American Land Research Articles

Trouble of the World: Slavery and Empire in the Age of Capital by Zach Sell

Reviewed by: Trouble of the World: Slavery and Empire in the Age of Capital by Zach Sell Peter A. Coclanis (bio) Trouble of the World: Slavery and Empire in the Age of Capital. By Zach Sell. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2021. Pp. 340. $95.00 cloth; $34.95 paper; $22.99 ebook) The topics of slavery, empire, and capital all command a great deal of attention in scholarly circles, and Zach Sell hits the trifecta, connecting all three in his ambitious, smart, provocative, sometimes frustrating first book. Sell's principal goal in Trouble of the World is to embed U.S. slavery in the context of the expansion and elaboration of Western-led global capitalism in the nineteenth century. In pursuit of this goal, the author perforce takes readers all over the world, albeit often via curious, circuitous routes. Drawing heavily upon Marx and a variety of Marxist and marxisant theorists ranging from Du Bois to Ranajit Guha and from Eric Williams to principals affiliated with the "New History of American Capitalism" movement, Sell argues that enslaved African American laborers and expropriated Native American land were crucial not only to the economic development of the United States but also to early industrialization in Great Britain. More specifically, ill-begotten profits associated with the production for export of slave-grown agricultural staples—cotton, rice, indigo, sugar, etc.—helped establish and sustain British industry and "inspired new hallucinatory imperial visions of colonial domination that took root from the Atlantic world to Asia and the Pacific" (p. 1). In Trouble of the World, Sell splits his time between the generation of said profits and the "hallucinatory" visions they encouraged. In nineteenth-century southern agriculture, cotton, of course, served as primus inter pares, accounting for the largest share of U.S. exports and serving as the key raw material in textiles manufacturing, Britain's leading industry. Indeed, the economic importance of cotton to Britain was sufficiently great, according to Sell, as to motivate various and sundry imperial projects to develop and secure supply sources other than the U.S. South, which projects, not surprisingly, gained momentum with the supply disruptions occasioned by the [End Page 79] American Civil War. The author devotes considerable attention in Trouble of the World to such projects, most of them evanescent and inconsequential. He notes similarly conceived colonial projects intended to secure Asian supply sources for other important slave-produced agricultural exports from the U.S. South, most notably indigo and rice. Besides their impracticality and disappointing results, these colonial projects—in India, Australia, and British Honduras (Belize) among other places—shared characteristics the author believes were intrinsic to global capitalism during its nineteenth century rise to power: land expropriation, labor coercion and exploitation, racial domination, gross inequality, and violent depredation. Trouble of the World marks the debut of a talented historian, a scholar of uncommon breadth and an impressive command of both theoretical work and historical studies critical of capitalism. This said, for several reasons Sell's book is less successful than it could—and perhaps should—have been. First, it fails to engage or even reflect familiarity with alternative views on the southern economy, the rise of industry in Great Britain, the global expansion of capitalism in the nineteenth century, etc. Secondly, the author makes his case against capitalism with rhetorical flourish but without much analytical rigor, and almost no measurement or quantification. Thirdly, Trouble of the World is rather thin empirically, particularly the author's chapters on indigo and rice. In the case of indigo, Sell misdates and misinterprets the reasons for the collapse of the U.S. industry and neglects important American exporters in the period between his coverage of South Carolina/Georgia and India, most notably, Guatemala, but also, for a time, Brazil. Regarding rice, the author misunderstands the nature of the European market for rice, which was essentially a commodity market by the mid-nineteenth century, privileging low price rather than perceived quality, and does not seem cognizant of the fact that total U.S. rice exports (as well as exports to Europe in particular) were lower in the 1850s than they were in the 1790s and that cheap Asian...

Understanding the Impact of Soil Moisture on Precipitation Under Different Climate and Meteorological Conditions: A Numerical Sensitivity Study Over the CONUS

AbstractAccurate quantitative precipitation forecasts are essential for water resources management, agriculture, and other applications. Soil moisture is among the most important boundary conditions affecting the overlying atmosphere. It can affect precipitation either directly via evapotranspiration, affecting the moisture supply to the atmosphere, or indirectly, changing sensible heat fluxes, which can affect the structure of storms and their associated distributions of precipitation. In this study we investigate the impact of soil moisture uncertainty on simulated precipitation over the conterminous United States (CONUS) with the Weather Research and Forecasting model. We selected two 30‐day periods to conduct simulation scenarios with 3‐km horizontal grid spacing over the CONUS, where the different simulations were identical except for their initial soil moisture and temperature states which were derived from three different products: Global Forecast System analyses, the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) continuously cycling ensemble Kalman filter (EnKF) data assimilation system, and the North American Land Data Assimilation System (NLDAS‐2). Results indicate different characteristics of the soil moisture–precipitation relationship during the cold and warm periods and under different climate and meteorological conditions. Better representation of initial soil moisture does not consistently provide an improvement in the simulation of precipitation. Our results suggest that soil moisture affects both the magnitude and spatial distribution of precipitation. The impact of soil moisture on precipitation is more pronounced under drier soil and strong thermal and weak synoptic forcing, while in areas with complex terrain the soil moisture‐precipitation coupling becomes weaker.

Understanding Rural Identities and Environmental Policy Attitudes in America

Attitudinal differences between urban and rural voters in America have been in the spotlight in recent years and engaging rural populations politically has been growing in importance, particularly since the 2016 presidential election. Meanwhile, social and geographic sorting is increasing the salience of a rural identity that drives distinct policy preferences. While recent research has examined how rural identities drive social and economic policy preferences, rural Americans are also particularly relevant to the fate of environmental policy. Farmers, ranchers, and forest landowners manage huge portions of American lands and watersheds and are important stakeholders in the implementation of environmental policies. Despite this, the environmental policy preferences of rural Americans have received little attention from the research community. This study fills a gap in the literature by investigating how collective identities among rural Americans drive environmental policy preferences. Through eight focus groups and thirty-five interviews with rural voters across America (total n=105), this study explores how four components of rural American identity—connection to nature, resentment/disenfranchisement, rootedness, and self-reliance—inform specific rural perspectives on environmental policy. The findings have implications for how to best design, communicate, and implement environmental policies in a way that can better engage rural Americans on this issue.

Late middle Miocene caviomorph rodents from Tarapoto, Peruvian Amazonia

Miocene deposits of South America have yielded several species-rich assemblages of caviomorph rodents. They are mostly situated at high and mid- latitudes of the continent, except for the exceptional Honda Group of La Venta, Colombia, the faunal composition of which allowed to describe the late middle Miocene Laventan South American Land Mammal Age (SALMA). In this paper, we describe a new caviomorph assemblage from TAR-31 locality, recently discovered near Tarapoto in Peruvian Amazonia (San Martín Department). Based on mammalian biostratigraphy, this single-phased locality is unambiguously considered to fall within the Laventan SALMA. TAR-31 yielded rodent species found in La Venta, such as the octodontoid Ricardomys longidens Walton, 1990 (nom. nud.), the chinchilloids Microscleromys paradoxalis Walton, 1990 (nom. nud.) and M. cribriphilus Walton, 1990 (nom. nud.), or closely-related taxa. Given these strong taxonomic affinities, we further seize the opportunity to review the rodent dental material from La Venta described in the Ph.D. volume of Walton in 1990 but referred to as nomina nuda. Here we validate the recognition of these former taxa and provide their formal description. TAR-31 documents nine distinct rodent species documenting the four extant superfamilies of Caviomorpha, including a new erethizontoid: Nuyuyomys chinqaska gen. et sp. nov. These fossils document the most diverse caviomorph fauna for the middle Miocene interval of Peruvian Amazonia to date. This rodent discovery from Peru extends the geographical ranges of Ricardomys longidens, Microscleromys paradoxalis, and M. cribriphilus, 1,100 km to the south. Only one postcranial element of rodent was unearthed in TAR-31 (astragalus). This tiny tarsal bone most likely documents one of the two species of Microscleromys and its morphology indicates terrestrial generalist adaptations for this minute chinchilloid.

Troposphere‐Mesosphere Coupling by Convectively Forced Gravity Waves During Southern Hemisphere Monsoon Season as Viewed by AIM/CIPS

AbstractA new data set consisting of Rayleigh Albedo Anomaly variance data resulting from measurements by the Cloud Imaging and Particle Size instrument on the Aeronomy for Ice in the Mesosphere satellite is introduced, and is used to illustrate the lower‐mesospheric (50–55 km) gravity wave (GW) response to tropospheric convection during Southern Hemisphere monsoon season (December‐February). The correspond to GWs with vertical wavelengths 15 km and horizontal wavelengths between about 23 and 600 km. It is shown that these scales encompass most of the convectively generated GW spectrum at 50–55 km altitude due to both plume overshoot and diabatic heating, and include those GWs most likely to impact the overlying ionosphere‐thermosphere‐mesosphere system. The GWs originate from convective sources associated with the African and South American land masses, the maritime continent/Australia, and the South Pacific Convergence Zone. The regions of enhanced convection are identified according to half‐hourly rainfall rate (RR) distributions from the Global Precipitation Measurement mission. The GW exhibits spatial, inter‐monthly, and inter‐annual variabilities connected with RR and propagation conditions. A ∼ southward shift of longitudinal structures in with respect to RR longitudinal structures is interpreted in terms of wave focusing toward the middle atmosphere summer easterly jet core. For the South American Monsoon System, a linear regression analysis shows variability to be expressible in terms of upper‐stratosphere zonal wind speeds (correlation coefficient R = −0.91) with magnitude of RR playing a much lesser role (R = 0.16).

Small Colubroids from the Late Hemphillian Gray Fossil Site of Northeastern Tennessee

The Gray Fossil Site is a rich Hemphillian (North American Land Mammal Age) locality in northeastern Tennessee, USA, and has produced tens of thousands of fossils of multiple taxa including hundreds of individual snake skeletal remains. One of only five sites of similar age east of the Mississippi River, the Gray Fossil Site is crucial to our understanding of snake evolution and diversity. Microfauna were collected by screenwashing sediment and picking under a microscope. Specimens were identified using a suite of measurements and characters. Analyzed here are vertebral fossils identified as belonging to various colubrid taxa including Worm Snakes (Carphophis sp.), Ring-Necked Snakes (Diadophis sp.), Hook-Nosed Snakes (Gyalopion sp.), and Hognose Snakes (Heterodon meadi sp. nov.). Carphophis sp. and Gyalopion sp. represent first occurrences in the Mio-Pliocene and dramatically extend their temporal range from the Pleistocene. The four snakes, including one new species, are in accordance with the previously identified taxa by Jasinski and Moscato (2017; Journal of Herpetology 5:245–257), represent a modern assemblage of advanced snakes by the Mio-Pliocene and support a forested environment in northeastern Tennessee.

Including Condition into Ecological Maps Changes Everything—A Study of Ecological Condition in the Conterminous United States

In 2021, the Biden administration signed an executive order to protect 30% of American lands by 2030. Accomplishing this ambitious goal in the U.S. requires understanding the relative contribution of public and private lands toward supporting biodiversity. New approaches are needed because existing approaches focus on quantity of habitat without incorporating quality. To fill this need, we developed a 30 m resolution national habitat condition index (HCI) that integrates quality and quantity measures of habitat. We hypothesized that including an evaluation of the quality of habitat at landscape scales, both in conservation-focused preserves and working lands would provide a better assessment of the value of geographies for conservation. We divided the conterminous U.S. by major land cover type and into natural and cultivated lands and then spatially mapped multiple anthropogenic stressors, proximity to aquatic habitat, and vegetation departure from expected natural disturbance regimes. Each map layer was then scored for site impact and distance decay and combined into a final national index. Field observations providing scored relative ecological conditions were used for HCI calibration and validation at both CONUS and regional scales. Finally, we evaluate lands by management (conservation versus working lands) and ownership (public versus private) testing the value of these lands for conservation. While we found regional differences across CONUS, functional habitat was largely independent of protection status: working lands provide clear habitat and other values. These results are relevant for guiding strategies to achieve the U.S. 30 by 30 goals. Where similar data exist in other countries, analogous modeling could be used to meet their national conservation commitments.

Geometric morphometrics and anatomical network analyses reveal ecospace partitioning among geoemydid turtles from the Uinta Formation, Utah.

We present new fossil records of the geoemydid turtle Bridgeremys pusilla from the Uinta Formation of Utah. Turtles are abundant throughout the unit, and known taxa are similar to those from the older strata in the Upper Green River Basin in Wyoming from the Bridger and Washakie Formations. B. pusilla is known from Bridgerian deposits but was not previously known from after the Turtle Bluff Member of the Bridger Formation. The taxon was coveal with two species of the geoemydid Echmatemys (E. callopyge and E. wyomingensis), a common genus of extinct pond turtles known primarily from lacustrine and fluvial deposits in western North America, including the Uinta Basin. In addition to previously documented morphological differences, our geometric morphometric analyses revealed significant differences in epiplastral morphology between B. pusilla and the two coeval Echmatemys species. Bridgeremys pusilla shared several morphological characters with Testudinidae. However, our anatomical network analysis suggests that the carapace of B. pusilla distributed stress forces in a manner more similar to emydids (basal and derived) than to derived testudinoids (Testudinidae and Emydidae), including Echmatemys species. This finding changes our understanding of the ecology of the species and sheds light onto how geoemydid turtles of the Uinta Formation may have partitioned the available ecospace. These new Uintan records extend the geographic range of B. pusilla into the Uinta Basin and stratigraphically through the top of the Uinta Formation, extending the temporal range of the taxon by more than 4 million years through the Uintan North American Land Mammal Age to the base of the Duchesne River Formation.

Impact of merging of historical and future climate data sets on land carbon cycle projections for South America

AbstractEarth System Models (ESMs) project climate change, but they often contain biases in their estimates of contemporary climate that propagate into simulated futures. Land models translate climate projections into surface impacts, but these will be inaccurate if ESMs have substantial errors. Bias concerns are relevant for terrestrial physiological processes which often respond non‐linearly (i.e. contain threshold responses) and are therefore sensitive to absolute environmental conditions as well as changes. We bias‐correct the UK Met Office ESM, HadGEM2‐ES, against the CRU–JRA observation‐based gridded estimates of recent climate. We apply the derived bias corrections to future projections by HadGEM2‐ES for the RCP8.5 scenario of future greenhouse gas concentrations. Focusing on South America, the bias correction includes adjusting for ESM estimates that, annually, are approximately 1 degree too cold, for comparison against 21st Century warming of around 4 degrees. Locally, these values can be much higher. The ESM is also too wet on average, by approximately 1 mm·day−1, which is substantially larger than the mean predicted change. The corrected climate fields force the Joint UK Land Environment Simulator (JULES) dynamic global vegetation model to estimate land surface changes, with an emphasis on the carbon cycle. Results show land carbon sink reductions across South America, and in some locations, the net land–atmosphere CO2 flux becomes a source to the atmosphere by the end of this century. Transitions to a CO2 source is where increases in plant net primary productivity are offset by larger enhancements in soil respiration. Bias‐corrected simulations estimate the rise in South American land carbon stocks between pre‐industrial times and the end of the 2080s is ∼12 GtC lower than that without climate bias removal, demonstrating the importance of merging historical observational meteorological forcing with ESM diagnostics. We present evidence for a substantial climate‐induced role of greater soil decomposition in the fate of the Amazon carbon sink.

Ensemble stationary-based support vector regression for drought prediction under changing climate

Non-stationarity due to climate change and/or variability can reduce the capabilities of drought prediction models. The objective of this study is to improve drought prediction by eliminating non-stationarity from temperature time series, a key factor in development and propagation of droughts in a changing climate. In order to relax the assumption of stationarity, an ensemble stationary-based support vector regression (ESSVR) method was developed and compared with the traditional support vector regression (SVR). Three types of drought indices in three time scales (monthly, seasonal, and semiannual), including multivariate, bivariate standardized drought indices, and univariate standardized drought indices were used as the target variables. In an application to the Red River of the North Basin (RRB), the North American Land Data Assimilation System (NLDAS) data from 1979 to 2016 were used for the training and testing of the prediction model. The Pearson correlation, root mean square error (RMSE), and Taylor diagram were used to evaluate the performances of the ESSVR. Remarkably, the distribution of identified change points varies by climate divisions. The results of the SVR and ESSVR in the RRB were compared, demonstrating the better performances of the ESSVR for most of the drought indices, particularly those with higher sensitivity to temperature. It was found that the extreme (high and low) values of hyperparameters mostly assigned by SVR cause a higher risk of overfitting for SVR. In contrast, ESSVR improves the drought prediction by removing the non-stationarity, thus providing more accurate drought predictions, especially for a warming climate.

Triangulating Labor, Capital, and Land: Italian Emigrant Colonization in Latin America and the Contradictions of US Hegemony, 1947–1953

In the aftermath of World War II, Italy’s centrist leaders saw in the emerging US empire an opportunity to implement emigration schemes that had been in circulation for decades. Hundreds of thousands of Italian peasant farmers could perhaps be able to settle on Latin American and African land thanks to the contribution of US capital. This article examines the Italian elites’ obsession with rural colonization abroad as the product of their desire to valorize the legacy of Italy's settler colonialism in Libya and thereby reinvent Italy's place in the world in the aftermath of military defeat and decolonization. Despite the deep ambivalence of US officials, Italy received Marshall Plan funds to carry out experimental settlements in several Latin American countries. These visions of rural settlement also built on the nascent discourses about the ‘development’ of non-western areas. Despite the limited size and success of the Italian rural ‘colonies’ in Latin America, these projects afford a window into the politics of decolonization, the character of US hegemony at the height of the Cold War, and the evolving attitude of Latin American governments towards immigration and rural development. They also reveal the contradictory relationships between Italy's leaders and the country's rural masses, viewed as redundant and yet precious elements to be deployed in a global geopolitical game.

Magnetostratigraphy of lower Paleocene strata in the Ferris Formation, Hanna Basin, Wyoming, with refined resolution of the Pu1–Pu2 interval-zone boundary of the Puercan North American Land Mammal Age

ABSTRACT Recent studies of early Paleocene stratigraphic sections across the U.S. Western Interior are refining our understanding of the biotic recovery in the aftermath of the Cretaceous–Paleogene (K–Pg) mass extinction event. Herein we present magnetostratigraphic data from an approximately 600-m-thick section of strata of the Ferris Formation in the Hanna Basin, south-central Wyoming, that spans the K–Pg boundary and includes in conformable superposition the three subdivisions of the earliest Paleocene Puercan North American Land Mammal Age: interval zones Pu1, Pu2, and Pu3. Prior studies on early Paleocene stratigraphic sections in Montana to the north of Hanna Basin and in Colorado and New Mexico to the south have been only marginally successful in defining the temporal boundaries of these divisions. This earlier work typically restricted Pu1 entirely within reversed magnetochron C29r, Pu2 entirely within normal magnetochron C29n, and at least the early part of Pu3 in C29n, as well. Results of the present study confirm what has been only tentatively suggested previously: that interval zone Pu2 begins in the youngest part of C29r, with later Pu2 fauna extending into C29n. Although Pu3 is known to begin in C29n, its younger limit remains unknown in our Hanna Basin section, because the top of the local Puercan is well above the stratigraphic level of our sampling for this project. We estimate a date for the Pu1–Pu2 boundary in the Hanna Basin section of approximately 65.82 Ma—nearly 70 k.y. earlier than prior estimates. This boundary marks the transition from the Pu1 survival fauna to later phases of the mammalian recovery characterized by a significant increase in diversity, appearance of considerably larger-bodied mammals, and greater dental and dietary specializations.

The need for a portfolio of solutions rooted in common messaging to facilitate negative emissions science

The need for a portfolio of solutions rooted in common messaging to facilitate negative emissions science

Can Weather Help Explain 'Why Now?': The Potential Role of Hourly Temperature as a Stroke Trigger

BACKGROUND AND AIM: While evidence suggests that daily ambient temperature exposure influences stroke risk, little is known about the potential triggering role of hourly temperature exposure. We examined the association between hourly temperature and ischemic and hemorrhagic stroke, separately, and assessed effect modification by hypertension in a secondary analysis. METHODS: We identified primary hospitalizations for ischemic and hemorrhagic stroke among New York State adults, 2000—2015, from the NY Department of Health Statewide Planning and Research Cooperative System, via ICD-9-CM codes. We estimated hourly temperature exposure from North American Land Data Assimilation System-2 estimates based on subject's residential ZIP Code. We conducted a case-crossover study with time-stratified matching. The association between temperature up to 36 hours prior to stroke and stroke risk was estimated via conditional logistic regression adjusted for relative humidity, with a distributed-lag non-linear term for temperature. We assessed effect modification via z-tests. RESULTS:Among ischemic and hemorrhagic strokes respectively, we observed 578,572 and 164,041 cases; the mean (standard deviation; SD) age was 71.7 (14.6) and 66.7 (17.5) years, with 55% and 49% female. The mean (SD) temperature was 10.9°C (10.3°C), with a range of -29.5–39.2°C. We found evidence of linear exposure-response relationships. Higher temperature was associated with ischemic stroke up to seven hours before the stroke; a 10°C temperature increase over seven hours was associated with 4.9% (95% Confidence Interval [CI]: 3.2, 6.2%) increase in hourly stroke rate. Temperature up to five hours prior was negatively associated with hemorrhagic stroke, with a five-hour cumulative association of -6.0% (95% CI: -8.4, -3.5%). For hemorrhagic stroke we observed suggestive evidence of a larger association among subjects with hypertension. CONCLUSIONS:In this study, hourly temperature was positively associated with ischemic stroke and negatively associated with hemorrhagic stroke. Our results suggest that ultra short-term weather may trigger stroke, and that hypertension may confer vulnerability. KEYWORDS: Climate, Temperature, Cardiovascular Disease,

Heat Waves and Road Traffic Collisions in Alabama, United States

The effects of heat waves on traffic collisions require investigation to improve traffic safety during extreme heat events. A time-stratified case-crossover design was used to examine associations between heat waves and traffic collisions in Alabama between May and September from 2009 to 2018. We derived a heat wave index, defined as the daily mean temperature greater than the 95th percentile for two or more consecutive days, by meteorological data from Phase 2 of the North American Land Data Assimilation System. We obtained traffic collision records from the Alabama Department of Transportation. A nonsignificant and negative association between traffic collisions and heat waves was noted, with a 1.4 percent decrease (95 percent confidence interval [CI] [−3.1 percent, 0.4 percent]) in traffic collisions on heat wave days compared to non–heat wave days. Similar results were found when the analysis was stratified by driver-related factors (i.e., gender, age, race, employment status, and driver residence distances), vehicle-related factors (i.e., vehicle usage), and collision-related factors (i.e., rural or urban roads, speed limits, and intersections). A significant and positive association was observed on heat wave days without precipitation, however (23.5 percent increase; 95 percent CI [7.3 percent, 42.3 percent]). In conclusion, traffic collisions were not associated with heat waves in many collision-related conditions in Alabama.

Isaac Lea's (1792–1886) Substitutions and Other Modifications of His Own Names of Molluscan Species

The American conchologist Isaac Lea had a long and productive career during which he introduced more than 1,800 names of molluscan species between 1827 and 1874, the majority North American land and freshwater species. His idiosyncratic way of publishing, by describing new taxa multiple times in duplicated and variously modified journal papers as well as in retitled collections of extracts, has led to considerable difficulties in determining accurate dates of his original descriptions. He considered the reading and presentation of a manuscript before a “learned society” as the date of its original publication and therefore his own recorded dates must be approached with caution. The problem of interpreting Lea's names was compounded by the fact that Lea frequently modified his own new taxonomic names in his subsequent publications, and often without providing justification for the change. The various name versions were inconsistently applied by subsequent authors. The current paper analyses Lea's substitutions and other modifications of his own names of molluscan species and discusses 131 of his publications in this context, for which attempts at precise dating were made. The status of these “replacements” of Lea's taxonomic names were evaluated under the current ICZN Code (1999). A few additional cases of changes of Lea's names by other authors are included; these are instances in which Lea had missed a primary homonym or a secondary homonym was discovered later. While some of the names here discussed are currently resting in synonymy, others are of greater current relevance as they are in use as valid names for taxa of conservation/management concern, including IUCN and U.S.-federally listed species. The following 98 discussions of often-complex name changes involve 348 species-group names and their subsequent spellings, 231 of which were introduced by Lea. Based on their current taxonomic status, the names belong to 4 bivalve and 11 gastropod families, with the vast majority concentrated in Unionidae and Pleuroceridae. Under the current ICZN Code, the investigated changes fall into many different categories, which impacts their nomenclatural availability: 35 names changed by Lea (plus 6 by other authors) are interpreted as substitute names for junior primary homonyms, 7 of which were unnecessary; 1 name (plus 6 by others) as substitute names for junior secondary homonyms, 1 of which was unnecessary; 13 names as justified emendations; 10 names (plus 1 by another) as unjustified emendations that have not entered prevailing usage; 1 name determined by his first reviser action; 37 names (plus many by others) as incorrect subsequent spellings that are not in prevailing usage; and 1 incorrect subsequent spelling that is shown to be in prevailing usage and thus considered a correct original spelling. The concept of “prevailing usage,” ill-defined under the current (1999) ICZN Code, is addressed in this context. The following names in current use are corrected as follows: Helix balasteriana I. Lea, 1840 (taxon inquirendum, ?Dyakiidae), Lioplax cyclostomatiformis (I. Lea, 1844), Diplodon demararaensis (I. Lea, 1859), Iheringella isocardiodes I. Lea, 1856, Dilatata brongniartiana (I. Lea, 1843), Elliptio nasutidus (I. Lea, 1863), Elliptio pullata (I. Lea, 1857), Pleurocera picta (I. Lea, 1841) [instead of P. curta (Haldeman, 1841), which is preoccupied] and Beringiana youconensis (I. Lea, 1847); many others are confirmed in their recently applied spellings. This work serves as an example that the basic endeavor of summarizing available and valid names from the published literature is not always a straightforward task.

Racism as Delusion: A Buddhist Perspective

The powerful novel Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko combines several uncomfortable truths from the perspective of a young Native American who has returned home after World War II: the theft of Native American land, the manipulations that set poor whites against poor Indians (among others) and the effects of these lies on the hearts of white people, who tried and still try to fill up their hollowness with money, technology and patriotic war. However, as Silko emphasizes, the lies do not work. Not only have we white folk been fooling ourselves, but we also know that we have been fooling ourselves, and the consequences of our self-deceptions continue to haunt all of us. This essay is an attempt to say more about how that collective delusion functions—in particular, to understand the emptiness that patriotism never quite fills up, the hollowness that wealth and consumerism cannot glut. In order to do this, I will offer a (not “the”) Buddhist perspective, so we begin with some basic Buddhist teachings, which are quite different from the Abrahamic (Jewish, Christian, Muslim) traditions more familiar to most of us.

A Cloud Native Machine Learning based Approach for Detection and Impact of Cyclone and Hurricanes on Coastal Areas of Pacific and Atlantic Ocean

Tropical Storms are one of the most dangerous natural disasters known to man. The concept of predicting these has been around for as long as they have existed. Improvements are made to reduce the error using newer techniques or better processes. In this research paper, we are trying to predict the occurrence of storms from the Pacific and the Atlantic Oceans on American land. The data is used to train various machine learning models and comparison is drawn between them to conclude the best for our application. The results are then shown on a map to get a visual representation using the folium library. The entire project is also deployed using Microsoft Machine Learning Azure to help with deployment over the web service. This paper hopes to present a system that accurately predicts and efficiently presents everything regarding the real-time occurrence of hurricanes and typhoons.

Mapping Soil Properties to Advance the State of Spatial Soil Information for Greater Food Security on US Tribal Lands

Knowledge, data, and understanding of soils is key for advancing agriculture and society. There is currently a critical need for sustainable soil management tools for enhanced food security on Native American Tribal Lands. Tribal Reservations have basic soil information and limited access to conservation programs provided to other U.S producers. The objective of this study was to create first ever high-resolution digital soil property maps of Quapaw Tribal Lands with limited data for sustainable soil resource management. We used a digital soil mapping (DSM) approach based on fuzzy logic to model the spatial distribution of 24 soil properties at 0–15 and 15–30 cm depths. A digital elevation model with 3 m resolution was used to derive terrain variables and a total of 28 samples were collected at 0–30 cm over the 22,880-ha reservation. Additionally, soil property maps were derived from Gridded Soil Survey Geographic Database (gSSURGO) for comparison. When comparing properties modeled by DSM to those derived from gSSURGO, DSM resulted in lower root mean squared error (RMSE) for percent clay and sand at 0–15 cm, and cation exchange capacity, percent clay, and pH at 15–30 cm. Conversely, gSSURGO-derived maps resulted in lower RMSE for cation exchange capacity, pH, and percent silt at the 0–15 cm depth, and percent sand and silt at the 15–30 cm depth. Although, some of the soil properties derived from gSSURGO had lower RMSE, spatial soil property patterns modeled by DSM were in better agreement with the topographic complexity and expected soil-landscape relationships. The proposed DSM approach developed property maps at high-resolution, which sets the baseline for production of new spatial soil information for Quapaw Tribal soils. It is expected that these maps and future versions will be useful for soil, crop, and land-use decisions at the farm and Tribal-level for increased agricultural productivity and economic development. Overall, this study provides a framework for developing DSM on Tribal Lands for improving the accuracy and detail of soil property maps (relative to off the shelf products such as SSURGO) that better represents soil-forming environments and the spatial variability of soil properties on Tribal Lands.

Becoming Patriots: The Struggle for Inclusion and Exclusion on Pennsylvania’s Revolutionary Frontier

Abstract This article explores the American Revolution on the Pennsylvania frontier by examining the creation of an extralegal government of “Fair Play” squatters on Native American land near the northwest branch of the Susquehanna River. It also studies their efforts to legitimize themselves and their claims through attachment to the “Common Cause.” The motivation of squatters to mobilize support for the American Revolution was directly related to a prolonged conflict between themselves, Native Americans, speculators, and colonial and imperial officials over land and power. Moreover, “Fair Play” squatters used their dedication to the Revolutionary War to cast the defense of their illegal claims, the extralegal government they created, and their violence against Native Americans as a patriotic duty. This proved a successful tactic to include their community and its ideals into an emerging republican state.