6,211 research outputs found
Enhancement of the Critical Current Density of YBa2Cu3Ox Superconductors under Hydrostatic Pressure
The dependence of the critical current density Jc on hydrostatic pressure to
0.6 GPa is determined for a single 25-degree [001]-tilt grain boundary in a
bicrystalline ring of nearly optimally doped melt-textured YBa2Cu3Ox. Jc is
found to increase rapidly under pressure at +20 %/GPa. A new diagnostic method
is introduced (pressure-induced Jc relaxation) which reveals a sizeable
concentration of vacant oxygen sites in the grain boundary region. Completely
filling such sites with oxygen anions should lead to significant enhancements
in Jc.Comment: revised manuscript, graphic errors in figures correcte
Conformal Symmetry of Supergravities in AdS spaces
We show that the background field method applied to supergravity in adS
space-time provides the path integral for the theory in the bulk with conformal
symmetry associated with the isometry of the adS space. This in turn allows to
establish the rigid conformal invariance of the generating functional for the
supergravity correlators on the boundary.Comment: 14 pages, Late
Development of the ENCORA portal: an internet based facility supporting EU-wide contact search for ICZM related science, practice, and policy communities
One of the main objectives of the European FP 6 Coordination action ENCORA (=European Network for Coastal Research) is to address fragmentation of and difficult communication between coastal science, practice and policy across Europe. Together with the establishment of national, thematic and affiliated networks, ENCORA developed the ENCORA Portal to support dissemination activities and to share ICZM knowledge through the Web among scientists, practitioners and policy makers (users). The ENCORA Portal was built upon existing technologies and software tools integrating three main different, interlinked database systems. The Integrated Marine Information System (IMIS) served as the searchable contact database of coastal professionals, institutes and projects. The different national and thematic ENCORA networks have started to feed the database and additionally an online edit tool is foreseen for the near future. A State of the Art Coastal Directory is embedded is the Wikipedia software and linked with the contact database. Striking about the ENCORA Portal is the link between registered users of the Coastal Wiki and the contact database, allowing only fully registered users to upload information in the Wiki Coastal Directory and hence allowing an improved authority and quality control. The link and synchronization between the different relational database systems was established through an in-house developed system and will serve as link to any future systems that may need quality control or authorization. A Thematic and National Forum which can be used as discussion and information exchange platform within the coastal community was also integrated in the Portal and is linked with the other systems. The ENCORA Portal can be consulted at http://www.encora.eu
Analytical solution of the geodesic equation in Kerr-(anti) de Sitter space-times
The complete analytical solutions of the geodesic equations in Kerr-de Sitter
and Kerr-anti-de Sitter space-times are presented. They are expressed in terms
of Weierstrass elliptic p, zeta, and sigma functions as well as hyperelliptic
Kleinian sigma functions restricted to the one-dimensional theta-divisor. We
analyze the dependency of timelike geodesics on the parameters of the
space-time metric and the test-particle and compare the results with the
situation in Kerr space-time with vanishing cosmological constant. Furthermore,
we systematically can find all last stable spherical and circular orbits and
derive the expressions of the deflection angle of flyby orbits, the orbital
frequencies of bound orbits, the periastron shift, and the Lense-Thirring
effect.Comment: 18 pages, 11 figure
Documenting marine species traits in the World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS): current status, future plans and encountered challenges
The importance of describing species patterns and the underlying processes explaining these patterns is essential to assess the status and future evolution of marine ecosystems. This requires biological information on functional and structural species traits such as feeding ecology, body size, reproduction, life history, etc.To accommodate this need, the World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS) (WoRMS Editorial Board 2017) is expanding its content with trait information (Costello et al. 2015), subdivided into 3 main categories: (1) taxonomy related traits, e.g. paraphyletic groups, (2) biological and ecological traits-specific characteristics of a taxon, e.g. body size or feeding type and (3) human defined traits, e.g. the legal protection status of species, whether a species is introduced, harmful, or used as an ecological indicator.Initially, priority was given to the inclusion of traits that could be applied to the majority of marine taxa and where the information was easily available. The main driver for this approach was that the inclusion of these traits should result in new research, which in turn would drive improvements in the quality and quantity of trait information. Pilot projects were carried out for different species groups, allowing a thorough documentation of a selection of traits. In parallel, a standard vocabulary was put together (http://www.marinespecies.org/traits/wiki/), based on already existing resources to cover all marine life. All documented traits needed to be compliant with this vocabulary, in order to make the data as widely useable as possible, across groups. Defining a trait across all marine life is not trivial, as scientists can use terms in a different way between groups. This stresses the importance for users to realize these differences in terminology, before they analyse a trait across all taxa.Some traits were thought to be quite straightforward to document, although practice proved otherwise. Such a trait is body size, where the aim was to document the numerical value of the ‘maximum body size in length’. In reality, a lot of variation is possible (e.g. for fish: fork length versus standard length) and maximum size is not always considered relevant from an ecological point of view. On the other hand, documenting numerical body size for each marine species is quite time consuming. Therefore, a complementary size trait will be documented, indicating whether taxa are considered as micro, meio, macro or mega.Whereas the initial approach was to complete the register for each tackled trait relevant for all marine species, we now complement this by (1) documenting several traits within a specific group, regardless whether this trait is also present in other taxon groups, and (2) documenting one specific trait, covering a variety – but not all – taxonomic groups, e.g. the composition of the skeleton for calcareous animals.Where possible, we aim to document a trait on a higher taxonomic level to allow the work to progress more rapidly. As the database allows top-down inheritance of traits, exceptions can easily be documented. In addition, collaborations are sought with already running initiatives such as Encyclopedia of Life.Very soon, all the documented traits will be searchable through the Marine Species Traits Portal. The human-defined traits are already accessible through the EMODnet Biology Portal (http://www.emodnet-biology.eu/toolbox), in combination with distribution information from the European Ocean Biogeographic Information System (EurOBIS; www.eurobis.org; Vandepitte et al. 2011; Vandepitte et al. 2015) and taxonomy from WoRMS (www.marinespecies.org). Through the LifeWatch Taxonomic Backbone (LW-TaxBB) (http://www.lifewatch.be/data-services/), services are offered to access these traits, combined with data and information from other resources such as WoRMS and (Eur)OBIS.We would like to acknowledge the EMODnet Biology and the LifeWatch project, in which the Flanders Marine Institute (VLIZ) – host institute of WoRMS – is responsible for the development of the LW-TaxBB. Both projects provide funding for the documentation of trait data and development of services allowing researchers to easily access the available data, in combination with data from other sources
Global Hopf bifurcation in the ZIP regulatory system
Regulation of zinc uptake in roots of Arabidopsis thaliana has recently been
modeled by a system of ordinary differential equations based on the uptake of
zinc, expression of a transporter protein and the interaction between an
activator and inhibitor. For certain parameter choices the steady state of this
model becomes unstable upon variation in the external zinc concentration.
Numerical results show periodic orbits emerging between two critical values of
the external zinc concentration. Here we show the existence of a global Hopf
bifurcation with a continuous family of stable periodic orbits between two Hopf
bifurcation points. The stability of the orbits in a neighborhood of the
bifurcation points is analyzed by deriving the normal form, while the stability
of the orbits in the global continuation is shown by calculation of the Floquet
multipliers. From a biological point of view, stable periodic orbits lead to
potentially toxic zinc peaks in plant cells. Buffering is believed to be an
efficient way to deal with strong transient variations in zinc supply. We
extend the model by a buffer reaction and analyze the stability of the steady
state in dependence of the properties of this reaction. We find that a large
enough equilibrium constant of the buffering reaction stabilizes the steady
state and prevents the development of oscillations. Hence, our results suggest
that buffering has a key role in the dynamics of zinc homeostasis in plant
cells.Comment: 22 pages, 5 figures, uses svjour3.cl
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