16,440 research outputs found
Minimal mechanisms for vegetation patterns in semiarid regions
The minimal ecological requirements for formation of regular vegetation
patterns in semiarid systems have been recently questioned. Against the general
belief that a combination of facilitative and competitive interactions is
necessary, recent theoretical studies suggest that, under broad conditions,
nonlocal competition among plants alone may induce patterns. In this paper, we
review results along this line, presenting a series of models that yield
spatial patterns when finite-range competition is the only driving force. A
preliminary derivation of this type of model from a more detailed one that
considers water-biomass dynamics is also presented. Keywords: Vegetation
patterns, nonlocal interactionsComment: 8 pages, 4 figure
Vegetation pattern formation in semiarid systems without facilitative mechanisms
Regular vegetation patterns in semiarid ecosystems are believed to arise from
the interplay between long-range competition and facilitation processes acting
at smaller distances. We show that, under rather general conditions, long-range
competition alone may be enough to shape these patterns. To this end we propose
a simple, general model for the dynamics of vegetation, which includes only
long-range competition between plants. Competition is introduced through a
nonlocal term, where the kernel function quantifies the intensity of the
interaction. We recover the full spectrum of spatial structures typical of
vegetation models that also account for facilitation in addition to
competition.Comment: 21 pages, 3 figure
Numerical Study of a Lyapunov Functional for the Complex Ginzburg-Landau Equation
We numerically study in the one-dimensional case the validity of the
functional calculated by Graham and coworkers as a Lyapunov potential for the
Complex Ginzburg-Landau equation. In non-chaotic regions of parameter space the
functional decreases monotonically in time towards the plane wave attractors,
as expected for a Lyapunov functional, provided that no phase singularities are
encountered. In the phase turbulence region the potential relaxes towards a
value characteristic of the phase turbulent attractor, and the dynamics there
approximately preserves a constant value. There are however very small but
systematic deviations from the theoretical predictions, that increase when
going deeper in the phase turbulence region. In more disordered chaotic regimes
characterized by the presence of phase singularities the functional is
ill-defined and then not a correct Lyapunov potential.Comment: 20 pages,LaTeX, Postcript version with figures included available at
http://formentor.uib.es/~montagne/textos/nep
Copyright Protection of Color Imaging Using Robust-Encoded Watermarking
In this paper we present a robust-encoded watermarking method applied to color images for copyright protection, which presents robustness against several geometric and signal processing distortions. Trade-off between payload, robustness and imperceptibility is a very important aspect which has to be considered when a watermark algorithm is designed. In our proposed scheme, previously to be embedded into the image, the watermark signal is encoded using a convolutional encoder, which can perform forward error correction achieving better robustness performance. Then, the embedding process is carried out through the discrete cosine transform domain (DCT) of an image using the image normalization technique to accomplish robustness against geometric and signal processing distortions. The embedded watermark coded bits are extracted and decoded using the Viterbi algorithm. In order to determine the presence or absence of the watermark into the image we compute the bit error rate (BER) between the recovered and the original watermark data sequence. The quality of the watermarked image is measured using the well-known indices: Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR), Visual Information Fidelity (VIF) and Structural Similarity Index (SSIM). The color difference between the watermarked and original images is obtained by using the Normalized Color Difference (NCD) measure. The experimental results show that the proposed method provides good performance in terms of imperceptibility and robustness. The comparison among the proposed and previously reported methods based on different techniques is also provided
Plankton blooms in vortices: The role of biological and hydrodynamic time scales
We study the interplay of hydrodynamic mesoscale structures and the growth of
plankton in the wake of an island, and its interaction with a coastal
upwelling. Our focus is on a mechanism for the emergence of localized plankton
blooms in vortices. Using a coupled system of a kinematic flow mimicking the
mesoscale structures behind the island and a simple three component model for
the marine ecosystem, we show that the long residence times of nutrients and
plankton in the vicinity of the island and the confinement of plankton within
vortices are key factors for the appearance of localized plankton bloomsComment: 29 pages, 9 figure
Biological activity in the wake of an island close to a coastal upwelling
Hydrodynamic forcing plays an important role in shaping the dynamics of
marine organisms, in particular of plankton. In this work we study the
planktonic biological activity in the wake of an island which is close to an
upwelling region. Our research is based on numerical analysis of a kinematic
flow mimicking the hydrodynamics in the wake, coupled to a three-component
plankton model. Depending on model parameters different phenomena are
described: a) The lack of transport of nutrients and plankton across the wake,
so that the influence of upwelling on primary production on the other side of
the wake is blocked. b) For sufficiently high vorticity, the role of the wake
in facilitating this transport and leading to an enhancement of primary
production. Finally c) we show that under certain conditions the interplay
between wake structures and biological growth leads to plankton blooms inside
mesoscale hydrodynamic vortices that act as incubators of primary production.Comment: 42 pages, 9 figure
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