52,374 research outputs found
Nebular Abundance Errors
The errors inherent to the use of the standard "ionization correction factor"
("i_CF") method of calculating nebular conditions and relative abundances of H,
He, N, O, Ne, S, and Ar in emission line nebulae have been investigated under
conditions typical for planetary nebulae. The photoionization code CLOUDY was
used to construct a series of model nebulae with properties spanning the range
typical of PNe. Its radial "profiles" of bright, frequently observed optical
emission lines were then summed over a variety of "apertures" to generate sets
of emission line measurements. These resulting line ratios were processed using
the i_CF method to "derive" nebular conditions and abundances. We find that for
lines which are summed over the entire nebula the i_CF-derived abundances
differ from the input abundances by less than 5% for He and O up to 25% or more
for Ne, S, and Ar. For resolved observations, however, the discrepancies are
often much larger and are systematically variable with radius. This effect is
especially pronounced in low-ionization zones where nitrogen and oxygen are
neutral or once-ionized such as in FLIERs, ansae and ionization fronts. We
argue that the reports of stellar-enriched N in the FLIERs of several PNe are
probably specious.Comment: 22 pages, 4 tables, and 1 figure. Accepted for publication in the
Astronomical Journal. Replaced to correct a referenc
The collapse of cooperation in evolving games
Game theory provides a quantitative framework for analyzing the behavior of
rational agents. The Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma in particular has become a
standard model for studying cooperation and cheating, with cooperation often
emerging as a robust outcome in evolving populations. Here we extend
evolutionary game theory by allowing players' strategies as well as their
payoffs to evolve in response to selection on heritable mutations. In nature,
many organisms engage in mutually beneficial interactions, and individuals may
seek to change the ratio of risk to reward for cooperation by altering the
resources they commit to cooperative interactions. To study this, we construct
a general framework for the co-evolution of strategies and payoffs in arbitrary
iterated games. We show that, as payoffs evolve, a trade-off between the
benefits and costs of cooperation precipitates a dramatic loss of cooperation
under the Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma; and eventually to evolution away from
the Prisoner's Dilemma altogether. The collapse of cooperation is so extreme
that the average payoff in a population may decline, even as the potential
payoff for mutual cooperation increases. Our work offers a new perspective on
the Prisoner's Dilemma and its predictions for cooperation in natural
populations; and it provides a general framework to understand the co-evolution
of strategies and payoffs in iterated interactions.Comment: 33 pages, 13 figure
Small games and long memories promote cooperation
Complex social behaviors lie at the heart of many of the challenges facing
evolutionary biology, sociology, economics, and beyond. For evolutionary
biologists in particular the question is often how such behaviors can arise
\textit{de novo} in a simple evolving system. How can group behaviors such as
collective action, or decision making that accounts for memories of past
experience, emerge and persist? Evolutionary game theory provides a framework
for formalizing these questions and admitting them to rigorous study. Here we
develop such a framework to study the evolution of sustained collective action
in multi-player public-goods games, in which players have arbitrarily long
memories of prior rounds of play and can react to their experience in an
arbitrary way. To study this problem we construct a coordinate system for
memory- strategies in iterated -player games that permits us to
characterize all the cooperative strategies that resist invasion by any mutant
strategy, and thus stabilize cooperative behavior. We show that while larger
games inevitably make cooperation harder to evolve, there nevertheless always
exists a positive volume of strategies that stabilize cooperation provided the
population size is large enough. We also show that, when games are small,
longer-memory strategies make cooperation easier to evolve, by increasing the
number of ways to stabilize cooperation. Finally we explore the co-evolution of
behavior and memory capacity, and we find that longer-memory strategies tend to
evolve in small games, which in turn drives the evolution of cooperation even
when the benefits for cooperation are low
The evolution of complex gene regulation by low specificity binding sites
Transcription factor binding sites vary in their specificity, both within and
between species. Binding specificity has a strong impact on the evolution of
gene expression, because it determines how easily regulatory interactions are
gained and lost. Nevertheless, we have a relatively poor understanding of what
evolutionary forces determine the specificity of binding sites. Here we address
this question by studying regulatory modules composed of multiple binding
sites. Using a population-genetic model, we show that more complex regulatory
modules, composed of a greater number of binding sites, must employ binding
sites that are individually less specific, compared to less complex regulatory
modules. This effect is extremely general, and it hold regardless of the
regulatory logic of a module. We attribute this phenomenon to the inability of
stabilising selection to maintain highly specific sites in large regulatory
modules. Our analysis helps to explain broad empirical trends in the yeast
regulatory network: those genes with a greater number of transcriptional
regulators feature by less specific binding sites, and there is less variance
in their specificity, compared to genes with fewer regulators. Likewise, our
results also help to explain the well-known trend towards lower specificity in
the transcription factor binding sites of higher eukaryotes, which perform
complex regulatory tasks, compared to prokaryotes
The majority-party disadvantage: revising theories of legislative organization
Dominant theories of legislative organization in the U.S. rest on the notion that the majority party arranges legislative matters to enhance its electoral fortunes. Yet, we find little evidence for a short-term electoral advantage for the majority party in U.S. state legislatures. Furthermore, there appears to be a pronounced downstream majority-party disadvantage. To establish these findings, we propose a technique for aggregating the results of close elections to obtain as-if random variation in majority-party status. We argue that the results from this approach are consistent with a phenomenon of inter-temporal balancing, which we link to other forms of partisan balancing in U.S. elections. The article thus necessitates revisions to our theories of legislative organization, offers new arguments for balancing theories, and lays out an empirical technique for studying the effects of majority-party status in legislative contexts
The effects of external planets on inner systems: multiplicities, inclinations, and pathways to eccentric warm Jupiters
We study how close-in systems such as those detected by Kepler are affected
by the dynamics of bodies in the outer system. We consider two scenarios: outer
systems of giant planets potentially unstable to planet--planet scattering, and
wide binaries that may be capable of driving Kozai or other secular variations
of outer planets' eccentricities. Dynamical excitation of planets in the outer
system reduces the multiplicity of Kepler-detectable planets in the inner
system in of our systems. Accounting for the occurrence rates of
wide-orbit planets and binary stars, of close-in systems could be
destabilised by their outer companions in this way. This provides some
contribution to the apparent excess of systems with a single transiting planet
compared to multiple, however, it only contributes at most of the
excess. The effects of the outer dynamics can generate systems similar to
Kepler-56 (two coplanar planets significantly misaligned with the host star)
and Kepler-108 (two significantly non-coplanar planets in a binary). We also
identify three pathways to the formation of eccentric warm Jupiters resulting
from the interaction between outer and inner systems: direct inelastic
collision between an eccentric outer and an inner planet, secular eccentricity
oscillations that may "freeze out" when scattering resolves in the outer
system; and scattering in the inner system followed by "uplift", where inner
planets are removed by interaction with the outer planets. In these scenarios,
the formation of eccentric warm Jupiters is a signature of a past history of
violent dynamics among massive planets beyond au.Comment: 24 pages, 19 figures. Accepted to MNRA
Residual acceleration data on IML-1: Development of a data reduction and dissemination plan
The research performed consisted of three stages: (1) identification of sensitive IML-1 experiments and sensitivity ranges by order of magnitude estimates, numerical modeling, and investigator input; (2) research and development towards reduction, supplementation, and dissemination of residual acceleration data; and (3) implementation of the plan on existing acceleration databases
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