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Materials discovery is increasingly being impelled by machine learning methods that rely on pre-existing datasets. Where datasets are lacking, unbiased data generation can be achieved with genetic algorithms. Here a machine learning model is trained on-the-fly as a computationally inexpensive energy predictor before analyzing how to augment convergence in genetic algorithm-based approaches by using the model as a surrogate. This leads to a machine learning accelerated genetic algorithm combining robust qualities of the genetic algorithm with rapid machine learning. The approach is used to search for stable, compositionally variant, geometrically similar nanoparticle alloys to illustrate its capability for accelerated materials discovery, e.g., nanoalloy catalysts. The machine learning accelerated approach, in this case, yields a 50-fold reduction in the number of required energy calculations compared to a traditional “brute force” genetic algorithm. This makes searching through the space of all homotops and compositions of a binary alloy particle in a given structure feasible, using density functional theory calculations.

يعرض المؤلف وجهة نظره تسود لغة نثرية علمية جافة تذكر بلغة ديودوروس الصقلي أو ديونيسيوس الغاليكارناسي، إن القيمة التاريخية الخالدة لهذا الجغرافي العظيم لا تقتصر على ما نقله إلينا عن منظومات إراتوسفين، وهيبارخ، وبوسيدونيوس، بل تمتد لتشمل عالما كاملا كشف لنا عنه، وكان يمكن أن يبقى بالنسبة إلينا عالما غامضا ومبهما.

Climate change has heightened the importance of land management practices that restore ecosystem health and deliver environmental, social, and economic benefits. Fuel treatments have emerged as one such practice, designed to reduce wildfire risk and restore ecosystem function in semiarid and pine-dominated systems that historically experienced low-severity fire. Despite ambitious commitments, such as the U.S. Forest Service’s plan to treat 50 million acres in high-risk landscapes over the next decade, rigorous evidence on their cost-effectiveness remains limited. Evaluating fuel treatments and understanding under which conditions they are cost-effective has been difficult due to data limitations and causal identification challenges. This dissertation addresses this gap by designing empirical frameworks that combine quasi-experimental methods with high-resolution spatial data to evaluate fuel treatment impacts across multiple outcomes, including suppression costs, property loss, smoke emissions, fire spread, and burn severity.Chapter 1 investigates the fundamental question of whether fuel treatments are cost-effective. Focusing on the Pacific Northwest, I leverage variation from Northern Spotted Owl habitat protections—which unintentionally restricted treatment activity—as an instrument to estimate fuel treatments’ causal impact on wildfire suppression costs. I find that each dollar spent on treatments saved an estimated four to seven dollars in suppression expenditures, highlighting the potential for policy reforms that maintain conservation objectives while generating substantial economic savings.Building on this foundation, Chapter 2 asks which types of treatments are most effective in reducing damages from wildfires, such as property loss and smoke emissions. Using high-resolution spatial data from 2017–2023 across the Western United States and a spatial difference-in-differences design, I estimate that treatments avoided $2.7 billion in damages, yielding a benefit–cost ratio of $3.42. Large-scale treatments and prescribed burns provide the greatest returns, underscoring how both treatment type and scale influence overall cost-effectiveness.Chapter 3 returns to the Pacific Northwest to assess the impact of environmental regulatory reforms on treatment activity and their subsequent impacts on suppression costs and wildfire damages. Specifically, I evaluate the 2011 Revised Recovery Plan for the Northern Spotted Owl, which relaxed restrictions on fuel treatments in protected habitat. I find that the policy increased treatment activity by roughly 91,000 acres and generated over $1 billion in economic benefits, largely through avoided suppression costs. Ecological gains, however, were modest, with limited reductions in burn severity within Northern Spotted Owl habitat and old-growth forest.Taken together, this dissertation demonstrates that fuel treatments are a cost-effective tool for mitigating wildfire risk, with effectiveness varying by treatment type, size, region, and regulatory context. The empirical frameworks developed here can be applied in future evaluations to strengthen policy and improve project design. More broadly, the findings highlight persistent regulatory and capacity constraints within U.S. land agencies, underscoring both the promise and the limitations of policy reforms aimed at promoting proactive forest management that advances wildfire mitigation and species conservation goals.

Presents the biography of the books’ author, a Greek geologist, philosopher, and historian living in Asia Minor. Describes the subjects of geology, origin of the world, Alexander’s journey, Mediterranean history, Before Christ history, women’s history, and modern knowledge in both Greek and English.

Schistosoma haematobium infection is reported to facilitate the development of urogenital diseases. Its symptoms include haematuria, dysuria and tiredness, and it may cause cognitive decline in children. The prevalence of S. haematobium infection needs to be known in endemic areas and a mass treatment programme against the disease implemented. The aim of this study was to investigate the prevalence and intensity of S. haematobium infection in ILembe and uThungulu health districts, using the major symptom, haematuria, as an indicator. A total of 6 265 urine samples, from 96 rural schools, was collected for analysis using dipsticks. The prevalence of haematuria in the ILembe health district was 37% (95% CI, 35-39%) for boys and 39% (95% CI, 37-41%)for girls. The prevalence of haematuria in the uThungulu health district was 56% (95% CI, 53-59%) and 53% (95% CI, 50-56%) for girls and boys, respectively. Light-intensity infection was the most common infection level in both health districts. A negative relationship was observed between prevalence and altitude (r = −0.262, p = 0.009); whereas, we found a slight, though significant, positive association with mid-summer temperatures (r = 0.234, p = 0.021). Associations between prevalence and distance of school to the nearest river were non-significant.

\"Written in the first century AD, Strabo's Geographica tells us just about everything one could know about the ancient world of his day. We find instructions on how to tame elephants, information on the production of asphalt, how saffron is collected, the treatment of the aged, the practice of yoga, the lineage of obscure eastern dynasties, religious festivals, prostitution, volcanic activity - to name but a few of the topics his great work expounds upon. From his home in what is now Turkey, Strabo travelled around the Mediterranean describing the locations he visited and those he passed through. Some of the information in his great work is derived from his own travels, but most of it is the product of his reading and research. So, it is not merely a travelogue or guidebook; but rather, an intellectual journey through ancient places and the literature of antiquity, which implicitly asks: \"Who are we?\" and, \"Where do we come from?\" His answer involves a detailed description of the first century world he thought his readers should know. In this new modern translation of the complete work, translator Sarah Pothecary renders Strabo's Geographica as an invaluable resource for anyone interested in how the world today came into being. The main obstacle for readers has always been how to approach what, at first sight, is a daunting work of 300,000 words. Even when translated from ancient Greek into English, Strabo's narrative has come across as sprawling and difficult to navigate. Ancient names for modern places used by Strabo sound naturally unfamiliar to contemporary readers, making it seem as if the world he describes is remote from our own, in terms of place as well as time. Pothecary's translation addresses these problems by orientating the reader within the twenty-first century world. As she progresses through the narrative, the reader will be able to locate where he is in the modern world, as well as in the ancient world. By doing so, this book mimics what Strabo was doing two thousand years ago - relating the rapidly changing \"present\" of his readers to their own \"ancient\" past. The questions of identity and origin that underlie his work are as relevant today as two thousand years ago. It is time, Pothecary argues, the modern world got to know Strabo better\"-- Provided by publisher.

Schistosoma haematobium infection is reported to facilitate the development of urogenital diseases. Its symptoms include haematuria, dysuria and tiredness, and it may cause cognitive decline in children. The prevalence of S. haematobium infection needs to be known in endemic areas and a mass treatment programme against the disease implemented. The aim of this study was to investigate the prevalence and intensity of S. haematobium infection in ILembe and uThungulu health districts, using the major symptom, haematuria, as an indicator. A total of 6 265 urine samples, from 96 rural schools, was collected for analysis using dipsticks. The prevalence of haematuria in the ILembe health district was 37% (95% CI, 35–39%) for boys and 39% (95% CI, 37–41%) for girls. The prevalence of haematuria in the uThungulu health district was 56% (95% CI, 53– 59%) and 53% (95% CI, 50–56%) for girls and boys, respectively. Light-intensity infection was the most common infection level in both health districts. A negative relationship was observed between prevalence and altitude (r = −0.262, p = 0.009); whereas, we found a slight, though significant, positive association with mid-summer temperatures (r = 0.234, p = 0.021). Associations between prevalence and distance of school to the nearest river were non-significant.

Variation and inheritance of anther extrusion and its effects on Fusarium head blight were studied. On a 0 to 9 scale, variation ranged from 1 to 6 in a North American oat panel and from 0 to 8 in a Nordic population. The inheritance was studied in two recombinant inbred line populations (Fiia × Stormogul and Svea × Stormogul). Fiia and Svea are recent white-seeded cultivars with low to medium anther extrusion, while Stormogul is an old black-seeded cultivar with high anther extrusion. Highly significant transgressive segregations and high heritabilities were observed (h2 = 0.91 in Fiia × Stormogul and h2 = 0.83 in Svea × Stormogul). Another extrusion was negatively correlated with Fusarium head blight and deoxynivalenol in spawn-inoculated field experiments, but significantly only in Fiia × Stormogul where the range in resistance was widest. Correlations were reversed in spray-inoculated greenhouse experiments, apparently spraying open florets defeated the avoidance mechanism. Anther extrusion may help oat avoid Fusarium infection in the field, but the genetic variance is inadequate and high anther extrusion is rare in modern genepools.