Crusta: A new virtual globe for real-time visualization of sub-meter digital topography at planetary scales

Virtual globes are becoming ubiquitous in the visualization of planetary bodies and Earth specifically. While many of the current virtual globes have proven to be quite useful for remote geologic investigation, they were never designed for the purpose of serving as virtual geologic instruments. Their shortcomings have become more obvious as earth scientists struggle to visualize recently released digital elevation models of very high spatial resolution (0.5-1 m²/sample) and extent (>2000 km²). We developed Crusta as an alternative virtual globe that allows users to easily visualize their custom imagery and more importantly their custom topography. Crusta represents the globe as a 30-sided polyhedron to avoid distortion of the display, in particular the singularities at the poles characteristic of other projections. This polyhedron defines 30 “base patches,” each being a four-sided region that can be subdivided to an arbitrarily fine grid on the surface of the globe to accommodate input data of arbitrary resolution, from global (BlueMarble) to local (tripod LiDAR), all in the same visualization. We designed Crusta to be dynamic with the shading of the terrain surface computed on-the-fly when a user manipulates his point-of-view. In a similarly interactive fashion the globe's surface can be exaggerated vertically. The combination of the two effects greatly improves the perception of shape. A convenient pre-processing tool based on the GDAL library facilitates importing a number of data formats into the Crusta-specific multi-scale hierarchies that enable interactive visualization on a range of platforms from laptops to immersive geowalls and caves. The main scientific user community for Crusta is earth scientists, and their needs have been driving the development.     

Nature's Neighborhood: Urban Environmental History and Neighborhood Planning

The physical form of an urban settlement is a product of the reciprocal relationship between the humans and the ecological systems in the area which act together to create an urban landscape that changes through time. While many of the interactions between the natural world and the built environment occur at the regional level, the quality of life experienced by residents is in large part a function of environmental conditions in the neighborhood. This article explores the benefits to neighborhood planning from incorporating urban environmental history. It reviews the conceptual territory of urban environmental history and presents a framework for its application to neighborhood planning. An environmental history completed for a neighborhood is highlighted to illustrate the technique.     

The Effects of Annealing After Equal Channel Angular Extrusion (ECAE) on Mechanical and Magnetic Properties of 49Fe-49Co-2V Alloy

Metallurgical and Materials Transactions A - Equal channel angular extrusion (ECAE) of 49Fe-49Co-2V, also known as Hiperco® 50A or Permendur-2V, greatly improves the strength and ductility of...     

Microbial and chemical assessment of regions within New Orleans, LA impacted by Hurricane Katrina

The city of New Orleans, LA was severely impacted by flooding and wind damage following landfall of Hurricane Katrina in August 2005. The city's drinking water infrastructure was severely compromised and massive amounts of sediment were redeposited throughout the flooded region. Thousands of homes were water-damaged resulting in the rapid growth of mold. In September and October 2005 a convenience sample of selected homes, tap water, surface water, and sediment within New Orleans was assessed for mold contamination, microbial contamination, and heavy metal concentrations. At selected sites, indoor mold spore concentrations were compared to outdoor concentrations. The purpose of this study was to conduct a baseline environmental assessment in an effort to identify public health threats caused by wind and flood damage. Surface waters contained high concentrations of bacterial indicators whereas no bacteria were detected in tap water, even from taps containing no chlorine residual. Sediment samples contained concentrations of lead and arsenic similarto pre-Katrina concentrations. Outdoor total spore (sp) concentrations ranged from >6500 to 84 713 sp/m(3). Indoor concentrations ranged from 6142 to 735 123 sp/m(3). For the 13 locations with matched indoor/ outdoor samples, the mean indoor/outdoor spore ratio was 4.11 (ranging from 0.27 to >11.44). Inside 5 of the 13 homes, total spore counts/m(3) exceeded 100 000, with measurements in the moldiest home exceeding 700 000 sp/ m(3). In conclusion, surface waters had high concentrations of bacterial contamination but no bacterial indicators were present in tap water. Sediment samples did not have appreciable increases in lead or arsenic. Flooded homes, however, contained substantial concentrations of mold which could present a public health exposure route to individuals repopulating and restoring the City of New Orleans.     

Neonatal exposure to cocaine enhances the reward-potentiating properties of the drug in young adult animals.

Either cocaine (20 mg/kg) or saline vehicle was administered to rat pups once daily on postnatal days 1–8. The enhancement of braid stimulation reward (BSR) by acute administration of cocaine (2.5, 5, and 10 mg/kg ip) was assessed in adult offspring (70–90 days of age) using a rate-frequency curve-shift paradigm. Acute administration of cocaine produced orderly dose-related shifts of the rate-frequency function toward lower frequencies in all groups indicating a reward-enhancing effect of the drug on BSR. However, offspring neonatally exposed to cocaine displayed a greater drug-induced potentiation of BSR. Of particular note, the small but significant enhancement of the reward-potentiating properties of cocaine was more pronounced in female offspring neonatally exposed to the drug. These findings indicate that the rewarding properties of cocaine were altered by neonatal exposure to the drug in a sexually dimorphic fashion. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Differences in tissue fatty acids and cholesterol of swine from different genetic backgrounds

A review of 1,000 consecutive coronary angiograms, most of them performed for evaluation of angina pectoris, yielded 9 examples of congenital anomalies of the coronary arteries. In 2 cases the angina may have been due to malposition of the left coronary artery or one of its branches. There were 2 cases of aberrant origin of the circumflex artery from the right coronary artery, 2 cases of aberrant left anterior descending artery, 3 cases in which all three major coronary branches arose from the right aortic sinus, and 2 cases of coronary artery fistulas. Malposition of the coronary artery should be considered as a possible cause of angina.     

An Observational Study of Dual Display Usage in University Classroom Lectures

We report a study of how dual display screens were used in classroom lectures for university-level courses across a variety of disciplines during five academic terms over a 2-year period. Our goal was to understand the pedagogical consequences of using more than a single electronic display screen to support classroom lectures. We deployed an in-house software system (MultiPresenter) in real classrooms. We examined the use of MultiPresenter by 8 university instructors who taught 15 courses with a total of 1,147 students during 13-week regular terms or 6-week summer terms. We observed classroom lectures, interviewed instructors, collected screen images and log files of MultiPresenter usage, and administered questionnaires to students about their subjective impressions. Based on these data, we analyzed how instructors used MultiPresenter in order to identify examples of how multiple display screens might best be used for educational purposes. The analysis revealed that the following practices are beneficial: the ability to keep information persistent for extended periods, the increased flexibility in where and when information is shown, capability for side-by-side comparison of full screens of information, simultaneous visibility of both overview (“roadmap”) and detailed (“content”) information, and extra space to annotate information. Possible hazards include difficulty focusing on specific information amidst a large amount of information and too much information changing too quickly without proper indication of the changes.