SEPARATE BUT EQUAL? DESEGREGATING BALTIMORE'S GOLF COURSES*

ABSTRACT. Between the time of its opening, in 1923, and 1956, when the last vestiges of official segregation were swept away by the courts, the Carroll Park Municipal Golf Course in Baltimore, Maryland, figured prominently in the struggle to desegregate the city's recreational facilities. In this article we use historical sources to examine how access to Carroll Park was shaped by issues of race and ethnicity during the first half of the twentieth century, focusing specifically on the role the park played in the struggle to desegregate Baltimore's golf courses. We also consider how this victory ultimately contributed to desegregation at the city's other recreational facilities, including ball fields and swimming pools.     

Spread and status of seven submerged pest plants in New Zealand lakes

The distribution of seven submerged aquatic pest plants is reported. Lake vegetation surveys recorded pest plants in 27.9% of 344 lakes, with two species co‐occurring in 5.8%, and three species in 2.6% of lakes. Egeria densa was most frequent (15.4% of lakes), followed by Ceratophyllum demersum (9.0%), Lagarosiphon major (7.3%), and Utricularia gibba (5.5%). Spread since 2000 has continued for five pest plants, with 34 lakes invaded by U. gibba over 2004–08 alone. Early regional sites in proximity to human population centres were likely plant liberations and numerous potential founder colonies remain in garden ponds. Human activities were important for inter‐lake dispersal, with the exception of bird‐dispersed U. gibba. Significant lake associations between pest plants, and with presence of six exotic fish species, suggest common dispersal pathways and similar introduction risks. Therefore, predictions of future spread should be possible based on sources, dispersal pathways, and identifying key risk factors for lakes.     

Submerged vegetation of Lakes Sumner,Marion, Katrine,Taylor, and Sheppard in Canterbury,New Zealand

The submerged vegetation of Lakes Sumner, Marion, Katrine, Taylor, and Sheppard was surveyed in May 1987. These high‐altitude lakes lie at c. 600 m a.s.l., within the largely unmodified upper Hurunui catchment. Submerged vegetation was diverse and included numerous short shallow‐water species, dense swards of Isoetes alpinus, low covers of taller native vascular plants, and charophyte meadows beyond the depth limit of vascular plants to a maximum of 15 m. A sparse deepwater bryophyte community was observed from 11 to 32 m depth in Lake Sumner. Displacement of native vegetation by dense growths of the adventive oxygen weed Elodea canadensis over mid‐depths of 3–6 m was noted in all lakes, except Lake Marion.     

Dynamical linkage of tropical and subtropical weather systems to the intraseasonal oscillations of the Indian summer monsoon rainfall. Part II: Simulations in the ENSEMBLES project

We assess the ability of individual models (single-model ensembles) and the multi-model ensemble (MME) in the European Union-funded ENSEMBLES project to simulate the intraseasonal oscillations (ISOs; specifically in 10–20-day and 30–50-day frequency bands) of the Indian summer monsoon rainfall (ISMR) over the Western Ghats (WG) and the Bay of Bengal (BoB), respectively. This assessment is made on the basis of the dynamical linkages identified from the analysis of observations in a companion study to this work. In general, all models show reasonable skill in simulating the active and break cycles of the 30–50-day ISOs over the Indian summer monsoon region. This skill is closely associated with the proper reproduction of both the northward propagation of the intertropical convergence zone (ITCZ) and the variations of monsoon circulation in this band. However, the models do not manage to correctly simulate the eastward propagation of the 30–50-day ISOs in the western/central tropical Pacific and the eastward extension of the ITCZ in a northwest to southeast tilt. This limitation is closely associated with a limited capacity of models to accurately reproduce the magnitudes of intraseasonal anomalies of both the ITCZ in the Asian tropical summer monsoon regions and trade winds in the tropical Pacific. Poor reproduction of the activity of the western Pacific subtropical high on intraseasonal time scales also amplify this limitation. Conversely, the models make good reproduction of the WG 10–20-day ISOs. This success is closely related to good performance of the models in the representation of the northward propagation of the ITCZ, which is partially promoted by local air–sea interactions in the Indian Ocean in this higher-frequency band. Although the feature of westward propagation is generally represented in the simulated BoB 10–20-day ISOs, the air–sea interactions in the Indian Ocean are spuriously active in the models. This leads to active WG rainfall, which is not present in the observed BoB 10–20-day ISOs. Further analysis indicates that the intraseasonal variability of the ISMR is generally underrepresented in the simulations. Skill of the MME in seasonal ISMR forecasting is strongly dependent on individual model performance. Therefore, in order to improve the model skill with respect to seasonal ISMR forecasting, we suggest it is necessary to better represent the robust dynamical links between the ISOs and the relevant circulation variations, as well as the proportion of intraseasonal variability in the individual models.     

Galaxy redshift surveys selected by neutral hydrogen using the Five-hundred metre Aperture Spherical Telescope

We discuss the possibility of performing a substantial spectroscopic galaxy redshift survey selected via the 21-cm emission from neutral hydrogen using the Five-hundred metre Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST) to be built in China. We consider issues related to the estimation of the source counts and optimizations of the survey, and discuss the constraints on cosmological models that such a survey could provide. We find that a survey taking around two years could detect ∼10⁷ galaxies with an average redshift of ∼0.15 making the survey complementary to those already carried out at optical wavelengths. These conservative estimates have used the   z = 0  H  i mass function and have ignored the possibility of evolution. The results could be used to constrain  Γ=Ω_m h   to 5 per cent and the spectral index, n _s, to 7 per cent independent of cosmic microwave background data. If we also use simulated power spectra from the Planck satellite, we can constrain w to be within 5 per cent of −1.     

Biomonitoring the Health of Coastal Marine Ecosystems – The Roles and Challenges of Microscale Toxicity Tests

Coastal marine ecosystems in many parts of the world are under unrelenting stress caused by urban development, hazardous or toxic substances, overfishing, habitat destruction, the introduction of exotic species and natural toxins. Biomonitoring plays a vital role in governmental and industrial strategies to identify, assess, control and reduce these problems. Sensitive and practical techniques in biomonitoring are needed in all of the strategic approaches – from toxic chemical rating and classification, to pollution source control, status and trends monitoring, and assessments of “marine ecosystem health”. Due to the shear magnitude and scope of the challenge, biomonitoring coastal ecosystems demands new and innovative approaches that are relatively easy and cheap to deploy and that provide timely and accessible information to environmental managers and policy makers.

This paper explores recent developments in microscale toxicity testing – a branch of aquatic toxicology involving the discovery and application of small-scale, innovative, sensitive, practical, inexpensive and frequently automated biological techniques. Highlights of a recent unique synthesis ([Reference to Wells et al., 1998]) are given, describing microscale tests at various biological and phylogenetic levels. Many of these tests are marine and focus on gametes, embryos and other young life stages. They can be utilized in the field (in vivo), with field collected samples, and in the laboratory. Their low cost, sensitivity, practicality and speed are their strengths, and commercial test kits have been developed as a result. But being largely “single-species” and sub-individual-level biomonitors, do such microscale tests provide information directly useful to protecting vital ecosystem processes? Indeed, how can this question be addressed? The needs and challenges of matching the most promising of the microscale tests with higher level (population, community, ecosystem) measurements to protect habitats and biodiversity are discussed. Improving marine biomonitoring and protecting coastal ecosystem health demands such new techniques within the context of new paradigms and rigorous approaches for their application.     

Do galaxy mergers form elliptical galaxies? A comparison of kinematic and photometric properties

We present near-infrared K -band imaging and spectroscopy of a sample of galaxy mergers, which we use to derive light profile indices, absolute magnitudes and central velocity dispersions. We find that the light distributions of mergers more nearly resemble those of ellipticals than those of bulges, but that the mergers lie well away from the Fundamental Plane defined by the ellipticals. We interpret this as being due to enhancement of the K -band surface brightness of the mergers by a significant population of supergiant stars, and independent evidence for such a population is inferred from measurements of the depth of the 2.3-μm CO absorption feature.