437 research outputs found

    Forest health from different perspectives

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    Forest health is an increasingly important concept in natural resource management. However, definition of forest health is difficult and dependent on human perspective. From a utilitarian perspective, forest health has been defined by the production of forest conditions which directly satisfy human needs. From an ecosystem-centered perspective, forest health has been defined by resilience, recurrence, persistence and biophysical processes which lead to sustainable ecological conditions. Definitions and understanding of forest health are also dependent on spatial scale, with increasing ambiguity associated with increasing land area and numbers of trees

    Soil Moisture

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    Near-surface generation of negative ions in low-pressure discharges

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    Formation processes of negative ions in low-pressure plasmas are not yet fully understood: as a rule experiments reveal higher negative ion density than predicted by the models. In this work we report near-surface generation of negative ions. This hitherto neglected formation mechanism appears to be important in low-pressure discharges and can have large impacts on the bulk plasma chemistry. We monitor energy-resolved positive and negative ion fluxes arriving at the electrodes in an oxygen parallel-plate radio-frequency ~rf, 13.56 MHz! and dc glow plasmas by means of a quadrupole mass spectrometer. Negative ions formed in the plasma volume are observed by extracting them through an orifice in the anode of a dc glow discharge. Unexpectedly, we record large negative ion signals at the cathode of a dc discharge and at the grounded electrode of an rf discharge. These ions are formed in the plasma sheath, in collision processes involving high-energy species. We propose an efficient mechanism of negative ion generation due to ion pair formation in the sheath

    Near-surface generation of negative ions in low-pressure discharges

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    Formation processes of negative ions in low-pressure plasmas are not yet fully understood: as a rule experiments reveal higher negative ion density than predicted by the models. In this work we report near-surface generation of negative ions. This hitherto neglected formation mechanism appears to be important in low-pressure discharges and can have large impacts on the bulk plasma chemistry. We monitor energy-resolved positive and negative ion fluxes arriving at the electrodes in an oxygen parallel-plate radio-frequency ~rf, 13.56 MHz! and dc glow plasmas by means of a quadrupole mass spectrometer. Negative ions formed in the plasma volume are observed by extracting them through an orifice in the anode of a dc glow discharge. Unexpectedly, we record large negative ion signals at the cathode of a dc discharge and at the grounded electrode of an rf discharge. These ions are formed in the plasma sheath, in collision processes involving high-energy species. We propose an efficient mechanism of negative ion generation due to ion pair formation in the sheath

    Area-preserving dynamics of a long slender finger by curvature: a test case for the globally conserved phase ordering

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    A long and slender finger can serve as a simple ``test bed'' for different phase ordering models. In this work, the globally-conserved, interface-controlled dynamics of a long finger is investigated, analytically and numerically, in two dimensions. An important limit is considered when the finger dynamics are reducible to the area-preserving motion by curvature. A free boundary problem for the finger shape is formulated. An asymptotic perturbation theory is developed that uses the finger aspect ratio as a small parameter. The leading-order approximation is a modification of ``the Mullins finger" (a well-known analytic solution) which width is allowed to slowly vary with time. This time dependence is described, in the leading order, by an exponential law with the characteristic time proportional to the (constant) finger area. The subleading terms of the asymptotic theory are also calculated. Finally, the finger dynamics is investigated numerically, employing the Ginzburg-Landau equation with a global conservation law. The theory is in a very good agreement with the numerical solution.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures, Latex; corrected typo

    Amplitude measurements of Faraday waves

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    A light reflection technique is used to measure quantitatively the surface elevation of Faraday waves. The performed measurements cover a wide parameter range of driving frequencies and sample viscosities. In the capillary wave regime the bifurcation diagrams exhibit a frequency independent scaling proportional to the wavelength. We also provide numerical simulations of the full Navier-Stokes equations, which are in quantitative agreement up to supercritical drive amplitudes of 20%. The validity of an existing perturbation analysis is found to be limited to 2.5% overcriticaly.Comment: 7 figure

    A computational analysis of lower bounds for big bucket production planning problems

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    In this paper, we analyze a variety of approaches to obtain lower bounds for multi-level production planning problems with big bucket capacities, i.e., problems in which multiple items compete for the same resources. We give an extensive survey of both known and new methods, and also establish relationships between some of these methods that, to our knowledge, have not been presented before. As will be highlighted, understanding the substructures of difficult problems provide crucial insights on why these problems are hard to solve, and this is addressed by a thorough analysis in the paper. We conclude with computational results on a variety of widely used test sets, and a discussion of future research

    A perpetual switching system in pulmonary capillaries

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    Of the 300 billion capillaries in the human lung, a small fraction meet normal oxygen requirements at rest, with the remainder forming a large reserve. The maximum oxygen demands of the acute stress response require that the reserve capillaries are rapidly recruited. To remain primed for emergencies, the normal cardiac output must be parceled throughout the capillary bed to maintain low opening pressures. The flow-distributing system requires complex switching. Because the pulmonary microcirculation contains contractile machinery, one hypothesis posits an active switching system. The opposing hypothesis is based on passive switching that requires no regulation. Both hypotheses were tested ex vivo in canine lung lobes. The lobes were perfused first with autologous blood, and capillary switching patterns were recorded by videomicroscopy. Next, the vasculature of the lobes was saline flushed, fixed by glutaraldehyde perfusion, flushed again, and then reperfused with the original, unfixed blood. Flow patterns through the same capillaries were recorded again. The 16-min-long videos were divided into 4-s increments. Each capillary segment was recorded as being perfused if at least one red blood cell crossed the entire segment. Otherwise it was recorded as unperfused. These binary measurements were made manually for each segment during every 4 s throughout the 16-min recordings of the fresh and fixed capillaries (60,000 measurements). Unexpectedly, the switching patterns did not change after fixation. We conclude that the pulmonary capillaries can remain primed for emergencies without requiring regulation: no detectors, no feedback loops, and no effectors—a rare system in biology

    SPACA3gene variants in a New Zealand cohort of infertile and fertile couples

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    SPRASA (also referred to as SLLP1) is a protein identified in the acrosome of human sperm and encoded by the gene SPACA3. SPRASA is associated with sperm-oocyte recognition and binding, and may play a role in fertility. In order to determine whether variants in the SPACA3 gene are associated with human infertility, we undertook a genetic analysis of 102 infertile and 104 fertile couples. Three gene variants were identified using PCR-based DNA sequencing; 1) an insertion of TGC within a quadruple tri-nucleotide (TGC) repeat region in the 5’ untranslated region (UTR) (g.–22TGC(4_5), 2) a guanine to adenosine transition at position 239 (c.239G> A) resulting in a non-synonymous amino acid substitution from cysteine to tyrosine (p.C80Y) at position 80 in the putative transmembrane region, and 3) a novel nucleotide variant (c.691G> C) located in the 3’UTR. A functional effect of the g.–22TGC (4_5) was confirmed by a luciferase expression assay, while the effects of the variants c.239G> A and c.691G> C were predicted using in silico analysis. Although the frequencies of these variants were not significantly different between the infertile and fertile populations, we present evidence that the variants could affect the expression levels or function of SPRASA, thereby affecting a couple's fertility. Larger populations, especially individuals/couples with unexplained infertility, need to be screened for these variants to validate a relationship with fertility
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