815 research outputs found
High, Wide and Handsome- A Review of Wildlife and Aquatic Crossing Technology Over the Last
Ten years ago, at the 2001 International Conference on Ecology and Transportation in Keystone, Colorado, Ruediger (2001) presented a paper entitled High, Wide and Handsome: Designing More Effective Wildlife and Fish Crossings for Roads and Highways. At the time (2001), the paper provided a biologists perspective of how wildlife and fish crossing should be designed. Since that time, hundreds of wildlife and aquatic crossings have been built, monitored and researched. The authors will explore how wildlife and aquatic organism crossing knowledge has evolved from 2001 to 2011. The authors will explore how monitoring and research information gained over the last decade on structure height and width requirements, bottom material, location and structure type has modified current wildlife and aquatic crossing design. Information on noise impacts, moisture content of soil, light, human activities and vegetation associations relative to structure designs will be updated. Also, use of structures by elk (Cervus elaphus), deer (Odocoileus spp), moose (Alces alces), antelope (Antilocarpra americana), bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis) and various carnivores will be discussed based on current knowledge. The information presented will help transportation agencies, wildlife agencies and land management agencies design crossing structures that are effective in reducing animal-vehicle collisions, improving habitat and population connectivity, and are cost-effective. The authors have been involved with over 100 major wildlife and aquatic highway crossings in North America, particularly in the Rocky Mountain States, and have extensive experience in structure location, design, costs and the interagency coordination required to implement effective highway mitigation
First passage times in integrate-and-fire neurons with stochastic thresholds
We consider a leaky integrate--and--fire neuron with deterministic subthreshold dynamics and a firing threshold that evolves as an Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process. The formulation of this minimal model is motivated by the experimentally observed widespread variation of neural firing thresholds. We show numerically that the mean first passage time can depend non-monotonically on the noise amplitude. For sufficiently large values of the correlation time of the stochastic threshold the mean first passage time is maximal for non-vanishing noise. We provide an explanation for this effect by analytically transforming the original model into a first passage time problem for Brownian motion. This transformation also allows for a perturbative calculation of the first passage time histograms. In turn this provides quantitative insights into the mechanisms that lead to the non-monotonic behaviour of the mean first passage time. The perturbation expansion is in excellent agreement with direct numerical simulations. The approach developed here can be applied to any deterministic subthreshold dynamics and any Gauss-Markov processes for the firing threshold. This opens up the possibility to incorporate biophysically detailed components into the subthreshold dynamics, rendering our approach a powerful framework that sits between traditional integrate-and-fire models and complex mechanistic descriptions of neural dynamics
The role of cosmic ray pressure in accelerating galactic outflows
We study the formation of galactic outflows from supernova explosions (SNe)
with the moving-mesh code AREPO in a stratified column of gas with a surface
density similar to the Milky Way disk at the solar circle. We compare different
simulation models for SNe placement and energy feedback, including cosmic rays
(CR), and find that models that place SNe in dense gas and account for CR
diffusion are able to drive outflows with similar mass loading as obtained from
a random placement of SNe with no CRs. Despite this similarity, CR-driven
outflows differ in several other key properties including their overall
clumpiness and velocity. Moreover, the forces driving these outflows originate
in different sources of pressure, with the CR diffusion model relying on
non-thermal pressure gradients to create an outflow driven by internal pressure
and the random-placement model depending on kinetic pressure gradients to
propel a ballistic outflow. CRs therefore appear to be non-negligible physics
in the formation of outflows from the interstellar medium.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in ApJL; movie of
simulated gas densities can be found here:
http://www.h-its.org/tap-images/galactic-outflows
The exceptional Herbig Ae star HD101412: The first detection of resolved magnetically split lines and the presence of chemical spots in a Herbig star
We obtained high-resolution, high signal-to-noise UVES and a few lower
quality HARPS spectra revealing the presence of resolved magnetically split
lines. HD101412 is the first Herbig Ae star for which the rotational Doppler
effect was found to be small in comparison to the magnetic splitting. The
measured mean magnetic field modulus varies from 2.5 to 3.5kG, while the mean
quadratic field was found to vary in the range of 3.5 to 4.8kG. To determine
the period of variations, we used radial velocity, equivalent width, line
width, and line asymmetry measurements of variable spectral lines of several
elements, as well as magnetic field measurements. The most pronounced
variability was detected for spectral lines of He I and the iron peak elements,
whereas the spectral lines of CNO elements are only slightly variable. From
spectral variations and magnetic field measurements we derived a potential
rotation period P_rot=13.86d, which has to be proven in future studies with a
larger number of observations. It is the first time that the presence of
element spots is detected on the surface of a Herbig Ae/Be star. Our previous
study of Herbig Ae stars revealed a trend towards stronger magnetic fields for
younger Herbig Ae stars, confirmed by statistical tests. This is in contrast to
a few other (non-statistical) studies claiming that magnetic Herbig Ae stars
are progenitors of the magnetic Ap stars. New developments in MHD theory show
that the measured magnetic field strengths are compatible with a current-driven
instability of toroidal fields generated by differential rotation in the
stellar interior. This explanation for magnetic intermediate-mass stars could
be an alternative to a frozen-in fossil field.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figures, 1 table, to appear in Astronomische Nachrichte
Ballistic and diffuse transport through a ferromagnetic domain wall
We study transport through ballistic and diffuse ferromagnetic domain walls
in a two-band Stoner model with a rotating magnetization direction. For a
ballistic domain wall, the change in the conductance due to the domain wall
scattering is obtained from an adiabatic approximation valid when the length of
the domain wall is much longer than the Fermi wavelength. In diffuse systems,
the change in the resistivity is calculated using a diagrammatic technique to
the lowest order in the domain wall scattering and taking into account
spin-dependent scattering lifetimes and screening of the domain wall potential.Comment: 9 pages, 3 figures, to appear in Phys. Rev.
The Sun's Preferred Longitudes and the Coupling of Magnetic Dynamo Modes
Observations show that solar activity is distributed non-axisymmetrically,
concentrating at "preferred longitudes". This indicates the important role of
non-axisymmetric magnetic fields in the origin of solar activity. We
investigate the generation of the non-axisymmetric fields and their coupling
with axisymmetric solar magnetic field. Our kinematic generation (dynamo) model
operating in a sphere includes solar differential rotation, which approximates
the differential rotation obtained by inversion of helioseismic data, modelled
distributions of the turbulent resistivity, non-axisymmetric mean helicity, and
meridional circulation in the convection zone. We find that (1) the
non-axisymmetric modes are localised near the base of the convection zone,
where the formation of active regions starts, and at latitudes around
; (2) the coupling of non-axisymmetric and axisymmetric modes
causes the non-axisymmetric mode to follow the solar cycle; the phase relations
between the modes are found. (3) The rate of rotation of the first
non-axisymmetric mode is close to that determined in the interplanetary space.Comment: 22 pages, 18 figures. Accepted for publication in the Astrophysical
Journa
Negative Domain Wall Contribution to the Resistivity of Microfabricated Fe Wires
The effect of domain walls on electron transport has been investigated in
microfabricated Fe wires (0.65 to 20 linewidths) with controlled stripe
domains. Magnetoresistance (MR) measurements as a function of domain wall
density, temperature and the angle of the applied field are used to determine
the low field MR contributions due to conventional sources in ferromagnetic
materials and that due to the erasure of domain walls. A negative domain wall
contribution to the resistivity is found. This result is discussed in light of
a recent theoretical study of the effect of domain walls on quantum transport.Comment: 7 pages, 4 postscript figures and 1 jpg image (Fig. 1
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