Andrean examples of mega-geomorphology themes

Geomorphic (or physiographic) provinces have been a well known and useful method of regional landform classification for a century. Every earth scientist will recognize a phrase such as Appalachian Plateau or Southern Rocky Mountains as defining a discrete region of consistent geologic structure that has experienced a similar interval of erosion by a similar process or set of processes. The geomorphic provinces formalized in the United States by Fenneman in the 1920's continue to be highly satisfactory even though some boundaries were only vaguely drawn. Mosaics of LANDSAT images illustrate better than any earlier maps the validity and coherence of Fenneman's provinces. The concept of geomorphic provinces has been used subconsciously or intuitively, to describe the relief of the ocean floor and the topography of the Moon and other planets

Interpreting International Trade Statutes: Is the Charming Betsy Sinking?

This essay is about the North American Free Trade Agreement (“NAFTA”), the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (“GATT”), and the World Trade Organization (“WTO”). The United States has chosen to participate in NAFTA, GATT, and WTO by the President\u27s signing international agreements. These agreements, however, have not been presented to the Senate for ratification as treaties, although, as some commentators have noted, they bear the characteristics of treaties. Rather, they are implemented by Congress enacting domestic implementing legislation as statutory law

Issues in the design and implentation of an R&D tax credit for the UK

R&D tax credits have become a popular policy tool for encouraging research and development (R&D) spending by business, with many countries offering subsidies of this form. The divergence between private and social rates of return to R&D expenditure by private firms provides one of the main justifications for government subsidies to R&D.2 In order to achieve the optimal level of R&D investment, government policy aims to bring private incentives in line with the social rate of return. An R&D tax credit does this by reducing the cost to the firm of doing R&D. Recent empirical evidence suggests that R&D tax credits are an effective instrument in stimulating additional R&D. However, in order to be desirable, a policy needs to be cost-effective and implementable. This Briefing Note reviews some of the major issues in the design and implementation of R&D tax credits. In Section 2, we briefly discuss the existing tax treatment of R&D in the UK. In particular, we outline the new Research and Development Allowance - which is an allowance for expenditure on plant, machinery and buildings for use in scientific research and which is available to firms of all sizes - and the tax credit for R&D that is available to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). We then discuss, in Section 3, some of the main design features of tax credits that have been implemented in other countries. The discussion mainly concerns the question of how to target new or incremental R&D so as to keep down the total exchequer cost. We discuss problems that arise in defining incremental R&D and how these can be tackled. In Section 4, we provide estimates of the amount of new R&D and the exchequer cost that would be likely to result from implementing different designs of R&D tax credit in the UK. Section 5 concludes. Some technical details are dealt with in the Appendix

Cycled operation of water vapor electrolysis cell Annual report, 1 Jan. - 31 Dec. 1969

Mathematical model of heat, mass, and momentum relationships in cyclic operation of water vapor electrolytic cell, and equilibrium conditions between gel matrix and vapo

New criteria for cluster identification in continuum systems

Two new criteria, that involve the microscopic dynamics of the system, are proposed for the identification of clusters in continuum systems. The first one considers a residence time in the definition of the bond between pairs of particles, whereas the second one uses a life time in the definition of an aggregate. Because of the qualitative features of the clusters yielded by the criteria we call them chemical and physical clusters, respectively. Molecular dynamics results for a Lennard-Jones system and general connectivity theories are presented.Comment: 31 pages, 11 figures, The following article has been accepted by The Journal of Chemical Physics. After it is published, it will be found at http://ojps.aip.org/jcpo

Linking Research and Policy: Assessing a Framework for Organic Agricultural Support in Ireland

This paper links social science research and agricultural policy through an analysis of support for organic agriculture and food. Globally, sales of organic food have experienced 20% annual increases for the past two decades, and represent the fastest growing segment of the grocery market. Although consumer interest has increased, farmers are not keeping up with demand. This is partly due to a lack of political support provided to farmers in their transition from conventional to organic production. Support policies vary by country and in some nations, such as the US, vary by state/province. There have been few attempts to document the types of support currently in place. This research draws on an existing Framework tool to investigate regionally specific and relevant policy support available to organic farmers in Ireland. This exploratory study develops a case study of Ireland within the framework of ten key categories of organic agricultural support: leadership, policy, research, technical support, financial support, marketing and promotion, education and information, consumer issues, inter-agency activities, and future developments. Data from the Irish Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, the Irish Agriculture and Food Development Authority (Teagasc), and other governmental and semi-governmental agencies provide the basis for an assessment of support in each category. Assessments are based on the number of activities, availability of information to farmers, and attention from governmental personnel for each of the ten categories. This policy framework is a valuable tool for farmers, researchers, state agencies, and citizen groups seeking to document existing types of organic agricultural support and discover policy areas which deserve more attention

Is the Redshift Clustering of Long-Duration Gamma-Ray Bursts Significant?

The 26 long-duration gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) with known redshifts form a distinct cosmological set, selected differently than other cosmological probes such as quasars and galaxies. Since the progenitors are now believed to be connected with active star-formation and since burst emission penetrates dust, one hope is that with a uniformly-selected sample, the large-scale redshift distribution of GRBs can help constrain the star-formation history of the Universe. However, we show that strong observational biases in ground-based redshift discovery hamper a clean determination of the large-scale GRB rate and hence the connection of GRBs to the star formation history. We then focus on the properties of the small-scale (clustering) distribution of GRB redshifts. When corrected for heliocentric motion relative to the local Hubble flow, the observed redshifts appear to show a propensity for clustering: 8 of 26 GRBs occurred within a recession velocity difference of 1000 km/s of another GRB. That is, 4 pairs of GRBs occurred within 30 h_65^-1 Myr in cosmic time, despite being causally separated on the sky. We investigate the significance of this clustering. Comparison of the numbers of close redshift pairs expected from the simulation with that observed shows no significant small-scale clustering excess in the present sample; however, the four close pairs occur only in about twenty percent of the simulated datasets (the precise significance of the clustering is dependent upon the modeled biases). We conclude with some impetuses and suggestions for future precise GRB redshift measurements.Comment: Published in the Astronomical Journal, June 2003: see http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-bib_query?bibcode=2003AJ....125.2865

Mountain building processes in the Central Andes

False color composite images of the Thematic Mapper (TM) bands 5, 4, and 2 were examined to make visual interpretations of geological features. The use of the roam mode of image display with the International Imaging Systems (IIS) System 600 image processing package running on the IIS Model 75 was very useful. Several areas in which good comparisons with ground data existed, were examined in detail. Parallel to the visual approach, image processing methods are being developed which allow the complete use of the seven TM bands. The data was organized into easily accessible files and a visual cataloging of the quads (quarter TM scenes) with preliminary registration with the best available charts for the region. The catalog has proved to be a valuable tool for the rapid scanning of quads for a specific investigation. Integration of the data into a complete approach to the problems of uplift, deformation, and magnetism in relation to the Nazca-South American plate interaction is at an initial stage

Stability-mediated epistasis constrains the evolution of an influenza protein.

John Maynard Smith compared protein evolution to the game where one word is converted into another a single letter at a time, with the constraint that all intermediates are words: WORD→WORE→GORE→GONE→GENE. In this analogy, epistasis constrains evolution, with some mutations tolerated only after the occurrence of others. To test whether epistasis similarly constrains actual protein evolution, we created all intermediates along a 39-mutation evolutionary trajectory of influenza nucleoprotein, and also introduced each mutation individually into the parent. Several mutations were deleterious to the parent despite becoming fixed during evolution without negative impact. These mutations were destabilizing, and were preceded or accompanied by stabilizing mutations that alleviated their adverse effects. The constrained mutations occurred at sites enriched in T-cell epitopes, suggesting they promote viral immune escape. Our results paint a coherent portrait of epistasis during nucleoprotein evolution, with stabilizing mutations permitting otherwise inaccessible destabilizing mutations which are sometimes of adaptive value. DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.00631.001