Photoelectric emission from the alkali metal doped vacuum-ice interface

The photoelectron photoemission spectra and thresholds for low coverages of Li and K adsorbed on water-ice have been measured, compared with photoionization spectra of the gas-phase atoms, and modeled by quantum chemical calculations. For both alkali metals the threshold for photoemission is dramatically decreased and the cross section increased on adsorption to the water-ice surface. Quantum chemical calculations suggest that the initial state is formed by the metal atoms adsorbed into the water-ice surface, forming a state with a delocalized electron distribution. This state is metastable and decays on the hundreds of seconds time scale at 92 K. The decay is markedly faster for Li than for K, probably due to diffusion into the ice film

Importance of Viral Disease in Dairy Cow Fertility

Many viral diseases are endemic in cattle populations worldwide. The ability of many viruses to cross the placenta and cause abortions and fetal malformations is well understood. There is also significant evidence that viral infections have additional actions in dairy cows, which are reflected in reduced conception rates. These effects are, however, highly dependent on the time at which an individual animal first contracts the disease and are less easy to quantify. This paper reviews the evidence relating to five viruses that can affect fertility, together with their potential mechanisms of action. Acute infection with non-cytopathic bovine viral diarrhea virus (BVDV) in mid-gestation increases abortion rates or causes the birth of persistently infected calves. BVDV infections closer to the time of breeding can have direct effects on the ovaries and uterine endometrium, which cause estrous cycle irregularities and early embryo mortality. Fertility may also be reduced by BVDV-induced immunosuppression, which increases the susceptibility to bacterial infections. Bovine herpesvirus (BHV)-1 is most common in pre-pubertal heifers, and can slow their growth, delay breeding, and increase the age at first calving. Previously infected animals subsequently show reduced fertility. Although this may be associated with lung damage, ovarian lesions have also been reported. Both BHV-1 and BHV-4 remain latent in the host following initial infection and may be reactivated later by stress, for example associated with calving and early lactation. While BHV-4 infection alone may not reduce fertility, it appears to act as a co-factor with established bacterial pathogens such as Escherichia coli and Trueperella pyogenes to promote the development of endometritis and delay uterine repair mechanisms after calving. Both Schmallenberg virus (SBV) and bluetongue virus (BTV) are transmitted by insect vectors and lead to increased abortion rates and congenital malformations. BTV-8 also impairs the development of hatched blastocysts; furthermore, infection around the time of breeding with either virus appears to reduce conception rates. Although the reductions in conception rates are often difficult to quantify, they are nevertheless sufficient to cause economic losses, which help to justify the benefits of vaccination and eradication schemes

Capacities of Grassmann channels

A new class of quantum channels called Grassmann channels is introduced and their classical and quantum capacity is calculated. The channel class appears in a study of the two-mode squeezing operator constructed from operators satisfying the fermionic algebra. We compare Grassmann channels with the channels induced by the bosonic two-mode squeezing operator. Among other results, we challenge the relevance of calculating entanglement measures to assess or compare the ability of bosonic and fermionic states to send quantum information to uniformly accelerated frames.Comment: 33 pages, Accepted in Journal of Mathematical Physics; The role of the (fermionic) braided tensor product for quantum Shannon theory, namely capacity formulas, elucidated; The conclusion on the equivalence of Unruh effect for bosons and fermions for quantum communication purposes made clear and even more precis

Tentative detection of the gravitational magnification of type Ia supernovae

The flux from distant type Ia supernovae (SN) is likely to be amplified or de-amplified by gravitational lensing due to matter distributions along the line-of-sight. A gravitationally lensed SN would appear brighter or fainter than the average SN at a particular redshift. We estimate the magnification of 26 SNe in the GOODS fields and search for a correlation with the residual magnitudes of the SNe. The residual magnitude, i.e. the difference between observed and average magnitude predicted by the "concordance model" of the Universe, indicates the deviation in flux from the average SN. The linear correlation coefficient for this sample is r=0.29. For a similar, but uncorrelated sample, the probability of obtaining a correlation coefficient equal to or higher than this value is ~10%, i.e. a tentative detection of lensing at ~90% confidence level. Although the evidence for a correlation is weak, our result is in accordance with what could be expected given the small size of the sample.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figure

Rigorous Enclosures of a Slow Manifold

Slow-fast dynamical systems have two time scales and an explicit parameter representing the ratio of these time scales. Locally invariant slow manifolds along which motion occurs on the slow time scale are a prominent feature of slow-fast systems. This paper introduces a rigorous numerical method to compute enclosures of the slow manifold of a slow-fast system with one fast and two slow variables. A triangulated first order approximation to the two dimensional invariant manifold is computed "algebraically". Two translations of the computed manifold in the fast direction that are transverse to the vector field are computed as the boundaries of an initial enclosure. The enclosures are refined to bring them closer to each other by moving vertices of the enclosure boundaries one at a time. As an application we use it to prove the existence of tangencies of invariant manifolds in the problem of singular Hopf bifurcation and to give bounds on the location of one such tangency

Contemplative Science: An Insider's Prospectus

This chapter describes the potential far‐reaching consequences of contemplative higher education for the fields of science and medicine

The Evolution of the Optical and Near-Infrared Galaxy Luminosity Functions and Luminosity Densities to z~2

Using Hubble Space Telescope and ground-based U through K- band photometry from the Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey (GOODS), we measure the evolution of the luminosity function and luminosity density in the rest-frame optical (UBR) to z ~ 2, bridging the poorly explored ``redshift desert'' between z~1 and z~2. We also use deep near-infrared observations to measure the evolution in the rest-frame J-band to z~1. Compared to local measurements from the SDSS, we find a brightening of the characteristic magnitude, (M*), by ~2.1, \~0.8 and ~0.7 mag between z=0.1 and z=1.9, in U, B, and R bands, respectively. The evolution of M* in the J-band is in the opposite sense, showing a dimming between redshifts z=0.4 and z=0.9. This is consistent with a scenario in which the mean star formation rate in galaxies was higher in the past, while the mean stellar mass was lower, in qualitative agreement with hierarchical galaxy formation models. We find that the shape of the luminosity function is strongly dependent on spectral type and that there is strong evolution with redshift in the relative contribution from the different spectral types to the luminosity density. We find good agreement in the luminosity function derived from an R-selected and a K-selected sample at z~1, suggesting that optically selected surveys of similar depth (R < 24) are not missing a significant fraction of objects at this redshift relative to a near-infrared-selected sample. We compare the rest-frame B-band luminosity functions from z~0--2 with the predictions of a semi-analytic hierarchical model of galaxy formation, and find qualitatively good agreement. In particular, the model predicts at least as many optically luminous galaxies at z~1--2 as are implied by our observations.Comment: 43 pages; 15 Figures; 5 Tables, Accepted for publication in Ap.

Steady State Visual Stimulation of the Brain: Optical Study of Task Related Effects

Near-infrared (NIR) and electroencephalography (EEG) systems were applied simultaneously to check a possibility of an optical brain-computer interface (BCI) based on visual protocol. A two-wavelength, two-channel NIR system using lock-in amplifiers to filter received signal was designed for monitoring of light absorption. An improved single photon-counting system based on NIR laser diodes and multichannel scaling was configured for fast one-wavelength capturing of the scatter changes in the area of the human brain corresponding to the task. Designed protocols consisted of the pattern reversed repeatedly at various frequencies. The stimulus repetition improves processing according to some behavioural measure as e.g. greater accuracy in identifying the stimulus or faster response times to make a decision about it, and often occurs under the same experimental conditions. Under certain conditions rather increased activity in the brain could be observed which results in a longer habituation time. Results of tests are presented in current article

A 12-Channel, real-time near-infrared spectroscopy instrument for brain-computer interface applications

A continuous wave near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) instrument for brain-computer interface (BCI) applications is presented. In the literature, experiments have been carried out on subjects with such motor degenerative diseases as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, which have demonstrated the suitability of NIRS to access intentional functional activity, which could be used in a BCI as a communication aid. Specifically, a real-time, multiple channel NIRS tool is needed to realise access to even a few different mental states, for reasonable baud rates. The 12-channel instrument described here has a spatial resolution of 30mm, employing a flexible software demodulation scheme. Temporal resolution of ~100ms is maintained since typical topographic imaging is not needed, since we are only interested in exploiting the vascular response for BCI control. A simple experiment demonstrates the ability of the system to report on haemodynamics during single trial mental arithmetic tasks. Multiple trial averaging is not required