Hazards to golden-mantled ground squirrels and associated secondary hazard potential from strychnine baiting for forest pocket gophers

Radio telemetry and capture-recapture techniques were used to evaluate the hazards to golden-mantled ground squirrels (Spermophilus lateralis) from hand baiting with 0.5% strychnine-treated oats for western pocket gophers (Thomomys mazama) on conifer plantations in eastern Oregon. Toxicology data were collected on field-killed and caged ground squirrels and on caged mink (Mustela vison), great horned owls (Bubo virginianus), and red-tailed hawks (Buteo jamaicensis). Ground squirrel populations were reduced 50 to 75% following underground baiting for pocket gophers. Maximum amount of strychnine alkaloid found in cheek pouches and carcass of a field-killed golden-mantled ground squirrel was 2.88 mg. Mean amount of strychnine in carcasses was 0.35 mg; almost all occurred in the gut. The estimated LD50 for mink was 0.6 mg/kg. The lowest lethal dose for great horned owls and red-tailed hawks was 7.7 mg/kg and 10.2 mg/kg, respectively. The LD50 for owls and hawks was not determined. Long-term effects on golden-mantled ground squirrel populations and secondary hazard potential to owls and hawks were judged to be minimal. Wild mustelids as large as mink could be adversely affected by consuming the gut content of strychnine-killed golden-mantled ground squirrels

The Right to Resist An Unlawful Arrest: Judicial and Legislative Overreaction?

THIS COMMENT will focus on the subject of the right to resist an unlawful arrest. The choice of this topic is the result of a change in the common law rule in a few key states which may herald the demise of this rule in all of the states. It is also of particular note that the State of Ohio has seen fit to alter its position on the common law rule recently.\u27 In its essence, this writing will address itself to the clash between the American legal tradition of providing an effective legal remedy for every actionable harm or injury suffered by an individual, and the fact that under the altered laws some innocent individuals will suffer wrongs occasioned by an unlawful arrest, not only without a remedy in their arsenal, but also without a defense to the criminal sanctions that may be imposed on them. This comment will cover only those situations where the arrest is conceded to be unlawful. The legality of the actual arrest is too broad a subject to be adequately covered here and has been extensively treated in other writings

Multiple Reference Impact Testing of Bridges Using a Network of Low-Cost Dynamic Exciters

Multiple Reference Impact Testing (MRIT) is a form of Experimental Modal Analysis (EMA) that can be used to identify the dynamic properties of full-scale bridges. These dynamic properties include natural frequencies, mode shapes, damping ratios, modal scaling and modal flexibility. Since these system properties that are directly related to the mass and stiffness characteristics of a structure, impact test measurements can be used to quantitatively characterize condition of a structure. Over time, changes in the properties can be monitored and evaluated as indicators of damage or deterioration. Instrumented hammers and drop masses are typically used to perform MRIT by providing impulsive dynamic excitation to a structure. The corresponding vibration responses are measured using accelerometers. This approach has a number of practical and experimental shortcomings, including that the testing is time consuming, the impulsive forces produced can be variable, it interferes with the normal operation of the structure, and it is not suitable for continuous monitoring applications. The research herein, evaluates a new method for performing MRIT testing by comparing it to a conventional MRIT testing method. A small-scale and inexpensive excitation device is roved amongst spatially distributed input points to provide dynamic excitation. The excitation device can be inexpensively deployed in large numbers on a structure and programmed to produce a sequence of impulsive dynamic forces. This approach has several important advantages over conventional MRIT testing. For instance, total testing time is reduced, the impulsive forces produced are more repeatable, the testing can be accomplished without affecting the normal operation of the structure, and most importantly, it is amenable to long-term and continuous monitoring applications. The new MRIT approach is evaluated on both a large-scale laboratory model and full-scale bridge structure. The dynamic characterization results for both structures are compared with those obtained by the conventional MRIT approach using instrumented impact hammers

The Right to Resist An Unlawful Arrest: Judicial and Legislative Overreaction?

THIS COMMENT will focus on the subject of the right to resist an unlawful arrest. The choice of this topic is the result of a change in the common law rule in a few key states which may herald the demise of this rule in all of the states. It is also of particular note that the State of Ohio has seen fit to alter its position on the common law rule recently.\u27 In its essence, this writing will address itself to the clash between the American legal tradition of providing an effective legal remedy for every actionable harm or injury suffered by an individual, and the fact that under the altered laws some innocent individuals will suffer wrongs occasioned by an unlawful arrest, not only without a remedy in their arsenal, but also without a defense to the criminal sanctions that may be imposed on them. This comment will cover only those situations where the arrest is conceded to be unlawful. The legality of the actual arrest is too broad a subject to be adequately covered here and has been extensively treated in other writings

The Potential Impact of a Texas High Plains Ethanol Plant on Local Water Supplies

With the passage of the Energy Policy Act, the rapidly expanding number of ethanol plants, and the fury with which ethanol is being promoted, it is clear that ethanol will play a rising role in our domestic energy supply. Along with this rise there will be an increase in the consumptive use of water by ethanol production facilities. Regions, such as the Texas High Plains, that are already considered to be water stressed have the potential of being impacted. The objective of this research is to assess the potential impact the addition of an ethanol plant may have on the Texas High Plains and to determine how increased water costs will transform the economic viability of an ethanol plant.Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

LOW-DEGREE BOOLEAN FUNCTIONS ON S-n, WITH AN APPLICATION TO ISOPERIMETRY

We prove that Boolean functions on $S_n$, whose Fourier transform is highly concentrated on irreducible representations indexed by partitions of $n$ whose largest part has size at least $n-t$, are close to being unions of cosets of stabilizers of $t$-tuples. We also obtain an edge-isoperimetric inequality for the transposition graph on $S_n$ which is asymptotically sharp for subsets of $S_n$ of size $n!/\textrm{poly}(n)$, using eigenvalue techniques. We then combine these two results to obtain a sharp edge-isoperimetric inequality for subsets of $S_n$ of size $(n-t)!$, where $n$ is large compared to $t$, confirming a conjecture of Ben Efraim in these cases.Comment: Minor corrections to statements of Lemmas 15 and 16. A prior theorem, cited in the Intro. of the previous version (Theorem 2) has recently been found to be false. This does not affect the rest of the paper. We have amended the statement of Theorem 2 and provided a counterexample to the original statement. This counterexample shows that our main theorem (Theorem 3) is sharper than we first though