1,464 research outputs found
Extinction time in growth models subject to binomial catastrophes
Populations are often subject to catastrophes that cause mass removal of
individuals. Many stochastic growth models have been considered to explain such
dynamics. Among the results reported, it has been considered whether dispersion
strategies, at times of catastrophes, increase the survival probability of the
population. In this paper, we contrast dispersion strategies comparing mean
extinction times of the population when extinction occurs almost surely. In
particular, we consider populations subject to binomial catastrophes, that is,
the population size is reduced according to a binomial law when a catastrophe
occurs. Our results show which is the best strategy (dispersion or
non-dispersion) depending on model parameter values.Comment: 15 pages, 2 figures. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with
arXiv:2109.1099
C and O stable isotopes and rare earth elements in the Devonian carbonate host rock of the Pivehzhan iron deposit, NE Iran
The Pivehzhan iron deposit is located at about 80km southwest of Mashhad, NE Iran. It occur within the Devonian carbonates as lenticular and massive bodies, as well as veinlets of magnetite and iron sulphides, transformed to goethite and haematite by weathering process. The hydrothermal calcite is the most important gangue mineral, which is observed in the form of veins/veinlets and open-space filling. The iron ores are accompanied by some minor elements such as Mn, Ti, Cr, and V and negligible amounts of Co and Ni. The distribution pattern of Rare Earth Elements (REEs) normalized to Post Archean Australian Shale (PAAS), which is characterized by the upward convex, as well as the positive Eu anomalies indicate the activity of reduced and acidic hydrothermal fluids. The negative Ce anomalies of host carbonates, although slight, point to the dominance of anoxic conditions during interaction with hydrothermal fluids. The hydrothermal calcite and quartz coexisting with the iron minerals contain principally fluid, which were homogenized into a liquid phase. The Homogenization Temperature (TH) and the salinity of the analysed fluid inclusions range from 129°C to 270°C and from 0.4wt.% to 9.41wt.% NaCl eq., respectively. The δ13CPDB and δ18OSMOW values range from -2.15‰ to -5.77‰ (PeeDee Belemnite PDB standard) and from +19.87‰ to +21.64‰ (Standard Mean Ocean Water SMOW standard) in hydrothermal calcite veinlets occurring with iron minerals, and from -0.66‰ to -4.37‰ (PDB) and from +15.55‰ to +20.14‰ (SMOW) within the host carbonates, respectively. The field relations and petrographic examination along with geochemical and isotopic considerations indicate that the Pivehzhan iron deposit was formed through replacement processes by reducing and acid fluids containing light carbon and oxygen isotopes. Variations in the physico-chemical conditions of hydrothermal fluids and their interaction with carbonates were the most effective mechanisms in the formation of this iron deposit. The potential source of iron was probably the basement magmatic rocks from which iron was leached by hydrothermal solutions
Predictive capacity of boar sperm morphometry and morphometric sub-populations on reproductive success after artificial insemination
The aim of the study was to compare the morphometric features of sperm head size and shape from the Pietrain line and the Duroc × Pietrain boar crossbred terminal lines, and to evaluate their relationship with reproductive success after artificial insemination of sows produced from crossbreeding the York, Landrace and Pietrain breeds. Semen samples were collected from 11 sexually mature boars. Only ejaculates with greater than 70% motility rate and <15% of abnormal sperm were used for artificial inseminations (AI) and included in the study. Samples were analyzed using an ISAS®v1 computer-assisted sperm analysis system for eight morphometric parameters of head shape and size (CASA-Morph). Sub-populations of morphometric ejaculates were characterized using multivariate procedures, such as principal component (PC) analysis and clustering methods (k-means model). Four different ejaculate sub-populations were identified from two PCs that involved the head shape and size of the spermatozoa. The discriminant ability of the different morphometric sperm variables to predict sow litter size was analyzed using a receiver operating characteristics (ROC) curve analysis. Sperm head length, ellipticity, elongation, and regularity showed significant predictive capacity on litter size (0.59, 0.59, 0.60, and 0.56 area under curve (AUC), respectively). The morphometric sperm sub-populations were not related to sow litter size
An ontology knowledge inspection methodology for quality assessment and continuous improvement
Ontology-learning methods were introduced in the knowledge engineering area to automatically build ontologies from natural language texts related to a domain. Despite the initial appeal of these methods, automatically generated ontologies may have errors, inconsistencies, and a poor design quality, all of which must be manually fixed, in order to maintain the validity and usefulness of automated output. In this work, we propose a methodology to assess ontologies quality (quantitatively and graphically) and to fix ontology inconsistencies minimising design defects. The proposed methodology is based on the Deming cycle and is grounded on quality standards that proved effective in the software engineering domain and present high potential to be extended to knowledge engineering quality management. This paper demonstrates that software engineering quality assessment approaches and techniques can be successfully extended and applied to the ontology-fixing and quality improvement problem. The proposed methodology was validated in a testing ontology, by ontology design quality comparison between a manually created and automatically generated ontology.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio
C and O stable isotopes and rare earth elements in the Devonian carbonate host rock of the Pivehzhan iron deposit, NE Iran
The Pivehzhan iron deposit is located at about 80km southwest of Mashhad, NE Iran. They occur within the Devonian carbonates as lenticular and massive bodies, as well as veinlets of magnetite and iron sulphides, transformed to goethite and haematite by weathering process. The hydrothermal calcite is the most important gangue mineral, which is observed in the form of veins/veinlets and open-space filling. The iron ores are accompanied by some minor elements such as Mn, Ti, Cr, and V and negligible amounts of Co and Ni. The distribution pattern of Rare Earth Elements (REEs) normalized to Post Archean Australian Shale (PAAS), which is characterized by the upward convex, as well as the positive Eu anomalies indicate the activity of reduced and acidic hydrothermal fluids. The negative Ce anomalies of host carbonates, although slight, point to the dominance of anoxic conditions during interaction with hydrothermal fluids.The hydrothermal calcite and quartz coexisting with the iron minerals contain principally fluid, which were homogenized into liquid phase. The homogenization temperature (TH(L-V)) and the salinity of the analysed fluid inclusions range from 129°C to 270°C and from 0.4wt.% to 9.41wt.% NaCl eq., respectively. The δ13CPDB and  δ18OSMOW values ranges from -2.15‰ to -5.77‰ (PeeDee Belemnite standard, PDB) and from +19.87‰ to +21.64‰ (Standard Mean Ocean Water standard, SMOW) in hydrothermal calcite veinlets occurring with iron minerals and -0.66‰ to -4.37‰ (PDB) and +15.55‰ to +20.14‰ (SMOW) within the host carbonates, respectively.The field relations and petrographic examination along with geochemical and isotopic considerations indicate that the Pivehzhan iron deposit was formed through replacement processes by reducing and acid fluids containing light carbon and oxygen isotopes. Variations in the physico-chemical conditions of hydrothermal fluids and their interaction with carbonates were the most effective mechanisms in the formation of this iron deposit. The potential source of iron was probably the basement magmatic rocks from which iron was leached by hydrothermal solutions
Perfil mineral en bovinos lecheros de Santa Fe, Argentina
Los minerales son nutrientes esenciales que representan el 5% del peso vivo del bovino. Sus deficiencias y desequilibrios afectan la producción, reproducción y salud animal. Para indagar el estatus mineral del ganado Holstein y cruza Holstein-Friesian en tres establecimientos del Departamento Las Colonias (Santa Fe, Argentina), se investigaron sangre y leche de 15 vacas en 4 perÃodos fisiológicos, durante las primaveras y veranos de los años 2006 a 2008. Los bovinos se alimentaron con recursos pastoriles, en condiciones edáficas diferentes. En las muestras de suero de los tres campos se evidenció hipocalcemia significativa (p<0,05) en gestación y lactación, relacionada con las exigencias fisiológicas y productivas; hiponatremia durante el perÃodo de lactación, debido a la mayor demanda de mineral para la secreción de leche, e hipomagnesemia (p<0,05) debida al estrés del animal próximo al parto y a la pérdida del mineral por sudoración en el verano. Los valores bajos significativos (p<0,05) de cinc en suero durante la gestación tendrÃan relación con la etapa invernal. En las muestras de leche de los distintos campos, se registraron disminuciones de los valores de cinc, magnesio, calcio y potasio (p<0,05) hacia los 60 dÃas del inicio de la lactancia, que se podrÃan justificar por la depleción de minerales hacia la leche. No se verificaron interferencias entre cobre y molibdeno en suero. Se espera que los resultados obtenidos brinden utilidad a los profesionales y productores tamberos de la zona
Vacuum Polarization and Dynamical Chiral Symmetry Breaking: Phase Diagram of QED with Four-Fermion Contact Interaction
We study chiral symmetry breaking for fundamental charged fermions coupled
electromagnetically to photons with the inclusion of four-fermion contact
self-interaction term. We employ multiplicatively renormalizable models for the
photon dressing function and the electron-photon vertex which minimally ensures
mass anomalous dimension = 1. Vacuum polarization screens the interaction
strength. Consequently, the pattern of dynamical mass generation for fermions
is characterized by a critical number of massless fermion flavors above which
chiral symmetry is restored. This effect is in diametrical opposition to the
existence of criticality for the minimum interaction strength necessary to
break chiral symmetry dynamically. The presence of virtual fermions dictates
the nature of phase transition. Miransky scaling laws for the electromagnetic
interaction strength and the four-fermion coupling, observed for quenched QED,
are replaced by a mean-field power law behavior corresponding to a second order
phase transition. These results are derived analytically by employing the
bifurcation analysis, and are later confirmed numerically by solving the
original non-linearized gap equation. A three dimensional critical surface is
drawn to clearly depict the interplay of the relative strengths of interactions
and number of flavors to separate the two phases. We also compute the
beta-function and observe that it has ultraviolet fixed point. The power law
part of the momentum dependence, describing the mass function, reproduces the
quenched limit trivially. We also comment on the continuum limit and the
triviality of QED.Comment: 9 pages, 10 figure
Multiplex Decomposition of Non-Markovian Dynamics and the Hidden Layer Reconstruction Problem
Elements composing complex systems usually interact in several different ways
and as such the interaction architecture is well modelled by a multiplex
network. However often this architecture is hidden, as one usually only has
experimental access to an aggregated projection. A fundamental challenge is
thus to determine whether the hidden underlying architecture of complex systems
is better modelled as a single interaction layer or results from the
aggregation and interplay of multiple layers. Here we show that using local
information provided by a random walker navigating the aggregated network one
can decide in a robust way if the underlying structure is a multiplex or not
and, in the former case, to determine the most probable number of hidden
layers. As a byproduct, we show that the mathematical formalism also provides a
principled solution for the optimal decomposition and projection of complex,
non-Markovian dynamics into a Markov switching combination of diffusive modes.
We validate the proposed methodology with numerical simulations of both (i)
random walks navigating hidden multiplex networks (thereby reconstructing the
true hidden architecture) and (ii) Markovian and non-Markovian continuous
stochastic processes (thereby reconstructing an effective multiplex
decomposition where each layer accounts for a different diffusive mode). We
also state and prove two existence theorems guaranteeing that an exact
reconstruction of the dynamics in terms of these hidden jump-Markov models is
always possible for arbitrary finite-order Markovian and fully non-Markovian
processes. Finally, we showcase the applicability of the method to experimental
recordings from (i) the mobility dynamics of human players in an online
multiplayer game and (ii) the dynamics of RNA polymerases at the
single-molecule level.Comment: 40 pages, 24 figure
Exact two-spinon dynamical correlation function of the Heisenberg model
We derive the exact contribution of two spinons to the dynamical correlation
function of the spin-1/2 Heisenberg model. For this, we use the isotropic
limits of the exact form factors that have been recently computed through the
quantum affine symmetry of the anisotropic Heisenberg model Comment: 9 pages, Latex, 2 corrections of coefficient
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