Impact of the Belding's ground squirrel, Spermophilus beldingi, on alfalfa production in northeastern California

The Belding ground squirrel (Spermophilus beldingi) is found in rangeland, pasture, and various agronomic crops. However, its impact on agricultural production has been measured only rarely, e.g., by Grinnell and Dixon (1918) and Sauer (1976, 1977). In California, the effects of the Belding ground squirrel appear to be most severe in alfalfa. The present investigations were conducted to measure the impact of the Belding ground squirrel on alfalfa production in northeastern California. Study areas were established on 7 ranches in Modoc County, where rodent exclosure cylinders were placed in alfalfa fields for 44-71 days during growing season before the first hay cutting. Data from alfalfa production indicated Belding ground squirrels reduced alfalfa production by an average of 1,100 lbs per acre (range: 361 - 2,425 lbs/ac) of first cutting alfalfa. Vegetation consumed is probably a very small part of the assessed damage; loss is due to a composite of trampling, runway development, squirrel mounds, vegetation clipping, and forage eaten

The Perturbations of a Hyperbolic Orbit by an Oblate Planet

Perturbation of hyperbolic orbit by oblate planet and escape hyperbola from eart

Endocrinological effects of high-dose Hypericum perforatum extract WS 5570 in healthy subjects

In this single-blind study, the effects of acute oral administration of high-dose Hypericum perforatum extract WS 5570 on the cortisol ( COR), adrenocorticotropic hormone ( ACTH), growth hormone (GH), and prolactin (PRL) secretions were examined in 12 healthy male volunteers. In a randomized order, the subjects received placebo or WS 5570 at several dosages (600, 900, and 1,200 mg) at 08.00 h on 4 different days. After insertion of an intravenous catheter, blood samples were drawn 1 h prior to administration of placebo or WS 5570 ( 600, 900, or 1,200 mg), at the time of administration, and during 5 h thereafter at intervals of 30 min. The serum concentrations of COR, GH, and PRL as well as the plasma levels of ACTH were determined in each blood sample by means of double antibody radioimmunoassay, fluoroimmunoassay, and chemiluminescence immunometric assay methods. The area under the curve value was used as parameter for COR, ACTH, GH, and PRL responses. Repeated-measures Anova revealed a significant stimulatory effect of WS 5570 on the ACTH secretion, whereas COR and PRL secretions were not significantly influenced. Moreover, there was a stimulatory peak of GH release 240 min after challenge with WS 5570 in some but not all volunteers, without reaching statistical significance in comparison with placebo. Mean arterial blood pressure and heart rate remained unchanged after administration of WS 5570. Apparently, WS 5570 at the dosages given in this study inconsistently causes endocrinological effects in healthy subjects by influencing central neurotransmitters. Copyright (C) 2004 S. Karger AG, Basel

Relativistic corrections of one-nucleon current in low-energy three-nucleon photonuclear reactions

Proton-deuteron radiative capture and two- and three-body photodisintegration of 3He at low energy are described using realistic hadronic dynamics and including the Coulomb force. The sensitivity of the observables to the relativistic corrections of one-nucleon electromagnetic current operator is studied. Significant effects of the relativistic spin-orbit charge are found for the vector analyzing powers in the proton-deuteron radiative capture and for the beam-target parallel-antiparallel spin asymmetry in the three-body photodisintegration of 3He.Comment: 7 figures, accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.

Parametrization of global attractors experimental observations and turbulence

This paper is concerned with rigorous results in the theory of turbulence and fluid flow. While derived from the abstract theory of attractors in infinite-dimensional dynamical systems, they shed some light on the conventional heuristic theories of turbulence, and can be used to justify a well-known experimental method. Two results are discussed here in detail, both based on parametrization of the attractor. The first shows that any two fluid flows can be distinguished by a sufficient number of point observations of the velocity. This allows one to connect rigorously the dimension of the attractor with the Landau–Lifschitz ‘number of degrees of freedom’, and hence to obtain estimates on the ‘minimum length scale of the flow’ using bounds on this dimension. While for two-dimensional flows the rigorous estimate agrees with the heuristic approach, there is still a gap between rigorous results in the three-dimensional case and the Kolmogorov theory. Secondly, the problem of using experiments to reconstruct the dynamics of a flow is considered. The standard way of doing this is to take a number of repeated observations, and appeal to the Takens time-delay embedding theorem to guarantee that one can indeed follow the dynamics ‘faithfully’. However, this result relies on restrictive conditions that do not hold for spatially extended systems: an extension is given here that validates this important experimental technique for use in the study of turbulence. Although the abstract results underlying this paper have been presented elsewhere, making them specific to the Navier–Stokes equations provides answers to problems particular to fluid dynamics, and motivates further questions that would not arise from within the abstract theory itself