Aphid biology: Expressed genes from alate Toxoptera citricida, the brown citrus aphid

The brown citrus aphid, Toxoptera citricida (Kirkaldy), is considered the primary vector of citrus tristeza virus, a severe pathogen which causes losses to citrus industries worldwide. The alate (winged) form of this aphid can readily fly long distances with the wind, thus spreading citrus tristeza virus in citrus growing regions. To better understand the biology of the brown citrus aphid and the emergence of genes expressed during wing development, we undertook a large-scale 5′ end sequencing project of cDNA clones from alate aphids. Similar large-scale expressed sequence tag (EST) sequencing projects from other insects have provided a vehicle for answering biological questions relating to development and physiology. Although there is a growing database in GenBank of ESTs from insects, most are from Drosophila melanogaster and Anopheles gambiae, with relatively few specifically derived from aphids. However, important morphogenetic processes are exclusively associated with piercing-sucking insect development and sap feeding insect metabolism. In this paper, we describe the first public data set of ESTs from the brown citrus aphid, T. citricida. The cDNA library was derived from alate adults due to their significance in spreading viruses (e.g., citrus tristeza virus). Over 5180 cDNA clones were sequenced, resulting in 4263 high-quality ESTs. Contig alignment of these ESTs resulted in 2124 total assembled sequences, including both contiguous sequences and singlets. Approximately 33% of the ESTs currently have no significant match in either the non-redundant protein or nucleic acid databases. Sequences returning matches with an E-value of ≤ −10 using BLASTX, BLASTN, or TBLASTX were annotated based on their putative molecular function and biological process using the Gene Ontology classification system. These data will aid research efforts in the identification of important genes within insects, specifically aphids and other sap feeding insects within the Order Hemiptera. The sequence data described in this paper have been submitted to Genbank's dbEST under the following accession numbers.: CB814527-CB814982, CB832665-CB833296, CB854878-CB855147, CB909714-CB910020, CB936196-CB936346, CD449954-CD450759. Abbreviation: / EST: expressed sequence ta

Slowly rotating charged black holes in anti-de Sitter third order Lovelock gravity

In this paper, we study slowly rotating black hole solutions in Lovelock gravity (n=3). These exact slowly rotating black hole solutions are obtained in uncharged and charged cases, respectively. Up to the linear order of the rotating parameter a, the mass, Hawking temperature and entropy of the uncharged black holes get no corrections from rotation. In charged case, we compute magnetic dipole moment and gyromagnetic ratio of the black holes. It is shown that the gyromagnetic ratio keeps invariant after introducing the Gauss-Bonnet and third order Lovelock interactions.Comment: 14 pages, no figur

Charged rotating dilaton black branes in AdS universe

We present the metric for the $(n+1)$-dimensional charged rotating dilaton black branes with cylindrical or toroidal horizons in the background of anti-de Sitter spacetime. We find the suitable counterterm which removes the divergences of the action in the presence of the dilaton potential in all higher dimensions. We plot the Penrose diagrams of the spacetime and reveal that the spacetime geometry crucially modifies in the presence of the dilaton field. The conserved and thermodynamic quantities of the black branes are also computed.Comment: 13 pages, 3 figures, to appear in Gen. Relat. Gravi

Ricci flat rotating black branes with a conformally invariant Maxwell source

We consider Einstein gravity coupled to an $U(1)$ gauge field for which the density is given by a power of the Maxwell Lagrangian. In $d$-dimensions the action of Maxwell field is shown to enjoy the conformal invariance if the power is chosen as $d/4$. We present a class of charge rotating solutions in Einstein-conformally invariant Maxwell gravity in the presence of a cosmological constant. These solutions may be interpreted as black brane solutions with inner and outer event horizons or an extreme black brane depending on the value of the mass parameter. Since we are considering power of the Maxwell density, the black brane solutions exist only for dimensions which are multiples of four. We compute conserved and thermodynamics quantities of the black brane solutions and show that the expression of the electric field does not depend on the dimension. Also, we obtain a Smarr-type formula and show that these conserved and thermodynamic quantities of black branes satisfy the first law of thermodynamics. Finally, we study the phase behavior of the rotating black branes and show that there is no Hawking--Page phase transition in spite of conformally invariant Maxwell field.Comment: 13 pages, one figur

Thermodynamics of higher dimensional topological charged AdS black branes in dilaton gravity

In this paper, we study topological AdS black branes of $(n+1)$-dimensional Einstein-Maxwell-dilaton theory and investigate their properties. We use the area law, surface gravity and Gauss law interpretations to find entropy, temperature and electrical charge, respectively. We also employ the modified Brown and York subtraction method to calculate the quasilocal mass of the solutions. We obtain a Smarr-type formula for the mass as a function of the entropy and the charge, compute the temperature and the electric potential through the Smarr-type formula and show that these thermodynamic quantities coincide with their values which are calculated through using the geometry. Finally, we perform a stability analysis in the canonical ensemble and investigate the effects of the dilaton field and the size of black brane on the thermal stability of the solutions. We find that large black branes are stable but for small black brane, depending on the value of dilaton field and type of horizon, we encounter with some unstable phases.Comment: 21 pages, 21 figures, references updated, minor editing, accepted in EPJC (DOI: 10.1140/epjc/s10052-010-1483-3

Asymptotic Expansions for Stationary Distributions of Perturbed Semi-Markov Processes

New algorithms for computing of asymptotic expansions for stationary distributions of nonlinearly perturbed semi-Markov processes are presented. The algorithms are based on special techniques of sequential phase space reduction, which can be applied to processes with asymptotically coupled and uncoupled finite phase spaces.Comment: 83 page

Rotating Black Branes in the presence of nonlinear electromagnetic field

In this paper, we consider a class of gravity whose action represents itself as a sum of the usual Einstein-Hilbert action with cosmological constant and an $U(1)$ gauge field for which the action is given by a power of the Maxwell invariant. We present a class of the rotating black branes with Ricci flat horizon and show that the presented solutions may be interpreted as black brane solutions with two event horizons, extreme black hole and naked singularity provided the parameters of the solutions are chosen suitably. We investigate the properties of the solutions and find that for the special values of the nonlinear parameter, the solutions are not asymptotically anti-deSitter. At last, we obtain the conserved quantities of the rotating black branes and find that the nonlinear source effects on the electric field, the behavior of spacetime, type of singularity and other quantities.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures, to appear in EPJ

Pharmaceuticals in sewage systems and surface waters – status quo

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Charged BTZ-like Black Holes in Higher Dimensions

Motivated by many worthwhile paper about (2 + 1)-dimensional BTZ black holes, we generalize them to to (n + 1)-dimensional solutions, so called BTZ-like solutions. We show that the electric field of BTZ-like solutions is the same as (2 + 1)-dimensional BTZ black holes, and also their lapse functions are approximately the same, too. By these similarities, it is also interesting to investigate the geometric and thermodynamics properties of the BTZ-like solutions. We find that, depending on the metric parameters, the BTZ-like solutions may be interpreted as black hole solutions with inner (Cauchy) and outer (event) horizons, an extreme black hole or naked singularity. Then, we calculate thermodynamics quantities and conserved quantities, and show that they satisfy the first law of thermodynamics. Finally, we perform a stability analysis in the canonical ensemble and show that the BTZ-like solutions are stable in the whole phase space.Comment: 5 pages, two column format, one figur

Can forest management based on natural disturbances maintain ecological resilience?

Given the increasingly global stresses on forests, many ecologists argue that managers must maintain ecological resilience: the capacity of ecosystems to absorb disturbances without undergoing fundamental change. In this review we ask: Can the emerging paradigm of natural-disturbance-based management (NDBM) maintain ecological resilience in managed forests? Applying resilience theory requires careful articulation of the ecosystem state under consideration, the disturbances and stresses that affect the persistence of possible alternative states, and the spatial and temporal scales of management relevance. Implementing NDBM while maintaining resilience means recognizing that (i) biodiversity is important for long-term ecosystem persistence, (ii) natural disturbances play a critical role as a generator of structural and compositional heterogeneity at multiple scales, and (iii) traditional management tends to produce forests more homogeneous than those disturbed naturally and increases the likelihood of unexpected catastrophic change by constraining variation of key environmental processes. NDBM may maintain resilience if silvicultural strategies retain the structures and processes that perpetuate desired states while reducing those that enhance resilience of undesirable states. Such strategies require an understanding of harvesting impacts on slow ecosystem processes, such as seed-bank or nutrient dynamics, which in the long term can lead to ecological surprises by altering the forest's capacity to reorganize after disturbance