Insect (Arthropoda: Insecta) Composition in the Diet of Ornate Box Turtles (Terrapene ornata ornata) in Two Western Illinois Sand Prairies, with a New State Record for Cyclocephala (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae)

A study of fecal samples collected over a two-year period from juvenile ornate box turtles (Terrapene ornata ornata Agassiz) revealed diets consisting of six orders of insects representing 19 families. Turtles were reared in captivity from eggs harvested from local, wild populations, and released at two remnant prairies. Identifiable insect fragments were found in 94% of samples in 2013 (n=33) and 96% in 2014 (n=25). Frequency of occurrence of insects in turtle feces is similar to results reported in previous studies of midwestern Terrapene species. A comparison of insect composition presented no significant difference between release sites. There is no significant difference in consumed insect species between turtles released into or outside of a fenced enclosure at the same site. Specimens of Cyclocephala longula LeConte collected during this study represent a new state record for Illinois

Mode identification in rapidly rotating stars

Context: Recent calculations of pulsation modes in rapidly rotating polytropic models and models based on the Self-Consistent Field method have shown that the frequency spectrum of low degree pulsation modes can be described by an empirical formula similar to Tassoul's asymptotic formula, provided that the underlying rotation profile is not too differential. Aims: Given the simplicity of this asymptotic formula, we investigate whether it can provide a means by which to identify pulsation modes in rapidly rotating stars. Methods: We develop a new mode identification scheme which consists in scanning a multidimensional parameter space for the formula coefficients which yield the best-fitting asymptotic spectra. This mode identification scheme is then tested on artificial spectra based on the asymptotic formula, on random frequencies and on spectra based on full numerical eigenmode calculations for which the mode identification is known beforehand. We also investigate the effects of adding random frequencies to mimic the effects of chaotic modes which are also expected to show up in such stars. Results: In the absence of chaotic modes, it is possible to accurately find a correct mode identification for most of the observed frequencies provided these frequencies are sufficiently close to their asymptotic values. The addition of random frequencies can very quickly become problematic and hinder correct mode identification. Modifying the mode identification scheme to reject the worst fitting modes can bring some improvement but the results still remain poorer than in the case without chaotic modes

Molecular dynamics in arbitrary geometries : parallel evaluation of pair forces

A new algorithm for calculating intermolecular pair forces in molecular dynamics (MD) simulations on a distributed parallel computer is presented. The arbitrary interacting cells algorithm (AICA) is designed to operate on geometrical domains defined by an unstructured, arbitrary polyhedral mesh that has been spatially decomposed into irregular portions for parallelisation. It is intended for nano scale fluid mechanics simulation by MD in complex geometries, and to provide the MD component of a hybrid MD/continuum simulation. The spatial relationship of the cells of the mesh is calculated at the start of the simulation and only the molecules contained in cells that have part of their surface closer than the cut-off radius of the intermolecular pair potential are required to interact. AICA has been implemented in the open source C++ code OpenFOAM, and its accuracy has been indirectly verified against a published MD code. The same system simulated in serial and in parallel on 12 and 32 processors gives the same results. Performance tests show that there is an optimal number of cells in a mesh for maximum speed of calculating intermolecular forces, and that having a large number of empty cells in the mesh does not add a significant computational overhead

Pulsation modes in rapidly rotating stellar models based on the Self-Consistent Field method

Context: New observational means such as the space missions CoRoT and Kepler and ground-based networks are and will be collecting stellar pulsation data with unprecedented accuracy. A significant fraction of the stars in which pulsations are observed are rotating rapidly. Aims: Our aim is to characterise pulsation modes in rapidly rotating stellar models so as to be able to interpret asteroseismic data from such stars. Methods: The pulsation code developed in Ligni\`eres et al. (2006) and Reese et al. (2006) is applied to stellar models based on the self-consistent field (SCF) method (Jackson et al. 2004, 2005, MacGregor et al. 2007). Results: Pulsation modes in SCF models follow a similar behaviour to those in uniformly rotating polytropic models, provided that the rotation profile is not too differential. Pulsation modes fall into different categories, the three main ones being island, chaotic, and whispering gallery modes, which are rotating counterparts to modes with low, medium, and high l-|m| values, respectively. The frequencies of the island modes follow an asymptotic pattern quite similar to what was found for polytropic models. Extending this asymptotic formula to higher azimuthal orders reveals more subtle behaviour as a function of m and provides a first estimate of the average advection of pulsation modes by rotation. Further calculations based on a variational principle confirm this estimate and provide rotation kernels that could be used in inversion methods. When the rotation profile becomes highly differential, it becomes more and more difficult to find island and whispering gallery modes at low azimuthal orders. At high azimuthal orders, whispering gallery modes, and in some cases island modes, reappear.Comment: 16 pages, 11 figures, accepted for publication in A&

Insect (Arthropoda: Insecta) Composition in the Diet of Ornate Box Turtles (Terrapene ornata ornata) in Two Western Illinois Sand Prairies, with a New State Record for Cyclocephala (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae)

A study of fecal samples collected over a two-year period from juvenile ornate box turtles (Terrapene ornata ornata Agassiz) revealed diets consisting of six orders of insects representing 19 families. Turtles were reared in captivity from eggs harvested from local, wild populations, and released at two remnant prairies. Identifiable insect fragments were found in 94% of samples in 2013 (n=33) and 96% in 2014 (n=25). Frequency of occurrence of insects in turtle feces is similar to results reported in previous studies of midwestern Terrapene species. A comparison of insect composition presented no significant difference between release sites. There is no significant difference in consumed insect species between turtles released into or outside of a fenced enclosure at the same site. Specimens of Cyclocephala longula LeConte collected during this study represent a new state record for Illinois

Analysis of the thermomechanical inconsistency of some extended hydrodynamic models at high Knudsen number

There are some hydrodynamic equations that, while their parent kinetic equation satisfies fundamental mechanical properties, appear themselves to violate mechanical or thermodynamic properties. This article aims to shed some light on the source of this problem. Starting with diffusive volume hydrodynamic models, the microscopic temporal and spatial scales are first separated at the kinetic level from the macroscopic scales at the hydrodynamic level. Then we consider Klimontovich’s spatial stochastic version of the Boltzmann kinetic equation, and show that, for small local Knudsen numbers, the stochastic term vanishes and the kinetic equation becomes the Boltzmann equation. The collision integral dominates in the small local Knudsen number regime, which is associated with the exact traditional continuum limit. We find a sub-domain of the continuum range which the conventional Knudsen number classification does not account for appropriately. In this sub-domain, it is possible to obtain a fully mechanically-consistent volume (or mass) diffusion model that satisfies the second law of thermodynamics on the grounds of extended non-local-equilibrium thermodynamics