The artesian water of the Ruskin area of Hillsborough County, Florida: interim report

The purpose of the investigation is to make a detailed study of the geology and ground water in the Ruskin area, especially as related to the problem of salt-water encroachment. The major objectives of the program includes: (1) An inventory of wells to determine their number and distribution, their depths and diameters, and other pertinent information. (2) A study of artesian pressures. (3) Analyses of water from selected wells to determine the location and extent of any areas in which the artesian water is salty. (4) A study of the surface and subsurface geology as related to the occurrence and movement of ground water. (5) An estimate of the quantity of ground water withdrawn. (PDF contains 24 pages.

A New Technique for Determining Europium Abundances in Solar-Metallicity Stars

We present a new technique for measuring the abundance of europium, a representative r-process element, in solar-metallicity stars. Our algorithm compares LTE synthetic spectra with high-resolution observational spectra using a chi-square-minimization routine. The analysis is fully automated, and therefore allows consistent measurement of blended lines even across very large stellar samples. We compare our results with literature europium abundance measurements and find them to be consistent; we also find our method generates smaller errors.Comment: 10 pages, 7 figure

Interview with Kathryn Peek

An oral history interview with Kathryn Elaine Hickman Peek about her career as a biomedical administrator and educator at many institutions in the Texas Medical Center. Kathryn Elaine Peek, Ph.D. completed her bachelor’s degree in English and embarked on a first career as a public school teacher. She obtained master’s degrees in biology and behavioral sciences at the University of Houston and UH Clear Lake during two stays in the Houston area. She entered the University of Texas Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences at what is now the McGovern Medical School at the age of 39. She graduated with a Ph.D. in biomedical sciences at the age of 44 and embarked on a career that took her from laboratory studies of brain and spinal cord ischemia to the pursuit of information about the biological differences between men and women. Along the way, she mentored many young people pursuing healthcare and science careers and supported numerous women seeking career advancement in STEM professions. Her career was sometimes at the mercies of institutional politics. She retired from the University of Houston in 2013, but as she continues to work as a consultant in the Texas Medical Center, she can look back on raising awareness of women’s health issues as well as boosting the presence of women in leadership positions in the Texas Medical Center

Exposure Outliers: Children, Mothers, and Cumulative Disaster Exposure in Louisiana

Only a limited number of studies have explored the effects of cumulative disaster exposure—defined here as multiple, acute onset, large-scale collective events that cause disruption for individuals, families, and entire communities. Research that is available indicates that children and adults who experience these potentially traumatic community-level events are at greater risk of a variety of negative health outcomes and ongoing secondary stressors throughout their life course. The present study draws on in-depth interviews with a qualitative subsample of nine mother-child pairs who were identified as both statistical and theoretical outliers in terms of their levels of disaster exposure through their participation in a larger, longitudinal Women and Their Children’s Health (WaTCH) project that was conducted following the British Petroleum Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill. During Wave 2 of the WaTCH study, mothers and their children were asked survey questions about previous exposure to and the impacts of the oil spill, hurricanes, and other disasters. This article presents the qualitative interview data collected from the subsample of children and mothers who both endorsed that they had experienced three or more disasters that had a major impact on the child and the household. We refer to these children as exposure outliers. The in-depth narratives of the four mother-child pairs who told stories of multiple pre-disaster stressors emerging from structural inequalities and health and financial problems, protracted and unstable displacements, and high levels of material and social losses illustrate how problems can pile up to slow or completely hinder individual and family disaster recovery. These four mother-child pairs were especially likely to have experienced devastating losses in Hurricane Katrina in 2005, which then led to an accumulation of disadvantage and ongoing cycles of loss and disruption. The stories of the remaining five mother-child pairs underscore how pre-disaster resources, post-disaster support, and institutional stabilizing forces can accelerate recovery even after multiple disaster exposures. This study offers insights about how families can begin to prepare for a future that is likely to be increasingly punctuated by more frequent and intense extreme weather events and other types of disaster

An Empirical Analysis of the Role of Risk Aversion in Executive Compensation Contracts

This paper empirically tests the principal-agent model prediction that the use of performance measures for incentive purposes is affected by the agent’s risk aversion. We find that the use of both accounting and market performance measures in executive compensation contracts decreases as the level of risk aversions increases. We further find that agent-specific characteristics, i.e., risk aversion, become more important in designing executive compensation contracts when performance measures are less useful due to measure-specific characteristics.Economics ;

Cost of exploration for metallic minerals in Alaska

The high cost of exploration for metallic minerals in Alaska not only reflects a 20-50% increase in the cost of supplies, food and salaries over those "outside" but also some additional costs that are characteristic of most Alaskan exploration efforts. Transportation in particular often represents half of the exploration budget and is a major cost of almost all programs. Helicopters commonly are used as the basic mode of field transportation; their cost is high (about $125 to$300 per hour) and increasing, and their availability is becoming less certain with the accelerating demand for them. Salaries for field personnel are also considerably higher than those paid to personnel "outside". And the demand, both from within and without the mining industry, for those with Alaskan experience is so great as to drive those salaries even higher. Fuel and communication costs not only show the usual Alaskan mark-up but are also subject to local scarcity and almost unavoidable problems. Fuel will probably continue to be available in the major population centers but there have always been difficulties in providing or obtaining fuel in the bush; these will undoubtedly be magnified with the booming development of Alaska's petroleum resources and national scarcity. Communications with the field will undoubtedly continue to be uncertain at times and will frequently present major problems that money along cannot solve and result in much frustration and delay. Contract services such as drilling, geophysical work, and geochemical analyses are available within the state in varying degree or can be obtained "outside" at rates that do not seem to be unduly expensive. However, the cost of transportation, mobilization, and demobilization of the personnel and equipment used in performing these services may result in unusually high costs for projects of short duration. Early logistical planning has always been considered wise in Alaskan field work and it will undoubtedly continue to be important, if not essential. The lack of it may be alleviated in some cases with copious applications of money but with Alaska's present booming development, the lack of planning may lead to an uncertain ability to work in the field at all. The cost of Alaskan exploration programs vary greatly. Many of the reconnaissance geologic and geochemical programs are strikingly expensive chiefly because of the need for helicopter support. Other types of programs such as prospect evaluations are not nearly so expensive and Alaskan costs for projects of limited area or duration are nor necessarily prohibitive. In almost all cases, experience, imagination, and prior planning can reduce costs significantly