2,352 research outputs found
Materials science experiments in space
The criteria for the selection of the experimental areas and individual experiments were that the experiment or area must make a meaningful contribution to the field of material science and that the space environment was either an absolute requirement for the successful execution of the experiment or that the experiment can be more economically or more conveniently performed in space. A number of experimental areas and individual experiments were recommended for further consideration as space experiments. Areas not considered to be fruitful and others needing additional analysis in order to determine their suitability for conduct in space are also listed. Recommendations were made concerning the manner in which these materials science experiments are carried out and the related studies that should be pursued
Construction of Special Solutions for Nonintegrable Systems
The Painleve test is very useful to construct not only the Laurent series
solutions of systems of nonlinear ordinary differential equations but also the
elliptic and trigonometric ones. The standard methods for constructing the
elliptic solutions consist of two independent steps: transformation of a
nonlinear polynomial differential equation into a nonlinear algebraic system
and a search for solutions of the obtained system. It has been demonstrated by
the example of the generalized Henon-Heiles system that the use of the Laurent
series solutions of the initial differential equation assists to solve the
obtained algebraic system. This procedure has been automatized and generalized
on some type of multivalued solutions. To find solutions of the initial
differential equation in the form of the Laurent or Puiseux series we use the
Painleve test. This test can also assist to solve the inverse problem: to find
the form of a polynomial potential, which corresponds to the required type of
solutions. We consider the five-dimensional gravitational model with a scalar
field to demonstrate this.Comment: LaTeX, 14 pages, the paper has been published in the Journal of
Nonlinear Mathematical Physics (http://www.sm.luth.se/math/JNMP/
Chronic psychosocial and financial burden accelerates 5-year telomere shortening: findings from the Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults Study.
Leukocyte telomere length, a marker of immune system function, is sensitive to exposures such as psychosocial stressors and health-maintaining behaviors. Past research has determined that stress experienced in adulthood is associated with shorter telomere length, but is limited to mostly cross-sectional reports. We test whether repeated reports of chronic psychosocial and financial burden is associated with telomere length change over a 5-year period (years 15 and 20) from 969 participants in the Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults (CARDIA) Study, a longitudinal, population-based cohort, ages 18-30 at time of recruitment in 1985. We further examine whether multisystem resiliency, comprised of social connections, health-maintaining behaviors, and psychological resources, mitigates the effects of repeated burden on telomere attrition over 5 years. Our results indicate that adults with high chronic burden do not show decreased telomere length over the 5-year period. However, these effects do vary by level of resiliency, as regression results revealed a significant interaction between chronic burden and multisystem resiliency. For individuals with high repeated chronic burden and low multisystem resiliency (1 SD below the mean), there was a significant 5-year shortening in telomere length, whereas no significant relationships between chronic burden and attrition were evident for those at moderate and higher levels of resiliency. These effects apply similarly across the three components of resiliency. Results imply that interventions should focus on establishing strong social connections, psychological resources, and health-maintaining behaviors when attempting to ameliorate stress-related decline in telomere length among at-risk individuals
Early season N<sub>2</sub>O emissions under variable water management in rice systems: source-partitioning emissions using isotope ratios along a depth profile
Soil moisture strongly affects the balance between nitrification, denitrification
and N2O reduction and therefore the nitrogen (N) efficiency and N
losses in agricultural systems. In rice systems, there is a need to improve
alternative water management practices, which are designed to save water and
reduce methane emissions but may increase N2O and decrease nitrogen
use efficiency. In a field experiment with three water management treatments,
we measured N2O
isotope ratios of emitted and pore air N2O
(ÎŽ15N, ÎŽ18O and site preference, SP) over the
course of 6Â weeks in the early rice growing season. Isotope ratio
measurements were coupled with simultaneous measurements of pore water
NO3-, NH4+, dissolved organic carbon (DOC), water-filled pore space (WFPS) and soil redox potential (Eh) at three soil depths.
We then used the relationship between SP Ă ÎŽ18O-N2O and
SP Ă ÎŽ15N-N2O in simple two end-member
mixing models to evaluate the contribution of nitrification, denitrification
and fungal denitrification to total N2O emissions and to estimate
N2O reduction rates. N2O emissions were higher in a
dry-seeded + alternate wetting and drying (DS-AWD) treatment relative to
water-seeded + alternate wetting and drying (WS-AWD) and
water-seeded + conventional flooding (WS-FLD) treatments. In the DS-AWD
treatment the highest emissions were associated with a high contribution from
denitrification and a decrease in N2O reduction, while in the WS
treatments, the highest emissions occurred when contributions from
denitrification/nitrifier denitrification and nitrification/fungal
denitrification were more equal. Modeled denitrification rates appeared to be
tightly linked to nitrification and NO3- availability in all
treatments; thus, water management affected the rate of denitrification and
N2O reduction by controlling the substrate availability for each
process (NO3- and N2O), likely through changes in
mineralization and nitrification rates. Our model estimates of mean
N2O reduction rates match well those observed in 15N
fertilizer labeling studies in rice systems and show promise for the use of
dual isotope ratio mixing models to estimate N2 losses.</p
Angular and energy dependence of ion bombardment of Mo/Si multilayers
The process of ion bombardment is investigated for the fabrication of Mo/Si multilayer x-ray mirrors using e-beam evaporation. The ion treatment is applied immediately after deposition of each of the Si layers to smoothen the layers by removing an additional thickness of the Si layer. In this study the parameters of Kr+ ion bombardment have been optimized within the energy range 300 eV-2 keV and an angular range between 20 degrees and 50 degrees. The optical performance of the Mo/Si multilayers is determined by absolute measurements of the near-normal-incidence reflectivity at 14.4 nm wavelength. The multilayer structures are analyzed further with small-angle reflectivity measurements using both specular reflectivity and diffuse x-ray scattering. The optimal smoothening parameters are obtained by determining the effect of ion bombardment on the interface roughness of the Si layer. The optimal conditions are found to be 2 keV at 50 degrees angle of incidence with respect to the surface. These settings result in 47% reflectivity at 85 degrees (lambda = 14.4 nm) for a 16-period Mo/Si multilayer mirror, corresponding to an interface roughness of 0.21 nm rms. Analysis shows that the interface roughness is determined by ion induced viscous flow, an effect which increases with ion energy as well as angle of incidence. In order to determine the effect of intermixing of the Si and Mo atoms, the penetration depth of the Kr+ ions is calculated as a function of ion energy and angle of incidence. Furthermore, the angular dependence of the etch yield, obtained from the in situ reflectivity measurements, is investigated in order o determine the optimal ion beam parameters for the production of multilayer mirrors on curved substrates. (C) 1997 American Institute of Physics
Using modular 3D digital earth applications based on point clouds for the study of complex sites
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(In)Complete acquisition of Turkish among Turkish German bilinguals in Germany and Turkey: an analysis of complex embeddings in narratives
Although most researchers recognise that the language repertoire of bilinguals can mvary, few studies have tried to address variation in bilingual competence in any
detail. This study aims to take a first step towards further understanding the way in which bilingual competencies can vary at the level of syntax by comparing the use of syntactic embeddings among three different groups of Turkish/German bilinguals.
The approach of the present paper is new in that different groups of bilinguals are compared with each other, and not only with monolingual speakers, as is common in most studies in the field. The analysis focuses on differences in the use of embeddings in Turkish, which are generally considered to be one of the more complex aspects of Turkish grammar. The study shows that young Turkish/German
bilingual adults who were born and raised in Germany use fewer, and less complex embeddings than Turkish/German bilingual returnees who had lived in Turkey for
eight years at the time of recording. The present study provides new insights in the nature of bilingual competence, as well as a new perspective on syntactic change in immigrant Turkish as spoken in Europe
Understanding governmental activism
This article seeks to understand an understudied phenomenon: governmental players joining forces with non-governmental players in contentious actions against policies they want to prevent or redress. This behaviour, which we call âgovernmental activismâ, problematizes important assumptions in the social movement literature on stateâSMO dichotomies and on seeing âthe stateâ as a homogeneous and unified actor that solely provides the context for SMO activities. Governmental activism also problematizes assumptions on cooperation and ânewâ modes of coordination in the governance literature. To understand governmental activism, we build on the strategic interaction perspective from social movement studies and on third-phase institutionalism from political science. In our analysis, we show the particulars of governmental activism. Our arguments are illustrated by empirical material on a case of municipal amalgamation in the Netherlands
Critical Race Theory and Education: racism and anti-racism in educational theory and praxis
What is Critical Race Theory (CRT) and what does it offer educational researchers and practitioners outside the US? This paper addresses these questions by examining the recent history of antiracist research and policy in the UK. In particular, the paper argues that conventional forms of antiracism have proven unable to keep pace with the development of increasingly racist and exclusionary education polices that operate beneath a veneer of professed tolerance and diversity. In particular, contemporary antiracism lacks clear statements of principle and theory that risk reinventing the wheel with each new study; it is increasingly reduced to a meaningless slogan; and it risks appropriation within a reformist âcan doâ perspective dominated by the de-politicized and managerialist language of school effectiveness and improvement. In contrast, CRT offers a genuinely radical and coherent set of approaches that could revitalize critical research in education across a range of inquiries, not only in self-consciously "multicultural" studies. The paper reviews the developing terrain of CRT in education, identifying its key defining elements and the conceptual tools that characterise the work. CRT in education is a fast changing and incomplete project but it can no longer be ignored by the academy beyond North America
Relationship between ecosystem productivity and photosynthetically-active radiation for northern peatlands
We analyzed the relationship between net ecosystem exchange of carbon dioxide (NEE) and irradiance (as photosynthetic photon flux density or PPFD), using published and unpublished data that have been collected during midgrowing season for carbon balance studies at seven peatlands in North America and Europe. NEE measurements included both eddy-correlation tower and clear, static chamber methods, which gave very similar results. Data were analyzed by site, as aggregated data sets by peatland type (bog, poor fen, rich fen, and all fens) and as a single aggregated data set for all peatlands. In all cases, a fit with a rectangular hyperbola (NEE = α PPFD Pmax/(α PPFD + Pmax) + R) better described the NEE-PPFD relationship than did a linear fit (NEE = ÎČ PPFD + R). Poor and rich fens generally had similar NEE-PPFD relationships, while bogs had lower respiration rates (R = â2.0ÎŒmol mâ2sâ1 for bogs and â2.7 ÎŒmol mâ2sâ1 for fens) and lower NEE at moderate and high light levels (Pmax = 5.2 ÎŒmol mâ2sâ1 for bogs and 10.8 ÎŒmol mâ2sâ1 for fens). As a single class, northern peatlands had much smaller ecosystem respiration (R = â2.4 ÎŒmol mâ2sâ1) and NEE rates (α = 0.020 and Pmax = 9.2ÎŒmol mâ2sâ1) than the upland ecosystems (closed canopy forest, grassland, and cropland) summarized by Ruimy et al. [1995]. Despite this low productivity, northern peatland soil carbon pools are generally 5â50 times larger than upland ecosystems because of slow rates of decomposition caused by litter quality and anaerobic, cold soils
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