The new cult of Pax Augusta 13 BC – AD 14

As Augustus returned to Rome in 13 BC, the Senate passed a constitutio to build in his honor a lasting altar of peace, the Ara Pacis Augustae, to signal with a major ceremony the new peace all over the Roman world, Gibbon’s Pax Romana. As we know from Ovid Fast. 1. 709–714, 3. 881–882, the Ara Pacis was the site of two annual sacrifices (on 30 Jan. and 30 March) to Pax, an innovation of the Augustan Age, for formerly Pax had been a minor goddess without a temple. The Augustan regime elevated a new form of Pax as a religious cult and made it acceptable to the Roman people, who had regarded Pax as the phenomenon of a foreign power too beaten down to resist Roman arms any longer and had no use for pacifism (in the modern sense), which would be seen only as cowardly in their dangerous world. Augustus had started this process, perhaps not intentionally, back when he closed the Gates of Janus in 29. By bringing together Greco-Roman elements of Pax with Jupiter and Janus, he was able to forge a new religious cult to Pax Augusta that could appeal to the average Roman by its promise of prosperity and the absence of civil war. Foreign war was perfectly acceptable and not incompatible with this cult, but the emphasis was on domestic harmony and old traditional religious practices, even if the average listener could not understand some of these obligatory, archaic chants. For this reason, the third closing of the Gates of Janus very likely accompanied one of the Ara Pacis ceremonies. Augustus also built on precedents from his divine father Julius, who had founded the towns Forum Iulii Pacatum (Fréjus, France) and Pax Iulia (Beja, Portugal) and issued Pax imagery on coinage to gain the moral high ground during the civil war. Augustus went one step further with larger sets of Pax coin issues to tell the people that he, not Antony, was trying to maintain peace when Cleopatra wanted war, and then a sequel after Actium that demonstrated his ability to prevail and restore order. The image of Pax Augusta evolved as it developed, but the epitome is the goddess we see on the East side of the Ara Pacis, surrounded by fertility and prosperity, in a state of security. Rome too would enjoy the same benefits

Augustus, Agrippa, the Ara Pacis, and the coinage of 13 BC

In 13 BC, Augustus returned to Rome from a lengthy tour of the western provinces, just as Agrippa returned from the East. All conditions had been readied to present to the Roman people the establishment of Agrippa as the new partner of Augustus’ labours after a multi-year build up, culminating in the Ara Pacis ceremony at which Agrippa co-presided. However, to those watching the political slogans and headlines of the Roman mint, the Ara Pacis ceremony and Agrippa’s prominent role therein did not bring news, for the coinage of 13 boldly proclaims Agrippa as if he were second princeps by advertizing his enhanced status and by highlighting his accomplishments beyond the level ever provided for any of Augustus’ other colleagues, including his eventual successor, Tiberius (whose own enhancement of powers after AD 4 was modeled upon the precedent of Agrippa). The coinage of 13 BC represents a break from the recent general pattern in that it broke up Augustus’ quasi-regal domination of the mint, and it sent out two simultaneous and compatible messages. Firstly, and more specifically, the imagery informed the Roman public as do newspaper headlines today of the elevation of Agrippa as Augustus’ legal equal, showing that Rome was no monarchy. The Roman mint alternated between standard issues for certain messages and new images for others, including escalation of the status of Agrippa. The year 13 provided several occasions to raise the status of Agrippa, a novus homo. Agrippa was offered a third triumph, which he again refused. He received a new priesthood(s). His tribunician power was renewed for five years, as was that of Augustus. And at the Ara Pacis ceremony, Agrippa shared equal credit for pacifying the Empire in a ceremony that may have included closing the Gates of Janus. Much of this information comes to us not just from textual evidence, but also the archeological record. The coinage of 13 informs us of the regime’s official statements and the Ara Pacis itself shows the veiled Augustus at the head of the Pontifical College and the veiled Agrippa completing the Pontifical College and starting the imperial family as a demonstration of his integral role in the state, although tragically his life would end before the Ara Pacis was completed, leaving it to be a monument of a vision of the future Augustus was never able to achieve

SHARP: Automated monitoring of spacecraft health and status

Briefly discussed here are the spacecraft and ground systems monitoring process at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). Some of the difficulties associated with the existing technology used in mission operations are highlighted. A new automated system based on artificial intelligence technology is described which seeks to overcome many of these limitations. The system, called the Spacecraft Health Automated Reasoning Prototype (SHARP), is designed to automate health and status analysis for multi-mission spacecraft and ground data systems operations. The system has proved to be effective for detecting and analyzing potential spacecraft and ground systems problems by performing real-time analysis of spacecraft and ground data systems engineering telemetry. Telecommunications link analysis of the Voyager 2 spacecraft was the initial focus for evaluation of the system in real-time operations during the Voyager spacecraft encounter with Neptune in August 1989

Recent advances in the management of large and complex colonic polyps

The endoscopic management of large colonic polyps is a rapidly changing field. Rapid evolution in endoscopic techniques and skills has resulted in diminishing the role of surgery in the management of larger and complex polyps. This is resulting in organ preservation for many who otherwise would have undergone surgery. However, it also poses new challenges. This article reviews these new advances and the developments which are overcoming these difficulties

Nitrogen dynamics in arctic tundra soils of varying age : differential responses to fertilization and warming

Author Posting. © The Author(s), 2013. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of Springer for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Oecologia 173 (2013): 1575-1586, doi:10.1007/s00442-013-2733-5.In the northern foothills of the Brooks Range, Alaska, a series of glacial retreats has created a landscape that varies widely in time since deglaciation (= soil age), from ~10k years to more than 2M years. Productivity of the moist tundra that covers most of this landscape is generally N-limited, but varies widely, as do plant-species composition and key soil properties such as pH. These differences might be altered in the future because of the projected increase in N availability under a warmer climate. We hypothesized that future changes in productivity and vegetation composition across soil ages might be mediated through changes in N availability. To test this hypothesis, we compared readily available-N (water-soluble ammonium, nitrate, and amino acids), moderately-available N (soluble proteins), hydrolysable-N, and total-N pools across three tussock-tundra landscapes with soil ages ranging from 11.5k to 300k years. We also compared the effects of long-term fertilization and warming on these N pools for the two younger sites, in order to assess whether the impacts of warming and increased N availability differ by soil age. Readily available N was largest at the oldest site, and amino acids (AA) accounted for 80-89 % of this N. At the youngest site, however, inorganic N constituted the majority (80-97%) of total readily-available N. This variation reflected the large differences in plant functional-group composition and soil chemical properties. Long-term (8-16 years) fertilization increased soluble inorganic N by 20-100 fold at the intermediate-age site, but only by 2-3 fold at the youngest-soil site. Warming caused small and inconsistent changes in the soil C:N ratio and soluble AA, but only in soils beneath Eriophorum vaginatum, the dominant tussock-forming sedge. These differential responses suggest that the impacts of warmer climates on these tundra ecosystems are more complex than simply elevated N mineralization, and that the response of the N cycling might differ strongly depending on the ecosystem’s soil age, initial soil properties, and plant-community composition.Primary financial support came from NSF grant #DEB-0444592 to the MBL, and additional logistical support from NSF-OPP

Long-term experimental warming and nutrient additions increase productivity in tall deciduous shrub tundra

© The Author(s), 2014. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Ecosphere 5 (2014): art72, doi:10.1890/ES13-00281.1.Warming Arctic temperatures can drive changes in vegetation structure and function directly by stimulating plant growth or indirectly by stimulating microbial decomposition of organic matter and releasing more nutrients for plant uptake and growth. The arctic biome is currently increasing in deciduous shrub cover and this increase is expected to continue with climate warming. However, little is known how current deciduous shrub communities will respond to future climate induced warming and nutrient increase. We examined the plant and ecosystem response to a long-term (18 years) nutrient addition and warming experiment in an Alaskan arctic tall deciduous shrub tundra ecosystem to understand controls over plant productivity and carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) storage in shrub tundra ecosystems. In addition, we used a meta-analysis approach to compare the treatment effect size for aboveground biomass among seven long-term studies conducted across multiple plant community types within the Arctic. We found that biomass, productivity, and aboveground N pools increased with nutrient additions and warming, while species diversity decreased. Both nutrient additions and warming caused the dominant functional group, deciduous shrubs, to increase biomass and proportional C and N allocation to aboveground stems but decreased allocation to belowground stems. For all response variables except soil C and N pools, effects of nutrients plus warming were largest. Soil C and N pools were highly variable and we could not detect any response to the treatments. The biomass response to warming and fertilization in tall deciduous shrub tundra was greater than moist acidic and moist non-acidic tundra and more similar to the biomass response of wet sedge tundra. Our data suggest that in a warmer and more nutrient-rich Arctic, tall deciduous shrub tundra will have greater total deciduous shrub biomass and a higher proportion of woody tissue that has a longer residence time, with a lower proportion of C and N allocated to belowground stems.This research was supported by NSF grants DEB-0516041, DEB-0516509 and the Arctic LTER (DEB-0423385)

Contrasting soil thermal responses to fire in Alaskan tundra and boreal forest

Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2015. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Geophysical Research: Earth Surface 120 (2015): 363–378, doi:10.1002/2014JF003180.Recent fire activity throughout Alaska has increased the need to understand postfire impacts on soils and permafrost vulnerability. Our study utilized data and modeling from a permafrost and ecosystem gradient to develop a mechanistic understanding of the short- and long-term impacts of tundra and boreal forest fires on soil thermal dynamics. Fires influenced a variety of factors that altered the surface energy budget, soil moisture, and the organic-layer thickness with the overall effect of increasing soil temperatures and thaw depth. The postfire thickness of the soil organic layer and its impact on soil thermal conductivity was the most important factor determining postfire soil temperatures and thaw depth. Boreal and tundra ecosystems underlain by permafrost experienced smaller postfire soil temperature increases than the nonpermafrost boreal forest from the direct and indirect effects of permafrost on drainage, soil moisture, and vegetation flammability. Permafrost decreased the loss of the insulating soil organic layer, decreased soil drying, increased surface water pooling, and created a significant heat sink to buffer postfire soil temperature and thaw depth changes. Ecosystem factors also played a role in determining postfire thaw depth with boreal forests taking several decades longer to recover their soil thermal properties than tundra. These factors resulted in tundra being less sensitive to postfire soil thermal changes than the nonpermafrost boreal forest. These results suggest that permafrost and soil organic carbon will be more vulnerable to fire as climate warms.We are pleased to acknowledge funding from the US National Science Foundation, grants DEB-1026843 and EF-1065587, to the Marine Biological Laboratory. Additional logistical support was provided by Toolik Field Station and CH2MHill, funded by NSF's Office of Polar Programs.2015-08-2