1,318 research outputs found
Extreme secondary sexual dimorphism in the genus Florarctus (Heterotardigrada: Halechiniscidae)
Secondary sexual dimorphism in florarctin tardigrades is a well-known phenomenon. Males are usually smaller than females, and primary clavae are relatively longer in the former. A new species Florarctus bellahelenae, collected from subtidal coralline sand just behind the reef fringe of Long Island, Chesterfield Reefs (Pacific Ocean), exhibits extreme secondary dimorphism. Males have developed primary clavae that are much thicker and three times longer than those present in females. Furthermore, the male primary clavae have an accordion-like outer structure, whereas primary clavae are smooth in females. Other species of Florarctus Delamare-Deboutteville & Renaud-Mornant, 1965 inhabiting the Pacific Ocean were investigated. Males are typically smaller than females, but males of Florarctus heimi Delamare-Deboutteville & Renaud-Mornant, 1965 and females of Florarctus cervinus Renaud-Mornant, 1987 have never been recorded. The Renaud-Mornant collection was re-examined, and type series were analysed. Florarctus heimi and F. cervinus were always found together in the coralline sand of Heron Island (Great Barrier Reef). The animals were kept alive and surveyed in the laboratory of the Queensland Museum. All studied individuals of the larger F. heimi (up to ca. 400 μm) were females, and all adults of the smaller F. cervinus (about 170 μm) were males. Males of F. cervinus were observed mating with females of F. heimi. Following those morphological and behavioural lines of evidence, we propose that F. cervinus is a junior synonym of F. heimi. Based on the discovery of dimorphism in F. bellahelenae sp. nov. and the strong sex-related morphological disparities in F. heimi, we suggest that extreme secondary dimorphism may be present in other florarctin arthrotardigrades
Intrinsic approximation for fractals defined by rational iterated function systems - Mahler's research suggestion
Following K. Mahler's suggestion for further research on intrinsic
approximation on the Cantor ternary set, we obtain a Dirichlet type theorem for
the limit sets of rational iterated function systems. We further investigate
the behavior of these approximation functions under random translations. We
connect the information regarding the distribution of rationals on the limit
set encoded in the system to the distribution of rationals in reduced form by
proving a Khinchin type theorem. Finally, using a result of S. Ramanujan, we
prove a theorem motivating a conjecture regarding the distribution of rationals
in reduced form on the Cantor ternary set
Relative abundance and geographical variation of Culex pipiens and Culex torrentium (Diptera: Culicidae) in CO2-baited traps in Denmark
Abstract: European Culex pipiens and Culex torrentium are morphological fairly similar mosquito species with potentially different vector competences for pathogenic viruses. The relative abundance of the two species is therefore important for quantifying the potential for disease transmission in Denmark. Mosquitoes were sampled from 74 different sites in Denmark with CO2 and octenol-baited suction traps. A total of 285 Culex specimens were identified to species using a restriction enzyme assay. Culex pipiens was the dominating species with 220 (77%) specimens caught at 22 different sites, while 65 (23%) specimens were identified as C. torrentium and only caught at 4 sites. The ratio of the two species differed significantly between sites with C. torrentium dominating in just a single location. Both mosquito species were predominantly caught late in the Danish mosquito season, from mid-August and onwards
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Democratic Transitions
Przeworski et al. (2000) challenge the key hypothesis in modernization theory: political regimes do not transition to democracy as per capita incomes rise, they argue. Rather, democratic transitions occur randomly, but once there, countries with higher levels of GDP per capita remain democratic. We retest the modernization hypothesis using new data, new techniques, and a three-way rather than dichotomous classification of regimes. Contrary to Przeworski et al. (2000) we find that the modernization hypothesis stands up well. We also find that partial democracies emerge as among the most important and least understood regime types.African and African American StudiesGovernmen
The water abundance behind interstellar shocks: results from /PACS and /IRS observations of HO, CO, and H
We have investigated the water abundance in shock-heated molecular gas,
making use of measurements of far-infrared CO and HO line
emissions in combination with measurements of mid-IR H rotational
emissions. We present far-infrared line spectra obtained with 's PACS
instrument in range spectroscopy mode towards two positions in the protostellar
outflow NGC 2071 and one position each in the supernova remnants W28 and 3C391.
These spectra provide unequivocal detections, at one or more positions, of 12
rotational lines of water, 14 rotational lines of CO, 8 rotational lines of OH
(4 lambda doublets), and 7 fine-structure transitions of atoms or atomic ions.
We first used a simultaneous fit to the CO line fluxes, along with H
rotational line fluxes measured previously by , to constrain the
temperature and density distribution within the emitting gas; and we then
investigated the water abundances implied by the observed HO line fluxes.
The water line fluxes are in acceptable agreement with standard theoretical
models for nondissociative shocks that predict the complete vaporization of
grain mantles in shocks of velocity km/s, behind which the
characteristic gas temperature is K and the HO/CO ratio is 1.2Comment: 42 pages, 15 figures, accepted for publication in the Astrophysical
Journa
Efficient intra- and inter-night linking of asteroid detections using kd-trees
The Panoramic Survey Telescope And Rapid Response System (Pan-STARRS) under
development at the University of Hawaii's Institute for Astronomy is creating
the first fully automated end-to-end Moving Object Processing System (MOPS) in
the world. It will be capable of identifying detections of moving objects in
our solar system and linking those detections within and between nights,
attributing those detections to known objects, calculating initial and
differentially-corrected orbits for linked detections, precovering detections
when they exist, and orbit identification. Here we describe new kd-tree and
variable-tree algorithms that allow fast, efficient, scalable linking of intra
and inter-night detections. Using a pseudo-realistic simulation of the
Pan-STARRS survey strategy incorporating weather, astrometric accuracy and
false detections we have achieved nearly 100% efficiency and accuracy for
intra-night linking and nearly 100% efficiency for inter-night linking within a
lunation. At realistic sky-plane densities for both real and false detections
the intra-night linking of detections into `tracks' currently has an accuracy
of 0.3%. Successful tests of the MOPS on real source detections from the
Spacewatch asteroid survey indicate that the MOPS is capable of identifying
asteroids in real data.Comment: Accepted to Icaru
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