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Temperature and ocean acidification impacts on the direct versus indirect developing periwinkle snails
No full textClimate Adaptation in Southeastern Minnesota: Multiscalar Decision-Making and a Case Study of the Carleton College Cowling Arboretum
No full textThis paper investigates whether existing operationalization of climate adaptation is effective in the fragmentary native forest communities of the Upper Midwest, particularly at the prairie-forest boundary in southeastern Minnesota. Through our evaluation of regional vulnerability assessments, interviews with a wide range of forest management stakeholders, and a site-level assessment of the Carleton Cowling Arboretum, we determined that 1) operational land management in the region is disjointed across scales/institutional positionalities and 2) on the-ground adaptive management often overlaps with existing best practices, but may additionally require controversial, non-traditional, or resource-intensive tactics. These findings have significant implications for the future health of these fragmentary ecosystems in face of the growing threat of climate change
Physics of Superconducting Qubits
No full textSuperconducting qubits are one of the main architectures used to create quantum computers. The core of a superconducting qubit is the Josephson effect. Taking advantage of Josephson junctions in superconducting circuits we can create nonlinear LC-resonators that allow us to isolate the lowest two energy levels. This two-state system can be used to encode and modify quantum information allowing us to execute quantum algorithms. Superconducting systems come in three main types characterized by their control coupling method: charge qubits, flux qubits, and phase qubits. We describe the differences between these architectures including the way they handle different kinds of errors. To understand the architecture, we first explore the creation of the superconducting state and some key properties of it. This will include flux quantization, the superconducting phase, and the Josephson effect
The Head and the HRT: The Psychological Effects of Hormone Replacement Therapy for Menopausal Women
No full textThe 2002 and 2003 Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) studies that examined the effects of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) on health outcomes concluded that HRT should not be used as primary symptom prevention for menopause due to increased risks of cardiovascular disease and breast cancer. The results of the WHI studies were broadly publicized, and worldwide use of HRT decreased due to misleading media coverage of these results. Physician hesitancy and a negative public opinion of HRT have persisted despite subsequent studies that support the use of HRT as a safe treatment for menopausal symptoms. HRT effectively addresses both the vasomotor symptoms and the psychological effects of menopause, but the benefits of HRT are limited to a critical time period. The risks of HRT increase with age and distance from menopausal onset but can be mitigated by dosage, method of administration, and type of hormone. This paper looks at the critiques and lasting effects of the WHI studies, the current literature on the use of HRT for treating menopausal symptoms, and the future steps for education and research regarding HRT for menopause
Light Rail Transit Station Proximity and Home Values in Houston, Texas: A Spatial Analysis
No full textThis research analyzes the effect of light rail transit (LRT) proximity on home values in Houston, Texas, using 2024 data from the Harris County Appraisal District. Studies by Campbell (2011) and Pan (2013, 2019) of Houston found positive relationships between LRT proximity and home values, but relied heavily on ordinary least squares (OLS) regression, leaving spatial aspects of the data unaccounted for. This study contributes to the literature on housing markets and LRT infrastructure by incorporating spatial analysis and examining Houston’s previously unstudied Purple and Green METRORail lines. Both OLS and spatial autoregressive (SAR) regression models are employed to account for spatial dependencies in the data. While the OLS model suggests that LRT proximity positively impacts home values, the effect diminished and lost statistical significance under the SAR model. These results emphasize the need for the application of spatial methods in this research and calls for the revisitation of past studies that relied solely on OLS models
Social Justice and Zionism in Liberal American Judaism
No full textThis paper explores the relationship between Zionism and Reform Judaism through three contemporary primary sources. The first is the website of the Union of Reform Judaism (URJ), an American organization of Reform Jewish congregations, with emphasis on their statements in the wake of the October 7th, 2023 attacks on Israel by Hamas. The second is the mission statement and FAQ on Zionism from Judaism On Our Own Terms (JOOOT), a loose network of Jewish undergraduate student groups united by anti-Zionist beliefs. The third is the book Safety Through Solidarity by Shane Burley and Ben Lorber, which provides a broader view of the frameworks of thought JOOOT draws on. While all these groups base their understandings of Zionism on ideas of social justice, the dramatic difference between their visions of social justice, related to their differing ideas on the role and value of political power, lead the URJ and the group of JOOOT and Burley and Lorber to make opposite conclusions on Zionism. In all these cases, as well as in the historical debates within Reform Judaism about whether it should support Zionism, a tension between universalist and particularist values is revealed. The URJ tries to reconcile the two, but they sometimes take particularist values too far and fall into ‘us-and-them’ thinking. JOOOT and Burley and Lorber also take universalist and particularist values too far, ending up in their own oversimplifications. Juxtaposing these groups\u27 opposing perspectives and different oversimplifications highlights that both universalist and particularist values are important, and point to a method for those interested in navigating diverse fields of opinion: to seek out and examine these sorts of tensions to challenge assumptions which may not yet be challenged
Sub-angstrom Analysis of 2D Materials Utilizing Electron Ptychography
No full textAs researchers approach the limits of conventional electron microscopy, new techniques are required to reach higher resolutions. Electron ptychography utilizes pixelated, 2D measurements of electron diffraction patterns in order to solve the phase problem, and thus reconstruct the nature of the sample. Using this technique, researchers are able to achieve sub-Angstrom resolution while simultaneously exposing samples to decreased damaging from the probe
Positive Tournaments and Games
No full textWe investigate the algebraic and combinatorial structure of generalized Rock-Paper-Scissors games modeled with tournaments T (complete directed graphs) encoding win-loss relationships. Building on Fisher and Ryan’s foundational work, which established the existence of unique optimal strategies for odd-order tournaments and introduced positive tournaments (where optimal strategies require all nodes), we extend their framework to address further properties of positive tournaments. We demonstrate that while all positive tournaments are irreducible, the converse does not hold. We provide further elaboration on Fisher and Ryan’s approach of counting the number of labeled and unlabeled positive tournaments. Further, we introduce a constructive method to generate positive tournaments of arbitrary odd order via blowups, wherein a positive tournament is expanded by replacing its nodes with other positive subtournaments while preserving global positivity