1,876 research outputs found
The Aphids (Homoptera: Aphididae) of British Columbia: 21. Further Additions
Seven species are added to the aphid fauna of British Columbia. Sixty-five of the 113 new aphid-host associations of plant species are newly recorded
Evaluating the Potential Efficacy of Invasive Lionfish (Pterois volitans) Removals
The lionfish, Pterois volitans (Linnaeus) and Pterois miles (Bennett), invasion of the Western Atlantic Ocean, Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico has the potential to alter aquatic communities and represents a legitimate ecological concern. Several local removal programs have been initiated to control this invasion, but it is not known whether removal efforts can substantially reduce lionfish numbers to ameliorate these concerns. We used an age-structured population model to evaluate the potential efficacy of lionfish removal programs and identified critical data gaps for future studies. We used high and low estimates for uncertain parameters including: length at 50% vulnerability to harvest (Lvul), instantaneous natural mortality (M), and the Goodyear compensation ratio (CR). The model predicted an annual exploitation rate between 35 and 65% would be required to cause recruitment overfishing on lionfish populations for our baseline parameter estimates for M and CR (0.5 and 15). Lionfish quickly recovered from high removal rates, reaching 90% of unfished biomass six years after a 50-year simulated removal program. Quantifying lionfish natural mortality and the size-selective vulnerability to harvest are the most important knowledge gaps for future research. We suggest complete eradication of lionfish through fishing is unlikely, and substantial reduction of adult abundance will require a long-term commitment and may be feasible only in small, localized areas where annual exploitation can be intense over multiple consecutive years
A Comprehensive Radio and Optical Study of Abell 2256: Activity from an Infalling Group
Abell 2256 is a nearby (z~0.06), rich cluster of galaxies with fascinating
observed properties across a range of wavelengths. Long believed to represent a
cluster merger, recent X-ray and optical results have suggested that in
addition to the primary cluster and subcluster there is evidence for a third,
poorer system. We present wide-field, high sensitivity 1.4 GHz VLA radio
observations of Abell 2256 in conjunction with optical imaging and additional
spectroscopy. Over 40 cluster radio galaxies are identified, with optical
spectroscopy indicating the emission source (star formation or AGN) for most of
them. While the overall fraction of galaxies exhibiting radio emission is
consistent with a large sample of other nearby clusters, we find an increase in
the activity level of galaxies belonging to the third system (hereafter, the
``Group''). Specifically, the Group has relatively more star formation than
both the primary cluster and main subcluster. The position of the Group is also
coincident with the observed cluster radio relic. We suggest that the Group
recently (~0.3 Gyr) merged with the primary cluster and that this merger, not
the ongoing merger of the primary and the main subcluster, might be responsible
for many of the unusual radio properties of Abell 2256. Furthermore, the
greater star formation activity of the Group suggests that the infall of groups
is an important driver of galaxy evolution in clusters.Comment: 21 pages plus 13 JPEG figures; to appear in the Astronomical Journa
Control of atomic currents using a quantum stirring device
We propose a BEC stirring device which can be regarded as the incorporation
of a quantum pump into a closed circuit: it produces a DC circulating current
in response to a cyclic adiabatic change of two control parameters of an
optical trap. We demonstrate the feasibility of this concept and point out that
such device can be utilized in order to probe the interatomic interactions.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, uses epl2.cls, revised versio
Effects of Uniaxial Stress on Antiferromagnetic Moment in the Heavy Electron Compound URu_2Si_2
We have performed the elastic neutron scattering experiments under uniaxial
stress \sigma along the tetragonal [100], [110] and [001] directions for
URu2Si2. For \sigma // [100] and [110], the antiferromagnetic moment \mu_o is
strongly enhanced from 0.02 \mu_B (\sigma=0) to 0.22 \mu_B (\sigma=2.5 kbar) at
1.5 K. The rate of increase d\mu_o/d\sigma is roughly estimated to be ~ 0.1
\mu_B/kbar, which is much larger than that for the hydrostatic pressure (~
0.025 \mu_B/kbar). Above 2.5 kbar, \mu_o shows a tendency to saturate similar
to the behavior in the hydrostatic pressure. For \sigma // [001], on the other
hand, \mu_o shows only a slight increase to 0.028 \mu_B (\sigma = 4.6 kbar)
with a rate of ~ 0.002 \mu_B/kbar. The observed anisotropy suggests that the
competition between the hidden order and the antiferromagnetic state in URu2Si2
is strongly coupled with the tetragonal four-fold symmetry and the c/a ratio,
or both.Comment: 3 pages, 3 eps figures, Proceedings of Int. Conf. on Strongly
Correlated Electrons with Orbital Degrees of Freedom (Sendai, Japan,
September 11-14, 2001
R/Bioconductor software for Illumina's Infinium whole-genome genotyping BeadChips
Summary: Illumina produces a number of microarray-based technologies for human genotyping. An Infinium BeadChip is a two-color platform that types between 105 and 106 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) per sample. Despite being widely used, there is a shortage of open source software to process the raw intensities from this platform into genotype calls. To this end, we have developed the R/Bioconductor package crlmm for analyzing BeadChip data. After careful preprocessing, our software applies the CRLMM algorithm to produce genotype calls, confidence scores and other quality metrics at both the SNP and sample levels. We provide access to the raw summary-level intensity data, allowing users to develop their own methods for genotype calling or copy number analysis if they wish
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