An Ecological Basis for Ecosystem Management

This report was prepared by the Southwestern Regional Ecosystem Management Study Team composed of management and research biologists. The USDA Forest Service Southwestern Regions Regional Forester, Larry Henson, and the Rocky Mountain Forest and Range Experiment Station Director, Denver Burns, chartered this team to recommend an ecological basis for ecosystem management. This report is not intended to provide details on all aspects of ecosystem management; it simply provides information and makes recommendations for an ecological basis for ecosystem management. The report is not a decision document. It does not allocate resources on public lands nor does it make recommendations to that effect. The report of this Study Team may be relied upon as input in processes initiated under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), National Forest Management Act (NFMA), Endangered Species Act (ESA), Administrative Procedures Act (APA), and other applicable laws. The information contained in this report is general in nature, rather than site specific. Implementation of ecosystem management and allocation of resources on Forest Service administered lands is the responsibility of the National Forest System in partnership with Forest Service Research and State and Private Forestry. Implementation is done through Forest and project plans that are subject to the NEPA process of disclosing the effects of proposed actions and affording the opportunity for public comment. The Southwestern Region follows a planning process for projects called Integrated Resource Management (IRM). The opinions expressed by the authors do not necessarily represent the policy or position of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Forest Service, The Nature Conservancy, or the Arizona Game and Fish Department. The Study Team acknowledges the valuable input of more than 50 individuals from various agencies, universities, professional organizations, and other groups who provided thoughtful comments of an earlier draft of this document. Some of their comments are included in Appendix 3

Quasi one dimensional 4^4He inside carbon nanotubes

We report results of diffusion Monte Carlo calculations for both $^4$He absorbed in a narrow single walled carbon nanotube (R = 3.42 \AA) and strictly one dimensional $^4$He. Inside the tube, the binding energy of liquid $^4$He is approximately three times larger than on planar graphite. At low linear densities, $^4$He in a nanotube is an experimental realization of a one-dimensional quantum fluid. However, when the density increases the structural and energetic properties of both systems differ. At high density, a quasi-continuous liquid-solid phase transition is observed in both cases.Comment: 11 pages, 3ps figures, to appear in Phys. Rev. B (RC

Dragon-kings: mechanisms, statistical methods and empirical evidence

This introductory article presents the special Discussion and Debate volume "From black swans to dragon-kings, is there life beyond power laws?" published in Eur. Phys. J. Special Topics in May 2012. We summarize and put in perspective the contributions into three main themes: (i) mechanisms for dragon-kings, (ii) detection of dragon-kings and statistical tests and (iii) empirical evidence in a large variety of natural and social systems. Overall, we are pleased to witness significant advances both in the introduction and clarification of underlying mechanisms and in the development of novel efficient tests that demonstrate clear evidence for the presence of dragon-kings in many systems. However, this positive view should be balanced by the fact that this remains a very delicate and difficult field, if only due to the scarcity of data as well as the extraordinary important implications with respect to hazard assessment, risk control and predictability.Comment: 20 page

Congestion in a macroscopic model of self-driven particles modeling gregariousness

International audienceWe analyze a macroscopic model with a maximal density constraint which describes short range repulsion in biological systems. This system aims at modeling finite-size particles which cannot overlap and repel each other when they are too close. The parts of the fluid where the maximal density is reached behave like incompressible fluids while lower density regions are compressible. This paper investigates the transition between the compressible and incompressible regions. To capture this transition, we study a one-dimensional Riemann problem and introduce a perturbation problem which regularizes the compressible-incompressible transition. Specific difficulties related to the non-conservativity of the problem are discussed

The ‘mosaic habitat’ concept in human evolution: past and present

The habitats preferred by hominins and other species are an important theme in palaeoanthropology, and the ‘mosaic habitat’ (also referred to as habitat heterogeneity) has been a central concept in this regard for the last four decades. Here we explore the development of this concept – loosely defined as a range of different habitat types, such as woodlands, riverine forest and savannah within a limited spatial area– in studies of human evolution in the last sixty years or so. We outline the key developments that took place before and around the time when the term ‘mosaic’ came to wider palaeoanthropological attention. To achieve this we used an analysis of the published literature, a study of illustrations of hominin evolution from 1925 onwards and an email survey of senior researchers in palaeoanthropology and related fields. We found that the term mosaic starts to be applied in palaeoanthropological thinking during the 1970’s due to the work of a number of researchers, including Karl Butzer and Glynn Isaac , with the earliest usage we have found of ‘mosaic’ in specific reference to hominin habitats being by Adriaan Kortlandt (1972). While we observe a steady increase in the numbers of publications reporting mosaic palaeohabitats, in keeping with the growing interest and specialisation in various methods of palaeoenvironmental reconstruction, we also note that there is a lack of critical studies that define this habitat, or examine the temporal and spatial scales associated with it. The general consensus within the field is that the concept now requires more detailed definition and study to evaluate its role in human evolution

Evaluation of sesamum gum as an excipient in matrix tablets

In developing countries modern medicines are often beyond the affordability of the majority of the population. This is due to the reliance on expensive imported raw materials despite the abundance of natural resources which could provide an equivalent or even an improved function. The aim of this study was to investigate the potential of sesamum gum (SG) extracted from the leaves of Sesamum radiatum (readily cultivated in sub-Saharan Africa) as a matrix former. Directly compressed matrix tablets were prepared from the extract and compared with similar matrices of HPMC (K4M) using theophylline as a model water soluble drug. The compaction, swelling, erosion and drug release from the matrices were studied in deionized water, 0.1 N HCl (pH 1.2) and phosphate buffer (pH 6.8) using USP apparatus II. The data from the swelling, erosion and drug release studies were also fitted into the respective mathematical models. Results showed that the matrices underwent a combination of swelling and erosion, with the swelling action being controlled by the rate of hydration in the medium. SG also controlled the release of theophylline similar to the HPMC and therefore may have use as an alternative excipient in regions where Sesamum radiatum can be easily cultivated

Measurement of the cross section for isolated-photon plus jet production in pp collisions at √s=13 TeV using the ATLAS detector

The dynamics of isolated-photon production in association with a jet in proton–proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV are studied with the ATLAS detector at the LHC using a dataset with an integrated luminosity of 3.2 fb−1. Photons are required to have transverse energies above 125 GeV. Jets are identified using the anti- algorithm with radius parameter and required to have transverse momenta above 100 GeV. Measurements of isolated-photon plus jet cross sections are presented as functions of the leading-photon transverse energy, the leading-jet transverse momentum, the azimuthal angular separation between the photon and the jet, the photon–jet invariant mass and the scattering angle in the photon–jet centre-of-mass system. Tree-level plus parton-shower predictions from Sherpa and Pythia as well as next-to-leading-order QCD predictions from Jetphox and Sherpa are compared to the measurements

A search for resonances decaying into a Higgs boson and a new particle X in the XH → qqbb final state with the ATLAS detector

A search for heavy resonances decaying into a Higgs boson (H) and a new particle (X) is reported, utilizing 36.1 fb−1 of proton–proton collision data at collected during 2015 and 2016 with the ATLAS detector at the CERN Large Hadron Collider. The particle X is assumed to decay to a pair of light quarks, and the fully hadronic final state is analysed. The search considers the regime of high XH resonance masses, where the X and H bosons are both highly Lorentz-boosted and are each reconstructed using a single jet with large radius parameter. A two-dimensional phase space of XH mass versus X mass is scanned for evidence of a signal, over a range of XH resonance mass values between 1 TeV and 4 TeV, and for X particles with masses from 50 GeV to 1000 GeV. All search results are consistent with the expectations for the background due to Standard Model processes, and 95% CL upper limits are set, as a function of XH and X masses, on the production cross-section of the resonance