329 research outputs found
The Photosynthetic Function of Manganese and Chloride
Author Institution: Charles F. Kettering Foundation, Yellow Springs, Ohi
On the Linearization of the Painleve' III-VI Equations and Reductions of the Three-Wave Resonant System
We extend similarity reductions of the coupled (2+1)-dimensional three-wave
resonant interaction system to its Lax pair. Thus we obtain new 3x3 matrix
Fuchs--Garnier pairs for the third and fifth Painleve' equations, together with
the previously known Fuchs--Garnier pair for the fourth and sixth Painleve'
equations. These Fuchs--Garnier pairs have an important feature: they are
linear with respect to the spectral parameter. Therefore we can apply the
Laplace transform to study these pairs. In this way we found reductions of all
pairs to the standard 2x2 matrix Fuchs--Garnier pairs obtained by M. Jimbo and
T. Miwa. As an application of the 3x3 matrix pairs, we found an integral
auto-transformation for the standard Fuchs--Garnier pair for the fifth
Painleve' equation. It generates an Okamoto-like B\"acklund transformation for
the fifth Painleve' equation. Another application is an integral transformation
relating two different 2x2 matrix Fuchs--Garnier pairs for the third Painleve'
equation.Comment: Typos are corrected, journal and DOI references are adde
On the Linearization of the First and Second Painleve' Equations
We found Fuchs--Garnier pairs in 3X3 matrices for the first and second
Painleve' equations which are linear in the spectral parameter. As an
application of our pairs for the second Painleve' equation we use the
generalized Laplace transform to derive an invertible integral transformation
relating two its Fuchs--Garnier pairs in 2X2 matrices with different
singularity structures, namely, the pair due to Jimbo and Miwa and the one
found by Harnad, Tracy, and Widom. Together with the certain other
transformations it allows us to relate all known 2X2 matrix Fuchs--Garnier
pairs for the second Painleve' equation with the original Garnier pair.Comment: 17 pages, 2 figure
Development of new metrics to assess and quantify climatic drivers of extreme event driven Arctic browning
Rapid climate change in Arctic regions is resulting in more frequent extreme climatic events. These can cause large-scale vegetation damage, and are therefore among key drivers of declines in biomass and productivity (or “browning”) observed across Arctic regions in recent years.
Extreme events which cause browning are driven by multiple interacting climatic variables, and are defined by their ecological impact – most commonly plant mortality. Quantifying the climatic causes of these multivariate, ecologically defined events is challenging, and so existing work has typically determined the climatic causes of browning events on a case-by-case basis in a descriptive, unsystematic manner. While this has allowed development of important qualitative understanding of the mechanisms underlying extreme event driven browning, it cannot definitively link browning to specific climatic variables, or predict how changes in these variables will influence browning severity. It is therefore not yet possible to determine how extreme events will influence ecosystem responses to climate change across Arctic regions.
To address this, novel, process-based climate metrics that can be used to quantify the conditions and interactions that drive the ecological responses defining common extreme events were developed using publicly available snow depth and air temperature data (two of the main climate variables implicated in browning). These process-based metrics explained up to 63% of variation in plot-level Normalised Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) at sites within areas affected by extreme events across boreal and sub-Arctic Norway. This demonstrates potential to use simple metrics to assess the contribution of extreme events to changes in Arctic biomass and productivity at regional scales. In addition, scaling up these metrics across the Norwegian Arctic region resulted in significant correlations with remotely-sensed NDVI, and provided much-needed insights into how climatic variables interact to determine the severity of browning across Arctic regions
Arctic browning: Impacts of extreme climatic events on heathland ecosystem CO2 fluxes.
Extreme climatic events are among the drivers of recent declines in plant biomass and productivity observed across Arctic ecosystems, known as "Arctic browning." These events can cause landscape-scale vegetation damage and so are likely to have major impacts on ecosystem CO2 balance. However, there is little understanding of the impacts on CO2 fluxes, especially across the growing season. Furthermore, while widespread shoot mortality is commonly observed with browning events, recent observations show that shoot stress responses are also common, and manifest as high levels of persistent anthocyanin pigmentation. Whether or how this response impacts ecosystem CO2 fluxes is not known. To address these research needs, a growing season assessment of browning impacts following frost drought and extreme winter warming (both extreme climatic events) on the key ecosystem CO2 fluxes Net Ecosystem Exchange (NEE), Gross Primary Productivity (GPP), ecosystem respiration (Reco ) and soil respiration (Rsoil ) was carried out in widespread sub-Arctic dwarf shrub heathland, incorporating both mortality and stress responses. Browning (mortality and stress responses combined) caused considerable site-level reductions in GPP and NEE (of up to 44%), with greatest impacts occurring at early and late season. Furthermore, impacts on CO2 fluxes associated with stress often equalled or exceeded those resulting from vegetation mortality. This demonstrates that extreme events can have major impacts on ecosystem CO2 balance, considerably reducing the carbon sink capacity of the ecosystem, even where vegetation is not killed. Structural Equation Modelling and additional measurements, including decomposition rates and leaf respiration, provided further insight into mechanisms underlying impacts of mortality and stress on CO2 fluxes. The scale of reductions in ecosystem CO2 uptake highlights the need for a process-based understanding of Arctic browning in order to predict how vegetation and CO2 balance will respond to continuing climate change
Identifying Barriers to Estimating Carbon Release From Interacting Feedbacks in a Warming Arctic
The northern permafrost region holds almost half of the world's soil carbon in just 15% of global terrestrial surface area. Between 2007 and 2016, permafrost warmed by an average of 0.29°C, with observations indicating that frozen ground in the more southerly, discontinuous permafrost zone is already thawing. Despite this, our understanding of potential carbon release from this region remains not only uncertain, but incomplete. SROCC highlights that global-scale models represent carbon loss from permafrost only through gradual, top-down thaw. This excludes “pulse” disturbances – namely abrupt thaw, in which frozen ground with high ice content thaws, resulting in subsidence and comparatively rapid ongoing thaw, and fire – both of which are critically important to projecting future permafrost carbon feedbacks. Substantial uncertainty remains around the response of these disturbances to ongoing warming, although both are projected to affect an increasing area of the northern permafrost region. This is of particular concern as recent evidence indicates that pulse disturbances may, in some cases, respond nonlinearly to warming. Even less well understood are the interactions between processes driving loss of permafrost carbon. Fire not only drives direct carbon loss, but can accelerate gradual and abrupt permafrost thaw. However, this important interplay is rarely addressed in the scientific literature. Here, we identify barriers to estimating the magnitude of future emissions from pulse disturbances across the northern permafrost region, including those resulting from interactions between disturbances. We draw on recent advances to prioritize said barriers and suggest avenues for the polar research community to address these
Enhanced low voltage nonlinearity in resonant tunneling metal–insulator–insulator–metal nanostructures
The electrical properties of bi-layer Ta2O5/Al2O3 and Nb2O5/Al2O3 metal–insulator–insulator–metal nanostructures as rectifiers have been investigated. The ultra-thin (1–6 nm) insulator layers were deposited by atomic-layer deposition or rf magnetron sputtering with Al as metal contacts. Variable angle spectroscopic ellipsometry was performed to extract the optical properties and band gap of narrow band gap insulator layers while the surface roughness of the metal contacts was measured by atomic force microscopy. Superior low voltage large signal and small signal nonlinearities such as asymmetry of 18 at 0.35 V, rate of change of non-linearity of 7.5 V�1, and responsivity of 9 A/W at 0.2 V were observed from the current–voltage characteristics. A sharp increase in current at �2 V on Ta2O5/Al2O3 device can be ascribed to resonant tunneling
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