Single-photon single ionization of W+^{+} ions: experiment and theory

Experimental and theoretical results are reported for photoionization of Ta-like (W$^{+}$) tungsten ions. Absolute cross sections were measured in the energy range 16 to 245 eV employing the photon-ion merged-beam setup at the Advanced Light Source in Berkeley. Detailed photon-energy scans at 100 meV bandwidth were performed in the 16 to 108 eV range. In addition, the cross section was scanned at 50 meV resolution in regions where fine resonance structures could be observed. Theoretical results were obtained from a Dirac-Coulomb R-matrix approach. Photoionization cross section calculations were performed for singly ionized atomic tungsten ions in their $5s^2 5p^6 5d^4({^5}D)6s \; {^6}{\rm D}_{J}$, $J$=1/2, ground level and the associated excited metastable levels with $J$=3/2, 5/2, 7/2 and 9/2. Since the ion beams used in the experiments must be expected to contain long-lived excited states also from excited configurations, additional cross-section calculations were performed for the second-lowest term, 5d^5 \; ^6{\rm S}_{J}, $J$=5/2, and for the $^4$F term, 5d^3 6s^2 \; ^4{\rm F}_{J}, with $J$ = 3/2, 5/2, 7/2 and 9/2. Given the complexity of the electronic structure of W$^+$ the calculations reproduce the main features of the experimental cross section quite well.Comment: 23 pages, 7 figures, 1 table: Accepted for publication in J. Phys. B: At. Mol. & Opt. Phy

Application of Lean Principles to Neurosurgical Procedures: The Case of Lumbar Spinal Fusion Surgery, a Literature Review and Pilot Series

BACKGROUND Delivery of higher value healthcare is an ultimate government and public goal. Improving efficiency by standardization of surgical steps can improve patient outcomes, reduce costs, and lead to higher value healthcare. Lean principles and methodology have improved timeliness in perioperative medicine; however, process mapping of surgery itself has not been performed. OBJECTIVE To apply Plan/Do/Study/Act (PDSA) cycles methodology to lumbar posterior instrumented fusion (PIF) using lean principles to create a standard work flow, identify waste, remove intraoperative variability, and examine feasibility among pilot cases. METHODS Process maps for 5 PIF procedures were created by a PDSA cycle from 1 faculty neurosurgeon at 1 institution. Plan, modularize PIF into basic components; Do, map and time components; Study, analyze results; and Act, identify waste. Waste inventories, spaghetti diagrams, and chartings of time spent per step were created. Procedural steps were broadly defined in order to compare steps despite the variability in PIF and were analyzed with box and whisker plots to evaluate variability. RESULTS Temporal variabilities in duration of decompression vs closure and hardware vs closure were significantly different (P = .003). Variability in procedural step duration was smallest for closure and largest for exposure. Wastes including waiting and instrument defects accounted for 15% and 66% of all waste, respectively. CONCLUSION This pilot series demonstrates that lean principles can standardize surgical workflows and identify waste. Though time and labor intensive, lean principles and PDSA methodology can be applied to operative steps, not just the perioperative period

War Manifestos

This Article is the first to examine “war manifestos,” documents that set out the legal reasons sovereigns provided for going to war from the late fifteenth through the mid-twentieth centuries. We have assembled the world’s largest collection of war manifestos—over 350—in languages as diverse as Classical Chinese, German, French, Latin, Serbo-Croatian, and Dutch. Prior Anglophone scholarship has almost entirely missed war manifestos. This gap in the literature has produced a correspondingly large gap in our understanding of the role of war during the period in which manifestos were commonly used. Examining these previously ignored manifestos reveals that states exercised the right to wage war in ways that would be inconceivable today. In short, the right to intervene militarily could be asserted in any situation in which a legal right had been violated and all peaceful channels had been explored and exhausted. This Article begins by describing war manifestos. It then explores their history and evolution over the course of five centuries, explains the purposes they served for sovereigns, shows the many “just causes” they cited for war, and, finally, considers the lessons they hold for modern legal dilemmas. The discovery of war manifestos as a set of legal documents not only offers lawyers and legal scholars a new window into the international legal universe of the past, but it also casts new light on several long-standing legal debates

War Manifestos

This Article is the first to examine war manifestos, documents that set out the legal reasons sovereigns provided for going to war from the late fifteenth through the mid-twentieth centuries. We have assembled the world\u27s largest collection of war manifestos-over 350-in languages as diverse as Classical Chinese, German, French, Latin, Serbo-Croatian, and Dutch. Prior Anglophone scholarship has almost entirely missed war manifestos. This gap in the literature has produced a correspondingly large gap in our understanding of the role of war during the period in which manifestos were commonly used. Examining these previously ignored manifestos reveals that states exercised the right to wage war in ways that would be inconceivable today. In short, the right to intervene militarily could be asserted in any situation in which a legal right had been violated and all peaceful channels had been explored and exhausted. This Article begins by describing war manifestos. It then explores their history and evolution over the course of five centuries, explains the purposes they served for sovereigns, shows the many \u27just causes they cited for war, and, finally, considers the lessons they hold for modern legal dilemmas. The discovery of war manifestos as a set of legal documents not only offers lawyers and legal scholars a new window into the international legal universe of the past, but it also casts new light on several long-standing legal debates

Dissolution of coccolithophorid calcite by microzooplankton and copepod grazing

International audienceIndependent of the ongoing acidification of surface seawater, the majority of the calcium carbonate produced in the pelagial is dissolved by natural processes above the lysocline. We investigate to what extent grazing and passage of coccolithophorids through the guts of copepods and the food vacuoles of microzooplankton contribute to calcite dissolution. In laboratory experiments where the coccolithophorid Emiliania huxleyi was fed to the rotifer Brachionus plicatilis, the heterotrophic flagellate Oxyrrhis marina and the copepod Acartia tonsa, calcite dissolution rates of 45?55%, 37?53% and 5?22% of ingested calcite were found. We ascribe higher loss rates in microzooplankton food vacuoles as compared to copepod guts to the strongly acidic digestion and the individual packaging of algal cells. In further experiments, specific rates of calcification and calcite dissolution were also measured in natural populations during the PeECE III mesocosm study under differing ambient pCO2 concentrations. Microzooplankton grazing accounted for between 27 and 70% of the dynamic calcite stock being lost per day, with no measurable effect of CO2 treatment. These measured calcite dissolution rates indicate that dissolution of calcite in the guts of microzooplankton and copepods can account for the calcite losses calculated for the global ocean using budget and model estimates

Stepwise contraction of the nf Rydberg shells in the 3d photoionization of multiply-charged xenon ions

Triple photoionization of Xe3+, Xe4+ and Xe5+ ions has been studied in the energy range 670–750 eV, including the 3d ionization threshold. The photon- ion merged-beam technique was used at a synchrotron light source to measure the absolute photoionization cross sections. These cross sections exhibit a progressively larger number of sharp resonances as the ion charge state is increased. This clearly visualizes the re-ordering of the ǫf continuum into a regular series of (bound) Rydberg orbitals as the ionic core becomes more attractive. The energies and strengths of the resonances are extracted from the experimental data and are further analyzed by relativistic atomic-structure calculations

Near- K -edge single, double, and triple photoionization of C+ ions

Single, double, and triple ionization of the C+ ion by a single photon have been investigated in the energy range 286 to 326 eV around the K-shell single-ionization threshold at an unprecedented level of detail. At energy resolutions as low as 12 meV, corresponding to a resolving power of 24000, natural linewidths of the most prominent resonances could be determined. From the measurement of absolute cross sections, oscillator strengths, Einstein coefficients, multi-electron Auger decay rates and other transition parameters of the main K-shell excitation and decay processes are derived. The cross sections are compared to results of previous theoretical calculations. Mixed levels of agreement are found despite the relatively simple atomic structure of the C+ ion with only 5 electrons. This paper is a follow-up of a previous Letter [M\"uller et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 114, 013002 (2015)]

Local Renyi entropic profiles of DNA sequences

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>In a recent report the authors presented a new measure of continuous entropy for DNA sequences, which allows the estimation of their randomness level. The definition therein explored was based on the Rényi entropy of probability density estimation (pdf) using the Parzen's window method and applied to Chaos Game Representation/Universal Sequence Maps (CGR/USM). Subsequent work proposed a fractal pdf kernel as a more exact solution for the iterated map representation. This report extends the concepts of continuous entropy by defining DNA sequence entropic profiles using the new pdf estimations to refine the density estimation of motifs.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The new methodology enables two results. On the one hand it shows that the entropic profiles are directly related with the statistical significance of motifs, allowing the study of under and over-representation of segments. On the other hand, by spanning the parameters of the kernel function it is possible to extract important information about the scale of each conserved DNA region. The computational applications, developed in Matlab m-code, the corresponding binary executables and additional material and examples are made publicly available at <url>http://kdbio.inesc-id.pt/~svinga/ep/</url>.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The ability to detect local conservation from a scale-independent representation of symbolic sequences is particularly relevant for biological applications where conserved motifs occur in multiple, overlapping scales, with significant future applications in the recognition of foreign genomic material and inference of motif structures.</p

Environmental cues and constraints affecting the seasonality of dominant calanoid copepods in brackish, coastal waters: a case study of Acartia, Temora and Eurytemora species in the south-west Baltic

Information on physiological rates and tolerances helps one gain a cause-and-effect understanding of the role that some environmental (bottom–up) factors play in regulating the seasonality and productivity of key species. We combined the results of laboratory experiments on reproductive success and field time series data on adult abundance to explore factors controlling the seasonality of Acartia spp., Eurytemora affinis and Temora longicornis, key copepods of brackish, coastal and temperate environments. Patterns in laboratory and field data were discussed using a metabolic framework that included the effects of ‘controlling’, ‘masking’ and ‘directive’ environmental factors. Over a 5-year period, changes in adult abundance within two south-west Baltic field sites (Kiel Fjord Pier, 54°19′89N, 10°09′06E, 12–21 psu, and North/Baltic Sea Canal NOK, 54°20′45N, 9°57′02E, 4–10 psu) were evaluated with respect to changes in temperature, salinity, day length and chlorophyll a concentration. Acartia spp. dominated the copepod assemblage at both sites (up to 16,764 and 21,771 females m−3 at NOK and Pier) and was 4 to 10 times more abundant than E. affinis (to 2,939 m−3 at NOK) and T. longicornis (to 1,959 m−3 at Pier), respectively. Species-specific salinity tolerance explains differences in adult abundance between sampling sites whereas phenological differences among species are best explained by the influence of species-specific thermal windows and prey requirements supporting survival and egg production. Multiple intrinsic and extrinsic (environmental) factors influence the production of different egg types (normal and resting), regulate life-history strategies and influence match–mismatch dynamics