Seasonal Biomass and Carbohydrate Allocation Patterns in Southern Minnesota Curlyleaf Pondweed Populations

Four southern Minnesota populations of curlyleaf pondweed ( Potamogeton crispus L.) were sampled monthly from January 2001 to November 2002 to determine seasonal phenological, biomass, and carbohydrate allocation patterns. Low periods of carbohydrate storage in the seasonal phenological cycle indicate potentially vulnerable periods in the plant’s life cycle and may be the ideal time to initiate management and control efforts

Fragmentos de la política religiosa de un emperador: el caso de Adriano

Neither the concept of “imperial policy” nor of “religion” are easily applied to antiq­uity. Yet the activities of Roman emperors often did have consequences for religious activity, and their behaviour was not neces­sarily chaotic or random. Hadrian provides a good case for examining how religious activity was incorporated into ancient biog­raphy and historical writing, and how it was related to other fields of imperial conduct. A good deal is recorded about Hadrian’s conduct of religious offices, his building projects and his engagement with older tradition, Roman and foreign. The dossier of testimonia does reveals some consist­encies in his behaviour but these seem to derive less from policy than from habits of thought and action. Many of his actions can be interpreted as conventional, even if sometimes performed on an unconvention­al scale. Hadrian certainly exercised agency, and he had particular dispositions as a rul­er. But religious policy seems an anachro­nistic term to apply to his conduct.Ni el concepto “política imperial” ni el de “religión” son fácilmente aplicables a la Anti­güedad. A pesar de ello, la labor de los empe­radores romanos tuvo, frecuentemente, un notable impacto sobre la actividad religiosa, y su comportamiento no fue, necesariamen­te, caótico o aleatorio. Adriano proporciona un buen caso para examinar cómo la activi­dad religiosa del emperador fue incorpora­da a las biografías antiguas y a la narración histórica, y cómo estaba relacionada con otros ámbitos de la acción imperial. Nos ha llegado mucha información sobre la activi­dad adrianea relativa a cargos religiosos, a sus proyectos edilicios y a su vinculación con la tradición anterior, romana y extranjera. El elenco de testimonia revela una cierta con­sistencia en su comportamiento, pero parece derivar menos de la política que de hábitos de pensamiento y acción. Muchas de sus ac­ciones pueden ser interpretadas como con­vencionales, incluso si algunas veces se lleva­ron a cabo a una escala inusual. Ciertamente, Adriano ejerció su voluntad, y tuvo una dis­posición particular como gobernante. Pero el término “política religiosa” parece un ana­cronismo al aplicarlo sobre su conducta.

Towards asteroseismology of the non-radial pulsating sdB star PG 1605+072

The recently discovered new class of sdB pulsators (sdBV) offers a powerful possibility for the investigation of their interior and thus their evolutionary history. The first step towards applying asteroseismologic tools is the identification of pulsation modes. We reoport on simultaneous spectroscopic and multi-band photometric time series observations of PG 1605+072 and analyse its radial velocity and light curve.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, Proc. XIII Workshop on White Dwarfs, eds. D. de Martino, R. Kalytis, R. Silvotti, J.E. Solheim, Kluwe

Achieving a Strongly Temperature-Dependent Casimir Effect

We propose a method of achieving large temperature sensitivity in the Casimir force that involves measuring the stable separation between dielectric objects immersed in fluid. We study the Casimir force between slabs and spheres using realistic material models, and find large > 2nm/K variations in their stable separations (hundreds of nanometers) near room temperature. In addition, we analyze the effects of Brownian motion on suspended objects, and show that the average separation is also sensitive to changes in temperature . Finally, this approach also leads to rich qualitative phenomena, such as irreversible transitions, from suspension to stiction, as the temperature is varied

Time and periodicity from Ptolemy to Schrödinger: paradigm shifts vs continuity in history of mathematics

I briefly consider the Kuhnian notion of "paradigm shifts" applied to the history of mathematics and argue that the succession and intergenerational continuity of mathematical thought was undeservedly neglected in the historical studies. To this end, I focus on the history of mathematical theory of time and periodicity, from Ptolemy's epicycles to Schroedinger's quantum amplitudes interference and contemporary cosmological models