375 research outputs found
Disease effects on reproduction can cause population cycles in seasonal environments
Recent studies of rodent populations have demonstrated that certain parasites can cause juveniles to delay maturation until the next reproductive season. Furthermore, a variety of parasites may share the same host, and evidence is beginning to accumulate showing nonindependent effects of different infections.We investigated the consequences for host population dynamics of a disease-induced period of no reproduction, and a chronic reduction in fecundity following recovery from infection (such as may be induced by secondary infections) using a modified SIR (susceptible, infected, recovered) model. We also included a seasonally varying birth rate as recent studies have demonstrated that seasonally varying parameters can have important effects on long-term host–parasite dynamics. We investigated the model predictions using parameters derived from five different cyclic rodent populations.Delayed and reduced fecundity following recovery from infection have no effect on the ability of the disease to regulate the host population in the model as they have no effect on the basic reproductive rate. However, these factors can influence the long-term dynamics including whether or not they exhibit multiyear cycles.The model predicts disease-induced multiyear cycles for a wide range of realistic parameter values. Host populations that recover relatively slowly following a disease-induced population crash are more likely to show multiyear cycles. Diseases for which the period of infection is brief, but full recovery of reproductive function is relatively slow, could generate large amplitude multiyear cycles of several years in length. Chronically reduced fecundity following recovery can also induce multiyear cycles, in support of previous theoretical studies.When parameterized for cowpox virus in the cyclic field vole populations (Microtus agrestis) of Kielder Forest (northern England), the model predicts that the disease must chronically reduce host fecundity by more than 70%, following recovery from infection, for it to induce multiyear cycles. When the model predicts quasi-periodic multiyear cycles it also predicts that seroprevalence and the effective date of onset of the reproductive season are delayed density-dependent, two phenomena that have been recorded in the field
Superconducting Coherence and the Helicity Modulus in Vortex Line Models
We show how commonly used models for vortex lines in three dimensional
superconductors can be modified to include k=0 excitations. We construct a
formula for the k=0 helicity modulus in terms of fluctuations in the projected
area of vortex loops. This gives a convenient criterion for the presence of
superconducting coherence. We also present Monte Carlo simulations of a
continuum vortex line model for the melting of the Abrikosov vortex lattice in
pure YBCO.Comment: 4 pages RevTeX, 2 eps figures included using eps
A hybrid semantic approach to building dynamic maps of research communities
In the last ten years, ontology-based recommender systems have been shown to be effective tools for predicting user preferences and suggesting items. There are however some issues associated with the ontologies adopted by these approaches, such as: 1) their crafting is not a cheap process, being time consuming and calling for specialist expertise; 2) they may not represent accurately the viewpoint of the targeted user community; 3) they tend to provide rather static models, which fail to keep track of evolving user perspectives. To address these issues, we propose Klink UM, an approach for extracting emergent semantics from user feedbacks, with the aim of tailoring the ontology to the users and improving the recommendations accuracy. Klink UM uses statistical and machine learning techniques for finding hierarchical and similarity relationships between keywords associated with rated items and can be used for: 1) building a conceptual taxonomy from scratch, 2) enriching and correcting an existing ontology, 3) providing a numerical estimate of the intensity of semantic relationships according to the users. The evaluation shows that Klink UM performs well with respect to handcrafted ontologies and can significantly increase the accuracy of suggestions in content-based recommender systems
COVID-19 and emerging viral infections: The case for interferon lambda
With the first reports on coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), which is caused by the novel severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the scientific community working in the field of type III IFNs (IFN-λ) realized that this class of IFNs could play an important role in this and other emerging viral infections. In this Viewpoint, we present our opinion on the benefits and potential limitations of using IFN-λ to prevent, limit, and treat these dangerous viral infections
Effects of columnar disorder on flux-lattice melting in high-temperature superconductors
The effect of columnar pins on the flux-lines melting transition in
high-temperature superconductors is studied using Path Integral Monte Carlo
simulations. We highlight the similarities and differences in the effects of
columnar disorder on the melting transition in YBaCuO
(YBCO) and the highly anisotropic BiSrCaCuO (BSCCO) at
magnetic fields such that the mean separation between flux-lines is smaller
than the penetration length. For pure systems, a first order transition from a
flux-line solid to a liquid phase is seen as the temperature is increased. When
adding columnar defects to the system, the transition temperature is not
affected in both materials as long as the strength of an individual columnar
defect (expressed as a flux-line defect interaction) is less than a certain
threshold for a given density of randomly distributed columnar pins. This
threshold strength is lower for YBCO than for BSCCO. For higher strengths the
transition line is shifted for both materials towards higher temperatures, and
the sharp jump in energy, characteristic of a first order transition, gives way
to a smoother and gradual rise of the energy, characteristic of a second order
transition. Also, when columnar defects are present, the vortex solid phase is
replaced by a pinned Bose glass phase and this is manifested by a marked
decrease in translational order and orientational order as measured by the
appropriate structure factors. For BSCCO, we report an unusual rise of the
translational order and the hexatic order just before the melting transition.
No such rise is observed in YBCO.Comment: 32 pages, 13 figures, revte
Effective Lagrangian Approach to the Theory of Eta Photoproduction in the Region
We investigate eta photoproduction in the resonance region
within the effective Lagrangian approach (ELA), wherein leading contributions
to the amplitude at the tree level are taken into account. These include the
nucleon Born terms and the leading -channel vector meson exchanges as the
non-resonant pieces. In addition, we consider five resonance contributions in
the - and - channel; besides the dominant , these are:
and . The amplitudes for the
and the photoproduction near threshold have significant
differences, even as they share common contributions, such as those of the
nucleon Born terms. Among these differences, the contribution to the
photoproduction of the -channel excitation of the is the most
significant. We find the off-shell properties of the spin-3/2 resonances to be
important in determining the background contributions. Fitting our effective
amplitude to the available data base allows us to extract the quantity
, characteristic of the
photoexcitation of the resonance and its decay into the
-nucleon channel, of interest to precise tests of hadron models. At the
photon point, we determine it to be from
the old data base, and from a
combination of old data base and new Bates data. We obtain the helicity
amplitude for to be from the old data base, and from the combination of the old data base and new Bates
data, compared with the results of the analysis of pion photoproduction
yielding , in the same units.Comment: 43 pages, RevTeX, 9 figures available upon request, to appear in
Phys. Rev.
Parental occupational exposure to pesticides, animals and organic dust and risk of childhood leukemia and central nervous system tumors:Findings from the International Childhood Cancer Cohort Consortium (I4C)
Low Q^2 Jet Production at HERA and Virtual Photon Structure
The transition between photoproduction and deep-inelastic scattering is
investigated in jet production at the HERA ep collider, using data collected by
the H1 experiment. Measurements of the differential inclusive jet
cross-sections dsigep/dEt* and dsigmep/deta*, where Et* and eta* are the
transverse energy and the pseudorapidity of the jets in the virtual
photon-proton centre of mass frame, are presented for 0 < Q2 < 49 GeV2 and 0.3
< y < 0.6. The interpretation of the results in terms of the structure of the
virtual photon is discussed. The data are best described by QCD calculations
which include a partonic structure of the virtual photon that evolves with Q2.Comment: 20 pages, 5 Figure
Hadron Production in Diffractive Deep-Inelastic Scattering
Characteristics of hadron production in diffractive deep-inelastic
positron-proton scattering are studied using data collected in 1994 by the H1
experiment at HERA. The following distributions are measured in the
centre-of-mass frame of the photon dissociation system: the hadronic energy
flow, the Feynman-x (x_F) variable for charged particles, the squared
transverse momentum of charged particles (p_T^{*2}), and the mean p_T^{*2} as a
function of x_F. These distributions are compared with results in the gamma^* p
centre-of-mass frame from inclusive deep-inelastic scattering in the
fixed-target experiment EMC, and also with the predictions of several Monte
Carlo calculations. The data are consistent with a picture in which the
partonic structure of the diffractive exchange is dominated at low Q^2 by hard
gluons.Comment: 16 pages, 6 figures, submitted to Phys. Lett.
Measurement of D* Meson Cross Sections at HERA and Determination of the Gluon Density in the Proton using NLO QCD
With the H1 detector at the ep collider HERA, D* meson production cross
sections have been measured in deep inelastic scattering with four-momentum
transfers Q^2>2 GeV2 and in photoproduction at energies around W(gamma p)~ 88
GeV and 194 GeV. Next-to-Leading Order QCD calculations are found to describe
the differential cross sections within theoretical and experimental
uncertainties. Using these calculations, the NLO gluon momentum distribution in
the proton, x_g g(x_g), has been extracted in the momentum fraction range
7.5x10^{-4}< x_g <4x10^{-2} at average scales mu^2 =25 to 50 GeV2. The gluon
momentum fraction x_g has been obtained from the measured kinematics of the
scattered electron and the D* meson in the final state. The results compare
well with the gluon distribution obtained from the analysis of scaling
violations of the proton structure function F_2.Comment: 27 pages, 9 figures, 2 tables, submitted to Nucl. Phys.
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