Commentary : Reproducibility in Psychological Science: When Do Psychological Phenomena Exist?

Peer reviewe

Theoretical biology - Comparing models of species abundance

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/62867/1/nature04826.pd

The Spatial Limitations of Current Neutral Models of Biodiversity

The unified neutral theory of biodiversity and biogeography is increasingly accepted as an informative null model of community composition and dynamics. It has successfully produced macro-ecological patterns such as species-area relationships and species abundance distributions. However, the models employed make many unrealistic auxiliary assumptions. For example, the popular spatially implicit version assumes a local plot exchanging migrants with a large panmictic regional source pool. This simple structure allows rigorous testing of its fit to data. In contrast, spatially explicit models assume that offspring disperse only limited distances from their parents, but one cannot as yet test the significance of their fit to data. Here we compare the spatially explicit and the spatially implicit model, fitting the most-used implicit model (with two levels, local and regional) to data simulated by the most-used spatially explicit model (where offspring are distributed about their parent on a grid according to either a radially symmetric Gaussian or a ‘fat-tailed’ distribution). Based on these fits, we express spatially implicit parameters in terms of spatially explicit parameters. This suggests how we may obtain estimates of spatially explicit parameters from spatially implicit ones. The relationship between these parameters, however, makes no intuitive sense. Furthermore, the spatially implicit model usually fits observed species-abundance distributions better than those calculated from the spatially explicit model's simulated data. Current spatially explicit neutral models therefore have limited descriptive power. However, our results suggest that a fatter tail of the dispersal kernel seems to improve the fit, suggesting that dispersal kernels with even fatter tails should be studied in future. We conclude that more advanced spatially explicit models and tools to analyze them need to be developed

Is there a Grenvillian basement in the Guerrero-Morelos Platform of Mexico?

In the Guerrero-Morelos platform (Guerrero State, Mexico) the adakitic rocks of Early Tertiary age contain abundant hornblende-rich tonalite xenoliths. Zircon crystals have been concentrated from both adakites and xenoliths, and dated using in-situ U-Pb ion microprobe analyses. These analyses indicate the presence of inherited Grenvillian and early Triassic/late Permian crust ages, as well as a Paleocene age related with the adakite rock intrusion. This range of inherited ages is reported for the first time in the Guerrero-Morelos platform, suggesting that a continous Grenvillian crust exists b

Extratropical transition of tropical cyclones in a multiresolution ensemble of atmosphere-only and fully coupled global Climate Models

Tropical cyclones undergo extratropical transition (ET) in every ocean basin. Projected changes in ET frequency under climate change are uncertain and differ between basins, so multimodel studies are required to establish confidence. We used a feature-tracking algorithm to identify tropical cyclones and performed cyclone phase-space analysis to identify ET in an ensemble of atmosphere-only and fully coupled global model simulations, run at various resolutions under historical (1950–2014) and future (2015–50) forcing. Historical simulations were evaluated against five reanalyses for 1979–2018. Considering ET globally, ensemble-mean biases in track and genesis densities are reduced in the North Atlantic and western North Pacific when horizontal resolution is increased from ∼100 to ∼25 km. At high resolution, multi-reanalysis-mean climatological ET frequencies across most ocean basins as well as basins’ seasonal cycles are reproduced better than in low-resolution models. Skill in simulating historical ET interannual variability in the North Atlantic and western North Pacific is ∼0.3, which is lower than for all tropical cyclones. Models project an increase in ET frequency in the North Atlantic and a decrease in the western North Pacific. We explain these opposing responses by secular change in ET seasonality and an increase in lower-tropospheric, pre-ET warm-core strength, both of which are largely unique to the North Atlantic. Multimodel consensus about climate change responses is clearer for frequency metrics than for intensity metrics. These results help clarify the role of model resolution in simulating ET and help quantify uncertainty surrounding ET in a warming climate.All authors received financial support from the PRIMAVERA project (European Commission Horizon2020 Grant Agreement 641727) with data access via JASMIN (https://jasmin.ac.uk) supported by IS-ENES3 (Grant Agreement 824084). AJB also received support from National Environmental Research Council (NERC) national capability grant for the North Atlantic Climate System: Integrated study (ACSIS) program (Grants NE/N018001/1, NE/N018044/1, NE/N018028/1, and NE/N018052/1). KL received funding from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) through JPI Climate/JPI Oceans NextG-Climate Science-ROADMAP (FKZ: 01LP2002A). The authors are grateful to the editor and to three anonymous reviewers, whose recommendations improved this paper. AJB, PLV, RJH, and MJR conceived the study. Simulations were performed by MJR, ET, KL, CDR, and LT. Output data were managed by JS. MJR performed the cyclone tracking. BV computed the Eady growth rate. AJB undertook cyclone phase-space analysis and all other data analyses, figure preparation, and wrote the manuscript. All authors provided input in interpreting results and approved the final manuscript. The authors declare no competing interests.Peer Reviewed"Article signat per 13 autors/es: Alexander J. Baker, Malcolm J. Roberts, Pier Luigi Vidale, Kevin I. Hodges, Jon Seddon, Benoît Vannière, Rein J. Haarsma, Reinhard Schiemann, Dimitris Kapetanakis, Etienne Tourigny, Katja Lohmann, Christopher D. Roberts, and Laurent Terray"Postprint (published version

One-parameter Superscaling at the Metal-Insulator Transition in Three Dimensions

Based on the spectral statistics obtained in numerical simulations on three dimensional disordered systems within the tight--binding approximation, a new superuniversal scaling relation is presented that allows us to collapse data for the orthogonal, unitary and symplectic symmetry ($\beta=1,2,4$) onto a single scaling curve. This relation provides a strong evidence for one-parameter scaling existing in these systems which exhibit a second order phase transition. As a result a possible one-parameter family of spacing distribution functions, $P_g(s)$, is given for each symmetry class $\beta$, where $g$ is the dimensionless conductance.Comment: 4 pages in PS including 3 figure

Max-Min optimization problem for Variable Annuities pricing

International audienceWe study the valuation of variable annuities for an insurer. We concentrate on two types of these contracts that are the guaranteed minimum death benefits and the guaranteed minimum living benefits ones and that allow the insured to withdraw money from the associated account. As for many insurance contracts, the price of variable annuities consists in a fee, fixed at the beginning of the contract, that is continuously taken from the associated account. We use a utility indifference approach to determine this fee and, in particular, we consider the indifference fee rate in the worst case for the insurer i.e. when the insured makes the withdrawals that minimize the expected utility of the insurer. To compute this indifference fee rate, we link the utility maximization in the worst case for the insurer to a sequence of maximization and minimization problems that can be computed recursively. This allows to provide an optimal investment strategy for the insurer when the insured follows the worst withdrawals strategy and to compute the indifference fee. We finally explain how to approximate these quantities via the previous results and give numerical illustrations of parameter sensibility

Shape Analysis of the Level Spacing Distribution around the Metal Insulator Transition in the Three Dimensional Anderson Model

We present a new method for the numerical treatment of second order phase transitions using the level spacing distribution function $P(s)$. We show that the quantities introduced originally for the shape analysis of eigenvectors can be properly applied for the description of the eigenvalues as well. The position of the metal--insulator transition (MIT) of the three dimensional Anderson model and the critical exponent are evaluated. The shape analysis of $P(s)$ obtained numerically shows that near the MIT $P(s)$ is clearly different from both the Brody distribution and from Izrailev's formula, and the best description is of the form $P(s)=c_1\,s\exp(-c_2\,s^{1+\beta})$, with $\beta\approx 0.2$. This is in good agreement with recent analytical results.Comment: 14 pages in plain TeX, 6 figures upon reques

Magnetic field dependence of superconducting energy gaps in YNi2B2C: Evidence of multiband superconductivity

We present results of in field directional point contact spectroscopy (DPCS) study in the quaternary borocarbide superconductor YNi2B2C, which is characterized by a highly anisotropic superconducting gap function. For I||a, the superconducting energy gap (D), decreases linearly with magnetic field and vanishes around 3.25T which is well below the upper critical field (Hc2~6T) measured at the same temperature (2.2K). For I||c, on the other hand, D decreases weakly with magnetic field but the broadening parameter (G) increases rapidly with magnetic field with the absence of any resolvable feature above 3.5T. From an analysis of the field variation of energy gaps and the zero bias density of states we show that the unconventional gap function observed in this material could originate from multiband superconductivity.Comment: 19 pages including figures (final version