5,262 research outputs found
BIOECONOMICS OF REGULATING NITRATES IN GROUNDWATER: TAXES, QUANTITY RESTRICTIONS, AND POLLUTION PERMITS
Soil specific, chance constrained, dynamic models of agricultural production and nitrate leaching are developed to assess the impacts of nitrogen fertilizer taxes, quantity restrictions on fertilizer or leachate, and leachate permits. A programming model uses the solutions of these bioeconomic models to determine regional impacts of the regulations.Land Economics/Use, Research Methods/ Statistical Methods,
Teaching relational database fundamentals: a lack-of-progress report
This paper describes and evaluates changes introduced in six successive
years teaching a relational databases module. We explain
how we plan to obtain some certainty on the value of interventions.
Using an archive of data over the period, we find some interventions
that should not be repeated. We also show that most changes
introduced did not significantly improve students’ learning, contrary
to expectations. Instead, factors that were ignored had more
influence on performance that factors we attempted to affect
Microscopic mechanisms of thermal and driven diffusion of non rigid molecules on surfaces
The motion of molecules on solid surfaces is of interest for technological
applications such as catalysis and lubrication, but it is also a theoretical
challenge at a more fundamental level. The concept of activation barriers is
very convenient for the interpretation of experiments and as input for Monte
Carlo simulations but may become inadequate when mismatch with the substrate
and molecular vibrations are considered. We study the simplest objects
diffusing on a substrate at finite temperature , namely an adatom and a
diatomic molecule (dimer), using the Langevin approach. In the driven case, we
analyse the characteristic curves, comparing the motion for different values of
the intramolecular spacing, both for T=0 and . The mobility of the
dimer is higher than that of the monomer when the drift velocity is less than
the natural stretching frequency. The role of intramolecular excitations is
crucial in this respect. In the undriven case, the diffusive dynamics is
considered as a function of temperature. Contrary to atomic diffusion, for the
dimer it is not possible to define a single, temperature independent,
activation barrier. Our results suggest that vibrations can account for drastic
variations of the activation barrier. This reveals a complex behaviour
determined by the interplay between vibrations and a temperature dependent
intramolecular equilibrium length.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures, Proceeding of the EMRS 2002 Conference, to be
published in Thin Solid Film
Self-diffusion of adatoms, dimers, and vacancies on Cu(100)
We use ab initio static relaxation methods and semi-empirical
molecular-dynamics simulations to investigate the energetics and dynamics of
the diffusion of adatoms, dimers, and vacancies on Cu(100). It is found that
the dynamical energy barriers for diffusion are well approximated by the
static, 0 K barriers and that prefactors do not depend sensitively on the
species undergoing diffusion. The ab initio barriers are observed to be
significantly lower when calculated within the generalized-gradient
approximation (GGA) rather than in the local-density approximation (LDA). Our
calculations predict that surface diffusion should proceed primarily via the
diffusion of vacancies. Adatoms are found to migrate most easily via a jump
mechanism. This is the case, also, of dimers, even though the corresponding
barrier is slightly larger than it is for adatoms. We observe, further, that
dimers diffuse more readily than they can dissociate. Our results are discussed
in the context of recent submonolayer growth experiments of Cu(100).Comment: Submitted to the Physical Review B; 15 pages including postscript
figures; see also http://www.centrcn.umontreal.ca/~lewi
Changes in Arctic Melt Season and Implications for Sea Ice Loss
The Arctic-wide melt season has lengthened at a rate of 5 days dec-1 from 1979 to 2013, dominated by later autumn freeze-up within the Kara, Laptev, East Siberian, Chukchi and Beaufort seas between 6 and 11 days dec(exp -1). While melt onset trends are generally smaller, the timing of melt onset has a large influence on the total amount of solar energy absorbed during summer. The additional heat stored in the upper ocean of approximately 752MJ m(exp -2) during the last decade, increases sea surface temperatures by 0.5 to 1.5 C and largely explains the observed delays in autumn freeze-up within the Arctic Ocean's adjacent seas. Cumulative anomalies in total absorbed solar radiation from May through September for the most recent pentad locally exceed 300-400 MJ m(exp -2) in the Beaufort, Chukchi and East Siberian seas. This extra solar energy is equivalent to melting 0.97 to 1.3 m of ice during the summer
Upstream-binding factor is sequestered into herpes simplex virus type 1 replication compartments
Previous reports have shown that adenovirus recruits nucleolar protein upstream-binding factor (UBF) into adenovirus DNA replication centres. Here, we report that despite having a different mode of viral DNA replication, herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1) also recruits UBF into viral DNA replication centres. Moreover, as with adenovirus, enhanced green fluorescent protein-tagged fusion proteins of UBF inhibit viral DNA replication. We propose that UBF is recruited to the replication compartments to aid replication of HSV-1 DNA. In addition, this is a further example of the role of nucleolar components in viral life cycle
Investigating the local-scale influence of sea ice on Greenland surface melt
Rapid decline in Arctic sea ice cover in the 21st century may have wide-reaching effects on the Arctic climate system, including the Greenland ice sheet mass balance. Here, we investigate whether local changes in sea ice around the Greenland ice sheet have had an impact on Greenland surface melt. Specifically, we investigate the relationship between sea ice concentration, the timing of melt onset and open-water fraction surrounding Greenland with ice sheet surface melt using a combination of remote sensing observations, and outputs from a reanalysis model and a regional climate model for the period of 1979–2015. Statistical analysis points to covariability between Greenland ice sheet surface melt and sea ice within Baffin Bay and Davis Strait. While some of this covariance can be explained by simultaneous influence of atmospheric circulation anomalies on both the sea ice cover and Greenland melt, within Baffin Bay we find a modest correlation between detrended melt onset over sea ice and the adjacent ice sheet melt onset. This correlation appears to be related to increased transfer of sensible and latent heat fluxes from the ocean to the atmosphere in early sea ice melt years, increasing temperatures and humidity over the ice sheet that in turn initiate ice sheet melt
Transistors
Contains reports on eight research projects.Lincoln Laboratory under Contract AF19(122)-45
- …