Arthropod Fauna Associated with Wild and Cultivated Cranberries in Wisconsin

The cranberry (Vaccinium macrocarpon Aiton) is an evergreen, trailing shrub native to North American peatlands. It is cultivated commercially in the US and Canada, with major production centers in Wisconsin, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Washington, Québec, and British Columbia. Despite the agricultural importance of cranberry in Wisconsin, relatively little is known of its arthropod associates, particularly the arachnid fauna. Here we report preliminary data on the insect and spider communities associated with wild and cultivated cranberries in Wisconsin. We then compare the insect and spider communities of wild cranberry systems to those of cultivated cranberries, indexed by region. Approximately 7,400 arthropods were curated and identified, spanning more than 100 families, across 11 orders. The vast majority of specimens and diversity derived from wild ecosystems. In both the wild and cultivated systems, the greatest numbers of families were found among the Diptera (midges, flies) and Hymenoptera (bees, ants, wasps), but numerically, the Hymenoptera and Araneae (spiders) were dominant. Within the spider fauna, 18 new county records, as well as a new Wisconsin state record (Linyphiidae: Ceratinopsis laticeps (Em.)), were documented. While more extensive sampling will be needed to better resolve arthropod biodiversity in North American cranberry systems, our findings represent baseline data on the breadth of arthropod diversity in the Upper Midwest, USA

Polymers near Metal Surfaces: Selective Adsorption and Global Conformations

We study the properties of a polycarbonate melt near a nickel surface as a model system for the interaction of polymers with metal surfaces by employing a multiscale modeling approach. For bulk properties a suitably coarse grained bead spring model is simulated by molecular dynamics (MD) methods with model parameters directly derived from quantum chemical calculations. The surface interactions are parameterized and incorporated by extensive quantum mechanical density functional calculations using the Car-Parrinello method. We find strong chemisorption of chain ends, resulting in significant modifications of the melt composition when compared to an inert wall.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures (2 color), 1 tabl

Chaotic mixing in noisy Hamiltonian systems

This paper summarises an investigation of the effects of low amplitude noise and periodic driving on phase space transport in 3-D Hamiltonian systems, a problem directly applicable to systems like galaxies, where such perturbations reflect internal irregularities and.or a surrounding environment. A new diagnsotic tool is exploited to quantify how, over long times, different segments of the same chaotic orbit can exhibit very different amounts of chaos. First passage time experiments are used to study how small perturbations of an individual orbit can dramatically accelerate phase space transport, allowing `sticky' chaotic orbits trapped near regular islands to become unstuck on suprisingly short time scales. Small perturbations are also studied in the context of orbit ensembles with the aim of understanding how such irregularities can increase the efficacy of chaotic mixing. For both noise and periodic driving, the effect of the perturbation scales roughly in amplitude. For white noise, the details are unimportant: additive and multiplicative noise tend to have similar effects and the presence or absence of a friction related to the noise by a Fluctuation- Dissipation Theorem is largely irrelevant. Allowing for coloured noise can significantly decrease the efficacy of the perturbation, but only when the autocorrelation time, which vanishes for white noise, becomes so large that t here is little power at frequencies comparable to the natural frequencies of the unperturbed orbit. This suggests strongly that noise-induced extrinsic diffusion, like modulational diffusion associated with periodic driving, is a resonance phenomenon. Potential implications for galaxies are discussed.Comment: 15 pages including 18 figures, uses MNRAS LaTeX macro

Effect of a Fruit and Vegetable Prescription Program on Children's Fruit and Vegetable Consumption.

IntroductionMost children in families with low income do not meet dietary guidance on fruit and vegetable consumption. Fruit and vegetable prescription programs improve access to and affordability of health-supporting foods for adults, but their effect on dietary behavior among children is not known. The objective of this study was to describe the extent to which exposure to a fruit and vegetable prescription program was associated with changes in consumption among participants aged 2 to 18.MethodsWe used data from a modified National Cancer Institute screener to calculate fruit and vegetable intake among 883 children who were overweight or had obesity and participated in a 4- to 6-month fruit and vegetable prescription program at federally qualified health centers during 4 years (2012-2015). Secondary analyses in 2017 included paired t tests to compare change in fruit and vegetable consumption (cups/day) between first and last visits and multivariable linear regressions, including propensity dose-adjusted models, to model this change as a function of sociodemographic and program-specific covariates, such as number of clinical visits and value of prescription redemption.ResultsWe found a dose propensity-adjusted increase of 0.32 cups (95% confidence interval, 0.19-0.45 cups) for each additional visit while holding constant the predicted number of visits and site. An equal portion of the change-score increase was attributed to vegetable consumption and fruit consumption (β = 0.16 for each).ConclusionFruit and vegetable prescription programs in clinical settings may increase fruit and vegetable consumption among children in low-income households. Future research should use a comparison group and consider including qualitative analysis of site-specific barriers and facilitators to success

Vacuum energy density and pressure inside a soft wall

In the study of quantum vacuum energy and the Casimir effect, it is desirable to model the conductor by a potential of the form $V(z)=z^\alpha$. This "soft wall" model was proposed so as to avoid the violation of the principle of virtual work under ultraviolet regularization that occurs for the standard Dirichlet wall. The model was formalized for a massless scalar field, and the expectation value of the stress tensor has been expressed in terms of the reduced Green function of the equation of motion. In the limit of interest, $\alpha \gg 1$, which approximates a Dirichlet wall, a closed-form expression for the reduced Green function cannot be found, so piecewise approximations incorporating the perturbative and WKB expansions of the Green function, along with interpolating splines in the region where neither expansion is valid, have been developed. After reviewing this program, in this article we apply the scheme to the wall with $\alpha=6$ and use it to compute the renormalized energy density and pressure inside the cavity for various values of the conformal parameter. The consistency of the results is verified by comparison to their numerical counterparts and verification of the trace anomaly and the conservation law. Finally, we use the approximation scheme to reproduce the energy density inside the quadratic wall, which was previously calculated exactly but with some uncertainty.Comment: 28 pages, 13 figures, 3 tables. Background information and historical references added, formatting change

3D geological models and their hydrogeological applications : supporting urban development : a case study in Glasgow-Clyde, UK

Urban planners and developers in some parts of the United Kingdom can now access geodata in an easy-to-retrieve and understandable format. 3D attributed geological framework models and associated GIS outputs, developed by the British Geological Survey (BGS), provide a predictive tool for planning site investigations for some of the UK's largest regeneration projects in the Thames and Clyde River catchments. Using the 3D models, planners can get a 3D preview of properties of the subsurface using virtual cross-section and borehole tools in visualisation software, allowing critical decisions to be made before any expensive site investigation takes place, and potentially saving time and money. 3D models can integrate artificial and superficial deposits and bedrock geology, and can be used for recognition of major resources (such as water, thermal and sand and gravel), for example in buried valleys, groundwater modelling and assessing impacts of underground mining. A preliminary groundwater recharge and flow model for a pilot area in Glasgow has been developed using the 3D geological models as a framework. This paper focuses on the River Clyde and the Glasgow conurbation, and the BGS's Clyde Urban Super-Project (CUSP) in particular, which supports major regeneration projects in and around the City of Glasgow in the West of Scotland

Consequences of gravitational radiation recoil

Coalescing binary black holes experience an impulsive kick due to anisotropic emission of gravitational waves. We discuss the dynamical consequences of the recoil accompanying massive black hole mergers. Recoil velocities are sufficient to eject most coalescing black holes from dwarf galaxies and globular clusters, which may explain the apparent absence of massive black holes in these systems. Ejection from giant elliptical galaxies would be rare, but coalescing black holes are displaced from the center and fall back on a time scale of order the half-mass crossing time. Displacement of the black holes transfers energy to the stars in the nucleus and can convert a steep density cusp into a core. Radiation recoil calls into question models that grow supermassive black holes from hierarchical mergers of stellar-mass precursors.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, emulateapj style; minor changes made; accepted to ApJ Letter

Spin Evolution of Supermassive Black Holes and Galactic Nuclei

The spin angular momentum S of a supermassive black hole (SBH) precesses due to torques from orbiting stars, and the stellar orbits precess due to dragging of inertial frames by the spinning hole. We solve the coupled post-Newtonian equations describing the joint evolution of S and the stellar angular momenta Lj, j = 1...N in spherical, rotating nuclear star clusters. In the absence of gravitational interactions between the stars, two evolutionary modes are found: (1) nearly uniform precession of S about the total angular momentum vector of the system; (2) damped precession, leading, in less than one precessional period, to alignment of S with the angular momentum of the rotating cluster. Beyond a certain distance from the SBH, the time scale for angular momentum changes due to gravitational encounters between the stars is shorter than spin-orbit precession times. We present a model, based on the Ornstein-Uhlenbeck equation, for the stochastic evolution of star clusters due to gravitational encounters and use it to evaluate the evolution of S in nuclei where changes in the Lj are due to frame dragging close to the SBH and to encounters farther out. Long-term evolution in this case is well described as uniform precession of the SBH about the cluster's rotational axis, with an increasingly important stochastic contribution when SBH masses are small. Spin precessional periods are predicted to be strongly dependent on nuclear properties, but typical values are 10-100 Myr for low-mass SBHs in dense nuclei, 100 Myr - 10 Gyr for intermediate mass SBHs, and > 10 Gyr for the most massive SBHs. We compare the evolution of SBH spins in stellar nuclei to the case of torquing by an inclined, gaseous accretion disk.Comment: 25 page

"Kludge" gravitational waveforms for a test-body orbiting a Kerr black hole

One of the most exciting potential sources of gravitational waves for low-frequency, space-based gravitational wave (GW) detectors such as the proposed Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) is the inspiral of compact objects into massive black holes in the centers of galaxies. The detection of waves from such "extreme mass ratio inspiral" systems (EMRIs) and extraction of information from those waves require template waveforms. The systems' extreme mass ratio means that their waveforms can be determined accurately using black hole perturbation theory. Such calculations are computationally very expensive. There is a pressing need for families of approximate waveforms that may be generated cheaply and quickly but which still capture the main features of true waveforms. In this paper, we introduce a family of such "kludge" waveforms and describe ways to generate them. We assess performance of the introduced approximations by comparing "kludge" waveforms to accurate waveforms obtained by solving the Teukolsky equation in the adiabatic limit (neglecting GW backreaction). We find that the kludge waveforms do extremely well at approximating the true gravitational waveform, having overlaps with the Teukolsky waveforms of 95% or higher over most of the parameter space for which comparisons can currently be made. Indeed, we find these kludges to be of such high quality (despite their ease of calculation) that it is possible they may play some role in the final search of LISA data for EMRIs.Comment: 29 pages, 11 figures, requires subeqnarray; v2 contains minor changes for consistency with published versio