Keep the Change: Faculty Roles in the Scholarly Communications System and Their Impact on Open Access Promotion

Presentation given at the Academic Library Association of Ohio Annual Conference on October 29, 2010. Educating faculty about open access choices and scholarly communication issues

Shoot growth of woody trees and shrubs is predicted by maximum plant height and associated traits

1. The rate of elongation and thickening of individual branches (shoots) varies across plant species. This variation is important for the outcome of competition and other plant-plant interactions. Here we compared rates of shoot growth across 44 species from tropical, warm temperate, and cool temperate forests of eastern Australia.2. Shoot growth rate was found to correlate with a suite of traits including the potential height of the species, xylem-specific conductivity, leaf size, leaf area per xylem cross-section, twig diameter (at 40 cm length), wood density and modulus of elasticity.3. Within this suite of traits, maximum plant height was the clearest correlate of growth rates, explaining 50 to 67% of the variation in growth overall (p p 4. Growth rates were not strongly correlated with leaf nitrogen or leaf mass per unit leaf area.5. Correlations between growth and maximum height arose both across latitude (47%, p p p p < 0.0001), reflecting intrinsic differences across species and sites

Detection of the large meteoroid/NEO flux using infrasound: Recent detection of the November 21, 1995 Colorado fireball

During the early morning of November 21, 1995, a fireball as bright as the full moon entered the atmosphere over southeastern Colorado and subsequently produced audible sonic boom reports from Texas to Wyoming. The event was detected locally by a security video camera which showed the reflection of the fireball event on the hood of a truck. The camera also recorded tree shadows cast by the light of the fireball. This recording includes the audio signal of a strong double boom as well. Subsequent investigation of the array near Los Alamos, New Mexico operated by the Los Alamos National Laboratory as part of its commitment to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty negotiations, showed the presence of an infrasonic signal from the proper direction at about the correct time for this fireball. The Los Alamos array is a four-element infrasonic array in near-continuous operation on the Laboratory property. The preliminary characteristics of the signal include the signal onset arrival time of 0939:20 UT (0239:20 MST), with a maximum timing uncertainty of {+-} 2 minutes, the signal onset time delay from the appearance of the fireball of 19 minutes, 20 seconds, the total signal duration of 2 minutes 10 seconds, the source location toward 31 degrees from true north, the horizontal trace velocity of 429 m/sec, the signal velocity of 0.30 {+-} 0.03 km/sec, assuming a 400 km horizontal range to the fireball, the dominant signal frequency content of 0.25 to 0.84 Hz (analyzed in the frequency interval from 0.2 to 2.0 Hz), the maximum signal cross-correlation of 0.97 and the maximum signal amplitude of 2.0 {+-} 0.1 microbars. Also, on the basis of the signal period at maximum amplitude, we estimate a source energy for this event of between 10 to 100 tons of TNT (53.0 tons nominal)

Infrasound from the El Paso super-bolide of October 9, 1997

During the noon hour on October 9, 1997 an extremely bright fireball ({approx}-21.5 in stellar magnitude putting it into the class of a super-bolide) was observed over western Texas with visual sightings from as far away as Arizona to northern Mexico and even in northern New Mexico over 300 miles away. This event produced tremendously loud sonic boom reports in the El Paso area. It was also detected locally by 4 seismometers which are part of a network of 5 seismic stations operated by the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP). Subsequent investigations of the data from the six infrasound arrays used by LANL (Los Alamos National Laboratory) and operated for the DOE (Department of Energy) as a part of the CTB (Comprehensive Test Ban) Research and Development program for the IMS (International Monitoring System) showed the presence of an infrasonic signal from the proper direction at the correct time for this super-bolide from two of the six arrays. Both the seismic and infrasound recordings indicated that an explosion occurred in the atmosphere at source heights from 28--30 km, having its epicenter slightly to the northeast of Horizon City, Texas. The signal characteristics, analyzed from {approx}0.1 to 5.0 Hz, include a total duration of {approx}4 min (at Los Alamos, LA) to &gt;{approx}5 min at Lajitas, Texas, TXAR, another CTB IMS array operated by E. Herrin at Southern Methodist University (SMU) for a source directed from LA toward {approx}171--180 deg and from TXAR of {approx}321-4 deg respectively from true north. The observed signal trace velocities (for the part of the recording with the highest cross-correlation) at LA ranged from 300--360 m/sec with a signal velocity of 0.30 {+-} 0.03 km/sec, implying a Stratospheric (S Type) ducted path. The dominant signal frequency at LA was from 0.20 to 0.80 Hz, with a peak near 0.3 Hz. These highly correlated signals at LA had a very large, peak to peak, maximum amplitude of 21.0 microbars (2.1 Pa). The analysis, using several methods that incorporate various observed signal characteristics, total distance traveled, etc., indicates that the super-bolide probably had a source energy in the range between 10--100 tons (TNT equivalent). This is somewhat smaller than the source energy estimate made using US DoD satellite data (USAF news release, June 8, 1998)

Evidence of strong stabilizing effects on the evolution of boreoeutherian (Mammalia) dental proportions.

The dentition is an extremely important organ in mammals with variation in timing and sequence of eruption, crown morphology, and tooth size enabling a range of behavioral, dietary, and functional adaptations across the class. Within this suite of variable mammalian dental phenotypes, relative sizes of teeth reflect variation in the underlying genetic and developmental mechanisms. Two ratios of postcanine tooth lengths capture the relative size of premolars to molars (premolar-molar module, PMM), and among the three molars (molar module component, MMC), and are known to be heritable, independent of body size, and to vary significantly across primates. Here, we explore how these dental traits vary across mammals more broadly, focusing on terrestrial taxa in the clade of Boreoeutheria (Euarchontoglires and Laurasiatheria). We measured the postcanine teeth of N = 1,523 boreoeutherian mammals spanning six orders, 14 families, 36 genera, and 49 species to test hypotheses about associations between dental proportions and phylogenetic relatedness, diet, and life history in mammals. Boreoeutherian postcanine dental proportions sampled in this study carry conserved phylogenetic signal and are not associated with variation in diet. The incorporation of paleontological data provides further evidence that dental proportions may be slower to change than is dietary specialization. These results have implications for our understanding of dental variation and dietary adaptation in mammals

Moderated Network Models

Pairwise network models such as the Gaussian Graphical Model (GGM) are a powerful and intuitive way to analyze dependencies in multivariate data. A key assumption of the GGM is that each pairwise interaction is independent of the values of all other variables. However, in psychological research this is often implausible. In this paper, we extend the GGM by allowing each pairwise interaction between two variables to be moderated by (a subset of) all other variables in the model, and thereby introduce a Moderated Network Model (MNM). We show how to construct the MNM and propose an L1-regularized nodewise regression approach to estimate it. We provide performance results in a simulation study and show that MNMs outperform the split-sample based methods Network Comparison Test (NCT) and Fused Graphical Lasso (FGL) in detecting moderation effects. Finally, we provide a fully reproducible tutorial on how to estimate MNMs with the R-package mgm and discuss possible issues with model misspecification

Elements of metacommunity structure of diatoms and macroinvertebrates within stream networks differing in environmental heterogeneity

Aim Idealized metacommunity structures (i.e. checkerboard, random, quasi-structures, nested, Clementsian, Gleasonian and evenly spaced) have recently gained increasing attention, but their relationships with environmental heterogeneity and how they vary with organism groups remain poorly understood. Here, we tested two main hypotheses: (a) gradient-driven patterns (Clementsian and Gleasonian) occur frequently in heterogeneous environments and (b) small organisms (here, diatoms) are more likely to exhibit gradient-driven patterns than large organisms (here, macroinvertebrates). Location Streams in three regions in China. Taxon Diatoms and macroinvertebrates. Methods The stream diatom and macroinvertebrate data, as well as the environmental data collected from the same set of sites were used to examine the idealized metacommunity structures via the elements of the metacommunity structure (EMS; coherence, turnover and boundary clumping) analysis in three regions. We extended the traditional EMS approach by ordering sites along known environmental gradients. Results We found that Clementsian structure with high degrees of coherence and turnover, and significantly positive clumping was typically observed in the high-heterogeneity regions, whereas randomness was prevalent in the low-heterogeneity region. Macroinvertebrates exhibited clearer Clementsian structures compared with diatoms, while diatoms showed more randomness compared with macroinvertebrates, indicating a stronger role of environmental filtering for macroinvertebrates than diatoms. In most cases, the results of the more novel EMS approach differed from the results of the traditional EMS technique. Main conclusions Our results suggested that the occurrence of different metacommunity structures may be related with the degree of regional environmental heterogeneity. However, diatom metacommunities were more random than those of macroinvertebrate, and such an unexpected result may result from different dispersal abilities between the two organism groups. In addition, we found that the novel EMS approach increased power in discerning metacommunity structure in comparison to the traditional EMS technique.peerReviewe

Models of Giant Planet formation with migration and disc evolution

We present a new model of giant planet formation that extends the core-accretion model of Pollack etal (1996) to include migration, disc evolution and gap formation. We show that taking into account these effects can lead to a much more rapid formation of giant planets, making it compatible with the typical disc lifetimes inferred from observations of young circumstellar discs. This speed up is due to the fact that migration prevents the severe depletion of the feeding zone as observed in in situ calculations. Hence, the growing planet is never isolated and it can reach cross-over mass on a much shorter timescale. To illustrate the range of planets that can form in our model, we describe a set of simulations in which we have varied some of the initial parameters and compare the final masses and semi-major axes with those inferred from observed extra-solar planets.Comment: Accepted in Astronomy & Astrophysic

A novel approach to fireball modeling: The observable and the calculated

Estimating the mass of a meteoroid passing through the Earth's atmosphere is essential to determining potential meteorite fall positions. High-resolution fireball images from dedicated camera networks provide the position and timing for fireball bright flight trajectories. There are two established mass determination methods: the photometric and the dynamic. A new approach is proposed, based on the dynamic method. A dynamic optimization initially constrains unknown meteoroid characteristics which are then used in a parametric model for an extended Kalman filter. The extended Kalman filter estimates the position, velocity, and mass of the meteoroid body throughout its flight, and quantitatively models uncertainties. Uncertainties have not previously been modeled so explicitly and are essential for determining fall distributions for potential meteorites. This two-step method aims to automate the process of mass determination for application to any trajectory data set and has been applied to observations of the Bunburra Rockhole fireball. The new method naturally handles noisy raw data. Initial and terminal bright flight mass results are consistent with other works based on the established photometric method and cosmic ray analysis. A full analysis of fragmentation and the variability in the heat-transfer coefficient will be explored in future versions of the model

Patterns of cervical and masticatory impairment in subgroups of people with temporomandibular disorders–an explorative approach based on factor analysis

Objectives: To identify clinical patterns of impairment affecting the cervical spine and masticatory systems in different subcategories of temporomandibular disorder (TMD) by an explorative data-driven approach. Methods: For this observational study, 144 subjects were subdivided according to Research Diagnostic Criteria for TMDs into: Healthy controls, temporomandibular joint (TMJ) signs without symptoms, TMJ affected, temporomandibular muscles affected, or TMJ and muscles affected. Factor analysis and linear regression were applied to cervical spine and masticatory data to identify and characterize clinical patterns in subgroups. Results: Factor analysis identified five clinical dimensions, which explained 59% of all variance: Mechanosensitivity, cervical movement, cervical and masticatory dysfunction, jaw movement, and upper cervical movement. Regression analysis identified different clinical dimensions in each TMD subgroup. Conclusion: Distinct clinical patterns of cervical spine and masticatory function were found among subgroups of TMD, which has clinical implications for therapeutic management