Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Emissions Of Anaerobically Produced Methane By Trees, Andrew L. Rice, Christopher Lee Butenhoff, Martha J. Shearer, Doaa Teama, Todd N. Rosenstiel, M. A. K. Khalil

Physics Faculty Publications and Presentations

Recent studies indicate that plants may be a previously overlooked but significant source of atmospheric CH₄, though there is considerable disagreement on the mechanism of production. Our work sought to verify that woody deciduous trees grown under inundated conditions had the capacity for transporting CH₄ from an anaerobic subsurface to the atmosphere and to consider if such a source could be important globally. Here, we report results from a greenhouse mesocosm study that indicate significant emissions of anaerobically produced CH₄ transmitted to the atmosphere through broadleaf riparian tree species grown under flooded conditions. Using a leaf area normalized mean emission …

Carboxysomal Carbonic Anhydrases: Structure And Role In Microbial Co2 Fixation, Gordon C. Cannon, Sabine Heinhorst, Cheryl A. Kerfeld

Faculty Publications

Cyanobacteria and some chemoautotrophic bacteria are able to grow in environments with limiting CO₂ concentrations by employing a CO₂-concentrating mechanism (CCM) that allows them to accumulate inorganic carbon in their cytoplasm to concentrations several orders of magnitude higher than that on the outside. The final step of this process takes place in polyhedral protein microcompartments known as carboxysomes, which contain the majority of the CO₂-fixing enzyme, RubisCO. The efficiency of CO₂ fixation by the sequestered RubisCO is enhanced by co-localization with a specialized carbonic anhydrase that catalyzes dehydration of the …

Effects Of Metal Compounds With Distinct Physicochemical Properties On Iron Homeostasis And Antibacterial Activity In The Lungs: Chromium And Vanadium, Mitchell D. Cohen, Maureen Sisco, Colleen Prophete, Kotaro Yoshida, Lung-Chi Chen, Judith T. Zelikoff, Jason Smee, Alvin A. Holder, Jacqueline Stormhuerner, Debbie C. Crans, Andrew J. Ghio

Faculty Publications

In situ reactions of metal ions or their compounds are important mechanisms by which particles alter lung immune responses. The authors hypothesized that major determinants of the immunomodulatory effect of any metal include its redox behavior/properties, oxidation state, and/or solubility, and that the toxicities arising from differences in physicochemical parameters are manifest, in part, via differential shifts in lung iron (Fe) homeostasis. To test the hypotheses, immunomodulatory potentials for both pentavalent vanadium (V(V); as soluble metavanadate or insoluble vanadium pentoxide) and hexavalent chromium (Cr(VI); as soluble sodium chromate or insoluble calcium chromate) were quantified in rats after inhalation (5 h/day …

Unep In Global Environmental Governance: Design, Leadership, Location, Maria Ivanova

Maria Ivanova

As debates on reform of global environmental governance intensify, the future of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has come into acute political focus. Many argue that the organization has faltered in its role as the UN's leading agency for the environment. In this article, I use historical institutional analysis in combination with current international relations and management theory to explain UNEP's creation and evolution. Having described how the creators of UNEP envisioned the nascent organization, I analyze its subsequent performance, identifying the key factors that have shaped its record. I argue that the original vision for UNEP was ambitious …

General Brochure, University Of North Dakota. Energy And Environmental Research Center

EERC Brochures and Fact Sheets

Brochure about the Energy & Environmental Research Center (EERC), including its philosophy, partnerships, program areas, history, and Centers of Excellence.

Spectrophotometric And Colorimetic Methodology To Detect And Quantify Hydrazide Based Chemotherapeutic Drugs, Ronald Bartzatt

Chemistry Faculty Publications

Pharmaceuticals having the hydrazide functional group are an important division within anti-tuberculosis, anti-parasitic, anti-cancer, and anti-radiation chemotherapeutics. This work presents a colorimetric methodology to detect and quantify hydrazide based pharmaceuticals. Processes for rapid spot test, qualitative colorimetric assay, and spectrophotometric quantitative assay are presented. The reagent 2,6-dichloroquinon-4-chloroimine (Gibb's reagent) is utilized to accomplish the various analytical objectives. The rapid spot test and qualitative colorimetric assay enables a detection of hydrazide drugs to a level of 0.0037 grams per milliliter. Quantitative spectrophotometric detection of hydrazide drugs is sensitive to a level of 128.2 micrograms permilliliter. The molar absorptivity () is calculated …

Bosonic Analog Of The Klein Paradox, R E. Wagner, M R. Ware, Q Su, Rainer Grobe

Faculty publications – Physics

The standard Klein paradox describes how an incoming electron scatters off a supercritical electrostatic barrier that is so strong that it can generate electron- positron pairs. This fermionic system has been widely discussed in textbooks to illustrate some of the discrepancies between quantum mechanical and quantum field theoretical descriptions for the pair creation process. We compare the fermionic dynamics with that of the corresponding bosonic system. We point out that the direct counterpart of the Pauli exclusion principle (the central mechanism to resolve the fermionic Klein paradox) is stimulated emission, which leads to the resolution of the analogous bosonic paradox.

Efficient Valid Scope For Location-Dependent Spatial Queries In Mobile Environments, Ken C. K. Lee, Wang-Chien Lee, Hong Va Leong, Brandon Unger, Baihua Zheng

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

In mobile environments, mobile clients can access information with respect to their locations by submitting Location-Dependent Spatial Queries (LDSQs) to Location-Based Service (LBS) servers. Owing to scarce wireless channel bandwidth and limited client battery life, frequent LDSQ submission from clients must be avoided. Observing that LDSQs issued from a client located at nearby positions would likely return the same query results, we explore the idea of valid scope, which represents a spatial area in which a set of LDSQs will retrieve exactly the same set of query results. With a valid scope derived and an LDSQ result cached, a client …

Privacy-Preserving Similarity-Based Text Retrieval, Hwee Hwa Pang, Jialie Shen, Ramayya Krishnan

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Users of online services are increasingly wary that their activities could disclose confidential information on their business or personal activities. It would be desirable for an online document service to perform text retrieval for users, while protecting the privacy of their activities. In this article, we introduce a privacy-preserving, similarity-based text retrieval scheme that (a) prevents the server from accurately reconstructing the term composition of queries and documents, and (b) anonymizes the search results from unauthorized observers. At the same time, our scheme preserves the relevance-ranking of the search server, and enables accounting of the number of documents that each …

An Analysis Of Extreme Price Shocks And Illiquidity Among Trend Followers, Bernard Lee, Shih-Fen Cheng, Annie Koh

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

We construct an agent-based model to study the interplay between extreme price shocks and illiquidity in the presence of systematic traders known as trend followers. The agent-based approach is particularly attractive in modeling commodity markets because the approach allows for the explicit modeling of production, capacities, and storage constraints. Our study begins by using the price stream from a market simulation involving human participants and studies the behavior of various trend-following strategies, assuming initially that their participation will not impact the market. We notice an incremental deterioration in strategy performance as and when strategies deviate further and further from the …

Electoral Voting And Population Distribution In The United States, Paul Kvam

Department of Math & Statistics Faculty Publications

In the United States, the electoral system for determining the president is controversial and sometimes confusing to voters keeping track of election outcomes. Instead of directly counting votes to decide the winner of a presidential election, individual states send a representative number of electors to the Electoral College, and they are trusted to cast their collective vote for the candidate who won the popular vote in their state.

Under the current rules, the value of a vote differs from state to state. A large state such as California has an immense effect on the national election, but, compared to a …

Equatorial Ionosphere Bottom-Type Spread-F Observed By Oi 630.0 Nm Airglow Imaging, H. Takahashi, M. A. Abdu, Michael J. Taylor, Pierre-Dominique Pautet, E. R. De Paula, E. A. Kherani, A. F. Medeiros, C. M. Wrasse, I. S. Batista, J. H.A. Sobral, D. Gobbi, D. Arruda, I. Paulino, S. Vadas, D. C. Fritts

All Physics Faculty Publications

Bottom‐type spread F events were observed in the south American equatorial region by a VHF coherent radar and an ionosonde at São Luís (2.5°S, 44.3°W), an ionosonde at Fortaleza (3.9°S, 38.4° W) and an airglow OI 630.0 nm imager at Cariri (7.4°S, 36.5°W) and Brasilia (14.8°S, 47.6°W). In the evening of September 30, 2005, a long duration (∼70 minutes) bottom side scattering layer, confined in a narrow height region, was observed. At the same time all‐sky imager observed sinusoidal intensity depletions in the zonal plane extending more than 1500 km and elongated along the magnetic meridian. No strong spread F …

Sudden Surface Warming/Drying Events Caused By Typhoon Passages Across Taiwan, T. C. Chen, Shih-Yu (Simon) Wang, M. C. Yen, A. J. Clark, J. D. Tsay

Plants, Soils, and Climate Faculty Publications

Typhoon passages across Taiwan can generate sudden surface warming in downslope regions. Special characteristics and mechanisms for 54 such warming events that were identified during the 1961–2007 period are examined. Preferred warming regions were identified in northwest Taiwan, where warming is generated by downslope flow from east or northeast winds in westward-moving typhoons, and in southeast Taiwan, where it is generated by downslope flow from west or northwest winds in northwestward-moving typhoons. In addition to the orographic effect, warmings occurred exclusively within nonprecipitation zones of typhoons. Most northwest (southeast) warmings occur during the day (night) with an average lifetime of …

Constraining The Black Hole Mass Spectrum With Gravitational Wave Observations – I. The Error Kernel, Danny C. Jacobs, Joseph E. Plowman, Ronald W. Hellings, Sachiko Tsuruta, Shane L. Larson

All Physics Faculty Publications

Many scenarios have been proposed for the origin of the supermassive black holes (SMBHs) that are found in the centres of most galaxies. Many of these formation scenarios predict a high-redshift population of intermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs), with masses M_• in the range 10²≲M_•≲ 10⁵ M_⊙. A powerful way to observe these IMBHs is via gravitational waves the black holes emit as they merge. The statistics of the observed black hole population should, in principle, allow us to discriminate between competing astrophysical scenarios for the origin and formation of SMBHs. However, …

Resampling Of Permanent Pine Rockland Vegetation Plots On Big Pine Key, Jay P. Sah, James R. Snyder, Michael S. Ross, Danielle Ogurcak

SERC Research Reports

The pine rocklands of South Florida are characterized by an herbaceous flora with many narrowly endemic taxa, a diverse shrub layer containing several palms and numerous tropical hardwoods, and an overstory of south Florida slash pine (Pinus elliottii var. densa). Fire has been considered as an important environmental factor for these ecosystems, since in the absence of fire these pine forests are replaced by dense hardwood communities, resulting in loss of the characteristic pineland herb flora. Hence, in the Florida Keys pine forests, prescribed fire has been used since the creation of the National Key Deer Refuge. However, such prescribed …

The Value Of Concentrating Solar Power And Thermal Energy Storage, Ramteen Sioshansi, Paul Denholm

Publications (E)

This paper examines the value of concentrating solar power (CSP) and thermal energy storage (TES) in four regions in the southwestern United States. Our analysis shows that TES can increase the value of CSP by allowing more thermal energy from a CSP plant’s solar field to be used, by allowing a CSP plant to accommodate a larger solar field, and by allowing CSP generation to be shifted to hours with higher energy prices. We analyze the sensitivity of CSP value to a number of factors, including the optimization period, price and solar forecasting, ancillary service sales, capacity value and dry …

Updated U.S. Geothermal Supply Curve, Chad Augustine, Katherine R. Young, Arlene Anderson

Publications (E)

This paper documents the approach used to update the U.S. geothermal supply curve. The geothermal supply curve analysis undertaken in this study estimates the supply of electricity generation potential from geothermal resources in the United States and the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE), capital costs, and operating and maintenance costs associated with developing these geothermal resources. The supply curve data are used as input to annual reporting by the U.s. Department of Energy (DOE) under the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993, the DOE portfolio development support processes, and market penetration models in support of other DOE analyses. Supply …

Report On The U.S. Doe Geothermal Technologies Program's 2009 Risk Analysis, Katherine R. Young, Chad Augustine, Arlene Anderson

Publications (E)

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Geothermal Technologies Program (GTP or “the Program”) conducted a detailed risk analysis of their annual research, development, and demonstration (RD&D) portfolio. The Program worked with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) to implement a probabilistic risk analysis of the GTP-sponsored RD&D, primarily enhanced geothermal systems (EGS) in accordance with Program budget authority. EGS technologies are in the early stages of development, and GTP-sponsored, multi-year demonstration projects are now underway to demonstrate technical feasibility, reduce risk for industry, and improve EGS best practices. The risk analysis examined estimates of improvement potential for two metric types: …

Characterization Of Winds Through The Rotor Plane Using A Phased Array Sodar And Recommendations For Future Work, Regina Anne Deola

Publications (E)

Portable remote sensing devices are increasingly needed to cost effectively characterize the meteorology at a potential wind energy site as the size of modern wind turbines increase. A short term project co-locating a Sound Detection and Ranging System (SODAR) with a 200 meter instrumented meteorological tower at the Texas Tech Wind Technology Field Site was performed to collect and summarize wind information through an atmospheric layer typical of utility scale rotor plane depths. Data collected identified large speed shears and directional shears that may lead to unbalanced loads on the rotors. This report identifies suggestions for incorporation of additional data …

Fisheries Occasional Paper No. 77 - Economic Analysis: Fishing Industry Impact Study - Kimberley Lng Project, Econsearch Pty Ltd, Department Of Fisheries Western Australia

Fisheries occasional publications

This study, prepared as a part of a broader study for WA fisheries, is concerned with the regional economy of the West Kimberley region and involves an assessment of the impact on the region of a range of fishing industry scenarios associated with development of an LNG processing facility. Specific tasks involved in the study were to prepare the following:

• a standard input-output model for the West Kimberley regional economy for 2007/08 and extend it as a DECON model; and

• estimates of the regional economic and population impact for a range of fishing industry scenarios arising from the …

The Effects Of Airbags And Seatbelts On Occupant Injury In Longitudinal Barrier Crashes, Doug Gabauer, Hampton C. Gabler

Faculty Journal Articles

The Module Isomorphism Problem Reconsidered

Carbonates In Skeleton-Poor Seas: New Insights From Cambrian And Ordovician Strata Of Laurentia, Sara B. Pruss, Seth Finnegan, Woodward W. Fischer, Andrew H. Knoll

Geosciences: Faculty Publications

Calcareous skeletons evolved as part of the greater EdiacaranCambrian diversification of marine animals. Skeletons did not become permanent, globally important sources of carbonate sediment, however, until the Ordovician radiation. Representative carbonate facies in a Series 3 (510501 Ma) Cambrian to Tremadocian succession from western Newfoundland, Canada, and Ordovician successions from the Ibex area, Utah, USA, show that, on average, Cambrian and Tremadocian carbonates contain much less skeletal material than do post-Tremadocian sediments. Petrographic point counts of skeletal abundance within facies and proportional facies abundance in measured sections suggest that later Cambrian successions contain on average volume, whereas the skeletal content …

Liquid Filled Microstructured Optical Fiber For X-Ray Detection, S. L. Dehaven, S. Albin, W. C. Kelliher

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

A liquid filled microstructured optical fiber (MOF) is used to detect x-rays. Numerical analysis and experimental observation leads to geometric fiber optics theory for MOF photon transmission. A model using this theory relates the quantity and energy of absorbed x-ray photons to transmitted MOF generated photons. Experimental measurements of MOF photon quantities compared with calculated values show good qualitative agreement. The difference between the calculated and measured values is discussed. 2010 Optical Society of America

Climate Change Response Strategy, Anne Bennett

Bulletins 4000 -

Climate change and policies introduced to reduce emissions will affect the agricultural sector and will lead to social and economic outcomes.

In addressing the Western Australian Government's priority plan for the agriculture and food sector, the Department of Agriculture and Food, Western Australia has a number of roles it can play to assist industry to adapt and respond to climate change.

This document provides a balanced and coordinated strategic direction for climate change activities by identifying and prioritising key actions to be achieved over the next five years. The strategy is split into four chapters: emissions abatement, carbon sinks, adapting …

Water Management Plan For The Town Of Perenjori, Mark Pridham

All other publications

The Rural Towns – Liquid Assets (RT–LA) project was established with the aim of integrating salinity, waterlogging and flooding control with development of new water supplies in wheatbelt towns, and where possible, finding ways of putting the excess water to commercial use. Following the identification of effective integrated water management strategies, these have been applied to the 15 Shires participating in the DAFWA led RT–LA project. This report summarises the outcomes from all scientific investigations undertaken for Perenjori. In addition it presents the water management options, a preliminary analysis of those options and the priority recommended ones. Due to the …

Recent Discoveries Of Supersoft X-Ray Sources In M 31, M. Henze, W. Pietsch, E. Haberl, G. Sala, M. Hernanz, D. Hartzidimitriou, A. Rau, Dieter H. Hartmann, J. Greiner, M. Orio, H Stiele, M.J. Freyberg

Publications

Classical novae (CNe) have recently been reported to represent the major class of supersoft X-ray sources (SSSs) in the central area of our neighbouring galaxy M 31. This paper presents a review of results from recent X-ray observations of M 31 with XMM-Newton and Chandra. We carried out a dedicated optical and X-ray monitoring program of CNe and SSSs in the central area of M 31. We discovered the first SSSs in M 31 globular clusters (GCs) and their connection to the very first discovered CN in a M 31 GC. This result may have an impact on the CN …

Microscopic Formulation Of The Zimm-Bragg Model For The Helix-Coil Transition, A. V. Badasyan, A. Giacometti, Y. S. Mamasakhlisov, V. F. Morozov, Albert S. Benight

Chemistry Faculty Publications and Presentations

A microscopic spin model is proposed for the phenomenological Zimm-Bragg model for the helix-coil transition in biopolymers. This model is shown to provide the same thermophysical properties of the original Zimm-Bragg model and it allows a very convenient framework to compute statistical quantities. Physical origins of this spin model are made transparent by an exact mapping into a one-dimensional Ising model with an external field. However, the dependence on temperature of the reduced external field turns out to differ from the standard one-dimensional Ising model and hence it gives rise to different thermophysical properties, despite the exact mapping connecting them. …

Further Exploration On Relationship Between Crisp Sets And Fuzzy Sets, Zhaoxia Wang, Quan Wang, Ming Bai, Chen Zeng-Qiang, Zhen Sun

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

This paper employs the concept of fuzzify upgrade operator to describe the relationship between crisp sets, fuzzy sets and higher order fuzzy sets, such as type-2 fuzzy sets. Theory analysis and case studies demonstrate that a crisp set can be represented by a type-1 fuzzy set, a type-1 fuzzy set can be represented by a type-2 fuzzy set, and a type-n (n>=2) fuzzy set can be represented by a type-(n+1) (n>=2) fuzzy set. The fuzzify upgrade operator makes crisp sets, type-1 fuzzy sets, type-2 fuzzy sets and any fuzzy sets much more accessible to all readers. The relationship …

Don't Take The Bait: Why Usda Organic Certification Is Wrong For Salmon, Jessica Hass

William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review

No abstract provided.

The Metal Ion Requirements Of Arabidopsis Thaliana Glx2-2 For Catalytic Activity, Pattraranee Limphong, Ross M. Mckinney, Nicole E. Adams, Christopher A. Makaroff, Brian Bennett, Michael W. Crowder

Physics Faculty Research and Publications

In an effort to better understand the structure, metal content, the nature of the metal centers, and enzyme activity of Arabidopsis thaliana Glx2-2, the enzyme was overexpressed, purified, and characterized using metal analyses, kinetics, and UV–vis, EPR, and ¹H NMR spectroscopies. Glx2-2-containing fractions that were purple, yellow, or colorless were separated during purification, and the differently colored fractions were found to contain different amounts of Fe and Zn(II). Spectroscopic analyses of the discrete fractions provided evidence for Fe(II), Fe(III), Fe(III)–Zn(II), and antiferromagnetically coupled Fe(II)–Fe(III) centers distributed among the discrete Glx2-2-containing fractions. The individual steady-state kinetic constants varied among the …