Close-range sensors are employed to observe glaciological processes that operate over short timescales (e.g. iceberg calving, glacial lake outburst floods, diurnal surface melting). However, under poor weather conditions optical instruments fail while the operation of radar systems below 17 GHz do not have sufficient angular resolution to map glacier surfaces in detail. This letter reviews the potential of millimetre-wave radar at 94 GHz to obtain high-resolution 3-D measurements of glaciers under most weather conditions. We discuss the theory of 94 GHz radar for glaciology studies, demonstrate its potential to map a glacier calving front and summarise future research priorities.

The subaqueous margins of calving glaciers have the potential to make significant contributions to glacier mass loss. However, to date, very little is known about the morphology and development of subaqueous margins. A unique combination of sub-bottom profile and bathymetric data collected between 2008 and 2010 in proglacial lakes at Mueller, Hooker and Tasman glaciers in New Zealand’s Southern Alps reveal subaqueous ice ramps extending up to 510 m from the terminus of each glacier. Ice ramp surfaces are undulating and covered with a thick layer (up to 10 m) of unsorted sediment derived from supraglacial and englacial debris, lateral moraines and deltaic deposits. A cyclic calving pattern, relatively stable lake level and the debris cover appear to control the development and maintenance of these ice ramps. High subaerial retreat rates generally correspond to high subaqueous calving rates, although the highest subaerial retreat rates are not associated with the largest ice ramp. Debris mantling the subaqueous ice ramp surfaces insulates the ice from melting and also reduces buoyant forces acting on the terminus. Comparisons with previous studies show that the ice ramps evolve over time with changes in glacier dynamics and water-body properties.

Use of irrigation has been increasing rapidly in the Southeast. For example, irrigated acreage in Georgia increased by 20 percent in 1980, to 0.988 million acres (Skinner, 1981), and increased 16.5 percent in the previous year (Skinner, 1980). Research has been completed on the costs and profits of irrigated crops (Tew and Musser).

This article examines the role played by local councillors in constructing new housing in Scotland during the inter-war period. Rather than view local authorities as simply the objective agency of central government's ambitions to construct council houses, we argue that the self-interest and motivations of councillors have to be recognized as significant factors in this process. It is argued also that the concerns of private landlords were neither ignored nor sacrificed in the rush to build new housing. Rather, given that councils remained dominated by local business men, many of whom were private landlords, councillors acted in ways to protect their own material and class interests. In so doing, they consciously, if implicitly, shaped the social geography of twentieth-century Scotland.

A survey of Scottish psychiatric rehabilitation and support services, carried out in 1983 (McCreadie et al, 1985), found that although there were wide between-hospital differences, the National Health Service in Scotland was making considerable efforts to provide services for the long-term mentally ill. However, services provided by local authorities were seriously deficient.

Radiocarbon measurements are reported for dissolved organic carbon (DOC) and inorganic carbon (DIC) from seawater samples collected from the Alcyone-5 cruise in the central North Pacific Ocean in 1985. Differences between the UV-radiation techniques used here and those reported by Williams, Oeschger and Kinney (1969) to oxidize and recover the DOC from sea water are presented. UV unoxidizable DOC in these samples is discussed in a separate publication (Druffel, Williams & Suzuki, 1989). We briefly discuss the penetration of the bomb 14C signal into the DOC and DIC pools. The temporal variability of Δ 14C in DIC in surface samples taken every 2–3 days is presented. Concentrations of total dissolved free (FAA) plus combined (hydrolyzable) amino acids (THAA) and total dissolved carbohydrates (TCHO) measured in the same water samples are also reported. Our main aim is to present the chemical and isotopic data from samples collected during the Alcyone-5 cruise. Detailed interpretation is published elsewhere.

Present knowledge of the number, distribution, proper motion and structures of extragalactic radio sources indicates that there should be no problem in defining a celestial reference frame with stabilities of a few milliseconds of arc over time spans of the order of a decade. One of the limiting factors appears to be the structure of the sources. By measuring and monitoring these structures, the stability could probably be improved by as much as one or two orders of magnitude. Even without this improvement, a network of properly distributed fixed observatories making regular interferometric observations of these radio sources could be used to define a terrestrial coordinate system that could be maintained at the few centimeter level over indefinitely long time periods. Such a stable terrestrial reference system would be useful for a host of modern geodetic and geodynamic applications, including, in particular, studies of the time varying deformations and relative motions of lithospheric plates. The National Geodetic Survey has already begun work on a three station base network of permanent observatories under project POLARIS as a first step toward implementing the new celestial and terrestrial reference frames. It is hoped that others will join in the effort and make the new reference frames a reality by the middle of this decade.

The National Geodetic Survey (NGS) of the National Ocean Survey (NOS), a component of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has begun a project to establish and operate a 3-station network of permanent observatories to monitor polar-motion and Earth rotation (UT1) by radio interferometric observations of quasars. The project designation is POLARIS (POLar-motion Analysis by Radio Interferometric Surveying).

The POLARIS observatories will be equipped with a new generation of instrumentation and software, the Mark III data acquisition and processing system currently under development by a multi-organizational team.

In previous papers (i) we have recorded observations on the ground of which we have contended that a diphtheroid bacillus, having cultural and morphological characters resembling those of the Klebs-Löffler bacillus, plays the chief part in the production of the toxaemia of general paralysis. We have at the same time insisted upon the importance of weakening of the local and general defences against bacteria, and have attri buted the chief part in the production of this impairment to syphilis, chronic alcoholic intoxication and the excessive use of nitrogenous foods. A little more than a year ago we thus summarised the case in support of the diphtheroid hypothesis.