Atmospheric circulation patterns associated with tree growth anomalies in the central and southern Sierra Nevada mountains [abstract]

EXTRACT (SEE PDF FOR FULL ABSTRACT): In this work, I examine patterns of atmospheric circulation associated with tree growth anomalies at mid-to-high latitudes (2000-3500 meters).

A late Pleistocene paleohydrologic record of Sierra Nevada runoff from Owens Lake, California [abstract]

EXTRACT (SEE PDF FOR FULL ABSTRACT): A 323-meter (about 800,000 year) core of lake deposits beneath Owens Lake playa, Inyo County, California, contains a nearly continuous paleolimnological record based on diatom assemblages. ... Throughout most of its history, Owens Lake was characterized by freshwater diatoms, indicating a positive hydrologic input from the Owens River and overflow to lake systems downstream.

A detailed 2,000-year late-Holocene pollen record from Lower Pahranagat Lake, southern Nevada, USA [abstract]

EXTRACT (SEE PDF FOR FULL ABSTRACT): Preliminary analysis of 128 pollen samples and 7 radiocarbon dates from a 5-meter-long, 10-centimeter-diameter sediment core retrieved from Lower Pahranagat Lake (elevation 975 meters), Lincoln County, Nevada, gives us a rare, continuous record of vegetation change at 14-year intervals over the past 2,000 years.

Response of Pacific Northwest vegetation to large-scale changes in climate during the last 100,000 years [abstract]

EXTRACT (SEE PDF FOR FULL ABSTRACT): Paleoclimatic variations in western North America depend on a hierarchy of temporal and spatial controls that can be examined using a combination of modeling studies and data synthesis. ... The regional vegetation response to large-scale changes in the climate system of the last 21,000 years is used as a conceptual model to help explain earlier vegetation and climate at two localities.

Multiple-proxy lacustrine record of moisture transport over western North America from 24,000 to 12,000 YBP, Lake Estancia, New Mexico [abstract]

EXTRACT (SEE PDF FOR FULL ABSTRACT): Pluvial Lake Estancia in central New Mexico experienced large and rapid fluctuations in surface area and elevation during the build-up to and termination of the last glacial maximum (LGM). Due to continuous groundwater discharge, a minimum pool covering about 400 square kilometers was maintained in the central basin until about 12,000 years ago, ensuring a continuous depositional sequence even during low stands of the lake. ... The sensitive response to fluctuations in climate by several independent proxies at Estancia show that transport of Pacific moisture over western North America changed dramatically during the last Ice Age, perhaps comparable to the large and rapid changes in climate documented from high-latitude ice and North Atlantic marine sediments for the LCM and its transitions.

A rock-magnetic and geomagnetic secular variation record from late-Pleistocene Lake Estancia, New Mexico [abstract]

EXTRACT (SEE PDF FOR FULL ABSTRACT): Exposed sediments of Late Pleistocene Lake Estancia contain a high resolution record of regional climate variability for the period about 12,000 to 32,000 years. A detailed rock-magnetic study is being performed on this well-dated, well-preserved sedimentary sequence to determine how the magnetic signature of sediments responded to regional climate change.

Chronological records of climate-related events and societal consequences [abstract]

EXTRACT (SEE PDF FOR FULL ABSTRACT): A chronology of documented regional and global warm and cold event records is collated along with documented ecosystem response records and health threat/sequellae records for the historical period. Patterns of societal response to cold periods punctuated by warm periods have been associated with considerable human health impacts, stimulated by blooms in disease vectors such as rodents and insects.

Adding Polymorphic Abstraction to ML (Detailed Abstract)

The ML programming language restricts type polymorphism to occur only in the "let-in" construct and requires every occurrence of a formal parameter of a function (a lambda abstraction) to have the same type. Milner in 1978 refers to this restriction (which was adopted to help ML achieve automatic type inference) as a serious limitation. We show that this restriction can be relaxed enough to allow universal polymorphic abstraction without losing automatic type inference. This extension is equivalent to the rank-2 fragment of system F. We precisely characterize the additional program phrases (lambda terms) that can be typed with this extension and we describe typing anomalies both before and after the extension. We discuss how macros may be used to gain some of the power of rank-3 types without losing automatic type inference. We also discuss user-interface problems in how to inform the programmer of the possible types a program phrase may have.

Abstract Hatred: Yeats and the Counter-Revolutionary Paradigm

This article examines W.B. Yeats's affiliation to a counter-revolutionary tradition that had its origins in the works of Edmund Burke and incorporated a range of later writers from Alexis de Tocqueville to Hippolyte Taine. This tradition possesses significant internal differences and contradictions, but it derives its general structure and coherence from a shared distrust of particular kinds of theoretical abstraction. Placed against this background, Yeats's extravagant campaign against the abstract develops political substance and form. The article demonstrates how Yeats's general denunciation of abstraction in politics drives his attacks on both nationalism and democracy in Ireland.