1,732,267 research outputs found
Compared to conventional, ecological intensive management promotes beneficial proteolytic soil microbial communities for agro-ecosystem functioning under climate change-induced rain regimes
Projected climate change and rainfall variability will affect soil microbial communities, biogeochemical cycling and agriculture. Nitrogen (N) is the most limiting nutrient in agroecosystems and its cycling and availability is highly dependent on microbial driven processes. In agroecosystems, hydrolysis of organic nitrogen (N) is an important step in controlling soil N availability. We analyzed the effect of management (ecological intensive vs. conventional intensive) on N-cycling processes and involved microbial communities under climate change-induced rain regimes. Terrestrial model ecosystems originating from agroecosystems across Europe were subjected to four different rain regimes for 263 days. Using structural equation modelling we identified direct impacts of rain regimes on N-cycling processes, whereas N-related microbial communities were more resistant. In addition to rain regimes, management indirectly affected N-cycling processes via modifications of N-related microbial community composition. Ecological intensive management promoted a beneficial N-related microbial community composition involved in N-cycling processes under climate change-induced rain regimes. Exploratory analyses identified phosphorus-associated litter properties as possible drivers for the observed management effects on N-related microbial community composition. This work provides novel insights into mechanisms controlling agro-ecosystem functioning under climate change
Exploiting rules and processes for increasing flexibility in service composition
Recent trends in the use of service oriented architecture for designing, developing, managing, and using distributed applications have resulted in an increasing number of independently developed and physically distributed services. These services can be discovered, selected and composed to develop new applications and to meet emerging user requirements. Service composition is generally defined on the basis of business processes in which the underlying composition logic is guided by specifying control and data flows through Web service interfaces. User demands as well as the services themselves may change over time, which leads to replacing or adjusting the composition logic of previously defined processes. Coping with change is still one of the fundamental problems in current process based composition approaches. In this paper, we exploit declarative and imperative design styles to achieve better flexibility in service composition
Sequence Heterogeneity Accelerates Protein Search for Targets on DNA
The process of protein search for specific binding sites on DNA is
fundamentally important since it marks the beginning of all major biological
processes. We present a theoretical investigation that probes the role of DNA
sequence symmetry, heterogeneity and chemical composition in the protein search
dynamics. Using a discrete-state stochastic approach with a first-passage
events analysis, which takes into account the most relevant physical-chemical
processes, a full analytical description of the search dynamics is obtained. It
is found that, contrary to existing views, the protein search is generally
faster on DNA with more heterogeneous sequences. In addition, the search
dynamics might be affected by the chemical composition near the target site.
The physical origins of these phenomena are discussed. Our results suggest that
biological processes might be effectively regulated by modifying chemical
composition, symmetry and heterogeneity of a genome.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figure
Cool bottom processes on the thermally-pulsing AGB and the isotopic composition of circumstellar dust grains
(Abridged) We examine the effects of cool bottom processing (CBP) on several
isotopic ratios in the convective envelope during the TP-AGB phase of evolution
in a 1.5 M_sun initial-mass star of solar initial composition. We use a
parametric model which treats extra mixing by introducing mass flow between the
convective envelope and the underlying radiative zone. The parameters of this
model are the mass circulation rate (Mdot) and the maximum temperature (T_P)
experienced by the circulating material. The effects of nuclear reactions in
the flowing matter were calculated using a set of structures of the radiative
zone selected from a complete stellar evolution calculation. The compositions
of the flowing material were obtained and the resulting changes in the envelope
determined. Abundant ^26Al was produced by CBP for log T_P > 7.65. While
^26Al/^27Al depends on T_P, the isotopic ratios in CNO elements depend
dominantly on the circulation rate. The correspondence is shown between models
of CBP as parameterized by a diffusion formalism within the stellar evolution
model and those using the mass-flow formalism employed here. The isotopic
ratios are compared with the data on circumstellar dust grains. It is found
that the ratios ^{18}O/^{16}O, ^{17}O/^{16}O, and ^26Al/^27Al observed for
oxide grains formed at C/O < 1 are reasonably well-understood. However, the
^15N/^14N, ^12C/^13C, and ^26Al/^27Al in carbide grains (C/O > 1) require many
stellar sources with ^14N/^15N at least a factor of 4 below solar. The rare
grains with ^12C/^13C < 10 cannot be produced by any red-giant or AGB source.Comment: 35 pages, plus 18 included figures. Scheduled for January 10, 2003
issue of Ap
A semantical framework for the orchestration and choreography of web services
Web Services are software services that can be advertised by providers and invoked by customers using Web technologies. This concept is currently carried further to
address the composition of individual services through orchestration and choreography to services processes that communicate and interact with each other. We propose an ontology framework for these Web service processes that provides techniques for their description, matching, and composition. A description logic-based knowledge representation and reasoning framework provides the foundations. We will base this ontological framework on an operational model of service process behaviour and composition
Suppressing visual feedback in written composition: Effects on processing demands and coordination of the writing processes
The goal of this experiment was to investigate the role of visual feedback during written composition. Effects of suppression of visual feedback were analysed both on processing demands and on on-line coordination of low-level execution processes and of high-level conceptual and linguistic processes. Writers composed a text and copied it either with or without visual feedback. Processing demands of the writing processes were evaluated with reaction times to secondary auditory probes that were analysed according to whether participants were handwriting (in a composing and a copying tasks) or engaged in high level processes (when pausing in a composing task). Suppression of visual feedback increased reaction times interference (secondary reaction time minus baseline reaction time) during handwriting in the copying task and not during pauses in the composing task. This suggests that suppression of visual feedback affected processing demands of only execution processes and not those of high-level conceptual and linguistic processes. This is confirmed by analysis of quality of the texts produced by participants that were little, if any, affected by the suppression of visual feedback. Results also indicate that the increase in processing demands of execution related to suppression of visual feedback affected on-line coordination of the writing processes. Indeed, when visual feedback was suppressed, reaction time interferences associated to handwriting were not reliable different in the copying task and in the composing task but were significantly different in the composition task, RT interference associated to handwriting being lower in the copying task than in the composition task. When visual feedback was suppressed, writers activated step-by-step execution processes and high-level writing processes, whereas they concurrently activated these writing processes when composing with visual feedback
Directly comparing coronal and solar wind elemental fractionation
As the solar wind propagates through the heliosphere, dynamical processes
irreversibly erase the signatures of the near-Sun heating and acceleration
processes. The elemental fractionation of the solar wind should not change
during transit however, making it an ideal tracer of these processes. We aimed
to verify directly if the solar wind elemental fractionation is reflective of
the coronal source region fractionation, both within and across different solar
wind source regions. A backmapping scheme was used to predict where solar wind
measured by the Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE) originated in the corona.
The coronal composition measured by the Hinode Extreme ultraviolet Imaging
Spectrometer (EIS) at the source regions was then compared with the in-situ
solar wind composition. On hourly timescales there was no apparent correlation
between coronal and solar wind composition. In contrast, the distribution of
fractionation values within individual source regions was similar in both the
corona and solar wind, but distributions between different sources have
significant overlap. The matching distributions directly verifies that
elemental composition is conserved as the plasma travels from the corona to the
solar wind, further validating it as a tracer of heating and acceleration
processes. The overlap of fractionation values between sources means it is not
possible to identify solar wind source regions solely by comparing solar wind
and coronal composition measurements, but a comparison can be used to verify
consistency with predicted spacecraft-corona connections.Comment: Accepted version; 8 pages, 7 figure
Multivariate Krawtchouk polynomials and composition birth and death processes
This paper defines the multivariate Krawtchouk polynomials, orthogonal on the
multinomial distribution, and summarizes their properties as a review. The
multivariate Krawtchouk polynomials are symmetric functions of orthogonal sets
of functions defined on each of N multinomial trials. The dual multivariate
Krawtchouk polynomials, which also have a polynomial structure, are seen to
occur naturally as spectral orthogonal polynomials in a Karlin and McGregor
spectral representation of transition functions in a composition birth and
death process. In this Markov composition process in continuous time there are
N independent and identically distributed birth and death processes each with
support 0,1, .... The state space in the composition process is the number of
processes in the different states 0,1,... Dealing with the spectral
representation requires new extensions of the multivariate Krawtchouk
polynomials to orthogonal polynomials on a multinomial distribution with a
countable infinity of states
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