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Fast, three-dimensional polarization mapping in piezoelectric sensor cables was performed by means of the novel thermal-pulse tomography (TPT) technique with a lateral resolution of 200 mum. The active piezoelectric cable material (a copolymer of polyvinylidene fluoride with trifluoroethylene) was electrically poled with a point-to-cable corona discharge. A focused laser was employed to heat the opaque outer electrode, and the short-circuit current generated by the thermal pulse was used to obtain 3D polarization maps via the scale transformation method. The article describes the TPT technique as a fast non-destructive option for studying cylindrical geometries.
Life on the edge: hydrogen sulfide and the fish communities of a Mexican cave and surrounding waters
(2006)
Most eucaryotic organisms classified as living in an extreme habitat are invertebrates. Here we report of a fish living in a Mexican cave (Cueva del Azufre) that is rich in highly toxic H2S. We compared the water chemistry and fish communities of the cave and several nearby surface streams. Our study revealed high concentrations of H2S in the cave and its outflow (El Azufre). The concentrations of H2S reach more than 300 mu M inside the cave, which are acutely toxic for most fishes. In both sulfidic habitats, the diversity of fishes was heavily reduced, and Poecilia mexicana was the dominant species indicating that the presence of H2S has an all-or-none effect, permitting only few species to survive in sulfidic habitats. Compared to habitats without H2S, P. mexicana from the cave and the outflow have a significantly lower body condition. Although there are microhabitats with varying concentrations of H2S within the cave, we could not find a higher fish density in areas with lower concentrations of H2S. We discuss that P. mexicana is one of the few extremophile vertebrates. Our study supports the idea that extreme habitats lead to an impoverished species diversity.
A tailor-made horseradish peroxidase (HRP) bulk composite electrode was developed on the basis of pyrolyzed cobalt tetramethoxyphenylporphyrin (CoTMPP) by modifying pore size and surface area of the porous carbon material through varying amounts of iron oxalate and sulfur prior to pyrolyzation. The materials were used to immobilize horseradish peroxidase (HRP). These electrodes were characterized in terms of their efficiency to reduce hydrogen peroxide. The heterogeneous electron transfer rate constants of different materials were determined with the rotating disk electrode method and a k(S) (401 +/- 61 s(-1)) exceeding previously reported values for native HRP was found.
We analytically describe the complex scenario of homoclinic bifurcations in the Chua’s circuit. We obtain a general scaling law that gives the ratio between bifurcation parameters of different nearby homoclinic orbits. As an application of this theoretical approach, we estimate the number of higher order subsidiary homoclinic orbits that appear between two consecutive lower order subsidiary orbits. Our analytical finds might be valid for a large class of dynamical systems and are numerically confirmed in the parameter space of the Chua’s circuit.
Shilnikov homoclinic orbits are trajectories that depart from a fixed saddle-focus point, with specific eigenvalues, and return to it after an infinite amount of time (that is also true to time reversal evolution). That results in an orbit that is unstable and has an infinite period. These two main characteristics contribute in the hardness for its observation in a dynamical system as well as in nature. However, its presence reveals fundamental characteristics of the system involved, as the existence of unstable periodic orbits embedded in a chaotic set. Once the unstable periodic orbits give invariants quantities of this set,1 the Shilnikov homoclinic orbits are also related to the characteristics of the chaotic set. Their connection with the fundamental dynamical properties is verified in a wide variety of systems. A series of numerical and experimental investigations reveal how Shilnikov homoclinic orbits, in the vicinity of a chaotic attractor, determine its dynamical and topological properties.4 Thus, the Shilnikov orbits are related to the returning time of the trajectory of a CO2 laser,5 also to the topology of a glow-discharge system.6 Moreover, some class of spiking neurons are modeled by chaos governed by such orbits,7,8 and their presence are connected to the intermittence present in rabbit arteries.9 These orbits are shown to be behind the mechanism of noise-induced phenomena,10 and they are also responsible for the dynamics of an electrochemical oscillator.11 In this work, we contribute to the understanding of how Shilnikov homoclinic orbits appear on the parameter space of systems as the ones above mentioned, by showing that these orbits are not only distributed following an universal rule but also exist for large parameter variations. We then confirm our previsions in the Chua’s circuit system
The first step in the estimation of probabilistic seismic hazard in a region commonly consists of the definition and characterization of the relevant seismic sources. Because in low-seismicity regions seismicity is often rather diffuse and faults are difficult to identify, large areal source zones are mostly used. The corresponding hypothesis is that seismicity is uniformly distributed inside each areal seismic source zone. In this study, the impact of this hypothesis on the probabilistic hazard estimation is quantified through the generation of synthetic spatial seismicity distributions. Fractal seismicity distributions are generated inside a given source zone and probabilistic hazard is computed for a set of sites located inside this zone. In our study, the impact of the spatial seismicity distribution is defined as the deviation from the hazard value obtained for a spatially uniform seismicity distribution. From the generation of a large number of synthetic distributions, the correlation between the fractal dimension D and the impact is derived. The results show that the assumption of spatially uniform seismicity tends to bias the hazard to higher values. The correlation can be used to determine the systematic biases and uncertainties for hazard estimations in real cases, where the fractal dimension has been determined. We apply the technique in Germany (Cologne area) and in France (Alps).
First comparison of array-derived rotational ground motions with direct ring laser measurements
(2006)
Recently, ring laser technology has provided the first consistent observations of rotational ground motions around a vertical axis induced by earthquakes. "Consistent," in this context, implies that the observed waveforms and amplitudes are compatible with collocated recordings of translational ground motions. In particular, transverse accelerations should be in phase with rotation rate and their ratio proportional to local horizontal phase velocity assuming plane-wave propagation. The ring laser installed at the Fundamental station Wettzell in the Bavarian Forest, Southeast Germany, is recording the rotation rate around a vertical axis, theoretically a linear combination of the space derivatives of the horizontal components of motion. This suggests that, in principle, rotation can be derived from seismic-array experiments by "finite differencing." This has been attempted previously in several studies; however, the accuracy of these observations could never be tested in the absence of direct measurements. We installed a double cross-shaped array of nine stations from December 2003 to March 2004 around the ring laser instrument and observed several large earthquakes on both the ring laser and the seismic array. Here we present for the first time a comparison of array-derived rotations with direct measurements of rotations for ground motions induced by the M 6.3 Al Hoceima, Morocco, earthquake of 24 February 2004. With complete 3D synthetic seismograms calculated for this event we show that even low levels of noise may considerably influence the accuracy of the array-derived rotations when the minimum number of required stations (three) is used. Nevertheless, when using all nine stations, the overall fit between direct and array-derived measurements is surprisingly good (maximum correlation coefficient of 0.94).
We installed a dense, amphibious, temporary seismological network to study the seismicity and structure of the seismogenic zone in southern Chile between 37° and 39°S, the nucleation area of the great 1960 Chile earthquake. 213 local earthquakes with 14.754 onset times were used for a simultaneous inversion for the 1‐D velocity model and precise earthquake locations. Relocated artificial shots suggest an accuracy of the earthquake hypocenter of about 1 km (horizontally) and 500 m (vertically). Crustal events along trench‐parallel and transverse, deep‐reaching faults reflect the interseismic transpressional deformation of the forearc crust due to the subduction of the Nazca plate. The transverse faults seems to accomplish differential lateral stresses between subduction zone segments. Many events situated in an internally structured, planar seismicity patch at 20 to 40 km depth near the coast indicate a stress concentration at the plate's interface at 38°S which might in part be induced by the fragmented forearc structure.
Crystal structures of four different di-aryl-1,3,4-oxadiazole compounds (aryl = 2-pyridyl-, 3-pyridyl-, 2-aminophenyl-, 3-aminophenyl-) are determined. Crystallization of di(2-pyridyl)-1,3,4-oxadiazole yielded monoclinic and triclinic polymorphs. The structures are characterized by the occurrence of pi-pi interactions. Additionally, in case of the aminophenyl compounds intra- as well as intermolecular hydrogen bonds are found that influence the packing motif as well. Since these molecules are often used as ligands in metal-organic complexes similarities and differences of the molecular conformation between the molecules in the pure crystals and that of the ligands in the complexes are discussed. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Relaxation processes at the glass transition in polyamide 11: From rigidity to viscoelasticity
(2006)
Relaxation processes associated with the glass transition in nonferroelectric and ferroelectric polyamide (PA) 11 are investigated by means of differential scanning calorimetry, dynamic mechanical analysis, and dielectric relaxation spectroscopy (DRS) in order to obtain information about the molecular mobility within the amorphous phase. In particular, the effects of melt quenching, cold drawing, and annealing just below the melting region are studied with respect to potential possibilities and limitations for improving the piezoelectric and pyroelectric properties of PA 11. A relaxation map is obtained from DRS that shows especially the crossover region where the cooperative alpha relaxation and the local beta relaxation merge into a single high-temperature process. No fundamental difference between quenched, cold-drawn, and annealed films is found, though in the cold-drawn (ferroelectric) film the alpha relaxation is suppressed and slowed down, but it is at least partly recovered by subsequent annealing. It is concluded that there exists an amorphous phase in all structures, even in the cold-drawn film. The amorphous phase can be more rigid or more viscoelastic depending on preparation. Cold drawing not only leads to crystallization in a ferroelectric form but also to higher rigidity of the remaining amorphous phase. Annealing just below the melting region after cold drawing causes a stronger phase separation between the crystalline phase and a more viscoelastic amorphous phase.
How do diverse dynamical patterns arise from the topology of complex networks? We study synchronization dynamics in the cortical brain network of the cat, which displays a hierarchically clustered organization, by modeling each node (cortical area) with a subnetwork of interacting excitable neurons. We find that in the biologically plausible regime the dynamics exhibits a hierarchical modular organization, in particular, revealing functional clusters coinciding with the anatomical communities at different scales. Our results provide insights into the relationship between network topology and functional organization of complex brain networks.
The aliphatic anthracene compound 1 and the oligomeric anthracene 2 were synthesized. Thin films of 1 and 2 mixed with the sensitizers tetraphenylporphyrin (TPP) and methylene blue (MB) were irradiated with visible light in air. Upon formation of singlet oxygen, the anthracene units were converted quantitatively to the corresponding endoperoxides. Heating of the irradiated samples afforded the parent anthracenes with high yields. Here, we demonstrate that the kinetics and reversibility of this reaction strongly depend on the microenvironment of the anthracene groups in the two compounds. The photooxidation of thin films of I is accompanied by interesting changes in the morphology of the film and allows the first application of 1 as a nondestructive negative-tone photo-resist for lithography and as an oxidizing ink. The morphology of 2 remained unchanged after photooxidation as a result of the stabilizing oligomer backbone. This stabilizing effect significantly improves the photochromic performance of 2. The reversibility of the photooxidation is very high (> 90%) for oligomeric films of 2 after several cycles of irradiation and beating. Decomposition of the anthracene and a loss of the activity of the sensitizer diminish slightly the performance of the monomeric species.
Iterated finite state sequential transducers are considered as language generating devices. The hierarchy induced by the size of the state alphabet is proved to collapse to the fourth level. The corresponding language families are related to the families of languages generated by Lindenmayer systems and Chomsky grammars. Finally, some results on deterministic and extended iterated finite state transducers are established.
Pattern-process analysis is one of the main threads in landscape ecological research. It aims at understanding the complex relationships between ecological processes and landscape patterns, identifying the underlying mechanisms and deriving valid predictions for scenarios of landscape change and its consequences. Today, various studies cope with these tasks through so called "landscape modelling" approaches. They integrate different aspects of heterogeneous and dynamic landscapes and model different driving forces, often using both statistical and process-oriented techniques. We identify two main approaches to deal with the analysis of pattern-process interactions: the first starts with pattern detection, pattern description and pattern analysis, the second with process description, simulation and pattern generation. Focussing on the interplay between these two approaches, landscape analysis and landscape modelling will improve our understanding of pattern-process interactions. The comparison of simulated and observed pattern is a prerequisite for both approaches. Therefore, we identify a set of quantitative, robust, and reproducible methods for the analysis of spatiotemporal patterns that is a starting point for a standard toolbox for ecologists as major future challenge and suggest necessary further methodological developments. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
The overuse of rainforests in the last century and its consequences necessitate a rethinking of logging policies. To this end models have been developed to simulate rainforest dynamics and to allow optional management strategies to be evaluated. Parameterisation of presently existing models for a certain site needs a lot of work, thus the parameterisation effort is too high to apply the models to a wide range of rainforests. Hence, in this paper we introduce the simplified model FORREG using the knowledge we have gained from a more complex model, FORMIX3-Q. The FORREG model uses differential equations to determine the volume growth of three successional species groups. Parameterisation is simplified by a genetic algorithm, which determines the required internal model parameters from characteristics of the forest dynamics. The new model is employed to assess the sustainability of various logging policies in terms of yield and damage. Results for three forests are discussed: (1) the tropical lowland rain forest in the Deramakot Forest Reserve, (2) the Lambir National Park in Malaysia and (3) a subtropical forest in Paraguay. Our model reproduces both undisturbed forest dynamics and dynamics of logged forests simulated with FORMIX3-Q very well. However, the resultant volumes of yield and damage differ slightly from those gained by FORMIX3-Q if short logging cycles are simulated. Choosing longer logging cycles leads to a good correspondence of both models. For the Deramakot Forest Reserve different logging cycles are compared and discussed. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Wetlands, and in particular riparian wetlands, represent an interface between the catchment area and the aquatic environment. They control the exchange of water and related chemical fluxes from the upper catchment area to surface waters like streams and lakes. Their influence on water and nutrient balances has been investigated mainly at the patch scale. In this study an attempt was made (a) to integrate riparian zones and wetlands into eco-hydrological river basin modelling, and (b) to quantify the impacts of riparian wetland processes on water and nutrient fluxes in a meso-scale catchment located in the northeastern German lowland. The investigation was performed by analysing hydro-chemical field data and applying the eco-hydrological model SWIM (Soil and Water Integrated Model), which was extended to reproduce the relevant water and nutrient flows and retention processes at the catchment scale in general, and in riparian zones and wetlands in particular. The main extensions introduced in the model were: (1) implementation of daily groundwater table dynamics at the hydrotope level, (2) implementation of water and nutrient uptake by plants from groundwater in riparian zones and wetlands, and (3) assessment of nutrient retention in groundwater and interflow. The simulation results indicate that wetlands, though they represent relatively small parts of the total catchment area, may have a significant impact on the overall water and nutrient balances of the catchment. The uncertainty of the simulation results is considerably high, with the main sources of uncertainty being the model parameters representing the geo-hydrology and the input data for land use management. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Translational diffusion of fluorescent tracer molecules in azobenzene polymer layers is studied at different temperatures and under illumination using the method of fluorescence recovery after photobleaching. Diffusion is clearly observed in the dark above the glass transition temperature, while homogeneous illumination at 488 nm and 100 mW/cm(2) does not cause any detectable diffusion of the dye molecules within azobenzene layers. This implies that the viscosity of azobenzene layers remains nearly unchanged under illumination with visible light in the absence of internal or external forces. (c) 2006 American Institute of Physics.
We study the overdamped version of two coupled anharmonic oscillators under the influence of both low- and high-frequency forces respectively and a Gaussian noise term added to one of the two state variables of the system. The dynamics of the system is first studied in the presence of both forces separately without noise. In the presence of only one of the forces, no resonance behaviour is observed, however, hysteresis happens there. Then the influence of the high-frequency force in the presence of a low-frequency, i.e. biharmonic forcing, is studied. Vibrational resonance is found to occur when the amplitude of the high-frequency force is varied. The resonance curve resembles a stochastic resonance-like curve. It is maximum at the value of g at which the orbit lies in one well during one half of the drive cycle of the low-frequency force and in the other for the remaining half cycle. Vibrational resonance is characterized using the response amplitude and mean residence time. We show the occurrence of stochastic resonance behaviour in the overdamped system by replacing the high-frequency force by Gaussian noise. Similarities and differences between both types of resonance are presented. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
The results of a quantum-mechanical study of vibrational relaxation of hydrogen adsorbed on a Si(100) surface with the multi-configurational time-dependent Hartree (MCTDH) method are presented. A two-dimensional subsystem is coupled non-linearly to a bath of harmonic oscillators (phonons of the Si bulk), and the relaxation of subsystem vibrations proceeds primarily via a two-phonon process. Characteristic times of the system evolution agree well with our previous perturbation theory study. The vibrational population decay is non-exponential, exhibiting pronounced recurrences due to finite bath size. The dependence of the lifetimes of the vibrational levels on the bath size and on the coupling details is investigated.