2,620 research outputs found
Conservation Provisions of the Food, Conservation and Energy Act of 2008: Evolutionary Changes and Challenges
Farm Bill, Conservation, Agricultural land retirement, Agricultural land preservation, Working lands, Agricultural and Food Policy, H59, Q58, Policy,
The Permafrost and Organic LayEr module for Forest Models (POLE-FM) 1.0
Climate change and increased fire are eroding the resilience of boreal forests. This is problematic because boreal vegetation and the cold soils underneath store approximately 30 % of all terrestrial carbon. Society urgently needs projections of where, when, and why boreal forests are likely to change. Permafrost (i.e., subsurface material that remains frozen for at least two consecutive years) and the thick soil-surface organic layers (SOLs) that insulate permafrost are important controls of boreal forest dynamics and carbon cycling. However, both are rarely included in process-based vegetation models used to simulate future ecosystem trajectories. To address this challenge, we developed a computationally efficient permafrost and SOL module that operates at fine spatial (1 ha) and temporal (daily) resolutions. The module mechanistically simulates daily changes in depth to permafrost, annual SOL accumulation, and their complex effects on boreal forest structure and functions. We coupled the module to an established forest landscape model, iLand, and benchmarked the model in interior Alaska at spatial scales of stands (1 ha) to landscapes (61,000 ha) and over temporal scales of days to centuries. The coupled model could generate intra- and inter-annual patterns of snow accumulation and active layer depth (portion of soil column that thaws throughout the year) consistent with independent observations in 17 instrumented forest stands. The model was also skilled at representing the distribution of near-surface permafrost presence in a topographically complex landscape. We simulated 34.6 % of forested area in the landscape as underlain by permafrost; a close match to the estimated 33.4 % from the benchmarking product. We further determined that the model could accurately simulate moss biomass, SOL accumulation, fire activity, tree-species composition, and stand structure at the landscape scale. Modular and flexible representations of key biophysical processes that underpin 21st-century ecological change are an essential next step in vegetation simulation to reduce uncertainty in future projections and to support innovative environmental decision making. We show that coupling a new permafrost and SOL module to an existing forest landscape model increases the model’s utility for projecting forest futures at high latitudes. Process-based models that represent relevant dynamics will catalyze opportunities to address previously intractable questions about boreal forest resilience, biogeochemical cycling, and feedbacks to regional and global climate. </p
ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY INFLUENCES ON LIVESTOCK STOCKING AND LOCATION DECISIONS
This paper explores the relationship between state level environmental regulations and stocking and location decisions in the U.S livestock and poultry industry (beef, chicken, dairy and hogs). Rather than conduct this analysis on a species-by-species basis, we choose to focus upon the overall size of the livestock industry (expressed in animal units) and the size of industry found on large, medium and small operations by state (48) and over time (28 yrs). Results indicate that industry may drive policy rather than the converse. However, since we also find that existing policy rules have differential impacts on the industry by operation size, we conclude that structural change in the industry may be driven in part by size or legal structure discriminating regulations.Demand and Price Analysis, Livestock Production/Industries,
The Fermionic Density-functional at Feshbach Resonance
We consider a dilute gas of neutral unpolarized fermionic atoms at zero
temperature.The atoms interact via a short range (tunable) attractive
interaction. We demonstrate analytically a curious property of the gas at
unitarity. Namely, the correlation energy of the gas, evaluated by second order
perturbation theory, has the same density dependence as the first order
exchange energy, and the two almost exactly cancel each other at Feshbach
resonance irrespective of the shape of the potential, provided . Here is the range of the two-body potential, and is
defined through the number density . The implications of this
result for universality is discussed.Comment: Five pages, one table. accepted for publication in PR
Using ultra-thin parylene films as an organic gate insulator in nanowire field-effect transistors
We report the development of nanowire field-effect transistors featuring an
ultra-thin parylene film as a polymer gate insulator. The room temperature,
gas-phase deposition of parylene is an attractive alternative to oxide
insulators prepared at high temperatures using atomic layer deposition. We
discuss our custom-built parylene deposition system, which is designed for
reliable and controlled deposition of <100 nm thick parylene films on III-V
nanowires standing vertically on a growth substrate or horizontally on a device
substrate. The former case gives conformally-coated nanowires, which we used to
produce functional -gate and gate-all-around structures. These give
sub-threshold swings as low as 140 mV/dec and on/off ratios exceeding at
room temperature. For the gate-all-around structure, we developed a novel
fabrication strategy that overcomes some of the limitations with previous
lateral wrap-gate nanowire transistors. Finally, we show that parylene can be
deposited over chemically-treated nanowire surfaces; a feature generally not
possible with oxides produced by atomic layer deposition due to the surface
`self-cleaning' effect. Our results highlight the potential for parylene as an
alternative ultra-thin insulator in nanoscale electronic devices more broadly,
with potential applications extending into nanobioelectronics due to parylene's
well-established biocompatible properties
Leydig cells express neural cell adhesion molecules in vivo and in vitro
The neural cell adhesion molecule (NCAM) polypeptides are expressed by numerous tissues during embryonic development, where they are involved in cell-cell interactions. In the adult, NCAM expression is confined to a few cell types, including neurons and peptide-hormone-producing cells. Here we demonstrate that the Leydig cells of the adult rat, mouse, and hamster testes express NCAM as well. Western blotting showed that an NCAM of approximately 120 kDa was present in the adult testes of all three species investigated. This form was also found in freshly isolated mouse Leydig cells and in Leydig cells after 2 days in culture. After 4 days in culture, mouse Leydig cells expressed additional NCAM isoforms of approximately 140 and 180 kDa, indicating changes in alternative splicing of NCAM primary transcripts. Also, NCAM mRNA of all isoforms, as detected by S1-nuclease protection assays, increased with time in culture. The expression of the cell adhesion molecule NCAM by adult Leydig cells may explain the aggregation of Leydig cells in clusters in rodent testes, which could be a prerequisite for functional coordination of groups of Leydig cells. Furthermore, the presence of this neural and endocrine marker may indicate a closer relationship between Leydig cells and neural and peptide-hormone-producing cells than is considered to exist at the present time
Long exciton spin memory in coupled quantum wells
Spatially indirect excitons in a coupled quantum well structure were studied
by means of polarization and time resolved photoluminescence. A strong degree
of circular polarization (> 50%) in emission was achieved when the excitation
energy was tuned into resonance with the direct exciton state. The indirect
transition remained polarized several tens of nanoseconds after the pumping
laser pulse, demonstrating directly a very long relaxation time of exciton
spin. The observed spin memory effect exceeds the radiative lifetime of the
indirect excitons.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure
On Functionality of Visibly Pushdown Transducers
Visibly pushdown transducers form a subclass of pushdown transducers that
(strictly) extends finite state transducers with a stack. Like visibly pushdown
automata, the input symbols determine the stack operations. In this paper, we
prove that functionality is decidable in PSpace for visibly pushdown
transducers. The proof is done via a pumping argument: if a word with two
outputs has a sufficiently large nesting depth, there exists a nested word with
two outputs whose nesting depth is strictly smaller. The proof uses technics of
word combinatorics. As a consequence of decidability of functionality, we also
show that equivalence of functional visibly pushdown transducers is
Exptime-Complete.Comment: 20 page
Forming and confining of dipolar excitons by quantizing magnetic fields
We show that a magnetic field perpendicular to an AlGaAs/GaAs coupled quantum
well efficiently traps dipolar excitons and leads to the stabilization of the
excitonic formation and confinement in the illumination area. Hereby, the
density of dipolar excitons is remarkably enhanced up to . By means of Landau level spectroscopy we study the density of excess
holes in the illuminated region. Depending on the excitation power and the
applied electric field, the hole density can be tuned over one order of
magnitude up to - a value comparable with typical
carrier densities in modulation-doped structures.Comment: 4.3 Pages, 4 Figure
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