528 research outputs found
Transition between terrestrial-submerged walking and swimming revealed by Early Permian amphibian trackways and a new proposal for the nomenclature of compound trace fossils
Exceptionally preserved Early Permian tetrapod trackways from the Orobic Basin (Central-Western Southern Alps) offer a unique opportunity to investigate in detail locomotion in fossil vertebrates that lived on continental European landmasses. Herein are reported the results of a study on several tetrapod trackways that display a large variety of behavioral, gait and substrate related extramorphologies. They clearly document the transition from terrestrial-underwater walking to swimming and are assigned to the compound ichnotaxon Batrachichnus C Lunichnium. The use of the "C" symbol is here introduced for the first time as nomenclatural indication of a Compound trace. Producers were probably small-sized temnospondyl or lepospondyl (microsaurs) amphibians. Comparisons with living urodelan anatomy and mechanics provide evidence for conservatism of locomotor mechanics in evolutionary history among amphibians. The derived model for locomotor kinematics in Early Permian amphibians provides a reference for interpreting transitional land-to-water trackways. The shift from walking to swimming behavior in early tetrapods, as in extant urodelan amphibians, is described as a complex balance between different dynamics
Prepyramid-to-pyramid transition of SiGe islands on Si(001)
The morphology of the first three-dimensional islands appearing during
strained growth of SiGe alloys on Si(001) was investigated by scanning
tunneling microscopy. High resolution images of individual islands and a
statistical analysis of island shapes were used to reconstruct the evolution of
the island shape as a function of size. As they grow, islands undergo a
transition from completely unfacetted rough mounds (prepyramids) to partially
{105} facetted islands and then they gradually evolve to {105} facetted
pyramids. The results are in good agreement with the predictions of a recently
proposed theoretical model
Isoperimetric problems of the calculus of variations with fractional derivatives
In this paper we study isoperimetric problems of the calculus of variations
with left and right Riemann-Liouville fractional derivatives. Both situations
when the lower bound of the variational integrals coincide and do not coincide
with the lower bound of the fractional derivatives are considered.Comment: Submitted 02-Oct-2009; revised 30-Jun-2010; accepted 10-May-2011; for
publication in the journal Acta Mathematica Scienti
Recentered importance sampling with applications to Bayesian model validation
Since its introduction in the early 1990s, the idea of using importance sampling (IS) with Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) has found many applications. This article examines problems associated with its application to repeated evaluation of related posterior distributions with a particular focus on Bayesian model validation. We demonstrate that, in certain applications, the curse of dimensionality can be reduced by a simple modification of IS. In addition to providing new theoretical insight into the behavior of the IS approximation in a wide class of models, our result facilitates the implementation of computationally intensive Bayesian model checks. We illustrate the simplicity, computational savings, and potential inferential advantages of the proposed approach through two substantive case studies, notably computation of Bayesian p-values for linear regression models and simulation-based model checking. Supplementary materials including the Appendix and the R code for Section 3.1.2 are available online
Fractional variational calculus for nondifferentiable functions
We prove necessary optimality conditions, in the class of continuous
functions, for variational problems defined with Jumarie's modified
Riemann-Liouville derivative. The fractional basic problem of the calculus of
variations with free boundary conditions is considered, as well as problems
with isoperimetric and holonomic constraints.Comment: Submitted 13-Aug-2010; revised 24-Nov-2010; accepted 28-March-2011;
for publication in Computers and Mathematics with Application
Probing neutrino properties with charged scalar lepton decays
Supersymmetry with bilinear R-parity violation provides a predictive
framework for neutrino masses and mixings in agreement with current neutrino
oscillation data. The model leads to striking signals at future colliders
through the R-parity violating decays of the lightest supersymmetric particle.
Here we study charged scalar lepton decays and demonstrate that if the scalar
tau is the LSP (i) it will decay within the detector, despite the smallness of
the neutrino masses, (ii) the relative ratio of branching ratios Br({tilde
tau}_1 --> e sum nu_i)/ Br({tilde tau}_1 --> mu sum nu_i) is predicted from the
measured solar neutrino angle, and (iii) scalar muon and scalar electron decays
will allow to test the consistency of the model. Thus, bilinear R-parity
breaking SUSY will be testable at future colliders also in the case where the
LSP is not the neutralino.Comment: 24 pages, 8 ps figs Report-no.: IFIC/02-33 and ZU-TH 11/0
First-principles calculation of the effect of strain on the diffusion of Ge adatoms on Si and Ge (001) surfaces
First-principles calculations are used to calculate the strain dependencies
of the binding and diffusion-activation energies for Ge adatoms on both Si(001)
and Ge(001) surfaces. Our calculations reveal that the binding and activation
energies on a strained Ge(001) surface increase and decrease, respectively, by
0.21 eV and 0.12 eV per percent compressive strain. For a growth temperature of
600 degrees C, these strain-dependencies give rise to a 16-fold increase in
adatom density and a 5-fold decrease in adatom diffusivity in the region of
compressive strain surrounding a Ge island with a characteristic size of 10 nm.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
Neutrino masses in R-parity violating supersymmetric models
We study neutrino masses and mixing in R-parity violating supersymmetric
models with generic soft supersymmetry breaking terms. Neutrinos acquire masses
from various sources: Tree level neutrino--neutralino mixing and loop effects
proportional to bilinear and/or trilinear R-parity violating parameters. Each
of these contributions is controlled by different parameters and have different
suppression or enhancement factors which we identified. Within an Abelian
horizontal symmetry framework these factors are related and specific
predictions can be made. We found that the main contributions to the neutrino
masses are from the tree level and the bilinear loops and that the observed
neutrino data can be accommodated once mild fine-tuning is allowed.Comment: 18 pages; minor typos corrected. To be published in Physical Review
Electron microscopic demonstration of centrifugal nerve fibers in the human optic nerve
Electron microscopic views of centrifugal nerve fibers in the optic nerve stump of a 56-year-old man are presented. These nerve fibers had survived for 16 days after removal of the corresponding eyeball and exhibited terminal swellings pointing in a distal direction and indicating axoplasmic flow towards the removed eye. The centrifugal nerves in this adult lack any evidence of attempted regeneration that has earlier been observed under similar conditions in the optic nerve stump of a child. Zentrifugale (antidrome, efferente) Nervenfasern sind hier zum ersten Mal mit dem Elektronenmikroskop im menschlichen Sehnerven dargestellt worden. Diese Nervenfasern wurden in dem Sehnervenstumpf eines 56jährigen Mannes 16 Tage nach der Entfernung des dazugehörigen Auges gefunden. Endschwellungen dieser Nervenfasern waren distal ausgerichtet und deuteten damit einen Axoplasmafluß in Richtung des entfernten Auges an. Während deutliche Regenerationsversuche an den distalen Enden unterbrochener zentrifugaler Nervenfasern im Sehnervenstumpf eines Kindes früher beobachtet worden sind, fanden sich im Sehnerven dieses Erwachsenen keinerlei Zeichen von Regeneration der zentrifugalen Fasern.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/47369/1/417_2004_Article_BF00414787.pd
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