Using Magnetostratigraphy to Find the Cretaceous-Paleogene Boundary in La Colonia Formation, Patagonia, Argentina

The Cretaceous-Paleogene (K-Pg) boundary is a geologic record that marks the occurrence of one of the most important events in Earth’s history. At this time, approximately 66 million years ago, a mass extinction occurred, caused primarily by a meteorite impact. This also caused a change in global climate and widespread deposition of material ejected from the impact crater. Studying the K-Pg boundary can help us understand how Earth responds to catastrophic events. Currently, there are few continental records of the K-Pg boundary in South America, resulting in poor understanding of its effects there. One method for finding the boundary uses magnetostratigraphy (measuring the magnetic polarity of a rock, preserved from when it formed). Earth’s magnetic field has reversed through time, and these reversals are recorded in rock formations. Chron C29r is an interval of reversed magnetic polarity that encompasses the K-Pg boundary. Samples taken from strata in La Colonia Formation in Patagonia, Argentina, were analyzed to find their magnetic polarity, resulting in the magnetostratigraphy for that formation. I successfully identified Chron C29r in samples taken from La Colonia. This information will help us better understand the mass extinction, especially how prevalent it was in South America and the extent to which biodiversity in that area suffered

Parallel Hierarchical Affinity Propagation with MapReduce

The accelerated evolution and explosion of the Internet and social media is generating voluminous quantities of data (on zettabyte scales). Paramount amongst the desires to manipulate and extract actionable intelligence from vast big data volumes is the need for scalable, performance-conscious analytics algorithms. To directly address this need, we propose a novel MapReduce implementation of the exemplar-based clustering algorithm known as Affinity Propagation. Our parallelization strategy extends to the multilevel Hierarchical Affinity Propagation algorithm and enables tiered aggregation of unstructured data with minimal free parameters, in principle requiring only a similarity measure between data points. We detail the linear run-time complexity of our approach, overcoming the limiting quadratic complexity of the original algorithm. Experimental validation of our clustering methodology on a variety of synthetic and real data sets (e.g. images and point data) demonstrates our competitiveness against other state-of-the-art MapReduce clustering techniques

A Commons-Compatible Implementation of the Sharing Economy: Blockchain-Based Open Source Mediation

The network economical sharing economy, with direct exchange as a core characteristic, is implemented both, on a commons and platform economical basis. This is due to a gain in importance of trust, collaborative consumption and democratic management as well as technological progress, in the form of near zero marginal costs, open source contributions and digital transformation. Concurrent to these commons-based drivers, the grey area between commerce and private exchange is used to exploit work, safety and tax regulations by central platform economists. Instead of central intermediators, the blockchain technology makes decentralized consensus finding, using Proof-of-Work (PoW) within a self-sustaining Peer-to-Peer network, possible. Therefore, a blockchain-based open source mediation seems to offer a commons-compatible implementation of the sharing economy. This thesis is investigated through a qualitative case study of Sardex and Interlace with their blockchain application, based on expert interviews and a structured content analysis. To detect the most commons-compatible implementation, the different implementation options through conventional platform intermediators, an open source blockchain with PoW as well as Interlaces' permissioned blockchain approach, are compared. The following confrontation is based on deductive criteria, which illustrates the inherent characteristics of a commons-based sharing economy

Complete High Temperature Expansions for One-Loop Finite Temperature Effects

We develop exact, simple closed form expressions for partition functions associated with relativistic bosons and fermions in odd spatial dimensions. These expressions, valid at high temperature, include the effects of a non-trivial Polyakov loop and generalize well-known high temperature expansions. The key technical point is the proof of a set of Bessel function identities which resum low temperature expansions into high temperature expansions. The complete expressions for these partition functions can be used to obtain one-loop finite temperature contributions to effective potentials, and thus free energies and pressures.Comment: 9 pages, RevTeX, no figures. To be published in Phys. Rev D. v2 has revised introduction and conclusions, plus a few typographical errors are corrected; v3 corrects one typ

Robotic intracorporeal urinary diversion: practical review of current surgical techniques

In this practical review, we discuss current surgical techniques reported in the literature to perform Intracorporeal Urinary Diversion (ICUD) after Robotic Radical Cystectomy (RARC), emphasizing criticisms of single approaches and making comparisons with Extracorporeal Urinary Diversion (ECUD). Although almost 97% of all RARCs use an ECUD, ICUD is gaining in popularity, in view of its potential benefits (i.e., decreased bowel exposure, etc.), although there are a few studies comparing ICUD and ECUD. Analysing single experiences and the data from recent metanalyses, we emphasize the current critiques to ICUD, stressing particular technical details which could reduce operative time, lowering the postoperative complications rate, and improving functional outcomes. Only analysis of long-term follow-up data from large-scale homogeneous series can ascertain whether robotic intracorporeal urinary diversion is superior to other approaches

Petion for a Writ of Certiorari. Knight v. Thompson, 136 S.Ct. 2534 (2016) (No. 15-999), 2016 U.S. S. Ct. Briefs LEXIS 542, 2016 WL 447654

QUESTION PRESENTED In Holt v. Hobbs, 135 S.Ct. 853 (2015), this Court held that the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000 (“RLUIPA”), renders unlawful an absolute ban on inmates\u27 wearing a beard for religious reasons. The Eleventh Circuit, subsequent to and despite this Court\u27s decision in Holt, rejected a RLUIPA challenge to Alabama\u27s similarly inflexible policy prohibiting all male inmates from wearing long hair for religious reasons. A vast majority of states, the District of Columbia, and all federal prisons accommodate inmates whose religious practices include wearing beards or long hair. The Question Presented is: Whether Alabama\u27s grooming policy violates RLUIPA, 42 U.S.C. § 2000cc, et seq., to the extent that it prohibits Petitioners from wearing unshorn hair in accordance with their sincerely held religious beliefs

Reply Brief of Petitioners. Knight v. Thompson, 136 S.Ct. 2534 (2016) (No. 15-999), 2016 U.S. S. Ct. Briefs LEXIS 1645, 2016 WL 1555013+A12

QUESTION PRESENTED Section 3 of the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000 ( RLUIPA ) prohibits state and local governments from imposing a substantial burden on the religious exercise of a person residing in or confined to an institution . . . unless the government demonstrates that imposition of the burden on that person : (1) is in furtherance of a compelling governmental interest, and (2) is the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling governmental interest. 42 U.S.C. § 2000cc-l(a). The Question Presented is: Whether RLUIPA requires that prison officials actually consider and demonstrate a sufficient basis for rejecting widely accepted accommodations to traditional religious practices as part of their burden of proving that they have chosen the least restrictive means of furthering their asserted governmental interests

Different waves and directions of Neolithic migrations in the Armenian Highland

Background: The peopling of Europe and the nature of the Neolithic agricultural migration as a primary issue in the modern human colonization of the globe is still widely debated. At present, much uncertainty is associated with the reconstruction of the routes of migration for the first farmers from the Near East. In this context, hospitable climatic conditions and the key geographic position of the Armenian Highland suggest that it may have served as a conduit for several waves of expansion of the first agriculturalists from the Near East to Europe and the North Caucasus. Results: Here, we assess Y-chromosomal distribution in six geographically distinct populations of Armenians that roughly represent the extent of historical Armenia. Using the general haplogroup structure and the specific lineages representing putative genetic markers of the Neolithic Revolution, haplogroups R1b1a2, J2, and G, we identify distinct patterns of genetic affinity between the populations of the Armenian Highland and the neighboring ones north and west from this area. Conclusions: Based on the results obtained, we suggest a new insight on the different routes and waves of Neolithic expansion of the first farmers through the Armenian Highland. We detected at least two principle migratory directions: (1) westward alongside the coastline of the Mediterranean Sea and (2) northward to the North Caucasus. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s13323-014-0015-6) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users