285 research outputs found
An Evaluation of Three Drift Reduction Adjuvants for Aerial Application of Pesticides
Preventing pesticide drift from aerial applications is important for environmental and application efficiency reasons. Proper analysis of drift reduction technologies or techniques is an essential component of the drift prevention process. In the current study, three drift reduction adjuvants were tested with two herbicides under several application conditions used by rotary-wing and fixed-wing aircraft in the U.S. Data was collected using a high speed wind tunnel and laser diffraction equipment. The results of the study indicated application conditions, and not adjuvant inclusion, were the largest drivers of the droplet size distribution and drift potential. Data was further computed in the drift prediction program, AGDISP, where little differences were observed between the treatments. This study highlighted the importance of testing drift reduction technologies or techniques from multiple viewpoints
Modelling the functional connectivity of landscapes for greater horseshoe bats Rhinolophus ferrumequinum at a local scale
Context: The importance of habitat connectivity for
wildlife is widely recognised. However, assessing the
movement of species tends to rely on radio-tracking or
GPS evidence, which is difficult and costly to gather.
Objectives: To examine functional connectivity of
greater horseshoe bats (GHS, Rhinolophus ferrumequinum)
at a local scale using Circuitscape software;
comparing our results against expert opinion âfly
waysâ.
Methods: Expert opinions were used to rank and
score five environmental layers influencing GHS
movement, generating resistance scores. The slope
and resistance scores of these layers were varied, and
validated against independent ground truthed GHS
activity data, until a unimodal peak in correlation was
identified for each layer. The layers were combined
into a multivariate model and re-evaluated. Radiotracking
studies were used to further validate the
model, and the transferability was tested at other roost
locations.
Results: Functional connectivity models could be
created using bat activity data. Models had the ability
to be transferred between roost locations, although
site-specific validation is strongly recommended. For
all other bat species recorded, markedly more (125%)
bat passes occurred in the top quartile of functional
connectivity compared to any of the lower three
quartiles.
Conclusion: The model predictions identify areas of
key conservation importance to habitat connectivity
for GHS that are not recognised by expert opinion. By
highlighting landscape features that act as barriers to
movement, this approach can be used by decision-makers
as a tool to inform local management
strategies
The Shape of Gravity in a Warped Deformed Conifold
We study the spectrum of the gravitational modes in Minkowski spacetime due
to a 6-dimensional warped deformed conifold, i.e., a warped throat, in
superstring theory. After identifying the zero mode as the usual 4D graviton,
we present the KK spectrum as well as other excitation modes. Gluing the throat
to the bulk (a realistic scenario), we see that the graviton has a rather
uniform probability distribution everywhere while a KK mode is peaked in the
throat, as expected. Due to the suppressed measure of the throat in the wave
function normalization, we find that a KK mode's probability in the bulk can be
comparable to that of the graviton mode. We also present the tunneling
probabilities of a KK mode from the inflationary throat to the bulk and to
another throat. Due to resonance effect, the latter may not be suppressed as
natively expected. Implication of this property to reheating after brane
inflation is discussed
UV and EUV Instruments
We describe telescopes and instruments that were developed and used for
astronomical research in the ultraviolet (UV) and extreme ultraviolet (EUV)
regions of the electromagnetic spectrum. The wavelength ranges covered by these
bands are not uniquely defined. We use the following convention here: The EUV
and UV span the regions ~100-912 and 912-3000 Angstroem respectively. The
limitation between both ranges is a natural choice, because the hydrogen Lyman
absorption edge is located at 912 Angstroem. At smaller wavelengths,
astronomical sources are strongly absorbed by the interstellar medium. It also
marks a technical limit, because telescopes and instruments are of different
design. In the EUV range, the technology is strongly related to that utilized
in X-ray astronomy, while in the UV range the instruments in many cases have
their roots in optical astronomy. We will, therefore, describe the UV and EUV
instruments in appropriate conciseness and refer to the respective chapters of
this volume for more technical details.Comment: To appear in: Landolt-Boernstein, New Series VI/4A, Astronomy,
Astrophysics, and Cosmology; Instruments and Methods, ed. J.E. Truemper,
Springer-Verlag, Berlin, 201
Cosmological Constant, Gauge Hierarchy and Warped Geometry
It is suggested that the mechanism responsible for the resolution of the
gauge hierarchy problem within the warped geometry framework can be generalized
to provide a new explanation of the extremely tiny vacuum energy density rho_V
suggested by recent observations. We illustrate the mechanism with some 5D
examples in which the true vacuum energy is assumed to vanish, and rho_V is
associated with a false vacuum energy such that rho_V^{1/4} ~ TeV^2/M_{Pl} ~
10^{-3} eV, where M_{Pl} denotes the reduced Planck mass. We also consider a
quintessence-like solution to the dark energy problem.Comment: 10 pages, LaTeX, 2 figures, section on quantum corrections added,
version to appear in Phys. Rev.
Rolling Tachyon in Brane World Cosmology from Superstring Field Theory
The pressureless tachyonic matter recently found in superstring field theory
has an over-abundance problem in cosmology. We argue that this problem is
naturally solved in the brane inflationary scenario if almost all of the
tachyon energy is drained (via its coupling to the inflaton and matter fields)
to heating the universe, while the rest of the tachyon energy goes to a network
of cosmic strings (lower-dimensional BPS D-branes) produced during the tachyon
rolling at the end of inflation.Comment: 4 pages, one figure. This version quantifies constraints on various
phenomenological models for tachyon deca
An Improved Brane Anti-Brane Action from Boundary Superstring Field Theory and Multi-Vortex Solutions
We present an improved effective action for the D-brane-anti-D-brane system
obtained from boundary superstring field theory. Although the action looks
highly non-trivial, it has simple explicit multi-vortex (i.e. codimension-2
multi-BPS D-brane) multi-anti-vortex solutions. The solutions have a curious
degeneracy corresponding to different ``magnetic'' fluxes at the core of each
vortex. We also generalize the brane anti-brane effective action that is
suitable for the study of the inflationary scenario and the production of
defects in the early universe. We show that when a brane and anti-brane are
distantly separated, although the system is classically stable it can decay via
quantum tunneling through the barrier.Comment: 24 pages, 1 figure, JHEP3.cls; v2: references added, tunneling rate
discussion expande
An Inflationary Scenario in Intersecting Brane Models
We propose a new scenario for D-term inflation which appears quite
straightforwardly in the open string sector of intersecting brane models. We
take the inflaton to be a chiral field in a bifundamental representation of the
hidden sector and we argue that a sufficiently flat potential can be brane
engineered. This type of model generically predicts a near gaussian red
spectrum with negligible tensor modes. We note that this model can very
naturally generate a baryon asymmetry at the end of inflation via the recently
proposed hidden sector baryogenesis mechanism. We also discuss the possibility
that Majorana masses for the neutrinos can be simultaneously generated by the
tachyon condensation which ends inflation. Our proposed scenario is viable for
both high and low scale supersymmetry breaking.Comment: 30 pages, 2 figures; v2 references and comments adde
Spectral flow and boundary string field theory for angled D-branes
D-branes intersecting at an arbitrary fixed angle generically constitute a
configuration unstable toward recombination. The reconnection of the branes
nucleates at the intersection point and involves a generalization of the
process of brane decay of interest to non-perturbative string dynamics as well
as cosmology. After reviewing the string spectrum of systems of angled branes,
we show that worldsheet twist superfields may be used in the context of
Boundary Superstring Field Theory to describe the dynamics. Changing the angle
between the branes is seen from the worldsheet as spectral flow with boundary
insertions flowing from bosonic to fermionic operators. We calculate the
complete tachyon potential and the low energy effective action as a function of
angle and find an expression that interpolates between the brane-antibrane and
the Dirac-Born-Infeld actions. The potential captures the mechanism of D-brane
recombination and provides for interesting new physics for tachyon decay.Comment: 32 pages, 9 figures; v2 references added; v3 discussion clarifie
- âŠ