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Engineering a plant community to deliver multiple ecosystem services
The sustainable delivery of multiple ecosystem services requires the management of functionally diverse biological communities. In an agricultural context, an emphasis on food production has often led to a loss of biodiversity to the detriment of other ecosystem services such as the maintenance of soil health and pest regulation. In scenarios where multiple species can be grown together, it may be possible to better balance environmental and agronomic services through the targeted selection of companion species. We used the case study of legume-based cover crops to engineer a plant community that delivered the optimal balance of six ecosystem services: early productivity, regrowth following mowing, weed suppression, support of invertebrates, soil fertility building (measured as yield of following crop), and conservation of nutrients in the soil. An experimental species pool of 12 cultivated legume species was screened for a range of functional traits and ecosystem services at five sites across a geographical gradient in the United Kingdom. All possible species combinations were then analyzed, using a process-based model of plant competition, to identify the community that delivered the best balance of services at each site. In our system, low to intermediate levels of species richness (one to four species) that exploited functional contrasts in growth habit and phenology were identified as being optimal. The optimal solution was determined largely by the number of species and functional diversity represented by the starting species pool, emphasizing the importance of the initial selection of species for the screening experiments. The approach of using relationships between functional traits and ecosystem services to design multifunctional biological communities has the potential to inform the design of agricultural systems that better balance agronomic and environmental services and meet the current objective of European agricultural policy to maintain viable food production in the context of the sustainable management of natural resources
On the background in the reaction and mixed event simulation
In this paper we evaluate sources of background for the , with the detected through its decay channel, to
compare with the experiment carried out at ELSA. We find background from
followed by decay of a into two ,
recombining one and one , and from the reaction with subsequent decay of the into two photons. This
background accounts for the data at invariant masses beyond 700
MeV, but strength is missing at lower invariant masses which was attributed to
photon misidentification events, which we simulate to get a good reproduction
of the experimental background. Once this is done, we perform an event mixing
simulation to reproduce the calculated background and we find that the method
provides a good description of the background at low invariant
masses but fakes the background at high invariant masses, making background
events at low invariant masses, which are due to misidentification
events, responsible for the background at high invariant masses which is due to
the and reactions.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figure
Peptide transporter 2 (PEPT2) expression in brain protects against 5-aminolevulinic acid neurotoxicity
Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/65903/1/j.1471-4159.2007.04905.x.pd
The , interaction in finite volume and the resonance
In this work the interaction of the coupled channels and
in an SU(4) extrapolation of the chiral unitary theory, where the
resonance appears as dynamically generated from that
interaction, is extended to produce results in finite volume. Energy levels in
the finite box are evaluated and, assuming that they would correspond to
lattice results, the inverse problem of determining the phase shifts in the
infinite volume from the lattice results is solved. We observe that it is
possible to obtain accurate phase shifts and the position of the
resonance, but it requires the explicit consideration of the
two coupled channels. We also observe that some of the energy levels in the box
are attached to the closed channel, such that their use to induce the phase shifts via L\"uscher's formula leads to incorrect results.Comment: 10 pages, 13 figures, accepted for publication in Eur. Phys. J.
Quantum Histories and Quantum Gravity
This paper reviews the histories approach to quantum mechanics. This
discussion is then applied to theories of quantum gravity. It is argued that
some of the quantum histories must approximate (in a suitable sense) to
classical histories, if the correct classical regime is to be recovered. This
observation has significance for the formulation of new theories (such as
quantum gravity theories) as it puts a constraint on the kinematics, if the
quantum/classical correspondence principle is to be preserved. Consequences for
quantum gravity, particularly for Lorentz symmetry and the idea of "emergent
geometry", are discussed.Comment: 35 pages (29 pages main body), two figure
Effects of pseudoscalar-baryon channels in the dynamically generated vector-baryon resonances
We study the interaction of vector mesons with the octet of stable baryons in
the framework of the local hidden gauge formalism using a coupled channels
unitary approach, including also the pseudoscalar-baryon channels which couple
to the same quantum numbers. We examine the scattering amplitudes and their
poles, which can be associated to known baryon resonances,
and determine the role of the pseudoscalar-baryon channels, changing the width
and eventually the mass of the resonances generated with only the basis of
vector-baryon states
Resonances in chiral unitary approaches
The extension of chiral theories to the description of resonances, via the
incorporation of unitarity in coupled channels, has provided us with a new
theoretical perspective on the nature of some of the observed excited hadrons.
In this contribution some of the early achievements in the field of baryonic
resonances are reviewed, the recent evidence of the two-pole nature of the
Lambda(1405) is discussed and results on charmed baryon resonances are
presented.Comment: 6 pages, contribution to the Workshop on the Physics of excited
nucleons (NSTAR 2007), Bonn (Germany) 5-8 September 200
BIIL 284 reduces neutrophil numbers but increases P. aeruginosa bacteremia and inflammation in mouse lungs
Background: A clinical study to investigate the leukotriene B4 (LTB4)-receptor antagonist BIIL 284 in cystic fibrosis (CF) patients was prematurely terminated due to a significantly increased risk of adverse pulmonary events. We aimed to establish the effect of BIIL284 in models of Pseudomonas aeruginosa lung infection, thereby contributing to a better understanding of what could have led to adverse pulmonary events in CF patients. Methods: P. aeruginosa DNA in the blood of CF patients during and after acute pulmonary exacerbations and in stable patients with non-CF bronchiectasis (NCFB) and healthy individuals was assessed by PCR. The effect of BIIL 284 treatment was tested in an agar bead murine model of P. aeruginosa lung infection. Bacterial count and inflammation were evaluated in lung and other organs. Results: Most CF patients (98%) and all patients with NCFB and healthy individuals had negative P. aeruginosa DNA in their blood. Similarly, the P. aeruginosa-infected mice showed bacterial counts in the lung but not in the blood or spleen. BIIL 284 treatment decreased pulmonary neutrophils and increased P. aeruginosa numbers in mouse lungs leading to significantly higher bacteremia rates and lung inflammation compared to placebo treated animals. Conclusions: Decreased airway neutrophils induced lung proliferation and severe bacteremia in a murine model of P. aeruginosa lung infection. These data suggest that caution should be taken when administering anti-inflammatory compounds to patients with bacterial infections
Diagnostic value of cerebrospinal fluid alpha-synuclein seed quantification in synucleinopathies
Several studies have confirmed the α-synuclein real-time quaking-induced conversion (RT-QuIC) assay to have high sensitivity and specificity for Parkinson's disease. However, whether the assay can be used as a robust, quantitative measure to monitor disease progression, stratify different synucleinopathies and predict disease conversion in patients with idiopathic REM sleep behaviour disorder remains undetermined. The aim of this study was to assess the diagnostic value of CSF α-synuclein RT-QuIC quantitative parameters in regard to disease progression, stratification and conversion in synucleinopathies. We performed α-synuclein RT-QuIC in the CSF samples from 74 Parkinson's disease, 24 multiple system atrophy and 45 idiopathic REM sleep behaviour disorder patients alongside 55 healthy controls, analysing quantitative assay parameters in relation to clinical data. α-Synuclein RT-QuIC showed 89% sensitivity and 96% specificity for Parkinson's disease. There was no correlation between RT-QuIC quantitative parameters and Parkinson's disease clinical scores (e.g. Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale motor), but RT-QuIC positivity and some quantitative parameters (e.g. Vmax) differed across the different phenotype clusters. RT-QuIC parameters also added value alongside standard clinical data in diagnosing Parkinson's disease. The sensitivity in multiple system atrophy was 75%, and CSF samples showed longer T50 and lower Vmax compared to Parkinson's disease. All RT-QuIC parameters correlated with worse clinical progression of multiple system atrophy (e.g. change in Unified Multiple System Atrophy Rating Scale). The overall sensitivity in idiopathic REM sleep behaviour disorder was 64%. In three of the four longitudinally followed idiopathic REM sleep behaviour disorder cohorts, we found around 90% sensitivity, but in one sample (DeNoPa) diagnosing idiopathic REM sleep behaviour disorder earlier from the community cases, this was much lower at 39%. During follow-up, 14 of 45 (31%) idiopathic REM sleep behaviour disorder patients converted to synucleinopathy with 9/14 (64%) of convertors showing baseline RT-QuIC positivity. In summary, our results showed that α-synuclein RT-QuIC adds value in diagnosing Parkinson's disease and may provide a way to distinguish variations within Parkinson's disease phenotype. However, the quantitative parameters did not correlate with disease severity in Parkinson's disease. The assay distinguished multiple system atrophy patients from Parkinson's disease patients and in contrast to Parkinson's disease, the quantitative parameters correlated with disease progression of multiple system atrophy. Our results also provided further evidence for α-synuclein RT-QuIC having potential as an early biomarker detecting synucleinopathy in idiopathic REM sleep behaviour disorder patients prior to conversion. Further analysis of longitudinally followed idiopathic REM sleep behaviour disorder patients is needed to better understand the relationship between α-synuclein RT-QuIC signature and the progression from prodromal to different synucleinopathies
The pd --> ^3He eta pi0 reaction at T_p = 1450 MeV
The cross section for the pd --> ^3He eta pi0 reaction has been measured at a
beam energy of 1450 MeV using the WASA detector at the CELSIUS storage ring and
detecting one ^3He and four photons from the decays of the two photons. The
data indicate that the production mechanism involves the formation of the
Delta(1232) isobar. Although the beam energy does not allow the full peak of
this resonance to be seen, the invariant masses of all three pairs of final
state particles are well reproduced by a phase space Monte Carlo simulation
weighted with the p-wave factor of the square of the pi^0 momentum in the
^3Hepi^0 system.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figure
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