Conserved mass models with stickiness and chipping

We study a chipping model in one dimensional periodic lattice with continuous mass, where a fixed fraction of the mass is chipped off from a site and distributed randomly among the departure site and its neighbours; the remaining mass sticks to the site. In the asymmetric version, the chipped off mass is distributed among the site and the right neighbour, whereas in the symmetric version the redistribution occurs among the two neighbours. The steady state mass distribution of the model is obtained using a perturbation method for both parallel and random sequential updates. In most cases, this perturbation theory provides a steady state distribution with reasonable accuracy.Comment: 17 pages, 4 eps figure

The role of the nature of the noise in the thermal conductance of mechanical systems

Focussing on a paradigmatic small system consisting of two coupled damped oscillators, we survey the role of the L\'evy-It\^o nature of the noise in the thermal conductance. For white noises, we prove that the L\'evy-It\^o composition (Lebesgue measure) of the noise is irrelevant for the thermal conductance of a non-equilibrium linearly coupled chain, which signals the independence between mechanical and thermodynamical properties. On the other hand, for the non-linearly coupled case, the two types of properties mix and the explicit definition of the noise plays a central role.Comment: 9 pages, 2 figures. To be published in Physical Review

Extremely fast and highly selective detection of nitroaromatic explosive vapours using fluorescent polymer thin films

Cataloged from PDF version of article.A novel sensing material based on pyrene doped polyethersulfone worm-like structured thin film is developed using a facile technique for detection of nitroaromatic explosive vapours. The formation of pi-pi stacking in the thin fluorescent film allows a highly sensitive fluorescence quenching which is detectable by the naked eye in a response time of a few seconds

The spectral shift function and Levinson's theorem for quantum star graphs

We consider the Schr\"odinger operator on a star shaped graph with $n$ edges joined at a single vertex. We derive an expression for the trace of the difference of the perturbed and unperturbed resolvent in terms of a Wronskian. This leads to representations for the perturbation determinant and the spectral shift function, and to an analog of Levinson's formula

Mapping of QTLs for leaf area and the association with winter hardiness in fall-sown lentil

Variations in plant architecture are often associated with the ability of plants to survive cold stress during winter. In studies of winter hardiness in lentil, it appeared that small leaf area was associated with improved winter survival. Based on this observation, the inheritance of leaf area and the relationship with winter hardiness using an F6 - derived recombinant inbred line (RIL) population from the cross of WA8649090 x Precoz was investigated. The WA8649090 parent was winter hardy and had small leaves, while the Precoz parent was non-winter hardy and had large leaves. The 106 RILs and the parents were planted in a field in a randomized complete block design with three replications. Leaf area(cm2) of leaves from the fourth node was measured using a flatbed scanner and WinRHIZO software. Average leaf area for WA8649090 was 0.46 cm2, while leaf area for Precoz was 0.89 cm2. Average leaf area of the RILs was 0.63 cm2, and the frequency distribution was continuous, indicating the effects of more than one gene. Quantitative trait locus (QTL) analysis using a 130-point linkage map revealed one major QTL on linkage group 6 which explained 20.45% of the phenotypic variation for leaf area. The location of QTL for leaf area mapped the same region where one of the QTL for winter hardiness was mapped and significant association (r2 = 0.750, P< 0.01) was found between leaf area and winter hardiness. These results indicated an association between winter hardiness and leaf area that provides information applicable to lentil breeding.Keywords: Leaf area, lentil, recombinant inbred line (RIL), QTL mapping, winter hardines

ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL INTERACTION OF 2001 CRISIS: IMPLICATIONS FOR 2008 RECESSION?

As it is known, Turkey experienced a severe economic crisis in the year 2001. This economic crisis has been costly for the Turkish economy and has typically been accompanied by a collapse of output and employment as well as striking declines in real wages. Not only economic insufficiencies and bottlenecks but also political uncertainty had sizeable impacts in the formation of economic crisis. The 2001 Crisis interestingly caused a set of catastrophe and it is worthy to analyze its emergence, mal-administration, and wide damage on the Turkish economy and to show the structure that transformed political climate in the post-crisis period. The interaction of political and economic dimensions of 2001 crisis also accompanies strong implications for 2008 recession and this paper finally discusses lessons of 2001 crisis for 2008 recession through the lenses of interplay between politics and economics

Estimating fisheries reference points from catch and resilience

This study presents a Monte Carlo method (CMSY) for estimating fisheries reference points from catch, resilience and qualitative stock status information on data-limited stocks. It also presents a Bayesian state-space implementation of the Schaefer production model (BSM), fitted to catch and biomass or catch-per-unit-of-effort (CPUE) data. Special emphasis was given to derive informative priors for productivity, unexploited stock size, catchability and biomass from population dynamics theory. Both models gave good predictions of the maximum intrinsic rate of population increase r, unexploited stock size k and maximum sustainable yield MSY when validated against simulated data with known parameter values. CMSY provided, in addition, reasonable predictions of relative biomass and exploitation rate. Both models were evaluated against 128 real stocks, where estimates of biomass were available from full stock assessments. BSM estimates of r, k and MSY were used as benchmarks for the respective CMSY estimates and were not significantly different in 76% of the stocks. A similar test against 28 data-limited stocks, where CPUE instead of biomass was available, showed that BSM and CMSY estimates of r, k and MSY were not significantly different in 89% of the stocks. Both CMSY and BSM combine the production model with a simple stock-recruitment model, accounting for reduced recruitment at severely depleted stock sizes