The Use of Green Pond Conglomerate as Building Stone in Morris County, New Jersey

Green Pond Conglomerate (GPC) is a maroon colored quartzite with white quartz pebbles, a classic “puddingstone”. GPC derives from a NW-SW-trending sliver of Paleozoic sediments, the “Green Pond Outlier”, surrounded by older metamorphic and igneous rocks of Morris and Passaic Counties. Buildings, retaining walls, field fences, and monuments incorporate the durable and attractive stone, in a distinct geographic area of Morris County. Several instances of structures completely constructed or faced with GPC occur in and around Morristown, limited to affluent houses and one prominent church. In these cases, GPC stones were dressed and faced, a labor-intensive effort. Elsewhere in the county, GPC forms decorative accents to fences and walls, or in most cases, comprises a portion of the undressed rounded fieldstones in buildings and field fences. No historic GPC quarries are noted, so the source of the building stone is from glacial sediments. The Pleistocene continental ice advances crossed and eroded the Green Pond outcrop from the north and Cand east of Morristown. Isolated Pre-Illinoisan deposits exist as far south as Somerset County, which may contain rare GPC cobbles. From Morristown and south, GPC as a building stone would likely have been imported. North of the terminal moraines, GPC is common and probably proportional to distance from the bedrock source. Ongoing research seeks to quantify the proportional frequency of GPC in human structures and in the glacial sediments

The Medicare Physician Group Practice Demonstration: Lessons Learned on Improving Quality and Efficiency in Health Care

Discusses the experiences of ten large practices earning performance payments for improving the quality and cost-efficiency of health care delivered to Medicare fee-for-service beneficiaries

A Geomorphology of Megaliths: Neolithic Landscapes in the Alto Alentejo, Portugal

The Alentejo region of Portugal is known for a high concentration of Neolithic-aged megalithic monuments: tombs (dolmens or antas) and ceremonial features such as standing stones (menhirs) and stone circles (cromleques). Concentrations of these monuments tend to be found on or near weathered granite terrains. Unloading slabs and remnant corestones appear to be the stones of preference for megalith makers in the Alentejo district of Portugal. Some of the stones may have been imported from distant sources, but most appear to be of local origin. In general, most stones do not appear to have been altered much from their original state as field stones. Weathering tests demonstrate that menhirs are essentially identical to native cornerstones. Many menhirs still exhibit a soil line. The former subaerial side of the stone usually retains a thick growth of lichen, while the soil side remains oxidized. Newly exposed, antas and menhirs now suffer from enhanced weathering and erosion from atmospheric and biological agents. This deterioration is often difficult to discern from the inherited decomposition of pre-megalithic time

Relationships Between Gender and Alberta Diploma Scores

The purpose of this study was to investigate relationships between gender and Alberta diploma examination and school-awarded scores. Weak relationships between gender and scores were found both on Alberta diploma examination scores and on school-awarded scores. These relationships tended to be relatively greater in magnitude for school-awarded scores than for diploma examination scores, with girls generally attaining higher school-awarded scores than boys. Effect sizes of all correlations between scores and gender were in the small range. R² values showed that the overall statistical effect of gender on students' schoolawarded scores was greater than the effect on students' diploma examination scores. The greatest statistical effect for gender was on the difference between school-awarded scores and diploma examination scores, with girls having larger differences than boys.Le but de cette recherche est d'étudier le rapport entre le sexe et les notes aux examens du ministère menant à l'obtention du diplôme du secondaire en Alberta et celles découlant des examens gérés par les écoles. La corrélation entre le sexe et les notes était faible pour les deux types d'examens. Les résultats ont révélé une tendance selon laquelle la corrélation était plus importante pour les notes découlant des examens gérés par l'école, où les notes des filles étaient généralement plus élevées que celles des garçons. L'ampleur de l'effet pour toutes les corrélations entre les notes et le sexe était limitée. Les valeurs R² ont indiqué que l'effet statistique global du sexe sur la performance des élèves était plus important pour les notes découlant d'examens administrés par l'école que pour celles des examens du ministère. L'effet statistique le plus important sur le sexe consistait en la différence entre les notes aux examens administrés par l'école et les notes aux examens gérés par le ministre. Les différences les plus importantes se retrouvaient chez les filles

Star Formation and AGN Activity in Galaxy Clusters from z=1−2z=1-2: a Multi-wavelength Analysis Featuring HerschelHerschel/PACS

We present a detailed, multi-wavelength study of star formation (SF) and AGN activity in 11 near-infrared (IR) selected, spectroscopically confirmed, massive ($\gtrsim10^{14}\,\rm{M_{\odot}}$) galaxy clusters at $1<z<1.75$. Using new, deep $Herschel$/PACS imaging, we characterize the optical to far-IR spectral energy distributions (SEDs) for IR-luminous cluster galaxies, finding that they can, on average, be well described by field galaxy templates. Identification and decomposition of AGN through SED fittings allows us to include the contribution to cluster SF from AGN host galaxies. We quantify the star-forming fraction, dust-obscured SF rates (SFRs), and specific-SFRs for cluster galaxies as a function of cluster-centric radius and redshift. In good agreement with previous studies, we find that SF in cluster galaxies at $z\gtrsim1.4$ is largely consistent with field galaxies at similar epochs, indicating an era before significant quenching in the cluster cores ($r<0.5\,$Mpc). This is followed by a transition to lower SF activity as environmental quenching dominates by $z\sim1$. Enhanced SFRs are found in lower mass ($10.1< \log \rm{M_{\star}}/\rm{M_{\odot}}<10.8$) cluster galaxies. We find significant variation in SF from cluster-to-cluster within our uniformly selected sample, indicating that caution should be taken when evaluating individual clusters. We examine AGN in clusters from $z=0.5-2$, finding an excess AGN fraction at $z\gtrsim1$, suggesting environmental triggering of AGN during this epoch. We argue that our results $-$ a transition from field-like to quenched SF, enhanced SF in lower mass galaxies in the cluster cores, and excess AGN $-$ are consistent with a co-evolution between SF and AGN in clusters and an increased merger rate in massive haloes at high redshift.Comment: 26 pages, 14 figures, 6 tables with appendix, accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journa

Equation-free implementation of statistical moment closures

We present a general numerical scheme for the practical implementation of statistical moment closures suitable for modeling complex, large-scale, nonlinear systems. Building on recently developed equation-free methods, this approach numerically integrates the closure dynamics, the equations of which may not even be available in closed form. Although closure dynamics introduce statistical assumptions of unknown validity, they can have significant computational advantages as they typically have fewer degrees of freedom and may be much less stiff than the original detailed model. The closure method can in principle be applied to a wide class of nonlinear problems, including strongly-coupled systems (either deterministic or stochastic) for which there may be no scale separation. We demonstrate the equation-free approach for implementing entropy-based Eyink-Levermore closures on a nonlinear stochastic partial differential equation.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figure

Deterioration of stone and mineral materials from the Roman Imperial “Cilla of the Antonines” at ancient lanuvium

The “Villa of the Antonines”, located at the 18th mile of the ancient Via Appia, is so far the least explored of the ancient Roman imperial residences in the area of the Alban Hills. Excavations at “Villa of the Antonines” permit an investigation of subsurface deterioration of cultural stone, addressing two primary questions: (1) What are the deterioration processes in the soil and sediment environment, and how do these compare to subaerial deterioration processes? (2) How might the deterioration impact other methodologies reliant on the analysis of the material, such as use and wear analysis, dating techniques, and provenience by chemical tracers? The deterioration characteristics of materials recovered thus far can be visually described. Marbles are discolored and exhibit a loss of polish and partial to extensive granular disintegration and powdering. Brick varies in color and composition due to manufacturing and material differences, but may also exhibit within-soil alteration. Glass tesserae exhibit frosting and pitting from chemical solution. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) reveals surface microdeterioration such as pitting, etching, and glazing. Qualitative backscatter electron microscopy (BSEM) and energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) indicate the distribution of elements, including byproducts of chemical deterioration, likely within the soil environment

Branes on the Brane

We show that four-dimensional N=2 ungauged Einstein-Maxwell supergravity can be embedded on the Randall-Sundrum 3-brane, as a consistent Kaluza-Klein reduction of five-dimensional N=4 gauged supergravity. In particular, this allows us to describe four-dimensional Reissner-Nordstrom black holes within the Randall-Sundrum scenario. Using earlier results on the embedding of five-dimensional N=4 gauged supergravity in ten dimensions, we can then describe the four-dimensional Einstein-Maxwell supergravity on the 3-brane, and its solutions, from a type IIB viewpoint. We also show that the minimal ungauged supergravities in D=5 and D=6 can be consistently embedded in the half-maximally supersymmetric gauged supergravities in D=6 and D=7 respectively. These allow us to construct solutions including BPS black holes and strings living in "Randall-Sundrum 4-branes," and BPS self-dual strings living in "Randall-Sundrum 5-branes." We can also lift the embeddings to ten-dimensional massive type IIA and D=11 supergravity respectively. In particular, we obtain a solution describing the self-dual string living in the world-volume of an M5-brane, which can be viewed as an open membrane ending on the M5-brane.Comment: Latex, 19 pages. Comments added and typos correcte