326,043 research outputs found
In situ observations of fish associated with coral reefs off Ireland
The abundance and behaviour of fish on and around coral reefs at Twin Mounds and Giant Mounds, carbonate mounds located on the continental shelf off Ireland (600-1100. m), were studied using two Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) dives. We recorded 30 fish taxa on the dives, together with three species of Scleractinia (Lophelia pertusa, Madrepora oculata and Desmophyllum cristagalli) and a diverse range of other corals (Antipatharia, Alcyonacea, and Stylasteridae). Stands of live coral provided the only habitat in which Guttigadus latifrons was observed whereas Neocyttus helgae was found predominantly on structural habitats provided by dead coral. Significantly more fish were found on structurally complex coral rubble habitats than on flatter areas where coral rubble was clogged with sand. The most common species recorded was Lepidion eques (2136 individuals), which always occurred a few cm above bottom and was significantly more active on the reefs than on sedimentary habitats. Synaphobranchus kaupii (1157 indiv.). , N. helgae (198 indiv.) and Micromesistius poutassou (116 indiv.) were also common; S. kaupii did not exhibit habitat-related differences in behaviour, whilst N. helgae was more active over the reefs and other structured habitats whereas M. poutassou was more active with decreasing habitat complexity. Trawl damage and abandoned fishing gear was observed at both sites. We conclude that Irish coral reefs provide complex habitats that are home to a diverse assemblage of fish utilising the range of niches occurring both above and within the reef structure. © 2011 Elsevier Ltd
Jet Trimming
Initial state radiation, multiple interactions, and event pileup can
contaminate jets and degrade event reconstruction. Here we introduce a
procedure, jet trimming, designed to mitigate these sources of contamination in
jets initiated by light partons. This procedure is complimentary to existing
methods developed for boosted heavy particles. We find that jet trimming can
achieve significant improvements in event reconstruction, especially at high
energy/luminosity hadron colliders like the LHC.Comment: 20 pages, 11 figures, 3 tables - Minor changes to text/figure
Applying ACO To Large Scale TSP Instances
Ant Colony Optimisation (ACO) is a well known metaheuristic that has proven
successful at solving Travelling Salesman Problems (TSP). However, ACO suffers
from two issues; the first is that the technique has significant memory
requirements for storing pheromone levels on edges between cities and second,
the iterative probabilistic nature of choosing which city to visit next at
every step is computationally expensive. This restricts ACO from solving larger
TSP instances. This paper will present a methodology for deploying ACO on
larger TSP instances by removing the high memory requirements, exploiting
parallel CPU hardware and introducing a significant efficiency saving measure.
The approach results in greater accuracy and speed. This enables the proposed
ACO approach to tackle TSP instances of up to 200K cities within reasonable
timescales using a single CPU. Speedups of as much as 1200 fold are achieved by
the technique
Transformations between HCLP and PCSP
We present a general methodology for transforming between HCLP and PCSP in both directions. HCLP and PCSP each have advantages when modelling problems, and each have advantages when implementing models and solving them. Using the work presented in this paper, the appropriate paradigm can be used for each of these steps, with a meaning-preserving transformation in between if necessary
A process algebra for synchronous concurrent constraint programming
Concurrent constraint programming is classically based on asynchronous communication via a shared store. This paper presents new version of the ask and tell primitives which features synchronicity. Our approach is based on the idea of telling new information just in the case that a concurrently running process is asking for it.
An operational and an algebraic semantics are defined. The algebraic semantics is proved to be sound and complete with respect to a compositional operational semantics which is also presented in the paper
The Master Equation for Large Population Equilibriums
We use a simple N-player stochastic game with idiosyncratic and common noises
to introduce the concept of Master Equation originally proposed by Lions in his
lectures at the Coll\`ege de France. Controlling the limit N tends to the
infinity of the explicit solution of the N-player game, we highlight the
stochastic nature of the limit distributions of the states of the players due
to the fact that the random environment does not average out in the limit, and
we recast the Mean Field Game (MFG) paradigm in a set of coupled Stochastic
Partial Differential Equations (SPDEs). The first one is a forward stochastic
Kolmogorov equation giving the evolution of the conditional distributions of
the states of the players given the common noise. The second is a form of
stochastic Hamilton Jacobi Bellman (HJB) equation providing the solution of the
optimization problem when the flow of conditional distributions is given. Being
highly coupled, the system reads as an infinite dimensional Forward Backward
Stochastic Differential Equation (FBSDE). Uniqueness of a solution and its
Markov property lead to the representation of the solution of the backward
equation (i.e. the value function of the stochastic HJB equation) as a
deterministic function of the solution of the forward Kolmogorov equation,
function which is usually called the decoupling field of the FBSDE. The
(infinite dimensional) PDE satisfied by this decoupling field is identified
with the \textit{master equation}. We also show that this equation can be
derived for other large populations equilibriums like those given by the
optimal control of McKean-Vlasov stochastic differential equations. The paper
is written more in the style of a review than a technical paper, and we spend
more time and energy motivating and explaining the probabilistic interpretation
of the Master Equation, than identifying the most general set of assumptions
under which our claims are true
Investigations of mode control in proton-implanted and oxide-confined VCSELs using PBGs: modelling and experiment
Rapid chromosome territory relocation by nuclear motor activity in response to serum removal in primary human fibroblasts
This article has been made available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund.Background: Radial chromosome positioning in interphase nuclei is nonrandom and
can alter according to developmental, differentiation, proliferation, or disease status.
However, it is not yet clear when and how chromosome repositioning is elicited.
Results: By investigating the positioning of all human chromosomes in primary
fibroblasts that have left the proliferative cell cycle, we have demonstrated that in
cells made quiescent by reversible growth arrest, chromosome positioning is altered
considerably. We found that with the removal of serum from the culture medium,
chromosome repositioning took less than 15 minutes, required energy and was
inhibited by drugs affecting the polymerization of myosin and actin. We also
observed that when cells became quiescent, the nuclear distribution of nuclear myosin
1ß was dramatically different from that in proliferating cells. If we suppressed the
expression of nuclear myosin 1ß by using RNA-interference procedures, the
movement of chromosomes after 15 minutes in low serum was inhibited. When high
serum was restored to the serum-starved cultures, chromosome repositioning was
evident only after 24 to 36 hours, and this coincided with a return to a proliferating
distribution of nuclear myosin 1ß.
Conclusions: These findings demonstrate that genome organization in interphase
nuclei is altered considerably when cells leave the proliferative cell cycle and that
repositioning of chromosomes relies on efficient functioning of an active nuclear
motor complex that contains nuclear myosin 1ß.Brunel Open Access Publishing Fun
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Internal iamin structures within G1 nuclei of human dermal fibroblasts
The nuclear lamina is a mesh-like network of fibres subjacent
to the inner nuclear membrane that is believed
to be involved in the specific spatial reorganisation of
chromatin after mitosis. To determine how the lamina
might be involved in chromatin reorganisation, we have
performed indirect immunofluorescence studies on quiescent
and proliferating human dermal fibroblasts
(HDF). Two monoclonal antibodies recognising human
lamins A and C and three different fixation methods
were employed. In indirect immunofluorescence studies,
cultures of quiescent cells displayed a uniform perinuclear
distribution of the antibodies. In proliferating cultures
two distinct populations of cells were observed:
one population displayed a typical perinuclear antibody
distribution, while the second population displayed an
unusual pattern consisting of a series of spots and fibres
within the nucleus. By inducing cell-cycle synchrony in
cultures we were able to determine that the unusual
internal distribution of the lamin antibodies was
restricted to cells in G1. Optical sectioning and 3-D
reconstruction of the lamina structures in G1 nuclei was
performed with a confocal laser scanning microscope
(CLSM). This revealed that the internal lamin structures
consisted of small foci and fibres proliferating
throughout the nucleus. These structures were shown to
be closely associated with areas of condensed chromatin
but not nuclear membrane. As cells progress towards S
phase the internal lamin foci disappear
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