Eindrapportage Hotspot Oude Vaart - Reest

De beekdalen in Drenthe zijn bij uitstek gebieden waar de effecten van de klimaatverandering merkbaar zullen zijn. Dat wordt veroorzaakt doordat beeksystemen kwetsbaar zijn voor klimatologische veranderingen. Daarnaast worden de in het gebied aanwezige functies landbouw en natuur in sterke mate beïnvloed door klimaatverandering. Hierbij spelen veranderingen in de waterhuishouding een belangrijke rol

Gravity wave analogs of black holes

It is demonstrated that gravity waves of a flowing fluid in a shallow basin can be used to simulate phenomena around black holes in the laboratory. Since the speed of the gravity waves as well as their high-wavenumber dispersion (subluminal vs. superluminal) can be adjusted easily by varying the height of the fluid (and its surface tension) this scenario has certain advantages over the sonic and dielectric black hole analogs, for example, although its use in testing quantum effects is dubious. It can be used to investigate the various classical instabilities associated with black (and white) holes experimentally, including positive and negative norm mode mixing at horizons. PACS: 04.70.-s, 47.90.+a, 92.60.Dj, 04.80.-y.Comment: 14 pages RevTeX, 5 figures, section VI modifie

Evaluation in vitro and in rats of161Tb-DTPA-octreotide, a somatostatin analogue with potential for intraoperative scanning and radiotherapy

The characteristics of terbium-161 diethylene triamine penta-acetic acid (DTPA) labelled octreotide with respect to specific binding to somatostatin (octreotide) receptors on rat brain cortex membranes, biological activity, uptake and excretion by isolated perfused rat livers and metabolism in vivo in normal and tumour-bearing rats were determined and compared to those of indium-111 DTPA-octreotide. The results of the binding studies demonstrate that161Tb-DTPA-octreotide is a high-affinity radioligand for somatostatin receptors, with an affinity comparable to that of111In-DTPA-octreotide. Rat growth hormone secretion inhibition experiments showed that161Tb-DTPA-octreotide has a similar potency to111In-DTPA-octreotide.161Tb-DTPA-octreotide appeared to be taken up even less by the isolated perfused rat liver than111In-DTPA-octreotide, as almost no tracer disappeared from the perfusion medium. Furthermore, hardly any radioactivity was found in the liver, and excretion into the bile was negligible. The biodistribution studies showed that for octreotide receptor-positive organs, such as pancreas and adrenals, uptake of161Tb-DTPA-octreotide is lower then that of111In-DTPA-octreotide. However, as the clearance from the blood of the former compound is faster than that of the latter, the tissue/blood ratio is higher in the case of161Tb-DTPA-octreotide than with111In-DTPA-octreotide. Furthermore, these studies demonstrated that the uptake of161Tb-DTPA-octreotide by the renal tubular cells after glomerular filtration can be reduced by administration of lysine or sodium maleate. Increase in urine production before and during the experiment had no effect on the kidney uptake of161Tb-DTPA-octreotide. Finally, it appeared that a maximal labelling efficiency of161Tb-DTPA-octreotide is essential, as with decreasing efficiency the uptake in the octreotide receptor-positive organs decreased, whereas non-specific uptake in the other organs was increased. It is concluded that, on the basis of the favourable physical characteristics of161Tb combined with the in vitro and in vivo studies performed with161Tb-DTPA-octreotide, the latter is a promising radiopharmaceutical for both intraoperative scanning and radiotherapy. Studies in patients need to be performed now to see whether161Tb-DTPA-octreotide can indeed open new therapeutic applications for patients bearing octreotide receptor-positive tumours

Black Hole Entropy without Brick Walls

We present evidence which confirms a suggestion by Susskind and Uglum regarding black hole entropy. Using a Pauli-Villars regulator, we find that 't Hooft's approach to evaluating black hole entropy through a statistical-mechanical counting of states for a scalar field propagating outside the event horizon yields precisely the one-loop renormalization of the standard Bekenstein-Hawking formula, S=\A/(4G). Our calculation also yields a constant contribution to the black hole entropy, a contribution associated with the one-loop renormalization of higher curvature terms in the gravitational action.Comment: 15 pages, plain LaTex minor additions including some references; version accepted for publicatio

The arrow of time: from universe time-asymmetry to local irreversible processes

In several previous papers we have argued for a global and non-entropic approach to the problem of the arrow of time, according to which the ''arrow'' is only a metaphorical way of expressing the geometrical time-asymmetry of the universe. We have also shown that, under definite conditions, this global time-asymmetry can be transferred to local contexts as an energy flow that points to the same temporal direction all over the spacetime. The aim of this paper is to complete the global and non-entropic program by showing that our approach is able to account for irreversible local phenomena, which have been traditionally considered as the physical origin of the arrow of time.Comment: 48 pages, 8 figures, revtex4. Accepted for publication in Foundations of Physic

The invasive Asian bush mosquito Aedes japonicus found in the Netherlands can experimentally transmit Zika virus and Usutu virus

Background - The Asian bush mosquito Aedes japonicus is invading Europe and was first discovered in Lelystad, the Netherlands in 2013, where it has established a permanent population. In this study, we investigated the vector competence of Ae. japonicus from the Netherlands for the emerging Zika virus (ZIKV) and zoonotic Usutu virus (USUV). ZIKV causes severe congenital microcephaly and Guillain-Barré syndrome in humans. USUV is closely related to West Nile virus, has recently spread throughout Europe and is causing mass mortality of birds. USUV infection in humans can result in clinical manifestations ranging from mild disease to severe neurological impairments.Methodology/Principal findings - In our study, field-collected Ae. japonicus females received an infectious blood meal with ZIKV or USUV by droplet feeding. After 14 days at 28°C, 3% of the ZIKV-blood fed mosquitoes and 13% of the USUV-blood fed mosquitoes showed virus-positive saliva, indicating that Ae. japonicus can transmit both viruses. To investigate the effect of the mosquito midgut barrier on virus transmission, female mosquitoes were intrathoracically injected with ZIKV or USUV. Of the injected mosquitoes, 96% (ZIKV) and 88% (USUV) showed virus-positive saliva after 14 days at 28°C. This indicates that ZIKV and USUV can efficiently replicate in Ae. japonicus but that a strong midgut barrier is normally restricting virus dissemination. Small RNA deep sequencing of orally infected mosquitoes confirmed active replication of ZIKV and USUV, as demonstrated by potent small interfering RNA responses against both viruses. Additionally, de novo small RNA assembly revealed the presence of a novel narnavirus in Ae. japonicus.Conclusions/Significance - Given that Ae. japonicus can experimentally transmit arthropod-borne viruses (arboviruses) like ZIKV and USUV and is currently expanding its territories, we should consider this mosquito as a potential vector for arboviral diseases in Europ

Unruh--DeWitt detectors in spherically symmetric dynamical space-times

In the present paper, Unruh--DeWitt detectors are used in order to investigate the issue of temperature associated with a spherically symmetric dynamical space-times. Firstly, we review the semi-classical tunneling method, then we introduce the Unruh--DeWitt detector approach. We show that for the generic static black hole case and the FRW de Sitter case, making use of peculiar Kodama trajectories, semiclassical and quantum field theoretic techniques give the same standard and well known thermal interpretation, with an associated temperature, corrected by appropriate Tolman factors. For a FRW space-time interpolating de Sitter space with the Einstein--de Sitter universe (that is a more realistic situation in the frame of $\Lambda$CDM cosmologies), we show that the detector response splits into a de Sitter contribution plus a fluctuating term containing no trace of Boltzmann-like factors, but rather describing the way thermal equilibrium is reached in the late time limit. As a consequence, and unlike the case of black holes, the identification of the dynamical surface gravity of a cosmological trapping horizon as an effective temperature parameter seems lost, at least for our co-moving simplified detectors. The possibility remains that a detector performing a proper motion along a Kodama trajectory may register something more, in which case the horizon surface gravity would be associated more likely to vacuum correlations than to particle creation.Comment: 19 pages, to appear on IJTP. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1101.525