512 research outputs found
National Plans of Action (NPOAs) for reducing seabird bycatch: Developing best practice for assessing and managing fisheries impacts
Fisheries bycatch is one of the biggest threats to seabird populations. Managers need to identify where and when bycatch occurs and ensure effective action. In 1999, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations released the International Plan of Action for Reducing Incidental Catch of Seabirds in Longline Fisheries (IPOA-s) encouraging states to voluntarily assess potential seabird bycatch problems and implement a National Plan of Action (NPOA) if needed. However, the IPOA-s is ambiguous about the steps and objectives, diminishing its value as a conservation tool
Threshold criterion for wetting at the triple point
Grand canonical simulations are used to calculate adsorption isotherms of
various classical gases on alkali metal and Mg surfaces. Ab initio adsorption
potentials and Lennard-Jones gas-gas interactions are used. Depending on the
system, the resulting behavior can be nonwetting for all temperatures studied,
complete wetting, or (in the intermediate case) exhibit a wetting transition.
An unusual variety of wetting transitions at the triple point is found in the
case of a specific adsorption potential of intermediate strength. The general
threshold for wetting near the triple point is found to be close to that
predicted with a heuristic model of Cheng et al. This same conclusion was drawn
in a recent experimental and simulation study of Ar on CO_2 by Mistura et al.
These results imply that a dimensionless wetting parameter w is useful for
predicting whether wetting behavior is present at and above the triple
temperature. The nonwetting/wetting crossover value found here is w circa 3.3.Comment: 15 pages, 8 figure
Soil and water bioengineering: practice and research needs for reconciling natural hazard control and ecological restoration
Soil and water bioengineering is a technology that encourages scientists and practitioners to combine their knowledge and skills in the management of ecosystems with a common goal to maximize benefits to both man and the natural environment. It involves techniques that use plants as living building materials, for: (i) natural hazard control (e.g., soil erosion, torrential floods and landslides) and (ii) ecological restoration or nature-based re-introduction of species on degraded lands, river embankments, and disturbed environments. For a bioengineering project to be successful, engineers are required to highlight all the potential benefits and ecosystem services by documenting the technical, ecological, economic and social values. The novel approaches used by bioengineers raise questions for researchers and necessitate innovation from practitioners to design bioengineering concepts and techniques. Our objective in this paper, therefore, is to highlight the practice and research needs in soil and water bioengineering for reconciling natural hazard control and ecological restoration. Firstly, we review the definition and development of bioengineering technology, while stressing issues concerning the design, implementation, and monitoring of bioengineering actions. Secondly, we highlight the need to reconcile natural hazard control and ecological restoration by posing novel practice and research questions
Edaphic, structural and physiological contrasts across Amazon Basin forest-savanna ecotones suggest a role for potassium as a key modulator of tropical woody vegetation structure and function
Sampling along a precipitation gradient in tropical South America extending from ca. 0.8 to 2.0 m ag-1, savanna soils had consistently lower exchangeable cation concentrations and higher C/N ratios than nearby forest plots. These soil differences were also reflected in canopy averaged leaf traits with savanna trees typically having higher leaf mass per unit area but lower mass-based nitrogen (Nm) and potassium (Km). Both Nm and Km also increased with declining mean annual precipitation (PA), but most area-based leaf traits such as leaf photosynthetic capacity showed no systematic variation with PA or vegetation type. Despite this invariance, when taken in conjunction with other measures such as mean canopy height, area-based soil exchangeable potassium content, [K]sa , proved to be an excellent predictor of several photosynthetic properties (including 13C isotope discrimination). Moreover, when considered in a multivariate context with PA and soil plant available water storage capacity (θP) as covariates, [K]sa also proved to be an excellent predictor of stand-level canopy area, providing drastically improved fits as compared to models considering just PA and/or θP. Neither calcium, nor magnesium, nor soil pH could substitute for potassium when tested as alternative model predictors (ΔAIC > 10). Nor for any model could simple soil texture metrics such as sand or clay content substitute for either [K]sa or θP. Taken in conjunction with recent work in Africa and the forests of the Amazon Basin, this suggests-in combination with some newly conceptualised interacting effects of PA and θP also presented here-a critical role for potassium as a modulator of tropical vegetation structure and function.Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) TROBIT Consortium projectCNPqRoyal Society of London - Wolfson Research Merit Awar
The Cerenkov effect revisited: from swimming ducks to zero modes in gravitational analogs
We present an interdisciplinary review of the generalized Cerenkov emission
of radiation from uniformly moving sources in the different contexts of
classical electromagnetism, superfluid hydrodynamics, and classical
hydrodynamics. The details of each specific physical systems enter our theory
via the dispersion law of the excitations. A geometrical recipe to obtain the
emission patterns in both real and wavevector space from the geometrical shape
of the dispersion law is discussed and applied to a number of cases of current
experimental interest. Some consequences of these emission processes onto the
stability of condensed-matter analogs of gravitational systems are finally
illustrated.Comment: Lecture Notes at the IX SIGRAV School on "Analogue Gravity" in Como,
Italy from May 16th-21th, 201
Ionic and electronic structure of sodium clusters up to N=59
We determined the ionic and electronic structure of sodium clusters with even
electron numbers and 2 to 59 atoms in axially averaged and three-dimensional
density functional calculations. A local, phenomenological pseudopotential that
reproduces important bulk and atomic properties and facilitates structure
calculations has been developed. Photoabsorption spectra have been calculated
for , , and to
. The consistent inclusion of ionic structure considerably
improves agreement with experiment. An icosahedral growth pattern is observed
for to . This finding is supported by
photoabsorption data.Comment: To appear in Phys. Rev. B 62. Version with figures in better quality
can be requested from the author
To wet or not to wet: that is the question
Wetting transitions have been predicted and observed to occur for various
combinations of fluids and surfaces. This paper describes the origin of such
transitions, for liquid films on solid surfaces, in terms of the gas-surface
interaction potentials V(r), which depend on the specific adsorption system.
The transitions of light inert gases and H2 molecules on alkali metal surfaces
have been explored extensively and are relatively well understood in terms of
the least attractive adsorption interactions in nature. Much less thoroughly
investigated are wetting transitions of Hg, water, heavy inert gases and other
molecular films. The basic idea is that nonwetting occurs, for energetic
reasons, if the adsorption potential's well-depth D is smaller than, or
comparable to, the well-depth of the adsorbate-adsorbate mutual interaction. At
the wetting temperature, Tw, the transition to wetting occurs, for entropic
reasons, when the liquid's surface tension is sufficiently small that the free
energy cost in forming a thick film is sufficiently compensated by the fluid-
surface interaction energy. Guidelines useful for exploring wetting transitions
of other systems are analyzed, in terms of generic criteria involving the
"simple model", which yields results in terms of gas-surface interaction
parameters and thermodynamic properties of the bulk adsorbate.Comment: Article accepted for publication in J. Low Temp. Phy
Electromagnetically induced transparency and controlled group velocity in a multilevel system
Published versio
Functional diversity of chemokines and chemokine receptors in response to viral infection of the central nervous system.
Encounters with neurotropic viruses result in varied outcomes ranging from encephalitis, paralytic poliomyelitis or other serious consequences to relatively benign infection. One of the principal factors that control the outcome of infection is the localized tissue response and subsequent immune response directed against the invading toxic agent. It is the role of the immune system to contain and control the spread of virus infection in the central nervous system (CNS), and paradoxically, this response may also be pathologic. Chemokines are potent proinflammatory molecules whose expression within virally infected tissues is often associated with protection and/or pathology which correlates with migration and accumulation of immune cells. Indeed, studies with a neurotropic murine coronavirus, mouse hepatitis virus (MHV), have provided important insight into the functional roles of chemokines and chemokine receptors in participating in various aspects of host defense as well as disease development within the CNS. This chapter will highlight recent discoveries that have provided insight into the diverse biologic roles of chemokines and their receptors in coordinating immune responses following viral infection of the CNS
Physics of Solar Prominences: I - Spectral Diagnostics and Non-LTE Modelling
This review paper outlines background information and covers recent advances
made via the analysis of spectra and images of prominence plasma and the
increased sophistication of non-LTE (ie when there is a departure from Local
Thermodynamic Equilibrium) radiative transfer models. We first describe the
spectral inversion techniques that have been used to infer the plasma
parameters important for the general properties of the prominence plasma in
both its cool core and the hotter prominence-corona transition region. We also
review studies devoted to the observation of bulk motions of the prominence
plasma and to the determination of prominence mass. However, a simple inversion
of spectroscopic data usually fails when the lines become optically thick at
certain wavelengths. Therefore, complex non-LTE models become necessary. We
thus present the basics of non-LTE radiative transfer theory and the associated
multi-level radiative transfer problems. The main results of one- and
two-dimensional models of the prominences and their fine-structures are
presented. We then discuss the energy balance in various prominence models.
Finally, we outline the outstanding observational and theoretical questions,
and the directions for future progress in our understanding of solar
prominences.Comment: 96 pages, 37 figures, Space Science Reviews. Some figures may have a
better resolution in the published version. New version reflects minor
changes brought after proof editin
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