Impact of methionine nutrition on the leaf proteome of Lupinus angustifolius L. and Vicia faba L.

Grain legumes possess a gernerally favourable seed protein amino acid composition but low contents of sulfur amino acids decrease their nutrient value. To enhance the methionie content of local grain legumes by plant breeding, phenotypical attributes for high methionine contents are required for the selection process

Combining Passive and Active Ultrasonic Stress Wave Monitoring Techniques: Opportunities for Condition Evaluation of Concrete Structures

Concrete structures are invaluable assets to a society and managing them efficiently and effectively can be supported by information gathered through structural health monitoring (SHM). In this paper, a combined approach based on passive, i.e., acoustic emission (AE), and active, i.e., ultrasonic stress wave (USW) monitoring techniques for application to concrete structures is proposed and evaluated. While AE and USW are based on the same underlying physics, i.e., wave motion in solids, they differ fundamentally with respect to the nature of the source. For the former, external stimuli such as mechanical loads or temperature cause the rapid release of energy from initially unknown locations. As a result, AE events are unique and cannot be repeated. For the latter, a known source at a known location is employed at a specified time. This approach is thus controlled and repeatable. It is argued that a combination of these two techniques has the potential to provide a more comprehensive picture of ongoing fracture processes, damage progression, as well as slowly occurring aging and degradation mechanisms. This combined approach does thus promise new opportunities to support condition assessment of concrete structures. After providing an overview and comparison of the two techniques, results, and observations from a full-scale laboratory experiment and an in-service bridge monitoring study are discussed to demonstrate the promise of the proposed combined monitoring approach. Finally, suggestions for further work are presented

Medical Age Assessment of Juvenile Migrants

An important aspect of the reception of unaccompanied children in migration is the question of their age. As these young people frequently arrive without reliable documents, their age might be called into question. This puts into focus age assessment, the attempt by authorities to estimate the (chronological) age of a person, in the absence of reliable documentation regarding age. As there is no such simple technique for humans as counting the age rings of trees, any existing age assessment approach is subject to discussions and possibly even disagreements. Medical methods for age determination are usually the ones considered as more problematical for a number of reasons. The most important class of medical methods are those based on the observation of age markers, i.e. somatic indicators that change in a given way with age. As a large number of scientific studies has investigated this relationship in detail, it is assumed that this method allows for reliable and reproducible conclusion about the true age of a person. This ambitious claim is not unchallenged. In addition to doubts about the real precision of medical methods, there are also health and ethical issues. On the other hand, the high potential to establish age estimation on objective criteria, thereby reducing the dependence on individual expert opinion, has raised high expectations and attention on age markers. The current report aims to analyse to what extent these expectations can be met.JRC.E.6-Demography, Migration and Governanc

Effective Pure States for Bulk Quantum Computation

In bulk quantum computation one can manipulate a large number of indistinguishable quantum computers by parallel unitary operations and measure expectation values of certain observables with limited sensitivity. The initial state of each computer in the ensemble is known but not pure. Methods for obtaining effective pure input states by a series of manipulations have been described by Gershenfeld and Chuang (logical labeling) and Cory et al. (spatial averaging) for the case of quantum computation with nuclear magnetic resonance. We give a different technique called temporal averaging. This method is based on classical randomization, requires no ancilla qubits and can be implemented in nuclear magnetic resonance without using gradient fields. We introduce several temporal averaging algorithms suitable for both high temperature and low temperature bulk quantum computing and analyze the signal to noise behavior of each.Comment: 24 pages in LaTex, 14 figures, the paper is also avalaible at http://qso.lanl.gov/qc

Behavioral Responses to Uncertainty in Weight-Restored Anorexia Nervosa – Preliminary Results

Impaired decision-making under conditions of uncertainty seems to contribute to theexpression and maintenance of anorexia nervosa (AN), but it is not clear whether thisimpairment is a disease state that would remit with treatment, or a persisting trait inpatients with AN. To examine this question, a longitudinal study was conducted in12 female inpatients with AN (age M = 22.2, SE = 1.36), before (Time-1) and afterreaching a body mass index of >17.5 kg/m2 (Time-2). Intolerance of uncertainty (IU)was assessed via a decision-making task, the wheel of fortune (WOF). Weight gain atTime-2 was accompanied with significant changes in uncertainty-related performancecompared to Time-1 [(Time Uncertainty), p < 0.05]. At Time-1, reaction times (RTs)varied in function of uncertainty, while at Time-2, uncertainty did not modulate RTs.These findings support a change in decision-making under uncertainty with successfulweight-rehabilitation in AN. While IU was present in underweight patients, it becamenon-significant after weight restoration

Experimental Realization of A Two Bit Phase Damping Quantum Code

Using nuclear magnetic resonance techniques, we experimentally investigated the effects of applying a two bit phase error detection code to preserve quantum information in nuclear spin systems. Input states were stored with and without coding, and the resulting output states were compared with the originals and with each other. The theoretically expected result, net reduction of distortion and conditional error probabilities to second order, was indeed observed, despite imperfect coding operations which increased the error probabilities by approximately 5%. Systematic study of the deviations from the ideal behavior provided quantitative measures of different sources of error, and good agreement was found with a numerical model. Theoretical questions in quantum error correction in bulk nuclear spin systems including fidelity measures, signal strength and syndrome measurements are discussed.Comment: 21 pages, 17 figures, mypsfig2, revtex. Minor changes made to appear in PR

Trait means, trait plasticity and trait differences to other species jointly explain species performances in grasslands of varying diversity

Functional traits may help to explain the great variety of species performances in plant communities, but it is not clear whether the magnitude of trait values of a focal species or trait differences to co‐occurring species are key for trait‐based predictions. In addition, trait expression within species is often plastic, but this variation has been widely neglected in trait‐based analyses. We studied functional traits and plant biomass of 59 species in 66 experimental grassland mixtures of varying species richness (Jena Experiment). We related mean species performances (species biomass and relative yield RY) and their plasticities along the diversity gradient to trait‐based pedictors involving mean species traits (Tmean), trait plasticities along the diversity gradient (Tslope), extents of trait variation across communities (TCV; coefficient of variation) and hierarchical differences (Tdiff) and trait distances (absolute values of trait differences Tdist) between focal and co‐occurring species. Tmean (30–55%) and Tdiff (30–33%) explained most variation in mean species performances and their plasticities, but Tslope (20–25%) was also important in explaining mean species performances. The mean species traits and the trait differences between focal species and neighbors with the greatest explanatory power were related to plant size and stature (shoot length, mass:height ratios) and leaf photosynthetic capacity (specific leaf area, stable carbon isotopes and leaf nitrogen concentration). The contribution of trait plasticities in explaining species performances varied in direction (positive or negative) and involved traits related to photosynthetic capacity, nitrogen acquisition (nitrogen concentrations and stable isotopes) as well as structural stability (shoot carbon concentrations). Our results suggest that incorporating plasticity in trait expression as well as trait differences to co‐occurring species is critical for extending trait‐based analyses to understand the assembly of plant communities and the contribution of individual species in structuring plant communities

K0-Sigma+ Photoproduction with SAPHIR

Preliminary results of the analysis of the reaction p(gamma,K0)Sigma+ are presented. We show the first measurement of the differential cross section and much improved data for the total cross section than previous data. The data are compared with model predictions from different isobar and quark models that give a good description of p(gamma,K+)Lambda and p(gamma,K+)Sigma0 data in the same energy range. Results of ChPT describe the data adequately at threshold while isobar models that include hadronic form factors reproduce the data at intermediate energies.Comment: 4 pages, Latex2e, 4 postscript figures. Talk given at the International Conference on Hypernuclear and Strange Particle Physics (HYP97), Brookhaven National Laboratory, USA, October 13-18, 1997. To be published in Nucl. Phys. A. Revised version due to changes in experimental dat

Die Deutsche Atlantische Expedition auf dem Vermessungs- und Forschungsschiff "Meteor" : Berichte

Bericht des Expeditionsleiters; Bericht über die ozeanographischen Untersuchungen; Ozeanographische Sonderuntersuchungen; Bericht über die biologischen Arbeiten; Bericht über die geologischen Arbeiten; Bericht über die akustischen Lotungen; Bericht über die chemischen Arbeiten; Bericht über die meteorologischen Arbeite

Dilepton production and off-shell transport dynamics at SIS energies

Dilepton production in nucleus-nucleus collisions at 1-2 A GeV as well as in elementary pp and pd reactions is studied within the microscopic HSD transport approach which includes the off-shell dynamics of vector mesons explicitly. The study addresses additionally the production of $\pi^0$ and $\eta$ mesons since their Dalitz decays provide a sizeable contribution to the dilepton invariant mass spectra up to about 0.5 GeV. Our transport results agree with the TAPS experimental data on $\pi$ and $\eta$ multiplicities in C+C collisions from 0.8 to 2 A GeV. We find that the 'DLS-puzzle' - which addresses an underestimation of the $e^+e^-$ yield in the mass range from 0.2 to 0.5 GeV in C+C and Ca+Ca collisions - may be solved when incorporating a stronger bremsstrahlung contribution in line with recent OBE calculations. Moreover, the HSD results with 'enhanced' bremsstrahlung cross sections agree very well with the HADES experimental data for the dilepton mass spectra for C+C at 1 and 2 A GeV, especially when including a collisional broadening in the vector-meson spectral functions. Detailed predictions for dilepton spectra from pp and pn/pd reactions at 1.25 GeV, 2.2 GeV and 3.5 GeV are presented which will allow to verify/falsify the larger bremsstrahlung contributions from the experimental side in the near future.Comment: 43 pages, 22 figures; to be published to Nucl. Phys.