SPATIOTEMPORAL VARIATIONIN GRASSLAND BIOMASS AND FORAGE QUALITY ACROSS THE UPPER YELLOWSTONE RIVER BASIN

Spatial and temporal heterogeneity in the abundance of high quality forage is known to play an important role in migratory ungulate ecology. While many studies have documented how variations in the timing of start of growth and land use affect the availability of high quality forage across temperate landscapes, few studies have quantified how the abundance of high quality forage varies across these gradients. In this study we quantified how aboveground biomass, crude protein, and digestibility varied throughout the growing season in (1) grasslands that start growth early, mid, and late in the season and (2) in irrigated agriculture, private grasslands, and public grasslands and then used these estimates to (3)assess how the seasonal abundance of high quality forage differed in these start of season and land use classes in the Upper Yellowstone River Basin. We found that grasslands that start growth late in the season had up to 150% greater aboveground biomass, 20% greater crude protein, and 15% greater digestibility at its seasonal peak than grasslands that start growth mid and early in the season. Irrigated agriculture had up to 500% greater aboveground biomass, 90% greater crude protein, and 10% greater digestibility at its seasonal peak than private and public grasslands. Overall, the abundance of high quality forage was greater in the late start of season and irrigated agriculture grasslands. Understanding these landscape-scale variations in the abundance of high quality forage may provide important information for migratory ungulate research and management

Gravitational Smearing of Minimal Supersymmetric Unification Predictions

A short and mean paper.Comment: 10 pages total + 1 postscript figure (included), revised: all lines are TRULY < 70 characters long (try it!); LBL-32905, UCB-PTH-92/3

A proposal for reducing maximum target doses of drugs for psychosis: Reviewing dose–response literature

Background: Presently, there is limited guidance on the maximal dosing of psychosis drugs that is based on effectiveness rather than safety or toxicity. Current maximum dosing recommendations may far exceed the necessary degree of dopamine D2 receptor blockade required to treat psychosis. This may lead to excess harm through cognitive impairment and side effects. Aims: This analysis aimed to establish guidance for prescribers by optimally dosing drugs for psychosis based on efficacy and benefit. Methods: We used data from two dose–response meta-analyses and reviewed seven of the most prescribed drugs for psychosis in the UK. Where data were not available, we used appropriate comparison techniques based on D2 receptor occupancy to extrapolate our recommendations. Results: We found that the likely threshold dose for achieving remission of psychotic symptoms was often significantly below the currently licensed dose for these drugs. We therefore recommend that clinicians are cautious about exceeding our recommended doses. Individual factors, however, should be accounted for. We outline potentially relevant factors including age, ethnicity, sex, smoking status and pharmacogenetics. Additionally, we recommend therapeutic drug monitoring as a tool to determine individual pharmacokinetic variation. Conclusions: In summary, we propose a new set of maximum target doses for psychosis drugs based on efficacy. Further research through randomised controlled trials should be undertaken to evaluate the effect of reducing doses from current licensing maximums or from doses that are above our recommendations. However, dose reductions should be implemented in a manner that accounts for and reduces the effects of drug withdrawal

Muon-Spin Rotation Spectra in the Mixed Phase of High-T_c Superconductors : Thermal Fluctuations and Disorder Effects

We study muon-spin rotation (muSR) spectra in the mixed phase of highly anisotropic layered superconductors, specifically Bi_2+xSr_2-xCaCu_2O_8+delta (BSCCO), by modeling the fluid and solid phases of pancake vortices using liquid-state and density functional methods. The role of thermal fluctuations in causing motional narrowing of muSR lineshapes is quantified in terms of a first-principles theory of the flux-lattice melting transition. The effects of random point pinning are investigated using a replica treatment of liquid state correlations and a replicated density functional theory. Our results indicate that motional narrowing in the pure system, although substantial, cannot account for the remarkably small linewidths obtained experimentally at relatively high fields and low temperatures. We find that satisfactory agreement with the muSR data for BSCCO in this regime can be obtained through the ansatz that this ``phase'' is characterized by frozen short-range positional correlations reflecting the structure of the liquid just above the melting transition. This proposal is consistent with recent suggestions of a ``pinned liquid'' or ``glassy'' state of pancake vortices in the presence of pinning disorder. Our results for the high-temperature liquid phase indicate that measurable linewidths may be obtained in this phase as a consequence of density inhomogeneities induced by the pinning disorder. The results presented here comprise a unified, first-principles theoretical treatment of muSR spectra in highly anisotropic layered superconductors in terms of a controlled set of approximations.Comment: 50 pages Latex file, including 10 postscript figure

Harvest strategy evaluation to optimise the sustainability and value of the Queensland scallop fishery. Queensland scallop fishery - FRDC Project No 2006/024 Final Report

Objective 1. Measure spatial and temporal trawl frequency of scallop grounds using VMS data. This will provide a relative measure of how often individual undersized scallops are caught and put through a tumbler 2. Estimate discard mortality and growth rates for saucer scallops using cage experiments. 3. Evaluate the current management measures, in particular the seasonal closure, rotational closure and seasonally varying minimum legal sizes using stock assessment and management modeling models. Recommend optimal range of management measures to ensure long-term viability and value of the Scallop fishery based on a formal management strategy evaluation. Outcomes acheived to date: 1. Improved understanding of the survival rates of discarded sub-legal scallops; 2. Preliminary von Bertalanffy growth parameters using data from tagged-and-released scallops; 3. Changing trends in vessels and fishing gear used in the Queensland scallop fishery and their effect on scallop catch rates over time using standardised catch rates quantified; 4. Increases in fishing power of vessels operating in the Queensland scallop fishery quantified; 5. Trawl intensity mapped and quantified for all Scallop Replenishment Areas; 6. Harvest Strategy Evaluations completed

Cognition and related neural findings on methamphetamine use disorder: insights and treatment implications from schizophrenia research

Despite the prevalence of methamphetamine (meth) use disorder, research on meth is disproportionately scarce compared to research on other illicit drugs. Existing evidence highlights cognitive deficits as an impediment against daily function and treatment of chronic meth use. Similar deficits are also observed in schizophrenia, and this review therefore draws on schizophrenia research by examining similarities and differences between the two disorders on cognition and related neural findings. While meth use disorder and schizophrenia are two distinct disorders, they are highly co-morbid and share impairments in similar cognitive domains and altered brain structure/function. This narrative review specifically identifies overlapping features such as deficits in learning and memory, social cognition, working memory and inhibitory/impulse control. We report that while working memory deficits are a core feature of schizophrenia, such deficits are inconsistently observed following chronic meth use. Similar structural and functional abnormalities are also observed in cortical and limbic regions between the two disorders, except for cingulate activity where differences are observed. There is growing evidence that targeting cognitive symptoms may improve functional outcome in schizophrenia, with evidence of normalized abnormal brain activity in regions associated with cognition. Considering the overlap between meth use disorder and schizophrenia, targeting cognitive symptoms in people with meth use disorder may also improve treatment outcome and daily function.Alexandre A. Guerin, Yvonne Bonomo, Andrew John Lawrence, Bernhard Theodor Baune, Eric J. Nestler, Susan L. Rossell and Jee Hyun Ki

High-resolution Ce 3d-edge resonant photoemission study of CeNi_2

Resonant photoemission (RPES) at the Ce 3d -> 4f threshold has been performed for alpha-like compound CeNi_2 with extremely high energy resolution (full width at half maximum < 0.2 eV) to obtain bulk-sensitive 4f spectral weight. The on-resonance spectrum shows a sharp resolution-limited peak near the Fermi energy which can be assigned to the tail of the Kondo resonance. However, the spin-orbit side band around 0.3 eV binding energy corresponding to the f_{7/2} peak is washed out, in contrast to the RPES spectrum at the Ce 3d -> 4f RPES threshold. This is interpreted as due to the different surface sensitivity, and the bulk-sensitive Ce 3d -> 4f RPES spectra are found to be consistent with other electron spectroscopy and low energy properties for alpha-like Ce-transition metal compounds, thus resolves controversy on the interpretation of Ce compound photoemission. The 4f spectral weight over the whole valence band can also be fitted fairly well with the Gunnarsson-Schoenhammer calculation of the single impurity Anderson model, although the detailed features show some dependence on the hybridization band shape and (possibly) Ce 5d emissions.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figur

Toroidal Orientifolds in IIA with General NS-NS Fluxes

Type IIA toroidal orientifolds offer a promising toolkit for model builders, especially when one includes not only the usual fluxes from NS-NS and R-R field strengths, but also fluxes that are T-dual to the NS-NS three-form flux. These new ingredients are known as metric fluxes and non-geometric fluxes, and can help stabilize moduli or can lead to other new features. In this paper we study two approaches to these constructions, by effective field theory or by toroidal fibers twisted over a toroidal base. Each approach leads us to important observations, in particular the presence of D-terms in the four-dimensional effective potential in some cases, and a more subtle treatment of the quantization of the general NS-NS fluxes. Though our methods are general, we illustrate each approach on the example of an orientifold of T^6/Z_4.Comment: 59 pages, references adde

Non-Critical Liouville String Escapes Constraints on Generic Models of Quantum Gravity

It has recently been pointed out that generic models of quantum gravity must contend with severe phenomenological constraints imposed by gravitational Cerenkov radiation, neutrino oscillations and the cosmic microwave background radiation. We show how the non-critical Liouville-string model of quantum gravity we have proposed escapes these constraints. It gives energetic particles subluminal velocities, obviating the danger of gravitational Cerenkov radiation. The effect on neutrino propagation is naturally flavour-independent, obviating any impact on oscillation phenomenology. Deviations from the expected black-body spectrum and the effects of time delays and stochastic fluctuations in the propagation of cosmic microwave background photons are negligible, as are their effects on observable spectral lines from high-redshift astrophysical objects.Comment: 15 pages LaTeX, 2 eps figures include

The clustering of ultra-high energy cosmic rays and their sources

The sky distribution of cosmic rays with energies above the 'GZK cutoff' holds important clues to their origin. The AGASA data, although consistent with isotropy, shows evidence for small-angle clustering, and it has been argued that such clusters are aligned with BL Lacertae objects, implicating these as sources. It has also been suggested that clusters can arise if the cosmic rays come from the decays of very massive relic particles in the Galactic halo, due to the expected clumping of cold dark matter. We examine these claims and show that both are in fact not justified.Comment: 13 pages, 8 figures, version in press at Phys. Rev.