Long-term P weathering and recent N deposition control contemporary plant-soil C, N, and P

Models are needed to understand how plant-soil nutrient stores and fluxes have responded to the last two centuries of widespread anthropogenic nutrient pollution and predict future change. These models need to integrate across carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus (C, N, and P) cycles and simulate changes over suitable timescales using available driving data. It is also vital that they are constrainable against observed data to provide confidence in their outputs. To date, no models address all of these requirements. To meet this need, a new model, N14CP, is introduced, which is initially applied to Northern Hemisphere temperate and boreal ecosystems over the Holocene. N14CP is parameterized and tested using 88 northern Europe plot-scale studies, providing the most robust test of such a model to date. The model simulates long-term P weathering, based on the assumption of a starting pool of weatherable P (Pweath0, g m−2), which is gradually transformed into organic and sorbed pools. Nitrogen fixation (and consequently primary production) is made dependent on available P. In the absence of knowledge about the spatial variability of Pweath0, N14CP produces good average soil and plant variables but cannot simulate variations among sites. Allowing Pweath0 to vary between sites improves soil C, N, and P results greatly, suggesting that contemporary soil C, N, and P are sensitive to long-term P weathering. Most sites were found to be N limited. Anthropogenic N deposition since 1800 was calculated to have increased plant biomass substantially, in agreement with observations and consequently increased soil carbon pools

Some recent developments in quantization of fractal measures

We give an overview on the quantization problem for fractal measures, including some related results and methods which have been developed in the last decades. Based on the work of Graf and Luschgy, we propose a three-step procedure to estimate the quantization errors. We survey some recent progress, which makes use of this procedure, including the quantization for self-affine measures, Markov-type measures on graph-directed fractals, and product measures on multiscale Moran sets. Several open problems are mentioned.Comment: 13 page

A CD36 ectodomain mediates insect pheromone detection via a putative tunnelling mechanism.

CD36 transmembrane proteins have diverse roles in lipid uptake, cell adhesion and pathogen sensing. Despite numerous in vitro studies, how they act in native cellular contexts is poorly understood. A Drosophila CD36 homologue, sensory neuron membrane protein 1 (SNMP1), was previously shown to facilitate detection of lipid-derived pheromones by their cognate receptors in olfactory cilia. Here we investigate how SNMP1 functions in vivo. Structure-activity dissection demonstrates that SNMP1's ectodomain is essential, but intracellular and transmembrane domains dispensable, for cilia localization and pheromone-evoked responses. SNMP1 can be substituted by mammalian CD36, whose ectodomain can interact with insect pheromones. Homology modelling, using the mammalian LIMP-2 structure as template, reveals a putative tunnel in the SNMP1 ectodomain that is sufficiently large to accommodate pheromone molecules. Amino-acid substitutions predicted to block this tunnel diminish pheromone sensitivity. We propose a model in which SNMP1 funnels hydrophobic pheromones from the extracellular fluid to integral membrane receptors

Sigref – A Symbolic Bisimulation Tool Box

We present a uniform signature-based approach to compute the most popular bisimulations. Our approach is implemented symbolically using BDDs, which enables the handling of very large transition systems. Signatures for the bisimulations are built up from a few generic building blocks, which naturally correspond to efficient BDD operations. Thus, the definition of an appropriate signature is the key for a rapid development of algorithms for other types of bisimulation. We provide experimental evidence of the viability of this approach by presenting computational results for many bisimulations on real-world instances. The experiments show cases where our framework can handle state spaces efficiently that are far too large to handle for any tool that requires an explicit state space description. This work was partly supported by the German Research Council (DFG) as part of the Transregional Collaborative Research Center “Automatic Verification and Analysis of Complex Systems” (SFB/TR 14 AVACS). See www.avacs.org for more information

Expert nurses’ use of implicit memory in the care of patients with Alzheimer's disease

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/73899/1/j.1365-2648.2006.03864.x.pd

The ANTARES Optical Beacon System

ANTARES is a neutrino telescope being deployed in the Mediterranean Sea. It consists of a three dimensional array of photomultiplier tubes that can detect the Cherenkov light induced by charged particles produced in the interactions of neutrinos with the surrounding medium. High angular resolution can be achieved, in particular when a muon is produced, provided that the Cherenkov photons are detected with sufficient timing precision. Considerations of the intrinsic time uncertainties stemming from the transit time spread in the photomultiplier tubes and the mechanism of transmission of light in sea water lead to the conclusion that a relative time accuracy of the order of 0.5 ns is desirable. Accordingly, different time calibration systems have been developed for the ANTARES telescope. In this article, a system based on Optical Beacons, a set of external and well-controlled pulsed light sources located throughout the detector, is described. This calibration system takes into account the optical properties of sea water, which is used as the detection volume of the ANTARES telescope. The design, tests, construction and first results of the two types of beacons, LED and laser-based, are presented.Comment: 21 pages, 18 figures, submitted to Nucl. Instr. and Meth. Phys. Res.

On Combining Functional Verification and Performance Evaluation using CADP

Considering functional correctness and performance evaluation in a common framework is desirable, both for scientific and economic reasons. In this report, we describe how the CADP toolbox, originally designed for verifying the functional correctness of LOTOS specifications, can also be used for performance evaluation. We illustrate the proposed approach by the performance study of the SCSI-2 bus arbitration protocol

Refined Interfaces for Compositional Verification

The compositional verification approach of Graf & Steffen aims at avoiding state space explosion for individual processes of a concurrent system. It relies on interfaces that express the behavioural constraints imposed on each process by synchronization with the other processes, thus preventing the exploration of states and transitions that would not be reachable in the global state space. Krimm & Mounier, and Cheung & Kramer proposed two techniques to generate such interfaces automatically. In this report, we propose a refined interface generation technique that derives the interface of a process automatically from the examination of (a subset of) concurrent processes. This technique is applicable to formalisms where concurrent processes are composed either using synchronization vectors or process algebra parallel composition operators (including those of CCS, CSP, muCRL, LOTOS, and E-LOTOS). We implemented this approach in the EXP.OPEN 2.0 tool of the CADP toolbox. Several experiments indicate state space reductions by more than two orders of magnitude for the largest processes

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