Description: Climate change affects forests both directly and indirectly through disturbances. Disturbances are a natural and integral part of forest ecosystems, and climate change can alter these natural interactions. When disturbances exceed their natural range of variation, the change in forest structure and function may be extreme. Each disturbance affects forests differently. Some disturbances have tight interactions with the species and forest communities which can be disrupted by climate change. Impacts of disturbances and thus of climate change are seen over a broad spectrum of spatial and temporal scales. Future observations, research, and tool development are needed to further understand the interactions between climate change and forest disturbances.

Description: This article discusses the science - society relation. In 2005, the author published the first scholarly article on the US National Science Foundation's Broader Impacts Merit Review Criterion. In the intervening years, much has happened, both in terms of scholarship on the Broader Impacts Criterion and in terms of the Broader Impacts Criterion itself. Here, the author revisits that original article, answering some questions, filling in some blanks, expanding some bits, contracting others, updating and generally rethinking the whole thing. The National Science Board has also rethought the Broader Impacts Criterion, and 2011 marks the gestation, if not the birth, of a much different criterion, a sort of Broader Impacts Criterion and about the dialectic between the values of autonomy and accountability in the science - society relation.

Description: This article discusses neural systems supporting avoidance behavior in healthy youths. Active avoidance involving controlling and modifying threatening situations characterizations many forms of clinical pathology, particularly childhood anxiety. Presently our understanding of the neural systems supporting human avoidance is largely based on nonhuman research. Establishing the generality of nonhuman findings to healthy children is a needed first step towards advancing developmental affective neuroscience research on avoidance in childhood anxiety. Accordingly, this investigation examined brain activation patterns to threatening cues that prompted avoidance in healthy youths. During functional magnetic resonance imaging, fifteen youths (ages 9-13) completed a task that alternatively required approach or avoidance behaviors. On each trial either a threatening 'Snake' cue or a 'Reward' cue advanced towards a bank containing earned points. Directional buttons enabled subjects to move cues away from (Avoidance) or towards the bank (Approach). Avoidance cues elicited activation in regions hypothesized to support avoidance in nonhumans (amygdala, insula, striatum and thalamus). Results also highlighted that avoidance response rates were positively correlated with amygdala activation and negatively correlated with insula and anterior cingulate activation. Moreover, increased amygdala activity was associated with decreased insula and anterior cingulate activity. Our results suggest nonhuman neurophysiological research findings on avoidance may ...

Description: In this article, the authors revisit the Markov approximation necessary to derive ordinary Brownian motion from a model widely adopted in literature for this specific purpose. The authors show that this leads to internal inconsistencies, thereby implying that further search for a more satisfactory model is required.

Description: This article discusses preservation of federal agency's files. For more than a century, federal depository libraries and the Government Printing Office (GPO) have acted as partners to provide permanent access to government information in tangible media. These partnerships have evolved in the last few years. Built on a century of tradition, new partnerships offer permanent access to electronic files of federal agencies published in nontangible media. This article describes one partnership to store and provide access to the electronic files of agencies that have ceased operation. As the only Web contact for an agency, unique challenges arose when historical publications were frequently requested. Digitized historical publications, bibliographies, and an agency history enhance services for researchers.