Diazotrophs Show Signs of Restoration in Amazon Rain Forest Soils with Ecosystem Rehabilitation.

Biological nitrogen fixation can be an important source of nitrogen in tropical forests that serve as a major CO2 sink. Extensive deforestation of the Amazon is known to influence microbial communities and the biogeochemical cycles they mediate. However, it is unknown how diazotrophs (nitrogen-fixing microorganisms) respond to deforestation and subsequent ecosystem conversion to agriculture, as well as whether they can recover in secondary forests that are established after agriculture is abandoned. To address these knowledge gaps, we combined a spatially explicit sampling approach with high-throughput sequencing of nifH genes. The main objectives were to assess the functional distance decay relationship of the diazotrophic bacterial community in a tropical forest ecosystem and to quantify the roles of various factors that drive the observed changes in the diazotrophic community structure. We observed an increase in local diazotrophic diversity (α-diversity) with a decrease in community turnover (β-diversity), associated with a shift in diazotrophic community structure as a result of the forest-to-pasture conversion. Both diazotrophic community turnover and structure showed signs of recovery in secondary forests. Changes in the diazotrophic community were primarily driven by the change in land use rather than differences in geochemical characteristics or geographic distances. The diazotroph communities in secondary forests resembled those in primary forests, suggesting that at least partial recovery of diazotrophs is possible following agricultural abandonment.IMPORTANCE The Amazon region is a major tropical forest region that is being deforested at an alarming rate to create space for cattle ranching and agriculture. Diazotrophs (nitrogen-fixing microorganisms) play an important role in supplying soil N for plant growth in tropical forests. It is unknown how diazotrophs respond to deforestation and whether they can recover in secondary forests that establish after agriculture is abandoned. Using high-throughput sequencing of nifH genes, we characterized the response of diazotrophs' β-diversity and identified major drivers of changes in diazotrophs from forest-to-pasture and pasture-to-secondary-forest conversions. Studying the impact of land use change on diazotrophs is important for a better understanding of the impact of deforestation on tropical forest ecosystem functioning, and our results on the potential recovery of diazotrophs in secondary forests imply the possible restoration of ecosystem functions in secondary forests

Parton Distributions for Event Generators

In this paper, conventional Global QCD analysis is generalized to produce parton distributions optimized for use with event generators at the LHC. This optimization is accomplished by combining the constraints due to existing hard-scattering experimental data with those from anticipated cross sections for key representative SM processes at LHC (by the best available theory) as joint input to the global analyses. The PDFs obtained in these new type of global analyses using matrix elements calculated in any given order will be best suited to work with event generators of that order, for predictions at the LHC. This is most useful for LO event generators at present. Results obtained from a few candidate PDF sets (labeled as CT09MCS, CT09MC1 and CT09MC2) for LO event generators produced in this way are compared with those from other approaches.Comment: 35 pages, 19 figures, and 4 table

Culture shapes how we look at faces

Background: Face processing, amongst many basic visual skills, is thought to be invariant across all humans. From as early as 1965, studies of eye movements have consistently revealed a systematic triangular sequence of fixations over the eyes and the mouth, suggesting that faces elicit a universal, biologically-determined information extraction pattern. Methodology/Principal Findings: Here we monitored the eye movements of Western Caucasian and East Asian observers while they learned, recognized, and categorized by race Western Caucasian and East Asian faces. Western Caucasian observers reproduced a scattered triangular pattern of fixations for faces of both races and across tasks. Contrary to intuition, East Asian observers focused more on the central region of the face. Conclusions/Significance: These results demonstrate that face processing can no longer be considered as arising from a universal series of perceptual events. The strategy employed to extract visual information from faces differs across cultures

New Symmetries in Crystals and Handed Structures

For over a century, the structure of materials has been described by a combination of rotations, rotation-inversions and translational symmetries. By recognizing the reversal of static structural rotations between clockwise and counterclockwise directions as a distinct symmetry operation, here we show that there are many more structural symmetries than are currently recognized in right- or left-handed handed helices, spirals, and in antidistorted structures composed equally of rotations of both handedness. For example, though a helix or spiral cannot possess conventional mirror or inversion symmetries, they can possess them in combination with the rotation reversal symmetry. Similarly, we show that many antidistorted perovskites possess twice the number of symmetry elements as conventionally identified. These new symmetries predict new forms for "roto" properties that relate to static rotations, such as rotoelectricity, piezorotation, and rotomagnetism. They also enable symmetry-based search for new phenomena, such as multiferroicity involving a coupling of spins, electric polarization and static rotations. This work is relevant to structure-property relationships in all material structures with static rotations such as minerals, polymers, proteins, and engineered structures.Comment: 15 Pages, 4 figures, 3 Tables; Fig. 2b has error

Entropy flow in near-critical quantum circuits

Near-critical quantum circuits are ideal physical systems for asymptotically large-scale quantum computers, because their low energy collective excitations evolve reversibly, effectively isolated from the environment. The design of reversible computers is constrained by the laws governing entropy flow within the computer. In near-critical quantum circuits, entropy flows as a locally conserved quantum current, obeying circuit laws analogous to the electric circuit laws. The quantum entropy current is just the energy current divided by the temperature. A quantum circuit made from a near-critical system (of conventional type) is described by a relativistic 1+1 dimensional relativistic quantum field theory on the circuit. The universal properties of the energy-momentum tensor constrain the entropy flow characteristics of the circuit components: the entropic conductivity of the quantum wires and the entropic admittance of the quantum circuit junctions. For example, near-critical quantum wires are always resistanceless inductors for entropy. A universal formula is derived for the entropic conductivity: \sigma_S(\omega)=iv^{2}S/\omega T, where \omega is the frequency, T the temperature, S the equilibrium entropy density and v the velocity of `light'. The thermal conductivity is Real(T\sigma_S(\omega))=\pi v^{2}S\delta(\omega). The thermal Drude weight is, universally, v^{2}S. This gives a way to measure the entropy density directly.Comment: 2005 paper published 2017 in Kadanoff memorial issue of J Stat Phys with revisions for clarity following referee's suggestions, arguments and results unchanged, cross-posting now to quant-ph, 27 page

The Structure of the Non-SUSY Baryonic Branch of Klebanov-Strassler

We study the two-dimensional space of supergravity solutions corresponding to non-supersymmetric deformations of the baryonic branch of Klebanov-Strassler. By combining analytical methods with a numerical survey of the parameter space, we find that this solution space includes as limits the softly-broken N=1 solutions of Gubser et al. and those of Dymarsky and Kuperstein. We also identify a one-dimensional family of solutions corresponding to a natural non-supersymmetric generalisation of Klebanov-Strassler, and one corresponding to the limit in which supersymmetry is completely absent, even in the far UV. For almost all of the parameter space we find indications that much of the structure of the supersymmetric baryonic branch survives.Comment: 29 pages plus appendices, 11 figure

Scallop swimming kinematics and muscle performance: modelling the effects of "within-animal" variation in temperature sensitivity

Escape behaviour was investigated in Queen scallops (Aequipecten opercularis) acclimated to 5, 10 or 15 degrees C and tested at their acclimation temperature. Scallops are active molluscs, able to escape from predators by jet-propelled swimming using a striated muscle working in opposition to an elastic hinge ligament. The first cycle of the escape response was recorded using high-speed video ( 250 Hz) and whole-animal velocity and acceleration determined. Muscle shortening velocity, force and power output were calculated using measurements of valve movement and jet area, and a simple biomechanical model. The average shortening speed of the adductor muscle had a Q(10) of 2.04, significantly reducing the duration of the jetting phase of the cycle with increased temperature. Muscle lengthening velocity and the overall duration of the clap cycle were changed little over the range 5 - 15 degrees C, as these parameters were controlled by the relatively temperature-insensitive, hinge ligament. Improvements in the average power output of the adductor muscle over the first clap cycle ( 222 vs. 139 W kg(-1) wet mass at 15 and 5 degrees C respectively) were not translated into proportional increases in overall swimming velocity, which was only 32% higher at 15 degrees C ( 0.37m s(-1)) than 5 degrees C (0.28 m s(-1))

Scalar Three-point Functions in a CDL Background

Motivated by the FRW-CFT proposal by Freivogel, Sekino, Susskind and Yeh, we compute the three-point function of a scalar field in a Coleman-De Luccia instanton background. We first compute the three-point function of the scalar field making only very mild assumptions about the scalar potential and the instanton background. We obtain the three-point function for points in the FRW patch of the CDL instanton and take two interesting limits; the limit where the three points are near the boundary of the hyperbolic slices of the FRW patch, and the limit where the three points lie on the past lightcone of the FRW patch. We expand the past lightcone three-point function in spherical harmonics. We show that the near boundary limit expansion of the three-point function of a massless scalar field exhibits conformal structure compatible with FRW-CFT when the FRW patch is flat. We also compute the three-point function when the scalar is massive, and explain the obstacles to generalizing the conjectured field-operator correspondence of massless fields to massive fields.Comment: 42 pages + appendices, 10 figures; v2, v3: minor correction

Holographic duals of SQCD models in low dimensions

We obtain gravity duals to supersymmetric gauge theories in two and three spacetime dimensions with unquenched flavor. The supergravity solutions are generated by a set of color branes wrapping a compact cycle in a Calabi-Yau threefold, together with another set of flavor branes extended along the directions orthogonal to the cycle wrapped by the color branes. We construct supergravity backgrounds which include the backreaction induced by a smeared set of flavor branes, which act as delocalized dynamical sources of the different supergravity fields.Comment: 42 pages, 5 figures;v2: typos correcte