It would be hard to exaggerate Alaska’s economic dependence on state government spending. State spending supports nearly one of every three jobs. Three of every ten dollars of personal income grow out of state spending. If state officials balance the budget entirely through spending cuts, economic growth could slow dramatically over the next decade, costing Alaska 35,000 new jobs. We can’t avoid the economic slowdown that the fiscal gap will produce, but we can help ease its effects by a combination of more efficient use of our assets, spending cuts, cost containment, and new taxes or other new revenues. This paper analyzes how different state fiscal policies could reduce economic disruption from the fiscal gap in the coming years.

Alaska's richest timber resource is its coastal forest, a narrow band of temperate rain forest extending from the southern border of the state north and west to Kodiak Island. Sitka spruce is a major component of this forest, with western hemlock in the southeastern area, replaced by mountain hemlock west of Prince William Sound. This report tries to provide regular and timely information about the timber and wood products industry. It includes data for the entire state and for three regions within the state, and brings together previously available data on public timber harvests and wood products exports, as well as new estimates of private timber harvests. We hope the data will be useful for both public and private planning efforts, as well as informed policy debate over timber management and development of the forest products industry.

During the decade of the 1980s the state of Alaska collected $46.3 billion (1989 $) in revenues, $31.8 billion from the production and ownership of petroleum resources, $8.2 billion as earnings on financial assets (the majority from the Permanent Fund), $3.2 billion from the federal government, and $3.1 billion from all other sources. Since 1979 state government has been on a spending spree of unparalleled proportions. This paper is an attempt to analyze the composition of that spending and in particular to identify the spending which is over and above a "maintenance level". It is a historical analysis but the objective is to use this information to look · into the future, to try to understand how state government will evolve in the next 2 decades. Presented at the Annual Meeting of the Western Economic Association in San Diego, California July 2, 1990

For centuries we have been documenting the world around us, taking note of every change. Most of the changes are small and over looked, but once they are coupled with a few other small changes they become something big and meaningful. Special education has a history just like that, it started with people wanting change, people advocating, acts and laws being wrote and pushed through Congress. Before the world knew it all these small tasks combined together in history to create a momentous event in history. No longer were students with disabilities forced to stay at home, they could now attend public school, and with the years to follow rights. Rights to have education just the same as any other student. The right to learn in environment that is best for them. The right to funding to help provide the services they need. The right to learn. This meta-synthesis of the literature on history of special education investigates the changes that took place throughout education to create special education and the services and programs that help better our students.

This meta-analysis of the literature examines the unique attributes of Asperger’s syndrome (AS), the uncertainty that has been created with the newly revised Diagnostic Statistical Manual (DSM-5), and what these changes mean. The purpose of this meta-analysis is to use the analysis as a platform to question and “deconstruct” the pre-conceived notions and beliefs about the disorder. Asperger’s syndrome is conceptualized as a disability. This way of thinking can cause one to miss the hidden strengths or abilities that those with Asperger’s syndrome possess. What is often considered a disability may in fact be viewed as ability.

Ecosystem structure and function of temperate rocky reef habitats are subject to change as a result of food-web modification, climate change, and changes in biological community interactions. Sea urchins are a global driver of change in nearshore marine habitats though their ability to heavily graze marine vegetation and force rocky reef ecosystems from kelp forest to sea urchin barren ground states. The Aleutian Archipelago in southwest Alaska provided an ideal natural laboratory to study sea urchin (Strongylocentrotus spp.) ecology following the functional loss of the keystone predator, the sea otter (Enhydra lutris) during the 1990s. The objectives of this dissertation were to 1) determine the important drivers of sea urchin demographics following the functional loss of their keystone predator; 2) determine how projected ocean warming and acidification may affect sea urchin physical condition; and 3) identify biological drivers of sea urchin recruitment in both kelp forest and barren ground habitats. To determine demographic drivers, I used a time series of benthic habitat, sea urchin demographic, and environmental data, dating back almost forty years. In the absence of sea otters, environmental conditions, specifically ocean temperatures, became more important to sea urchin demographics, but recruitment was the primary process affecting the resultant abundance and size class structure over time. To understand how predicted ocean warming and acidification could impact S. polyacanthus survival, growth, calcification, gonad development, and energy content, a 108-day laboratory experiment was conducted. This experiment determined that temperature caused a greater reduction in survival than acidification, and that projected changes in temperature and acidification will result in investment trade-offs between reproduction and maintenance or growth of somatic and calcified tissues. To determine how recruitment varied between kelp forest and sea urchin habitats, fine-scale surveys of benthic community structure found that specific taxa, and not overall community structure, correlated with sea urchin recruitment. Results from this dissertation will allow managers to make predictions about how sea urchin demography will change as a result of keystone predator loss and climate change and how that will affect nearshore community structure and function. Overall, my dissertation establishes likely pathways by which coastal habitats may change over time, in a system no longer under strong top-down control.

Coastal ecosystems in high latitudes are increasingly impacted by glacial melt and river discharge due to climate change. One way to understand ecosystem responses to these stressors is assessing trophic relationships. The goal of this study was to better understand how hydrographic conditions influence trophic structure in high-latitude rocky intertidal systems. I compared the trophic structure of rocky intertidal assemblages in two regions in the northern Gulf of Alaska that comprise the same regional species pool but are hydrographically distinct, one glacially influenced and one primarily marine influenced. Common macroalgal and invertebrate taxa, as well as particulate organic matter (POM) were sampled at three rocky intertidal communities in each region in 2017 and 2018. Food web structure was compared using trophic metrics based on the distribution of shared taxa in isotopically-derived (delta¹³C and delta¹⁵N) trophic niche space. I found that trophic niche space in the glacially-influenced rocky intertidal system was larger, driven by larger ranges in both carbon and nitrogen stable isotope values. In particular, the lower delta¹³C values in Kamishak Bay suggest that an additional food source, most likely terrestrial organic material from glacial discharge, was incorporated into the food web. This supported the hypothesis that patterns in food web structure differed based on hydrographic influences to maintain overall stability. Isotopic evenness, i.e., the distribution of the shared taxa within trophic space, did not differ between the two regions. Macroalgae were overall a more important food source than POM in both regions, and even more so in the glacially-influenced region, where macroalgae may be an energetically beneficial food source compared to silt-laden glacial inputs. This study showed that common intertidal taxa have high tropic flexibility enabling them to respond to variable food sources under a variety of environmental conditions. As hypothesized, taxa in food webs occupying a larger trophic niche space engaged in more heterogeneous trophic pathways and used diverse resources depending on local environmental conditions, making these systems more stable to perturbations affecting a single resource. The common taxa of high-latitude rocky intertidal systems studied here are responding to current levels of glacial input with more diverse resource use, but it remains to be seen how well those systems are suited to maintain trophic stability with an expected increase in glacial stress from climate warming.

The recovery of sea otters (Enhydra lutris) to Southeast Alaska is a conservation success story, but their increasing population raises questions about sea otter population dynamics and the ecological role of this top-level predator. In Chapter 1, we addressed these questions by investigating patterns and population effects of subsistence sea otter harvest. Subsistence harvest reduced populations at a small scale, with potential to slow or stop population growth, but across Southeast Alaska the population continues to grow, even with an average 3% subsistence harvest rate. In Chapters 2 and 3 we investigated the ecological role of sea otters in seagrass (Zostera marina) communities. When we tested for generality in a sea otter - seagrass trophic cascade across a large spatial scale in Southeast Alaska, we found a positive relationship between sea otters and seagrass. However, we found no evidence of a relationship between crabs and epifauna, suggesting that the ecological mechanisms in Southeast Alaska may differ from other regions. Our comparison of carbon and nitrogen stable isotopes (SI) to assess the role of sea otters on trophic structure and energetic pathways of seagrass beds found little effect of sea otters in overall community trophic niche space, suggesting similar carbon sources and food chain length in seagrass meadows regardless of sea otters. Conversely, the FA profiles of diverse consumer suggest variation in dietary sources with and without sea otters. This result suggests that the trophic cascade may not be the only or primary energetic pathway in Southeast Alaska seagrass communities. In all, our studies have revealed that sea otters in Southeast Alaska are linked to both people and a common Southeast Alaska nearshore habitat, seagrass. These results describe the varied interactions of a recovering top predator and highlight a need to consider these diverse interactions in resource management, conservation, and ecological research.

Environmental conditions influence the presence, species composition, abundance, and growth of fish species in the nearshore Arctic ecosystem. With ongoing shifts in Arctic conditions due to climate change, how fish communities and individual species respond to such changes to environmental variability more broadly is unknown. This study analyzed catch and length data from a long-term fish monitoring project near Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, 2001-2018, to quantify the effects of environmental variables on the overall fish community and on the juveniles of two important whitefishes, Arctic Cisco Coregonus autumnalis and Broad Whitefish Coregonus nasus. Abundance data (n = 1.78 million fish) from daily sampling (July-August) at four stationary sampling locations showed distinct shifts in fish community metrics. Since 2001, annual species richness has significantly increased by one species per decade while water temperature warmed by over 1.4°C. The species composition based on biweekly catch data has significantly changed across years, with distinct variations among sample locations and throughout the season. Species composition was significantly affected by both salinity and water temperature. The effects of environmental conditions on growth showed that water temperature was positively and linearly associated with increases in growth for juvenile whitefish, while salinity negatively affected growth of age-0 Arctic Cisco. Changes in the abundance of juvenile whitefishes were related to both water temperature and salinity. Results from all analyses suggest that species positively associated with observed warming in the aquatic environment are generalist species such as Broad Whitefish. This study concluded that continued climate change, and especially Arctic warming, will likely increase growth, change the species composition, and alter abundance in the Arctic nearshore ecosystem. These changes will have impacts on subsistence harvests and on upper trophic level species that prey on nearshore fishes.

In the Tokamak plasma, for fusion to be possible, we have to maintain a very high temperature and density at the core at the same time keeping them low at the edge to protect the machine. Nature does not favor gradients. Gradients are source of free energy that causes instability. But we require a large gradient to get energy from plasma fusion. We therefore, apply a huge magnetic field on the order of few Tesla (1 T-10 T) that confines the plasma in the core, maintaining gradients. Due to gradients in density of charged particles (ions and electrons), there is an electric field in the plasma. Heat and particle transport takes place from core to edge mainly through anomalous transport while the E x B velocity sheer acts to reduce the transport of heat and particles. The regime at which the E x B velocity shear exceeds the maximum linear instability growth rate, as a result, the transport of particles and heat gets locally reduced is termed as the formation of a transport barrier. This regime can be identified by calculating the transport coefficients in the local region. Sometimes it can be observed in the edge where it is called an edge barrier while if it is near the core it is an internal transport barrier. There is a positive feedback loop between gradients and transport barrier formation. External heating and current drives play an important role to control such barriers. Auxiliary heating like neutral beam injection (NBI) and radio frequency (RF) heating can be used at a proper location (near the core of the plasma) to trigger or (far outside from the core) to destroy those barriers. Barrier control mechanism in the burning plasmas in international thermonuclear test reactor (ITER) parameter scenarios employing fusion power along with auxiliary heating source and pellets are studied. Continuous bombardment with pellets in the interval of a fraction of a second near the core of the burning plasma results in a stronger barrier. Frozen pellets along with auxiliary heating are found to be helpful to control the barriers in the tokamak plasmas. Active control mechanism for transport barriers using pellets and auxiliary heating in one of tokamaks in United States (DIII-D) parameter scenarios are presented in which intrinsic hysteresis is used as a novel control tool. During this process, a small background NBI power near the core assists in maintaining the profile. Finally, a self-sustained control mechanism in the presence of core heating is also explored in Japanese tokamak (JT-60SA) parameter scenarios. Centrally peaked narrow NBI power is mainly absorbed by ions with a smaller fraction by the electrons. Heat exchange between the electron and ion channels and heat conduction in the electron channel are found to be the main processes that govern this self control effect. A strong barrier which is formed in the ion channel is found to play the main role during the profile steepening while the burst after the peaked core density is found to have key role in the profile relaxation.