330 research outputs found
Disaggregation of spatial rainfall fields for hydrological modelling
International audienceMeteorological models generate fields of precipitation and other climatological variables as spatial averages at the scale of the grid used for numerical solution. The grid-scale can be large, particularly for GCMs, and disaggregation is required, for example to generate appropriate spatial-temporal properties of rainfall for coupling with surface-boundary conditions or more general hydrological applications. A method is presented here which considers the generation of the wet areas and the simulation of rainfall intensities separately. For the first task, a nearest-neighbour Markov scheme, based upon a Bayesian technique used in image processing, is implemented so as to preserve the structural features of the observed rainfall. Essentially, the large-scale field and the previously disaggregated field are used as evidence in an iterative procedure which aims at selecting a realisation according to the joint posterior probability distribution. In the second task the morphological characteristics of the field of rainfall intensities are reproduced through a random sampling of intensities according to a beta distribution and their allocation to pixels chosen so that the higher intensities are more likely to be further from the dry areas. The components of the scheme are assessed for Arkansas-Red River basin radar rainfall (hourly averages) by disaggregating from 40 km x 40 km to 8 km x 8 km. The wet/dry scheme provides a good reproduction both of the number of correctly classified pixels and the coverage, while the intensitiy scheme generates fields with an adequate variance within the grid-squares, so that this scheme provides the hydrologist with a useful tool for the downscaling of meteorological model outputs. Keywords: Rainfall, disaggregation, General Circulation Model, Bayesian analysi
First-order transition of tethered membranes in 3d space
We study a model of phantom tethered membranes, embedded in three-dimensional
space, by extensive Monte Carlo simulations. The membranes have hexagonal
lattice structure where each monomer is interacting with six nearest-neighbors
(NN). Tethering interaction between NN, as well as curvature penalty between NN
triangles are taken into account. This model is new in the sense that NN
interactions are taken into account by a truncated Lennard-Jones potential
including both repulsive and attractive parts. The main result of our study is
that the system undergoes a first-order crumpling transition from low
temperature flat phase to high temperature crumpled phase, in contrast with
early numerical results on models of tethered membranes.Comment: 5 pages, 6 figure
The effect of dung beetle size on soil nutrient mobilization in an afrotropical forest
Despite recognition of its importance, little is known about functional aspects of soil macrofauna. Here, we investigated the effect of dung beetle body size on macronutrient movement (N, P, K, and C) from elephant dung into soil over 112 days in an Afrotropical forest. We report a large overall effect where more macronutrients are moved into soil over time when beetles are present compared to a control treatment. We also report a large effect of beetle body size on the amount of macronutrient movement, with larger dung beetles moving more nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, and carbon from baseline measurements when compared to smaller sized dung beetles. The presence of smaller sized dung beetles showed a significant positive effect on potassium and phosphorus transfer only. We provide the first experimental evidence that the body size of African dungs directly influences the type of macronutrients recycled and discuss the importance of dung beetle body size for maintaining soil fertility
Evidence of phenotypic plasticity along an altitudinal gradient in the dung beetle Onthophagus proteus
High altitude insects are an ecologically specialized group and possess a suite of adaptions which allow persistence in the inhospitable conditions often associated with mountain tops. Changes in body coloration and reductions or increases in body size are thought to be examples of such adaptions. Melanic individuals, or individuals containing high levels of eumelanin, possess several traits which increase resistance to ultraviolet radiation and desiccation, while aiding thermoregulation. Trait variation is often observed in dung beetles and is associated with dimorphism and sexual selection. In this study, we identified trait changes which occur across an altitudinal gradient by measuring morphological colour and body size traits in a montane insect
Folding transition of the triangular lattice in a discrete three--dimensional space
A vertex model introduced by M. Bowick, P. Di Francesco, O. Golinelli, and E.
Guitter (cond-mat/9502063) describing the folding of the triangular lattice
onto the face centered cubic lattice has been studied in the hexagon
approximation of the cluster variation method. The model describes the
behaviour of a polymerized membrane in a discrete three--dimensional space. We
have introduced a curvature energy and a symmetry breaking field and studied
the phase diagram of the resulting model. By varying the curvature energy
parameter, a first-order transition has been found between a flat and a folded
phase for any value of the symmetry breaking field.Comment: 11 pages, latex file, 2 postscript figure
Random walks on combs
We develop techniques to obtain rigorous bounds on the behaviour of random
walks on combs. Using these bounds we calculate exactly the spectral dimension
of random combs with infinite teeth at random positions or teeth with random
but finite length. We also calculate exactly the spectral dimension of some
fixed non-translationally invariant combs. We relate the spectral dimension to
the critical exponent of the mass of the two-point function for random walks on
random combs, and compute mean displacements as a function of walk duration. We
prove that the mean first passage time is generally infinite for combs with
anomalous spectral dimension.Comment: 42 pages, 4 figure
Folding transitions of the triangular lattice with defects
A recently introduced model describing the folding of the triangular lattice
is generalized allowing for defects in the lattice and written as an Ising
model with nearest-neighbor and plaquette interactions on the honeycomb
lattice. Its phase diagram is determined in the hexagon approximation of the
cluster variation method and the crossover from the pure Ising to the pure
folding model is investigated, obtaining a quite rich structure with several
multicritical points. Our results are in very good agreement with the available
exact ones and extend a previous transfer matrix study.Comment: 16 pages, latex, 5 postscript figure
Deconfinement transition and string tensions in SU(4) Yang-Mills Theory
We present results from numerical lattice calculations of SU(4) Yang-Mills
theory. This work has two goals: to determine the order of the finite
temperature deconfinement transition on an lattice and to study the
string tensions between static charges in the irreducible representations of
SU(4). Motivated by Pisarski and Tytgat's argument that a second-order
SU() deconfinement transition would explain some features of the SU(3)
and QCD transitions, we confirm older results on a coarser, , lattice.
We see a clear two-phase coexistence signal, characteristic of a first-order
transition, at on a lattice, on which we also
compute a latent heat of . Computing
Polyakov loop correlation functions we calculate the string tension at finite
temperature in the confined phase between fundamental charges, ,
between diquark charges, , and between adjoint charges . We
find that , and our result for the adjoint string
tension is consistent with string breaking.Comment: 10 pages with included figures. For version 2: New calculation and
discussion of latent heat added; 2 new figures and 1 new table. Typo in
abstract corrected for v3. To appear in Physical Review
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