Impact of secondary hard substrate on the distribution and abundance of Aurelia aurita in the western Baltic Sea

Highlights: • Impacts of wind farms on the occurrence of the moon jelly Aureliaaurita. • Artificial hard substrate has the potential to increase the abundance of A.aurita. • In the given example the abundance of A. aurita increases about 20%. • Distribution patterns indicate cross-border impacts on various sectors. This study assessed the impact of secondary hard substrate, as being introduced into marine ecosystems by the establishment of wind farm pillars, on the occurrence and distribution of the moon jelly Aurelia aurita in the southwestern Baltic Sea. A two-year data sampling was conducted with removable settlement plates to assess the distribution and population development of the scyphozoan polyps. The data collected from these samples were used to set up a model with Lagrangian particle technique. The results confirm that anthropogenic created hard substrate (e.g. offshore wind farms) has the potential to increase the abundance of the A. aurita population. The distribution of wind farm borne jellyfish along Danish, German and Polish coasts indicates conflicts with further sectors, mainly energy and tourism

Multifractal properties of critical eigenstates in two-dimensional systems with symplectic symmetry

The multifractal properties of electronic eigenstates at the metal-insulator transition of a two-dimensional disordered tight-binding model with spin-orbit interaction are investigated numerically. The correlation dimensions of the spectral measure $\widetilde{D}_{2}$ and of the fractal eigenstate $D_{2}$ are calculated and shown to be related by $D_{2}=2\widetilde{D}_{2}$. The exponent $\eta=0.35\pm 0.05$ describing the energy correlations of the critical eigenstates is found to satisfy the relation $\eta=2-D_{2}$.Comment: 6 pages RevTeX; 3 uuencoded, gzipped ps-figures to appear in J. Phys. Condensed Matte

Active metal-cycling microbial communities of polymetallic nodules from the Eastern Pacific Ocean

The rising demand for minerals and metals is encouraging the great international interest for alternative sources in the deep sea. Deposits of deep-sea polymetallic nodules attracted the attention for a long time because they are rich in nickel, copper, cobalt, and rare earth elements. The environmental consequences of large-scale mining of polymetallic nodules are currently less known. In 2019 the Belgian and German licence area in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone (Eastern Pacific) were studied to obtain further baseline characteristics of the 4000 m deep polymetallic nodule fields. Here, we present: i) diversity and distribution of the present & active microbial communities of polymetallic nodules and ii) abundance and activity of relevant metal-cycling microorganisms by quantification of extracellular enzyme activity and 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing. Further we aim to enrich potential metal-cycling microorganisms and investigate microbial metabolisms by metagenomic/-transcriptomic from polymetallic nodules. Our results may provide a new set of tools for monitoring ecosystem impacts associated with deep-sea polymetallic nodule mining. New regulations are required to protect these areas from irreversible anthropogenic impacts

Liouvillian Approach to the Integer Quantum Hall Effect Transition

We present a novel approach to the localization-delocalization transition in the integer quantum Hall effect. The Hamiltonian projected onto the lowest Landau level can be written in terms of the projected density operators alone. This and the closed set of commutation relations between the projected densities leads to simple equations for the time evolution of the density operators. These equations can be used to map the problem of calculating the disorder averaged and energetically unconstrained density-density correlation function to the problem of calculating the one-particle density of states of a dynamical system with a novel action. At the self-consistent mean-field level, this approach yields normal diffusion and a finite longitudinal conductivity. While we have not been able to go beyond the saddle point approximation analytically, we show numerically that the critical localization exponent can be extracted from the energetically integrated correlation function yielding $\nu=2.33 \pm 0.05$ in excellent agreement with previous finite-size scaling studies.Comment: 9 pages, submitted to PR

Engineering fatty acid synthases for directed polyketide production.

In this study, we engineered fatty acid synthases (FAS) for the biosynthesis of short-chain fatty acids and polyketides, guided by a combined in vitro and in silico approach. Along with exploring the synthetic capability of FAS, we aim to build a foundation for efficient protein engineering, with the specific goal of harnessing evolutionarily related megadalton-scale polyketide synthases (PKS) for the tailored production of bioactive natural compounds

Projektvorstellung: Wasserhaushalt einer geschichteten mineralischen Deponieabdichtung

Die langfristige sichere Abdichtung von Mülldeponiekörpern ist bei der Verwendung von Geotextilien sehr teuer, der Einsatz von mineralischen Tondichtungen erfordert eine sehr präzise Ausführung und darüber hinaus auch eine genaue Steuerung der internen Wasserhaushaltssituation, um Rissbildung zu vermeiden. Daher soll in dem Projekt ein in der Theorie bereits nachvollziehbares Abdichtungsverfahren (geschichtetes mineralisches Abdeckungssystem) auf in situ Bedingungen übertragen und unter Realbedingungen dann auch auf ihre Funktionsfähigkeit überprüft werden. Hierzu werden auf der Mülldeponie Rastorf, die eine temporäre Deponieabdeckung hat, sowohl in situ Messungen durchgeführt (Tensiometer- und Wassergehaltsmessungen) als auch Laborproben zur Erfassung der räumlichen hydraulischen Leitfähigkeit am Hang (Tensorfunktion) entnommen. Ziel ist die Validierung einer theoretisch sehr gut nachgewiesenen Dichtungswirkung unter Freilandbedingungen, um ein wirtschaftliches und langfristig sicheres Deponieabdichtungssystem zu erstellen

Circulation Statistics in Three-Dimensional Turbulent Flows

We study the large $\lambda$ limit of the loop-dependent characteristic functional $Z(\lambda)=$, related to the probability density function (PDF) of the circulation around a closed contour $c$. The analysis is carried out in the framework of the Martin-Siggia-Rose field theory formulation of the turbulence problem, by means of the saddle-point technique. Axisymmetric instantons, labelled by the component $\sigma_{zz}$ of the strain field -- a partially annealed variable in our formalism -- are obtained for a circular loop in the $xy$ plane, with radius defined in the inertial range. Fluctuations of the velocity field around the saddle-point solutions are relevant, leading to the lorentzian asymptotic behavior $Z(\lambda) \sim 1/{\lambda^2}$. The ${\cal O}(1 / {\lambda^4})$ subleading correction and the asymmetry between right and left PDF tails due to parity breaking mechanisms are also investigated.Comment: Computations are discussed in a more detailed way; accepted for publication in Physical Review

Skill obsolescence, vintage effects and changing tasks

Human capital is no doubt one of the most important factors for future economic growth and well-being. However, human capital is also prone to becoming obsolete over time. Skills that have been acquired at one point in time may perfectly match the skill requirements at that time but may become obsolete as time goes by. Thus, in the following paper, we study the depreciation processes of the human capital of workers performing different types of tasks with different skill requirements over a period of more than twenty years. We argue that two types of tasks must be distinguished: knowledge-based tasks and experience-based tasks. Knowledge-based tasks demand skills depending on the actual stock of technological knowledge in a society whereas experience-based tasks demand skills depending on personal factors and individual experience values. We show, by applying Mincer regressions on four different cross sections, that the human capital of people performing knowledge-based tasks suffers more from depreciation than the human capital of individuals performing experience-based tasks

Resonant scattering in a strong magnetic field: exact density of states

We study the structure of 2D electronic states in a strong magnetic field in the presence of a large number of resonant scatterers. For an electron in the lowest Landau level, we derive the exact density of states by mapping the problem onto a zero-dimensional field-theoretical model. We demonstrate that the interplay between resonant and non-resonant scattering leads to a non-analytic energy dependence of the electron Green function. In particular, for strong resonant scattering the density of states develops a gap in a finite energy interval. The shape of the Landau level is shown to be very sensitive to the distribution of resonant scatterers.Comment: 12 pages + 3 fig

Surface acoustic wave attenuation by a two-dimensional electron gas in a strong magnetic field

The propagation of a surface acoustic wave (SAW) on GaAs/AlGaAs heterostructures is studied in the case where the two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) is subject to a strong magnetic field and a smooth random potential with correlation length Lambda and amplitude Delta. The electron wave functions are described in a quasiclassical picture using results of percolation theory for two-dimensional systems. In accordance with the experimental situation, Lambda is assumed to be much smaller than the sound wavelength 2*pi/q. This restricts the absorption of surface phonons at a filling factor \bar{\nu} approx 1/2 to electrons occupying extended trajectories of fractal structure. Both piezoelectric and deformation potential interactions of surface acoustic phonons with electrons are considered and the corresponding interaction vertices are derived. These vertices are found to differ from those valid for three-dimensional bulk phonon systems with respect to the phonon wave vector dependence. We derive the appropriate dielectric function varepsilon(omega,q) to describe the effect of screening on the electron-phonon coupling. In the low temperature, high frequency regime T << Delta (omega_q*Lambda /v_D)^{alpha/2/nu}, where omega_q is the SAW frequency and v_D is the electron drift velocity, both the attenuation coefficient Gamma and varepsilon(omega,q) are independent of temperature. The classical percolation indices give alpha/2/nu=3/7. The width of the region where a strong absorption of the SAW occurs is found to be given by the scaling law |Delta \bar{\nu}| approx (omega_q*Lambda/v_D)^{alpha/2/nu}. The dependence of the electron-phonon coupling and the screening due to the 2DEG on the filling factor leads to a double-peak structure for Gamma(\bar{\nu}).Comment: 17 pages, 3 Postscript figures, minor changes mad