An intensity-expansion method to treat non-stationary time series: an application to the distance between prime numbers

We study the fractal properties of the distances between consecutive primes. The distance sequence is found to be well described by a non-stationary exponential probability distribution. We propose an intensity-expansion method to treat this non-stationarity and we find that the statistics underlying the distance between consecutive primes is Gaussian and that, by transforming the distance sequence into a stationary one, the range of Gaussian randomness of the sequence increases.Comment: 11 pages, 7 figures, in press on 'Chaos, Solitons & Fractals

Determination of the Optical Properties of Secondary Organic Aerosol Particles

The enhanced greenhouse effect is currently considered to be our most important global environmental problem. While the magnitude of radiation absorbed by greenhouse gases is known to a high certainty, the absorption of radiation by atmospheric aerosol particles is not. In the initial Visiting Faculty Program application, we proposed the use of an ultraviolet-visible (UV/Vis) spectrometer equipped with a liquid waveguide capillary flow cell to determine the extent to which secondary organic aerosol particles (SOA) absorb visible light. Early in the research period, the UV/Vis technique was optimized for three solvent systems (methanol, water and 0.1 M hydrochloric acid). Using the optimized UV/Vis technique optical properties such as mass specific absorption cross-section and imaginary refractive index were determined for SOA dissolved in different solvent systems. The end result of the UV/Vis studies is the inclusion of SOA optical properties into climate models developed at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL). This knowledge will help to improve climate models, which currently do not include the effect of SOA. We also utilized Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy to help elucidate the chemical composition of SOA. Finally, an experimental method was developed to determine the peroxide content of SOA. It is expected that these studies will connect the chemical composition of SOA to their optical properties. The research carried out at PNNL will be included in two undergraduate senior theses at Concordia University - Portland (CU). It is also expected that this research will be included in a peer-reviewed journal article. It is our hope that success of our work will result in future collaborations between PNNL and CU students

Relationship between bank vole abundance, seroprevalence and human hantavirus infections

Reil, D., Imholt, C., Schmidt, S., Rosenfeld, U.M., Ulrich, R.G., Eccard, J.A., Jacob, J

Zusammenhang zwischen Mikrohabitatstrukturen, Nahrungsverfügbarkeit und Abundanz von Waldnagern

The impact of microhabitat structures and food availability on the abundance of forest rodent

Towards Easy Deposit: Building a System to Automate Green Open Access

This proposal describes the design and development of an interoperable application that supports green open access with long-term sustainability and improves user experience of deposit for institutional repository. Background: Ineffective marketing and the lack of author participation are the most significant barriers that hinder green open access. Introduction: Oregon State University (OSU) Libraries are tasked to implement university’s open access policy via its institutional repository. In previous, OSU Libraries dedicated an entire staff position to the solicitation and deposit of faculty research articles produced by OSU faculty. In order to free up these staff resources for other work, we implemented a semi-automated deposit system called Easy Deposit 2. Methodology: Easy Deposit 2 harvests metadata for journal articles authored by OSU faculty using Web of Science API, parses and fetches metadata, and sends a solicitation email to the corresponding author for each article, including a link to a deposit form in Easy Deposit 2. The author can then use the link to deposit a copy of the article manuscript into university’s institutional repository. Conclusion: Since launched in October 2018, Easy Deposit 2 has harvested 1,172 journal articles and 176 out of them have been self-archived by the authors - a rate somewhat lower than when we manually solicited articles from faculty. We will continue to improve the system and have a further analysis after collecting more data