2,082 research outputs found
Closely Related Tree Species Differentially Influence the Transfer of Carbon and Nitrogen from Leaf Litter Up the Aquatic Food Web
Decomposing leaf litter in streams provides habitat and nutrition for aquatic insects. Despite large differences in the nutritional qualities of litter among different plant species, their effects on aquatic insects are often difficult to detect. We evaluated how leaf litter of two dominant riparian species (Populus fremontii and P. angustifolia) influenced carbon and nitrogen assimilation by aquatic insect communities, quantifying assimilation rates using stable isotope tracers (13C, 15N). We tested the hypothesis that element fluxes from litter of different plant species better define aquatic insect community structure than insect relative abundances, which often fail. We found that (1) functional communities (defined by fluxes of carbon and nitrogen from leaf litter to insects) were different between leaf litter species, whereas more traditional insect communities (defined by relativized taxa abundances) were not different between leaf litter species, (2) insects assimilated N, but not C, at a higher rate from P. angustifolia litter compared to P. fremontii, even though P. angustifolia decomposes more slowly, and (3) the C:N ratio of material assimilated by aquatic insects was lower for P. angustifolia compared to P. fremontii, indicating higher nutritional quality, despite similar initial litter C:N ratios. These findings provide new evidence for the effects of terrestrial plant species on aquatic ecosystems via their direct influence on the transfer of elements up the food web. We demonstrate how isotopically labeled leaf litter can be used to assess the functioning of insect communities, uncovering patterns undetected by traditional approaches and improving our understanding of the association between food web structure and element cycling
GLSMs for non-Kahler Geometries
We identify a simple mechanism by which H-flux satisfying the modified
Bianchi identity arises in garden-variety (0,2) gauged linear sigma models.
Taking suitable limits leads to effective gauged linear sigma models with
Green-Schwarz anomaly cancellation. We test the quantum-consistency of a class
of such effective theories by constructing an off-shell superconformal algebra,
providing evidence that these models run to good CFTs in the deep IR.Comment: 37 pages, Minor updates for v
Fermions and Type IIB Supergravity On Squashed Sasaki-Einstein Manifolds
We discuss the dimensional reduction of fermionic modes in a recently found
class of consistent truncations of type IIB supergravity compactified on
squashed five-dimensional Sasaki-Einstein manifolds. We derive the lower
dimensional equations of motion and effective action, and comment on the
supersymmetry of the resulting theory, which is consistent with N=4 gauged
supergravity in , coupled to two vector multiplets. We compute fermion
masses by linearizing around two vacua of the theory: one that breaks
N=4 down to N=2 spontaneously, and a second one which preserves no
supersymmetries. The truncations under consideration are noteworthy in that
they retain massive modes which are charged under a U(1) subgroup of the
-symmetry, a feature that makes them interesting for applications to
condensed matter phenomena via gauge/gravity duality. In this light, as an
application of our general results we exhibit the coupling of the fermions to
the type IIB holographic superconductor, and find a consistent further
truncation of the fermion sector that retains a single spin-1/2 mode.Comment: 43 pages, 2 figures, PDFLaTeX; v2: added references, typos corrected,
minor change
Defect Perturbations in Landau-Ginzburg Models
Perturbations of B-type defects in Landau-Ginzburg models are considered. In
particular, the effect of perturbations of defects on their fusion is analyzed
in the framework of matrix factorizations. As an application, it is discussed
how fusion with perturbed defects induces perturbations on boundary conditions.
It is shown that in some classes of models all boundary perturbations can be
obtained in this way. Moreover, a universal class of perturbed defects is
constructed, whose fusion under certain conditions obey braid relations. The
functors obtained by fusing these defects with boundary conditions are twist
functors as introduced in the work of Seidel and Thomas.Comment: 46 page
Holographic and Wilsonian Renormalization Groups
We develop parallels between the holographic renormalization group in the
bulk and the Wilsonian renormalization group in the dual field theory. Our
philosophy differs from most previous work on the holographic RG; the most
notable feature is the key role of multi-trace operators. We work out the forms
of various single- and double-trace flows. The key question, `what cutoff on
the field theory corresponds to a radial cutoff in the bulk?' is left
unanswered, but by sharpening the analogy between the two sides we identify
possible directions.Comment: 31 pages, 3 figures. v2: Minor clarifications. Added reference
The Virtues of Thisness Presentism
Presentists believe that only present things exist. But opponents insist this view has unacceptable implications: if only present things exist, we canât express singular propositions about the past, since the obvious propositional constituents donât exist, nor can we account for temporal passage, or the openness of the future. According to such opponents, and in spite of the apparent âcommon senseâ status of the view, presentism should be rejected on the basis of these unacceptable implications. In this paper, I present and defend a version of presentism (âThisness Presentismâ) that avoids the unacceptable implications. The basic strategy I employ is familiarâI postulate presently existing entities to serve as surrogates (or âproxiesâ) for non-present entitiesâbut some of the details of my proposal are more novel, and their application to these problems is certainly novel. One overarching thesis of this paper is that Thisness Presentism is preferable to other versions of presentism since it solves important problems facing standard iterations of the view. And I assume that this is a good positive reason in favour of the underlying thisness ontology
Long-lived stops in MSSM scenarios with a neutralino LSP
This work investigates the possibility of a long-lived stop squark in
supersymmetric models with the neutralino as the lightest supersymmetric
particle (LSP). We study the implications of meta-stable stops on the sparticle
mass spectra and the dark matter density. We find that in order to obtain a
sufficiently long stop lifetime so as to be observable as a stable R-hadron at
an LHC experiment, we need to fine tune the mass degeneracy between the stop
and the LSP considerably. This increases the stop-neutralino coanihilation
cross section, leaving the neutralino relic density lower than what is expected
from the WMAP results for stop masses ~1.5 TeV/c^2. However, if such scenarios
are realised in nature we demonstrate that the long-lived stops will be
produced at the LHC and that stop-based R-hadrons with masses up to 1 TeV/c^2
can be detected after one year of running at design luminosity
Intersecting Flavor Branes
We consider an instance of the AdS/CFT duality where the bulk theory contains
an open string tachyon, and study the instability from the viewpoint of the
boundary field theory. We focus on the specific example of the AdS_5 X S^5
background with two probe D7 branes intersecting at general angles. For generic
angles supersymmetry is completely broken and there is an open string tachyon
between the branes. The field theory action for this system is obtained by
coupling to N =4 super Yang-Mills two N =2 hyper multiplets in the fundamental
representation of the SU(N) gauge group, but with different choices of
embedding of the two N=2 subalgebras into N=4. On the field theory side we find
a one-loop Coleman-Weinberg instability in the effective potential for the
fundamental scalars. We identify a mesonic operator as the dual of the open
string tachyon. By AdS/CFT, we predict the tachyon mass for small 't Hooft
coupling (large bulk curvature) and confirm that it violates the AdS stability
bound.Comment: 36 page
Bulk spectral function sum rule in QCD-like theories with a holographic dual
We derive the sum rule for the spectral function of the stress-energy tensor
in the bulk (uniform dilatation) channel in a general class of strongly coupled
field theories. This class includes theories holographically dual to a theory
of gravity coupled to a single scalar field, representing the operator of the
scale anomaly. In the limit when the operator becomes marginal, the sum rule
coincides with that in QCD. Using the holographic model, we verify explicitly
the cancellation between large and small frequency contributions to the
spectral integral required to satisfy the sum rule in such QCD-like theories.Comment: 16 pages, 2 figure
Incidence and duration of total occlusion of the radial artery in newborn infants after catheter removal
The incidence and duration of total occlusion of the radial artery after catheter removal was determined using repeated Doppler flow measurements. Thirty-two newborn infants with birthweights ranging from 945 g to 3890 g (median 1935 g) and gestational age ranging from 26 to 40 weeks (median 32 weeks) were studied. In 20 out of 32 infants (63%), complete occlusion of the radial artery occurred. The number of occlusions were not related to birthweight, gestational age or duration of cannulation. In all infants, blood flow in the radial artery resumed within 1-29 days after catheter removal. The duration of occlusion was directly related to the duration of cannulation and inversely related to birthweight. This study demonstrates a high frequency of total occlusion of the radial artery in newborn infants after percutaneous radial artery cannulation. In the majority of infants with a radial artert catheter, blood flow to the tissue distal to the cannulation site is dependent solely on the existence of an adequate arterial palmar collateral circulation
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