The Impact of Eddies on Nutrient Supply, Diatom Biomass and Carbon Export in the Northern South China Sea

We have investigated the effect of eddies (cold and warm eddies, CEs and WEs) on the nutrient supply to the euphotic zone and the organic carbon export from the euphotic zone to deeper parts of the water column in the northern South China Sea. Besides basic hydrographic and biogeochemical parameters, the flux of particulate organic carbon (POC), a critical index of the strength of the oceanic biological pump, was also measured at several locations within two CEs and one WE using floating sediment traps deployed below the euphotic zone. The POC flux associated with the CEs (85 ± 55 mg-C m −2 d −1) was significantly higher than that associated with the WE (20 ± 7 mg-C m −2 d −1). This was related to differences in the density structure of the water column between the two types of eddies. Within the core of the WE, downwelling created intense stratification which hindered the upward mixing of nutrients and favored the growth of small phytoplankton species. Near the periphery of the WE, nutrient replenishment from below did take place, but only to a limited extent. By far the strongest upwelling was associated with the CEs, bringing nutrients into the lower portion (∼50 m) of the euphotic zone and fueling the growth of larger-cell phytoplankton such as centric diatoms (e.g., Chaetoceros, Coscinodiscus) and dinoflagellates (e.g., Ceratium). A significant finding that emerged from all the results was the positive relationship between the phytoplankton carbon content in the subsurface layer (where the chlorophyll a maximum occurs) and the POC flux to the deep sea

Quantum phase-space description of light polarization

We present a method to characterize the polarization state of a light field in the continuous-variable regime. Instead of using the abstract formalism of SU(2) quasidistributions, we model polarization in the classical spirit by superposing two harmonic oscillators of the same angular frequency along two orthogonal axes. By describing each oscillator by a $s$-parametrized quasidistribution, we derive in a consistent way the final function for the polarization. We compare with previous approaches and discuss how this formalism works in some relevant examples.Comment: 17 pages, 4 eps color figure

Effective Functional Form of Regge Trajectories

We present theoretical arguments and strong phenomenological evidence that hadronic Regge trajectories are essentially nonlinear and can be well approximated, for phenomenological purposes, by a specific square-root form.Comment: 29 pages, LaTeX. Published versio

What are communities of practice? A comparative review of four seminal works

This paper is a comparative review of four seminal works on communities of practice. It is argued that the ambiguities of the terms community and practice are a source of the concept's reusability allowing it to be reappropriated for different purposes, academic and practical. However, it is potentially confusing that the works differ so markedly in their conceptualizations of community, learning, power and change, diversity and informality. The three earlier works are underpinned by a common epistemological view, but Lave and Wenger's 1991 short monograph is often read as primarily about the socialization of newcomers into knowledge by a form of apprenticeship, while the focus in Brown and Duguid's article of the same year is, in contrast, on improvising new knowledge in an interstitial group that forms in resistance to management. Wenger's 1998 book treats communities of practice as the informal relations and understandings that develop in mutual engagement on an appropriated joint enterprise, but his focus is the impact on individual identity. The applicability of the concept to the heavily individualized and tightly managed work of the twenty-first century is questionable. The most recent work by Wenger – this time with McDermott and Snyder as coauthors – marks a distinct shift towards a managerialist stance. The proposition that managers should foster informal horizontal groups across organizational boundaries is in fact a fundamental redefinition of the concept. However it does identify a plausible, if limited, knowledge management (KM) tool. This paper discusses different interpretations of the idea of 'co-ordinating' communities of practice as a management ideology of empowerment

The physiological variability of channel density in hippocampal CA1 pyramidal cells and interneurons explored using a unified data-driven modeling workflow

Every neuron is part of a network, exerting its function by transforming multiple spatiotemporal synaptic input patterns into a single spiking output. This function is specified by the particular shape and passive electrical properties of the neuronal membrane, and the composition and spatial distribution of ion channels across its processes. For a variety of physiological or pathological reasons, the intrinsic input/output function may change during a neuron’s lifetime. This process results in high variability in the peak specific conductance of ion channels in individual neurons. The mechanisms responsible for this variability are not well understood, although there are clear indications from experiment and modeling that degeneracy and correlation among multiple channels may be involved. Here, we studied this issue in biophysical models of hippocampal CA1 pyramidal neurons and interneurons. Using a unified data-driven simulation workflow and starting from a set of experimental recordings and morphological reconstructions obtained from rats, we built and analyzed several ensembles of morphologically and biophysically accurate single cell models with intrinsic electrophysiological properties consistent with experimental findings. The results suggest that the set of conductances expressed in any given hippocampal neuron may be considered as belonging to two groups: one subset is responsible for the major characteristics of the firing behavior in each population and the other responsible for a robust degeneracy. Analysis of the model neurons suggests several experimentally testable predictions related to the combination and relative proportion of the different conductances that should be expressed on the membrane of different types of neurons for them to fulfill their role in the hippocampus circuitry

Quantum Field Theory of three flavor neutrino mixing and oscillations with CP violation

We study in detail the Quantum Field Theory of mixing among three generations of Dirac fermions (neutrinos). We construct the Hilbert space for the flavor fields and determine the generators of the mixing transformations. By use of these generators, we recover all the known parameterizations of the three-flavor mixing matrix and we find a number of new ones. The algebra of the currents associated with the mixing transformations is shown to be a deformed $su(3)$ algebra, when CP violating phases are present. We then derive the exact oscillation formulas, exhibiting new features with respect to the usual ones. CP and T violation are also discussed.Comment: 15 pages, 7 figures, RevTeX, revised versio

Milk proteins

Milk contains many types of proteins which are classified in two general categories caseins and whey proteins. Due to their nutritional and functional properties milk proteins products are widely used in the food industry. This chapter summarizes the current knowledge on milk protein fraction and their biological properties. The production of the mains protein-enriched products is described. In addition an overview of the current and potential biomedical applications of milk proteins is given.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Measurement of the polarisation of W bosons produced with large transverse momentum in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV with the ATLAS experiment

This paper describes an analysis of the angular distribution of W->enu and W->munu decays, using data from pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV recorded with the ATLAS detector at the LHC in 2010, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of about 35 pb^-1. Using the decay lepton transverse momentum and the missing transverse energy, the W decay angular distribution projected onto the transverse plane is obtained and analysed in terms of helicity fractions f0, fL and fR over two ranges of W transverse momentum (ptw): 35 < ptw < 50 GeV and ptw > 50 GeV. Good agreement is found with theoretical predictions. For ptw > 50 GeV, the values of f0 and fL-fR, averaged over charge and lepton flavour, are measured to be : f0 = 0.127 +/- 0.030 +/- 0.108 and fL-fR = 0.252 +/- 0.017 +/- 0.030, where the first uncertainties are statistical, and the second include all systematic effects.Comment: 19 pages plus author list (34 pages total), 9 figures, 11 tables, revised author list, matches European Journal of Physics C versio

Observation of a new chi_b state in radiative transitions to Upsilon(1S) and Upsilon(2S) at ATLAS

The chi_b(nP) quarkonium states are produced in proton-proton collisions at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV and recorded by the ATLAS detector. Using a data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 4.4 fb^-1, these states are reconstructed through their radiative decays to Upsilon(1S,2S) with Upsilon->mu+mu-. In addition to the mass peaks corresponding to the decay modes chi_b(1P,2P)->Upsilon(1S)gamma, a new structure centered at a mass of 10.530+/-0.005 (stat.)+/-0.009 (syst.) GeV is also observed, in both the Upsilon(1S)gamma and Upsilon(2S)gamma decay modes. This is interpreted as the chi_b(3P) system.Comment: 5 pages plus author list (18 pages total), 2 figures, 1 table, corrected author list, matches final version in Physical Review Letter