Evolution of weak disturbances in inert binary mixtures

The evolution of weak disturbances in inert binary mixtures is determined for the one-dimensional piston problem. The interaction of the dissipative and nonlinear mechanisms is described by Burgers' equation. The binary mixture diffusion mechanisms enter as an additive term in an effective diffusivity. Results for the impulsive motion of a piston moving into an ambient medium and the sinusoidally oscillating piston are used to illustrate the results and elucidate the incorrect behavior pertaining to the associated linear theory

Development of weeds in organic crop rotation experiments

Weeds are a major problem in organic farming. Preventive as well as curative measures must be utilised to manage the weeds and avoid proliferation. Besides direct weed control measures, many different aspects of planning and management in the cropping system affect the proliferation of weeds. However, it has rarely been investigated how the whole system affects weed populations

The Superpolynomial for Knot Homologies

We propose a framework for unifying the sl(N) Khovanov-Rozansky homology (for all N) with the knot Floer homology. We argue that this unification should be accomplished by a triply graded homology theory which categorifies the HOMFLY polynomial. Moreover, this theory should have an additional formal structure of a family of differentials. Roughly speaking, the triply graded theory by itself captures the large N behavior of the sl(N) homology, and differentials capture non-stable behavior for small N, including knot Floer homology. The differentials themselves should come from another variant of sl(N) homology, namely the deformations of it studied by Gornik, building on work of Lee. While we do not give a mathematical definition of the triply graded theory, the rich formal structure we propose is powerful enough to make many non-trivial predictions about the existing knot homologies that can then be checked directly. We include many examples where we can exhibit a likely candidate for the triply graded theory, and these demonstrate the internal consistency of our axioms. We conclude with a detailed study of torus knots, developing a picture which gives new predictions even for the original sl(2) Khovanov homology.Comment: 46 pages, 30 figures. V2: Minor improvements. To appear in Exp. Mat

On conformal Jordan cells of finite and infinite rank

This work concerns in part the construction of conformal Jordan cells of infinite rank and their reductions to conformal Jordan cells of finite rank. It is also discussed how a procedure similar to Lie algebra contractions may reduce a conformal Jordan cell of finite rank to one of lower rank. A conformal Jordan cell of rank one corresponds to a primary field. This offers a picture in which any finite conformal Jordan cell of a given conformal weight may be obtained from a universal covering cell of the same weight but infinite rank.Comment: 9 pages, LaTeX, v2: typo corrected, comments added, version to be publishe

Transplacental transmission of field and rescued strains of BTV-2 and BTV-8 in experimentally infected sheep

Transplacental transmission of bluetongue virus has been shown previously for the North European strain of serotype 8 (BTV-8) and for tissue culture or chicken egg-adapted vaccine strains but not for field strains of other serotypes. In this study, pregnant ewes (6 per group) were inoculated with either field or rescued strains of BTV-2 and BTV-8 in order to determine the ability of these viruses to cross the placental barrier. The field BTV-2 and BTV-8 strains was passaged once in Culicoides KC cells and once in mammalian cells. All virus inoculated sheep became infected and seroconverted against the different BTV strains used in this study. BTV RNA was detectable in the blood of all but two ewes for over 28 days but infectious virus could only be detected in the blood for a much shorter period. Interestingly, transplacental transmission of BTV-2 (both field and rescued strains) was demonstrated at high efficiency (6 out of 13 lambs born to BTV-2 infected ewes) while only 1 lamb of 12 born to BTV-8 infected ewes showed evidence of in utero infection. In addition, evidence for horizontal transmission of BTV-2 between ewes was observed. As expected, the parental BTV-2 and BTV-8 viruses and the viruses rescued by reverse genetics showed very similar properties to each other. This study showed, for the first time, that transplacental transmission of BTV-2, which had been minimally passaged in cell culture, can occur; hence such transmission might be more frequent than previously thought

Crop rotation limits Canada thistle, but not Couch grass or annual weeds

Direct weed control of annual as well as perennial weeds was necessary to reduce the amount of weeds in organic crop rotation experiments at three locations in Denmark. For Canada thistle, however, the rotation was the most important controlling factor: the rotation with grass-clover had less thistle biomass than the one without

Bursts in discontinuous Aeolian saltation

Close to the onset of Aeolian particle transport through saltation we find in wind tunnel experiments a regime of discontinuous flux characterized by bursts of activity. Scaling laws are observed in the time delay between each burst and in the measurements of the wind fluctuations at the fluid threshold Shields number $\theta_c$. The time delay between each burst decreases on average with the increase of the Shields number until sand flux becomes continuous. A numerical model for saltation including the wind-entrainment from the turbulent fluctuations can reproduce these observations and gives insight about their origin. We present here also for the first time measurements showing that with feeding it becomes possible to sustain discontinuous flux even below the fluid threshold

Worship in small churches

The article advocates and elaborates a theological point of view with respect to worship that is in the interest of the small church and that the small church is in a unique position to advocate. Specific rubrical proposals are made. \u27The means of grace, i.e., the Word and Sacraments, are the central and only indispensable elements in worship. The smaller amount of human resources available to small churches can lead them to focus on these means of grace. This focus is an outstanding strength\u27

An on-line solid phase extraction procedure for the routine quantification of urinary methylmalonic acid by liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry

Background: The goal of this study was to develop and to validate an improved isotope-dilution-liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) method for the quantification of methylmalonic acid (MMA) in urine. Methods: A previously described sample preparation protocol requires two solvent extraction steps, including evaporation. The first extraction is to extract the analyte from the sample, and second occurs following derivatization of the extract. In the method described here, the second evaporation step was substituted by on-line solid phase extraction employing column-switching and a permanent co-polymer based extraction cartridge. A standard validation protocol was applied to investigate the performance of the method. Results: The method was found to be linear in the clinically relevant range of concentrations (6-100 mu mol/L). Total coefficients of variation were below 10% and inaccuracy was <10% for quality control samples at three concentrations. Conclusions: By omitting one evaporation step, the semi-automated method described in this article enables for more convenient work-flow in the quantification of urinary MMA compared to the previous protocol. This is of relevance for MMA measurement in the routine clinical laboratory setting. Validation demonstrated acceptable analytical performance. Clin Chem Lab Med 2010;48:1647-50