775 research outputs found
Western Wheatgrass Recovery From Drought
Native grasses are predictably taller in wet years than in dry years and their density also increases with favorable precipitation. These responses of western wheatgrass are more dramatic on mechanically treated rangeland when precipitation is adequate. Measurements taken in July 1991 confirmed that western wheatgrass was slightly taller and density at least two times greater on mechanically treated claypan soils compared with untreated soils 13 and 18 years following treatment. Increases of this magnitude constitute a potentially greater carrying capacity which livestock producers should be prepared to utilize. This report briefly summarizes the effects of mechanical treatment on height and density of western wheatgrass 13 and 18 years following treatment and in a wet year following several dry years
Associative polynomial functions over bounded distributive lattices
The associativity property, usually defined for binary functions, can be
generalized to functions of a given fixed arity n>=1 as well as to functions of
multiple arities. In this paper, we investigate these two generalizations in
the case of polynomial functions over bounded distributive lattices and present
explicit descriptions of the corresponding associative functions. We also show
that, in this case, both generalizations of associativity are essentially the
same.Comment: Final versio
Tranexamic Acid Is Associated With Reduced Periprosthetic Joint Infection After Primary Total Joint Arthroplasty
Background: Previous studies have demonstrated preoperative anemia to be a strong risk factor for periprosthetic joint infection (PJI) in total joint arthroplasty (TJA). Allogeneic blood transfusion can be associated with increased risk of PJI after primary and revision TJA. Tranexamic acid (TXA) is known to reduce blood loss and the need for allogeneic blood transfusion after TJA. The hypothesis of this study is that administration of intravenous TXA would result in a reduction in PJI after TJA. Methods: An institutional database was utilized to identify 6340 patients undergoing primary TJA between January 1, 2013 and June 31, 2017 with a minimum of 1-year follow-up. Patients were divided into 2 groups based on whether they received intravenous TXA prior to TJA or not. Patients who developed PJI were identified. All PJI patients met the 2018 International Consensus Meeting definition for PJI. A multivariate regression analysis was performed to identify variables independently associated with PJI. Results: Of the patients included, 3683 (58.1) received TXA and 2657 (41.9) did not. The overall incidence of preoperative anemia was 16, postoperative blood transfusion 1.8, and PJI 2.4. Bivariate analysis showed that patients who received TXA were significantly at lower odds of infection. After adjusting for all confounding variables, multivariate regression analysis showed that TXA is associated with reduced PJI after primary TJA. Conclusion: TXA can help reduce the rate of PJI after primary TJA. This protective effect is likely interlinked to reduction in blood loss, lower need for allogeneic blood transfusion, and issues related to immunomodulation associated with blood transfusion. © 2019 Elsevier Inc
Electrically Tunable Excitonic Light Emitting Diodes based on Monolayer WSe2 p-n Junctions
Light-emitting diodes are of importance for lighting, displays, optical
interconnects, logic and sensors. Hence the development of new systems that
allow improvements in their efficiency, spectral properties, compactness and
integrability could have significant ramifications. Monolayer transition metal
dichalcogenides have recently emerged as interesting candidates for
optoelectronic applications due to their unique optical properties.
Electroluminescence has already been observed from monolayer MoS2 devices.
However, the electroluminescence efficiency was low and the linewidth broad due
both to the poor optical quality of MoS2 and to ineffective contacts. Here, we
report electroluminescence from lateral p-n junctions in monolayer WSe2 induced
electrostatically using a thin boron nitride support as a dielectric layer with
multiple metal gates beneath. This structure allows effective injection of
electrons and holes, and combined with the high optical quality of WSe2 it
yields bright electroluminescence with 1000 times smaller injection current and
10 times smaller linewidth than in MoS2. Furthermore, by increasing the
injection bias we can tune the electroluminescence between regimes of
impurity-bound, charged, and neutral excitons. This system has the required
ingredients for new kinds of optoelectronic devices such as spin- and
valley-polarized light-emitting diodes, on-chip lasers, and two-dimensional
electro-optic modulators.Comment: 13 pages main text with 4 figures + 4 pages upplemental material
Halo streams in the 7th SDSS data release
We have detected stellar halo streams in the solar neighborhood using data
from the 7th public data release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), which
includes the directed stellar program SEGUE: Sloan Extension For Galactic
Understanding and Exploration. In order to derive distances to each star, we
used the metallicity-dependent photometric parallax relation from Ivezic et al.
(2008) for which we examine and quantify the accuracy. Our final sample
consists of 22,321 nearby (d < 2 kpc), metal-poor ([Fe/H] < -0.5) main-sequence
stars with 6D estimates of position and space velocity. We characterize the
orbits of these stars through suitable kinematic proxies for their "effective"
integrals of motion, angular momentum, eccentricity, and orbital polar angle
and compare the observed distribution to expectations from a smooth
distribution in four [Fe/H] bins. On this basis we identify at least five
significant "phase-space overdensities" of stars on very similar orbits in the
solar neighborhood to which we can assign unambiguously peaked [Fe/H]
distributions. Three of them have been identified previously, including the
halo stream discovered by Helmi et al. (1999) at a significance level of 12.0.
In addition, we find at least two new genuine halo streams, judged by their
kinematics and [Fe/H], at significance levels of 2.9 and 4.8, respectively. For
one stream the stars even show coherence in configuration space, matching a
spatial overdensity of stars found by Juric et al. (2008) at (R,z) \approx
(9.5,0.8) kpc. Our results demonstrate the practical power of our search method
to detect substructure in the phase-space distribution of nearby stars without
making a-priori assumptions about the detailed form of the gravitational
potential.Comment: 57 pages, 22 figures, accepted for publication in Ap
Fuzzy Implications: Some Recently Solved Problems
In this chapter we discuss some open problems related to fuzzy implications, which have either been completely solved or those for which partial answers are known. In fact, this chapter also contains the answer for one of the open problems, which is hitherto unpublished. The recently solved problems are so chosen to reflect the importance of the problem or the significance of the solution. Finally, some other problems that still remain unsolved are stated for quick reference
Sailing into a dilemma : an economic and legal analysis of an EU trading scheme for maritime emissions
On the basis of a joint economic and legal analysis, we evaluate the effects of a “regional” (European)
emission trading scheme aiming at reducing emissions of international shipping. The focus lies on the
question which share of emissions from maritime transport activities to and from the EU can and
should be included in such a system. Our findings suggest that the attempt to implement an EU
maritime ETS runs into a dilemma. It is not possible to design a system that achieves emission
reductions in a cost efficient manner and is compatible with international law
Analysis of Peculiarities of the Stellar Velocity Field in the Solar Neighborhood
Based on a new version of the Hipparcos catalogue and an updated
Geneva-Copenhagen survey of F and G dwarfs, we analyze the space velocity field
of about 17000 single stars in the solar neighborhood. The main known clumps,
streams, and branches (Pleiades, Hyades, Sirius, Coma Berenices, Hercules, Wolf
630-alpha Ceti, and Arcturus) have been identified using various approaches.
The evolution of the space velocity field for F and G dwarfs has been traced as
a function of the stellar age. We have managed to confirm the existence of the
recently discovered KFR08 stream. We have found 19 Hipparcos stars, candidates
for membership in the KFR08 stream, and obtained an isochrone age estimate for
the stream, 13 Gyr. The mean stellar ages of the Wolf 630-alpha Ceti and
Hercules streams are shown to be comparable, 4--6 Gyr. No significant
differences in the metallicities of stars belonging to these streams have been
found. This is an argument for the hypothesis that these streams owe their
origin to a common mechanism.Comment: 23 pages, 9 figure
A modal theorem-preserving translation of a class of three-valued logics of incomplete information
International audienceThere are several three-valued logical systems that form a scattered landscape, even if all reasonable connectives in three-valued logics can be derived from a few of them. Most papers on this subject neglect the issue of the relevance of such logics in relation with the intended meaning of the third truth-value. Here, we focus on the case where the third truth-value means unknown, as suggested by Kleene. Under such an understanding, we show that any truth-qualified formula in a large range of three-valued logics can be translated into KD as a modal formula of depth 1, with modalities in front of literals only, while preserving all tautologies and inference rules of the original three-valued logic. This simple information logic is a two-tiered classical propositional logic with simple semantics in terms of epistemic states understood as subsets of classical interpretations. We study in particular the translations of Kleene, Gödel, ᴌukasiewicz and Nelson logics. We show that Priest’s logic of paradox, closely connected to Kleene’s, can also be translated into our modal setting, simply by exchanging the modalities possible and necessary. Our work enables the precise expressive power of three-valued logics to be laid bare for the purpose of uncertainty management
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