8,821 research outputs found

    Indigenous vegetation types of Hamilton Ecological District

    Get PDF
    The following descriptions of indigenous vegetation types and lists of the most characteristic species have been compiled for the major landform units of the Hamilton Ecological District, which lies within the Waikato Ecological Region (McEwen 1987). The boundaries of the Hamilton Ecological District correspond approximately to those of the Hamilton basin, with the addition of parts of hills and foothills at the margins of the basin. The vegetation descriptions and species lists are based on knowledge of the flora of vegetation remnants in the ecological district, historical records (e.g., Gudex 1954), and extrapolation of data from other North Island sites with similar environmental profiles

    The investigation of the flow about general fuselage shapes at high angles of attack

    Get PDF
    Water tunnel visualization of the flow about bodies at high angles of attack was done. Wind tunnel tests on a series of models with non-circular cross sections are reported

    Pop III i-process nucleosynthesis and the elemental abundances of SMSS J0313-6708 and the most iron-poor stars

    Get PDF
    © 2017 The Author(s). Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society. We have investigated a highly energetic H-ingestion event during shell He burning leading to H-burning luminosities of log (L H /L ⊙ ) ~ 13 in a 45M⊙ Pop III massive stellar model. In order to track the nucleosynthesis which may occur in such an event, we run a series of single-zone nucleosynthesis models for typical conditions found in the stellar evolution model. Such nucleosynthesis conditions may lead to i-process neutron densities of up to ~10 13 cm -3 . The resulting simulation abundance pattern, where Mg comes from He burning and Ca from the i process, agrees with the general observed pattern of the most iron-poor star currently known, SMSS J031300.36-670839.3. However, Na is also efficiently produced in these i-process conditions, and the prediction exceeds observations by ~2.5 dex. While this probably rules out this model for SMSS J031300.36-670839.3, the typical i-process signature of combined He burning and i process of higher than solar [Na/Mg] , [Mg/Al], and low [Ca/Mg] is reproducing abundance features of the two next most iron-poor stars HE 1017-5240 and HE 1327-2326 very well. The i process does not reach Fe which would have to come from a low level of additional enrichment. i process in hyper-metal-poor or Pop III massive stars may be able to explain certain abundance patterns observed in some of the most metal-poor CEMP-no stars

    The investigation of flow instabilities on a rotating disk with curvature in the radial direction

    Get PDF
    The major objective is to explore any visible differences of the flow field with wall curvature of the test body, including possible interaction between Taylor-Gortler instabilities present along concave walls and the inflexional instabilities investigated here. An experimental study was conducted with emphasis placed on making visual observations and recording photographically the flow instabilities present under three different rotating bodies: a flat disk, a concave paraboloid, and a convex paraboloid. The data collected for the three test bodies lead to the conclusion that the wall curvature of the concave and convex paraboloids did not alter the observed flow field significantly from that observed on the flat disk

    M-Branes on k-center Instantons

    Full text link
    We present analytic solutions for membrane metric function based on transverse kk-center instanton geometries. The membrane metric functions depend on more than two transverse coordinates and the solutions provide realizations of fully localized type IIA D2/D6 and NS5/D6 brane intersections. All solutions have partial preserved supersymmetries.Comment: 22 pages, 5 figure

    Bringing nature back into cities: urban land environments, indigenous cover and urban restoration

    Get PDF
    1. The restoration of urban ecosystems is an increasingly important strategy to maintain and enhance indigenous biodiversity as well as reconnecting people to the environment. High levels of endemism, the sensitivity of species that have evolved without humans, and the invasion of exotic species have all contributed to severe depletion of indigenous biodiversity in New Zealand. In this work, we analysed national patterns of urban biodiversity in New Zealand and the contribution that urban restoration can make to maximising and enhancing indigenous biodiversity. 2. We analysed data from two national databases in relation to the 20 largest New Zealand cities. We quantified existing indigenous biodiversity within cities, both within the core built up matrix and in centroid buffer zones of 5, 10 and 20 km around this urban centre. We analysed the type and frequency of land environments underlying cities as indicators of the range of native ecosystems that are (or can potentially be) represented within the broader environmental profile of New Zealand. We identified acutely threatened land environments that are represented within urban and periurban areas and the potential role of cities in enhancing biodiversity from these land environments. 3. New Zealand cities are highly variable in both landform and level of indigenous resource. Thirteen of 20 major land environments in New Zealand are represented in cities, and nearly three-quarters of all acutely threatened land environments are represented within 20 km of city cores nationally. Indigenous land cover is low within urban cores, with less than 2% on average remaining, and fragmentation is high. However, indigenous cover increases to more than 10% on average in the periurban zone, and the size of indigenous remnants also increases. The number of remaining indigenous landcover types also increases from only 5 types within the urban centre, to 14 types within 20 km of the inner urban cores. 4. In New Zealand, ecosystem restoration alone is not enough to prevent biodiversity loss from urban environments, with remnant indigenous cover in the urban core too small (and currently too degraded) to support biodiversity long-term. For some cities, indigenous cover in the periurban zone is also extremely low. This has significant ramifications for the threatened lowland and coastal environments that are most commonly represented in cities. Reconstruction of ecosystems is required to achieve a target of 10% indigenous cover in cities: the addition of land to land banks for this purpose is crucial. Future planning that protects indigenous remnants within the periurban zone is critical to the survival of many species within urban areas, mitigating the homogenisation and depletion of indigenous flora and fauna typical of urbanisation. A national urban biodiversity plan would help city councils address biodiversity issues beyond a local and regional focus, while encouraging predominantly local solutions to restoration challenges, based on the highly variable land environments, ecosystems and patch connectivity present within different urban areas

    Galaxy correlations and the BAO in a void universe: structure formation as a test of the Copernican Principle

    Get PDF
    A suggested solution to the dark energy problem is the void model, where accelerated expansion is replaced by Hubble-scale inhomogeneity. In these models, density perturbations grow on a radially inhomogeneous background. This large scale inhomogeneity distorts the spherical Baryon Acoustic Oscillation feature into an ellipsoid which implies that the bump in the galaxy correlation function occurs at different scales in the radial and transverse correlation functions. We compute these for the first time, under the approximation that curvature gradients do not couple the scalar modes to vector and tensor modes. The radial and transverse correlation functions are very different from those of the concordance model, even when the models have the same average BAO scale. This implies that if void models are fine-tuned to satisfy average BAO data, there is enough extra information in the correlation functions to distinguish a void model from the concordance model. We expect these new features to remain when the full perturbation equations are solved, which means that the radial and transverse galaxy correlation functions can be used as a powerful test of the Copernican Principle.Comment: 12 pages, 8 figures, matches published versio
    • 

    corecore