2,889 research outputs found
Concentrations and snow-atmosphere fluxes of reactive nitrogen at Summit, Greenland
Concentrations and fluxes of NOy (total reactive nitrogen), ozone concentrations and fluxes of sensible heat, water vapor, and momentum were measured from May 1 to July 20, 1995 at Summit, Greenland. Median NOy concentrations declined from 947 ppt in May to 444 ppt by July. NOy fluxes were observed into and out of the snow, but the magnitudes were usually below 1 μmol m−2 h−1 because of the low HNO3 concentration and weak turbulence over the snow surface. Some of the highest observed fluxes may be due to temporary storage by equilibrium sorption of peroxyacetylnitrate (PAN) or other organic nitrogen species on ice surfaces in the upper snowpack. Sublimation of snow at the surface or during blowing snow events is associated with efflux of NOy from the snowpack. Because the NOy fluxes during summer at Summit are bidirectional and small in magnitude, the net result of turbulent NOyexchange is insignificant compared to the 2 μmol m−2 d−1 mean input from fresh snow during the summer months. If the arctic NOy reservoir is predominantly PAN (or compounds with similar properties), thermal dissociation of this NOy is sufficient to support the observed flux of nitrate in fresh snow. Very low HNO3 concentrations in the surface layer (1% of total NOy) reflect the poor ventilation of the surface layer over the snowpack combined with the relatively rapid uptake of HNO3 by fog, falling snow, and direct deposition to the snowpack
Influência de sistemas de integração lavoura-pecuária-floresta sobre a biomassa microbiana do solo.
JIPE 2013
Ras-mediated phosphorylation of a conserved threonine residue enhances the transactivation activities of c-Ets1 and c-Ets2
The Ras oncogene products regulate the expression of genes in transformed cells, and members of the Ets family of transcription factors have been implicated in this process. To determine which Ets factors are the targets of Ras signaling pathways, the abilities of several Ets factors to activate Ras-responsive enhancer (RRE) reporters in the presence of oncogenic Ras were examined. In transient transfection assay, reporters containing RREs composed of Ets-AP-1 binding sites could be activated 30-fold in NIH 3T3 fibroblasts and 80-fold in the macrophage-like line RAW264 by the combination of Ets1 or Ets2 and Ras but not by several other Ets factors that were tested in the assay. Ets2 and Ras also superactivated an RRE composed of Ets-Ets binding sites, but the Ets-responsive promoter of the c-fms gene was not superactivated. Mutation of a threonine residue to alanine in the conserved amino-terminal regions of Ets1 and Ets2 (threonine 38 and threonine 72, respectively) abrogated the ability of each of these proteins to superactivate reporter gene expression. Phosphoamino acid analysis of radiolabeled Ets2 revealed that Ras induced normally absent threonine-specific phosphorylation of the protein. The Ras-dependent increase in threonine phosphorylation was not observed in Ets2 proteins that had the conserved threonine 72 residue mutated to alanine or serine. These data indicate that Ets1 and Ets2 are specific nuclear targets of Ras signaling events and that phosphorylation of a conserved threonine residue is a necessary molecular component of Ras-mediated activation of these transcription factors
Associations of inflammatory and hemostatic variables with the risk of recurrent stroke
<p><b>Background and Purpose:</b> Several prospective studies have shown significant associations between plasma fibrinogen, viscosity, C-reactive protein (CRP), fibrin D-dimer, or tissue plasminogen activator (tPA) antigen and the risk of primary cardiovascular events. Little has been published on the associations of these variables with recurrent stroke. We studied such associations in a nested case-control study derived from the Perindopril Protection Against Recurrent Stroke Study (PROGRESS).</p>
<p><b>Methods:</b> Nested case-control study of ischemic (n=472) and hemorrhagic (n=83) strokes occurring during a randomized, placebo-controlled multicenter trial of perindopril-based therapy in 6105 patients with a history of stroke or transient ischemic attack. Controls were matched for age, treatment group, sex, region, and most recent qualifying event at entry to the parent trial.</p>
<p><b>Results:</b> Fibrinogen and CRP were associated with an increased risk of recurrent ischemic stroke after accounting for the matching variables and adjusting for systolic blood pressure, smoking, peripheral vascular disease, and statin and antiplatelet therapy. The odds ratio for the last compared with the first third of fibrinogen was 1.34 (95% CI, 1.01 to 1.78) and for CRP was 1.39 (95% CI, 1.05 to 1.85). After additional adjustment for each other, these 2 odds ratios stayed virtually unchanged. Plasma viscosity, tPA, and D-dimer showed no relationship with recurrent ischemic stroke, although tPA was significant for lacunar and large artery subtypes. Although each of these variables showed a negative relationship with recurrent hemorrhagic stroke, none of these relationships achieved statistical significance.</p>
<p><b>Conclusions:</b> Fibrinogen and CRP are risk predictors for ischemic but not hemorrhagic stroke, independent of potential confounders.</p>
Promotion of cooperation induced by nonlinear attractive effect in spatial Prisoner's Dilemma game
We introduce nonlinear attractive effects into a spatial Prisoner's Dilemma
game where the players located on a square lattice can either cooperate with
their nearest neighbors or defect. In every generation, each player updates its
strategy by firstly choosing one of the neighbors with a probability
proportional to denoting the attractiveness of the
neighbor, where is the payoff collected by it and
(0) is a free parameter characterizing the extent of the nonlinear
effect; and then adopting its strategy with a probability dependent on their
payoff difference. Using Monte Carlo simulations, we investigate the density
of cooperators in the stationary state for different values of
. It is shown that the introduction of such attractive effect
remarkably promotes the emergence and persistence of cooperation over a wide
range of the temptation to defect. In particular, for large values of ,
i.e., strong nonlinear attractive effects, the system exhibits two absorbing
states (all cooperators or all defectors) separated by an active state
(coexistence of cooperators and defectors) when varying the temptation to
defect. In the critical region where goes to zero, the extinction
behavior is power law-like , where the
exponent accords approximatively with the critical exponent
() of the two-dimensional directed percolation and depends
weakly on the value of .Comment: 7 pages, 4 figure
Phase transitions and volunteering in spatial public goods games
Cooperative behavior among unrelated individuals in human and animal
societies represents a most intriguing puzzle to scientists in various
disciplines. Here we present a simple yet effective mechanism promoting
cooperation under full anonymity by allowing for voluntary participation in
public goods games. This natural extension leads to rock--scissors--paper type
cyclic dominance of the three strategies cooperate, defect and loner i.e. those
unwilling to participate in the public enterprise. In spatial settings with
players arranged on a regular lattice this results in interesting dynamical
properties and intriguing spatio-temporal patterns. In particular, variations
of the value of the public good leads to transitions between one-, two- and
three-strategy states which are either in the class of directed percolation or
show interesting analogies to Ising-type models. Although volunteering is
incapable of stabilizing cooperation, it efficiently prevents successful
spreading of selfish behavior and enables cooperators to persist at substantial
levels.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figure
Qualitative tools & experimental philosophy
Experimental philosophy brings empirical methods to philosophy. These methods are used to probe how people think about philosophically interesting things such as knowledge, morality, freedom, etc. This paper explores the contribution that qualitative methods have to make in this enterprise. I argue that qualitative methods have the potential to make a much greater contribution than they have so far. Along the way, I acknowledge a few types of resistance that proponents of qualitative methods in experimental philosophy might encounter, and provide reasons to think they are ill-founded
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