Showing 351 - 400 of 733 Items

Date: 1986-01-01

Creator: P. R. Chitnis, E. Harel, B. D. Kohorn, E. M. Tobin, J. P., Thornber

Access: Open access

When the in vitro synthesized precursor of a light-harvesting chlorophyll a/b binding protein (LHCP) from Lemna gibba is imported into barley etiochloroplasts, it is processed to a single form. Both the processed form and the precursor are found in the thylakoid membranes, assembled into the light-harvesting complex of photosystem II. Neither form can be detected in the stromal fraction. The relative amounts of precursor and processed forms observed in the thylakoids are dependent on the developmental stage of the plastids used for uptake. The precursor as well as the processed form can also be detected in thylakoids of greening maize plastids used in similar uptake experiments. This detection of a precursor in the thylakoids, which has not been previously reported, could be a result of using rapidly developing plastids and/or using an heterologous system. Our results demonstrate that the extent of processing of LHCP precursor is not a prerequisite for its inclusion in the complex. They are also consistent with the possibility that the processing step can occur after insertion of the protein into the thylakoid membrane.

Date: 2013-01-01

Creator: Alex H. Williams, Molly A. Kwiatkowski, Adam L. Mortimer, Eve Marder, Mary Lou, Zeeman, Patsy S. Dickinson

Access: Open access

The cardiac ganglion (CG) of Homarus americanus is a central pattern generator that consists of two oscillatory groups of neurons: "small cells" (SCs) and "large cells" (LCs). We have shown that SCs and LCs begin their bursts nearly simultaneously but end their bursts at variable phases. This variability contrasts with many other central pattern generator systems in which phase is well maintained. To determine both the consequences of this variability and how CG phasing is controlled, we modeled the CG as a pair of Morris-Lecar oscillators coupled by electrical and excitatory synapses and constructed a database of 15,000 simulated networks using random parameter sets. These simulations, like our experimental results, displayed variable phase relationships, with the bursts beginning together but ending at variable phases. The model suggests that the variable phasing of the pattern has important implications for the functional role of the excitatory synapses. In networks in which the two oscillators had similar duty cycles, the excitatory coupling functioned to increase cycle frequency. In networks with disparate duty cycles, it functioned to decrease network frequency. Overall, we suggest that the phasing of the CG may vary without compromising appropriate motor output and that this variability may critically determine how the network behaves in response to manipulations. © 2013 the American Physiological Society.

Date: 2018-09-13

Creator: E. G. Charalampidis, J. Lee, P. G. Kevrekidis, C. Chong

Access: Open access

We present a theoretical study of extreme events occurring in phononic lattices. In particular, we focus on the formation of rogue or freak waves, which are characterized by their localization in both spatial and temporal domains. We consider two examples. The first one is the prototypical nonlinear mass-spring system in the form of a homogeneous Fermi-Pasta-Ulam-Tsingou (FPUT) lattice with a polynomial potential. By deriving an approximation based on the nonlinear Schrödinger (NLS) equation, we are able to initialize the FPUT model using a suitably transformed Peregrine soliton solution of the NLS equation, obtaining dynamics that resembles a rogue wave on the FPUT lattice. We also show that Gaussian initial data can lead to dynamics featuring a rogue wave for sufficiently wide Gaussians. The second example is a diatomic granular crystal exhibiting rogue-wave-like dynamics, which we also obtain through an NLS reduction and numerical simulations. The granular crystal (a chain of particles that interact elastically) is a widely studied system that lends itself to experimental studies. This study serves to illustrate the potential of such dynamical lattices towards the experimental observation of acoustic rogue waves.

Date: 2008-11-01

Creator: Jack R. Bateman, C. Ting Wu

Access: Open access

Studies from diverse organisms show that distinct interchromosomal interactions are associated with many developmental events. Despite recent advances in uncovering such phenomena, our understanding of how interchromosomal interactions are initiated and regulated is incomplete. During the maternal-to-zygotic transition (MZT) of Drosophila embryogenesis, stable interchromosomal contacts form between maternal and paternal homologous chromosomes, a phenomenon known as somatic homolog pairing. To better understand the events that initiate pairing, we performed a genomewide assessment of the zygotic contribution to this process. Specifically, we took advantage of the segregational properties of compound chromosomes to generate embryos lacking entire chromosome arms and, thus, all zygotic gene products derived from those arms. Using DNA fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) to assess the initiation of pairing at five separate loci, this approach allowed us to survey the entire zygotic genome using just a handful of crosses. Remarkably, we found no defect in pairing in embryos lacking any chromosome arm, indicating that no zygotic gene product is essential for pairing to initiate. From these data, we conclude that the initiation of pairing can occur independently of zygotic control and may therefore be part of the developmental program encoded by the maternal genome. Copyright © 2008 by the Genetics Society of America.

Date: 1998-01-01

Creator: Leigh Ann Lipscomb, Nadine C. Gassner, Sheila D. Snow, Aimee M. Eldridge, Walter A., Baase, Devin L. Drew, Brian W. Matthews

Access: Open access

The substitution of methionines with leucines within the interior of a protein is expected to increase stability both because of a more favorable solvent transfer team as well as the reduced entropic cost of holding a leucine side chain in a defined position. Together, these two terms are expected to contribute about 1.4 kcal/mol to protein stability for each Met → Leu substitution when fully buried. At the same time, this expected beneficial effect may be offset by steric factors due to differences in the shape of leucine and methionine. To investigate the interplay between these factors, all methionines in T4 lysozyme except at the amino-terminus were individually replaced with leucine. Of these mutants, M106L and M120L have stabilities 0.5 kcal/mol higher than wild-type T4 lysozyme, while M6L is significantly destabilized (-2.8 kcal/mol). M102L, described previously, is also destabilized (-0.9 kcal/mol). Based on this limited sample it appears that methionine-to-leucine substitutions can increase protein stability but only in a situation where the methionine side chain is fully or partially buried, yet allows the introduction of the leucine without concomitant steric interference. The variants, together with methionine-to-lysine substitutions at the same sites, follow the general pattern that substitutions at rigid, internal sites tend to be most destabilizing, whereas replacements at more solvent-exposed sites are better tolerated.

Date: 2006-06-30

Creator: Jack R. Bateman, Anne M. Lee, C. Ting Wu

Access: Open access

Position effects can complicate transgene analyses. This is especially true when comparing transgenes that have inserted randomly into different genomic positions and are therefore subject to varying position effects. Here, we introduce a method for the precise targeting of transgenic constructs to predetermined genomic sites in Drosophila using the φC31 integrase system in conjunction with recombinase-mediated cassette exchange (RMCE). We demonstrate the feasibility of this system using two donor cassettes, one carrying the yellow gene and the other carrying GFP. At all four genomic sites tested, we observed exchange of donor cassettes with an integrated target cassette carrying the mini-white gene. Furthermore, because RMCE-mediated integration of the donor cassette is necessarily accompanied by loss of the target cassette, we were able to identify integrants simply by the loss of mini-white eye color. Importantly, this feature of the technology will permit integration of unmarked constructs into Drosophila, even those lacking functional genes. Thus, φC31 integrase-mediated RMCE should greatly facilitate transgene analysis as well as permit new experimental designs. Copyright © 2006 by the Genetics Society of America.

Date: 1982-01-01

Creator: B. D. Kohorn, P. M.M. Rae

Access: Open access

An extract of Drosophila melanogaster Kc cells is shown to give specific and accurate transcription of truncated segments of cloned D. melanogaster ribosomal DNA (rDNA). When clones are digested with restriction enzymes so that the initiation site is flanked by 0.3 kilobase (kb) of nontranscribed spacer and >0.4 kb of external transcribed spacer, RNA polymerase I activity in the extract parallels in vivo rRNA synthesis in selection of the coding strand of template and the site of transcription initiation. When >0.3 kb of the nontranscribed spacer is contiguous with transcribed spacer, in vitro initiations evidently also occur in repeated sequences adjacent to the site of in vivo initiation; when ≤0.4 kb of the external transcribed spacer is present in a segment, expected transcripts are heterogeneous in length or not detectable. Transcription in the cell-free system requires the specific addition of D. melanogaster rDNA: neither D. virilis rDNA, vector plasmid, nor clones of D. melanogaster genes that are transcribed in vivo by RNA polymerases II and III serve as templates in the system. Drosophila rDNA units that have an interruption in the 28S rRNA coding region are not transcribed in vivo, but restriction digests of a recombinant phage DNA that contains such a unit are active as template for in vitro rDNA transcription.

Date: 2018-09-07

Creator: Alan Hastings, Karen C. Abbott, Kim Cuddington, Tessa Francis, Gabriel, Gellner, Ying Cheng Lai

Access: Open access

The importance of transient dynamics in ecological systems and in the models that describe them has become increasingly recognized. However, previous work has typically treated each instance of these dynamics separately. We review both empirical examples and model systems, and outline a classification of transient dynamics based on ideas and concepts from dynamical systems theory. This classification provides ways to understand the likelihood of transients for particular systems, and to guide investigations to determine the timing of sudden switches in dynamics and other characteristics of transients. Implications for both management and underlying ecological theories emerge.

Date: 2008-12-01

Creator: Laura A. Henry, Vladimir Douhovnikoff

Access: Open access

This review examines the literature available on the state of the environment and environmental protection in the Russian Federation. As the largest country on Earth, rich in natural resources and biodiversity, Russia's problems and policies have global consequences. Environmental quality and management are influenced by the legacy of Soviet economic planning and authoritarian governance, as well as by Russia's post-Soviet economic recession and current strategies of economic development. Russia achieved a reduction in some pollutants owing to the collapse of industrial production in the 1990s, but many environmental indicators suggest growing degradation. Russia has signed on to a number of international environmental agreements, but its record on implementation is mixed, and it discourages environmental activism. Scholarship on the Russian environment is a limited, but growing, field, constrained by challenges of data availability, yet it offers great potential for testing scientific and social scientific hypotheses. ©2008 by Annual Reviews.

Date: 2005-01-01

Creator: Richard S. Dodd, Daniel Hüberli, Vlad Douhovnikoff, Tamar Y. Harnik, Zara, Afzal-Rafii, Matteo Garbelotto

Access: Open access

California coastal woodlands are suffering severe disease and mortality as a result of infection from Phytophthora ramorum. Quercus agrifolia is one of the major woodland species at risk. This study investigated within- and among-population variation in host susceptibility to inoculation with P. ramorum and compared this with population genetic structure using molecular markers. Susceptibility was assessed using a branch-cutting inoculation test. Trees were selected from seven natural populations in California. Amplified fragment length polymorphism molecular markers were analysed for all trees used in the trials. Lesion sizes varied quantitatively among individuals within populations, with up to an eightfold difference. There was little support for population differences in susceptibility. Molecular structure also showed a strong within-population, and weaker among-population, pattern of variation. Our data suggest that susceptibility of Q. agrifolia to P. ramorum is variable and is under the control of several gene loci. This variation exists within populations, so that less susceptible local genotypes may provide the gene pool for regeneration of woodlands where mortality is high. © New Phytologist (2004).

Date: 2019-12-01

Creator: David A. Watts, Vladimir Douhovnikoff, Eric Post

Access: Open access

The recent expansion of arctic deciduous shrubs has been well documented across a range of habitats, but the phenomenon is not universal. Their spread is often associated with increases in temperature and other abiotic factors, while variation in habitat moisture and herbivory can mediate the location and rate of this rise in abundance. Much less is known about the mode of increase of arctic shrubs. For one such shrub, Salix glauca, we used microsatellite markers to assess the prevalence of clonal growth (i.e. vegetative spread) and sexual reproduction (i.e. recruitment from seed) at sites with maritime and continental climates and differing in the density of large herbivores. We sampled individuals in plots reflecting the spatial scale of expansion in locations where S. glauca recently increased in abundance. The 400 samples collected across the four sites comprised 310 genotypes. Though evidence of sexual recruitment was common across all sites, coastal sites contained both more and larger clonal genotypes. While we expected soil conditions would be influential, the factors that best predicted the likelihood of clonality, genet size and vascular plant cover, suggest the light environment is of primary importance. Furthermore, in spite of the large distances between sites, there was no suggestion of genetic differentiation into distinct populations. These results indicate that differences in climate and herbivory can influence not only where and how extensively deciduous shrubs spread, but how they are likely to do so. We suggest future research integrating how mode of increase is associated with the rate of spread will advance projections of change in arctic ecosystems.

Date: 2018-12-01

Creator: Andrew E. Christie, Meredith E. Stanhope, Helen I. Gandler, Tess J. Lameyer, Micah G., Pascual, Devlin N. Shea, Andy Yu, Patsy S. Dickinson, J. Joe Hull

Access: Open access

The American lobster, Homarus americanus, is a model for investigating the neuromodulatory control of physiology and behavior. Prior studies have shown that multiple classes of chemicals serve as locally released/circulating neuromodulators/neurotransmitters in this species. Interestingly, while many neuroactive compounds are known from Homarus, little work has focused on identifying/characterizing the enzymes responsible for their biosynthesis, despite the fact that these enzymes are key components for regulating neuromodulation/neurotransmission. Here, an eyestalk ganglia-specific transcriptome was mined for transcripts encoding enzymes involved in neuropeptide, amine, diffusible gas and small molecule transmitter biosynthesis. Using known Drosophila melanogaster proteins as templates, transcripts encoding putative Homarus homologs of peptide precursor processing (signal peptide peptidase, prohormone processing protease and carboxypeptidase) and immature peptide modifying (glutaminyl cyclase, tyrosylprotein sulfotransferase, protein disulfide isomerase, peptidylglycine-α-hydroxylating monooxygenase and peptidyl-α-hydroxyglycine-α-amidating lyase) enzymes were identified in the eyestalk assembly. Similarly, transcripts encoding full complements of the enzymes responsible for dopamine [tryptophan-phenylalanine hydroxylase (TPH), tyrosine hydroxylase and DOPA decarboxylase (DDC)], octopamine (TPH, tyrosine decarboxylase and tyramine β-hydroxylase), serotonin (TPH or tryptophan hydroxylase and DDC) and histamine (histidine decarboxylase) biosynthesis were identified from the eyestalk ganglia, as were those responsible for the generation of the gases nitric oxide (nitric oxide synthase) and carbon monoxide (heme oxygenase), and the small molecule transmitters acetylcholine (choline acetyltransferase), glutamate (glutaminase) and GABA (glutamic acid decarboxylase). The presence and identity of the transcriptome-derived transcripts were confirmed using RT-PCR. The data presented here provide a foundation for future gene-based studies of neuromodulatory control at the level of neurotransmitter/modulator biosynthesis in Homarus.

Date: 2008-05-01

Creator: Patsy S. Dickinson, Elizabeth A. Stemmler, Andrew E. Christie

Access: Open access

Modulation of neural circuits in the crustacean stomatogastric nervous system (STNS) allows flexibility in the movements of the foregut musculature. The extensive repertoire of such resulting motor patterns in dietary generalists is hypothesized to permit these animals to process varied foods. The foregut and STNS of Pugettia producta are similar to those of other decapods, but its diet is more uniform, consisting primarily of kelp. We investigated the distribution of highly conserved neuromodulators in the stomatogastric ganglion (STG) and neuroendocrine organs of Pugettia, and documented their effects on its pyloric rhythm. Using immunohistochemistry, we found that the distributions of Cancer borealis tachykinin-related peptide I (CabTRP I), crustacean cardioactive peptide (CCAP), proctolin, red pigment concentrating hormone (RPCH) and tyrosine hydroxylase (dopamine) were similar to those of other decapods. For all peptides except proctolin, the isoforms responsible for the immunoreactivity were confirmed by mass spectrometry to be the authentic peptides. Only two modulators had physiological effects on the pyloric circuit similar to those seen in other species. In non-rhythmic preparations, proctolin and the muscarinic acetylcholine agonist oxotremorine consistently initiated a full pyloric rhythm. Dopamine usually activated a pyloric rhythm, but this pattern was highly variable. In only about 25% of preparations, RPCH activated a pyloric rhythm similar to that seen in other species. CCAP and CabTRP I had no effect on the pyloric rhythm. Thus, whereas Pugettia possesses all the neuromodulators investigated, its pyloric rhythm, when compared with other decapods, appears less sensitive to many of them, perhaps because of its limited diet.

Date: 2013-01-01

Creator: Alex H. Williams, Molly A. Kwiatkowski, Adam L. Mortimer, Eve Marder, Mary Lou, Zeeman, Patsy S. Dickinson

Access: Open access

The cardiac ganglion (CG) of Homarus americanus is a central pattern generator that consists of two oscillatory groups of neurons: "small cells" (SCs) and "large cells" (LCs). We have shown that SCs and LCs begin their bursts nearly simultaneously but end their bursts at variable phases. This variability contrasts with many other central pattern generator systems in which phase is well maintained. To determine both the consequences of this variability and how CG phasing is controlled, we modeled the CG as a pair of Morris-Lecar oscillators coupled by electrical and excitatory synapses and constructed a database of 15,000 simulated networks using random parameter sets. These simulations, like our experimental results, displayed variable phase relationships, with the bursts beginning together but ending at variable phases. The model suggests that the variable phasing of the pattern has important implications for the functional role of the excitatory synapses. In networks in which the two oscillators had similar duty cycles, the excitatory coupling functioned to increase cycle frequency. In networks with disparate duty cycles, it functioned to decrease network frequency. Overall, we suggest that the phasing of the CG may vary without compromising appropriate motor output and that this variability may critically determine how the network behaves in response to manipulations. © 2013 the American Physiological Society.

Date: 2007-05-15

Creator: Elizabeth A. Stemmler, Emily A. Bruns, Noah P. Gardner, Patsy S. Dickinson, Andrew E., Christie

Access: Open access

In invertebrates, peptides possessing the carboxy (C)-terminal motif -RXRFamide have been proposed as the homologs of vertebrate neuropeptide Y (NPY). Using matrix assisted laser desorption/ionization mass spectrometry, in combination with sustained off-resonance irradiation collision-induced dissociation and chemical and enzymatic reactions, we have identified the peptide pEGFYSQRYamide from the neuroendocrine pericardial organ (PO) of the crab Pugettia producta. This peptide is likely the same as that previously reported, but misidentified, as PAFYSQRYamide in several earlier reports (e.g. [Li, L., Kelley, W.P., Billimoria, C.P., Christie, A.E., Pulver, S.R., Sweedler, J.V., Marder, E. 2003. Mass spectrometric investigation of the neuropeptide complement and release in the pericardial organs of the crab, Cancer borealis. J. Neurochem. 87, 642-656; Fu, Q., Kutz, K.K., Schmidt, J.J., Hsu, Y.W., Messinger, D.I., Cain, S.D., de la Iglesia, H.O., Christie, A.E., Li, L. 2005. Hormone complement of the Cancer productus sinus gland and pericardial organ: an anatomical and mass spectrometric investigation. J. Comp. Neurol. 493, 607-626.]). The -QRYamide motif contained in pEGFYSQRYamide is identical to that present in many vertebrate members of the NPY superfamily. Mass spectrometric analysis conducted on the POs of several other decapods showed that pEGFYSQRYamide is present in three other brachyurans (Cancer borealis, Cancer irroratus and Cancer productus) as well as in one species from another decapod infraorder (Lithodes maja, an anomuran). Thus, our findings show that at least some invertebrates possess NPY-like peptides in addition to those exhibiting an -RXRFamide C-terminus, and raise the question as to whether the invertebrate -QRYamides are functionally and/or evolutionarily related to the NPY superfamily. © 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Date: 2009-06-01

Creator: Pamela Fletcher

Access: Open access

Narrative paintings of modern life were immensely popular at the Royal Academy from the 1850s well into the early twentieth century. Perfectly suited to the Academy's culture of conversation, the pictures invited viewers to respond to the scenes as if they were real life situations, and gossip about the depicted characters as if they were real people. While such responses were routinely derided by critics as evidence of the public's lack of aesthetic sophistication, they offer tantalizing glimpses of the pictures' social lives. This article argues that taking gossip seriously as a mode of engagement with art both amplifies our understanding of the meanings, functions, and pleasures of narrative painting, and suggests specific connections between exhibition culture and the meanings of pictures. Using the richly documented reception of the 'problem pictures' of the 1910s and 1920s as the primary evidence, this article establishes a taxonomy of gossipy modes of engagement with narrative painting, and argues that gossiping about pictures allowed for the performance of individual identity, the creation of social and artistic groups, and connected public and private understandings of the world.

Date: 2010-12-01

Creator: Kenneth A. Dennison, John P. Wendell, Thomas W. Baumgarte, J. David Brown

Access: Open access

We study families of time-independent maximal and 1+log foliations of the Schwarzschild-Tangherlini spacetime, the spherically symmetric vacuum black hole solution in D spacetime dimensions, for D≥4. We identify special members of these families for which the spatial slices display a trumpet geometry. Using a generalization of the 1+log slicing condition that is parameterized by a constant n we recover the results of Nakao, Abe, Yoshino, and Shibata in the limit of maximal slicing. We also construct a numerical code that evolves the Baumgarte-Shapiro-Shibata-Nakamura equations for D=5 in spherical symmetry using moving-puncture coordinates and demonstrate that these simulations settle down to the trumpet solutions. © 2010 The American Physical Society.

Date: 2015-04-01

Creator: M. E. Msall, W. Dietsche

Access: Open access

We launch surface acousticwaves (SAW) along both the and the directions of aHall bar and measure the anisotropic conductivity in a high purity GaAs two-dimensional electron system in the quantum Hall regime of the stripe and the bubble phases. In the anisotropic stripe phase,SAW propagating along the 'easy' direction sense a compressible behavior (finite resistance)which is seen in standard transportmeasurement only if current flows along the 'hard' direction. In the isotropic bubble phase, the SAW data show compressible behavior in both directions, in marked contrast to the incompressible quantum Hall behavior seen in transport measurements. These results challenge models that assume that both the stripe and the bubble phase consist of incompressible domains and raise important questions about the role of domain boundaries in SAW propagation.

Date: 2012-10-26

Creator: Kenneth A. Dennison, Thomas W. Baumgarte

Access: Open access

Tendex and vortex fields, defined by the eigenvectors and eigenvalues of the electric and magnetic parts of the Weyl curvature tensor, form the basis of a recently developed approach to visualizing spacetime curvature. In particular, this method has been proposed as a tool for interpreting results from numerical binary black hole simulations, providing a deeper insight into the physical processes governing the merger of black holes and the emission of gravitational radiation. Here we apply this approach to approximate but analytical initial data for both single boosted and binary black holes. These perturbative data become exact in the limit of small boost or large binary separation. We hope that these calculations will provide additional insight into the properties of tendex and vortex fields and will form a useful test for future numerical calculations. © 2012 American Physical Society.

Date: 1991-01-01

Creator: R. Fulton, T. Jensen, D. R. Johnson, H. Kagan, R., Kass, F. Morrow, J. Whitmore, P. Wilson, D. Bortoletto, W. Y. Chen, J. Dominick, R. L. McIlwain, D. H. Miller, C. R. Ng, S. F. Schaffner, E. I. Shibata, I. P.J. Shipsey, W. M. Yao, M. Battle, K. Sparks, E. H. Thorndike, C. H. Wang, M. S. Alam, I. J. Kim, W. C. Li, V. Romero, C. R. Sun, P. N. Wang, M. M. Zoeller, M. Goldberg, T. Haupt

Access: Open access

We report new measurements of the branching fractions B. Combining these results with our previous measurement of BD*+l we find that the ratio of semileptonic widths for final states with a vector meson and pseudoscalar meson is (2.6-0.6-0.8+1.1+1.0) and the ratio of charged- to neutral-B-meson lifetimes is (0.89±0.19±0.13)(f00f+-) where (f00f+-) is the ratio of neutral- to charged-B-meson production at the branching fraction, we calculate |Vcb|=0.040±0.006±0.006, where the first error is statistical and the second is systematic and dominated by the uncertainty in the B-meson lifetime. © 1991 The American Physical Society.

Date: 2004-11-27

Creator: Stephen A. Montzka, M. Aydin, M. Battle, J. H. Butler, E. S., Saltzman, B. D. Hall, A. D. Clarke, D. Mondeel, J. W. Elkins

Access: Open access

Carbonyl sulfide (COS) and other trace gases were measured in firn air collected near South Pole (89.98°S) and from air trapped in ice at Siple Dome, Antarctica (81.65°S). The results, when considered with ambient air data and previous ice core measurements, provide further evidence that atmospheric mixing ratios of COS over Antarctica between 1650 and 1850 A.D. were substantially lower than those observed today. Specifically, the results suggest annual mean COS mixing ratios between 300 and 400 pmol mol-1 (ppt) during 1650-1850 A.D. and increases throughout most of the twentieth century. Measurements of COS in modern air and in the upper layers of the firn at South Pole indicate ambient, annual mean mixing ratios between 480 and 490 ppt with substantial seasonal variations. Peak mixing ratios are observed during austral summer in ambient air at South Pole and Cape Grim, Tasmania (40.41°S). Provided COS is not produced or destroyed in firn, these results also suggest that atmospheric COS mixing ratios have decreased 60-90 ppt (10-16%) since the 1980s in high latitudes of the Southern Hemisphere. The history derived for atmospheric mixing ratios of COS in the Southern Hemisphere since 1850 is closely related to historical anthropogenic sulfur emissions. The fraction of anthropogenic sulfur emissions released as COS (directly or indirectly) needed to explain the secular changes in atmospheric COS over this period is 0.3-0.6%. Copyright 2004 by the American Geophysical Union.

Date: 2003-01-01

Creator: T.W. Baumgarte, S.L. Shapiro

Access: Open access

Date: 2002-01-01

Creator: Kenneth A. Dennison, William K. Wootters

Access: Open access

The entanglement sharing among quantum particles was discussed in a system consisting of n d-dimensional quantum particles. The entanglement between each pair was attempted to get optimized. A three particles system was also considered and results showed that the particles shared a greater fraction of their entanglement capacity as the dimension d increased.

Date: 2001-07-01

Creator: Jeffrey P. Severinghaus, Alexi Grachev, Mark Battle

Access: Open access

Air withdrawn from the top 5-15 m of the polar snowpack (firn) shows anomalous enrichment of heavy gases during summer, including inert gases. Following earlier work, we ascribe this to thermal diffusion, the tendency of a gas mixture to separate in a temperature gradient, with heavier molecules migrating toward colder regions. Summer warmth creates a temperature gradient in the top few meters of the firn due to the thermal inertia of the underlying firn and causes gas fractionation by thermal diffusion. Here we explore and quantify this process further in order to (1) correct for bias caused by thermal diffusion in firn air and ice core air isotope records, (2) help calibrate a new technique for measuring temperature change in ice core gas records based on thermal diffusion [Severinghaus et al., 1998], and (3) address whether air in polar snow convects during winter and, if so, whether it creates a rectification of seasonality that could bias the ice core record. We sampled air at 2-m-depth intervals from the top 15 m of the firn at two Antarctic sites, Siple Dome and South Pole, including a winter sampling at the pole. We analyzed 15N/14N, 40Ar/36Ar, 40Ar/38Ar, 18O/16O of O2, O2/N2, 84Kr/36Ar, and 132Xe/36Ar. The results show the expected pattern of fractionation and match a gas diffusion model based on first principles to within 30%. Although absolute values of thermal diffusion sensitivities cannot be determined from the data with precision, relative values of different gas pairs may. At Siple Dome, δ40Ar/4 is 66 ± 2% as sensitive to thermal diffusion as δ15N, in agreement with laboratory calibration; δ18O/2 is 83 ± 3%, and δ84Kr/48 is 33 ± 3% as sensitive as δ15N. The corresponding figures for summer South Pole are 64 ± 2%, 81 ± 3%, and 34 ± 3%. Accounting for atmospheric change, the figure for δO2/N2/4 is 90 ± 3% at Siple Dome. Winter South Pole shows a strong depletion of heavy gases as expected. However, the data do not fit the model well in the deeper part of the profile and yield a systematic drift with depth in relative thermal diffusion sensitivities (except for Kr, constant at 34 ± 4%), suggesting the action of some other process that is not currently understood. No evidence for wintertime convection or a rectifier effect is seen.

Date: 2007-12-24

Creator: Stephen G. Naculich, Benjamin H. Ripman

Access: Open access

We analyze the level-rank duality of untwisted and ε-twisted D-branes of the over(so, ̂) (N)K WZW model. Untwisted D-branes of over(so, ̂) (N)K are characterized by integrable tensor and spinor representations of over(so, ̂) (N)K. Level-rank duality maps untwisted over(so, ̂) (N)K D-branes corresponding to (equivalence classes of ) tensor representations onto those of over(so, ̂) (K)N. The ε-twisted D-branes of over(so, ̂) (2 n)2 k are characterized by (a subset of ) integrable tensor and spinor representations of over(so, ̂) (2 n - 1)2 k + 1. Level-rank duality maps spinor ε-twisted over(so, ̂) (2 n)2 k D-branes onto those of over(so, ̂) (2 k)2 n. For both untwisted and ε-twisted D-branes, we prove that the spectrum of an open string ending on these D-branes is isomorphic to the spectrum of an open string ending on the level-rank-dual D-branes. © 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Date: 2013-04-19

Creator: Stephen G. Naculich, Horatiu Nastase, Howard J. Schnitzer

Access: Open access

The infrared singularities of gravitational amplitudes are one-loop exact, in that higher-loop divergences are characterized by the exponential of the one-loop divergence. We show that the contributions to SU(N) gauge-theory amplitudes that are mostsubleading in the 1/N expansion are also one-loop exact, provided that the dipole conjecture holds. Possible corrections to the dipole conjecture, beginning at three loops, could violate one-loop-exactness, though would still maintain the absence of collinear divergences. We also demonstrate a relation between L-loop four-point N = 8 supergravity and mostsubleading-color N = 4 SYM amplitudes that holds for the two leading IR divergences, (Formula presented.) and (Formula presented.), but breaks down at (Formula presented.).

Date: 2010-01-01

Creator: S. A. Montzka, L. Kuijpers, M. O. Battle, M. Aydin, K. R., Verhulst, E. S. Saltzman, D. W. Fahey

Access: Open access

Firn-air and ambient air measurements of CHF3 (HFC- 23) from three excursions to Antarctica between 2001 and 2009 are used to construct a consistent Southern Hemisphere (SH) atmospheric history. The results show atmospheric mixing ratios of HFC-23 continuing to increase through 2008. Mean global emissions derived from this data for 2006-2008 are 13.5 ± 2 Gg/yr (200 ± 30 × 1012gCO2- equivalent/yr, or MtCO2-eq./yr), ∼50% higher than the 8.7 ± 1 Gg/yr (130 ± 15 MtCO2-eq./yr) derived for the 1990s. HFC-23 emissions arise primarily from over-fluorination of chloroform during HCFC-22 production. The recent global emission increases are attributed to rapidly increasing HCFC-22 production in developing countries since reported HFC-23 emissions from developed countries decreased over this period. The emissions inferred here for developing countries during 2006-2008 averaged 11 ± 2 Gg/yr HFC-23 (160 ± 30 MtCO2-eq./yr) and are larger than the ∼6 Gg/yr of HFC-23 destroyed in United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Clean Development Mechanism projects during 2007 and 2008. © Copyright 2010 by the American Geophysical Union.

Date: 2003-12-08

Creator: Stephen G. Naculich, Howard J. Schnitzer, Niclas Wyllard

Access: Open access

Using matrix-model methods we study three different N=2 models: U(N)×U(N) with matter in the bifundamental representation, U(N) with matter in the symmetric representation, and U(N) with matter in the antisymmetric representation. We find that the (singular) cubic Seiberg-Witten curves (and associated Seiberg-Witten differentials) implied by the matrix models, although of a different form from the ones previously proposed using M-theory, can be transformed into the latter and are thus physically equivalent. We also calculate the one-instanton corrections to the gauge-coupling matrix using the perturbative expansion of the matrix model. For the U(N) theories with symmetric or antisymmetric matter we use the modified matrix-model prescription for the gauge-coupling matrix discussed in our paper: Cubic curves from matrix models and generalized Konishi anomalies (hep-th/0303268). Moreover, in the matrix model for the U(N) theory with antisymmetric matter, one is required to expand around a different vacuum than one would naively have anticipated. With these modifications of the matrix-model prescription, the results of this paper are in complete agreement with those of Seiberg-Witten theory obtained using M-theory methods. © 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Date: 2007-03-13

Creator: Thomas W. Baumgarte, Stephen G. Naculich

Access: Open access

The "moving-puncture" technique has led to dramatic advancements in the numerical simulations of binary black holes. Hannam et al. have recently demonstrated that, for suitable gauge conditions commonly employed in moving-puncture simulations, the evolution of a single black hole leads to a well-known, time-independent, maximal slicing of Schwarzschild spacetime. They construct the corresponding solution in isotropic coordinates numerically and demonstrate its usefulness, for example, for testing and calibrating numerical codes that employ moving-puncture techniques. In this brief report we point out that this solution can also be constructed analytically, making it even more useful as a test case for numerical codes. © 2007 The American Physical Society.

Date: 1994-01-01

Creator: R. Balest, K. Cho, M. Daoudi, W. T. Ford, D. R., Johnson, K. Lingel, M. Lohner, P. Rankin, J. G. Smith, J. P. Alexander, C. Bebek, K. Berkelman, K. Bloom, T. E. Browder, D. G. Cassel, H. A. Cho, D. M. Coffman, P. S. Drell, R. Ehrlich, P. Gaiderev, M. Garcia-Sciveres, B. Geiser, B. Gittelman, S. W. Gray, D. L. Hartill, B. K. Heltsley, C. D. Jones, S. L. Jones, J. Kandaswamy, N. Katayama, P. C. Kim

Access: Open access

Using the CLEO II detector at the Cornell Electron Storage Ring we have measured the ratio of branching fractions, B(D+K-++)/(D0K-+)=2.350.160.16. Our recent measurement of scrB(D0K-+) then gives scrB(D+K-++)=(9.30.60.8)%. © 1994 The American Physical Society.

Date: 1993-12-01

Creator: D. S. Akerib, B. Barish, M. Chadha, D. F. Cowen, G., Eigen, J. S. Miller, J. Urheim, A. J. Weinstein, D. Acosta, G. Masek, B. Ong, H. Paar, M. Sivertz, A. Bean, J. Gronberg, R. Kutschke, S. Menary, R. J. Morrison, H. N. Nelson, J. D. Richman, H. Tajima, D. Schmidt, D. Sperka, M. S. Witherell, M. Procario, S. Yang, M. Daoudi, W. T. Ford, D. R. Johnson, K. Lingel, M. Lohner

Access: Open access

Date: 2005-07-01

Creator: Marta Gómez-Reino, Stephen G. Naculich, Howard J. Schnitzer

Access: Open access

We extend the methods of Spradlin and Volovich to compute the partition function for a conformally-invariant gauge theory on ℝ × S 3 in which the dilatation operator is represented by a spin-chain hamiltonian acting on pairs of states, not necessarily nearest neighbors. A specific application of this is the two-loop dilatation operator of the planar SU(2) subsector of the N ≤ 4 SU(N) super Yang-Mills theory in the large-N limit. We compute the partition function and Hagedorn temperature for this sector to second order in the gauge coupling. The Hagedorn temperature is to be interpreted as giving the exponentially-rising portion of the density of states of the SU(2) sector, which may be a signal of stringy behavior in the dual theory. © SISSA 2005.

Date: 1995-01-01

Creator: R. Balest, K. Cho, W. T. Ford, D. R. Johnson, K., Lingel, M. Lohner, P. Rankin, J. G. Smith, J. P. Alexander, C. Bebek, K. Berkelman, K. Bloom, T. E. Browder, D. G. Cassel, H. A. Cho, D. M. Coffman, D. S. Crowcroft, P. S. Drell, D. J. Dumas, R. Ehrlich, P. Gaidarev, M. Garcia-Sciveres, B. Geiser, B. Gittelman, S. W. Gray, D. L. Hartill, B. K. Heltsley, S. Henderson, C. D. Jones, S. L. Jones, J. Kandaswamy

Access: Open access

We have used the CLEO-II detector at the Cornell Electron Storage Ringe (CESR) to study the inclusive production of charmonium mesons in a sample of 2.15 million BB events. We find inclusive branching fractions of (1.120.040.06)% for BJ/X, (0.340.040.03)% for BX, and (0.400.060.04)% for Bc1X. We also find some evidence for the inclusive production of c2, and set an upper limit for the branching fraction of the inclusive decay BcX of 0.9% at 90% confidence level. Momentum spectra for inclusive J/, and c1 production are presented. These measurements are compared to theoretical calculations. © 1995 The American Physical Society.

Date: 1995-01-01

Creator: B. Barish, M. Chadha, S. Chan, D. F. Cowen, G., Eigen, J. S. Miller, C. O'Grady, J. Urheim, A. J. Weinstein, D. Acosta, M. Athanas, G. Masek, H. P. Paar, J. Gronberg, R. Kutschke, S. Menary, R. J. Morrison, S. Nakanishi, H. N. Nelson, T. K. Nelson, C. Qiao, J. D. Richman, A. Ryd, H. Tajima, D. Sperka, M. S. Witherell, M. Procario, R. Balest, K. Cho, M. Daoudi, W. T. Ford

Access: Open access

We study the exclusive semileptonic B meson decays B-→D*0l-ν̄ and B̄0→D*+l-ν̄ using data collected with the CLEO II detector at the Cornell Electron-positron Storage Ring (CESR). We present measurements of the branching fractions scrB(B̄0→D*+l-ν̄)= (0.5/f00)[4.49±0.32(stat.)±0.39 (syst.)]% and scrB(B-→D*0l-(ν̄)= (0.5/f+-)[5.13±0.54 (stat) ±0.64 (syst)]%, where f00 and f+- are the neutral and charged B meson production fractions at the Υ(4S) resonance, respectively. Assuming isospin invariance and taking the ratio of charged to neutral B meson lifetimes measured at higher energy machines, we determine the ratio f+-/f00=1.04±0.13 (stat) ±0.12 (syst) ±0.10 (lifetime); further assuming f+-+f00=1 we also determine the partial width Γ(B̄→D*lν̄)=[29.9±1.9 (stat) ±2.7 (syst.) ±2.0 (lifetime)] ns-1 (independent of f+-/f00). From this partial width we calculate B̄→D*lν̄ branching fractions that do not depend on f+-/f00 or the individual B lifetimes, but only on the charged to neutral B lifetime ratio. The product of the CKM matrix element -Vcb- times the normalization of the decay form factor at the point of no recoil of the D* meson, scrF(y=1), is determined from a linear fit to the combined differential decay rate of the exclusive B̄→D*lν̄ decays: -Vcb-scrF(1)=0.0351±0.0019 (stat) ±0.0018 (syst) ±0.0008 (lifetime). The value for -Vcb- is extracted using theoretical calculations of the form factor normalization. © 1995 The American Physical Society.

Date: 1994-12-01

Creator: D. Cinabro, T. Liu, M. Saulnier, R. Wilson, H., Yamamoto, T. Bergfeld, B. I. Eisenstein, G. Gollin, B. Ong, M. Palmer, M. Selen, J. J. Thaler, K. W. Edwards, M. Ogg, A. Bellerive, D. I. Britton, E. R.F. Hyatt, D. B. MacFarlane, P. M. Patel, B. Spaan, A. J. Sadoff, R. Ammar, P. Baringer, A. Bean, D. Besson, D. Coppage, N. Copty, R. Davis, N. Hancock, M. Kelly, S. Kotov

Access: Open access

We have studied the leptonic decay of the γ (1S) resonance into tau pairs using the CLEO II detector. A clean sample of tau pair events is identified via events containing two charged particles where exactly one of the particles is an identified electron. We find B(γ(1S) → τ+τ-) = (2.61±0.12-0.13+0.09)%. The result is consistent with expectations from lepton universality. © 1994.

Date: 2014-09-16

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

Date: 2012-06-26

Creator: Brian D. Young, David I. Weiss, Cecilia I. Zurita-Lopez, Kristofor J. Webb, Steven G., Clarke, Anne E. McBride

Access: Open access

We have characterized the posttranslational methylation of Rps2, Rps3, and Rps27a, three small ribosomal subunit proteins in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, using mass spectrometry and amino acid analysis. We found that Rps2 is substoichiometrically modified at arginine-10 by the Rmt1 methyltransferase. We demonstrated that Rps3 is stoichiometrically modified by ω- monomethylation at arginine-146 by mass spectrometric and site-directed mutagenic analyses. Substitution of alanine for arginine at position 146 is associated with slow cell growth, suggesting that the amino acid identity at this site may influence ribosomal function and/or biogenesis. Analysis of the three-dimensional structure of Rps3 in S. cerevisiae shows that arginine-146 makes contacts with the small subunit rRNA. Screening of deletion mutants encoding potential yeast methyltransferases revealed that the loss of the YOR021C gene results in the absence of methylation of Rps3. We demonstrated that recombinant Yor021c catalyzes ω-monomethylarginine formation when incubated with S-adenosylmethionine and hypomethylated ribosomes prepared from a YOR021C deletion strain. Interestingly, Yor021c belongs to the family of SPOUT methyltransferases that, to date, have only been shown to modify RNA substrates. Our findings suggest a wider role for SPOUT methyltransferases in nature. Finally, we have demonstrated the presence of a stoichiometrically methylated cysteine residue at position 39 of Rps27a in a zinc-cysteine cluster. The discovery of these three novel sites of protein modification within the small ribosomal subunit will now allow for an analysis of their functional roles in translation and possibly other cellular processes. © 2012 American Chemical Society.

Date: 2009-08-05

Creator: Anne E. McBride, Ana K. Conboy, Shanique P. Brown, Chaiyaboot Ariyachet, Kate L., Rutledge

Access: Open access

The discovery of roles for arginine methylation in intracellular transport and mRNA splicing has focused attention on the methylated arginine-glycine (RG)-rich domains found in many eukaryotic RNA-binding proteins. Sequence similarity among these highly repetitive RG domains, combined with interactions between RG-rich proteins, raises the question of whether these regions are general interaction motifs or whether there is specificity within these domains. Using the essential Saccharomyces cerevisiae mRNA-binding protein Npl3 (ScNpl3) as a model system, we first tested the importance of the RG domain for protein function. While Npl3 lacking the RG domain could not support growth of cells lacking Npl3, surprisingly, expression of the RG domain alone supported partial growth of these cells. To address the specificity of this domain, we created chimeric forms of ScNpl3 with RG-rich domains of S. cerevisiae nucleolar proteins, Gar1 and Nop1 (ScGar1, ScNop1), or of the Candida albicans Npl3 ortholog (CaNpl3). Whereas the CaNpl3 RG chimeric protein retained nearly wild-type function in S. cerevisiae, the ScGar1 and ScNop1 RG domains significantly reduced Npl3 function and self-association, indicating RG domain specificity. Nuclear localization of Npl3 also requires specific RG sequences, yet heterologous RG domains allow similar modulation of Npl3 transport by arginine methylation.

Date: 2007-07-01

Creator: Anne E. McBride, Cecilia Zurita-Lopez, Anthony Regis, Emily Blum, Ana, Conboy, Shannon Elf, Steven Clarke

Access: Open access

Protein arginine methylation plays a key role in numerous eukaryotic processes, such as protein transport and signal transduction. In Candida albicans, two candidate protein arginine methyltransferases (PRMTs) have been identified from the genome sequencing project. Based on sequence comparison, C. albicans candidate PRMTs display similarity to Saccharomyces cerevisiae Hmt1 and Rmt2. Here we demonstrate functional homology of Hmt1 between C. albicans and S. cerevisiae: CaHmt1 supports growth of S. cerevisiae strains that require Hmt1, and CaHmt1 methylates Npl3, a major Hmt1 substrate, in S. cerevisiae. In C. albicans strains lacking CaHmt1, asymmetric dimethylarginine and ω-monomethylarginine levels are significantly decreased, indicating that Hmt1 is the major C. albicans type I PRMT1. Given the known effects of type I PRMTs on nuclear transport of RNA-binding proteins, we tested whether Hmt1 affects nuclear transport of a putative Npl3 ortholog in C. albicans. CaNpl3 allows partial growth of S. cerevisiae npl3Δ strains, but its arginine-glycine-rich C terminus can fully substitute for that of ScNpl3 and also directs methylation-sensitive association with ScNpl3. Expression of green fluorescent protein-tagged CaNpl3 proteins in C. albicans strains with and without CaHmt1 provides evidence for CaHmt1 facilitating export of CaNpl3 in this fungus. We have also identified the C. albicans Rmt2, a type IV fungus- and plant-specific PRMT, by amino acid analysis of an rmt2Δ/rmt2Δ strain, as well as biochemical evidence for additional cryptic PRMTs. Copyright © 2007, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

Date: 2017-11-07

Creator: Allison L. Dzubak, Chandrima Mitra, Michael Chance, Stephen Kuhn, Gerald E., Jellison, Athena S. Sefat, Jaron T. Krogel, Fernando A. Reboredo

Access: Open access

MnNiO3 is a strongly correlated transition metal oxide that has recently been investigated theoretically for its potential application as an oxygen-evolution photocatalyst. However, there is no experimental report on critical quantities such as the band gap or bulk modulus. Recent theoretical predictions with standard functionals such as LDA+U and HSE show large discrepancies in the band gaps (about 1.23 eV), depending on the nature of the functional used. Hence there is clearly a need for an accurate quantitative prediction of the band gap to gauge its utility as a photocatalyst. In this work, we present a diffusion quantum Monte Carlo study of the bulk properties of MnNiO3 and revisit the synthesis and experimental properties of the compound. We predict quasiparticle band gaps of 2.0(5) eV and 3.8(6) eV for the majority and minority spin channels, respectively, and an equilibrium volume of 92.8 Å3, which compares well to the experimental value of 94.4 Å3. A bulk modulus of 217 GPa is predicted for MnNiO3. We rationalize the difficulty for the formation of ordered ilmenite-type structure with specific sites for Ni and Mn to be potentially due to the formation of antisite defects that form during synthesis, which ultimately affects the physical properties of MnNiO3.

Date: 2019-01-01

Creator: Mohammad T. Irfan, Tucker Gordon

Access: Open access

Game theory has been widely used for modeling strategic behaviors in networked multiagent systems. However, the context within which these strategic behaviors take place has received limited attention. We present a model of strategic behavior in networks that incorporates the behavioral context, focusing on the contextual aspects of congressional voting. One salient predictive model in political science is the ideal point model, which assigns each senator and each bill a number on the real line of political spectrum. We extend the classical ideal point model with network-structured interactions among senators. In contrast to the ideal point model's prediction of individual voting behavior, we predict joint voting behaviors in a game-theoretic fashion. The consideration of context allows our model to outperform previous models that solely focus on the networked interactions with no contextual parameters. We focus on two fundamental problems: learning the model using real-world data and computing stable outcomes of the model with a view to predicting joint voting behaviors and identifying most influential senators. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our model through experiments using data from the 114th U.S. Congress.

Date: 1996-03-19

Creator: A. E. Mcbride, A. Schlegel, K. Kirkegaard

Access: Open access

A HeLa cDNA expression library was screened for human polypeptides that interacted with the poliovirus RNA-dependent RNA polymerase, 3D, using the two-hybrid system in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Sam68 (Src- associated in mitosis, 68 kDa) emerged as the human cDNA that, when fused to a transcriptional activation domain, gave the strongest 3D interaction signal with a LexA-3D hybrid protein. 3D polymerase and Sam68 coimmunoprecipitated from infected human cell lysates with antibodies that recognized either protein. Upon poliovirus infection. Sam68 relocalized from the nucleus to the cytoplasm, where poliovirus replication occurs. Sam68 was isolated from infected cell lysates with an antibody that recognizes poliovirus protein 2C, suggesting that it is found on poliovirus-induced membranes upon which viral RNA synthesis occurs. These data, in combination with the known RNA- and protein-binding properties of Sam68, make Sam68 a strong candidate for a host protein with a functional role in poliovirus replication.

Date: 2013-04-12

Creator: PJ Rey, Nathan Jurgenson

Access: Open access

Effective collaboration in communities requires information sharing. Though digital media may have certain affordances that encourage us to communicate differently than in the past, the communities these media facilitate are no less real than communities bound together by voice or text. In this paper, we argue that idea of “virtual communities” is misleading. Communities and collaboration occur not in some virtual world or a new, cyber, space, but instead they are part of one reality influenced simultaneously by materiality and the various flows of information—digital included. In light of this argument, we implore researchers to take serious the influence of digitality, and, specific to this conference, those looking primarily at digitality to take seriously the materiality, bodies, history, and politics not separate from but deeply interpenetrating the digital. The changes in community organization brought about by digital media should not be thought of or called “virtual” (e.g., “virtual teams” as opposed to real ones), but instead part of one augmented community. Presented at the Collaborative Organizations & Social Media Conference at Bowdoin College on April 12, 2013.

Date: 2014-05-20

Creator: Joshua J. Lawler, David J. Lewis, Erik Nelson, Andrew J. Plantinga, Stephen, Polasky, John C. Withey, David P. Helmers, Sebastián Martinuzzi, Derric Penningtonh

Access: Open access

Providing food, timber, energy, housing, and other goods and services, while maintaining ecosystem functions and biodiversity that underpin their sustainable supply, is one of the great challenges of our time. Understanding the drivers of land-use change and how policies can alter land-use change will be critical to meeting this challenge. Here we project land-use change in the contiguous United States to 2051 under two plausible baseline trajectories of economic conditions to illustrate how differences in underlying market forces can have large impacts on land-use with cascading effects on ecosystem services and wildlife habitat. We project a large increase in croplands (28.2 million ha) under a scenario with high crop demand mirroring conditions starting in 2007, compared with a loss of cropland (11.2 million ha) mirroring conditions in the 1990s. Projected land-use changes result in increases in carbon storage, timber production, food production from increased yields, and >10% decreases in habitat for 25% of modeled species. We also analyze policy alternatives designed to encourage forest cover and natural landscapes and reduce urban expansion. Although these policy scenarios modify baseline land-use patterns, they do not reverse powerful underlying trends. Policy interventions need to be aggressive to significantly alter underlying land-use change trends and shift the trajectory of ecosystem service provision.

Date: 2020-07-01

Creator: Erik Nelson, Maggie Rogers, Spencer Wood, Jesse Chung, Bonnie, Keeler

Access: Open access

We use large dataset on US lakes from 17 states to estimate the relationship between summertime visits to lakes as proxied by social media use and the lakes' water quality, amenities, and surrounding landscape features and socioeconomic conditions. Prior to estimating these relationships we worked on 1) selecting a parsimonious set of explanatory variables from a roster of more than 100 lake attributes and 2) accounting for the non-random pattern of missing water quality data. These steps 1) improved the interpretability of the estimated visit models and 2) widened our estimated models' scope of statistical inference. We used Machine Learning techniques to select parsimonious sets of explanatory variables and multiple imputation to estimate water quality at lakes missing this data. We found the following relationships between summertime visits to lake and their attributes across the 17-state region. First, we estimated that every additional meter of average summer-time Secchi depth between 1995 and 2014 was associated with at least 7.0% more summer-time visits to a lake between 2005 to 2014, all else equal. Second, we consistently found that lake amenities, such as beaches, boat launches, and public toilets, were more powerful predictors of visits than water quality. Third, we also found that visits to a lake were strongly influenced by the lake's accessibility and its distance to nearby lakes and the amenities the nearby lakes offered. Finally, our results highlight the biased results that "big data"-based research on recreation can generate if non-random missing observation patterns in the data are not corrected.

Date: 2003-07-01

Creator: Stephen M. Majercik, Michael L. Littman

Access: Open access

We describe a new planning technique that efficiently solves probabilistic propositional contingent planning problems by converting them into instances of stochastic satisfiability (SSAT) and solving these problems instead. We make fundamental contributions in two areas: the solution of SSAT problems and the solution of stochastic planning problems. This is the first work extending the planning-as-satisfiability paradigm to stochastic domains. Our planner, ZANDER, can solve arbitrary, goal-oriented, finite-horizon partially observable Markov decision processes (POMDPs). An empirical study comparing ZANDER to seven other leading planners shows that its performance is competitive on a range of problems. © 2003 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

Date: 2013-04-12

Creator: Peter Gloor

Access: Open access

In this project we compare communication structure and content exchanged by members of creative, interdisciplinary teams of medical researchers, physicians, patients and caretakers with their creative output. We find that longitudinal social networking patterns and word usage predict creative performance. We collected the e-mail archives of 60 members of a community of researchers working on 12 projects improving various aspects of the daily lives of patients of Crohn’s disease. Our results indicate that more creative projects show a decrease in group density, while more actors are involved, and more emails are exchanged, suggesting that a more successful project attracts more attention from many different people. We also found that members of more creative projects use more emotional language, which gets more focused over time.

Date: 2019-03-01

Creator: Joseph Jay Sosa

Access: Open access

From resistance fighter against Brazil’s military dictatorship to its first female president, Dilma Rousseff’s biography follows the historic arc of democratization in Brazil. Her 2016 impeachment was also the culminating event of numerous crises that polarized Brazilian society. To supporters, Rousseff’s removal without evidence constitutes an abrogation of democracy. To critics, Rousseff had to answer for an economic recession and widespread corruption (though she was not implicated in any investigation). This article examines the social imaginaries of the rightward turn that made Rousseff’s removal possible. Moving across diverse sets of public culture-street protests, journalistic accounts, political observations, and Rousseff’s speeches-the article uses sexism against Rousseff as an analytic to deconstruct the cultural narratives of Brazil’s rightward turn. A first section considers conservative efforts to paint Rousseff as a political subversive. These accusations drew on long-standing, right-wing Brazilian tropes around people who don’t “act right” in the moral, sexual, and ideological fields. A second section reads the maternal metaphors of Rousseff’s governance strategies against conflicting political renderings of the family-pitting left-wing versions of family rooted in economic development against Evangelical Christian accounts of the family as a gender-normative unit. A third section argues that Rousseff’s response to the charges against her turned her (and those who argued her case) into what Sara Ahmed calls “feminist killjoys.” Ultimately, the question of sexism in Rousseff’s impeachment shows how deep-seated cultural conservatisms can be activated in a new era of democratic uncertainty.

Date: 2021-01-01

Creator: Crystal Hall, Eric Chown, Fernando Nascimento

Access: Open access

The Faculty of Digital and Computational Studies (DCS) at Bowdoin College proposes a critical, analytical framework, referred to as the ‘4As,’ as an interdisciplinary means to interpret, evaluate, and create the data, operations, and devices of computing across all domains of knowledge production. Following other disciplines that have developed in symbiotic relationships to one another, DCS puts computation in conversation with fields from across the arts, humanities, physical, and social sciences. Our foundational premise is the bidirectional influence between these disciplines and digital artifacts and computation. The 4As (artifact, architecture, abstraction, and agency) benefit from both the scepticism of the liberal arts in the face of ubiquitous digital processes and the analytical opening for examining questions pertaining to creative and imaginative alternatives to the digital and computational status quo. We provide an ultra-contemporary case study to demonstrate the framework in use.

Date: 2014-01-01

Creator: Patricia S. Thibodeau, Collin S. Roesler, Susan L. Drapeau, S. G. Prabhu Matondkar, Joaquim I., Goes, P. Jeremy Werdell

Access: Open access

Coincident with shifting monsoon weather patterns over India, the phytoplankter Noctiluca miliaris has recently been observed to be dominating phytoplankton blooms in the northeastern Arabian Sea during the winter monsoons. Identifying the exact environmental and/or ecological conditions that favor this species has been hampered by the lack of concurrent environmental and biological observations on time and space scales relevant to ecologic and physiologic processes. We present a bio-optical proxy for N. miliaris measured on highly resolved depth scales coincident with hydrographic observations with the goal to identify conducive hydrographic conditions for the bloom. The proxy is derived from multichannel excitation chlorophyll a fluorescence and is validated with microscopy, pigment composition, and spectral absorption. Phytoplankton populations dominated by either diatoms or other dinoflagellates were additionally discerned. N. miliaris populations in full bloom were identified offshore in low-nutrient and low–N:P ratio surface waters within a narrow temperature and salinity range. These populations transitioned to high-biomass diatom-dominated coastal upwelling populations. A week later, the N. miliaris blooms were observed in declining phase, transitioning to very-low-biomass populations of non–N. miliaris dinoflagellates. There were no clear hydrographic conditions uniquely associated with the N. miliaris populations, although N. miliaris was not found in the upwelling or extremely oligotrophic waters. Taxonomic transitions were not discernible in the spatial structure of the bloom as identified by the ocean color Chl imagery, indicating that in situ observations may be necessary to resolve community structure, particularly for populations below the surface.