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Additional file 1. Figure S1. The process flow chart of pine residue production. Figure S2. The timeline of Growth Case 1 and 2 in one rotation. Figure S3. The timeline of Growth Case 3 in one rotation. Figure S4. Time-based discounted GWP of CO2 for 100 years from the presence. Figure S5. Annual CO2 emissions and sequestration (mean value) of 1 MJ of biofuel produced in Scenario 1 Growth Case 1. Figure S6. Annual CO2 emissions and sequestration (mean value) of 1 MJ of biofuel produced in Scenario 1 Growth Case 2. Figure S7. Annual CO2 emissions and sequestration (mean value) of 1 MJ of biofuel produced in Scenario 1 Growth Case 3. Figure S8. Annual CO2 emissions and sequestration (mean value) of 1 MJ of biofuel produced in Scenario 2 Growth Case 1. Figure S9. Annual CO2 emissions and sequestration (mean value) of 1 MJ of biofuel produced in Scenario 2 Growth Case 2. Figure S10. Annual CO2 emissions and sequestration (mean value) of 1 MJ of biofuel produced in Scenario 2 Growth Case 3. Table S1. Accumulative aboveground biomass data for one rotation (metric ton/ha). Table S2. Key parameter values and distributions based on literature data.

This study examines the evolution of American security policy in the Persian Gulf from 1969 to the Gulf War of 1991. Its research question is: why, and with what consequences, did American security policy evolve from an arm’s-length approach that leveraged other powers to a hands-on approach whereby the United States became the unilateral guarantor of regional security? This study argues that the Carter administration departed from the practice of the Nixon and Ford administrations and viewed the region more narrowly than their predecessors, through a Cold War lens. This perspective continued through the Reagan and Bush administrations and resulted in American security policy being shaped by three interrelated beliefs that narrowed the range of plausible U.S. policy options to one: direct American involvement in any Persian Gulf security crisis. They shaped the Reagan and Bush administrations’ Persian Gulf security policies, and when self-generated pressure to demonstrate American credibility to friendly Gulf states was added, robust American military involvement in Persian Gulf security matters became a realistic and desirable prospect. The evolution of American security policy from arm’s length to hands on culminated in the 1991 Gulf War, which initiated sustained and direct U.S. military involvement in the region that continues through the present day. Commander, United States Navy Approved for public release. distribution is unlimited

The synthesis and characterization of U(iv) and Np(iv) selenium bis(phenolate) complexes are reported. The reaction of two equivalents of the U(iv) complex with p-benzoquinone results in the formation of a U(v)-U(v) species with a bridging reduced quinone. This represents a rare example of high-valent uranium chemistry as well as a rare example of a neptunium aryloxide complex.

Recent work in distance metric learning has focused on learning transformations of data that best align with provided sets of pairwise similarity and dissimilarity constraints. The learned transformations lead to improved retrieval, classification, and clustering algorithms due to the better adapted distance or similarity measures. Here, we introduce the problem of learning these transformations when the underlying constraint generation process is nonstationary. This nonstationarity can be due to changes in either the ground-truth clustering used to generate constraints or changes to the feature subspaces in which the class structure is apparent. We propose and evaluate COMID-SADL, an adaptive, online approach for learning and tracking optimal metrics as they change over time that is highly robust to a variety of nonstationary behaviors in the changing metric. We demonstrate COMID-SADL on both real and synthetic data sets and show significant performance improvements relative to previously proposed batch and online distance metric learning algorithms.

In the historic center of Port-au-Prince, more than two hundred historic gingerbread houses experienced ground shaking during the 2010 Magnitude 7.0 Haiti earthquake. Melding French architectural cues to the tropics, the gingerbread houses, dating from 1890-1925, typically combined colombage, or stone and brick infilled timber frames, with ornate carved wood facades, masonry piers and sprawling porches. Colombage is a vernacular style having capacity to resist earthquake forces, but other aspects of the gingerbread style, including unreinforced masonry, are notoriously susceptible to ground shaking. The ground floor of Maison Dufort (1910), constructed of masonry and rubble stone piers, was heavily damaged during the earthquake and nearly undermined the second floor constructed of colombage. Horizontal iron ties embedded in the upper reaches of the ground floor walls and anchored at wall ends by decorative iron plates, may have helped stabilize orthogonal wall elements during the earthquake. Although some damage to the infilled wood frames on the second floor was observed, it was nearly all a result of existing termite decay. Although portions of the unreinforced masonry walls remained in place after the earthquake, it was decided to disassemble and reassemble the walls as part of the rehabilitation of the building, in the process adding seismic improvements designed to combine traditional, archaic seismic resisting systems with current techniques. These improvements include strengthening of the existing wood second-floor diaphragm with plywood and steel hardware and accessories, while preserving the traditional method of adding ties for wall continuity. The ground floor masonry walls will remain nominally unreinforced, but a series of horizontal and vertical embedded rods will encourage the walls to remain connected above doorways and window openings, and to promote rocking. The vertical rods are designed to be discontinuous just below the walls at the foundation, to allow shear transfer but also allow uplift and promote the pier rocking mechanism. Strengthening of the second floor diaphragm is primarily conducted to resist the significant out-of-plane forces transmitted from the thick masonry piers. Standard, inexpensive wood-framing accessories are used for the strengthening which can be easily imported into Haiti. This paper explores the mechanisms of the historic vernacular architecture that helped stabilize Maison Dufort during the earthquake and prevented its total collapse, discusses the emergency stabilization, and also the proposed rehabilitation, which is currently under construction. The details of the seismic improvements and their design will be presented, along with photos and drawings from the rehabilitation.

In 1987 the United States agreed to register eleven Kuwaiti oil tankers under the American flag and provide them naval protection at the height of the Iran - Iraq War. Motivated primarily by Cold War considerations, the United States embarked on a policy of "neutral intervention" whose intended effects were certain to be disadvantageous to Iran. American planners failed to adequately anticipate Iranian reaction to the American policy, which led to a number of violent naval actions and American retaliatory strikes on Iranian oil facilities. Nevertheless, by April, 1988, the United States had largely achieved its declared objectives, which were to secure the safe transit of Kuwaiti oil through the Gulf, and forestall the expansion of Soviet influence in the region. On April 29, 1988, however, the United States expanded the scope of the protection scheme, extending the U.S. Navy's protective umbrella to all neutral shipping in the Persian Gulf. This decision divorced the American policy from its original limited objectives, increased the likelihood of further confrontation with Iran, and laid the groundwork for the destruction of an Iranian airliner by USS Vincennes (CG-49). http://archive.org/details/betterluckythgoo109453463 US Navy (USN) author. Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited.