Demographic viability of populations of \u3cem\u3eSilene regis\u3c/em\u3e in midwestern prairies: relationships with fire management, genetic variation, geographic location, population size and isolation

We studied the demographic viability of populations of a long-lived iteroparous prairie perennial, Silene regia, in relation to management regimes, population sizes, geographical region (Ohio and Indiana vs. Missouri and Arkansas), degree of isolation and amount of genetic variation. Demographic data were collected from 16 populations for up to 7 years. This species has high survivorship, slow growth, frequent flowering and episodic seedling recruitment. Matrix projection methods were used to summarize population performance with and without recruitment. Median finite rates of increase by population varied from 0.57 to 1.82 and from 0.44 to 0.99, respectively. Populations with the highest rates of increase had been burned. Six of eight populations, for which stochastic modelling predicted persistence for 1000 years, included fire in their management. None of the five populations with predicted 100-year extinction probabilities of 100% was managed for conservation or burned. An intermediate group of three populations with at least 10% probability of extinction between 100 and 1000 years was not managed, but was none the less kept open by mowing and herbicide application. Analysis of composite elasticities showed that growth and fecundity terms were higher for growing (vs. declining) populations and that growth elasticity was higher in burned than unburned populations. Lack of burning shifts the elasticity spectrum from that typical of open habitat herbs (higher growth and fecundity elasticities) to values usually found for closed habitat herbs (higher survival elasticities). In multivariate analyses predicting finite rates of increase (with and without recruitment), fire management and region were the strongest predictors, followed by genetic variation, population size, isolation and interactions of population size and fire, and region and fire. Populations with the highest rates of increase were burned, eastern, more genetically diverse, larger and less isolated. Discrimination of populations with different extinction risks (three classes) was related mainly to fire, genetic variation and region. Most of these conclusions support conservation biology predictions that population viability will be highest in larger, less-isolated, more genetically diverse populations. However, management and geographic trends have overriding roles affecting demographic viability. Habitat fragmentation and genetic depletion have the potential to threaten residual prairie populations of S. regia, but lack of fire management appears to be the primary short-term threat

Non-commutative Complex Projective Spaces and the Standard Model

The standard model fermion spectrum, including a right handed neutrino, can be obtained as a zero-mode of the Dirac operator on a space which is the product of complex projective spaces of complex dimension two and three. The construction requires the introduction of topologically non-trivial background gauge fields. By borrowing from ideas in Connes' non-commutative geometry and making the complex spaces `fuzzy' a matrix approximation to the fuzzy space allows for three generations to emerge. The generations are associated with three copies of space-time. Higgs' fields and Yukawa couplings can be accommodated in the usual way.Comment: Contribution to conference in honour of A.P. Balachandran's 65th birthday: "Space-time and Fundamental Interactions: Quantum Aspects", Vietri sul Mare, Italy, 25th-31st May, 2003, 10 pages, typset in LaTe

On Representations of Conformal Field Theories and the Construction of Orbifolds

We consider representations of meromorphic bosonic chiral conformal field theories, and demonstrate that such a representation is completely specified by a state within the theory. The necessary and sufficient conditions upon this state are derived, and, because of their form, we show that we may extend the representation to a representation of a suitable larger conformal field theory. In particular, we apply this procedure to the lattice (FKS) conformal field theories, and deduce that Dong's proof of the uniqueness of the twisted representation for the reflection-twisted projection of the Leech lattice conformal field theory generalises to an arbitrary even (self-dual) lattice. As a consequence, we see that the reflection-twisted lattice theories of Dolan et al are truly self-dual, extending the analogies with the theories of lattices and codes which were being pursued. Some comments are also made on the general concept of the definition of an orbifold of a conformal field theory in relation to this point of view.Comment: 11 pages, LaTeX. Updated references and added preprint n

Noncommutative BTZ Black Hole and Discrete Time

We search for all Poisson brackets for the BTZ black hole which are consistent with the geometry of the commutative solution and are of lowest order in the embedding coordinates. For arbitrary values for the angular momentum we obtain two two-parameter families of contact structures. We obtain the symplectic leaves, which characterize the irreducible representations of the noncommutative theory. The requirement that they be invariant under the action of the isometry group restricts to $R\times S^1$ symplectic leaves, where $R$ is associated with the Schwarzschild time. Quantization may then lead to a discrete spectrum for the time operator.Comment: 10 page

Bulk Emission of Scalars by a Rotating Black Hole

We study in detail the scalar-field Hawking radiation emitted into the bulk by a higher-dimensional, rotating black hole. We numerically compute the angular eigenvalues, and solve the radial equation of motion in order to find transmission factors. The latter are found to be enhanced by the angular momentum of the black hole, and to exhibit the well-known effect of superradiance. The corresponding power spectra for scalar fields show an enhancement with the number of dimensions, as in the non-rotating case. On the other hand, the proportion of the total (i.e., bulk+brane) power that is emitted into the bulk decreases monotonically with the angular momentum. We compute the total mass loss rate of the black hole for a variety of black-hole angular momenta and bulk dimensions, and find that, in all cases, the bulk emission remains significantly smaller than the brane emission. The angular-momentum loss rate is also computed and found to have a smaller value in the bulk than on the brane

Hardening electronic devices against very high total dose radiation environments

The possibilities and limitations of hardening silicon semiconductor devices to the high neutron and gamma radiation levels and greater than 10 to the eighth power rads required for the NERVA nuclear engine development are discussed. A comparison is made of the high dose neutron and gamma hardening potential of bipolar, metal insulator semiconductors and junction field effect transistors. Experimental data is presented on device degradation for the high neutron and gamma doses. Previous data and comparisons indicate that the JFET is much more immune to the combined neutron displacement and gamma ionizing effects than other transistor types. Experimental evidence is also presented which indicates that p channel MOS devices may be able to meet the requirements

Correlation Functions of Conserved Currents in Four Dimensional Conformal Field Theory

We derive a generating function for all the 3-point functions of higher spin conserved currents in four dimensional conformal field theory. The resulting expressions have a rather surprising factorized form which suggest that they can all be realized by currents built from free massless fields of arbitrary (half-)integer spin s. This property is however not necessarily true also for the higher-point functions. As an illustration we analyze the general 4-point function of conserved abelian U(1) currents of scale dimension equal to three and find that apart from the two free field realizations there is a unique possible function which may correspond to an interacting theory. Although this function passes several non-trivial consistency tests, it remains an open challenging problem whether it can be actually realized in an interacting CFT.Comment: 20 pages, LaTeX, references adde

Uncertainties in modelling neutrino interactions for oscillation experiments

Accelerator-based neutrino oscillation experiments have the potential to revolutionise our understanding of fundamental physics, offering an opportunity to characterise charge-parity violation in the lepton section, to determine the neutrino mass ordering and to explore the possibility of physics beyond three-flavour neutrino mixing. However, as more data is collected the current and next-generation of experiments will require increasingly precise control over the systematic uncertainties within their analyses. It is well known that some of the most challenging uncertainties to overcome stem from our uncertain modelling of neutrino-nucleus interactions, arising because measured event rates depend on the neutrino interaction cross section in addition to any oscillation probability. The sources of these uncertainties are often related to subtle details of the pertinent nuclear physics, such as those of the target nucleus ground state, which are extremely difficult to control with sufficient precision. Confronting such uncertainties requires both state-of-art theoretical modelling and precise measurements of neutrino interaction event rates at experiment's near detectors, before oscillations are likely occur. These proceedings will briefly review the role of neutrino interaction systematic uncertainties in current and future measurements of neutrino oscillations.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures. Proceedings for a talk given at NOW202

Labour pain: the hidden influences of anxiety and social deprivation

No abstract available