11,503 research outputs found
Growth effects of stand density in a northern hardwood outlier community
The Tennessee Valley Authority initiated a density study in a northern hardwood outlier community in 1938 to study maximum board foot growth statistics to determine optimum residual density. The stability of this outlier type, especially following disturbances by man, was largely unknown. The experiment is comprised of a contiguous series of 21, one-acre plots with seven replications of three treatments approximating 1,500 , 3,000 and 6,000 board feet residual volumes per acre. Plots were harvested to residual volumes in 1938 and remeasured in 1955. In 1958 plots were again harvested to residual volumes and treatments reassigned. All plots were remeasured in 1974, thereby providing two cutting cycles for analysis. Sawtimber growth data were analyzed by the least squares analysis of covariance and regeneration was analyzed by the chi-square contingency test. Heavy cutting favored reproduction and Ingrowth of yellow-poplar and, when it was followed by light cutting, growth of yellow-poplar sawtimber was favored. In over-mature stands, pole-size sugar maple stems were released by heavy cutting and grew into the sawtimber class. Optimum growth of sugar maple sawtimber occurred on high residual volumes. Sugar maple reproduction was adequate under all stand den-sities. Beech growth was retarded by exposure and reproduction was best under dense stands. Heavy cutting favored black walnut
Do Childhood Vaccines Have Non-Specific Effects on Mortality
A recent article by Kristensen et al. suggested that measles vaccine and bacille Calmette–Guérin (BCG) vaccine might\ud
reduce mortality beyond what is expected simply from protection against measles and tuberculosis. Previous reviews of the potential effects of childhood vaccines on mortality have not considered methodological features of reviewed studies. Methodological considerations play an especially important role in observational assessments, in which selection factors for vaccination may be difficult to ascertain. We reviewed 782 English language articles on vaccines and childhood mortality and found only a few whose design met the criteria for methodological rigor. The data reviewed suggest that measles vaccine delivers its promised reduction in mortality, but there is insufficient evidence to suggest a mortality benefit above that caused by its effect on measles disease and its sequelae. Our review of the available data in the literature reinforces how difficult answering these considerations has been and how important study design will be in determining the effect of specific vaccines on all-cause mortality.\u
Bayesian Optimization Using Domain Knowledge on the ATRIAS Biped
Controllers in robotics often consist of expert-designed heuristics, which
can be hard to tune in higher dimensions. It is typical to use simulation to
learn these parameters, but controllers learned in simulation often don't
transfer to hardware. This necessitates optimization directly on hardware.
However, collecting data on hardware can be expensive. This has led to a recent
interest in adapting data-efficient learning techniques to robotics. One
popular method is Bayesian Optimization (BO), a sample-efficient black-box
optimization scheme, but its performance typically degrades in higher
dimensions. We aim to overcome this problem by incorporating domain knowledge
to reduce dimensionality in a meaningful way, with a focus on bipedal
locomotion. In previous work, we proposed a transformation based on knowledge
of human walking that projected a 16-dimensional controller to a 1-dimensional
space. In simulation, this showed enhanced sample efficiency when optimizing
human-inspired neuromuscular walking controllers on a humanoid model. In this
paper, we present a generalized feature transform applicable to non-humanoid
robot morphologies and evaluate it on the ATRIAS bipedal robot -- in simulation
and on hardware. We present three different walking controllers; two are
evaluated on the real robot. Our results show that this feature transform
captures important aspects of walking and accelerates learning on hardware and
simulation, as compared to traditional BO.Comment: 8 pages, submitted to IEEE International Conference on Robotics and
Automation 201
NFAT5 genes are part of the osmotic regulatory system in Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar)
Acknowledgements This study was supported by a grant from the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC, BB/H008063/1), UK to DGH and SAM. Funding also came from Research Council Norway for project number 241016 for DGH and EJ. This work was carried out as part of a PhD thesis funded by the Marine Alliance of Science and Technology Scotland (MASTS).Peer reviewedPublisher PD
Quantum Seismology
We propose a quantum mechanical method of detecting weak vibrational
disturbances inspired by the protocol of entanglement farming. We consider a
setup where pairs of atoms in their ground state are successively sent through
an optical cavity. It is known that in this way it is possible to drive that
cavity toward a stable fixed-point state. Here we study how that fixed-point
state depends on the time interval between pairs of atoms and on the distance
between the cavity's mirrors. Taking advantage of an extremely precise
resonance effect, we find that there are special values of these parameters
where the fixed-point state is highly sensitive to perturbations, even harmonic
vibrations with frequencies several orders of magnitude below the cavity's
natural frequency. We propose that this sensitivity may be useful for high
precision metrology.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures. RevTeX 4.
Status and Future Perspectives for Lattice Gauge Theory Calculations to the Exascale and Beyond
In this and a set of companion whitepapers, the USQCD Collaboration lays out
a program of science and computing for lattice gauge theory. These whitepapers
describe how calculation using lattice QCD (and other gauge theories) can aid
the interpretation of ongoing and upcoming experiments in particle and nuclear
physics, as well as inspire new ones.Comment: 44 pages. 1 of USQCD whitepapers
Bleomycin Sensitivity in Escherichia coli is Medium-Dependent
Bleomycin (BLM) is a glycopeptide antibiotic and anti-tumor agent that targets primarily the furanose rings of DNA and in the presence of ferrous ions produces oxidative damage and DNA strand breaks. Escherichia coli cells growing in broth medium and exposed to low concentrations of BLM contain double-strand breaks and require homologous recombination to survive. To a lesser extent, the cells also require the abasic (AP) endonucleases associated with base excision repair, presumably to repair oxidative damage. As expected, there is strong induction of the SOS system in treated cells. In contrast, E. coli cells growing in glucose or glycerol minimal medium are resistant to the lethal action of BLM and do not require either homologous recombination functions or AP-endonucleases for survival. DNA ligase activity, however, is needed for cells growing in minimal medium to resist the lethal effects of BLM. There is weak SOS induction in such treated cells
BB Potentials in Quenched Lattice QCD
The potentials between two B-mesons are computed in the heavy-quark limit
using quenched lattice QCD at . Non-zero central
potentials are clearly evident in all four spin-isospin channels, (I,s_l) =
(0,0) , (0,1) , (1,0) , (1,1), where s_l is the total spin of the light degrees
of freedom. At short distance, we find repulsion in the channels and
attraction in the I=s_l channels. Linear combinations of these potentials that
have well-defined spin and isospin in the t-channel are found, in three of the
four cases, to have substantially smaller uncertainties than the potentials
defined with the s-channel (I,s_l), and allow quenching artifacts from single
hairpin exchange to be isolated. The BB*\pi coupling extracted from the
long-distance behavior of the finite-volume t-channel potential is found to be
consistent with quenched calculations of the matrix element of the isovector
axial-current. The tensor potentials in both of the s_l = 1 channels are found
to be consistent with zero within calculational uncertainties.Comment: 30 page
Multi-Pion Systems in Lattice QCD and the Three-Pion Interaction
The ground-state energies of 2, 3, 4 and 5 \pi^+'s in a spatial volume V (2.5
fm)^3 are computed with lattice QCD. By eliminating the leading contribution
from three-\pi^+ interactions, particular combinations of these n-\pi^+
ground-state energies provide precise extractions of the \pi^+\pi^+ scattering
length in agreement with that obtained from calculations involving only two
\pi^+'s. The three-\pi^+ interaction can be isolated by forming other
combinations of the n-\pi^+ ground-state energies. We find a result that is
consistent with a repulsive three-\pi^+ interaction for m_\pi < 352 MeV.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figure
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