1,783 research outputs found
Dispersal in Mastomys natalensis mice: use of fine-scale genetic analyses for pest management
Mastomys natalensis is the major pest rodent in sub-Saharan Africa. In this study, population genetic techniques were used to gain new insights into its dispersal behaviour, a critical parameter in pest management. Using 11 microsatellites, 272 individuals from a 300 ha area in Tanzania were genotyped. Genetic diversity was high, with no isolation by distance and little differentiation between field plots far apart, indicating a large effective population size and high dispersal rates in agreement with ecological observations. On the other hand, genetic differentiation between nearby field plots, isolation by distance within a single field plot and kin clustering were also observed. This apparent contradiction may be explained by yearly founder effects of a small number of breeding individuals per square area, which is consistent with the presence of linkage disequilibrium. An alternative, not mutually exclusive explanation is that there are both dispersing and sedentary animals in the population. The low-density field plots were characterized by low relatedness and small genetic distances to other field plots, indicating a high turnover rate and negative density-dependent dispersal. In one field plot female-biased dispersal was observed, which may be related to inbreeding avoidance or female competition for resources. Most juveniles appeared to be local recruits, but they did not seem to stay in their native area for more than two months. Finally, possible implications for pest management are discusse
Numerical study of Yang-Mills classical solutions on the twisted torus
We use the lattice cooling method to investigate the structure of some gauge
fixed SU(2) Yang-Mills classical solutions of the euclidean equations of motion
which are defined in the 3-torus with symmetric twisted boundary conditions.Comment: 20pp (fig.included
Development of a high-throughput microsatellite typing approach for forensic and population genetic analysis of wild and domestic African Bovini
Conservation management and forensic traceability of African buffalo and cattle rely on the timely provision of unbiased and accurate genetic information. An approach in which 17 cattle microsatellite markers are co-electrophoresed, following amplification in three core multiplex reactions was established for this purpose. Mean allelic richness per locus was 8.24 and 6.47, for buffalo and Bonsmara cattle, respectively, whilst an unbiased match probability of 6.5xĂ—10-17 and 1.03 Ă— 10-16 was obtained for each. These results confirm the usefulness of this rapid, cost-effective typing approach for forensic, paternity and fine-scale genetic analyses of wild and domestic African Bovini tribe member
A class of elementary particle models without any adjustable real parameters
Conventional particle theories such as the Standard Model have a number of
freely adjustable coupling constants and mass parameters, depending on the
symmetry algebra of the local gauge group and the representations chosen for
the spinor and scalar fields. There seems to be no physical principle to
determine these parameters as long as they stay within certain domains dictated
by the renormalization group. Here however, reasons are given to demand that,
when gravity is coupled to the system, local conformal invariance should be a
spontaneously broken exact symmetry. The argument has to do with the
requirement that black holes obey a complementarity principle relating ingoing
observers to outside observers, or equivalently, initial states to final
states. This condition fixes all parameters, including masses and the
cosmological constant. We suspect that only examples can be found where these
are all of order one in Planck units, but the values depend on the algebra
chosen. This paper combines findings reported in two previous preprints, and
puts these in a clearer perspective by shifting the emphasis towards the
implications for particle models.Comment: 28 pages (incl. title page), no figure
Hard X-ray lags in GRO J1719-24
We have used the Fourier cross spectra of GRO J1719-24, as obtained with
BATSE, to estimate the phase lags between the X-ray flux variations in the
20--50 and 50--100 keV energy bands as a function of Fourier frequency in the
interval 0.002--0.488 Hz. Our analysis covers the entire ~80 day X-ray outburst
of this black-hole candidate, following the first X-ray detection on 1993
September 25. The X-ray variations in the 50--100 keV band lag those in the
20--50 keV energy band by an approximately constant phase difference of 0.072
+/- 0.010 rad in the frequency interval 0.02--0.20 Hz. The peak phase lags in
the interval 0.02--0.20 Hz are about twice those of Cyg X-1 and GRO
J0422+32.These results are consistent with models for Comptonization regions
composed of extended non-uniform clouds around the central source.Comment: 10 pages, including 4 postscript figures, AASTEX. Accepted for
publication by Ap
Probing spacetime foam with extragalactic sources
Due to quantum fluctuations, spacetime is probably ``foamy'' on very small
scales. We propose to detect this texture of spacetime foam by looking for
core-halo structures in the images of distant quasars. We find that the Very
Large Telescope interferometer will be on the verge of being able to probe the
fabric of spacetime when it reaches its design performance. Our method also
allows us to use spacetime foam physics and physics of computation to infer the
existence of dark energy/matter, independent of the evidence from recent
cosmological observations.Comment: LaTeX, 11 pages, 1 figure; version submitted to PRL; several
references added; very useful comments and suggestions by Eric Perlman
incorporate
Infinities within graviton scattering amplitudes
We present unitarity as a method for determining the infinities present in
graviton scattering amplitudes. The infinities are a combination of IR and UV.
By understanding the soft singularities we may extract the UV infinities and
relate these to counter-terms in the effective action. As an demonstration of
this method we rederive the UV infinities present at one-loop when gravity is
coupled to matter.Comment: revised versio
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