2,245 research outputs found
Sediment Denitrification In The Gulf Of Mexico Zone Of Hypoxia
The largest zone of anthropogenic bottom water hypoxia in the Western Hemisphere occurs seasonally in the northern Gulf of Mexico between the Mississippi River delta and the coast of eastern Texas. This zone of hypoxia reaches its greatest extent in the summer months and is a consequence of seasonal stratification of the water column combined with the decomposition of organic matter derived from accelerated rates of primary production. This enhanced productivity is driven primarily by the input of inorganic nitrogen from the Mississippi River. There are 3 likely sinks for fixed nitrogen within this zone of hypoxia: sequestration in the sediment, dispersion and dilution into the Gulf of Mexico, and denitrification. We assessed potential denitrification rates at 7 stations in the zone of hypoxia during the summer of 1999. Those data are compared with bottom water nitrate, ammonium and dissolved oxygen (DO) concentrations. No denitrification was observed in the water column. Denitrification potential rates in the surface sediments were unexpectedly low and ranged between 39.8 and 108.1 mumol m(-1) h(-1). The highest rates were observed at stations with bottom water DO concentrations between 1 and 3 mg l(-1). Denitrification activity was significantly lower at stations where DO was lower than 1 mg l(-1) or higher than 3 mg l(-1). Nutrient data for these stations demonstrate that as anoxia is approached, the dominant species of nitrogen shifts from nitrate to ammonium. The shift in nitrogen species suggests competition between microbial populations in the sediment community. The lower denitrification rates at stations with bottom water DO l(-1) may be due to nitrate limitation or an increase in the competitive advantage of microorganisms capable of dissimilatory nitrate reduction to ammonium (DNRA). Suppression of denitrification at low DO by any mechanism will increase the residence time of bioavailable nitrogen. This trend could act as a positive feedback mechanism in the formation of hypoxic bottom waters
Decoherence and Quantum Walks: anomalous diffusion and ballistic tails
The common perception is that strong coupling to the environment will always
render the evolution of the system density matrix quasi-classical (in fact,
diffusive) in the long time limit. We present here a counter-example, in which
a particle makes quantum transitions between the sites of a d-dimensional
hypercubic lattice whilst strongly coupled to a bath of two-level systems which
'record' the transitions. The long-time evolution of an initial wave packet
is found to be most unusual: the mean square displacement of the particle
density matrix shows long-range ballitic behaviour, but simultaneously a kind
of weakly-localised behaviour near the origin. This result may have important
implications for the design of quantum computing algorithms, since it describes
a class of quantum walks.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figur
Distribution of chirality in the quantum walk: Markov process and entanglement
The asymptotic behavior of the quantum walk on the line is investigated
focusing on the probability distribution of chirality independently of
position. The long-time limit of this distribution is shown to exist and to
depend on the initial conditions, and it also determines the asymptotic value
of the entanglement between the coin and the position. It is shown that for
given asymptotic values of both the entanglement and the chirality distribution
it is possible to find the corresponding initial conditions within a particular
class of spatially extended Gaussian distributions. Moreover it is shown that
the entanglement also measures the degree of Markovian randomness of the
distribution of chirality.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, It was accepted in Physcial Review
Efficient quantum algorithms for simulating sparse Hamiltonians
We present an efficient quantum algorithm for simulating the evolution of a
sparse Hamiltonian H for a given time t in terms of a procedure for computing
the matrix entries of H. In particular, when H acts on n qubits, has at most a
constant number of nonzero entries in each row/column, and |H| is bounded by a
constant, we may select any positive integer such that the simulation
requires O((\log^*n)t^{1+1/2k}) accesses to matrix entries of H. We show that
the temporal scaling cannot be significantly improved beyond this, because
sublinear time scaling is not possible.Comment: 9 pages, 2 figures, substantial revision
Feminizing political parties: women’s party member organizations within European parliamentary parties
Party member women’s organizations were early features of party development. While some contemporary studies maintain these are important sites for the substantive representation of women, there is also a claim that they are in decline. Our primary purpose here is to establish the existence of party member women’s organizations – as one test of the first dimension of party feminization: the inclusion of women. We draw on new survey data of 17 European countries provided by Scarrow, Poguntke and Webb. We establish that almost half have a party member women’s organization. The new data also permits analysis of relationships between party member women’s organization and gender quotas for the top party leadership body (National Executive Committee (NEC)), women’s presence among the party leadership and candidate quota rules. Together we see these (i) as a means to establish whether women are marginalized within the party, thereby limiting descriptive representation and (ii) as surrogate measures for women’s substantive representation. We importantly find that the presence of a party member women’s organization does not come at the cost of women’s presence on the NEC. In the final section, we turn our attention to building a new comparative research agenda that more fully addresses substantive representation
LGP2 plays a critical role in sensitizing mda-5 to activation by double-stranded RNA.
The DExD/H box RNA helicases retinoic acid-inducible gene-I (RIG-I) and melanoma differentiation associated gene-5 (mda-5) sense viral RNA in the cytoplasm of infected cells and activate signal transduction pathways that trigger the production of type I interferons (IFNs). Laboratory of genetics and physiology 2 (LGP2) is thought to influence IFN production by regulating the activity of RIG-I and mda-5, although its mechanism of action is not known and its function is controversial. Here we show that expression of LGP2 potentiates IFN induction by polyinosinic-polycytidylic acid [poly(I:C)], commonly used as a synthetic mimic of viral dsRNA, and that this is particularly significant at limited levels of the inducer. The observed enhancement is mediated through co-operation with mda-5, which depends upon LGP2 for maximal activation in response to poly(I:C). This co-operation is dependent upon dsRNA binding by LGP2, and the presence of helicase domain IV, both of which are required for LGP2 to interact with mda-5. In contrast, although RIG-I can also be activated by poly(I:C), LGP2 does not have the ability to enhance IFN induction by RIG-I, and instead acts as an inhibitor of RIG-I-dependent poly(I:C) signaling. Thus the level of LGP2 expression is a critical factor in determining the cellular sensitivity to induction by dsRNA, and this may be important for rapid activation of the IFN response at early times post-infection when the levels of inducer are low
Statistical distinguishability between unitary operations
The problem of distinguishing two unitary transformations, or quantum gates,
is analyzed and a function reflecting their statistical distinguishability is
found. Given two unitary operations, and , it is proved that there
always exists a finite number such that and are perfectly distinguishable, although they were not in the single-copy
case. This result can be extended to any finite set of unitary transformations.
Finally, a fidelity for one-qubit gates, which satisfies many useful properties
from the point of view of quantum information theory, is presented.Comment: 6 pages, REVTEX. The perfect distinguishability result is extended to
any finite set of gate
General error estimate for adiabatic quantum computing
Most investigations devoted to the conditions for adiabatic quantum computing
are based on the first-order correction . However, it is
demonstrated that this first-order correction does not yield a good estimate
for the computational error. Therefore, a more general criterion is proposed,
which includes higher-order corrections as well and shows that the
computational error can be made exponentially small -- which facilitates
significantly shorter evolution times than the above first-order estimate in
certain situations. Based on this criterion and rather general arguments and
assumptions, it can be demonstrated that a run-time of order of the inverse
minimum energy gap is sufficient and necessary, i.e.,
T=\ord(\Delta E_{\rm min}^{-1}). For some examples, these analytical
investigations are confirmed by numerical simulations. PACS: 03.67.Lx,
03.67.-a.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figures, several modification
Prokineticin ligands and receptors are expressed in the human fetal ovary and regulate germ cell expression of COX2
CONTEXT: Fetal ovarian development and primordial follicle formation underpin future female fertility. Prokineticin (PROK) ligands regulate cell survival, proliferation and angiogenesis in adult reproductive tissues including the ovary. However, their expression and function during fetal ovarian development remains unclear.OBJECTIVE: To investigate expression and localization of the PROK ligands, receptors and their downstream transcriptional targets in the human fetal ovary.SETTING: This study was conducted at the University of Edinburgh.PARTICIPANTS: Ovaries were collected from 37 morphologically normal human fetuses.DESIGN AND MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: mRNA and protein expression of PROK ligands and receptors was determined in human fetal ovaries using qRT-PCR, immunoblotting and immunohistochemistry. Functional studies were performed using a human germ tumour cell line (TCam-2) stably transfected with PROKR1.RESULTS: Expression of PROK1 and PROKR1 was significantly higher in mid-gestation ovaries (17-20 weeks) than at earlier gestations (8-11 and 14-16 weeks). PROK2 significantly increased across the gestations examined. PROKR2 expression remained unchanged. PROK ligand and receptor proteins were predominantly localised to germ cells (including oocytes within primordial follicles) and endothelial cells, indicating these cell types to be the targets of PROK signalling in the human fetal ovary. PROK1 treatment of a germ cell line stably-expressing PROKR1 resulted in ERK phosphorylation, and elevated COX2 expression.CONCLUSIONS: Developmental changes in expression and regulation of COX2 and pERK by PROK1 suggest that PROK ligands may be novel regulators of germ cell development in the human fetal ovary, interacting within a network of growth and survival factors prior to primordial follicle formation.</p
Estimating the functional form for the density dependence from life history data
Two contrasting approaches to the analysis of population dynamics are currently popular: demographic approaches where the associations between demographic rates and statistics summarizing the population dynamics are identified; and time series approaches where the associations between population dynamics, population density, and environmental covariates are investigated. In this paper, we develop an approach to combine these methods and apply it to detailed data from Soay sheep (Ovis aries). We examine how density dependence and climate contribute to fluctuations in population size via age- and sex-specific demographic rates, and how fluctuations in demographic structure influence population dynamics. Density dependence contributes most, followed by climatic variation, age structure fluctuations and interactions between density and climate. We then simplify the density-dependent, stochastic, age-structured demographic model and derive a new phenomenological time series which captures the dynamics better than previously selected functions. The simple method we develop has potential to provide substantial insight into the relative contributions of population and individual-level processes to the dynamics of populations in stochastic environments
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