1,705 research outputs found
Odour and colour polymorphism in the food-deceptive orchid Dactylorhiza romana
The food deceptive orchid, Dactylorhiza romana (Sebastiani) SoĂł exhibits a colour polymorphism with yellow, red, and intermediate orange morphs. In this study we tested if floral odour differed among the three distinct colour morphs. We identified 23 odour compounds in D. romana, and all of them occurred in the three colour morphs. Monoterpenes dominated the floral scent. On the basis of Euclidean distances of relative amounts of compounds, yellow morphs were closer to each other than to orange or red morphs. Differentiation of the morphs was mainly due to linalool and benzaldehyde. Linalool occurred in low relative amounts in the yellow morphs, but in high amounts in some of the red individuals, whereas benzaldehyde occurred in higher relative amounts in yellow morphs. Linalool and benzaldehyde are known to be important signal-substances in plant-insect communication, however, it remains to be shown whether insects can discriminate between flower morphs on the basis of the here shown odour difference
Tracking and Retexturing Cloth for RealTime Virtual Clothing Applications
Abstract. In this paper, we describe a dynamic texture overlay method from monocular images for real-time visualization of garments in a virtual mirror environment. Similar to looking into a mirror when trying on clothes, we create the same impression but for virtually textured garments. The mirror is replaced by a large display that shows the mirrored image of a camera capturing e.g. the upper body part of a person. By estimating the elastic deformations of the cloth from a single camera in the 2D image plane and recovering the illumination of the textured surface of a shirt in real time, an arbitrary virtual texture can be realistically augmented onto the moving garment such that the person seems to wear the virtual clothing. The result is a combination of the real video and the new augmented model yielding a realistic impression of the virtual piece of cloth
Ammonium Fluoride as a Hydrogen-disordering Agent for Ice
The removal of residual hydrogen disorder from various phases of ice with
acid or base dopants at low temperatures has been a focus of intense research
for many decades. As an antipode to these efforts, we now show using neutron
diffraction that ammonium fluoride (NH4F) is a hydrogen-disordering agent for
the hydrogen-ordered ice VIII. Cooling its hydrogen-disordered counterpart ice
VII doped with 2.5 mol% ND4F under pressure leads to a hydrogen-disordered ice
VIII with ~31% residual hydrogen disorder illustrating the long-range
hydrogen-disordering effect of ND4F. The doped ice VII could be supercooled by
~20 K with respect to the hydrogen-ordering temperature of pure ice VII after
which the hydrogen-ordering took place slowly over a ~60 K temperature window.
These findings demonstrate that ND4F-doping slows down the hydrogen-ordering
kinetics quite substantially. The partial hydrogen order of the doped sample is
consistent with the antiferroelectric ordering of pure ice VIII. Yet, we argue
that local ferroelectric domains must exist between ionic point defects of
opposite charge. In addition to the long-range effect of NH4F-doping on
hydrogen-ordered water structures, the design principle of using topological
charges should be applicable to a wide range of other 'ice-rule' systems
including spin ices and related polar materials.Comment: 23 pages, 4 figures, 2 table
Two-photon coherent control of femtosecond photoassociation
Photoassociation with short laser pulses has been proposed as a technique to
create ultracold ground state molecules. A broad-band excitation seems the
natural choice to drive the series of excitation and deexcitation steps
required to form a molecule in its vibronic ground state from two scattering
atoms. First attempts at femtosecond photoassociation were, however, hampered
by the requirement to eliminate the atomic excitation leading to trap
depletion. On the other hand, molecular levels very close to the atomic
transition are to be excited. The broad bandwidth of a femtosecond laser then
appears to be rather an obstacle. To overcome the ostensible conflict of
driving a narrow transition by a broad-band laser, we suggest a two-photon
photoassociation scheme. In the weak-field regime, a spectral phase pattern can
be employed to eliminate the atomic line. When the excitation is carried out by
more than one photon, different pathways in the field can be interfered
constructively or destructively. In the strong-field regime, a temporal phase
can be applied to control dynamic Stark shifts. The atomic transition is
suppressed by choosing a phase which keeps the levels out of resonance. We
derive analytical solutions for atomic two-photon dark states in both the
weak-field and strong-field regime. Two-photon excitation may thus pave the way
toward coherent control of photoassociation. Ultimately, the success of such a
scheme will depend on the details of the excited electronic states and
transition dipole moments. We explore the possibility of two-photon femtosecond
photoassociation for alkali and alkaline-earth metal dimers and present a
detailed study for the example of calcium
Variability in Floral Scent in Rewarding and Deceptive Orchids: The Signature of Pollinator-imposed Selection?
Background and Aims A comparative investigation was made of floral scent variation in the closely related, food-rewarding Anacamptis coriophora and the food-deceptive Anacamptis morio in order to identify patterns of variability of odour compounds in the two species and their role in pollinator attraction/avoidance learning. Methods Scent was collected from plants in natural populations and samples were analysed via quantitative gas chromatography and mass spectrometry. Combined gas chromatography and electroantennographic detection was used to identify compounds that are detected by the pollinators. Experimental reduction of scent variability was performed in the field with plots of A. morio plants supplemented with a uniform amount of anisaldehyde. Key Results Both orchid species emitted complex odour bouquets. In A. coriophora the two main benzenoid compounds, hydroquinone dimethyl ether (1,4-dimethoxybenzene) and anisaldehyde (methoxybenzaldehyde), triggered electrophysiological responses in olfactory neurons of honey-bee and bumble-bee workers. The scent of A. morio, however, was too weak to elicit any electrophysiological responses. The overall variation in scent was significantly lower in the rewarding A. coriophora than in the deceptive A. morio, suggesting pollinator avoidance-learning selecting for high variation in the deceptive species. A. morio flowers supplemented with non-variable scent in plot experiments, however, did not show significantly reduced pollination success. Conclusions Whereas in the rewarding A. coriophora stabilizing selection imposed by floral constancy of the pollinators may reduce scent variability, in the deceptive A. morio the emitted scent seems to be too weak to be detected by pollinators and thus its high variability may result from relaxed selection on this floral trai
Complex nanostructures in diamond
Meteoritic diamonds and synthesized diamond-related materials contain a wide variety of complex nanostructures. This Comment highlights and classifies this structural complexity by a systematic hierarchical approach, and discusses the perspectives on nanostructure and properties engineering of diamond-related materials
Microfield distributions in strongly coupled two-component plasmas
The electric microfield distribution at charged particles is studied for
two-component electron-ion plasmas using molecular dynamics simulation and
theoretical models. The particles are treated within classical statistical
mechanics using an electron-ion Coulomb potential regularized at distances less
than the de Broglie length to take into account the quantum-diffraction
effects. The potential-of-mean-force (PMF) approximation is deduced from a
canonical ensemble formulation. The resulting probability density of the
electric microfield satisfies exactly the second-moment sum rule without the
use of adjustable parameters. The correlation functions between the charged
radiator and the plasma ions and electrons are calculated using molecular
dynamics simulations and the hypernetted-chain approximation for a
two-component plasma. It is shown that the agreement between the theoretical
models for the microfield distributions and the simulations is quite good in
general.Comment: 18 figures. Submitted to Phys. Rev.
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