The Lady on Angel Hill: Mary Jane Folsom and Movement in the Nineteenth Century St. Croix River Valley

Mary Jane Folsom’s life in the St. Croix River Valley demonstrates the previously uninvestigated complexities of life on the American Frontier in the nineteenth century. Previous scholars of the Frontier have all assumed the traditional East to West model of movement, but this model fails to recognize the many directions people took to reach their final destinations or the influences they brought with them. Before further research is conducted on the American Frontier, scholars must answer the question of how people, objects, and ideas actually travelled through the Frontier. This paper uses Mary Jane’s correspondence with her family to investigate this question. Her letters show that although there was a larger East to West wave, movement actually occurred in all directions, and although she lived far from her family in the East and in the far West, Mary Jane was able to influence and be influenced by her family, complicating how scholars study and interpret influences on the American Frontier

Wood Duck Investigations W-118-R-4-5-6 Final Report

W-118-R-4-5-6 (Final Report); issued November 20, 1998; Study I: Aerial helicopter surveys of breeding wood ducks in bottomland forest.Report issued on: November 20, 1998INHS Technical Report prepared for Illinois Department of Natural Resource

Aerial Inventories of Waterfowl in Illinois and Estimation of Moist-soil Plant Seed Abundance for Waterfowl on Lands Managed by Illinois Department of Natural Resources

Grant/Contract No: W-43-R 53-54-55Reports on progress and results of inventories of waterfowl along the Illinois and central Mississippi rivers during fall and winter and estimation of moist-soil plant seed abundance for waterfowl on lands managed by Illinois Department of Natural ResourcesINHS Technical Report Prepared for U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, Illinois Department of Natural Resource

Holonomy observables in Ponzano-Regge type state sum models

We study observables on group elements in the Ponzano-Regge model. We show that these observables have a natural interpretation in terms of Feynman diagrams on a sphere and contrast them to the well studied observables on the spin labels. We elucidate this interpretation by showing how they arise from the no-gravity limit of the Turaev-Viro model and Chern-Simons theory.Comment: 15 pages, 2 figure

Waterbird and Wetland Monitoring at The Emiquon Preserve Annual Report 2017

The Nature Conservancy (TNC) identified key ecological attributes (hereafter, KEAs) of specific biological characteristics or ecological processes that evaluate restoration success and trajectory at The Emiquon Preserve (hereafter Emiquon; The Nature Conservancy 2006). Because of the historic importance of the Illinois River valley (IRV) to waterfowl and other waterbirds, several conservation targets and associated KEAs at Emiquon were related to waterbird communities and their habitats (Appendix A). Indeed, use of wetlands by waterbirds may serve as an indicator of landscape condition or a measure of restoration success (Austin et al. 2001, Gawlik 2006, Hagy et al. 2017). Therefore, we monitored the response of wetland vegetation and waterbirds to restoration efforts at Emiquon during 2017 to evaluate restoration success relative to desired conditions under the relevant KEAs. Our primary efforts included evaluating: 1) abundance and diversity of waterfowl and other waterbirds through spring and autumn aerial counts; 2) productivity by waterfowl and other waterbirds through brood counts and nest searches; 3) plant seed biomass to estimate energetic carrying capacity for waterfowl during autumn migration; 4) biomass of wetland plants and seeds emigrating from Emiquon through the water control structure; and 5) composition and arrangement of wetland vegetation communities and associated cover types through geospatial covermapping and soil properties in response to water management. Herein, we report results of our monitoring efforts and interpret them as a means of evaluating restoration activities at Emiquon with respect to desired conditions under the KEAs.The Nature Conservancy Contract Number: C07-032unpublishednot peer reviewedOpe

Wetland Management Strategies that Maximize Marsh Bird Use in the Midwest Annual Performance Report Period: 1 July 2015 – 30 June 2016

We determined marsh bird use across a wide range of wetland types (e.g., emergent, non-vegetated, riparian), hydrologic regimes (e.g., temporary, seasonal, semi-permanent), management practices (e.g., active, passive, unmanaged), and past disturbance regimes (e.g., natural and restored, impounded and unimpounded) in Illinois during late spring and early summer 2016. Our objectives were to 1) compare marsh bird use of wetland impoundments managed for waterfowl across a continuum of management 3 intensities and strategies to predict how these actions can increase use by both groups, 2) compare marsh bird use of restored and natural wetlands, and 3) determine characteristics of wetlands and the surrounding landscape that influence marsh bird use of restored wetlands. Additionally, we surveyed marsh birds using the standard protocols on wetlands concurrently surveyed within the Illinois Critical Trends Assessment Program (CTAP) for comparison of methodologies.United States Fish and Wildlife Service Contract Number: F14AP00485unpublishednot peer reviewedOpe

State Sum Models and Simplicial Cohomology

We study a class of subdivision invariant lattice models based on the gauge group $Z_{p}$, with particular emphasis on the four dimensional example. This model is based upon the assignment of field variables to both the $1$- and $2$-dimensional simplices of the simplicial complex. The property of subdivision invariance is achieved when the coupling parameter is quantized and the field configurations are restricted to satisfy a type of mod-$p$ flatness condition. By explicit computation of the partition function for the manifold $RP^{3} \times S^{1}$, we establish that the theory has a quantum Hilbert space which differs from the classical one.Comment: 28 pages, Latex, ITFA-94-13, (Expanded version with two new sections