Resource Letter: Dark Energy and the Accelerating Universe

This Resource Letter provides a guide to the literature on dark energy and the accelerating universe. It is intended to be of use to researchers, teachers, and students at several levels. Journal articles, books, and websites are cited for the following topics: Einstein's cosmological constant, quintessence or dynamical scalar fields, modified cosmic gravity, relations to high energy physics, cosmological probes and observations, terrestrial probes, calculational tools and parameter estimation, teaching strategies and educational resources, and the fate of the universe.Comment: Resource Letter for AAPT/AJP, 11 pages, 99 reference

Cohort aggregation modelling for complex forest stands: Spruce-aspen mixtures in British Columbia

Mixed-species growth models are needed as a synthesis of ecological knowledge and for guiding forest management. Individual-tree models have been commonly used, but the difficulties of reliably scaling from the individual to the stand level are often underestimated. Emergent properties and statistical issues limit their effectiveness. A more holistic modelling of aggregates at the whole stand level is a potentially attractive alternative. This work explores methodology for developing biologically consistent dynamic mixture models where the state is described by aggregate stand-level variables for species or age/size cohorts. The methods are demonstrated and tested with a two-cohort model for spruce-aspen mixtures named SAM. The models combine single-species submodels and submodels for resource partitioning among the cohorts. The partitioning allows for differences in competitive strength among species and size classes, and for complementarity effects. Height growth reduction in suppressed cohorts is also modelled. SAM fits well the available data, and exhibits behaviors consistent with current ecological knowledge. The general framework can be applied to any number of cohorts, and should be useful as a basis for modelling other mixed-species or uneven-aged stands.Comment: Accepted manuscript, to appear in Ecological Modellin

Metabolic network percolation quantifies biosynthetic capabilities across the human oral microbiome

The biosynthetic capabilities of microbes underlie their growth and interactions, playing a prominent role in microbial community structure. For large, diverse microbial communities, prediction of these capabilities is limited by uncertainty about metabolic functions and environmental conditions. To address this challenge, we propose a probabilistic method, inspired by percolation theory, to computationally quantify how robustly a genome-derived metabolic network produces a given set of metabolites under an ensemble of variable environments. We used this method to compile an atlas of predicted biosynthetic capabilities for 97 metabolites across 456 human oral microbes. This atlas captures taxonomically-related trends in biomass composition, and makes it possible to estimate inter-microbial metabolic distances that correlate with microbial co-occurrences. We also found a distinct cluster of fastidious/uncultivated taxa, including several Saccharibacteria (TM7) species, characterized by their abundant metabolic deficiencies. By embracing uncertainty, our approach can be broadly applied to understanding metabolic interactions in complex microbial ecosystems.T32GM008764 - NIGMS NIH HHS; T32 GM008764 - NIGMS NIH HHS; R01 DE024468 - NIDCR NIH HHS; R01 GM121950 - NIGMS NIH HHS; DE-SC0012627 - Biological and Environmental Research; RGP0020/2016 - Human Frontier Science Program; NSFOCE-BSF 1635070 - National Science Foundation; HR0011-15-C-0091 - Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency; R37DE016937 - NIDCR NIH HHS; R37 DE016937 - NIDCR NIH HHS; R01GM121950 - NIGMS NIH HHS; R01DE024468 - NIDCR NIH HHS; 1457695 - National Science FoundationPublished versio

An exact solution method for binary equilibrium problems with compensation and the power market uplift problem

We propose a novel method to find Nash equilibria in games with binary decision variables by including compensation payments and incentive-compatibility constraints from non-cooperative game theory directly into an optimization framework in lieu of using first order conditions of a linearization, or relaxation of integrality conditions. The reformulation offers a new approach to obtain and interpret dual variables to binary constraints using the benefit or loss from deviation rather than marginal relaxations. The method endogenizes the trade-off between overall (societal) efficiency and compensation payments necessary to align incentives of individual players. We provide existence results and conditions under which this problem can be solved as a mixed-binary linear program. We apply the solution approach to a stylized nodal power-market equilibrium problem with binary on-off decisions. This illustrative example shows that our approach yields an exact solution to the binary Nash game with compensation. We compare different implementations of actual market rules within our model, in particular constraints ensuring non-negative profits (no-loss rule) and restrictions on the compensation payments to non-dispatched generators. We discuss the resulting equilibria in terms of overall welfare, efficiency, and allocational equity

Integrated pest management portfolios in UK arable farming: results of a farmer survey.

Farmers are faced with a wide range of pest management (PM) options that can be adopted in isolation or alongside complementary or substitute strategies. This paper presents the results of a survey of UK cereal producers, focusing on the character and diversity of PM strategies currently used by, or available to, farmers. In addition, the survey asked various questions pertaining to agricultural policy participation, attitude towards environmental issues, sources of PM advice and information and the important characteristics of PM technologies. The results indicate that many farmers do make use of a suite of PM techniques, and that their choice of integrated PM (IPM) portfolio appears to be jointly dictated by farm characteristics and government policy. Results also indicate that portfolio choice does affect the number of subsequent insecticide applications per crop. These results help to identify the type of IPM portfolios considered to be adoptable by farmers and highlight the importance of substitution in IPM portfolios. As such, these results will help to direct R&D effort towards the realisation of more sustainable PM approaches and aid the identification of potential portfolio adopters. These findings highlight the opportunity that a revised agri-environmental policy design could generate in terms of enhancing coherent IPM portfolio adoption