We present an analysis of a comment network in the Kuwaiti blogging community during the two weeks in January 2006 surrounding the death of Kuwait’s Emir Sheikh Jaber Al-Ahmed Al-Sabah. We find a rise in commenting activity corresponding to this event, and use a tag cloud to visualize and analyze this topic and others in the blog posts being commented on. We also present an analysis of the Kuwa...

A predictive, coastal erosion/shoreline change model has been developed for a small coastal segment near Drew Point, Beaufort Sea, Alaska. This coastal setting has experienced a dramatic increase in erosion since the early 2000’s. The bluffs at this site are 3–4 m tall and consist of ice-wedge bounded blocks of fine-grained sediments cemented by ice-rich permafrost and capped with a thin organi...

An inventory was conducted to assess the number, type, spatial distribution, and costs of microbiological monitoring programs in southern California marine waters from Point Conception to the US/Mexico International Border. The location of each sampling site was determined using global positioning system (GPS), and estimates of geographic coverage were determined using geographic information sy...

Atoll islands are subject to a variety of processes that influence their geomorphological development. Analysis of historical shoreline changes using remotely sensed images has become an efficient approach to both quantify past changes and estimate future island response. However, the detection of long-term changes in beach width is challenging mainly for two reasons: first, data availability i...

In coastal environments, the supratidal zone bridges marine and terrestrial ecosystems and is important for energy exchange. However, it is also subject to extensive anthropogenic disturbance, such as armoring of shorelines. Shoreline armoring is extensive along many coasts, but the impacts on biota are comparatively unknown. Between 2000 and 2002, paired and synoptic sampling regimes were empl...

Salt marshes play a critical role in the ecology and geology of wave-protected shorelines in the Western Atlantic, but as many as 80% of the marshes that once occurred in New England have already been lost to human development. Here we present data that suggest that the remaining salt marshes in southern New England are being rapidly degraded by shoreline development and eutrophication. On the ...

A method for shoreline extraction from integrated LiDAR point cloud data and aerial orthophotos is presented. First, a Mean Shift Algorithm is used for LiDAR point segmentation. The horizontal position and elevation of the LiDAR point plus color information obtained from the corresponding orthophoto are used as the point features in the Mean Shift Algorithm. Due to the homogenous nature of the ...

More than 2 y have passed since the BP-Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, yet we still have little understanding of its ecological impacts. Examining effects of this oil spill will generate much-needed insight into how shoreline habitats and the valuable ecological services they provide (e.g., shoreline protection) are affected by and recover from large-scale disturbance. Here w...

The horizontal, shore-perpendicular change in shoreline position along the Outer Banks of North Carolina is found to be a self-affine signal. We measure shoreline change by determining the horizontal change in position of the 0.8-m contour sampled from shore-perpendicular profiles spaced at 20-m intervals along the coast. The profiles are obtained from two light detection and ranging surveys pe...

A national epidemiological survey of children aged 5-14 years was conducted in all 5 governorates of Kuwait in 2001 to determine the oral hygiene status of Kuwait in schoolchildren. Clinical examinations were carried out by calibrated dentists according to World Health Organization criteria. The debris index simplified (DI-S) score was used to assess oral hygiene status. Of the 3294 children, 3...