2,904 research outputs found
A computer software system for integration and analysis of grid-based remote sensing data with other natural resource data. Remote Sensing Project
A computer-based information system is described designed to assist in the integration of commonly available spatial data for regional planning and resource analysis. The Resource Analysis Program (RAP) provides a variety of analytical and mapping phases for single factor or multi-factor analyses. The unique analytical and graphic capabilities of RAP are demonstrated with a study conducted in Windsor Township, Eaton County, Michigan. Soil, land cover/use, topographic and geological maps were used as a data base to develope an eleven map portfolio. The major themes of the portfolio are land cover/use, non-point water pollution, waste disposal, and ground water recharge
Involution products in Coxeter groups
For W a Coxeter group, let
= {w ∈ W | w = xy where x, y ∈ W and x 2 = 1 = y 2}.
It is well known that if W is finite then W = . Suppose that w ∈ . Then the minimum value of ℓ(x) + ℓ(y) – ℓ(w), where x, y ∈ W with w = xy and x 2 = 1 = y 2, is called the excess of w (ℓ is the length function of W). The main result established here is that w is always W-conjugate to an element with excess equal to zero
Modeling of Transitional Channel Flow Using Balanced Proper Orthogonal Decomposition
We study reduced-order models of three-dimensional perturbations in
linearized channel flow using balanced proper orthogonal decomposition (BPOD).
The models are obtained from three-dimensional simulations in physical space as
opposed to the traditional single-wavenumber approach, and are therefore better
able to capture the effects of localized disturbances or localized actuators.
In order to assess the performance of the models, we consider the impulse
response and frequency response, and variation of the Reynolds number as a
model parameter. We show that the BPOD procedure yields models that capture the
transient growth well at a low order, whereas standard POD does not capture the
growth unless a considerably larger number of modes is included, and even then
can be inaccurate. In the case of a localized actuator, we show that POD modes
which are not energetically significant can be very important for capturing the
energy growth. In addition, a comparison of the subspaces resulting from the
two methods suggests that the use of a non-orthogonal projection with adjoint
modes is most likely the main reason for the superior performance of BPOD. We
also demonstrate that for single-wavenumber perturbations, low-order BPOD
models reproduce the dominant eigenvalues of the full system better than POD
models of the same order. These features indicate that the simple, yet accurate
BPOD models are a good candidate for developing model-based controllers for
channel flow.Comment: 35 pages, 20 figure
Reconciling Niches and Neutrality in a Subalpine Temperate Forest
The Unified Neutral Theory of Biodiversity has been put forth to explain species coexistence in forests worldwide, but its assumption of species equivalence has been met with much debate. Theoretical advancements have reconciled the opposing concepts of neutral and niche theories as two ends of a continuum, improving our understanding of global patterns in diversity and community assembly. However, the relative importance of niche and neutral processes remains understudied in temperate forests. To determine the balance of niche and neutral processes in climatically limited subalpine temperate forests, we established the Utah Forest Dynamics Plot, a 13.64-ha plot comprising 27,845 stems ≥1 cm diameter at breast height (1.37 m) representing 17 species at 3100 m elevation on the Colorado Plateau. We examined the fit of niche- and neutral-based models to the species abundance distribution (SAD), and tested three underlying assumptions of neutral theory. The neutral model was a poor fit to the SAD, but we did not find the alternative model to provide a better fit. Using spatial analyses, we tested the neutral assumptions of functional equivalence, ecological equivalence, and habitat generality. Half of species analyzed were characterized by non-neutral recruitment processes, and the two most abundant species exhibited asymmetric competitive and facilitative interactions with each other. The assumption of habitat generality was strongly contradicted, with all common species having habitat preferences. We conclude niche-based processes play the dominant role in structuring subalpine forest communities, and we suggest possible explanations for variation in the relative importance of niche vs. neutral processes along ecological gradients
Use of domesticated pigs by Mesolithic hunter-gatherers in northwestern Europe
Acknowledgements We thank the Archaeological State Museum Schleswig-Holstein, the Archaeological State Offices of Brandenburg, Lower Saxony and Saxony and the following individuals who provided sample material: Betty Arndt, Jo¨rg Ewersen, Frederick Feulner, Susanne Hanik, Ru¨diger Krause, Jochen Reinhard, Uwe Reuter, Karl-Heinz Ro¨hrig, Maguerita Scha¨fer, Jo¨rg Schibler, Reinhold Schoon, Regina Smolnik, Thomas Terberger and Ingrid Ulbricht. We are grateful to Ulrich Schmo¨lcke, Michael Forster, Peter Forster and Aikaterini Glykou for their support and comments on the manuscript. We also thank many institutions and individuals that provided sample material and access to collections, especially the curators of the Museum fu¨r Naturkunde, Berlin; Muse´um National d0 Histoire Naturelle, Paris; Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of Natural History, Washington D.C.; Zoologische Staatssammlung, Mu¨nchen; Museum fu¨r Haustierkunde, Halle; the American Museum of Natural History, New-York. This work was funded by the Graduate School ‘Human Development in Landscapes’ at Kiel University (CAU) and supported by NERC project Grant NE/F003382/1. Radiocarbon dating was carried out at the Leibniz Laboratory, CAU. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons AttributionNonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.Peer reviewedPublisher PD
On the decay of deformed actinide nuclei
decay through a deformed potential barrier produces significant
mixing of angular momenta when mapped from the nuclear interior to the outside.
Using experimental branching ratios and either semi-classical or
coupled-channels transmission matrices, we have found that there is a set of
internal amplitudes which are essentially constant for all even--even actinide
nuclei. These same amplitudes also give good results for the known anisotropic
particle emission of the favored decays of odd nuclei in the same mass
region.
PACS numbers: 23.60.+e, 24.10.Eq, 27.90.+bComment: 5 pages, latex (revtex style), 2 embedded postscript figures
uuencoded gz-compressed .tar file To appear in Physical Review Letter
Correcting for T1 bias in Magnetization Transfer Saturation (MTsat) Maps Using Sparse-MP2RAGE
Purpose: Magnetization transfer saturation (MTsat) mapping is commonly used
to examine the macromolecular content of brain tissue. This study compared
variable flip angle (VFA) T1 mapping against compressed sensing (cs)MP2RAGE T1
mapping for accelerating MTsat imaging. Methods: VFA, MP2RAGE and csMP2RAGE
were compared against inversion recovery (IR) T1 in a phantom at 3 Tesla. The
same 1 mm VFA, MP2RAGE and csMP2RAGE protocols were acquired in four healthy
subjects to compare the resulting T1 and MTsat. Bloch-McConnell simulations
were used to investigate differences between the phantom and in vivo T1
results. Finally, ten healthy controls were imaged twice with the csMP2RAGE
MTsat protocol to quantify repeatability. Results: The MP2RAGE and csMP2RAGE
protocols were 13.7% and 32.4% faster than the VFA protocol, respectively. All
approaches provided accurate T1 values (<5% difference) in the phantom, but the
accuracy of the T1 times was more impacted by differences in T2 for VFA than
for MP2RAGE. In vivo, VFA generated longer T1 times than MP2RAGE and csMP2RAGE.
Simulations suggest that the bias in the T1 values between VFA and IR-based
approaches (MP2RAGE and IR) could be explained by the MT-effects from the
inversion pulse. In the test-retest experiment, we found that the csMP2RAGE has
a minimum detectable change of 3% for T1 mapping and 7.9% for MTsat imaging.
Conclusions: We demonstrated that csMP2RAGE can be used in place of VFA T1
mapping in an MTsat protocol. Furthermore, a shorter scan time and high
repeatability can be achieved using the csMP2RAGE sequence.Comment: 23 pages, 7 figures, 2 table
Engraftment of patients with lymphoid malignancies transplanted with autologous bone marrow, peripheral blood stem cells or both
Optimization of acquisition parameters for cortical inhomogeneous magnetization transfer (ihMT) imaging using a rapid gradient echo readout
Purpose: Imaging biomarkers with increased myelin specificity are needed to
better understand the complex progression of neurological disorders.
Inhomogeneous magnetization transfer (ihMT) imaging is an emergent technique
that has a high degree of specificity for myelin content but suffers from low
signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). This study used simulations to determine optimal
sequence parameters for ihMT imaging for use in high-resolution cortical
mapping. Methods: MT-weighted cortical image intensity and ihMT SNR were
simulated using modified Bloch equations for a range of sequence parameters.
The acquisition time was limited to 4.5 min/volume. A custom MT-weighted RAGE
sequence with center-out k-space encoding was used to enhance SNR at 3 Tesla.
Pulsed MT imaging was studied over a range of saturation parameters and the
impact of the turbo-factor on effective ihMT was investigated. 1 mm isotropic
ihMTsat maps were generated in 25 healthy adults using an optimized protocol.
Results: Greater SNR was observed for larger number of bursts consisting of 6-8
saturation pulses each, combined with a high readout turbo-factor. However,
that protocol suffered from a point spread function that was more than twice
the nominal resolution. For high-resolution cortical imaging, we selected a
protocol with a higher effective resolution at the cost of a lower SNR. We
present the first group-average ihMTsat whole-brain map at 1 mm isotropic
resolution. Conclusion: This study presents the impact of saturation and
excitation parameters on ihMTsat SNR and resolution. We demonstrate the
feasibility of high-resolution cortical myelin imaging using ihMTsat in less
than 20 minutes
A corresponding states approach to Small-Angle-Scattering for polydisperse ionic colloidal fluids
Approximate scattering functions for polydisperse ionic colloidal fluids are
obtained by a corresponding states approach. This assumes that all pair
correlation functions of a polydisperse fluid are
conformal to those of an appropriate monodisperse binary fluid (reference
system) and can be generated from them by scaling transformations. The
correspondence law extends to ionic fluids a {\it scaling approximation} (SA)
successfully proposed for nonionic colloids in a recent paper. For the
primitive model of charged hard spheres in a continuum solvent, the partial
structure factors of the monodisperse binary reference system are evaluated by
solving the Orstein-Zernike (OZ) integral equations coupled with an approximate
closure. The SA is first tested within the mean spherical approximation (MSA)
closure, which allows analytical solutions. The results are found in good
overall agreement with exact MSA predictions up to relevant polidispersity. The
SA is shown to be an improvement over the ``decoupling approximation'' extended
to the ionic case. The simplicity of the SA scheme allows its application also
when the OZ equations can be solved only numerically. An example is then given
by using the hypernetted chain (HNC) closure. Shortcomings of the SA approach,
its possible use in the analysis of experimental scattering data and other
related points are also briefly addressed.Comment: 29 pages, 7 postscript figures (included), Latex 3.0, uses aps.sty,
to appear in Phys. Rev. E (1999
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