1,118 research outputs found
General procedure to initialize the cyclic soil water balance by the Thornthwaite and Mather method
The original Thornthwaite and Mather method, proposed in 1955 to calculate a climatic monthly cyclic soil water balance, is frequently used as an iterative procedure due to its low input requirements and coherent estimates of water balance components. Using long term data sets to establish a characteristic water balance of a location, the initial soil water storage is generally assumed to be at field capacity at the end of the last month of the wet season, unless the climate is (semi-) arid when the soil water storage is lower than the soil water holding capacity. To close the water balance, several iterations might be necessary, which can be troublesome in many situations. For (semi-) arid climates with one dry season, Mendon a derived in 1958 an equation to quantify the soil water storage monthly at the end of the last month of the wet season, which avoids iteration procedures and closes the balance in one calculation. The cyclic daily water balance application is needed to obtain more accurate water balance output estimates. In this note, an equation to express the water storage for the case of the occurrence of more than one dry season per year is presented as a generalization of Mendon a's equation, also avoiding iteration procedures
Disrupted Signaling through the Fanconi Anemia Pathway Leads to Dysfunctional Hematopoietic Stem Cell Biology: Underlying Mechanisms and Potential Therapeutic Strategies
Fanconi anemia (FA) is the most common inherited bone marrow failure syndrome. FA patients suffer to varying degrees from a heterogeneous range of developmental defects and, in addition, have an increased likelihood of developing cancer. Almost all FA patients develop a severe, progressive bone marrow failure syndrome, which impacts upon the production of all hematopoietic lineages and, hence, is thought to be driven by a defect at the level of the hematopoietic stem cell (HSC). This hypothesis would also correlate with the very high incidence of MDS and AML that is observed in FA patients. In this paper, we discuss the evidence that supports the role of dysfunctional HSC biology in driving the etiology of the disease. Furthermore, we consider the different model systems currently available to study the biology of cells defective in the FA signaling pathway and how they are informative in terms of identifying the physiologic mediators of HSC depletion and dissecting their putative mechanism of action. Finally, we ask whether the insights gained using such disease models can be translated into potential novel therapeutic strategies for the treatment of the hematologic disorders in FA patients
Universal Equilibrium Currents in the Quantum Hall Fluid
The equilibrium current distribution in a quantum Hall fluid that is
subjected to a slowly varying confining potential is shown to generally consist
of strips or channels of current, which alternate in direction, and which have
universal integrated strengths. A measurement of these currents would yield
direct independent measurements of the proper quasiparticle and quasihole
energies in the fractional quantum Hall states.Comment: 4 pages, Revte
'Let's move on': second language trainee teachers' talk and its impact on learner interaction
The FIR-absorption of short period quantum wires and the transition from one to two dimensions
We investigate the FIR-absorption of short period parallel quantum wires in a
perpendicular quantizing magnetic field. The external time-dependent electric
field is linearly polarized along the wire modulation. The mutual Coulomb
interaction of the electrons is treated self-consistently in the ground state
and in the absorption calculation within the Hartree approximation. We consider
the effects of a metal gate grating coupler, with the same or with a different
period as the wire modulation, on the absorption. The evolution of the
magnetoplasmon in the nonlocal region where it is split into several Bernstein
modes is discussed in the transition from: narrow to broad wires, and isolated
to overlapping wires. We show that in the case of narrow and not strongly
modulated wires the absorption can be directly correlated with the underlying
electronic bandstructure.Comment: 15 pages, 9 figures, Revtex, to appear in Phys. Rev.
Anaerobic Biodegradation, Activity and Inhibition (ABAI) Task Group Meeting 9th to 10th October 2006, in Prague
Language motivation in a reconfigured Europe: access, identity, autonomy
In this paper, I propose that we need to develop an appropriate set of conceptual tools for examining motivational issues pertaining to linguistic diversity, mobility and social integration in a rapidly changing and expanding Europe. I begin by drawing on research that has begun to reframe the concept of integrative motivation in the context of theories of self and identity. Expanding the notion of identity, I discuss the contribution of the Council of Europe's European Language Portfolio in promoting a view of motivation as the development of a plurilingual European identity and the enabling of access and mobility across a multilingual Europe. Next, I critically examine the assumption that the individual pursuit of a plurilingual identity is unproblematic, by highlighting the social context in which motivation and identity are constructed and embedded. To illuminate the role of this social context, I explore three inter-related theoretical frameworks: poststructuralist perspectives on language motivation as 'investment'; sociocultural theory; and theories of autonomy in language education. I conclude with the key message that, as with autonomy, language motivation today has an inescapably political dimension of which we need to take greater account in our research and pedagogical practice
Self-consistent local-equilibrium model for density profile and distribution of dissipative currents in a Hall bar under strong magnetic fields
Recent spatially resolved measurements of the electrostatic-potential
variation across a Hall bar in strong magnetic fields, which revealed a clear
correlation between current-carrying strips and incompressible strips expected
near the edges of the Hall bar, cannot be understood on the basis of existing
equilibrium theories. To explain these experiments, we generalize the
Thomas-Fermi--Poisson approach for the self-consistent calculation of
electrostatic potential and electron density in {\em total} thermal equilibrium
to a {\em local equilibrium} theory that allows to treat finite gradients of
the electrochemical potential as driving forces of currents in the presence of
dissipation. A conventional conductivity model with small values of the
longitudinal conductivity for integer values of the (local) Landau-level
filling factor shows that, in apparent agreement with experiment, the current
density is localized near incompressible strips, whose location and width in
turn depend on the applied current.Comment: 9 pages, 7 figure
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