A study of ASRS reports involving general aviation and weather encounters

Consideration is given to the nature and characteristics of problems involving dissemination of weather information, use of this information by pilots, its adequacy for the purpose intended, the ability of the air traffic control system to cope with weather related incidents, and the various aspects of pilot behavior, aircraft equipment, and NAVAIDS affecting flights in which weather figures. It is concluded from the study that skill and training deficiencies of general aviation pilots are not major factors in weather related occurrences, nor is lack of aircraft equipment. Major problem causes are identified with timely and easily interpreted weather information, judgement and attitude factors of pilots, and the functioning of the air traffic control system

Broadband acoustic quantification of stratified turbulence

Author Posting. © Acoustical Society of America, 2013. This article is posted here by permission of Acoustical Society of America for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 134 (2013): 40-54, doi:10.1121/1.4807780.High-frequency broadband acoustic scattering techniques have enabled the remote, high-resolution imaging and quantification of highly salt-stratified turbulence in an estuary. Turbulent salinity spectra in the stratified shear layer have been measured acoustically and by in situ turbulence sensors. The acoustic frequencies used span 120–600 kHz, which, for the highly stratified and dynamic estuarine environment, correspond to wavenumbers in the viscous-convective subrange (500–2500 m−1). The acoustically measured spectral levels are in close agreement with spectral levels measured with closely co-located micro-conductivity probes. The acoustically measured spectral shapes allow discrimination between scattering dominated by turbulent salinity microstructure and suspended sediments or swim-bladdered fish, the two primary sources of scattering observed in the estuary in addition to turbulent salinity microstructure. The direct comparison of salinity spectra inferred acoustically and by the in situ turbulence sensors provides a test of both the acoustic scattering model and the quantitative skill of acoustical remote sensing of turbulence dissipation in a strongly sheared and salt-stratified estuary.This work was supported by NSF grant OCE- 0824871, ONR grant N00014-0810495, and WHOI internal funds

What a difference a term makes:the effect of educational attainment on marital outcomes in the UK

Abstract In the past, students in England and Wales born within the first 5 monthsof the academic year could leave school one term earlier than those born later inthe year. Focusing on women, those who were required to stay on an extra termmore frequently hold some academic qualification. Using having been required tostay on as an exogenous factor affecting academic attainment, we find that holding alow-level academic qualification has no effect on the probability of being currentlymarried for women aged 25 or above, but increases the probability of the husbandholding some academic qualification and being economically active.33 Halama

Modelled hydraulic redistribution by sunflower (Helianthus annuus L.) matches observed data only after including night-time transpiration

Author Posting. © The Author(s), 2013. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of John Wiley & Sons for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Plant, Cell & Environment 37 (2014): 899-910, doi:10.1111/pce.12206.The movement of water from moist to dry soil layers through the root systems of plants, referred to as hydraulic redistribution (HR), occurs throughout the world and is thought to influence carbon and water budgets and ecosystem functioning. The realized hydrologic, biogeochemical, and ecological consequences of HR depend on the amount of redistributed water, while the ability to assess these impacts requires models that correctly capture HR magnitude and timing. Using several soil types and two eco-types of sunflower (Helianthus annuus L.) in split-pot experiments, we examined how well the widely used HR modeling formulation developed by Ryel et al. (2002) matched experimental determination of HR across a range of water potential driving gradients. H. annuus carries out extensive nighttime transpiration, and though over the last decade it has become more widely recognized that nighttime transpiration occurs in multiple species and many ecosystems, the original Ryel et al. (2002) formulation does not include the effect of nighttime transpiration on HR. We developed and added a representation of nighttime transpiration into the formulation, and only then was the model able to capture the dynamics and magnitude of HR we observed as soils dried and nighttime stomatal behavior changed, both influencing HR.This work was supported by a NOAA Climate and Global Change Postdoctoral Fellowship to RBN, administered by the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, by a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to NMH, and by DOE Terrestrial Ecosystem Science grant ER65389 to ZGC and RBN.2014-10-2

The Humanities Matter!

The Humanities are academic disciplines that seek to understand and interpret the human experience, from individuals to entire cultures, engaging in the discovery, preservation, and communication of the past and present record to enable a deeper understanding of contemporary society. The Humanities encompass literature, classics, ancient and modern languages, history, philoso - phy, media studies, the fine and performing arts, and other related subjects. It can be a challenge to show the benefits the Humanities bring: in this infographic we gather available evidence to show the Humanities matter

Large-scale identification of genetic design strategies using local search

In the past decade, computational methods have been shown to be well suited to unraveling the complex web of metabolic reactions in biological systems. Methods based on flux–balance analysis (FBA) and bi-level optimization have been used to great effect in aiding metabolic engineering. These methods predict the result of genetic manipulations and allow for the best set of manipulations to be found computationally. Bi-level FBA is, however, limited in applicability because the required computational time and resources scale poorly as the size of the metabolic system and the number of genetic manipulations increase. To overcome these limitations, we have developed Genetic Design through Local Search (GDLS), a scalable, heuristic, algorithmic method that employs an approach based on local search with multiple search paths, which results in effective, low-complexity search of the space of genetic manipulations. Thus, GDLS is able to find genetic designs with greater in silico production of desired metabolites than can feasibly be found using a globally optimal search and performs favorably in comparison with heuristic searches based on evolutionary algorithms and simulated annealing

Large-scale identification of genetic design strategies using local search

In the past decade, computational methods have been shown to be well suited to unraveling the complex web of metabolic reactions in biological systems. Methods based on flux–balance analysis (FBA) and bi-level optimization have been used to great effect in aiding metabolic engineering. These methods predict the result of genetic manipulations and allow for the best set of manipulations to be found computationally. Bi-level FBA is, however, limited in applicability because the required computational time and resources scale poorly as the size of the metabolic system and the number of genetic manipulations increase. To overcome these limitations, we have developed Genetic Design through Local Search (GDLS), a scalable, heuristic, algorithmic method that employs an approach based on local search with multiple search paths, which results in effective, low-complexity search of the space of genetic manipulations. Thus, GDLS is able to find genetic designs with greater in silico production of desired metabolites than can feasibly be found using a globally optimal search and performs favorably in comparison with heuristic searches based on evolutionary algorithms and simulated annealing.Hertz Foundatio

Effect of Alcohol Beverage Preference and Exercise on Diet

The 2015-2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans states that a healthy diet should be composed of vegetables, fruits, grains, dairy, proteins, and oils and should limit the intake of added sugar, saturated fats, sodium, and alcohol. The Healthy Eating Index-2015 Score (HEI) is based on these dietary guidelines and assesses an individual’s diet quality. Based on the HEI, the average American diet failed to meet the 2015-2020 Dietary Guidelines. Failure to meet these dietary guidelines may lead to malnutrition and diet-related chronic diseases. The current study examined whether alcohol beverage preference affected diet quality in a subset of participants enrolled in an ongoing prospective, longitudinal, interventional study, ALIVE-Ex. The primary goal of the ALIVE-Ex study is to determine the effects of a 10-week aerobic exercise intervention in participants with fasting dysglycemia and at-risk alcohol use on metabolic health. We hypothesized that both alcoholic beverage preference and exercise would affect diet quality. Participants that had successfully completed the exercise intervention were included in this substudy. The Timeline Followback (TLFB) was used to assess alcohol preference and intake over the previous 30 days. Participants were categorized into one of three categories, beer drinker, wine/liquor drinker or nondrinker, based on their alcoholic beverage preference (≥ 50% of total alcohol consumed). Diet was assessed prior to and following the exercise intervention using the Automated Self-Administered 24-Hour Diet Recall (ASA24), which documented food consumption over the previous 24 hours. Exercise sessions consisted of 30 aerobic exercise sessions over the course of 10 weeks. Sex, race, marital status, and education did not differ across beer, wine/liquor or nondrinkers; however, age, income, and BMI did differ by alcoholic beverage preference. Overall, the wine/liquor drinkers were younger, reported higher incomes and had a BMI ≥ 30. Using the data from ASA24, we found that daily protein, fat, carbohydrate, and caloric intake were similar among the beer, wine/liquor and nondrinkers and the exercise intervention did not significantly alter these measures. A significant interaction between exercise and alcohol beverage preference was detected for HEI-total protein, suggesting that total protein scores increased following exercise in the wine/liquor drinkers, but decreased in the beer drinkers. A significant main effect of alcohol beverage preference was found for HEIsaturated fat and HEI-total score, with wine/liquor drinkers having higher scores. Overall, these data suggest that alcohol beverage preference may impact dietary choices and overall diet quality, however, these effects may be influenced by demographic factors, such as education and income. Further analyses are needed to understand the complex relationship between alcohol preference and diet. This research was supported by NIH NIAAA T35AA021097 to PEM

Second Generation Leptoquark Search in p\bar{p} Collisions at s\sqrt{s} = 1.8 TeV

We report on a search for second generation leptoquarks with the D\O\ detector at the Fermilab Tevatron $p\bar{p}$ collider at $\sqrt{s}$ = 1.8 TeV. This search is based on 12.7 pb$^{-1}$ of data. Second generation leptoquarks are assumed to be produced in pairs and to decay into a muon and quark with branching ratio $\beta$ or to neutrino and quark with branching ratio $(1-\beta)$. We obtain cross section times branching ratio limits as a function of leptoquark mass and set a lower limit on the leptoquark mass of 111 GeV/c$^{2}$ for $\beta = 1$ and 89 GeV/c$^{2}$ for $\beta = 0.5$ at the 95%\ confidence level.Comment: 18 pages, FERMILAB-PUB-95/185-

Limits on Anomalous WWgamma and WWZ Couplings

Limits on the anomalous WWgamma and WWZ couplings are presented from a simultaneous fit to the data samples of three gauge boson pair final states in pbar-p collisions at sqrt(s)=1.8 TeV: Wgamma production with the W boson decaying to enu or munu, W boson pair production with both of the W bosons decaying to enu or munu, and WW or WZ production with one W boson decaying to enu and the other W boson or the Z boson decaying to two jets. Assuming identical WWgamma and WWZ couplings, 95 % C.L. limits on the anomalous couplings of -0.30<Delta kappa<0.43 (lambda = 0) and -0.20<lambda<0.20 (Delta kappa = 0) are obtained using a form factor scale Lambda = 2.0 TeV. Limits found under other assumptions on the relationship between the WWgamma and WWZ couplings are also presented.Comment: 13 pages, 3 figures, submitted to Physical Review