Field trip guidebook on environmental impact of clays along the upper Texas coast

During this one-day field trip, stops will include the examination of (i)expansive soils (Vertisols and Alfisols) in the southern part of Houston, (ii) subsidence and surface faulting east of Downtown Houston (San Jacinto Monument, Goose Creek Oil Field, and Baytown), and (iii) a landfill located southeast of Houston at the Gulf Coast Waste Disposal Authority Campbell Bayou Facility where clay is used as part of the liner material. In addition, a stop will be made at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Lyndon B. Space Center where field trip participants will be given the opportunity to observe the heritage of the Nation's space program.prepared by Theron D. Garcia, Douglas W. Ming, Lisa Kay Tuck

Patterns of Striped order in the Classical Lattice Coulomb Gas

We obtain via Monte Carlo simulations the low temperature charge configurations in the lattice Coulomb gas on square lattices for charge filling ratio $f$ in the range $1/3 < f < 1/2$. We find a simple regularity in the low temperature charge configurations which consist of a suitable periodic combination of a few basic striped patterns characterized by the existence of partially filled diagonal channels. In general there exist two separate transitions where the lower temperature transition ($T_p$) corresponds to the freezing of charges within the partially filled channels. $T_p$ is found to be sensitively dependent on $f$ through the charge number density $\nu = p_{1}/q_{1}$ within the channels.Comment: 4 pages, 8 figure

Enabling resilience: Shifting the intergenerational career expectations of South Africans challenged by structural disadvantage

No abstract necessary

Never Two Ladies Lov\u27d as They Do: Queer Theory and As You Like It\u27s Celia

Though most performances of William Shakespeare\u27s As you like it focus on the comedy of Ganymede/Rosalind\u27s interactions with Orlando, director Des McAnuff\u27s 2012 Stratford Shakespeare Festival production instead manifests homoerotic tension between Celia and Rosalind. Shakespeare\u27s textual allusions provide ample evidence to support this homoerotic reading which McAnuff actualizes between Cara Rickett\u27s Celia and Andrea Runge\u27s Rosalind through blocking and speech inflection. My analysis encompasses a detailed investigation of this particular production as well as a study of homoerotic desire between women, faciliating a critique of the methods of queer theory by engaging and refining its generalized critical principles

Dynamic Impedance of Two-Dimensional Superconducting Films Near the Superconducting Transition

The sheet impedances, Z(w,T), of several superconducting a-Mo77Ge23 films and one In/InOx film have been measured in zero field using a two-coil mutual inductance technique at frequencies from 100 Hz to 100 kHz. Z(w,T) is found to have three contributions: the inductive superfluid, renormalized by nonvortex phase fluctuations; conventional vortex-antivortex pairs, whose contribution turns on very rapidly just below the usual Kosterlitz-Thouless-Berezinskii unbinding temperature; and an anomalous contribution. The latter is predominantly resistive, persists well below the KTB temperature, and is weakly dependent on frequency down to remarkably low frequencies, at least 100 Hz. It increases with T as e-U'(T)/kT, where the activation energy, U'(T), is about half the energy to create a vortex-antivortex pair, indicating that the frequency dependence is that of individual excitations, rather than critical behavior.Comment: 10 pages, 10 figs; subm PR

Coping strategies for adolescent birth-mothers who return to school following adoption

In this article we report on a study on the effects of adoption on the school performance of birth-mothers (adolescent mothers who choose to have their babies adopted) who return to school following adoption. The study focused on the experience of five white adolescent birthmothers. Factors impacting on school performance were identified in a literature study and correlated with information received from the birth-mothers using phenomenological interviews. The study aimed at providing an in-depth understanding of the factors that impacted negatively on the birth-mothers' school performance in order to ultimately develop guidelines for helping birth-mothers cope better when returning to school.South African Journal of Education Vol. 26 (4) 2006: pp. 491-49

Revival of the magnetar PSR J1622-4950: observations with MeerKAT, Parkes, XMM-Newton, Swift, Chandra, and NuSTAR

New radio (MeerKAT and Parkes) and X-ray (XMM-Newton, Swift, Chandra, and NuSTAR) observations of PSR J1622-4950 indicate that the magnetar, in a quiescent state since at least early 2015, reactivated between 2017 March 19 and April 5. The radio flux density, while variable, is approximately 100x larger than during its dormant state. The X-ray flux one month after reactivation was at least 800x larger than during quiescence, and has been decaying exponentially on a 111+/-19 day timescale. This high-flux state, together with a radio-derived rotational ephemeris, enabled for the first time the detection of X-ray pulsations for this magnetar. At 5%, the 0.3-6 keV pulsed fraction is comparable to the smallest observed for magnetars. The overall pulsar geometry inferred from polarized radio emission appears to be broadly consistent with that determined 6-8 years earlier. However, rotating vector model fits suggest that we are now seeing radio emission from a different location in the magnetosphere than previously. This indicates a novel way in which radio emission from magnetars can differ from that of ordinary pulsars. The torque on the neutron star is varying rapidly and unsteadily, as is common for magnetars following outburst, having changed by a factor of 7 within six months of reactivation.Comment: Published in ApJ (2018 April 5); 13 pages, 4 figure