4,934 research outputs found
Designing experiments for an application in laser and surface Chemistry
We consider the design used to collect data for a Second Harmonic Generation (SHG) experiment, where the behaviour of interfaces between two phases, for example the surface of a liquid, is investigated. These studies have implications in surfactants, catalysis, membranes and electrochemistry. Ongoing work will be described in designing experiments to investigate nonlinear models used to represent the data, relating the intensity of the SHG signal to the polarisation angles of the polarised light beam. The choice of design points and their effect on parameter estimates is investigated. Various designs and the current practice of using equal-spaced levels are investigated, and their relative merits compared on the basis of the overall aim of the chemical study
Faunal assemblages and multi–scale habitat patterns in headwater tributaries of the South Fork Trinity River – an unregulated river embedded within a multiple–use landscape
Las cabeceras pueden representar el 80% de los kilómetros de recorrido en una cuenca fluvial y poseen unas propiedades físicas y biológicas únicas, cuya importancia hasta hace poco no se habían reconocido para el sostenimiento de un funcionamiento sano de las redes de cuencas y sus servicios ecológicos. Tomamos muestras de 60 cabeceras de los afluentes del río South Fork Trinity, una cuenca de 2.430 km2, boscosa en su mayor parte y de múltiples usos, situada en el noroeste de California. Nuestros objetivos eran: (1) diferenciar tipos de cabeceras únicos utilizando 69 variables abióticas y vegetales, medidas a tres escalas espaciales, y luego reducirlos a subconjuntos informativos; (2) determinar si distintos biotas ocupaban los distintos tipos de afluentes; (3) determinar las características medioambientales asociadas con la presencia y abundancia de dichas comunidades bióticas; y (4) utilizando una modelización de nichos, determinar los umbrales de los atributos claves para ilustrar cómo estos biotas podrían emplearse para la medición de la integridad del sistema y los servicios ecológicos. Varios taxones fueron suficientemente abundantes y extendidos para utilizarlos como bioindicadores; la presencia y abundancia de la trucha arco iris (Oncorhynchus mykiss), la riqueza en especies de la herpetofauna (reptiles y anfibios) y el cangrejo señal (Pacifastacus leniusculus) representaban diferentes posiciones tróficas, el valor como recursos comerciales (la trucha arco iris), la sensibilidad al estrés ambiental (anfibios), e indicadores de la biodiversidad (riqueza de especies de la herpetofauna). La riqueza de especies de la herpetofauna no difirió, pero la abundancia de la trucha arco iris, del cangrejo señal, la riqueza de anfibios, difirieron significativamente entre los tipos de afluentes. Los modelos de los nichos indicaron que los patrones de distribución y abundancia, tanto en los ambientes acuáticos como en los ribereños, estaban asociados con atributos físicos y estructurales a multiples escalas espaciales, tanto dentro como alrededor de los tramos acuáticos. Los bioindicadores respondieron a series únicas de atributos, reflejando la elevada heterogeneidad ambiental en las cabeceras de los afluentes en toda esta gran cuenca. Dichos atributos de los nichos representaban una amplia gama de ambientes de cabeceras fluviales, indicando respuestas a una serie de condiciones naturales y antropogénicas. Se demostró el valor de utilizar una serie de bioindicadores para elucidar las condiciones de las cabeceras y para examinar las numerosas perturbaciones que pueden influir sobre la integridad ecológica.
Palabras clave: Cabeceras de afluentes, Bioindicadores, Multiescala, Integridad ecológica.Las cabeceras pueden representar el 80% de los kilómetros de recorrido en una cuenca fluvial y poseen unas propiedades físicas y biológicas únicas, cuya importancia hasta hace poco no se habían reconocido para el sostenimiento de un funcionamiento sano de las redes de cuencas y sus servicios ecológicos. Tomamos muestras de 60 cabeceras de los afluentes del río South Fork Trinity, una cuenca de 2.430 km2, boscosa en su mayor parte y de múltiples usos, situada en el noroeste de California. Nuestros objetivos eran: (1) diferenciar tipos de cabeceras únicos utilizando 69 variables abióticas y vegetales, medidas a tres escalas espaciales, y luego reducirlos a subconjuntos informativos; (2) determinar si distintos biotas ocupaban los distintos tipos de afluentes; (3) determinar las características medioambientales asociadas con la presencia y abundancia de dichas comunidades bióticas; y (4) utilizando una modelización de nichos, determinar los umbrales de los atributos claves para ilustrar cómo estos biotas podrían emplearse para la medición de la integridad del sistema y los servicios ecológicos. Varios taxones fueron suficientemente abundantes y extendidos para utilizarlos como bioindicadores; la presencia y abundancia de la trucha arco iris (Oncorhynchus mykiss), la riqueza en especies de la herpetofauna (reptiles y anfibios) y el cangrejo señal (Pacifastacus leniusculus) representaban diferentes posiciones tróficas, el valor como recursos comerciales (la trucha arco iris), la sensibilidad al estrés ambiental (anfibios), e indicadores de la biodiversidad (riqueza de especies de la herpetofauna). La riqueza de especies de la herpetofauna no difirió, pero la abundancia de la trucha arco iris, del cangrejo señal, la riqueza de anfibios, difirieron significativamente entre los tipos de afluentes. Los modelos de los nichos indicaron que los patrones de distribución y abundancia, tanto en los ambientes acuáticos como en los ribereños, estaban asociados con atributos físicos y estructurales a multiples escalas espaciales, tanto dentro como alrededor de los tramos acuáticos. Los bioindicadores respondieron a series únicas de atributos, reflejando la elevada heterogeneidad ambiental en las cabeceras de los afluentes en toda esta gran cuenca. Dichos atributos de los nichos representaban una amplia gama de ambientes de cabeceras fluviales, indicando respuestas a una serie de condiciones naturales y antropogénicas. Se demostró el valor de utilizar una serie de bioindicadores para elucidar las condiciones de las cabeceras y para examinar las numerosas perturbaciones que pueden influir sobre la integridad ecológica.
Palabras clave: Cabeceras de afluentes, Bioindicadores, Multiescala, Integridad ecológica.Headwaters can represent 80% of stream kilometers in a watershed, and they also have unique physical and biological properties that have only recently been recognized for their importance in sustaining healthy functioning stream networks and their ecological services. We sampled 60 headwater tributaries in the South Fork Trinity River, a 2,430 km2, mostly forested, multiple–use watershed in northwestern California. Our objectives were: (1) to differentiate unique headwater types using 69 abiotic and vegetation variables measured at three spatial scales, and then to reduce these to informative subsets; (2) determine if distinct biota occupied the different tributary types; (3) determine the environmental attributes associated with the presence and abundance of these biotic assemblages; and (4) using niche modeling, determine key attribute thresholds to illustrate how these biota could be employed as metrics of system integrity and ecologi¬cal services. Several taxa were sufficiently abundant and widespread to use as bio–indicators: the presence and abundance of steelhead trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss), herpetofauna (reptile and amphibian) species richness, and signal crayfish (Pacifastacus leniusculus) represented different trophic positions, value as commercial resources (steelhead), sensitivity to environmental stress (amphibians), and indicators of biodiversity (herpetofauna species richness). Herpetofauna species richness did not differ, but abundances of steelhead trout, signal crayfish, and amphibian richness all differed significantly among tributary types. Niche models indicated that distribution and abun¬dance patterns in both riparian and aquatic environments were associated with physical and structural attributes at multiple spatial scales, both within and around reaches. The bio–indicators responded to unique sets of attributes, reflecting the high environmental heterogeneity in headwater tributaries across this large watershed. These niche attributes represented a wide range of headwater environments, indicating responses to a number of natural and anthropogenic conditions, and demonstrated the value of using a suite of bio–indicators to elucidate watershed conditions, and to examine numerous disturbances that may influence ecological integrity.
Key words: Headwater tributaries, Bio–indicators, Multi–scale, Ecological integrity
Chirped pulse Raman amplification in plasma
Raman amplification in plasma has been proposed to be a promising method of amplifying short radiation pulses. Here, we investigate chirped pulse Raman amplification (CPRA) where the pump pulse is chirped and leads to spatiotemporal distributed gain, which exhibits superradiant scaling in the linear regime, usually associated with the nonlinear pump depletion and Compton amplification regimes. CPRA has the potential to serve as a high-efficiency high-fidelity amplifier/compressor stage
Pepper-pot emittance measurement of laser-plasma wakefield accelerated electrons
The transverse emittance is an important parameter governing the brightness of an electron beam. Here we present the first pepper-pot measurement of the transverse emittance for a mono-energetic electron beam from a laser-plasma wakefield accelerator, carried out on the Advanced Laser-Plasma High Energy Accelerators towards X-Rays (ALPHA-X) beam line. Mono-energetic electrons are passed through an array of 52 mu m diameter holes in a tungsten mask. The pepper-pot results set an upper limit for the normalised emittance at 5.5 +/- 1 pi mm mrad for an 82 MeV beam
Application of Volcano Plots in Analyses of mRNA Differential Expressions with Microarrays
Volcano plot displays unstandardized signal (e.g. log-fold-change) against
noise-adjusted/standardized signal (e.g. t-statistic or -log10(p-value) from
the t test). We review the basic and an interactive use of the volcano plot,
and its crucial role in understanding the regularized t-statistic. The joint
filtering gene selection criterion based on regularized statistics has a curved
discriminant line in the volcano plot, as compared to the two perpendicular
lines for the "double filtering" criterion. This review attempts to provide an
unifying framework for discussions on alternative measures of differential
expression, improved methods for estimating variance, and visual display of a
microarray analysis result. We also discuss the possibility to apply volcano
plots to other fields beyond microarray.Comment: 8 figure
The Computational Complexity of Knot and Link Problems
We consider the problem of deciding whether a polygonal knot in 3-dimensional
Euclidean space is unknotted, capable of being continuously deformed without
self-intersection so that it lies in a plane. We show that this problem, {\sc
unknotting problem} is in {\bf NP}. We also consider the problem, {\sc
unknotting problem} of determining whether two or more such polygons can be
split, or continuously deformed without self-intersection so that they occupy
both sides of a plane without intersecting it. We show that it also is in NP.
Finally, we show that the problem of determining the genus of a polygonal knot
(a generalization of the problem of determining whether it is unknotted) is in
{\bf PSPACE}. We also give exponential worst-case running time bounds for
deterministic algorithms to solve each of these problems. These algorithms are
based on the use of normal surfaces and decision procedures due to W. Haken,
with recent extensions by W. Jaco and J. L. Tollefson.Comment: 32 pages, 1 figur
Quantum Physics and Computers
Recent theoretical results confirm that quantum theory provides the
possibility of new ways of performing efficient calculations. The most striking
example is the factoring problem. It has recently been shown that computers
that exploit quantum features could factor large composite integers. This task
is believed to be out of reach of classical computers as soon as the number of
digits in the number to factor exceeds a certain limit. The additional power of
quantum computers comes from the possibility of employing a superposition of
states, of following many distinct computation paths and of producing a final
output that depends on the interference of all of them. This ``quantum
parallelism'' outstrips by far any parallelism that can be thought of in
classical computation and is responsible for the ``exponential'' speed-up of
computation.
This is a non-technical (or at least not too technical) introduction to the
field of quantum computation. It does not cover very recent topics, such as
error-correction.Comment: 27 pages, LaTeX, 8 PostScript figures embedded. A bug in one of the
postscript files has been fixed. Reprints available from the author. The
files are also available from
http://eve.physics.ox.ac.uk/Articles/QC.Articles.htm
Computing a Knot Invariant as a Constraint Satisfaction Problem
We point out the connection between mathematical knot theory and spin
glass/search problem. In particular, we present a statistical mechanical
formulation of the problem of computing a knot invariant; p-colorability
problem, which provides an algorithm to find the solution. The method also
allows one to get some deeper insight into the structural complexity of knots,
which is expected to be related with the landscape structure of constraint
satisfaction problem.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures, submitted to short note in Journal of Physical
Society of Japa
Spanning Trees on Lattices and Integration Identities
For a lattice with vertices and dimension equal or higher
than two, the number of spanning trees grows asymptotically
as in the thermodynamic limit. We present exact integral
expressions for the asymptotic growth constant for spanning trees
on several lattices. By taking different unit cells in the calculation, many
integration identities can be obtained. We also give on the
homeomorphic expansion of -regular lattices with vertices inserted on
each edge.Comment: 15 pages, 3 figures, 1 tabl
Cavitation-induced force transition in confined viscous liquids under traction
We perform traction experiments on simple liquids highly confined between
parallel plates. At small separation rates, we observe a simple response
corresponding to a convergent Poiseuille flow. Dramatic changes in the force
response occur at high separation rates, with the appearance of a force plateau
followed by an abrupt drop. By direct observation in the course of the
experiment, we show that cavitation accounts for these features which are
reminiscent of the utmost complex behavior of adhesive films under traction.
Surprisingly enough, this is observed here in purely viscous fluids.Comment: Submitted to Physical Review Letters on May 31, 2002. Related
informations on http://www.crpp.u-bordeaux.fr/tack.htm
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