7,150 research outputs found
Short-term effect of soil disturbance by mechanical weeding on plant available nutrients in an organic vs conventional rotations experiment
The question whether soil disturbance from mechanical weeding in organic systems affects nutrient release from organic matter in compost-amended soil was examined in a long-term organic-versus-conventional rotational cropping system experiment over three years. The experimental design included continuous snap beans, and a fully phased snap beans/fall rye crop rotation sequence. Treatments were combinations of yearly applied fertiliser (synthetic fertiliser, 1× compost, 3× compost) and weed control (herbicide, mechanical weeding). The 1× compost rate was calculated to deliver the equivalent of 50 kg N ha-1: equal to the rate ofN in the synthetic fertiliser treatments. Ion exchange membranes were buried for 24 hours following mechanical weeding in bean plots. Adsorbed ions were then eluted and quantified. Available ammonium-nitrogen was not affected byweeding treatment, but nitrate-nitrogen was consistently less in mechanically weeded plots than in plots treated with herbicide. Principal component analysis of NH4-N, NO3-N, P, K, Ca and Mg availabilities showed distinct groupings of treatments according to fertility treatment rather than weeding treatment. The effect of cropping sequence on available nutrients was pronounced (P ≤ 0.001) only in plots amended with synthetic fertilisers
In vivo nuclear magnetic resonance imaging
A number of physiological changes have been demonstrated in bone, muscle and blood after exposure of humans and animals to microgravity. Determining mechanisms and the development of effective countermeasures for long duration space missions is an important NASA goal. The advent of tomographic nuclear magnetic resonance imaging (NMR or MRI) gives NASA a way to greatly extend early studies of this phenomena in ways not previously possible; NMR is also noninvasive and safe. NMR provides both superb anatomical images for volume assessments of individual organs and quantification of chemical/physical changes induced in the examined tissues. The feasibility of NMR as a tool for human physiological research as it is affected by microgravity is demonstrated. The animal studies employed the rear limb suspended rat as a model of mucle atrophy that results from microgravity. And bedrest of normal male subjects was used to simulate the effects of microgravity on bone and muscle
Fluctuation diagnostics of the electron self-energy: Origin of the pseudogap physics
We demonstrate how to identify which physical processes dominate the
low-energy spectral functions of correlated electron systems. We obtain an
unambiguous classification through an analysis of the equation of motion for
the electron self-energy in its charge, spin and particle-particle
representations. Our procedure is then employed to clarify the controversial
physics responsible for the appearance of the pseudogap in correlated systems.
We illustrate our method by examining the attractive and repulsive Hubbard
model in two-dimensions. In the latter, spin fluctuations are identified as the
origin of the pseudogap, and we also explain why wave pairing fluctuations
play a marginal role in suppressing the low-energy spectral weight, independent
of their actual strength.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures + 4 pages supplementar
Bosonic D-branes at finite temperature with an external field
Bosonic boundary states at finite temperature are constructed as solutions of
boundary conditions at for bosonic open strings with a constant gauge
field coupled to the boundary. The construction is done in the
framework of thermo field dynamics where a thermal Bogoliubov transformation
maps states and operators to finite temperature. Boundary states are given in
terms of states from the direct product space between the Fock space of the
closed string and another identical copy of it. By analogy with zero
temperature, the boundary states heve the interpretation of -brane at
finite temperature. The boundary conditions admit two different solutions. The
entropy of the closed string in a -brane state is computed and analysed. It
is interpreted as the entropy of the -brane at finite temperature.Comment: 21 pages, Latex, revised version with minor corrections and
references added, to be published in Phys. Rev.
Gauge Formulation of the Spinning Black Hole in (2+1)-Dimensional Anti-de Sitter Space
We compute the group element of SO(2,2) associated with the spinning black
hole found by Ba\~nados, Teitelboim and Zanelli in (2+1)-dimensional anti-de
Sitter space-time. We show that their metric is built with SO(2,2) gauge
invariant quantities and satisfies Einstein's equations with negative
cosmological constant everywhere except at . Moreover, although the metric
is singular on the horizons, the group element is continuous and possesses a
kink there.Comment: 10 page
APOLLO: the Apache Point Observatory Lunar Laser-ranging Operation: Instrument Description and First Detections
A next-generation lunar laser ranging apparatus using the 3.5 m telescope at
the Apache Point Observatory in southern New Mexico has begun science
operation. APOLLO (the Apache Point Observatory Lunar Laser-ranging Operation)
has achieved one-millimeter range precision to the moon which should lead to
approximately one-order-of-magnitude improvements in the precision of several
tests of fundamental properties of gravity. We briefly motivate the scientific
goals, and then give a detailed discussion of the APOLLO instrumentation.Comment: 37 pages; 10 figures; 1 table: accepted for publication in PAS
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