771 research outputs found
Plant uptake and stream chemistry set global bounds on nitrogen gas emissions from humid tropical forests
Denitrification and hydrologic leaching are the two major pathways by which nitrogen is lost from the terrestrial biosphere. Humid tropical forests are thought to dominate denitrification from unmanaged lands globally, but there is large uncertainty about the range and key drivers of total N gas emissions across the biome. We combined pantropical measures of small watershed stream chemistry with ecosystem modeling to determine total nitrogen gas losses and associated uncertainty across humid tropical forests. Our calculations reveal that denitrification in soils and along hydrologic flowpaths contributes on average \u3e45% of total watershed N losses. However, when denitrification occurs exclusively in shallow soils, simulations indicate that gas emissions would exceed N inputs and render plants severely N-limited, which contradicts observations of widespread N-sufficiency in tropical forests. Our analyses suggest an upper bound on soil denitrification of ~80% of total external N losses beyond which tropical plant growth would be compromised
Magnetic flux jumps in textured Bi2Sr2CaCu2O(8+d)
Magnetic flux jumps in textured Bi2Sr2CaCu2O(8+d) have been studied by means
of magnetization measurements in the temperature range between 1.95 K and Tc,
in an external magnetic field up to 9 T. Flux jumps were found in the
temperature range 1.95 K - 6 K, with the external magnetic field parallel to
the c axis of the investigated sample. The effect of sample history on magnetic
flux jumping was studied and it was found to be well accounted for by the
available theoretical models. The magnetic field sweep rate strongly influences
the flux jumping and this effect was interpreted in terms of the influence of
both flux creep and the thermal environment of the sample. Strong flux creep
was found in the temperature and magnetic field range where flux jumps occur
suggesting a relationship between the two. The heat exchange conditions between
the sample and the experimental environment also influence the flux jumping
behavior. Both these effects stabilize the sample against flux instabilities,
and this stabilizing effect increases with decreasing magnetic field sweep
rate. Demagnetizing effects are also shown to have a significant influence on
flux jumping.Comment: 10 pages, 6 figures, RevTeX4, submitted to Phys. Rev.
On the distances between entangled pseudoscalar mesons states
Entangled states of pseudoscalar mesons represent a very interesting tool for
studying foundations of quantum mechanics, e.g. for testing Bell inequalities.
Recently, they also emerged as a test bench for quantum information protocols.
On the other hand, from a quantum information point of view, the
characterization of the distance between two quantum states is a topic of the
utmost importance. In this letter, with the purpose of providing a useful tool
for further investigations, we address the problem of which distance allows a
better discrimination between density matrices appearing in pseudoscalar
phenomenology
Spontaneous Magnetization of the O(3) Ferromagnet at Low Temperatures
We investigate the low-temperature behavior of ferromagnets with a
spontaneously broken symmetry O(3) O(2). The analysis is performed within
the perspective of nonrelativistic effective Lagrangians, where the dynamics of
the system is formulated in terms of Goldstone bosons. Unlike in a
Lorentz-invariant framework (chiral perturbation theory), where loop graphs are
suppressed by two powers of momentum, loops involving ferromagnetic spin waves
are suppressed by three momentum powers. The leading coefficients of the
low-temperature expansion for the partition function are calculated up to order
. In agreement with Dyson's pioneering microscopic analysis of the
cubic ferromagnet, we find that, in the spontaneous magnetization, the
magnon-magnon interaction starts manifesting itself only at order . The
striking difference with respect to the low-temperature properties of the O(3)
antiferromagnet is discussed from a unified point of view, relying on the
effective Lagrangian technique.Comment: 23 pages, 4 figure
Farming and the geography of nutrient production for human use: a transdisciplinary analysis
Background: Information about the global structure of agriculture and nutrient production and its diversity is essential to improve present understanding of national food production patterns, agricultural livelihoods, and food chains, and their linkages to land use and their associated ecosystems services. Here we provide a plausible breakdown of global agricultural and nutrient production by farm size, and also study the associations between farm size, agricultural diversity, and nutrient production. This analysis is crucial to design interventions that might be appropriately targeted to promote healthy diets and ecosystems in the face of population growth, urbanisation, and climate change.
Methods: We used existing spatially-explicit global datasets to estimate the production levels of 41 major crops, seven livestock, and 14 aquaculture and fish products. From overall production estimates, we estimated the production of vitamin A, vitamin Bââ, folate, iron, zinc, calcium, calories, and protein. We also estimated the relative contribution of farms of different sizes to the production of different agricultural commodities and associated nutrients, as well as how the diversity of food production based on the number of different products grown per geographic pixel and distribution of products within this pixel (Shannon diversity index [H]) changes with different farm sizes.
Findings: Globally, small and medium farms (â€50 ha) produce 51â77% of nearly all commodities and nutrients examined here. However, important regional differences exist. Large farms (>50 ha) dominate production in North America, South America, and Australia and New Zealand. In these regions, large farms contribute between 75% and 100% of all cereal, livestock, and fruit production, and the pattern is similar for other commodity groups. By contrast, small farms (â€20 ha) produce more than 75% of most food commodities in sub-Saharan Africa, southeast Asia, south Asia, and China. In Europe, west Asia and north Africa, and central America, medium-size farms (20â50 ha) also contribute substantially to the production of most food commodities. Very small farms (â€2 ha) are important and have local significance in sub-Saharan Africa, southeast Asia, and south Asia, where they contribute to about 30% of most food commodities. The majority of vegetables (81%), roots and tubers (72%), pulses (67%), fruits (66%), fish and livestock products (60%), and cereals (56%) are produced in diverse landscapes (H>1·5). Similarly, the majority of global micronutrients (53â81%) and protein (57%) are also produced in more diverse agricultural landscapes (H>1·5). By contrast, the majority of sugar (73%) and oil crops (57%) are produced in less diverse ones (Hâ€1·5), which also account for the majority of global calorie production (56%). The diversity of agricultural and nutrient production diminishes as farm size increases. However, areas of the world with higher agricultural diversity produce more nutrients, irrespective of farm size.
Interpretation: Our results show that farm size and diversity of agricultural production vary substantially across regions and are key structural determinants of food and nutrient production that need to be considered in plans to meet social, economic, and environmental targets. At the global level, both small and large farms have key roles in food and nutrition security. Efforts to maintain production diversity as farm sizes increase seem to be necessary to maintain the production of diverse nutrients and viable, multifunctional, sustainable landscapes.
Funding: Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, CGIAR Research Programs on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security and on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health funded by the CGIAR Fund Council, Daniel and Nina Carasso Foundation, European Union, International Fund for Agricultural Development, Australian Research Council, National Science Foundation, Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, and Joint Programming Initiative on Agriculture, Food Security and Climate ChangeâBelmont Forum
Shear Viscosity of a Hot Pion Gas
The shear viscosity of an interacting pion gas is studied using the Kubo
formalism as a microscopic description of thermal systems close to global
equilibrium. We implement the skeleton expansion in order to approximate the
retarded correlator of the viscous part of the energy-momentum tensor. After
exploring this in theory we show how the skeleton expansion can be
consistently applied to pions in chiral perturbation theory. The shear
viscosity is determined by the spectral width, or equivalently, the mean
free path of pions in the heat bath. We derive a new analytical result for the
mean free path which is well-conditioned for numerical evaluation and discuss
the temperature and pion-mass dependence of the mean free path and the shear
viscosity. The ratio of the interacting pion gas exceeds the lower
bound from AdS/CFT correspondence.Comment: 12 pages, 7 figures. Revision includes additional Appendix B. Matches
published versio
Aspergillus species identification in the clinical setting
Multiple recent studies have demonstrated the limited utility of
morphological methods used singly for species identification of clinically
relevant aspergilli. It is being increasingly recognised that comparative
sequence based methods used in conjunction with traditional phenotype based
methods can offer better resolution of species within this genus. Recognising
the growing role of molecular methods in species recognition, the recently
convened international working group meeting entitled
âAspergillus Systematics in the Genomic Eraâ has proposed
several recommendations that will be useful in such endeavors. Specific
recommendations of this working group include the use of the ITS regions for
inter section level identification and the ÎČ-tubulin locus for
identification of individual species within the various Aspergillus
sections
Anomalous Hall effect in Fe/Cu bilayers
The scaling of anomalous Hall resistivity on the longitudinal resistivity has
been intensively studied in the different magnetic systems, including
multilayers and granular films, to examine which mechanism, skew scattering or
side-jump, dominates. The basis of the scaling law is that both the
resistivities are due to the electron scattering at the imperfections in the
materials. By studying of anomalous Hall effect (AHE) in the simple Fe/Cu
bilayers, we demonstrate that the measured anomalous Hall effect should not
follow the scaling laws derived from skew scattering or side-jump mechanism due
to the short-circuit and shunting effects of the non-magnetic layers.Comment: 12 pages, 4 figures;
http://www.springerlink.com/content/1718722u75j24587
Evidence of Color Coherence Effects in W+jets Events from ppbar Collisions at sqrt(s) = 1.8 TeV
We report the results of a study of color coherence effects in ppbar
collisions based on data collected by the D0 detector during the 1994-1995 run
of the Fermilab Tevatron Collider, at a center of mass energy sqrt(s) = 1.8
TeV. Initial-to-final state color interference effects are studied by examining
particle distribution patterns in events with a W boson and at least one jet.
The data are compared to Monte Carlo simulations with different color coherence
implementations and to an analytic modified-leading-logarithm perturbative
calculation based on the local parton-hadron duality hypothesis.Comment: 13 pages, 6 figures. Submitted to Physics Letters
Measurement of the p-pbar -> Wgamma + X cross section at sqrt(s) = 1.96 TeV and WWgamma anomalous coupling limits
The WWgamma triple gauge boson coupling parameters are studied using p-pbar
-> l nu gamma + X (l = e,mu) events at sqrt(s) = 1.96 TeV. The data were
collected with the DO detector from an integrated luminosity of 162 pb^{-1}
delivered by the Fermilab Tevatron Collider. The cross section times branching
fraction for p-pbar -> W(gamma) + X -> l nu gamma + X with E_T^{gamma} > 8 GeV
and Delta R_{l gamma} > 0.7 is 14.8 +/- 1.6 (stat) +/- 1.0 (syst) +/- 1.0 (lum)
pb. The one-dimensional 95% confidence level limits on anomalous couplings are
-0.88 < Delta kappa_{gamma} < 0.96 and -0.20 < lambda_{gamma} < 0.20.Comment: Submitted to Phys. Rev. D Rapid Communication
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