551 research outputs found
The behavioral responses of a nocturnal burrowing marsupial (Lasiorhinus latifrons) to drone flight
The use of drones in wildlife research and management is increasing. Recent evidence has demonstrated the impact of drones on animal behavior, but the response of nocturnal animals to drone flight remains unknown. Utilizing a lightweight commercial drone, the behavioral response of southern hairy-nosed wombats (Lasiorhinus latifrons) to drone flights was observed at Kooloola Station, Swan Reach, South Australia. All wombats flown over during both day and night flights responded behaviorally to the presence of drones. The response differed based on time of day. The most common night-time behavior elicited by drone flight was retreat, compared to stationary alertness behavior observed for daytime drone flights. The behavioral response of the wombats increased as flight altitude decreased. The marked difference of behavior between day and night indicates that this has implications for studies using drones. The behavior observed during flights was altered due to the presence of the drone, and therefore, shrewd study design is important (i.e., acclimation period to drone flight). Considering the sensory adaptations of the target species and how this may impact its behavioral response when flying at night is essential.Taylor Headland, Bertram Ostendorf, David Taggar
Relative spatial differences in sediment transport in fire-affected agricultural landscapes: A field study
Available online 15 April 2019Fires can considerably increase wind erosion risk in dryland agricultural regions. While wind erosion post-fire has been extensively studied in rangeland and grazing landscapes, limited work has considered post-fire erosion on annual plant communities and annual crops. Here we evaluated the relative spatial differences in patterns of sediment transport between burnt and unburnt crop stubble sites. Following a severe wildfire, we studied the spatio-temporal pattern of aeolian sediment transport with an array of Modified Wilson and Cooke (MWAC) dust samplers on adjacent burnt and unburnt wheat stubble. Sediment collection was conducted during nine weeks over an area of 3 ha. Collection rates were converted to horizontal sediment flux to derive spatial distribution maps and perform statistical analysis. Compared to the unburnt plot, we observed that sediment transport was up to 1000 times higher within the burnt area. This could lead to damages to emerging annual crops sown after the fire if no management strategy was applied. There was only negligible sediment flux in areas with shallow and low-density stubble, which gradually increased with distance from the unburnt area. These results suggest that strips of remaining unburnt stubble could provide a potential benefit to adjacent burnt or bare plots. Patterns of sediment transport were consistent in all sampling periods and were observed at a spatial scale undetectable in wind tunnel studies, indicating that field observations could complement fine-scale experimental studies to assess environmental processes in real-life conditions.Amelie C. Jeanneau, Bertram Ostendorf, Tim Herrman
Patients with IgA nephropathy exhibit high systemic PDGF-DD levels
Background. Platelet-derived growth factor (PDGF) is a central mediator of mesangioproliferative glomerulonephritis (GN). In experimental mesangioproliferative GN, PDGF-DD serum levels, unlike PDGF-BB, increased up to 1000-fold. Methods. We assessed disease activity in 72 patients with GN, established a novel PDGF-D ELISA and then determined their PDGF-DD levels. In parallel, we studied renal PDGF-DD mRNA expression by RT-PCR. Results. PDGF-DD serum levels in patients with IgA nephropathy (IgAN) were significantly higher (1.67 ± 0.45 ng/ml) and in patients with lupus nephritis significantly lower (0.66 ± 0.86 ng/ml) compared to healthy controls (1.17 ± 0.46 ng/ml), while patients with focal segmental glomerulosclerosis, membranous GN and ANCA-positive vasculitis did not differ from controls. The subgroup of IgAN patients with elevated PDGF-DD levels (27% of samples) did not differ in their clinical features from those with normal PDGF-DD levels. In IgAN patients with repetitive PDGF-DD determinations, most exhibited only minor fluctuations of serum levels over time. Intrarenal PDGF-DD mRNA expression did not differ between controls and patients, suggesting an extrarenal source of the elevated PDGF-DD in IgAN. Conclusions. Serum PDGF-DD levels were specifically elevated in patients with IgAN, in particular in those with early disease, i.e. preserved renal function. Our data support the rationale for anti-PDGF-DD therapy in mesangioproliferative G
Spontaneous Symmetry Breaking in Twisted Noncommutative Quantum Theories
We analyse aspects of symmetry breaking for Moyal spacetimes within a
quantisation scheme which preserves the twisted Poincar\'e symmetry. Towards
this purpose, we develop the LSZ approach for Moyal spacetimes. The latter
gives a formula for scattering amplitudes on these spacetimes which can be
obtained from the corresponding ones on the commutative spacetime. This formula
applies in the presence of spontaneous breakdown of symmetries as well.We also
derive Goldstone's theorem on Moyal spacetime. The formalism developed here can
be directly applied to the twisted standard model.Comment: +13 pages; minor changes in references,To appear in Phys Rev
Emission patterns of neutral pions in 40 A MeV Ta+Au reactions
Differential cross sections of neutral pions emitted in 181Ta + 197Au
collisions at a beam energy of 39.5A MeV have been measured with the photon
spectrometer TAPS. The kinetic energy and transverse momentum spectra of
neutral pions cannot be properly described in the framework of the thermal
model, nor when the reabsorption of pions is accounted for in a
phenomenological model. However, high energy and high momentum tails of the
pion spectra can be well fitted through thermal distributions with unexpectedly
soft temperature parameters below 10 MeV.Comment: 16 pages (double-spaced), 5 figures; corrections after referee's
comments and suggestion
Deterministic delivery of externally cold and precisely positioned single molecular ions
We present the preparation and deterministic delivery of a selectable number
of externally cold molecular ions. A laser cooled ensemble of Mg^+ ions
subsequently confined in several linear Paul traps inter-connected via a
quadrupole guide serves as a cold bath for a single or up to a few hundred
molecular ions. Sympathetic cooling embeds the molecular ions in the
crystalline structure. MgH^+ ions, that serve as a model system for a large
variety of other possible molecular ions, are cooled down close to the Doppler
limit and are positioned with an accuracy of one micrometer. After the
production process, severely compromising the vacuum conditions, the molecular
ion is efficiently transfered into nearly background-free environment. The
transfer of a molecular ion between different traps as well as the control of
the molecular ions in the traps is demonstrated. Schemes, optimized for the
transfer of a specific number of ions, are realized and their efficiencies are
evaluated. This versatile source applicable for broad charge-to-mass ratios of
externally cold and precisely positioned molecular ions can serve as a
container-free target preparation device well suited for diffraction or
spectroscopic measurements on individual molecular ions at high repetition
rates (kHz).Comment: 11 pages, 8 figure
German Lexical Personality Factors: Relations with the HEXACO Model
We correlated the scales of the HEXACO Personality Inventory (HEXACO-PI) with adjective scale markers of factors previously obtained in indigenous lexical studies of personality structure in the German language. Self-ratings obtained from a sample of 323 German participants showed a pattern of strong convergent and weak discriminant correlations, supporting the content-based interpretation of the German lexical factors in terms of the HEXACO dimensions. Notably, convergent correlations were strong for both the broader and the narrower variants of the Honesty-Humility factor as observed in German lexical studies. Also, convergent correlations for HEXACO Openness to Experience were, as expected, stronger for German adjectives describing a creative and intellectual orientation than for German adjectives describing intellectual ability. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd
Infra-Red Asymptotic Dynamics of Gauge Invariant Charged Fields: QED versus QCD
The freedom one has in constructing locally gauge invariant charged fields in
gauge theories is analyzed in full detail and exploited to construct, in QED,
an electron field whose two-point function W(p), up to the fourth order in the
coupling constant, is normalized with on-shell normalization conditions and is,
nonetheless, infra-red finite; as a consequence the radiative corrections
vanish on the mass shell and the free field singularity is
dominant, although, in contrast to quantum field theories with mass gap, the
eigenvalue of the mass operator is not isolated. The same construction,
carried out for the quark in QCD, is not sufficient for cancellation of
infra-red divergences to take place in the fourth order. The latter
divergences, however, satisfy a simple factorization equation. We speculate on
the scenario that could be drawn about infra-red asymptotic dynamics of QCD,
should this factorization equation be true in any order of perturbation theory.Comment: 30 pages, RevTex, 8 figures included using graphic
Hard photon and neutral pion production in cold nuclear matter
The production of hard photons and neutral pions in 190 MeV proton induced
reactions on C, Ca, Ni, and W targets has been for the first time concurrently
studied. Angular distributions and energy spectra up to the kinematical limit
are discussed and the production cross-sections are presented. From the target
mass dependence of the cross-sections the propagation of pions through nuclear
matter is analyzed and the production mechanisms of hard photons and primordial
pions are derived. It is found that the production of subthreshold particles
proceeds mainly through first chance nucleon-nucleon collisions. For the most
energetic particles the mass scaling evidences the effect of multiple
collisions.Comment: submitted to Phys. Lett.
Dynamic IMF production in at intermediate energies
The azimuthal correlations and polar-angle distributions of intermediate-mass fragments (IMFs) produced in Mg+Al at 45 an 95 AMeV were studied. Measurements of -particles and IMFs with emmitted in the mid-rapidity region for mid-central events were compared to IQMD results and results from a static-source model. A maximum in the azimuthal-correlation function at 180\degree\/ can not be described by independently emmitted particles. Momentum conservation of a small source as well as target-projectile correlations from IQMD show the same azimuthal correlations as the experimental data. The polar-angle distributions in the experimental data show a target-projectile seperation, thus giving evidence of dynamic IMF production.\\ {\it Keywords:} dynamic multifragmentation, IMF, IQMD, azimuthal correlations
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