136 research outputs found
Patchiness and Demographic Noise in Three Ecological Examples
Understanding the causes and effects of spatial aggregation is one of the
most fundamental problems in ecology. Aggregation is an emergent phenomenon
arising from the interactions between the individuals of the population, able
to sense only -at most- local densities of their cohorts. Thus, taking into
account the individual-level interactions and fluctuations is essential to
reach a correct description of the population. Classic deterministic equations
are suitable to describe some aspects of the population, but leave out features
related to the stochasticity inherent to the discreteness of the individuals.
Stochastic equations for the population do account for these
fluctuation-generated effects by means of demographic noise terms but, owing to
their complexity, they can be difficult (or, at times, impossible) to deal
with. Even when they can be written in a simple form, they are still difficult
to numerically integrate due to the presence of the "square-root" intrinsic
noise. In this paper, we discuss a simple way to add the effect of demographic
stochasticity to three classic, deterministic ecological examples where
aggregation plays an important role. We study the resulting equations using a
recently-introduced integration scheme especially devised to integrate
numerically stochastic equations with demographic noise. Aimed at scrutinizing
the ability of these stochastic examples to show aggregation, we find that the
three systems not only show patchy configurations, but also undergo a phase
transition belonging to the directed percolation universality class.Comment: 20 pages, 5 figures. To appear in J. Stat. Phy
Characterization of optical properties and surface roughness profiles: The Casimir force between real materials
The Lifshitz theory provides a method to calculate the Casimir force between
two flat plates if the frequency dependent dielectric function of the plates is
known. In reality any plate is rough and its optical properties are known only
to some degree. For high precision experiments the plates must be carefully
characterized otherwise the experimental result cannot be compared with the
theory or with other experiments. In this chapter we explain why optical
properties of interacting materials are important for the Casimir force, how
they can be measured, and how one can calculate the force using these
properties. The surface roughness can be characterized, for example, with the
atomic force microscope images. We introduce the main characteristics of a
rough surface that can be extracted from these images, and explain how one can
use them to calculate the roughness correction to the force. At small
separations this correction becomes large as our experiments show. Finally we
discuss the distance upon contact separating two rough surfaces, and explain
the importance of this parameter for determination of the absolute separation
between bodies.}Comment: 33 pages, 14 figures, to appear in Springer Lecture Notes in Physics,
Volume on Casimir Physics, edited by Diego Dalvit, Peter Milonni, David
Roberts, and Felipe da Ros
In vitro inhibition of Plasmodium falciparum by substances isolated from Amazonian antimalarial plants
In the present study, a quassinoid, neosergeolide, isolated from the roots and stems of Picrolemma sprucei (Simaroubaceae), the indole alkaloids ellipticine and aspidocarpine, isolated from the bark of Aspidosperma vargasii and A. desmanthum (Apocynaceae), respectively, and 4-nerolidylcatechol, isolated from the roots of Pothomorphe peltata (Piperaceae), all presented significant in vitro inhibition (more active than quinine and chloroquine) of the multi-drug resistant K1 strain of Plasmodium falciparum. Neosergeolide presented activity in the nanomolar range. This is the first report on the antimalarial activity of these known, natural compounds. This is also the first report on the isolation of aspidocarpine from A. desmanthum. These compounds are good candidates for pre-clinical tests as novel lead structures with the aim of finding new antimalarial prototypes and lend support to the traditional use of the plants from which these compounds are derived
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