Large Proper-Motion Infrared

When some magnetic field lines connect a Kerr black hole with a disk rotating around it, energy and angular momentum are transferred between them. If the black hole rotates faster than the disk, ca&solm0;GMH>0.36 for a thin Keplerian disk, then energy and angular momentum are extracted from the black hole and transferred to the disk (MH is the mass and aMH is the angular momentum of the black hole). This way, the energy originating in the black hole may be radiated away by the disk. The total amount of energy that can be extracted from the black hole spun down from ca&solm0;GMH=0.998 to ca&solm0;GMH=0.36 by a thin Keplerian disk is approximately 0.15MHc2. This is larger than approximately 0.09MHc2, which can be extracted by the Blandford-Znajek mechanism.     

Near-infrared light curve of Comet 9P/Tempel 1 during Deep Impact

On UT 2005 July 4 we observed Comet 9P/Tempel 1 during its encounter with the Deep Impact flyby spacecraft and impactor. Using the SpeX near-infrared spectrograph mounted on NASA's Infrared Telescope Facility, we obtained 0.8-to-2.5 μm flux-calibrated spectral light curves of the comet for 12 min before and 14 min after impact. Our cadence was just 1.1 s. The light curve shows constant flux before the impact and an overall brightening trend after the impact, but not at a constant rate. Within a 0.8-arcsec-radius circular aperture, the comet rapidly-brightened by 0.63 mag at 1.2 μm in the first minute. Thereafter, brightening was more modest, averaging about 0.091 mag/min at 1.2 μm, although apparently not quite constant. In addition we see a bluing in the spectrum over the post-impact period of about 0.07 mag in J-H and 0.35 mag in J-K. The majority of this bluing happened in the first minute, and the dust only marginally blued after that, in stark contrast to the continued brightening. The photometric behavior in the light curve is due to a combination of crater formation effects, expansion of the ejecta cloud, and evolution of liberated dust grains. The bluing is likely due to an icy component on those grains, and the icy grains would have had to have a devolatilization timescale longer than 14 min (unless they were shielded by the optical depth of the cloud). The bluing could also have been caused by the decrease in the “typical” size of the dust grains after impact. Ejecta dominated by submicron grains, as inferred from other observations, would have stronger scattering at shorter wavelengths than the much larger grains observed before impact.     

Comparative concentrations of metals in marine species from French Frigate Shoals, North Pacific Ocean.

Concentrations of arsenic, cadmium, chromium, copper, lead, mercury, selenium, and zinc were measured in coral, crab, eel, fish, lobster, and sediment samples collected from French Frigate Shoals, North Pacific Ocean. The sediments contained relatively high concentrations of selenium; moderate concentrations of arsenic, cadmium, copper and lead; and low concentrations of chromium and zinc. Metal concentrations were also determined in coral and crabs collected from the island of Oahu. Notably, a crab (Grapsus tenuicrustatus) and the undulated moray eel (Gymnothorax undulatus) exhibited high levels of copper and arsenic, respectively, relative to the other species studied. The concentrations of arsenic in the eel averaged 225 microg g(-1) dry wt, which was 3-12 times higher than that in all of the other species tested. The average concentration of copper in the crab was 343 microg g(-1) dry wt, 3-86 times greater than that in the other species studied. These data indicate background and comparative levels of the metals among the studied species. Lead levels in the coral (9-10 microg g(-1) dry wt) and crab (42-57 microg g(-1) dry wt) from Tern and Disappearing Islands were 23-283-fold greater than those from Oahu (0.4 and 0.2 microg g(-1) dry wt, respectively).     

Diel variation of dissolved organic carbon during large flow events in a lowland river

Diel variation in dissolved organic carbon (DOC) within lotic systems has been reported on numerous occasions. However, to our knowledge there has been no published work on diel DOC variation within lowland rivers during high flow events. We sampled DOC at 4 h intervals from two sites across two distinct flow regimes in the regulated lower Namoi River, Australia. This included a large flood (mean flow 224 m³ s⁻¹ and a peak flow of 376 m³ s⁻¹) sampled every 4 h for 10 consecutive days. DOC concentrations were significantly greater at night than during the day (P < 0.05) and the mean DOC concentration was 23.4 mg L⁻¹ at night compared to 18.9 mg L⁻¹ during daylight hours. The magnitude and duration of flow within this lowland river system and the mobilisation of large quantities of allochthonous carbon appeared to play a role in increasing DOC concentration and the diel difference.     

THE SOURCES OF REGIONAL ELDERLY POPULATION GROWTH: MIGRATION AND AGING-IN-PLACE *

A region's elderly population has two sources of growth: net migration and the net aging-in-place of its resident population. This paper outlines a method for identifying the projected relative contribution of these two sources of elderly population growth over time, and illustrates it with data for the states of Arizona, California, Florida, Illinois, and New York. The sources of elderly population growth differ between regions and over time.     

Determining policy-efficient management strategies in fisheries using data envelopment analysis (DEA)

In this paper, the authors analyze a wide range of recreational management strategies for their impacts on red snapper yield, economic surplus and the fish stock. Simulating a wide range of policies, the authors find Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) inspired policy efficiency frontiers that lead to finding those management strategies that offer the greatest level of economic surplus for any biological target, looking at both the east and west Gulf of Mexico fisheries. Red snapper has been declared overfished since 1988 and the 2005 SEDAR 7 stock assessment declared red snapper were overfished and undergoing overfishing. In November 2009, the update of the assessment declared that overfishing was no longer occurring but that the red snapper stocks needed to be rebuilt. In this analysis, it was found that red snapper are neither overfished or undergoing overfishing. The main difference between the present model and the SEDAR 7 model is that the latest model uses a higher mortality rate for juveniles and a density dependent model. The authors also suggest that the east and west should be managed as separate units.     

A history of the ‘Zambian copper flower', Becium centraliafricanum (B. homblei)

This contribution is a short history of the Zambian copper flower, Becium homblei (recently renamed B. centraliafricanum that has attracted attention as a plant associated with Cu-rich soils. It has a peculiar discontinuous distribution in Central Africa which has been explained in terms of biotype depletion. A field investigation into the ecology of the species shows that it is able to tolerate soil Cu concentrations of up to 15,000 μg/g (ppm), and soil nickel concentrations of nearly 5000 μg/g. B. homblei is also found on areas where soil metals are in trace quantities, and where soil bases, particularly Ca, are low. In spite of its tolerance to a wide range of edaphic conditions, the distribution of the species is very restricted in Zimbabwe, and this is almost certainly due to severe interspecific competition with a closely related species, B. obovatum, which is common on soils not unusually enriched in heavy metals. Pioneering work on geobotanical prospecting by use of Becium homblei was carried out by the late G. Woodward and others in the 1950s and 1960s. This species was used successfully for geobotanical prospecting for Cu. This present report is a brief history of these pioneering studies     

A parallel, implicit, cell‐centered method for two‐phase flow with a preconditioned Newton–Krylov solver

A new parallel solution technique is developed for the fully implicit three‐dimensional two‐phase flow model. An expandedcell‐centered finite difference scheme which allows for a full permeability tensor is employed for the spatial discretization, and backwardEuler is used for the time discretization. The discrete systems are solved using a novel inexact Newton method that reuses the Krylov information generated by the GMRES linear iterative solver. Fast nonlinear convergence can be achieved by composing inexact Newton steps with quasi‐Newton steps restricted to the underlying Krylov subspace. Furthermore, robustness and efficiency are achieved with a line‐search backtracking globalization strategy for the nonlinear systems and a preconditioner for each coupled linear system to be solved. This inexact Newton method also makes use of forcing terms suggested by Eisenstat and Walker which prevent oversolving of the Jacobian systems. The preconditioner is a new two‐stage method which involves a decoupling strategy plus the separate solutions of both nonwetting‐phase pressure and saturation equations. Numerical results show that these nonlinear and linear solvers are very effective.     

Rapid late-glacial atmospheric CO2 changes reconstructed from the stomatal density record of fossil leaves

The Younger Dryas stadial (11 000-10 000 yr BP) was an abrupt return to a glacial climate during the termination of the last glaciation. We have reconstructed atmospheric CO₂ concentrations from a high-resolution sequence of fossil Salix herbacea leaves through this climatic oscillation from Kråkenes, western Norway, using the relationship between leaf stomatal density and atmospheric CO₂ concentration. High Allerød CO₂ values (median 273 ppmv) decreased rapidly during 130–200 ¹⁴C-years of the late Allerød to ca. 210 ppmv at the start of the Younger Dryas. They then increased steadily through the Younger Dryas, reaching typical interglacial values once more (ca. 275 ppmv) in the Holocene. The rapid late Allerød decrease in CO₂ concentration preceded the Younger Dryas temperature drop, possibly by several decades. This striking pattern of changes has not so far been recorded unambiguously in temporally coarse measurements of atmospheric CO₂ from ice cores. Our observed late-glacial CO₂ changes have implications for global modelling of the ocean-atmosphere-biosphere over the last glacial-interglacial transition.