Showing 101 - 110 of 733 Items
Gravity darkening and brightening in binaries
Date: 2012-01-01
Creator: H.E. White, T.W. Baumgarte, S.L. Shapiro
Access: Open access
Controls on the movement and composition of firn air at the West Antarctic Ice Sheet Divide
Date: 2011-11-14
Creator: M. O. Battle, J. P. Severinghaus, E. D. Sofen, D. Plotkin, A. J., Orsi, M. Aydin, S. A. Montzka, T. Sowers, P. P. Tans
Access: Open access
- We sampled interstitial air from the perennial snowpack (firn) at a site near the West Antarctic Ice Sheet Divide (WAIS-D) and analyzed the air samples for a wide variety of gas species and their isotopes. We find limited convective influence (1.4-5.2 m, depending on detection method) in the shallow firn, gravitational enrichment of heavy species throughout the diffusive column in general agreement with theoretical expectations, a ∼10 m thick lock-in zone beginning at ∼67 m, and a total firn thickness consistent with predictions of Kaspers et al. (2004). Our modeling work shows that the air has an age spread (spectral width) of 4.8 yr for CO2 at the firn-ice transition. We also find that advection of firn air due to the 22 cm yr-1 ice-equivalent accumulation rate has a minor impact on firn air composition, causing changes that are comparable to other modeling uncertainties and intrinsic sample variability. Furthermore, estimates of Δage (the gas age/ice age difference) at WAIS-D appear to be largely unaffected by bubble closure above the lock-in zone. Within the lock-in zone, small gas species and their isotopes show evidence of size-dependent fractionation due to permeation through the ice lattice with a size threshold of 0.36 nm, as at other sites. We also see an unequivocal and unprecedented signal of oxygen isotope fractionation within the lock-in zone, which we interpret as the mass-dependent expression of a size-dependent fractionation process. © 2011 Author(s).
Improved matrix-model calculation of the N = 2 prepotential
Date: 2004-04-01
Creator: Marta Gómez-Reino, Howard J. Schnitzer, Stephen G. Naculich
Access: Open access
- We present a matrix-model expression for the sum of instanton contributions to the prepotential of an N = 2 supersymmetric U (N) gauge theory, with matter in various representations. This expression is derived by combining the renormalization-group approach to the gauge theory prepotential with matrix-model methods. This result can be evaluated order-by-order in matrix-model perturbation theory to obtain the instanton corrections to the prepotential. We also show, using this expression, that the one-instanton prepotential assumes a universal form. © SISSA/ISAS 2004.
Can the electroweak symmetry-breaking sector be hidden?
Date: 1992-10-29
Creator: S. G. Naculich, C. P. Yuan
Access: Open access
- In a recent paper, Chivukula and Golden claimed that the electroweak symmetry-breaking sector could be hidden if there were many inelastic channels in the longitudinal WW scattering process. They presented a model in which the W's couple to pseudo-Goldstone bosons, which may be difficult to detect experimentally. Because of these inelastic channels, thw WW interactions do not become strong in the TeV region. We demonstrate that, despite the reduced WW elastic amplitudes in this model, the total event rate (∼ 5000 extra longitudinal W+W- pairs produced in one standard SSC year) does not decrease with an increasing number of inelastic channels, and is roughly the same as in a model with a broad high-energy resonance and no inelastic channels. © 1992.
Probing quantum Hall state homogeneity with surface waves
Date: 2013-01-01
Creator: M. E. Msall, W. Dietsche, S. Schmult, K. Von Klitzing
Access: Open access
- We study single quantum wells and matched density bilayer samples. Simultaneous measurements of the Hall voltages using low frequency lock-in techniques and of the changes in the 232 MHz (12.6 μm) SAW propagation measured with a vector network-analyzer allow comparison of the complex bulk and edge conductivities. The vtotal 1 bilayer state is seen directly in the SAW measurement only when the conductivity is below ∼ 6 × 10 -7 Siemens and is destroyed at moderate SAW powers by localized heating. The simultaneous reduction of the conductivity minima extracted from Hall data and from SAW data conclusively demonstrates that the vtotal 1 state disappears simultaneously throughout the bulk and not by the formation of competing domains or conducting filaments. © Published under licence by IOP Publishing Ltd.
Measuring the Relative Importance of Different Agricultural Inputs to Global and Regional Crop Yield Growth Since 1975
Date: 2016-09-01
Creator: Erik Nelson, Clare Bates Congdon
Access: Open access
- We identify the agricultural inputs that drove the growth in global and regional crop yields from 1975 to the mid-2000s. We find that improvements in agricultural technology, increased fertilizer use, and changes in crop mix around the world explained most of the gain in global crop yields, although impacts varied across the latitude gradient. Climate change over this time period caused yields to be only slightly lower than they would have been otherwise. In some cases cropland extensification had as much of a negative impact on global and regional yields as climate change. To maintain the momentum in yield growth across the globe 1) use of agricultural chemicals and investment in agricultural technology in the tropics must increase rapidly and 2) international trade in agricultural products must expand significantly.
Optical proxy for phytoplankton biomass in the absence of photophysiology: Rethinking the absorption line height
Date: 2013-01-01
Creator: Collin S. Roesler, Andrew H. Barnard
Access: Open access
- The pigment absorption peak in the red waveband observed in phytoplankton and particulate absorption spectra is primarily associated with chlorophyll-a and exhibits much lower pigment packaging compared to the blue peak. The minor contributions to the signature by accessory pigments can be largely removed by computing the line height absorption at 676 nm above a linear background between approximately 650 nm and 715 nm. The line height determination is also effective in removing the contributions to total or particulate absorption by colored dissolved organic matter and non-algal particles, and is relatively independent of the effects of biofouling. The line height absorption is shown to be significantly related to the extracted chlorophyll concentration over a large range of natural optical regimes and diverse phytoplankton cultures. Unlike the in situ fluorometric method for estimating chlorophyll, the absorption line height is not sensitive to incident irradiance, in particular non-photochemical quenching. The combination of the two methods provides a combination of robust phytoplankton biomass estimates, pigment based taxonomic information and a means to estimate the photosynthetic parameter, , the irradiance at which photosynthesis transitions from light limitation to light saturation. © 2013 The Authors. E K
Constructing a scientist: Expert authority and public images of Rachel Carson
Date: 2011-06-01
Creator: David K. Hecht
Access: Open access
- This article uses the voluminous public discourse around Rachel Carson and her controversial bestseller Silent Spring to explore Americans' views on science and scientists. Carson provides a particularly interesting case study because of intense and public debates over whether she was a scientist at all, and therefore whether her book should be granted legitimacy as science. Her career defied easy classification, as she acted variously as writer, activist, and environmentalist in addition to scientist. Defending her work as legitimate science, which many though not all commentators did, therefore became an act of defining what both science and scientists could and should be. This article traces the variety of nonscientific images and narratives readers and writers assigned to Carson, such as "reluctant crusader" and "scientist-poet." It argues that nonscientific attributes were central to legitimating her as both admirable person and admirable scientist. It explores how debates over Silent Spring can be usefully read as debates over the desirability of putatively nonscientific attributes in the professional work of a scientist. And it examines the nature of Carson's very democratized image for changing notions of science and scientists in 1960s United States politics and culture. © 2011 by the Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.
Manipulation of Fgf and Bmp signaling in teleost fishes suggests potential pathways for the evolutionary origin of multicuspid teeth
Date: 2013-03-01
Creator: William R. Jackman, Shelby H. Davies, David B. Lyons, Caitlin K. Stauder, Benjamin R., Denton-Schneider, Andrea Jowdry, Sharon R. Aigler, Scott A. Vogel, David W. Stock
Access: Open access
- Teeth with two or more cusps have arisen independently from an ancestral unicuspid condition in a variety of vertebrate lineages, including sharks, teleost fishes, amphibians, lizards, and mammals. One potential explanation for the repeated origins of multicuspid teeth is the existence of multiple adaptive pathways leading to them, as suggested by their different uses in these lineages. Another is that the addition of cusps required only minor changes in genetic pathways regulating tooth development. Here we provide support for the latter hypothesis by demonstrating that manipulation of the levels of Fibroblast growth factor (Fgf) or Bone morphogenetic protein (Bmp) signaling produces bicuspid teeth in the zebrafish (Danio rerio), a species lacking multicuspid teeth in its ancestry. The generality of these results for teleosts is suggested by the conversion of unicuspid pharyngeal teeth into bicuspid teeth by similar manipulations of the Mexican Tetra (Astyanax mexicanus). That these manipulations also produced supernumerary teeth in both species supports previous suggestions of similarities in the molecular control of tooth and cusp number. We conclude that despite their apparent complexity, the evolutionary origin of multicuspid teeth is positively constrained, likely requiring only slight modifications of a pre-existing mechanism for patterning the number and spacing of individual teeth. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.