2,709 research outputs found
Detection of Salinity by the Lobster, Homarus americanus
Changes in the heart rates of lobsters (Homarus americanus) were used as an indicator that the animals were capable of sensing a reduction in the salinity of the ambient seawater. The typical response to a gradual (1 to 2 ppt/min) reduction in salinity consisted of a rapid increase in heart rate at a mean threshold of 26.6 ± 0.7 ppt, followed by a reduction in heart rate when the salinity reached 22.1 ± 0.5 ppt. Animals with lesioned cardioregulatory nerves did not exhibit a cardiac response to changes in salinity. A cardiac response was elicited from lobsters exposed to isotonic chloride-free salines but not to isotonic sodium-, magnesium- or calcium-free salines. There was little change in the blood osmolarity of lobsters when bradycardia occurred, suggesting that the receptors involved are external. Furthermore, lobsters without antennae, antennules, or legs showed typical cardiac responses to low salinity, indicating the receptors are not located in these areas. Lobsters exposed to reductions in the salinity of the ambient seawater while both branchial chambers were perfused with full-strength seawater did not display a cardiac response until the external salinity reached 21.6 ± 1.8 ppt. In contrast, when their branchial chambers were exposed to reductions in salinity while the external salinity was maintained at normal levels, changes in heart rate were rapidly elicited in response to very small reductions in salinity (down to 29.5 ± 0.9 ppt in the branchial chamber and 31.5 ± 0.3 ppt externally). We conclude that the primary receptors responsible for detecting reductions in salinity in H. americanus are located within or near the branchial chambers and are primarily sensitive to chloride ions
First Results from SPARO: Evidence for Large-Scale Toroidal Magnetic Fields in the Galactic Center
We have observed the linear polarization of 450 micron continuum emission
from the Galactic center, using a new polarimetric detector system that is
operated on a 2 m telescope at the South Pole. The resulting polarization map
extends ~ 170 pc along the Galactic plane and ~ 30 pc in Galactic latitude, and
thus covers a significant fraction of the central molecular zone. Our map shows
that this region is permeated by large-scale toroidal magnetic fields. We
consider our results together with radio observations that show evidence for
poloidal fields in the Galactic center, and with Faraday rotation observations.
We compare all of these observations with the predictions of a magnetodynamic
model for the Galactic center that was proposed in order to explain the
Galactic Center Radio Lobe as a magnetically driven gas outflow. We conclude
that the observations are basically consistent with the model.Comment: 11 pages, 2 figures, 1 table, submitted to ApJ Let
First Results from Viper: Detection of Small-Scale Anisotropy at 40 GHZ
Results of a search for small-scale anisotropy in the cosmic microwave
background (CMB) are presented. Observations were made at the South Pole using
the Viper telescope, with a .26 degree (FWHM) beam and a passband centered at
40 GHz. Anisotropy band-power measurements in bands centered at l = 108, 173,
237, 263, 422 and 589 are reported. Statistically significant anisotropy is
detected in all bands.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, uses emulateapj.sty, submitted to ApJ Letter
Anisotropy in the Cosmic Microwave Background at Degree Angular Scales: Python V Results
Observations of the microwave sky using the Python telescope in its fifth
season of operation at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station in Antarctica are
presented. The system consists of a 0.75 m off-axis telescope instrumented with
a HEMT amplifier-based radiometer having continuum sensitivity from 37-45 GHz
in two frequency bands. With a 0.91 deg x 1.02 deg beam the instrument fully
sampled 598 deg^2 of sky, including fields measured during the previous four
seasons of Python observations. Interpreting the observed fluctuations as
anisotropy in the cosmic microwave background, we place constraints on the
angular power spectrum of fluctuations in eight multipole bands up to l ~ 260.
The observed spectrum is consistent with both the COBE experiment and previous
Python results. There is no significant contamination from known foregrounds.
The results show a discernible rise in the angular power spectrum from large (l
~ 40) to small (l ~ 200) angular scales. The shape of the observed power
spectrum is not a simple linear rise but has a sharply increasing slope
starting at l ~ 150.Comment: 5 page
A Joint Sunyaev-Zel'dovich Effect and X-ray Analysis of Abell 3667
We present a 40GHz (7.5 mm) raster scan image of a 3.6x2 degree region
centered on the low redshift (z=0.055) cluster of galaxies Abell 3667. The
cluster was observed during the Antarctic winter of 1999 using the Corona
instrument (15.7' FWHM beam) on the Viper Telescope at the South Pole. The
Corona image of A3667 is one of the first direct (i.e. rather than
interferometer) thermal Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect images of a low redshift
cluster. The brightness temperature decrement at the X-ray centroid (20h 12m
28.9s, -56 49 51 J2000) was measured to be . We
have used the 40GHz map of A3667 in conjunction with a deep ROSAT PSPC (X-ray)
image of the cluster, to make a measurement of the Hubble Constant. We find
km s Mpc (68% confidence interval). Our
calculation assumes that the cluster can be described using an
isothermal, tri-axial ellipsoidal, -model and includes several new
analysis techniques including an automated method to remove point sources from
X-ray images with variable point spread functions, and an efficient method for
determining the errors in multi-parameter maximum likelihood analyzes. The
large errors on the measurement are primarily due to the statistical
noise in the Corona image. We plan to increase the precision of our measurement
by including additional clusters in our analysis and by increasing the
sensitivity of the Viper SZE maps.Comment: 15 pages, 4 figures, submitted to ApJ (count rate units corrected in
Table 1 and Figure 4
Flux and field line conservation in 3--D nonideal MHD flows: Remarks about criteria for 3--D reconnection without magnetic neutral points
We make some remarks on reconnection in plasmas and want to present some
calculations related to the problem of finding velocity fields which conserve
magnetic flux or at least magnetic field lines. Hereby we start from views and
definitions of ideal and non-ideal flows on one hand, and of reconnective and
non-reconnective plasma dynamics on the other hand. Our considerations give
additional insights into the discussion on violations of the frozen--in field
concept which started recently with the papers by Baranov & Fahr (2003a;
2003b). We find a correlation between the nonidealness which is given by a
generalized form of the Ohm's law and a general transporting velocity, which is
field line conserving.Comment: 9 pages, 2 figures, submitted to Solar Physic
An MPEG-7 scheme for semantic content modelling and filtering of digital video
Abstract Part 5 of the MPEG-7 standard specifies Multimedia Description Schemes (MDS); that is, the format multimedia content models should conform to in order to ensure interoperability across multiple platforms and applications. However, the standard does not specify how the content or the associated model may be filtered. This paper proposes an MPEG-7 scheme which can be deployed for digital video content modelling and filtering. The proposed scheme, COSMOS-7, produces rich and multi-faceted semantic content models and supports a content-based filtering approach that only analyses content relating directly to the preferred content requirements of the user. We present details of the scheme, front-end systems used for content modelling and filtering and experiences with a number of users
Structural and electrical analysis of the atomic layer deposition of HfO2/n-In0.53Ga0.47As capacitors with and without an Al2O3 interface control layer
High mobility III-V substrates with high-k oxides are required for device scaling without loss of channel mobility. Interest has focused on the self-cleaning effect on selected III-V substrates during atomic layer deposition of Al2O3. A thin (similar to 1 nm) Al2O3 interface control layer is deposited on In0.53Ga0.47As prior to HfO2 growth, providing the benefit of self-cleaning and improving the interface quality by reducing interface state defect densities by similar to 50% while maintaining scaling trends. Significant reductions in leakage current density and increased breakdown voltage are found, indicative of a band structure improvement due to the reduction/removal of the In0.53Ga0.47As native oxides. (C) 2010 American Institute of Physics. (doi: 10.1063/1.3473773
Dynamics of Social Balance on Networks
We study the evolution of social networks that contain both friendly and
unfriendly pairwise links between individual nodes. The network is endowed with
dynamics in which the sense of a link in an imbalanced triad--a triangular loop
with 1 or 3 unfriendly links--is reversed to make the triad balanced. With this
dynamics, an infinite network undergoes a dynamic phase transition from a
steady state to "paradise"--all links are friendly--as the propensity p for
friendly links in an update event passes through 1/2. A finite network always
falls into a socially-balanced absorbing state where no imbalanced triads
remain. If the additional constraint that the number of imbalanced triads in
the network does not increase in an update is imposed, then the network quickly
reaches a balanced final state.Comment: 10 pages, 7 figures, 2-column revtex4 forma
- …