Satellite altimetry

Since altimetry data are not really old enough to use the term data archaeology, Mr. Cheney referred to the stewardship of these data. He noted that it is very important to document the basis for an altimetry data set as the algorithms and corrections used to arrive at the Geophysical Data Record (GDR) have been improving and are continuing to improve the precision of sea level data derived from altimetry. He noted that the GEOSAT Exact Repeat Mission (ERM) data set has recently been reprocessed by his organization in the National Ocean Service of NOAA and made available to the scientific community on CD/ROM disks by the National Oceanographic Data Center of the U.S. (NODC). The new data set contains a satellite orbit more precise by an order of magnitude together with an improved water vapor correction. A new, comprehensive GDR Handbook has also been prepared

A census of Gulf Stream rings, spring 1975

Also published as: Journal of Geophysical Research 83 (1978): 6136-6144During 1975 several shipboard expendable bathythermograph surveys plus satellite infrared imagery provided a nearly synoptic view of the distribution and number of Gulf Stream rings in the western North Atlantic. Twelve rings were identified; nine were cyclonic (cold core) rings and three were anticyclonic (warm core) rings. This is the largest number of rings ever observed during a short period of time (4 months). Evidence suggests that the mean movement of these rings was southwestward.Prepared for the Office of Naval Research under Contract N00014-74-C-0262; NR 083-004 and for the National Science Foundation under Grant OCE 75-08765

Shallow-Water Habitats as Sources of Fallback Foods for Hominins

Underground storage organs (USOs) have been proposed as critical fallback foods for early hominins in savanna, but there has been little discussion as to which habitats would have been important sources of USOs. USOs consumed by hominins could have included both underwater and underground storage organs, i.e., from both aquatic and terrestrial habitats. Shallow aquatic habitats tend to offer high plant growth rates, high USO densities, and relatively continuous USO availability throughout the year. Baboons in the Okavango delta use aquatic USOs as a fallback food, and aquatic or semiaquatic USOs support high-density human populations in various parts of the world. As expected given fossilization requisites, the African early- to mid-Pleistocene shows an association of Homo and Paranthropus fossils with shallow-water and flooded habitats where high densities of plant-bearing USOs are likely to have occurred. Given that early hominins in the tropics lived in relatively dry habitats, while others occupied temperate latitudes, ripe, fleshy fruits of the type preferred by African apes would not normally have been available year round. We therefore suggest that water-associated USOs were likely to have been key fallback foods, and that dry-season access to aquatic habitats would have been an important predictor of hominin home range quality. This study differs from traditional savanna chimpanzee models of hominin origins by proposing that access to aquatic habitats was a necessary condition for adaptation to savanna habitats. It also raises the possibility that harvesting efficiency in shallow water promoted adaptations for habitual bipedality in early hominins.Human Evolutionary Biolog

Unshackling evolution: evolving soft robots with multiple materials and a powerful generative encoding

In 1994 Karl Sims showed that computational evolution can produce interesting morphologies that resemble natural organisms. Despite nearly two decades of work since, evolved morphologies are not obviously more complex or natural, and the field seems to have hit a complexity ceiling. One hypothesis for the lack of increased complexity is that most work, including Sims’, evolves morphologies composed of rigid elements, such as solid cubes and cylinders, limiting the design space. A second hypothesis is that the encodings of previous work have been overly regular, not allowing complex regularities with variation. Here we test both hypotheses by evolving soft robots with multiple materials and a powerful generative encoding called a compositional pattern-producing network (CPPN). Robots are selected for locomotion speed. We find that CPPNs evolve faster robots than a direct encoding and that the CPPN morphologies appear more natural. We also find that locomotion performance increases as more materials are added, that diversity of form and behavior can be increased with di↵erent cost functions without stifling performance, and that organisms can be evolved at di↵erent levels of resolution. These findings suggest the ability of generative soft-voxel systems to scale towards evolving a large diversity of complex, natural, multi-material creatures. Our results suggest that future work that combines the evolution of CPPNencoded soft, multi-material robots with modern diversityencouraging techniques could finally enable the creation of creatures far more complex and interesting than those produced by Sims nearly twenty years ago

Advances in the Geology of the Tobacco Root Mountains, Montana, and Their Implications for the History of the Northern Wyoming Province

Integrated studies by Keck Geology Consortium participants have generated many new insights into the Precambrian geology of the Tobacco Root Mountains. We have clarified the tectonic setting and origin of two suites of metamorphic rocks: (1) a quartzofeldspathic gneiss complex with associated metasupracrustal rocks (the combined Indian Creek and Pony–Middle Mountain Metamorphic Suites) that originated in a continental arc setting between 3.35 and 3.2 Ga with subsequent sedimentation and (2) mafic metavolcanic rocks with intercalated metasedimentary rocks (the Spuhler Peak Metamorphic Suite) from a suprasubduction zone ophiolite or backarc basin possibly of Proterozoic age. A poorly preserved metamorphic event at 2.45 Ga affected the former but not the latter, as did the intrusion of rift-related mafic dikes and sills at 2.06 Ga. Both suites were amalgamated, metamorphosed to at least upper amphibolite facies, subjected to simple shear strain and folded into map- and outcrop-scale sheath folds, and tectonically unroofed during the period 1.78 to 1.71 Ga. We name this event the Big Sky orogeny. The Proterozoic geology of the Tobacco Root Mountains can be integrated with coeval features of the geology of the northern Wyoming province to outline a northeast-trending, southeast-vergent belt as the Big Sky orogen. The Big Sky orogen consists of a metamorphic hinterland flanked to the southeast by a foreland of discrete ductile shear zones cutting older basement, and to the northwest by arc-related metaplutonic bodies and the trace of a fossil subduction zone in the upper mantle. Archean blocks to the north of the Big Sky orogen may have been accreted as allochthonous terranes during collision and convergence. The remarkable synchroneity of collision along the Big Sky orogen with tectonism in the Trans-Hudson orogen along the eastern margin of the Wyoming province and in the Cheyenne belt to the south of the province raise profound but unanswered questions about the process by which the Wyoming province was added to the rest of the ancestral North American craton

Fall 1971

Maintenance Preparations for the Greater Hartford Open at Wethersfield Country Club (page 3) Maintain as a Growth Retardant by John M. Zak and Peter A. Kaskeski (5) Chicago Ordinance Curbs Power Equipment Noise (8) Turf Bulletin\u27s Photo Quiz by Frederick G. Cheney (9) The Mercury by Carl L. Klein (10) Homeowner\u27s Section--Fescues are Shady Characters by Robert W. Schery (14) 12 Trees and Shrubs for Summer Color (16) Editorial--Talkin\u27 Turfie by Frederick G. Cheney (20

Testosterone related to age and life-history stages in male baboons and geladas

AbstractDespite significant advances in our knowledge of how testosterone mediates life-history trade-offs, this research has primarily focused on seasonal taxa. We know comparatively little about the relationship between testosterone and life-history stages for non-seasonally breeding species. Here we examine testosterone profiles across the life span of males from three non-seasonally breeding primates: yellow baboons (Papio cynocephalus or P. hamadryas cynocephalus), chacma baboons (Papio ursinus or P. h. ursinus), and geladas (Theropithecus gelada). First, we predict that testosterone profiles will track the reproductive profiles of each taxon across their respective breeding years. Second, we evaluate age-related changes in testosterone to determine whether several life-history transitions are associated with these changes. Subjects include males (>2.5 years) from wild populations of each taxon from whom we had fecal samples for hormone determination. Although testosterone profiles across taxa were broadly similar, considerable variability was found in the timing of two major changes: (1) the attainment of adult levels of testosterone and (2) the decline in testosterone after the period of maximum production. Attainment of adult testosterone levels was delayed by 1 year in chacmas compared with yellows and geladas. With respect to the decline in testosterone, geladas and chacmas exhibited a significant drop after 3 years of maximum production, while yellows declined so gradually that no significant annual drop was ever detected. For both yellows and chacmas, increases in testosterone production preceded elevations in social dominance rank. We discuss these differences in the context of ecological and behavioral differences exhibited by these taxa

Report on Compiling and Analyzing Manufactured Housing Tax Records:

In January of 2016, the Center for Public Service (CPS) was approached by Energy Trust of Oregon to conduct a review of the tax assessor data on manufactured houses in Oregon. The purpose of this review was to find the average age at which manufactured housing units in Oregon are decommissioned. A brief review of the literature on this topic that has been published indicated that this question had not yet been answered in the field. Energy Trust Oregon is invested in making manufactured housing living more energy efficient, and less costly for occupants. To that end, the organization designed this investigation into the relative savings of replacing an inefficient unit today, versus waiting for the unit to be decommissioned in the future. The organization believes that they can demonstrate that it is both environmentally sustainable relating to energy usage and economically prudent to support a program that aims to swap out old, inefficient units for new, sustainable ones. Work on this project began in March 2016, and was conducted by a group of CPS researchers (CPS Research Team). Details about the team members are included at the end of this report. The CPS Research Team considered this project in three parts: case identification, data collection, and data analysis. These efforts are detailed below. Our analysis included over 600,000 tax records. We identified over 6,500 tax accounts that were closed during the period of analysis. The average age of manufactured housing unit at the time of tax account closure – across all counties and years considered – was found to be 33.36

A Nutrient-Regulated Cyclic Diguanylate Phosphodiesterase Controls Clostridium difficile Biofilm and Toxin Production during Stationary Phase

ABSTRACT The signaling molecule cyclic diguanylate (c-di-GMP) mediates physiological adaptation to extracellular stimuli in a wide range of bacteria. The complex metabolic pathways governing c-di-GMP synthesis and degradation are highly regulated, but the specific cues that impact c-di-GMP signaling are largely unknown. In the intestinal pathogen Clostridium difficile , c-di-GMP inhibits flagellar motility and toxin production and promotes pilus-dependent biofilm formation, but no specific biological functions have been ascribed to any of the individual c-di-GMP synthases or phosphodiesterases (PDEs). Here, we report the functional and biochemical characterization of a c-di-GMP PDE, PdcA, 1 of 37 confirmed or putative c-di-GMP metabolism proteins in C. difficile 630. Our studies reveal that pdcA transcription is controlled by the nutrient-regulated transcriptional regulator CodY and accordingly increases during stationary phase. In addition, PdcA PDE activity is allosterically regulated by GTP, further linking c-di-GMP levels to nutrient availability. Mutation of pdcA increased biofilm formation and reduced toxin biosynthesis without affecting swimming motility or global intracellular c-di-GMP. Analysis of the transcriptional response to pdcA mutation indicates that PdcA-dependent phenotypes manifest during stationary phase, consistent with regulation by CodY. These results demonstrate that inactivation of this single PDE gene is sufficient to impact multiple c-di-GMP-dependent phenotypes, including the production of major virulence factors, and suggest a link between c-di-GMP signaling and nutrient availability