Keeping The Home Fires Burning: The Effects Of Military Induced Separations On Marital Intimacy From A Female Perspective

Thesis (M.A.) University of Alaska Fairbanks, 2008In this study, a convenience sample of 56 female, married, military wives in northwestern community responded to a survey questionnaire concerning intimacy promoting communication skills, marital satisfaction, and military induced separations. The results indicated a strong correlation between marital satisfaction and intimacy promoting communication skills. This study also explores the difference between the type and frequency of military induced separations and their influence on marital satisfaction and intimacy promoting communication skills. To further describe this military population, several post hoc tests for difference found significance between military branch affiliation, and between those who had or had not received premarital counseling on levels of perceived marital satisfaction, and intimacy promoting communication skills. Further, no significant difference was found to exist between education level or employment status of the at home spouse on levels of perceived marital satisfaction and intimacy promoting communication skills. A description of the implications of the findings, and suggestions for future research are discussed

Human Rationality: A Defense of Subjective Deliberation

Moral Theories can often place implausible demands upon agents, and these demands generally provide the criteria for the denial of such theories. In his book, On What Matters, Derek Parfit provides a systematic critique of subjective theories, and concludes that normative demands generated through subject-given reasons are both highly implausible, and logically incoherent, and thus it is incumbent upon philosophers to recognize them as inept in creating normative force. Through an analysis of the Deliberative Theory of subjectivism, Parfit provides three arguments; the Agony, All or None, and Incoherence Arguments which he claims undermine subjective theories. In this thesis I argue that Parfit is mistaken in his view that Deliberative Subjectivists do not have a plausible response to Parfit’s critiques. Through the works of John Rawls, Bernard Williams, Michael Smith, and Christine Korsgaard, subjectivists can formulate a theory of deliberation which adequately responds to Parfit’s challenges. By combining the use of procedural rules, subject-given desires, and pre-analytic moral intuitions, subjectivists can provide an account of normativity that does not depend upon ideal deliberation, as Parfit claims, and thus circumnavigates the challenges raised through Parfit’s three arguments

High-resolution Biological Net Community Production in the Pacific-influenced Arctic: A Multi-method Comparison

Patterns of primary productivity in the Arctic are expected to change with continued warming, yet productivity measurements are historically limited, both spatially and temporally. An established method of measuring net biological oxygen production, which can be used to estimate net community production (NCP) rates, is with an equilibrated inlet mass spectrometer (EIMS) that measures oxygen to argon ratios (O₂/Ar) in underway seawater. An emerging method that may provide comparable estimates of biological oxygen production involves a gas tension device (GTD) coupled with an optode, which yields oxygen to nitrogen ratios (O₂/N₂). The GTD+optode combination is small, inexpensive, and capable of autonomous deployments on ships, moorings, and other surface platforms; however, the dissimilarity in gas solubility between O₂ and N₂ makes this tracer pair less favorable than O₂/Ar. We conducted a side-by-side comparison of a GTD and EIMS during the 2019 Arctic Integrated Ecosystem Survey OS1901-L1 in the Pacific Arctic. We found that O₂/Ar and O₂/N₂ tracked each other closely, with small differences due to physical drivers of deviations between O₂/Ar and O₂/N₂, including wind and temperature changes. The NCP estimates from O₂/N₂ were generally consistent with O₂/Ar-based NCP estimates observed on this cruise, with median NCP from O₂/Ar and O₂/N₂ of 7.49 ± 2.34 and 7.16 ± 2.68 mmol O₂ m⁻² day⁻¹, respectively, suggesting the GTD-based method can be used to enhance spatial and temporal coverage of NCP measurements. However, the GTD/optode approach is reliant on well-calibrated oxygen observations, which may present a challenge in some cases

Methane in the Baltic and North Seas and a reassessment of the marine emissions of methane

During three measurement campaigns on the Baltic and North Seas, atmospheric and dissolved methane was determined with an automated gas chromatographic system. Area-weighted mean saturation values in the sea surface waters were 113 ± 5% and 395 ± 82% (Baltic Sea, February and July 1992) and 126 ± 8% (south central North Sea, September 1992). On the bases of our data and a compilation of literature data the global oceanic emissions of methane were reassessed by introducing a concept of regional gas transfer coefficients. Our estimates computed with two different air-sea exchange models lie in the range of 11-18 Tg CH4 yr-1. Despite the fact that shelf areas and estuaries only represent a small part of the world's ocean they contribute about 75% to the global oceanic emissions. We applied a simple, coupled, three-layer model to numerically simulate the time dependent variation of the oceanic flux to the atmosphere. The model calculations indicate that even with increasing tropospheric methane concentration, the ocean will remain a source of atmospheric methane

Dissolved methane distributions and air-sea flux in the plume of a massive seep field, Coal Oil Point, California

Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2007. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Geophysical Research Letters 34 (2007): L22603, doi:10.1029/2007GL031344.Large quantities of natural gas are emitted from the seafloor into the stratified coastal ocean near Coal Oil Point, Santa Barbara Channel, California. Methane was quantified in the down current surface water at 79 stations in a 280 km2 study area. The methane plume spread over an area of ~70 km2 and emitted on the order of 5 × 104 mol d−1 to the atmosphere. A monthly time series at 14 stations showed variable methane concentrations which were correlated with changing sub-mesoscale surface currents. Air-sea fluxes estimated from the time series indicate that the air-sea flux derived for the 280 km2 area is representative of the daily mean flux from this area. Only 1% of the dissolved methane originating from Coal Oil Point enters the atmosphere within the study area. Most of it appears to be transported below the surface and oxidized by microbial activity.The research was supported by the University of California Energy Institute and the National Science Foundation (OCE 0447395)

Methane emission from high-intensity marine gas seeps in the Black Sea into the atmosphere

Submarine high‐intensity methane seeps have been surveyed in the Sorokin Trough and Paleo Dnepr Area in the Black Sea from May to June, 2003 to estimate the sea‐air methane flux. The Sorokin Trough mud volcano area in around 2080 m water depth shows no direct effects on the methane concentration in the surface water and the atmosphere (average methane saturation ratios (SR) of 143%). The average sea‐air methane flux can be determined as 0.2–0.57 nmol m−2 s−1, using two different sea‐air gas exchange models; mean wind speed were extraordinary low throughout the cruise (1.16 m s−1). The investigations in the Paleo Dnepr Area (60 to 800 m water depth) reflects a more diverse pattern. Spots of high methane concentrations in the surface water have been recorded above a seep location in around 90 m water depth (SR up to 294%). The air‐sea methane flux above this seep site (0.96–2.32 nmol m−2 s−1) is 3 times higher than calculated for the surrounding shelf (0.32–0.77 nmol m−2 s−1) and 5 times higher than assessed for open Black Sea waters (water depth > 200 m, 0.19–0.47 nmol m−2 s−1)

Perspectives and Integration in SOLAS Science

Why a chapter on Perspectives and Integration in SOLAS Science in this book? SOLAS science by its nature deals with interactions that occur: across a wide spectrum of time and space scales, involve gases and particles, between the ocean and the atmosphere, across many disciplines including chemistry, biology, optics, physics, mathematics, computing, socio-economics and consequently interactions between many different scientists and across scientific generations. This chapter provides a guide through the remarkable diversity of cross-cutting approaches and tools in the gigantic puzzle of the SOLAS realm. Here we overview the existing prime components of atmospheric and oceanic observing systems, with the acquisition of ocean–atmosphere observables either from in situ or from satellites, the rich hierarchy of models to test our knowledge of Earth System functioning, and the tremendous efforts accomplished over the last decade within the COST Action 735 and SOLAS Integration project frameworks to understand, as best we can, the current physical and biogeochemical state of the atmosphere and ocean commons. A few SOLAS integrative studies illustrate the full meaning of interactions, paving the way for even tighter connections between thematic fields. Ultimately, SOLAS research will also develop with an enhanced consideration of societal demand while preserving fundamental research coherency. The exchange of energy, gases and particles across the air-sea interface is controlled by a variety of biological, chemical and physical processes that operate across broad spatial and temporal scales. These processes influence the composition, biogeochemical and chemical properties of both the oceanic and atmospheric boundary layers and ultimately shape the Earth system response to climate and environmental change, as detailed in the previous four chapters. In this cross-cutting chapter we present some of the SOLAS achievements over the last decade in terms of integration, upscaling observational information from process-oriented studies and expeditionary research with key tools such as remote sensing and modelling. Here we do not pretend to encompass the entire legacy of SOLAS efforts but rather offer a selective view of some of the major integrative SOLAS studies that combined available pieces of the immense jigsaw puzzle. These include, for instance, COST efforts to build up global climatologies of SOLAS relevant parameters such as dimethyl sulphide, interconnection between volcanic ash and ecosystem response in the eastern subarctic North Pacific, optimal strategy to derive basin-scale CO2 uptake with good precision, or significant reduction of the uncertainties in sea-salt aerosol source functions. Predicting the future trajectory of Earth’s climate and habitability is the main task ahead. Some possible routes for the SOLAS scientific community to reach this overarching goal conclude the chapter