12,915 research outputs found
Lichens of six vernal pools in Acadia National Park, ME, USA
Whereas lichen-habitat relations have been well-documented globally, literature on lichens of vernal pools is scant. We surveyed six vernal pools at Acadia National Park on Mount Desert Island, Maine, USA for their lichen diversity. Sixty-seven species were identified, including seven species that are new reports for Acadia National Park: Fuscidea arboricola, Hypogymnia incurvoides, Lepraria finkii, Phaeographis inusta, Ropalospora viridis, Usnea flammea, and Violella fucata. Five species are considered uncommon or only locally common in New England: Everniastrum catawbiense, Hypogymnia krogiae, Pseudevernia cladonia, Usnea flammea, and Usnea merrillii. This work represents the first survey of lichens from vernal pools in Acadia National Park and strongly suggests that previous efforts at documenting species at the Park have underestimated its species diversity. More work should be conducted to determine whether a unique assemblage of lichens occurs in association with this unique habitat type
Casimir Forces: An Exact Approach for Periodically Deformed Objects
A novel approach for calculating Casimir forces between periodically deformed
objects is developed. This approach allows, for the first time, a rigorous
non-perturbative treatment of the Casimir effect for disconnected objects
beyond Casimir's original two-plate configuration. The approach takes into
account the collective nature of fluctuation induced forces, going beyond the
commonly used pairwise summation of two-body van der Waals forces. As an
application of the method, we exactly calculate the Casimir force due to scalar
field fluctuations between a flat and a rectangular corrugated plate. In the
latter case, the force is found to be always attractive.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure
Vacuum fluctuations, accelerated motion and conformal frames
Radiation from a mirror moving in vacuum electromagnetic fields is shown to
vanish in the case of a uniformly accelerated motion. Such motions are related
to conformal coordinate transformations, which preserve correlation functions
characteristic of vacuum fluctuations. As a result, vacuum fluctuations remain
invariant under reflection upon a uniformly accelerated mirror, which therefore
does not radiate and experiences no radiation reaction force. Mechanical
effects of vacuum fluctuations thus exhibit an invariance with respect to
uniformly accelerated motions.Comment: 7 page
Structural and magnetic characterization of the complete delafossite solid solution (CuAlO2){1-x}(CuCrO2){x}
We have prepared the complete delafossite solid solution series between
diamagnetic CuAlO2 and the t2g^3 frustrated antiferromagnet CuCrO2. The
evolution with composition x in CuAl(1-x)Cr(x)O2 of the crystal structure and
magnetic properties has been studied and is reported here. The room-temperature
unit cell parameters follow the Vegard law and increase with x as expected. The
effective moment is equal to the Cr^3+ spin-only S = 3/2 value throughout the
entire solid solution. Theta is negative, indicating that the dominant
interactions are antiferromagnetic, and its magnitude increases with Cr
substitution. For dilute Cr compositions, J_BB was estimated by mean-field
theory to be 2.0 meV. Despite the sizable Theta, long-range antiferromagnetic
order does not develop until very large x, and is preceeded by glassy behavior.
Data presented here, and that on dilute Al-substitution from Okuda et al.,
suggest that the reduction in magnetic frustration due to the presence of
non-magnetic Al does not have as dominant an effect on magnetism as chemical
disorder and dilution of the magnetic exchange. For all samples, the 5 K
isothermal magnetization does not saturate in fields up to 5 T and minimal
hysteresis is observed. The presence of antiferromagnetic interactions is
clearly evident in the sub-Brillouin behavior with a reduced magnetization per
Cr atom. An inspection of the scaled Curie plot reveals that significant
short-range antiferromagnetic interactions occur in CuCrO2 above its Neel
temperature, consistent with its magnetic frustration. Uncompensated
short-range interactions are present in the Al-substituted samples and are
likely a result of chemical disorder
Laser photogrammetry reveals variation in growth and early survival in free-ranging bottlenose dolphins
Acknowledgements Many thanks to the Chicago Zoological Society team for their assistance during photo-identification surveys in Sarasota, Florida and the Scottish Marine Animal Stranding Scheme and University of North Carolina Wilmington Marine Mammal Stranding Program for providing measurements of stranded bottlenose dolphins. Thanks to Holly Fearnbach and Isla Graham for statistical advice, to Hera Sengers and all our fieldwork assistants for their fieldwork support and to four anonymous reviewers who kindly provided comments on the manuscript. Scottish Natural Heritage, Department of Energy and Climate Change, Beatrice Offshore Windfarm Ltd, Moray Offshore Renewables Ltd, Marine Scotland, The Crown Estate and Highlands and Islands Enterprise all provided funding for photo-identification surveys. Survey work was conducted under Scottish Natural Heritage Animal Scientific LicencesPeer reviewedPublisher PD
Quantum reflection of ultracold atoms from thin films, graphene, and semiconductor heterostructures
We show that thin dielectric films can be used to enhance the performance of
passive atomic mirrors by enabling quantum reflection probabilities of over 90%
for atoms incident at velocities ~1 mm/s, achieved in recent experiments. This
enhancement is brought about by weakening the Casimir-Polder attraction between
the atom and the surface, which induces the quantum reflection. We show that
suspended graphene membranes also produce higher quantum reflection
probabilities than bulk matter. Temporal changes in the electrical resistance
of such membranes, produced as atoms stick to the surface, can be used to
monitor the reflection process, non-invasively and in real time. The resistance
change allows the reflection probability to be determined purely from
electrical measurements without needing to image the reflected atom cloud
optically. Finally, we show how perfect atom mirrors may be manufactured from
semiconductor heterostructures, which employ an embedded two-dimensional
electron gas to tailor the atom-surface interaction and so enhance the
reflection by classical means.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figure
Possibilities for pedagogy in Further Education: Harnessing the abundance of literacy
In this report, it is argued that the most salient factor in the contemporary communicative landscape is the sheer abundance and diversity of possibilities for literacy, and that the extent and nature of students' communicative resources is a central issue in education. The text outlines the conceptual underpinnings of the Literacies for Learning in Further Education project in a social view of literacy, and the associated research design, methodology and analytical framework. It elaborates on the notion of the abundance of literacies in students' everyday lives, and on the potential for harnessing these as resources for the enhancement of learning. It provides case studies of changes in practice that have been undertaken by further education staff in order to draw upon students' everyday literacy practices on Travel and Tourism and Multimedia courses. It ends with some of the broad implications for conceptualising learning that arise from researching through the lens of literacy practices
Quantum radiation in a plane cavity with moving mirrors
We consider the electromagnetic vacuum field inside a perfect plane cavity
with moving mirrors, in the nonrelativistic approximation. We show that low
frequency photons are generated in pairs that satisfy simple properties
associated to the plane geometry. We calculate the photon generation rates for
each polarization as functions of the mechanical frequency by two independent
methods: on one hand from the analysis of the boundary conditions for moving
mirrors and with the aid of Green functions; and on the other hand by an
effective Hamiltonian approach. The angular and frequency spectra are discrete,
and emission rates for each allowed angular direction are obtained. We discuss
the dependence of the generation rates on the cavity length and show that the
effect is enhanced for short cavity lengths. We also compute the dissipative
force on the moving mirrors and show that it is related to the total radiated
energy as predicted by energy conservation.Comment: 17 pages, 1 figure, published in Physical Review
Ghost Busting: PT-Symmetric Interpretation of the Lee Model
The Lee model was introduced in the 1950s as an elementary quantum field
theory in which mass, wave function, and charge renormalization could be
carried out exactly. In early studies of this model it was found that there is
a critical value of g^2, the square of the renormalized coupling constant,
above which g_0^2, the square of the unrenormalized coupling constant, is
negative. Thus, for g^2 larger than this critical value, the Hamiltonian of the
Lee model becomes non-Hermitian. It was also discovered that in this
non-Hermitian regime a new state appears whose norm is negative. This state is
called a ghost state. It has always been assumed that in this ghost regime the
Lee model is an unacceptable quantum theory because unitarity appears to be
violated. However, in this regime while the Hamiltonian is not Hermitian, it
does possess PT symmetry. It has recently been discovered that a non-Hermitian
Hamiltonian having PT symmetry may define a quantum theory that is unitary. The
proof of unitarity requires the construction of a new time-independent operator
called C. In terms of C one can define a new inner product with respect to
which the norms of the states in the Hilbert space are positive. Furthermore,
it has been shown that time evolution in such a theory is unitary. In this
paper the C operator for the Lee model in the ghost regime is constructed
exactly in the V/N-theta sector. It is then shown that the ghost state has a
positive norm and that the Lee model is an acceptable unitary quantum field
theory for all values of g^2.Comment: 20 pages, 9 figure
Big data-savvy teamsâ skills, big data-driven actions and business performance
Prior studies on big data analytics have emphasized the importance of specific big data skills and capabilities for organizational success; however, they have largely neglected to investigate the use of cross-functional teamsâ skills and its links to the role played by relevant data-driven actions and business performance. Drawing on the resource-based view (RBV) of the firm and on the data collected from big data experts working in global agrifood networks, we examine the links between the use of big data-savvy (BDS) teamsâ skills, big data-driven (BDD) actions and business performance. BDS teams depend on multidisciplinary skills (e.g., computing, mathematics, statistics, machine learning, and business domain knowledge) that help them to turn their traditional business operations into modern data-driven insights (e.g., knowing real time price changes and customer preferences), leading to BDD actions that enhance business performance. Our results, raised from structural equation modelling, indicate that BDS teams' skills that produce valuable insights are the key determinants for BDD actions, which ultimately contribute to business performance. We further demonstrate that those organisations that emphasise BDD actions perform better compared to those that do not focus on such applications and relevant insights
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