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Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons™

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2012

University of South Florida

School of Geosciences Faculty and Staff Publications

Articles 1 - 9 of 9

Full-Text Articles in Physical Sciences and Mathematics

Combating Forced Labour And Human Trafficking In Africa: The Role Of Endogenous And Exogenous Forces, Ambe J. Njoh, Elizabeth N.M. Ayuk-Etang Dec 2012

Combating Forced Labour And Human Trafficking In Africa: The Role Of Endogenous And Exogenous Forces, Ambe J. Njoh, Elizabeth N.M. Ayuk-Etang

School of Geosciences Faculty and Staff Publications

It is widely believed that indigenous culture and tradition are at the root of the human trafficking and forced labour problem in Africa. Adherents to this viewpoint also claim that endogenous as opposed to exogenous forces impede efforts to eradicate the problem. This study employed a loglinear regression model to test the tenability of this claim. It hypothesized an inverse association between indigenous culture/tradition and efforts to combat human trafficking. The hypothesis was rejected. It is shown that anti-trafficking initiatives are less successful where indigenous tradition is dominated, or has been usurped, by imported cultural practices.

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Probabilistic Approach To Modeling Lava Flow Inundation: A Lava Flow Hazard Assessment For A Nuclear Facility In Armenia, Laura J. Connor, Charles B. Connor, Khachatur Meliksetian, Ivan Savov Dec 2012

Probabilistic Approach To Modeling Lava Flow Inundation: A Lava Flow Hazard Assessment For A Nuclear Facility In Armenia, Laura J. Connor, Charles B. Connor, Khachatur Meliksetian, Ivan Savov

School of Geosciences Faculty and Staff Publications

Probabilistic modeling of lava flow hazard is a two-stage process. The first step is an estimation of the possible locations of future eruptive vents followed by an estimation of probable areas of inundation by lava flows issuing from these vents. We present a methodology using this two-stage approach to estimate lava flow hazard at a nuclear power plant site near Aragats, a Quaternary volcano in Armenia.

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Emerging Technology Monitors Ice-Sea Interface At Outlet Glaciers, Timothy H. Dixon, Denis Voytenko, Chad Lembke, Santiago De La Pena, Ian Howat, Noel Gourmelen, Charles Werner, Björn Oddsson Nov 2012

Emerging Technology Monitors Ice-Sea Interface At Outlet Glaciers, Timothy H. Dixon, Denis Voytenko, Chad Lembke, Santiago De La Pena, Ian Howat, Noel Gourmelen, Charles Werner, Björn Oddsson

School of Geosciences Faculty and Staff Publications

Recent melting in Greenland and Antarctica has led to concerns about the long-term stability of these ice sheets and their potential contributions to future sea level rise. Marine-terminating outlet glaciers play a key role in the dynamics of these ice sheets; recent mass losses are likely related to increased influx of warmer water to the base of outlet glaciers, as evidenced by the fact that changes in ocean currents, calving front retreats, glacial thinning, mass redistribution based on satellite gravity data, and accelerating coastal uplift are roughly concurrent [e.g., Holland et al., 2008; Wouters et al., 2008; Jiang …

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Evidence For Low-Angle Normal Faulting In The Pumqu-Xianza Rift, Tibet, Patrick W. Monigle, John Nabelek, Jochen Braunmiller, N. Seth Carpenter Sep 2012

Evidence For Low-Angle Normal Faulting In The Pumqu-Xianza Rift, Tibet, Patrick W. Monigle, John Nabelek, Jochen Braunmiller, N. Seth Carpenter

School of Geosciences Faculty and Staff Publications

Low-angle normal faulting is widely discussed as a possible mechanism for continental extension, however, unambiguous evidence for seismogenic low-angle normal faulting is lacking. Here, we investigate seismicity along a short segment of the Pumqu-Xianza Rift (PXR) in southern Tibet, where the HiCLIMB seismic array recorded over 500 earthquakes between 2004 July and 2005 August. Hypocentres of the 40 best recorded earthquakes are approximately 20–25 km west of the rift and tightly clustered at about 10 km depth, consistent with moment tensor depths of the 11 largest (3.4 ≤Mw≤ 4.5) earthquakes. Events in this group have N-S striking …

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Active Deformation Near The Nicoya Peninsula, Northwestern Costa Rica, Between 1996 And 2010: Interseismic Megathrust Coupling, Lujia Feng, Andrew V. Newman, Marino Protti, Victor Gonzalez, Yan Jiang, Timothy H. Dixon Jun 2012

Active Deformation Near The Nicoya Peninsula, Northwestern Costa Rica, Between 1996 And 2010: Interseismic Megathrust Coupling, Lujia Feng, Andrew V. Newman, Marino Protti, Victor Gonzalez, Yan Jiang, Timothy H. Dixon

School of Geosciences Faculty and Staff Publications

We use campaign and continuous GPS measurements at 49 sites between 1996 and 2010 to describe the long-term active deformation in and near the Nicoya Peninsula, northwestern Costa Rica. The observed deformation reveals partial partitioning of the Cocos-Caribbean oblique convergence into trench-parallel forearc sliver motion and less oblique thrusting on the subduction interface. The northern Costa Rican forearc translates northwestward as a whole ridge block at 11 ± 1 mm/yr relative to the stable Caribbean. The transition from the forearc to the stable Caribbean occurs in a narrow deforming zone of ∼16 km wide. Subduction thrust earthquakes take 2/3 of …

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Spectacular Lightning Revealed In 2009 Mount Redoubt Eruption, Sonja A. Behnke, Ronald J. Thomas, Paul R. Krehbiel, Stephen R. Mcnutt May 2012

Spectacular Lightning Revealed In 2009 Mount Redoubt Eruption, Sonja A. Behnke, Ronald J. Thomas, Paul R. Krehbiel, Stephen R. Mcnutt

School of Geosciences Faculty and Staff Publications

The explosive eruption of Alaska's Mount Redoubt volcano in March and April 2009 provided a superb opportunity for studying volcanic lightning. The energetic explosions produced powerful volcanic lightning storms, the largest of which rivaled the intensity of the massive supercell thunderstorms that frequent the midwestern Great Plains. Although lightning often has been observed in the plumes of explosive volcanic eruptions, only a handful of detailed studies have delved into the origins of volcanic lightning. Active volcanoes tend to be situated in remote locations, where they are difficult to observe, and often have sudden, unpredicted eruptions. Even when the eruptions are …

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Prioritizing Habitat Restoration Goals In The Tampa Bay Watershed, Mark C. Rains, Shawn Landry, Valerie Seidel, Thomas L. Crisman Apr 2012

Prioritizing Habitat Restoration Goals In The Tampa Bay Watershed, Mark C. Rains, Shawn Landry, Valerie Seidel, Thomas L. Crisman

School of Geosciences Faculty and Staff Publications

No abstract provided.

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The Importance Of Craniofacial Sutures In Biomechanical Finite Element Models Of The Domestic Pig, Jen A. Bright Feb 2012

The Importance Of Craniofacial Sutures In Biomechanical Finite Element Models Of The Domestic Pig, Jen A. Bright

School of Geosciences Faculty and Staff Publications

Craniofacial sutures are a ubiquitous feature of the vertebrate skull. Previous experimental work has shown that bone strain magnitudes and orientations often vary when moving from one bone to another, across a craniofacial suture. This has led to the hypothesis that craniofacial sutures act to modify the strain environment of the skull, possibly as a mode of dissipating high stresses generated during feeding or impact. This study tests the hypothesis that the introduction of craniofacial sutures into finite element (FE) models of a modern domestic pig skull would improve model accuracy compared to a model without sutures. This allowed the …

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Crystal Structure Of Graphite Under Room-Temperature Compression And Decompression, Yuejian Wang, Joseph E. Panzik, Boris Kiefer, Kanani K. M. Lee Jan 2012

Crystal Structure Of Graphite Under Room-Temperature Compression And Decompression, Yuejian Wang, Joseph E. Panzik, Boris Kiefer, Kanani K. M. Lee

School of Geosciences Faculty and Staff Publications

Recently, sophisticated theoretical computational studies have proposed several new crystal structures of carbon (e.g., bct-C4, H-, M-, R-, S-, W-, and Z-carbon). However, until now, there lacked experimental evidence to verify the predicted high-pressure structures for cold-compressed elemental carbon at least up to 50 GPa. Here we present direct experimental evidence that this enigmatic high-pressure structure is currently only consistent with M-carbon, one of the proposed carbon structures. Furthermore, we show that this phase transition is extremely sluggish, which led to the observed broad x-ray diffraction peaks in previous studies and hindered the proper identification of the post-graphite phase in …

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