1,837 research outputs found
Oscillatory wave fronts in chains of coupled nonlinear oscillators
Wave front pinning and propagation in damped chains of coupled oscillators
are studied. There are two important thresholds for an applied constant stress
: for (dynamic Peierls stress), wave fronts fail to propagate,
for stable static and moving wave fronts coexist, and
for (static Peierls stress) there are only stable moving wave
fronts. For piecewise linear models, extending an exact method of Atkinson and
Cabrera's to chains with damped dynamics corroborates this description. For
smooth nonlinearities, an approximate analytical description is found by means
of the active point theory. Generically for small or zero damping, stable wave
front profiles are non-monotone and become wavy (oscillatory) in one of their
tails.Comment: 18 pages, 21 figures, 2 column revtex. To appear in Phys. Rev.
Can Crop Insurance Premiums Be Reliably Estimated?
This paper develops and applies a methodology to assess the accuracy of historical loss-cost rating procedures, similar to those used by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Risk Management Agency (RMA), versus alternative parametric premium estimation methods. It finds that the accuracy of loss-cost procedures leaves much to be desired, but can be markedly improved through the use of alternative methods and increased farm-level yield sample sizes. Evidence suggests that the high degree of inaccuracy in crop insurance premium estimations through historical loss-cost procedures identified in the paper might be a major factor behind the need for substantial government subsidies to keep the program solvent.agricultural subsidies, crop insurance premium estimation, loss-cost procedures, Risk Management Agency, Agricultural and Food Policy, Agricultural Finance, Farm Management, Risk and Uncertainty,
Effects of disorder on the wave front depinning transition in spatially discrete systems
Pinning and depinning of wave fronts are ubiquitous features of spatially
discrete systems describing a host of phenomena in physics, biology, etc. A
large class of discrete systems is described by overdamped chains of nonlinear
oscillators with nearest-neighbor coupling and subject to random external
forces. The presence of weak randomness shrinks the pinning interval and it
changes the critical exponent of the wave front depinning transition from 1/2
to 3/2. This effect is derived by means of a recent asymptotic theory of the
depinning transition, extended to discrete drift-diffusion models of transport
in semiconductor superlattices and confirmed by numerical calculations.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, to appear as a Rapid Commun. in Phys. Rev.
Nonlinear stability of oscillatory wave fronts in chains of coupled oscillators
We present a stability theory for kink propagation in chains of coupled
oscillators and a new algorithm for the numerical study of kink dynamics. The
numerical solutions are computed using an equivalent integral equation instead
of a system of differential equations. This avoids uncertainty about the impact
of artificial boundary conditions and discretization in time. Stability results
also follow from the integral version. Stable kinks have a monotone leading
edge and move with a velocity larger than a critical value which depends on the
damping strength.Comment: 11 figure
Evolución y características sedimentológicas de las facies fluviales basales del Buntsandstein de Olesa de Montserrat (Provincia de Barcelona)
[ES] La sección del Buntsandstein de Olesa de Montserrat está constituida en
sus tramos basales por una serie de depósitos generados por corrientes anastomosadas
con un material de lecho progresivamente más fino. Se precisan
las características peculiares de los depósitos originados por el sistema anastomosado
de lecho arenoso y a la luz de estos datos se realizan algunas consideraciones
sobre el modelo proximal-distal en corrientes anastomosadas.[FR] La coupe du Buntsandstein d’Olesa de Montserrat est constituée, dans sa
partia basale, por un ensamble de dépóts originés par des courants anastomosés
ayee materiel du lit progressivement plus fin. On precise les caractéres
particuliers des dépóts originés par un systéme anastomosé de lit sableaux et,
ayee ces données, on arrive á des considérations génerales sur le modéle
proximal-distal en courants anastomosés.[EN] The lower part of tha Buntsandstein in Olasa de Montserrat is formad by
a set of braidad streams deposits with bed load material fining up progresivaly
in the section. Special features of tbe deposits originated by braided
systems with sandy bed load are precisad, and on the light of thase data, soma
considarations about the proximal-distal modal in braidad streams are pointed
out.Peer reviewe
Molecular line probes of activity in galaxies
The use of specific tracers of the dense molecular gas phase can help to
explore the feedback of activity on the interstellar medium (ISM) in galaxies.
This information is a key to any quantitative assessment of the efficiency of
the star formation process in galaxies. We present the results of a survey
devoted to probe the feedback of activity through the study of the excitation
and chemistry of the dense molecular gas in a sample of local universe
starbursts and active galactic nuclei (AGNs). Our sample includes also 17
luminous and ultraluminous infrared galaxies (LIRGs and ULIRGs). From the
analysis of the LIRGs/ULIRGs subsample, published in Gracia-Carpio et al.(2007)
we find the first clear observational evidence that the star formation
efficiency of the dense gas, measured by the L_FIR/L_HCN ratio, is
significantly higher in LIRGs and ULIRGs than in normal galaxies. Mounting
evidence of overabundant HCN in active environments would even reinforce the
reported trend, pointing to a significant turn upward in the Kennicutt-Schmidt
law around L_FIR=10^11 L_sun. This result has major implications for the use of
HCN as a tracer of the dense gas in local and high-redshift luminous infrared
galaxies.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, contributed paper to Far-Infrared Workshop 07
(FIR 2007
The Economic Value of Basin Protection to Improve the Quality and Reliability of Potable Water Supply: Some Evidence from Ecuador
This study estimates the willingness to pay (WTP) of Loja’s households to protect two micro-basins that supply over 40 percent of potable water to the city. Results indicate that households have an average WTP of $5.80 per month, which corresponds to a 25 percent increase in the self-reported monthly water bill, to preserve the basins.Basin protection, contingent valuation, Loja, Ecuador, Environmental Economics and Policy, Land Economics/Use,
Intersection local times of fractional Brownian motions with as generalized white noise functionals
In , for any dimension , expansions of self-intersection local
times of fractional Brownian motions with arbitrary Hurst coefficients in
are presented. The expansions are in terms of Wick powers of white
noises (corresponding to multiple Wiener integrals), being well-defined in the
sense of generalized white noise functionals.Comment: 17 page
Searching for Communities in Bipartite Networks
Bipartite networks are a useful tool for representing and investigating
interaction networks. We consider methods for identifying communities in
bipartite networks. Intuitive notions of network community groups are made
explicit using Newman's modularity measure. A specialized version of the
modularity, adapted to be appropriate for bipartite networks, is presented; a
corresponding algorithm is described for identifying community groups through
maximizing this measure. The algorithm is applied to networks derived from the
EU Framework Programs on Research and Technological Development. Community
groups identified are compared using information-theoretic methods.Comment: 12 pages, 4 figures, to appear in "Proceedings of the 5th Jagna
International Workshop: Stochastic and Quantum Dynamics of Biomolecular
Systems," C. C. Bernido and M. V. Carpio-Bernido, editors. A version with
full-quality figures and larger file size is available at
http://ccm.uma.pt/publications/Barber-Faria-Streit-Strogan-2008.pd
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