Greenland ice cap research program; studies conducted in ...

Title varies slightly.

Sources of weapon systems innovation in the Department of Defense : the role of in-house research and development, 1945-2000 /

Shipping list no.: 2009-0104-P.

Army RD & A.

"Professional publication of the RD & A community."

Laboratory investigation of plastic-glass fiber reinforcement for reinforced and prestressed concrete.

Mode of access: Internet.

Providing solutions for a better tomorrow : a progress report on U.S. EPA's drinking water treatment technology demonstrations in Ecuador, Mexico and China /

Shipping list no.: 99-0007-P

Navy Center for Applied Research in Artificial Intelligence.

Cover title.

Ecological assessment of hazardous waste sites : a field and laboratory reference /

Mode of access: Internet.

Cruise Report: Summer 2008 Ecological Assessment of Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary NOAA Ship NANCY FOSTER NF-08-09-CCEHBR (June 14-June 21, 2008)

Summary: This cruise report is a summary of a field survey conducted within the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary (SBNMS), located between Cape Cod and Cape Ann at the mouth of Massachusetts Bay. The survey was conducted June 14 – June 21, 2008 on NOAA Ship NANCY FOSTER Cruise NF-08-09-CCEHBR. Multiple indicators of ecological condition and human dimensions were sampled synoptically at each of 30 stations throughout SBNMS using a random probabilistic sampling design. Samples were collected for the analysis of benthic community structure and composition; concentrations of chemical contaminants (metals, pesticides, PAHs, PCBs, PBDEs) in sediments and target demersal biota; nutrient and chlorophyll levels in the water column; and other basic habitat characteristics such as depth, salinity, temperature, dissolved oxygen, turbidity, pH, sediment grain size, and organic carbon content. In addition to the fish samples that were collected for analysis of chemical contaminants relative to human-health consumption limits, other human-dimension indicators were sampled as well including presence or absence of fishing gear, vessels, surface trash, marine mammals, and noxious sediment odors. The overall purpose of the survey was to collect data to assess the status of ecosystem condition and potential stressor impacts throughout SBNMS, based on these various indicators and corresponding management thresholds, and to provide this information as a baseline for determining how such conditions may be changing with time. While sample analysis is still ongoing a few preliminary results and observations are reported here. A final report will be completed once all data have been processed. The results are anticipated to be of value in supporting goals of the SBNMS and National Marine Sanctuary Program aimed at the characterization, protection, and management of sanctuary resources (pursuant to the National Marine Sanctuary Reauthorization Act) as well as a new priority of NCCOS and NOAA to apply Ecosystem Based approaches to the Management of coastal resources (EBM) through Integrated Ecosystem Assessments (IEAs) conducted in various coastal regions of the U.S. including the Northeast Atlantic continental shelf. This was a multi-disciplinary partnership effort made possible by scientists from the following organizations:  NOAA, National Ocean Service (NOS), National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science (NCCOS), Center for Coastal Environmental Health and Biomolecular Research (CCEHBR), Charleston, SC.  U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), National Health and Environmental Effects Research Laboratory (NHEERL), Atlantic Ecology Division (GED), Narragansett, RI.  U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), National Health and Environmental Effects Research Laboratory (NHEERL), Gulf Ecology Division (GED), Gulf Breeze, FL.  U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), National Wetlands Research Center, Gulf Breeze Project Office, Gulf Breeze, FL.  NOAA, Office of Marine and Aviation Operations (OMAO), NOAA ship Nancy Foster. (31pp) (PDF contains 58 pages)

Patterns of succession in benthic infaunal communities following dredging and dredged material disposal in Monterey Bay

This report is the final product of a two-year study conducted for the Office, Chief of Engineers, by the Moss Landing Marine Laboratories, Moss Landing, California, under Contract No. DACW39-74-C-OI51 with the Environmental Effects Laboratory (EEL), U. S. Army Engineer Waterways Experiment Station (WES), Yicksburg, Mississippi. (PDF contains 192 pages)

Ecology of east Florida sea turtles: Proceedings of the Cape Canaveral, Florida Sea Turtle Workshop Miami, Florida February 26-27, 1985

The Cape Canaveral, Florida, marine ecosystem is unique. There are complex current and temperature regimes that form a faunal transition zone between Atlantic tropical and subtropical waters. This zone is rich faunistically and supports large commercial fISheries for fish, scallops, and shrimp. Canaveral is also unique because it has large numbers of sea turtles year-round, this turtle aggregation exhibiting patterned seasonal changes in numbers, size frequency, and sex ratio. Additionally, a significant portion of this turtle aggregation hibernates in the Canaveral ship channel, a phenomenon rare in marine turtle populations. The Cape Canaveral area has the largest year-round concentration of sea turtles in the United States. However, the ship channel is periodically dredged by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in order to keep Port Canaveral open to U.S. Navy vessels, and preliminary surveys showed that many sea turtles were incidentally killed during dredging operations. In order for the Corps of Engineers to fulfill its defense dredging responsibilities, and comply with the Endangered Species Act of 1973, an interagency Sea Turtle Task Force was formed to investigate methods of reducing turtle mortalities. This Task Force promptly implemented a sea turtle research plan to determine seasonal abundance, movement patterns, sex ratios, size frequencies, and other biological parameters necessary to help mitigate dredging conflicts in the channel. The Cape Canaveral Sea Turtle Workshop is a cooperative effort to comprehensively present research results of these important studies. I gratefully acknowledge the support of everyone involved in this Workshop, particularly the anonymous team of referees who painstakingly reviewed the manuscripts. The cover illustration was drawn by Jack C. Javech. (PDF file contains 86 pages.)

The ecological condition of estuaries in the Gulf of Mexico

This document is intended for use by scientists and other citizens concerned with the ecological condition of estuaries, as well as by managers and lawmakers interested in the sustained use of estuaries for commercial and recreational purposes. It also addresses public concerns about the aesthetic quality of coastal areas vital to tourism and recreation. By producing this report on the ecological condition of estuaries in the Gulf of Mexico, we have taken one step in assessing the health of this environmental resource. We have produced an environmental report card to be used as a guide in the evaluation of management decisions and research directions. This report is organized in three parts: (1) an introduction that gives background information on the Gulf of Mexico, estuarine ecology, and the factors that impact estuaries in the gulf, (2) the main section on priority ecological indicators used to measure the condition of estuaries in the gulf and (3) an ecological report card that summarizes the data on ecological indicators and provides a rating of the condition of estuaries in each gulf state and for gulf estuaries overall. Many of the ratings were based on the percent area of estuaries in each state exhibiting degraded or adverse levels of an indicator.

Technology and success in restoration, creation, and enhancement of Spartina afferniflora marshes in the United States. Vol. 1: Executive Summary and Annotated Bibliography

Extensive losses of coastal wetlands in the United States caused by sea-level rise, land subsidence, erosion, and coastal development have increased hterest in the creation of salt marshes within estuaries. Smooth cordgrass Spartina altemiflora is the species utilized most for salt marsh creation and restoration throughout the Atlantic and Gulf coasts of the U.S., while S. foliosa and Salicomia virginica are often used in California. Salt marshes have many valuable functions such as protecting shorelines from erosion, stabilizing deposits of dredged material, dampening flood effects, trapping water-born sediments, serving as nutrient reservoirs, acting as tertiary water treatment systems to rid coastal waters of contaminants, serving as nurseries for many juvenile fish and shellfish species, and serving as habitat for various wildlife species (Kusler and Kentula 1989). The establishment of vegetation in itself is generally sufficient to provide the functions of erosion control, substrate stabilization, and sediment trapping. The development of other salt marsh functions, however, is more difficult to assess. For example, natural estuarine salt marshes support a wide variety of fish and shellfish, and the abundance of coastal marshes has been correlated with fisheries landings (Turner 1977, Boesch and Turner 1984). Marshes function for aquatic species by providing breeding areas, refuges from predation, and rich feeding grounds (Zimmerman and Minello 1984, Boesch and Turner 1984, Kneib 1984, 1987, Minello and Zimmerman 1991). However, the relative value of created marshes versus that of natural marshes for estuarine animals has been questioned (Carnmen 1976, Race and Christie 1982, Broome 1989, Pacific Estuarine Research Laboratory 1990, LaSalle et al. 1991, Minello and Zimmerman 1992, Zedler 1993). Restoration of all salt marsh functions is necessary to prevent habitat creation and restoration activities from having a negative impact on coastal ecosystems.

Design considerations for a micro aerial vehicle aerodynamic characterization facility at the University of Florida research and engineering education facility

This paper describes the design considerations for a proposed aerodynamic characterization facility (ACF) for micro aerial vehicles (MAVs). This is a collaborative effort between the Air Force Research Laboratory Munitions Directorate (AFRL/MN) and the University of Florida Research and Engineering Education Facility (UF/REEF). The ACF is expected to provide a capability for the characterization of the aerodynamic performance of future MAVs. This includes the ability to gather the data necessary to devise control strategies as well as the potential to investigate aerodynamic 'problem areas' or specific failings. Since it is likely that future MAVs will incorporate advanced control strategies, the facility must enable researchers to critically assess such novel methods. Furthermore, the aerodynamic issues should not be seen (and tested) in isolation, but rather the facility should be able to also provide information on structural responses (such as aeroelasticity) as well as integration issues (say, thrust integration or sensor integration). Therefore the mission for the proposed facility ranges form fairly basic investigations of individual technical issues encountered by MAVs (for example an evaluation of wing shapes or control effectiveness) all the way to testing a fully integrated vehicle in a flight configuration for performance evaluation throughout the mission envelope.

Multiple-User Quantum Optical Communication

A fundamental understanding of the information carrying capacity of optical channels requires the signal and physical channel to be modeled quantum mechanically. This thesis considers the problems of distributing multi-party quantum entanglement to distant users in a quantum communication system and determining the ability of quantum optical channels to reliably transmit information. A recent proposal for a quantum communication architecture that realizes long-distance, high-fidelity qubit teleportation is reviewed. Previous work on this communication architecture is extended in two primary ways. First, models are developed for assessing the effects of amplitude, phase, and frequency errors in the entanglement source of polarization-entangled photons, as well as fiber loss and imperfect polarization restoration, on the throughput and fidelity of the system. Second, an error model is derived for an extension of this communication architecture that allows for the production and storage of three-party entangled Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger states. A performance analysis of the quantum communication architecture in qubit teleportation and quantum secret sharing communication protocols is presented. Recent work on determining the channel capacity of optical channels is extended in several ways. Classical capacity is derived for a class of Gaussian Bosonic channels representing the quantum version of classical colored Gaussian-noise channels. The proof is strongly mo- tivated by the standard technique of whitening Gaussian noise used in classical information theory. Minimum output entropy problems related to these channel capacity derivations are also studied. These single-user Bosonic capacity results are extended to a multi-user scenario by deriving capacity regions for single-mode and wideband coherent-state multiple access channels. An even larger capacity region is obtained when the transmitters use non- classical Gaussian states, and an outer bound on the ultimate capacity region is presented

Colliding and Moving Bose-Einstein Condensates: Studies of superfluidity and optical tweezers for condensate transport

In this thesis, two different sets of experiments are described. The first is an exploration of the microscopic superfluidity of dilute gaseous Bose- Einstein condensates. The second set of experiments were performed using transported condensates in a new BEC apparatus. Superfluidity was probed by moving impurities through a trapped condensate. The impurities were created using an optical Raman transition, which transferred a small fraction of the atoms into an untrapped hyperfine state. A dramatic reduction in the collisions between the moving impurities and the condensate was observed when the velocity of the impurities was close to the speed of sound of the condensate. This reduction was attributed to the superfluid properties of a BEC. In addition, we observed an increase in the collisional density as the number of impurity atoms increased. This enhancement is an indication of bosonic stimulation by the occupied final states. This stimulation was observed both at small and large velocities relative to the speed of sound. A theoretical calculation of the effect of finite temperature indicated that collision rate should be enhanced at small velocities due to thermal excitations. However, in the current experiments we were insensitive to this effect. Finally, the factor of two between the collisional rate between indistinguishable and distinguishable atoms was confirmed. A new BEC apparatus that can transport condensates using optical tweezers was constructed. Condensates containing 10-15 million sodium atoms were produced in 20 s using conventional BEC production techniques. These condensates were then transferred into an optical trap that was translated from the ‘production chamber’ into a separate vacuum chamber: the ‘science chamber’. Typically, we transferred 2-3 million condensed atoms in less than 2 s. This transport technique avoids optical and mechanical constrainsts of conventional condensate experiments and allows for the possibility of novel experiments. In the first experiments using transported BEC, we loaded condensed atoms from the optical tweezers into both macroscopic and miniaturized magnetic traps. Using microfabricated wires on a silicon chip, we observed excitation-less propagation of a BEC in a magnetic waveguide. The condensates fragmented when brought very close to the wire surface indicating that imperfections in the fabrication process might limit future experiments. Finally, we generated a continuous BEC source by periodically replenishing a condensate held in an optical reservoir trap using fresh condensates delivered using optical tweezers. More than a million condensed atoms were always present in the continuous source, raising the possibility of realizing a truly continuous atom lase.