2,139 research outputs found
Assessment of Orchid Surfaces Using Top-Down Contact Angle Mapping
© 2013 IEEE. Top-down contact angle (CA) measurements are used to characterize the green leaves and purple flowers of both old and young the Cattleya warneri orchids. The top-down CA allows the characterization of large surfaces away from the leaf edge, avoiding traditional cutting required for side view CA measurement. This allows large area mapping without damaging leaves making the method amenable to fieldwork and useful in environmental diagnostics. Young leaves are found to be hydrophobic whilst old leaves become practically hydrophilic across their entirety, mostly as a result of continued exposure to changes in the environment over time. The flowers are hydrophobic because of their visual and tactile attractor function for pollinating animals and the self-cleaning of dirt and pathogens. Real-time measurement and mapping of CA of surfaces open a new tool to assess the long-term impact of plant aging, pollution, and more of organisms in the field. The method has clear applications elsewhere such as in industrial probing of surfaces and products
New infrared star clusters in the Northern and Equatorial Milky Way with 2MASS
We carried out a survey of infrared star clusters and stellar groups on the
2MASS J, H and K_s all-sky release Atlas in the Northern and Equatorial Milky
Way (350 < l < 360, 0 < l < 230). The search in this zone complements that in
the Southern Milky Way (Dutra et al. 2003a). The method concentrates efforts on
the directions of known optical and radio nebulae. The present study provides
167 new infrared clusters, stellar groups and candidates. Combining the two
studies for the whole Milky Way, 346 infrared clusters, stellar groups and
candidates were discovered, whereas 315 objects were previously known. They
constitute an important new sample for future detailed studies.Comment: Accepted to Astronomy and Astrophysic
Quadratic Effective Action for QED in D=2,3 Dimensions
We calculate the effective action for Quantum Electrodynamics (QED) in D=2,3
dimensions at the quadratic approximation in the gauge fields. We analyse the
analytic structure of the corresponding nonlocal boson propagators
nonperturbatively in k/m. In two dimensions for any nonzero fermion mass, we
end up with one massless pole for the gauge boson . We also calculate in D=2
the effective potential between two static charges separated by a distance L
and find it to be a linearly increasing function of L in agreement with the
bosonized theory (massive Sine-Gordon model). In three dimensions we find
nonperturbatively in k/m one massive pole in the effective bosonic action
leading to screening. Fitting the numerical results we derive a simple
expression for the functional dependence of the boson mass upon the
dimensionless parameter e^{2}/m .Comment: 10 pages, 2 figure
Unitary transformation approach for the trapped ion dynamics
We present a way of treating the problem of the interaction of a single
trapped ion with laser beams based on successive aplications of unitary
transformations onto the Hamiltonian. This allows the diagonalization of the
Hamiltonian, by means of recursive relations, without performing the Lamb-Dicke
approximation.Comment: 8 page
Cosmological scenarios from multiquintessence
In this work we derive and analyse cosmological scenarios coming from
multi-component scalar field models. We consider a direct sum of a sine-Gordon
with a Z2 model, and also a combination of those with a BNRT model. Moreover,
we work with a modified version of the BNRT model, which breaks the Z2 x Z2
symmetry of the original BNRT potential, coupled with the sine-Gordon and with
the standard Z2 models. We show that our approach can be straightforwardly
elevated to fields. All the computations are made analytically and some
parameters restriction is put forward in order to get in touch with complete
and realistic cosmological scenarios
Influência da seca prolongada sobre a atividade enzimática e micorrizas em floresta de terra firme: resultados de um experimento de manipulação de chuvas.
Mecanismos ligados a ciclagem de nitrogênio e fósforo em área de pastagem abandonada na Amazônia Oriental: resultados de um experimento de fertilização.
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