790 research outputs found
Cost of exploration for metallic minerals in Alaska
The high cost of exploration for metallic minerals in Alaska not only reflects a 20-50% increase in the cost of supplies, food and
salaries over those "outside" but also some additional costs that are characteristic of most Alaskan exploration efforts. Transportation in particular often represents half of the exploration budget and is a major
cost of almost all programs. Helicopters commonly are used as the basic mode of field transportation; their cost is high (about 300 per hour) and increasing, and their availability is becoming less certain
with the accelerating demand for them. Salaries for field personnel are also considerably higher than those paid to personnel "outside". And the demand, both from within and without the mining industry, for those with Alaskan experience is so great as to drive those salaries even higher. Fuel and communication costs not only show the usual Alaskan mark-up but are also subject to local scarcity and almost unavoidable problems. Fuel will probably continue to be available in the major population centers
but there have always been difficulties in providing or obtaining fuel in the bush; these will undoubtedly be magnified with the booming development of Alaska's petroleum resources and national scarcity. Communications with the field will undoubtedly continue to be uncertain at times and will frequently present major problems that money along cannot solve and result
in much frustration and delay. Contract services such as drilling, geophysical work, and geochemical analyses are available within the state in varying degree or can be obtained "outside" at rates that do not seem to be unduly expensive. However, the cost of transportation, mobilization, and demobilization of the personnel and equipment used in performing these services may result in unusually high costs for projects of short duration. Early logistical planning has always been considered wise in Alaskan
field work and it will undoubtedly continue to be important, if not essential. The lack of it may be alleviated in some cases with copious applications of money but with Alaska's present booming development, the
lack of planning may lead to an uncertain ability to work in the field at all. The cost of Alaskan exploration programs vary greatly. Many of the reconnaissance geologic and geochemical programs are strikingly expensive chiefly because of the need for helicopter support. Other types of programs
such as prospect evaluations are not nearly so expensive and Alaskan costs for projects of limited area or duration are nor necessarily prohibitive. In almost all cases, experience, imagination, and prior planning can reduce costs significantly
Replicated analysis of the genetic architecture of quantitative traits in two wild great tit populations
Currently, there is much debate on the genetic architecture of quantitative traits in wild populations. Is trait variation influenced by many genes of small effect or by a few genes of major effect? Where is additive genetic variation located in the genome? Do the same loci cause similar phenotypic variation in different populations? Great tits (Parus major) have been studied extensively in long-term studies across Europe and consequently are considered an ecological âmodel organismâ. Recently, genomic resources have been developed for the great tit, including a custom SNP chip and genetic linkage map. In this study, we used a suite of approaches to investigate the genetic architecture of eight quantitative traits in two long-term study populations of great titsâone in the Netherlands and the other in the United Kingdom. Overall, we found little evidence for the presence of genes of large effects in either population. Instead, traits appeared to be influenced by many genes of small effect, with conservative estimates of the number of contributing loci ranging from 31 to 310. Despite concordance between population-specific heritabilities, we found no evidence for the presence of loci having similar effects in both populations. While population-specific genetic architectures are possible, an undetected shared architecture cannot be rejected because of limited power to map loci of small and moderate effects. This study is one of few examples of genetic architecture analysis in replicated wild populations and highlights some of the challenges and limitations researchers will face when attempting similar molecular quantitative genetic studies in free-living populations
Photoionization of ultracold and Bose-Einstein condensed Rb atoms
Photoionization of a cold atomic sample offers intriguing possibilities to
observe collective effects at extremely low temperatures. Irradiation of a
rubidium condensate and of cold rubidium atoms within a magneto-optical trap
with laser pulses ionizing through 1-photon and 2-photon absorption processes
has been performed. Losses and modifications in the density profile of the
remaining trapped cold cloud or the remaining condensate sample have been
examined as function of the ionizing laser parameters. Ionization
cross-sections were measured for atoms in a MOT, while in magnetic traps losses
larger than those expected for ionization process were measured.Comment: 9 pages, 7 figure
The ÎČ3-integrin endothelial adhesome regulates microtubule-dependent cell migration
Integrin ÎČ3 is seen as a key anti-angiogenic target for cancer treatment due to its expression on neovasculature, but the role it plays in the process is complex; whether it is pro- or anti-angiogenic depends on the context in which it is expressed. To understand precisely ÎČ3's role in regulating integrin adhesion complexes in endothelial cells, we characterised, by mass spectrometry, the ÎČ3-dependent adhesome. We show that depletion of ÎČ3-integrin in this cell type leads to changes in microtubule behaviour that control cell migration. ÎČ3-integrin regulates microtubule stability in endothelial cells through Rcc2/Anxa2-driven control of active Rac1 localisation. Our findings reveal that angiogenic processes, both in vitro and in vivo, are more sensitive to microtubule targeting agents when ÎČ3-integrin levels are reduced
Scalar hairy black holes and solitons in asymptotically flat spacetimes
A numerical analysis shows that a class of scalar-tensor theories of gravity
with a scalar field minimally and nonminimally coupled to the curvature allows
static and spherically symmetric black hole solutions with scalar-field hair in
asymptotically flat spacetimes. In the limit when the horizon radius of the
black hole tends to zero, regular scalar solitons are found. The asymptotically
flat solutions are obtained provided that the scalar potential of the
theory is not positive semidefinite and such that its local minimum is also a
zero of the potential, the scalar field settling asymptotically at that
minimum. The configurations for the minimal coupling case, although unstable
under spherically symmetric linear perturbations, are regular and thus can
serve as counterexamples to the no-scalar-hair conjecture. For the nonminimal
coupling case, the stability will be analyzed in a forthcoming paper.Comment: 7 pages, 10 postscript figures, file tex, new postscript figs. and
references added, stability analysis revisite
Onset of Superfluidity in 4He Films Adsorbed on Disordered Substrates
We have studied 4He films adsorbed in two porous glasses, aerogel and Vycor,
using high precision torsional oscillator and DC calorimetry techniques. Our
investigation focused on the onset of superfluidity at low temperatures as the
4He coverage is increased. Torsional oscillator measurements of the 4He-aerogel
system were used to determine the superfluid density of films with transition
temperatures as low as 20 mK. Heat capacity measurements of the 4He-Vycor
system probed the excitation spectrum of both non-superfluid and superfluid
films for temperatures down to 10 mK. Both sets of measurements suggest that
the critical coverage for the onset of superfluidity corresponds to a mobility
edge in the chemical potential, so that the onset transition is the bosonic
analog of a superconductor-insulator transition. The superfluid density
measurements, however, are not in agreement with the scaling theory of an onset
transition from a gapless, Bose glass phase to a superfluid. The heat capacity
measurements show that the non-superfluid phase is better characterized as an
insulator with a gap.Comment: 15 pages (RevTex), 21 figures (postscript
Genomic signatures accompanying the dietary shift to phytophagy in polyphagan beetles.
The diversity and evolutionary success of beetles (Coleoptera) are proposed to be related to the diversity of plants on which they feed. Indeed, the largest beetle suborder, Polyphaga, mostly includes plant eaters among its approximately 315,000 species. In particular, plants defend themselves with a diversity of specialized toxic chemicals. These may impose selective pressures that drive genomic diversification and speciation in phytophagous beetles. However, evidence of changes in beetle gene repertoires driven by such interactions remains largely anecdotal and without explicit hypothesis testing.
We explore the genomic consequences of beetle-plant trophic interactions by performing comparative gene family analyses across 18 species representative of the two most species-rich beetle suborders. We contrast the gene contents of species from the mostly plant-eating suborder Polyphaga with those of the mainly predatory Adephaga. We find gene repertoire evolution to be more dynamic, with significantly more adaptive lineage-specific expansions, in the more speciose Polyphaga. Testing the specific hypothesis of adaptation to plant feeding, we identify families of enzymes putatively involved in beetle-plant interactions that underwent adaptive expansions in Polyphaga. There is notable support for the selection hypothesis on large gene families for glutathione S-transferase and carboxylesterase detoxification enzymes.
Our explicit modeling of the evolution of gene repertoires across 18 species identifies putative adaptive lineage-specific gene family expansions that accompany the dietary shift towards plants in beetles. These genomic signatures support the popular hypothesis of a key role for interactions with plant chemical defenses, and for plant feeding in general, in driving beetle diversification
Search for displaced vertices arising from decays of new heavy particles in 7 TeV pp collisions at ATLAS
We present the results of a search for new, heavy particles that decay at a
significant distance from their production point into a final state containing
charged hadrons in association with a high-momentum muon. The search is
conducted in a pp-collision data sample with a center-of-mass energy of 7 TeV
and an integrated luminosity of 33 pb^-1 collected in 2010 by the ATLAS
detector operating at the Large Hadron Collider. Production of such particles
is expected in various scenarios of physics beyond the standard model. We
observe no signal and place limits on the production cross-section of
supersymmetric particles in an R-parity-violating scenario as a function of the
neutralino lifetime. Limits are presented for different squark and neutralino
masses, enabling extension of the limits to a variety of other models.Comment: 8 pages plus author list (20 pages total), 8 figures, 1 table, final
version to appear in Physics Letters
Measurement of the polarisation of W bosons produced with large transverse momentum in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV with the ATLAS experiment
This paper describes an analysis of the angular distribution of W->enu and
W->munu decays, using data from pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV recorded with
the ATLAS detector at the LHC in 2010, corresponding to an integrated
luminosity of about 35 pb^-1. Using the decay lepton transverse momentum and
the missing transverse energy, the W decay angular distribution projected onto
the transverse plane is obtained and analysed in terms of helicity fractions
f0, fL and fR over two ranges of W transverse momentum (ptw): 35 < ptw < 50 GeV
and ptw > 50 GeV. Good agreement is found with theoretical predictions. For ptw
> 50 GeV, the values of f0 and fL-fR, averaged over charge and lepton flavour,
are measured to be : f0 = 0.127 +/- 0.030 +/- 0.108 and fL-fR = 0.252 +/- 0.017
+/- 0.030, where the first uncertainties are statistical, and the second
include all systematic effects.Comment: 19 pages plus author list (34 pages total), 9 figures, 11 tables,
revised author list, matches European Journal of Physics C versio
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