1,433 research outputs found
Biological evaluation of the Belgian beaches by means of terrestrial invertebrates
Beaches belong to the least studied ecosystems, although they contain typical habitats for a large amount of specialised terrestrial invertebrates. This specific beach fauna was quite diverse along the Belgian coast at the beginning of the twentieth century. Especially species bound to organic matter, washed up on the tide line, were well represented. As a result of the development of mass tourism, most of our beaches are subject to mechanical beach cleaning and the suppletion of sand. These activities are believed to be responsible for the degradation of the original habitat. However, documentation on this topic was scarce and evidence of negative effects on local biodiversity was lacking. Therefore, the main goal of this research was to make an inventory of the terrestrial arthropod fauna on Flemish beaches and analysing temporal and spatial variation, in function of abiotic components such as the degree of recreation and the intensity of mechanical beach cleaning. The main conclusion is that a high degree of recreation and mechanical beach cleaning indeed has a negative influence on the richness of the species bound to organic detritus and also induces a change in community structure of terrestrial invertebrates along the Flemish coast. Secondly, predators and even parasites are also indirectly influenced by these anthropogenic disturbances, as a result of the declining prey population. Excluding or at least reducing these impacts along certain sections of the Flemish coast, might ensure the preservation of the organic detritus on the tide line and hence its associated beach fauna
Activity and Process Stability of Purified Green Pepper (Capsicum annuum) Pectin Methylesterase
Pectin methylesterase (PME) from green bell peppers (Capsicum annuum) was extracted and purified by affinity chromatography on a CNBr-Sepharose-PMEI column. A single protein peak with pectin methylesterase activity was observed. For the pepper PME, a biochemical characterization in terms of molar mass (MM), isoelectric points (pI), and kinetic parameters for activity and thermostability was performed. The optimum pH for PME activity at 22 °C was 7.5, and its optimum temperature at neutral pH was between 52.5 and 55.0 °C. The purified pepper PME required the presence of 0.13 M NaCl for optimum activity. Isothermal inactivation of purified pepper PME in 20 mM Tris buffer (pH 7.5) could be described by a fractional conversion model for lower temperatures (55?57 °C) and a biphasic model for higher temperatures (58?70 °C). The enzyme showed a stable behavior toward high-pressure/temperature treatments. Keywords: Capsicum annuum; pepper; pectin methylesterase; purification; characterization; thermal and high-pressure stabilit
Velocity Correlations, Diffusion and Stochasticity in a One-Dimensional System
We consider the motion of a test particle in a one-dimensional system of
equal-mass point particles. The test particle plays the role of a microscopic
"piston" that separates two hard-point gases with different concentrations and
arbitrary initial velocity distributions. In the homogeneous case when the
gases on either side of the piston are in the same macroscopic state, we
compute and analyze the stationary velocity autocorrelation function C(t).
Explicit expressions are obtained for certain typical velocity distributions,
serving to elucidate in particular the asymptotic behavior of C(t). It is shown
that the occurrence of a non-vanishing probability mass at zero velocity is
necessary for the occurrence of a long-time tail in C(t). The conditions under
which this is a tail are determined. Turning to the inhomogeneous
system with different macroscopic states on either side of the piston, we
determine its effective diffusion coefficient from the asymptotic behavior of
the variance of its position, as well as the leading behavior of the other
moments about the mean. Finally, we present an interpretation of the effective
noise arising from the dynamics of the two gases, and thence that of the
stochastic process to which the position of any particle in the system reduces
in the thermodynamic limit.Comment: 22 files, 2 eps figures. Submitted to PR
Mesoscopic description of the annealed Ising model and Multiplicative noise
A new type of Langevin equation exhibiting a non trivial phase transition
associated with the presence of multiplicative noise is introduced. The
equation is derived as a mesoscopic representation of the microscopic annealed
Ising model (AIM) proposed by Thorpe and Beeman, and reproduces perfectly its
basic phenomenology. The AIM exhibits a non-trivial behavior as the temperature
is increased, in particular it presents a disorder-to-order phase transition at
low temperatures, and a order-to-disorder transition at higher temperatures.
This behavior resembles that of some Langevin equations with multiplicative
noise, which exhibit also two analogous phase transitions as the
noise-amplitude is increased. By comparing the standard models for
noise-induced transitions with our new Langevin equation we elucidate that the
mechanisms controlling the disorder-to-order transitions in both of them are
essentially different, even though for both of them the presence of
multiplicative noise is a key ingredient.Comment: Submitted to Phys. Rev.
The Measure-theoretic Identity Underlying Transient Fluctuation Theorems
We prove a measure-theoretic identity that underlies all transient
fluctuation theorems (TFTs) for entropy production and dissipated work in
inhomogeneous deterministic and stochastic processes, including those of Evans
and Searles, Crooks, and Seifert. The identity is used to deduce a tautological
physical interpretation of TFTs in terms of the arrow of time, and its
generality reveals that the self-inverse nature of the various trajectory and
process transformations historically relied upon to prove TFTs, while necessary
for these theorems from a physical standpoint, is not necessary from a
mathematical one. The moment generating functions of thermodynamic variables
appearing in the identity are shown to converge in general only in a vertical
strip in the complex plane, with the consequence that a TFT that holds over
arbitrary timescales may fail to give rise to an asymptotic fluctuation theorem
for any possible speed of the corresponding large deviation principle. The case
of strongly biased birth-death chains is presented to illustrate this
phenomenon. We also discuss insights obtained from our measure-theoretic
formalism into the results of Saha et. al. on the breakdown of TFTs for driven
Brownian particles
Cryptography based on neural networks - analytical results
Mutual learning process between two parity feed-forward networks with
discrete and continuous weights is studied analytically, and we find that the
number of steps required to achieve full synchronization between the two
networks in the case of discrete weights is finite. The synchronization process
is shown to be non-self-averaging and the analytical solution is based on
random auxiliary variables. The learning time of an attacker that is trying to
imitate one of the networks is examined analytically and is found to be much
longer than the synchronization time. Analytical results are found to be in
agreement with simulations
Entropy production and the arrow of time
We present an exact relationship between the entropy production and the
distinguishability of a process from its time-reverse, quantified by the
relative entropy between forward and backward states. The relationship is shown
to remain valid for a wide family of initial conditions, such as canonical,
constrained canonical, multi-canonical and grand canonical distributions, as
well as both for classical and quantum systems.Comment: 15 pages, no figure
Diffusion and Current of Brownian Particles in Tilted Piecewise Linear Potentials: Amplification and Coherence
Overdamped motion of Brownian particles in tilted piecewise linear periodic
potentials is considered. Explicit algebraic expressions for the diffusion
coefficient, current, and coherence level of Brownian transport are derived.
Their dependencies on temperature, tilting force, and the shape of the
potential are analyzed. The necessary and sufficient conditions for the
non-monotonic behavior of the diffusion coefficient as a function of
temperature are determined. The diffusion coefficient and coherence level are
found to be extremely sensitive to the asymmetry of the potential. It is
established that at the values of the external force, for which the enhancement
of diffusion is most rapid, the level of coherence has a wide plateau at low
temperatures with the value of the Peclet factor 2. An interpretation of the
amplification of diffusion in comparison with free thermal diffusion in terms
of probability distribution is proposed.Comment: To appear in PR
Spurious diffusion in particle simulations of the Kolmogorov flow
Particle simulations of the Kolmogorov flow are analyzed by the
Landau-Lifshitz fluctuating hydrodynamics. It is shown that a spurious
diffusion of the center of mass corrupts the statistical properties of the
flow. The analytical expression for the corresponding diffusion coefficient is
derived.Comment: 10 pages, no figure
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