502 research outputs found
Population dynamics of two sympatric intertidal fish species (the shanny, Lipophrys pholis, and long-spined scorpion fish,Taurulus bubalis) of Great Britain
The shanny/common blenny (Lipophrys pholis) and long-spined scorpionfish/bullhead (Taurulus bubalis) are commonly encountered, sympatric species within much of Great Britainâs rocky intertidal zones. Despite being prey items of the cod (Gadus morhua) and haddock (Melanogrammus aeglefinus) respectively, and both contributors to the diet of the near-threatened European otter (Lutra lutra), little is known on the population dynamics of the temperate specimens of Great Britain. It is further less known of the degrees of sympatricy between the two fish species and to what extent they are able to coexist. The current study examines spatio-temporal distributions and abundances at various resolutions: monthly population dynamics of both species along Englandâs Yorkshire coast and seasonal population dynamics along the Yorkshire coast and around the Isle of Anglesey, Wales. Studies of their abundances, sizes, degrees of rock pool co-occurrence and diel activities are further examined, which indicate coexistence is maintained when interspecific co-occurrence takes place only between specimens of similar sizes, thus demoting size-related dominance hierarchies
Characterization for index based livestock insurance
Pastoral populations of sub-Saharan Africa are particularly vulnerable to losses in wealth and productive assets via herdmortality shocks. Although conventional insurance mechanisms covering individual losses are not cost effective in low income extensive grazing pastoral communities, index insurance for livestock offers a promising alternative. This paper identifies regions most suitable for an index-based livestock insurance product: areas predicted to have high covariaterisk from drought, high potential demand for a livestock insurance product, and supporting market infrastructure for an insurance product. Our findings support current efforts to implement index insurance in Kenya and Ethiopia, and reveal additional areas for geographic expansion in western and southern Africa
The importance of cephalopods in the diet of fish on the northwest European shelf.
Cephalopods are universal to the world's oceans and prey to many fish species. On the northwest European shelf, integrated ecosystem assessments are rapidly evolving into the preferred method for holistically assessing stocks, but cephalopods appear to be an overlooked component, perhaps because their roles in ecosystems have seldom been quantified in recent years. We have analysed historical fish stomach records and revisited literature at local and regional level to determine the importance of cephalopods to the diets of 26 ecologically important finfish. We conclude that, in contrast to most other large marine ecosystems, cephalopods found in the Greater North Sea and the Celtic Seas regions appear to contribute only a small fraction to the diets of ecologically important finfish (found in the stomachs of ~14% of specimens among some species, but generally only 1â3% in most species), though their role as predator may be important and require further investigation. Based on our findings, cephalopods may not represent a key component for integrated ecosystem assessments, though as squid populations have been shown to expand throughout the North Sea in recent years, regular monitoring is encouraged to identify the point where their inclusion into such models may be necessary
Formation of the first three gravitational-wave observations through isolated binary evolution
Formation of the first three gravitational-wave observations through isolated binary evolution
Kochen-Specker Sets and Generalized Orthoarguesian Equations
Every set (finite or infinite) of quantum vectors (states) satisfies
generalized orthoarguesian equations (OA). We consider two 3-dim
Kochen-Specker (KS) sets of vectors and show how each of them should be
represented by means of a Hasse diagram---a lattice, an algebra of subspaces of
a Hilbert space--that contains rays and planes determined by the vectors so as
to satisfy OA. That also shows why they cannot be represented by a special
kind of Hasse diagram called a Greechie diagram, as has been erroneously done
in the literature. One of the KS sets (Peres') is an example of a lattice in
which 6OA pass and 7OA fails, and that closes an open question of whether the
7oa class of lattices properly contains the 6oa class. This result is important
because it provides additional evidence that our previously given proof of noa
=< (n+1)oa can be extended to proper inclusion noa < (n+1)oa and that nOA form
an infinite sequence of successively stronger equations.Comment: 16 pages and 5 figure
The effect of two-temperature post-shock accretion flow on the linear polarization pulse in magnetic cataclysmic variables
The temperatures of electrons and ions in the post-shock accretion region of
a magnetic cataclysmic variable (mCV) will be equal at sufficiently high mass
flow rates or for sufficiently weak magnetic fields. At lower mass flow rates
or in stronger magnetic fields, efficient cyclotron cooling will cool the
electrons faster than the electrons can cool the ions and a two-temperature
flow will result. Here we investigate the differences in polarized radiation
expected from mCV post-shock accretion columns modeled with one- and
two-temperature hydrodynamics. In an mCV model with one accretion region, a
magnetic field >~30 MG and a specific mass flow rate of ~0.5 g/cm/cm/s, along
with a relatively generic geometric orientation of the system, we find that in
the ultraviolet either a single linear polarization pulse per binary orbit or
two pulses per binary orbit can be expected, depending on the accretion column
hydrodynamic structure (one- or two-temperature) modeled. Under conditions
where the physical flow is two-temperature, one pulse per orbit is predicted
from a single accretion region where a one-temperature model predicts two
pulses. The intensity light curves show similar pulse behavior but there is
very little difference between the circular polarization predictions of one-
and two-temperature models. Such discrepancies indicate that it is important to
model some aspect of two-temperature flow in indirect imaging procedures, like
Stokes imaging, especially at the edges of extended accretion regions, were the
specific mass flow is low, and especially for ultraviolet data.Comment: Accepted for publication in Astrophysics & Space Scienc
On the formation history of Galactic double neutron stars
Double neutron stars (DNSs) have been observed as Galactic radio pulsars, and the recent discovery of gravitational waves from the DN merger GW170817 adds to the known DNS population. We perform rapi population synthesis of massive binary stars and discuss mode predictions, including DNS formation rates, mass distributions, an delay time distributions. We vary assumptions and parameters of physica processes such as mass transfer stability criteria, supernova natal kic distributions, remnant mass prescriptions, and common-envelop eccentricity distribution of the Galactic DNS population under each o our population synthesis models, allowing us to quantitatively compar burning secondary (case BB) on to a neutron star is most likel dynamically stable. We also find that a natal kick distribution compose of both low (Maxwellian Ď =30 km s^{-1}) and high (Ď =265 km s^{-1} components is preferred over a single high-kick component. We conclud that the observed DNS mass distribution can place strong constraints o model assumption
TomograPy: A Fast, Instrument-Independent, Solar Tomography Software
Solar tomography has progressed rapidly in recent years thanks to the
development of robust algorithms and the availability of more powerful
computers. It can today provide crucial insights in solving issues related to
the line-of-sight integration present in the data of solar imagers and
coronagraphs. However, there remain challenges such as the increase of the
available volume of data, the handling of the temporal evolution of the
observed structures, and the heterogeneity of the data in multi-spacecraft
studies.
We present a generic software package that can perform fast tomographic
inversions that scales linearly with the number of measurements, linearly with
the length of the reconstruction cube (and not the number of voxels) and
linearly with the number of cores and can use data from different sources and
with a variety of physical models: TomograPy
(http://nbarbey.github.com/TomograPy/), an open-source software freely
available on the Python Package Index. For performance, TomograPy uses a
parallelized-projection algorithm. It relies on the World Coordinate System
standard to manage various data sources. A variety of inversion algorithms are
provided to perform the tomographic-map estimation. A test suite is provided
along with the code to ensure software quality. Since it makes use of the
Siddon algorithm it is restricted to rectangular parallelepiped voxels but the
spherical geometry of the corona can be handled through proper use of priors.
We describe the main features of the code and show three practical examples
of multi-spacecraft tomographic inversions using STEREO/EUVI and STEREO/COR1
data. Static and smoothly varying temporal evolution models are presented.Comment: 21 pages, 6 figures, 5 table
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