Ion-beam nitriding of steels

A surface of a steel substrate is nitrided without external heating by exposing it to a beam of nitrogen ions under low pressure, a pressure much lower than that employed for ion-nitriding. An ion source is used instead of a glow discharge. Both of these features reduce the introduction of impurities into the substrate surface

Production Systems Involving Stocker Cattle and Soft Red Winter Wheat

A three year study at the Livestock and Forestry Research Station near Batesville, Arkansas evaluated production systems involving stocker cattle and soft red winter wheat. Grazing of soft red winter wheat forage from October through February followed by harvesting wheat grain or grazing through April with stocker cattle offers an alternative to conventional farming. Soft red winter wheat, when planted by September 15, produces an ample supply of high-quality forage that supports rapid growth of stocker cattle during October through April. Net income from stocker cattle averaged over $100 per acre. A normal wheat grain crop can also be harvested. These alternative production systems could increase the agricultural income by over$75,000,000 per year if 750,000 acres of wheat are grazed

Integrating Species Traits into Species Pools

Despite decades of research on the species‐pool concept and the recent explosion of interest in trait‐based frameworks in ecology and biogeography, surprisingly little is known about how spatial and temporal changes in species‐pool functional diversity (SPFD) influence biodiversity and the processes underlying community assembly. Current trait‐based frameworks focus primarily on community assembly from a static regional species pool, without considering how spatial or temporal variation in SPFD alters the relative importance of deterministic and stochastic assembly processes. Likewise, species‐pool concepts primarily focus on how the number of species in the species pool influences local biodiversity. However, species pools with similar richness can vary substantially in functional‐trait diversity, which can strongly influence community assembly and biodiversity responses to environmental change. Here, we integrate recent advances in community ecology, trait‐based ecology, and biogeography to provide a more comprehensive framework that explicitly considers how variation in SPFD, among regions and within regions through time, influences the relative importance of community assembly processes and patterns of biodiversity. First, we provide a brief overview of the primary ecological and evolutionary processes that create differences in SPFD among regions and within regions through time. We then illustrate how SPFD may influence fundamental processes of local community assembly (dispersal, ecological drift, niche selection). Higher SPFD may increase the relative importance of deterministic community assembly when greater functional diversity in the species pool increases niche selection across environmental gradients. In contrast, lower SPFD may increase the relative importance of stochastic community assembly when high functional redundancy in the species pool increases the influence of dispersal history or ecological drift. Next, we outline experimental and observational approaches for testing the influence of SPFD on assembly processes and biodiversity. Finally, we highlight applications of this framework for restoration and conservation. This species‐pool functional diversity framework has the potential to advance our understanding of how local‐ and regional‐scale processes jointly influence patterns of biodiversity across biogeographic regions, changes in biodiversity within regions over time, and restoration outcomes and conservation efforts in ecosystems altered by environmental change

On the exponential transform of lemniscates

It is known that the exponential transform of a quadrature domain is a rational function for which the denominator has a certain separable form. In the present paper we show that the exponential transform of lemniscate domains in general are not rational functions, of any form. Several examples are given to illustrate the general picture. The main tool used is that of polynomial and meromorphic resultants.Comment: 19 pages, to appear in the Julius Borcea Memorial Volume, (eds. Petter Branden, Mikael Passare and Mihai Putinar), Trends in Mathematics, Birkhauser Verla

Experimentally testing and assessing the predictive power of species assembly rules for tropical canopy ants.

Understanding how species assemble into communities is a key goal in ecology. However, assembly rules are rarely tested experimentally, and their ability to shape real communities is poorly known. We surveyed a diverse community of epiphyte-dwelling ants and found that similar-sized species co-occurred less often than expected. Laboratory experiments demonstrated that invasion was discouraged by the presence of similarly sized resident species. The size difference for which invasion was less likely was the same as that for which wild species exhibited reduced co-occurrence. Finally we explored whether our experimentally derived assembly rules could simulate realistic communities. Communities simulated using size-based species assembly exhibited diversities closer to wild communities than those simulated using size-independent assembly, with results being sensitive to the combination of rules employed. Hence, species segregation in the wild can be driven by competitive species assembly, and this process is sufficient to generate observed species abundance distributions for tropical epiphyte-dwelling ants.TMF was funded by the UK Natural Environment Research Council, the project “Biodiversity of Forest Ecosystems” CZ.1.07/2.3.00/20.0064 co-financed by the European Social Fund and the state budget of the Czech Republic, an Australian Research Council Discovery Grant (DP140101541), Yayasan Sime Darby, and the Czech Science Foundation (Reg, nos. 14-32302S,14-04258S).This is the final published version. It first appeared at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ele.12403/abstract

Information criteria for inhomogeneous spatial point processes

The theoretical foundation for a number of model selection criteria is established in the context of inhomogeneous point processes and under various asymptotic settings: infill, increasing domain, and combinations of these. For inhomogeneous Poisson processes we consider Akaike information criterion and the Bayesian information criterion, and in particular we identify the point process analogue of sample size needed for the Bayesian information criterion. Considering general inhomogeneous point processes we derive new composite likelihood and composite Bayesian information criteria for selecting a regression model for the intensity function. The proposed model selection criteria are evaluated using simulations of Poisson processes and cluster point processes.Comment: 6 figure

Modelled mortality benefits of multi-cancer early detection screening in England

Background: Screening programmes utilising blood-based multi-cancer early detection (MCED) tests, which can detect a shared cancer signal from any site in the body with a single, low false-positive rate, could reduce cancer burden through early diagnosis. Methods: A natural history (‘interception’) model of cancer was previously used to characterise potential benefits of MCED screening (based on published performance of an MCED test). We built upon this using a two-population survival model to account for an increased risk of death from cfDNA-detectable cancers relative to cfDNA-non-detectable cancers. We developed another model allowing some cancers to metastasise directly from stage I, bypassing intermediate tumour stages. We used incidence and survival-by-stage data from the National Cancer Registration and Analysis Service in England to estimate longer-term benefits to a cohort screened between ages 50–79 years. Results: Estimated late-stage and mortality reductions were robust to a range of assumptions. With the least favourable dwell (sojourn) time and cfDNA status hazard ratio assumptions, we estimated, among 100,000 screened individuals, 67 (17%) fewer cancer deaths per year corresponding to 2029 fewer deaths in those screened between ages 50–79 years. Conclusion: Realising the potential benefits of MCED tests could substantially reduce late-stage cancer diagnoses and mortality

Fixation and consensus times on a network: a unified approach

We investigate a set of stochastic models of biodiversity, population genetics, language evolution and opinion dynamics on a network within a common framework. Each node has a state, 0 < x_i < 1, with interactions specified by strengths m_{ij}. For any set of m_{ij} we derive an approximate expression for the mean time to reach fixation or consensus (all x_i=0 or 1). Remarkably in a case relevant to language change this time is independent of the network structure.Comment: 4+epsilon pages, two-column, RevTeX4, 3 eps figures; version accepted by Phys. Rev. Let

Human cancers over express genes that are specific to a variety of normal human tissues

We have analyzed gene expression data from 3 different kinds of samples: normal human tissues, human cancer cell lines and leukemic cells from lymphoid and myeloid leukemia pediatric patients. We have searched for genes that are over expressed in human cancer and also show specific patterns of tissue-dependent expression in normal tissues. Using the expression data of the normal tissues we identified 4346 genes with a high variability of expression, and clustered these genes according to their relative expression level. Of 91 stable clusters obtained, 24 clusters included genes preferentially expressed either only in hematopoietic tissues or in hematopoietic and 1-2 other tissues; 28 clusters included genes preferentially expressed in various non-hematopoietic tissues such as neuronal, testis, liver, kidney, muscle, lung, pancreas and placenta. Analysis of the expression levels of these 2 groups of genes in the human cancer cell lines and leukemias, identified genes that were highly expressed in cancer cells but not in their normal counterparts, and were thus over expressed in the cancers. The different cancer cell lines and leukemias varied in the number and identity of these over expressed genes. The results indicate that many genes that are over expressed in human cancer cells are specific to a variety of normal tissues, including normal tissues other than those from which the cancer originated. It is suggested that this general property of cancer cells plays a major role in determining the behavior of the cancers, including their metastatic potential.Comment: To appear in PNA