dispersal rates, constrained by the availability of contiguous rocky habitat. Mark-recapture records confirm that these lizards are highly sedentary, with most animals moving < 30 m from their original capture site even over multi-year periods. CONCLUSION: The low vagility of these lizards suggests that they will be slow to colonise vacant habitat patches; and hence, efforts to restore degraded habitats for broad-headed snakes may need to include translocation of lizards