INTERREGIONAL EFFECTS OF REDUCED TIMBER HARVESTS: THE IMPACT OF THE NORTHERN SPOTTED OWL LISTING IN RURAL AND URBAN OREGON

A core-periphery, multiregional, input-output model of western Oregon is used to estimate impacts of periphery timber harvest reductions resulting from listing of an endangered species. Under the most probable scenario, 31,620 total jobs would be lost in the two regions. Fourteen percent of this impact is absorbed in the core (Metro) region. Forty percent of periphery and 80% of Metro jobs lost are from service sectors, a result of important core-periphery trade in central place services. Explicit inclusion of unemployment benefits for displaced workers reduces employment loss estimates by 12% to 14%.Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

THE ROLE OF AGRICULTURE IN OREGON'S ECONOMIC BASE: FINDINGS FROM A SOCIAL ACCOUNTING MATRIX

Most studies of a state’'s economic base count as “"basic”" only the “"traditional"” exports of goods, federal spending, and business investment. “"Nontraditional”" elements of the economic base (including exports of services, federal transfers to state/local governments and households, and extraregional property income) are typically ignored. We construct a social accounting matrix (SAM) for Oregon and estimate Oregon’'s economic base accounting for both traditional and nontraditional elements. Almost 20% of Oregon’'s jobs depend on extraregional income to households (including government transfers and outside property income), 11% depend on lumber and wood and paper products, and 8% depend on agriculture.Agribusiness,

Multicore OSes: Looking Forward from 1991, er, 2011

Upcoming multicore processors, with hundreds of cores or more in a single chip, require a degree of parallel scalability that is not currently available in today’s system software. Based on prior experience in the super-computing sector, the likely trend for multicore processors is away from shared memory and toward shared-nothing architectures based on message passing. In light of this, the lightweight messages and channels programming model, found among other places in Erlang, is likely the best way forward. This paper discusses what adopting this model entails, describes the architecture of an OS based on this model, and outlines a few likely implementation challenges.Engineering and Applied Science

A Search for Planets Transiting the M Dwarf Debris Disk Host, AU Microscopii

We present high cadence, high precision multi-band photometry of the young, M1Ve, debris disk star, AU Microscopii. The data were obtained in three continuum filters spanning a wavelength range from 4500\AA to 6600\AA, plus H$\alpha$, over 28 nights in 2005. The lightcurves show intrinsic stellar variability due to starspots with an amplitude in the blue band of 0.051 magnitudes and a period of 4.847 days. In addition, three large flares were detected in the data which all occur near the minimum brightness of the star. We remove the intrinsic stellar variability and combine the lightcurves of all the filters in order to search for transits by possible planetary companions orbiting in the plane of the nearly edge-on debris disk. The combined final lightcurve has a sampling of 0.35 minutes and a standard deviation of 6.8 millimags (mmag). We performed Monte Carlo simulations by adding fake transits to the observed lightcurve and find with 95% significance that there are no Jupiter mass planets orbiting in the plane of the debris disk on circular orbits with periods, P $\le 5$ days. In addition, there are no young Neptune-like planets (with radii 2.5$\times$ smaller than the young Jupiter) on circular orbits with periods, P $\le 3$ days.Comment: accepted to MNRA

Economic Impact of Wildlife-Associated Recreation Expenditures in the Southeast United States: A General Equilibrium Analysis

The economic impact of wildlife-associated recreation in the Southeast United States was evaluated using a general equilibrium model. Exogenous demand shocks to the regional economy were based on estimates of expenditures by wildlife recreationists on hunting, fishing, and wildlife watching activities. Counterfactual simulations were carried out, making alternative assumptions about labor and capital mobility and their supply. Without wildlife-associated recreation expenditures, regional employment would have been smaller by up to 783 thousand jobs, and value added would have been $22 to$48 billion less. These findings underscore the significance of regional factor market conditions in economic impact and general equilibrium analysis.general equilibrium modeling, input-output analysis, regional economic impact, wildlife-associated recreation activities, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy, R13, R15, Q26,

Further characterization of glycine-containing microcystins from the McMurdo Dry Valleys of Antarctica

Microcystins are hepatotoxic cyclic peptides produced by several cyanobacterial genera worldwide. In 2008, our research group identified eight new glycine-containing microcystin congeners in two hydro-terrestrial mat samples from the McMurdo Dry Valleys of Eastern Antarctica. During the present study, high-resolution mass spectrometry, amino acid analysis and micro-scale thiol derivatization were used to further elucidate their structures. The Antarctic microcystin congeners contained the rare substitution of the position-1 D-alanine for glycine, as well as the acetyl desmethyl modification of the position-5 Adda moiety (3S-amino-9S-methoxy-2S,6,8S-trimethyl-10-phenyldeca-4E,6E-dienoic acid). Amino acid analysis was used to determine the stereochemistry of several of the amino acids and conclusively demonstrated the presence of glycine in the microcystins. A recently developed thiol derivatization technique showed that each microcystin contained dehydrobutyrine in position-7 instead of the commonly observed N-methyl dehydroalanine

PWAs and PBJs: Language for describing a simple procedure

The purpose of this study was to analyze responses to a simple procedural discourse task in persons with aphasia (PWAs n=141) and non-aphasic participants (n=145). Participants described how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Results showed significant differences between groups on mean length of utterance, total number of words, total number of utterances, and task duration. However, the top 10 verbs and nouns used by both groups were nearly identical and the proportion of nouns, verbs, pronouns, and determiners used by each group was similar. Aphasia severity correlated moderately with total number of words only

Ionized o-, m-, and p-Difluorobenzene Dissociate Through Ring-Opened Intermediates: A TPEPICO Investigation

Threshold photoelectron photoion coincidence (TPEPICO) experiments have shown that o-, m-, and p-difluorobenzene ions dissociate via a common, ring-opened intermediate and not via ionized p-difluorobenzene. Rice-Ramsperger-Kassel-Marcus (RRKM) modeling of the experimental breakdown curves yields activation energies for the initial isomerization of 4.48 ± 0.05, 4.55 ± 0.05, and 4.68 ± 0.05 eV for o-, m-, and p-difluorobenzene, respectively. These values place each ion at a similar absolute energy and thus similar transition states. A large positive ΔS‡ for each ion (ca 100 J K−1 mol−1) suggests a ring-opened structure for these transition states

Climatic, edaphic, and biotic controls over storage and turnover of carbon in soils

Soil carbon, a major component of the global carbon inventory, has significant potential for change with changing climate and human land use. We applied the Century ecosystem model to a series of forest and grassland sites distributed globally to examine large-scale controls over soil carbon. Key site-specific parameters influencing soil carbon dynamics are soil texture and foliar lignin content; accordingly, we perturbed these variables at each site to establish a range of carbon concentrations and turnover times. We examined the simulated soil carbon stores, turnover times, and C:N ratios for correlations with patterns of independent variables. Results showed that soil carbon is related linearly to soil texture, increasing as clay content increases, that soil carbon stores and turnover time are related to mean annual temperature by negative exponential functions, and that heterotrophic respiration originates from recent detritus (∼50%), microbial turnover (∼30%), and soil organic matter (∼20%) with modest variations between forest and grassland ecosystems. The effect of changing temperature on soil organic carbon (SOC) estimated by Century is dSOC/dT= 183e−0.034T. Global extrapolation of this relationship leads to an estimated sensitivity of soil C storage to a temperature of −11.1 Pg° C−1, excluding extreme arid and organic soils. In Century, net primary production (NPP) and soil carbon are closely coupled through the N cycle, so that as temperatures increase, accelerated N release first results in fertilization responses, increasing C inputs. The Century-predicted effect of temperature on carbon storage is modified by as much as 100% by the N cycle feedback. Century-estimated soil C sensitivity (−11.1 Pg° C−1) is similar to losses predicted with a simple data-based calculation (−14.1 Pg° C−1). Inclusion of the N cycle is important for even first-order predictions of terrestrial carbon balance. If the NPP-SOC feedback is disrupted by land use or other disturbances, then SOC sensitivity can greatly exceed that estimated in our simulations. Century results further suggest that if climate change results in drying of organic soils (peats), soil carbon loss rates can be high