6,579 research outputs found
Trophic ecology of common elasmobranchs exploited by artisanal shark fisheries off south-western Madagascar
Knowledge of the trophic ecology and interactions of marine top predators is fundamental for understanding community structure and dynamics as well as ecosystem function. We examined the feeding relationships of 4 heavily exploited elasmobranchs caught in coastal artisanal shark fisheries in south-western Madagascar in 2009 and 2010—Sphyrna lewini, Loxodon macrorhinus, Carcharhinus falciformis and Rhynchobatus djiddensis—using stable isotope (δ15N and δ13C) analysis. Relative trophic position (indicated by δ15N) and foraging location (indicated by δ13C) differed among species. Isotopic niche width was highly variable: more pelagic species, such as S. lewini and C. falciformis, had the broadest isotopic niches while the benthic R. djiddensis had the narrowest. A high percentage of niche overlap occurred between R. djiddensis and 2 of the species, C. falciformis (93.2%) and L. macrorhinus (73.2%), and to a lesser extent S. lewini (13.3%). Relative trophic position of S. lewini significantly increased with size, suggesting a dietary shift with age. Sex differences in δ15N values were observed in L. macrorhinus, suggesting intraspecific niche partitioning. Variation in stable isotope values among these 4 highly exploited elasmobranch species indicates trophic structuring, likely driven by differences in diet and habitat use as well as by size and sex. This study provides the first baseline information on the trophic ecology of elasmobranchs caught in artisanal fisheries from south-western Madagascar
A new system for fast and quantitative analysis of heterologous gene expression in plants
Large-scale analysis of transcription factor–cis-acting element interactions in plants, or the dissection of complex transcriptional regulatory mechanisms, requires rapid, robust and reliable systems for the quantification of gene expression.Here, we describe a new system for transient expression analysis of transcription factors, which takes advantage of the fast and easy production and transfection of Physcomitrella patens protoplasts, coupled to flow cytometry quantification of a fluorescent protein (green fluorescent protein). Two small-sized and high-copy Gateway® vectors were specifically designed, although standard binary vectors can also be employed. As a proof of concept, the regulation of BANYULS (BAN), a key structural gene involved in proanthocyanidin biosynthesis in Arabidopsis thaliana seeds, was used. In P. patens, BAN expression is activated by a complex composed of three proteins (TT2/AtMYB123, TT8/bHLH042 and TTG1), and is inhibited by MYBL2, a transcriptional repressor, as in Arabidopsis. Using this approach, two new regulatory sequences that are necessary and sufficient for specific BAN expression in proanthocyanidin-accumulating cells were identified. This one hybrid-like plant system was successfully employed to quantitatively assess the transcriptional activity of four regulatory proteins, and to identify their target recognition sites on the BAN promoter
Trophic ecology of common elasmobranchs exploited by artisanal shark fisheries off south-western Madagascar
Astrometric accuracy of phase-referenced observations with the VLBA and EVN
Astrometric accuracy of complex modern VLBI arrays cannot be calculated
analytically. We study the astrometric accuracy of phase-referenced VLBI
observations for the VLBA, EVN and global VLBI array by simulating VLBI data
for targets at declinations -25, 0, 25, 50,
75 and 85. The systematic error components considered in this
study are calibrator position, station coordinate, Earth orientation and
troposphere parameter uncertainties. We provide complete tables of the
astrometric accuracies of these arrays for a source separation of 1
either along the right ascension axis or along the declination axis.
Astrometric accuracy is 50microas at mid declination and is 300microas at low
(-25) and high (85) declinations for the VLBA and EVN. In
extending our simulations to source separations of 0.5 and 2,
we establish the formula for the astrometric accuracy of the VLBA: Delta =
(Delta_1-14)*d+ 14 (microas) where Delta_1 is the astrometric
accuracy for a separation d=1 provided in our tables for various
declinations and conditions of the wet troposphere. We argue that this formula
is also valid for the astrometric accuracy of the EVN and global VLBI array.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in Journal of
Astrophysics and Astronom
HEP Applications Evaluation of the EDG Testbed and Middleware
Workpackage 8 of the European Datagrid project was formed in January 2001
with representatives from the four LHC experiments, and with experiment
independent people from five of the six main EDG partners. In September 2002
WP8 was strengthened by the addition of effort from BaBar and D0. The original
mandate of WP8 was, following the definition of short- and long-term
requirements, to port experiment software to the EDG middleware and testbed
environment. A major additional activity has been testing the basic
functionality and performance of this environment. This paper reviews
experiences and evaluations in the areas of job submission, data management,
mass storage handling, information systems and monitoring. It also comments on
the problems of remote debugging, the portability of code, and scaling problems
with increasing numbers of jobs, sites and nodes. Reference is made to the
pioneeering work of Atlas and CMS in integrating the use of the EDG Testbed
into their data challenges. A forward look is made to essential software
developments within EDG and to the necessary cooperation between EDG and LCG
for the LCG prototype due in mid 2003.Comment: Talk from the 2003 Computing in High Energy and Nuclear Physics
Conference (CHEP03), La Jolla, CA, USA, March 2003, 7 pages. PSN THCT00
Multiwavelength Observations of 1ES 1959+650, One Year After the Strong Outburst of 2002
In April-May 2003, the blazar 1ES 1959+650 showed an increased level of X-ray
activity. This prompted a multiwavelength observation campaign with the Whipple
10 m gamma-ray telescope, the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer, the Bordeaux Optical
Observatory, and the University of Michigan Radio Astrophysical Observatory. We
present the multiwavelength data taken from May 2, 2003 to June 7, 2003 and
compare the source characteristics with those measured during observations
taken during the years 2000 and 2002. The X-ray observations gave a data set
with high signal-to-noise light curves and energy spectra; however, the
gamma-ray observations did not reveal a major TeV gamma-ray flare. Furthermore,
we find that the radio and optical fluxes do not show statistically significant
deviations from those measured during the 2002 flaring periods. While the X-ray
flux and X-ray photon index appear correlated during subsequent observations,
the apparent correlation evolved significantly between the years 2000, 2002,
and 2003. We discuss the implications of this finding for the mechanism that
causes the flaring activity.Comment: 17 pages, 6 figures, 2 table
Astrometric suitability of optically-bright ICRF sources for the alignment with the future Gaia celestial reference frame
The ICRF, currently based on the position of 717 extragalactic radio sources
observed by VLBI, is the fundamental celestial reference frame adopted by the
IAU in 1997. Within the next 10 years, the European space astrometry mission
Gaia, to be launched by 2011, will permit determination of the extragalactic
reference frame directly in the visible for the first time. Aligning these two
frames with the highest accuracy will therefore be very important in the future
for ensuring consistency between the measured radio and optical positions. This
paper is aimed at evaluating the current astrometric suitability of the
individual ICRF radio sources which are considered appropriate for the
alignment with the future Gaia frame. To this purpose, we cross-identified the
ICRF and the optical catalog V\'eron-Cetty and V\'eron (2006), to identify the
optically-bright ICRF sources that will be positioned with the highest accuracy
with Gaia. Then we investigated the astrometric suitability of these sources by
examining their VLBI brightness distribution. We identified 243 candidate ICRF
sources for the alignment with the Gaia frame (with an optical counterpart
brighter than the apparent magnitude 18), but only 70 of these (10% of the ICRF
sources) are found to have the necessary high astrometric quality (i.e. a
brightness distribution that is compact enough) for this link. Additionally, it
was found that the QSOs that will have the most accurate positions in the Gaia
frame tend to have less-accurate VLBI positions, most probably because of their
physical structures. Altogether, this indicates that identifying other
high-quality VLBI radio sources suitable for the alignment with the future Gaia
frame is mandatory.Comment: To be published in A&A (2008)
Resolving the age bimodality of galaxy stellar populations on kpc scales
Galaxies in the local Universe are known to follow bimodal distributions in
the global stellar populations properties. We analyze the distribution of the
local average stellar-population ages of 654,053 sub-galactic regions resolved
on ~1-kpc scales in a volume-corrected sample of 394 galaxies, drawn from the
CALIFA-DR3 integral-field-spectroscopy survey and complemented by SDSS imaging.
We find a bimodal local-age distribution, with an old and a young peak
primarily due to regions in early-type galaxies and star-forming regions of
spirals, respectively. Within spiral galaxies, the older ages of bulges and
inter-arm regions relative to spiral arms support an internal age bimodality.
Although regions of higher stellar-mass surface-density, mu*, are typically
older, mu* alone does not determine the stellar population age and a bimodal
distribution is found at any fixed mu*. We identify an "old ridge" of regions
of age ~9 Gyr, independent of mu*, and a "young sequence" of regions with age
increasing with mu* from 1-1.5 Gyr to 4-5 Gyr. We interpret the former as
regions containing only old stars, and the latter as regions where the relative
contamination of old stellar populations by young stars decreases as mu*
increases. The reason why this bimodal age distribution is not inconsistent
with the unimodal shape of the cosmic-averaged star-formation history is that
i) the dominating contribution by young stars biases the age low with respect
to the average epoch of star formation, and ii) the use of a single average age
per region is unable to represent the full time-extent of the star-formation
history of "young-sequence" regions.Comment: 17 pages, 11 figures, MNRAS accepte
Observation of periodic variable stars towards the galactic spiral arms by EROS II
We present the results of a massive variability search based on a photometric
survey of a six square degree region along the Galactic plane at (, ) and (, ). This
survey was performed in the framework of the EROS II (Exp\'erience de Recherche
d'Objets Sombres) microlensing program. The variable stars were found among
1,913,576 stars that were monitored between April and June 1998 in two
passbands, with an average of 60 measurements. A new period-search technique is
proposed which makes use of a statistical variable that characterizes the
overall regularity of the flux versus phase diagram. This method is well suited
when the photometric data are unevenly distributed in time, as is our case.
1,362 objects whose luminosity varies were selected. Among them we identified 9
Cepheids, 19 RR Lyrae, 34 Miras, 176 eclipsing binaries and 266 Semi-Regular
stars. Most of them are newly identified objects. The cross-identification with
known catalogues has been performed. The mean distance of the RR Lyrae is
estimated to be kpc undergoing an average absorption of
magnitudes. This distance is in good agreement with the one
of disc stars which contribute to the microlensing source star population.Our
catalogue and light curves are available electronically from the CDS,
Strasbourg and from our Web site http://eros.in2p3.fr.Comment: 15 pages, 11 figures, accepted in A&A (april 2002
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