A metapopulation model with Markovian landscape dynamics

We study a variant of Hanski's incidence function model that allows habitat patch characteristics to vary over time following a Markov process. The widely studied case where patches are classified as either suitable or unsuitable is included as a special case. For large metapopulations, we determine a recursion for the probability that a given habitat patch is occupied. This recursion enables us to clarify the role of landscape dynamics in the survival of a metapopulation. In particular, we show that landscape dynamics affects the persistence and equilibrium level of the metapopulation primarily through its effect on the distribution of a local population's life span.Comment: This manuscript version is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0

Evaluation of Antioxidant, Anti-tyrosinase and Antibacterial Activities of Selected Hibiscus Species

Leaves and flowers of selected Hibiscus species, used in traditional medicine, were evaluated for antioxidant, antityrosinase and antibacterial activities. Information on these species is meagre and this study would contribute new and additional knowledge on the bioactivities of the genus. Antioxidant properties (AOP) of six species assessed were total phenolic content (TPC), total anthocyanin content (TAC), ascorbic acid equivalent antioxidant capacity (AEAC), ferric reducing power (FRP), ferrous ion chelating (FIC) ability and lipid peroxidation inhibition (LPI) activity. Antityrosinase and antibacterial activities of four species were assessed using the modified dopachrome and disc diffusion methods, respectively. Leaves and flowers of Hibiscus tiliaceus showed outstanding AOP. Leaves of species with high TPC and AEAC had low FIC ability and vice versa. Red flowers which yielded the highest TAC also displayed high FIC ability and LPI activity. Leaves of H. tiliaceus had the strongest antityrosinase (AT) activity. With very strong AOP and AT activity, leaves of H. tiliaceus have potentials to be developed into functional food and skin care products. At 1 mg extract/disc, leaves of Hibiscus sabdariffa were found to inhibit Gram-positive bacteria of Bacillus cereus, Micrococcus luteus and Staphylococcus aureus. At 2 mg extract/disc, leaves of H. sabdariffa inhibited both Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria of Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Salmonella choleraesuis. This is the first report of leaf extracts of H. sabdariffa inhibiting Gram-negative bacteria. Adding 1 mM of ethylenediamine tetraacetic acid (EDTA) to the agar slightly enhanced the antibacterial activity of leaves of H. sabdariffa on Gram-negative bacteria. With a wide spectrum of inhibition against Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria, leaves of H. sabdariffa are worthy of further investigation as a natural wide spectrum antibacterial agent

Calculation of composition distribution of ultrafine ion-H2O-H2SO4 clusters using a modified binary ion nucleation theory

Thomson's ion nucleation theory was modified to include the effects of curvature dependence of the microscopic surface tension of field dependent, nonlinear, dielectric properties of the liquid; and of sulfuric acid hydrate formation in binary mixtures of water and sulfuric acid vapors. The modified theory leads to a broadening of the ion cluster spectrum, and shifts it towards larger numbers of H2O and H2SO4 molecules. Whether there is more shifting towards larger numbers of H2O or H2SO4 molecules depends on the relative humidity and relative acidity of the mixture. Usually, a broadening of the spectrum is accompanied by a lowering of the mean cluster intensity. For fixed values of relative humidity and relative acidity, a similar broadening pattern is observed when the temperature is lowered. These features of the modified theory illustrate that a trace of sulfuric acid can facilitate the formation of ultrafine, stable, prenucleation ion clusters as well as the growth of the prenucleation ion clusters towards the critical saddle point conditions, even with low values of relative humidity and relative acidity

A comparison of sampling designs in a Hainan tropical rain forest

Different sampling strategies are simulated by changing quadrat size, quadrat shape, sample size and the arrangement of quadrats in a tropical rain forest of Hainan (South China). The simulation uses enumeration data of trees, and derived variables such as species richness, species importance, and species population density, to compare the efficiency of the sampling. The results verify that greater sampling efficiency is to be expected using systematic sampling than random sampling. Quadrat size has substantial influence on parameter estimation, but quadrat shape has negligible effect except when the quadrat is extremely long and narrow

CMB Constraint on Radion Evolution in the Brane World Scenario

In many versions of brane model, the modulus field of extra dimensions, the radion, could have cosmological evolution, which induces variation of the Higgs vacuum expectation value, , resulting in cosmological variation of the electron mass $m_e$. The formation of Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) anisotropies is thus affected, causing changes both in the peaks positions and amplitudes in the CMB power spectra. Using the three-year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropies Probe (WMAP) CMB data, with the Hubble parameter $H_0$ fixed to be the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) result 72 km s$^{-1}$ Mpc$^{-1}$, we obtain a constraint on $\rho$, the ratio of the value of at CMB recombination to its present value, to be [0.97, 1.02].Comment: 7 pages, 6 figures, minor changes of format to conform with PRD forma

Unique gap structure and symmetry of the charge density wave in single-layer VSe2_2

Single layers of transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs) are excellent candidates for electronic applications beyond the graphene platform; many of them exhibit novel properties including charge density waves (CDWs) and magnetic ordering. CDWs in these single layers are generally a planar projection of the corresponding bulk CDWs because of the quasi-two-dimensional nature of TMDCs; a different CDW symmetry is unexpected. We report herein the successful creation of pristine single-layer VSe$_2$, which shows a ($\sqrt7 \times \sqrt3$) CDW in contrast to the (4 $\times$ 4) CDW for the layers in bulk VSe$_2$. Angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) from the single layer shows a sizable ($\sqrt7 \times \sqrt3$) CDW gap of $\sim$100 meV at the zone boundary, a 220 K CDW transition temperature twice the bulk value, and no ferromagnetic exchange splitting as predicted by theory. This robust CDW with an exotic broken symmetry as the ground state is explained via a first-principles analysis. The results illustrate a unique CDW phenomenon in the two-dimensional limit

Performance evaluation of video streaming on LTE with coexistence of Wi-Fi signal

The continuous growth in mobile data traffic and limited license wireless spectrum have led to dramatically increase the demand of the radio spectrum. It is widespread the concern about the coexistence of long term evolution (LTE) and Wi-Fi in the unlicensed band. There are several techniques have been proposed to enable the coexistence of LTE and Wi-Fi in the unlicensed band, but these works are targeted on the impact of the LTE to the Wi-Fi network performance. An experiment is carried out in this work to evaluate the impact of Wi-Fi signal on the video streaming in the LTE network. The experimental test comprised of the national instrument (NI) universal software radio peripheral (USRP) 2953R that is controlled by the LabVIEW Communication LTE application framework. Extensiveexperiments are carried out under two scenarios, i.e. (1) Coexistence of LTE and Wi-Fi signal, (2) LTE signal only. Performance evaluations are carried out with different Modulation and coding schemes (MCS) values and different mode of operations, i.e. frequency division duplex (FDD) and time division duplex (TDD) mode. The results illustrated that the interference from Wi-Fi signal caused the performance degradation of the LTE network in throughput and the power received by user equipment (UE)

Energetic Components of Cooperative Protein Folding

A new lattice protein model with a four-helix bundle ground state is analyzed by a parameter-space Monte Carlo histogram technique to evaluate the effects of an extensive variety of model potentials on folding thermodynamics. Cooperative helical formation and contact energies based on a 5-letter alphabet are found to be insufficient to satisfy calorimetric and other experimental criteria for two-state folding. Such proteinlike behaviors are predicted, however, by models with polypeptide-like local conformational restrictions and environment-dependent hydrogen bonding-like interactions.Comment: 11 pages, 4 postscripts figures, Phys. Rev. Lett. (in press