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Coastal wetlands reduce the damaging effects of hurricanes on coastal communities. A regression model using 34 major US hurricanes since 1980 with the natural log of damage per unit gross domestic product in the hurricane swath as the dependent variable and the natural logs of wind speed and wetland area in the swath as the independent variables was highly significant and explained 60% of the variation in relative damages. A loss of 1 ha of wetland in the model corresponded to an average USD 33,000 (median = USD 5000) increase in storm damage from specific storms. Using this relationship, and taking into account the annual probability of hits by hurricanes of varying intensities, we mapped the annual value of coastal wetlands by 1 km x 1 km pixel and by state. The annual value ranged from USD 250 to USD 51,000 ha(-1) yr(-1), with a mean of USD 8240 ha(-1) yr(-1) (median = USD 3230 ha(-1) yr(-1)) significantly larger than previous estimates. Coastal wetlands in the US were estimated to currently provide USD 23.2 billion yr(-1) in storm protection services. Coastal wetlands function as valuable, selfmaintaining "horizontal levees" for storm protection, and also provide a host of other ecosystem services that vertical levees do not. Their restoration and preservation is an extremely cost-effective strategy for society.

The covalent attachment of disulfide-modified oligonucleotides to a mercaptosilane-modified glass surface is described. This method provides an efficient and specific covalent attachment chemistry for immobilization of DNA probes onto a solid support. Glass slides were derivatized with 3-mercaptopropyl silane for attachment of 5-prime disulfide-modified oligonucleotides via disulfide bonds. An attachment density of approximately 3 ؋ 10 5 oligonucleotides/m 2 was observed. Oligonucleotides attached by this method provided a highly efficient substrate for nucleic acid hybridization and primer extension assays. In addition, we have demonstrated patterning of multiple DNA probes on a glass surface utilizing this attachment chemistry, which allows for array densities of at least 20,000 spots/cm 2 . © 1999 Academic Press Key Words: covalent immobilization; oligonucleotide; glass; disulfide bonds; DNA microarray.In recent years, high-density miniaturized oligonucleotide arrays have emerged as promising tools for assessing genomic data with a lower cost and higher throughput than the traditional gel-based methods. Such oligonucleotide arrays, or DNA chips, have been applied to genetic mutational scanning (1, 2), molecular bar coding (3), gene expression monitoring (4, 5), and sequencing (6 -8). The power of the DNA chips come from the highly parallel, addressable, miniaturized array format that provides significant advantages over traditional gel-based formats in terms of reagent cost, labor, speed, throughput, and operational simplicity. The development of efficient chemistries for the manufacture of spatially resolved, microscale DNA arrays on a solid-support is essential for the realization of the DNA chip technology potential. In most DNA chip applications, the DNA arrays are used to capture or analyze the target sequences and/or detection probes via hybridization reactions alone (1-7) or with subsequent primer extension reactions (8). The reliability and integrity of the hybridization reactions are highly dependent, in addition to the actual base composition of the arrayed oligonucleotides, on the quality and the characteristics of the DNA arrays. In developing a useful and reliable chemistry for producing DNA arrays, the accessibility and functionality of the surface-bound DNA, the density of attachment, the stability of the array, the reproducibility of the attachment chemistry, and the fidelity of the immobilized sequences are all critical.There have been numerous reports regarding immobilization (9 -26) or direct synthesis (27, 28) of oligonucleotides on solid supports, such as glass, silicon, membranes, and polystyrene. Parallel synthesis of oligonucleotides directly onto the solid support by photoactivatable chemistries (27) or standard phosphoramidite chemistries (28) have, thus far, been the most successful approach to manufacturing high-density DNA arrays. Patterning of presynthesized oligonucleotides, however, is preferred for many research applications and low-to moderate-density-array applications requi...

We have developed a satellite data derived ''Night Light Development Index'' (NLDI) as a simple, objective, spatially explicit and globally available empirical measurement of human development derived solely from nighttime satellite imagery and population density. There is increasing recognition that the distribution of wealth and income amongst the population in a nation or region correlates strongly with both the overall happiness of that population and the environmental quality of that nation or region. Measuring the distribution of wealth and income at national and regional scales is an interesting and challenging problem. Gini coefficients derived from Lorenz curves are a well-established method of measuring income distribution. Nonetheless, there are many shortcomings of the Gini coefficient as a measure of income or wealth distribution. Gini coefficients are typically calculated using national level data on the distribution of income through the population. Such data are not available for many countries and the results are generally limited to single values representing entire countries. In this paper we develop an index for the co-distribution of nocturnal light and people that is derived without the use of monetary measures of wealth and is capable of providing a spatial depiction of differences in development within countries