Scattering Induced Attenuation of Ultrasonic Backscattering

Scattering induced ultrasonic attenuation offers a simple way to characterize material inhomogeneities. This method has a wide range of applications from tissue characterization [1,2] to ultrasonic NDE, such as grain size measurement in polycrystalline materials [3,4], structural diagnostics in ceramics [5,6], porosity assessment in cast metals [7,8] and composites [9], etc. The scattering induced attenuation of a through transmitted coherent ultrasonic wave can be readily related to certain characteristics of the average inhomogeneity via its total scattering cross-section. In many cases however, ultrasonic attenuation measurement is not feasible except from the backscattered signal. For want of better approximation, the scattering induced attenuation is presumed to have the same relation to the average inhomogeneity as if it were measured by the simpler transmission technique. It was recently reported [10] that this approximation breaks down in porosity assessment, and it probably does not work in many other NDE applications either

Environmental Variation, Stochastic Extinction, and Competitive Coexistence

Understanding how environmental fluctuations affect population persistence is essential for predicting the ecological impacts of expected future increases in climate variability. However, two bodies of theory make opposite predictions about the effect of environmental variation on persistence. Single‐species theory, common in conservation biology and population viability analyses, suggests that environmental variation increases the risk of stochastic extinction. By contrast, coexistence theory has shown that environmental variation can buffer inferior competitors against competitive exclusion through a storage effect. We reconcile these two perspectives by showing that in the presence of demographic stochasticity, environmental variation can increase the chance of extinction while simultaneously stabilizing coexistence. Our stochastic simulations of a two‐species storage effect model reveal a unimodal relationship between environmental variation and coexistence time, implying maximum coexistence at intermediate levels of environmental variation. The unimodal pattern reflects the fact that the stabilizing influence of the storage effect accumulates rapidly at low levels of environmental variation, whereas the risk of extinction due to the combined effects of environmental variation and demographic stochasticity increases most rapidly at higher levels of variation. Future increases in environmental variation could either increase or decrease an inferior competitor’s expected persistence time, depending on the distance between the present level of environmental variation and the optimal level anticipated by this theory

Direct and Indirect Effects of Climate Change on a Prairie Plant Community

Background Climate change directly affects species by altering their physical environment and indirectly affects species by altering interspecific interactions such as predation and competition. Recent studies have shown that the indirect effects of climate change may amplify or counteract the direct effects. However, little is known about the the relative strength of direct and indirect effects or their potential to impact population persistence. Methodology/Principal Findings We studied the effects of altered precipitation and interspecific interactions on the low-density tiller growth rates and biomass production of three perennial grass species in a Kansas, USA mixed prairie. We transplanted plugs of each species into local neighborhoods of heterospecific competitors and then exposed the plugs to a factorial manipulation of growing season precipitation and neighbor removal. Precipitation treatments had significant direct effects on two of the three species. Interspecific competition also had strong effects, reducing low-density tiller growth rates and aboveground biomass production for all three species. In fact, in the presence of competitors, (log) tiller growth rates were close to or below zero for all three species. However, we found no convincing evidence that per capita competitive effects changed with precipitation, as shown by a lack of significant precipitation × competition interactions. Conclusions/Significance We found little evidence that altered precipitation will influence per capita competitive effects. However, based on species\u27 very low growth rates in the presence of competitors in some precipitation treatments, interspecific interactions appear strong enough to affect the balance between population persistence and local extinction. Therefore, ecological forecasting models should include the effect of interspecific interactions on population growth, even if such interaction coefficients are treated as constants

Direct effects of warming increase woody plant abundance in a subarctic wetland

Both the direct effects of warming on a species’ vital rates and indirect effects of warming caused by interactions with neighboring species can influence plant populations. Furthermore, herbivory mediates the effects of warming on plant community composition in many systems. Thus, determining the importance of direct and indirect effects of warming, while considering the role of herbivory, can help predict long-term plant community dynamics. We conducted a field experiment in the coastal wetlands of western Alaska to investigate how warming and herbivory influence the interactions and abundances of two common plant species, a sedge, Carex ramenskii, and a dwarf shrub, Salix ovalifolia. We used results from the experiment to model the equilibrium abundances of the species under different warming and grazing scenarios and to determine the contribution of direct and indirect effects to predict population changes. Consistent with the current composition of the landscape, model predictions suggest that Carex is more abundant than Salix under ambient temperatures with grazing (53% and 27% cover, respectively). However, with warming and grazing, Salix becomes more abundant than Carex (57% and 41% cover, respectively), reflecting both a negative response of Carexand a positive response of Salix to warming. While grazing reduced the cover of both species, herbivory did not prevent a shift in dominance from sedges to the dwarf shrub. Direct effects of climate change explained about 97% of the total predicted change in species cover, whereas indirect effects explained only 3% of the predicted change. Thus, indirect effects, mediated by interactions between Carex and Salix, were negligible, likely due to use of different niches and weak interspecific interactions. Results suggest that a 2°C increase could cause a shift in dominance from sedges to woody plants on the coast of western Alaska over decadal timescales, and this shift was largely a result of the direct effects of warming. Models predict this shift with or without goose herbivory. Our results are consistent with other studies showing an increase in woody plant abundance in the Arctic and suggest that shifts in plant–plant interactions are not driving this change

The Hypanis Valles delta: The last highstand of a sea on early Mars?

One of the most contentious hypotheses in the geological history of Mars is whether the northern lowlands ever contained an oceanic water body. Arguably, the best evidence for an ocean comes from the presence of sedimentary fans around Mars' dichotomy boundary, which separates the northern lowlands from the southern highlands. Here we describe the palaeogeomorphology of the Hypanis Valles sediment fan, the largest sediment fan complex reported on Mars (area >970 km2). This has an extensive catchment (4.6 x 105 km2) incorporating Hypanis and Nanedi Valles, that we show was active during the late-Noachian/early-Hesperian period (∼3.7 Ga). The fan comprises a series of lobe-shaped sediment bodies, connected by multiple bifurcating flat-topped ridges. We interpret the latter as former fluvial channel belts now preserved in inverted relief. Meter-scale-thick, sub-horizontal layers that are continuous over tens of kilometres are visible in scarps and the inverted channel margins. The inverted channel branches and lobes are observed to occur up to at least 140 km from the outlet of Hypanis Valles and descend ∼500 m in elevation. The progressive basinward advance of the channellobe transition records deposition and avulsion at the margin of a retreating standing body of water, assuming the elevation of the northern plains basin floor is stable. We interpret the Hypanis sediment fan to represent an ancient delta as opposed to a fluvial fan system. At its location at the dichotomy boundary, the Hypanis Valles fan system is topographically open to Chryse Planitia – an extensive plain that opens in turn into the larger northern lowlands basin. We conclude that the observed progradation of fan bodies was due to basinward shoreline retreat of an ancient body of water which extended across at least Chryse Planitia. Given the open topography, it is plausible that the Hypanis fan system records the existence, last highstand, and retreat of a large sea in Chryse Planitia and perhaps even an ocean that filled the northern plains of Mars

Single Mode Lamb Wave Inspection of Composite Laminates

Flaw detection in composite plates presents a very difficult problem. Conventional echoscopic techniques are not feasible because the back-scattered signal from a possible defect is usually overshadowed by much stronger reflections from the walls of the thin plate and by additional scattering from inherent inhomogeneities such as imbedded fibers and alternating plies. Single or double transmission attenuation measurements offer a convenient, but rather insensitive alternative. Fig. 1 shows the schematic diagrams of the conventional normal incidence and the oblique incidence so-called Lamb wave inspection techniques. At normal incidence, we can use a focused transducer of very good lateral resolution, but the sensitivity might be rather low when the defect exhibits a very small scattering cross-section from this particular direction of interrogation. This occurs, for instance, in the case of weak porosity when the defects tend to be concentrated in a thin layer parallel with the plies, or as is shown in Fig. 1, in the case of transverse cracks. In such cases, oblique incidence inspection can be expected to give better sensitivity since Lamb modes propagating parallel to the plate are more attenuated. At the same time, the lateral resolution will be inherently lower, therefore the ultrasonic contrast must be carefully optimized on a case-by-case basis

A Practical Guide to Selecting Models for Exploration, Inference, and Prediction in Ecology

Selecting among competing statistical models is a core challenge in science. However, the many possible approaches and techniques for model selection, and the conflicting recommendations for their use, can be confusing. We contend that much confusion surrounding statistical model selection results from failing to first clearly specify the purpose of the analysis. We argue that there are three distinct goals for statistical modeling in ecology: data exploration, inference, and prediction. Once the modeling goal is clearly articulated, an appropriate model selection procedure is easier to identify. We review model selection approaches and highlight their strengths and weaknesses relative to each of the three modeling goals. We then present examples of modeling for exploration, inference, and prediction using a time series of butterfly population counts. These show how a model selection approach flows naturally from the modeling goal, leading to different models selected for different purposes, even with exactly the same data set. This review illustrates best practices for ecologists and should serve as a reminder that statistical recipes cannot substitute for critical thinking or for the use of independent data to test hypotheses and validate predictions