Long-term species richness-abundance dynamics in relation to species departures and arrivals in wintering urban bird assemblages

Temporal dynamics of local assemblages depend on the species richness and the total abundance of individuals as well as local departure and arrival rates of species. We used urban bird survey data collected from the same 31 study plots and methods during three winters (1991–1992; 1999–2000 and 2009–2010) to analyze the temporal relationship between bird species richness and total number of individuals (abundance). We also evaluated local departures and arrivals of species in each assemblage. In total, 13,812 individuals of 35 species were detected. The temporal variation in bird species richness followed the variation in the total number of individuals. The numbers of local departure and arrival events were similar. Also, the mean number of individuals of the recently arrived species (8.6) was almost the same as the mean number of individuals of the departed species (8.2). Risk of species departure was inversely related to number of individuals. Local species richness increased by one species when the total abundance of individuals increased by around 125 individuals and vice versa. Our results highlight the important role of local population departures and arrivals in determining the local species richness-abundance dynamics in human-dominated landscapes. Local species richness patterns depend on the total number of individuals as well as both the departure-arrival dynamics of individual species as well as the dynamics of all the species together. Our results support the more individuals hypothesis, which suggests that individual-rich assemblages have more species

Effects of orbital occupancies on the neutrinoless beta-beta matrix element of 76Ge

In this work we use the recently measured neutron occupancies in the 76Ge and 76Se nuclei as a guideline to define the neutron quasiparticle states in the 1p0f0g shell. We define the proton quasiparticles by inspecting the odd-mass nuclei adjacent to 76Ge and 76Se. We insert the resulting quasiparticles in a proton-neutron quasiparticle random-phase approximation (pnQRPA) calculation of the nuclear matrix element of the neutrinoless double beta (0-nu-beta-beta) decay of 76Ge. A realistic model space and effective microscopic two-nucleon interactions are used. We include the nucleon-nucleon short-range correlations and other relevant corrections at the nucleon level. It is found that the resulting 0-nu-beta-beta matrix element is smaller than in the previous pnQRPA calculations, and closer to the recently reported shell-model results.Comment: To appear in Physics Letters

Probing the quenching of gA by single and double beta decays

Ground-state-to-ground-state two-neutrino double beta (2νββ) decays and single beta (EC and β−) decays are studied for the A=100 (100Mo100Tc100Ru), A=116 (116Cd116In116Sn) and A=128 (128Te128I128Xe) nuclear systems by using the proton–neutron quasiparticle random-phase approximation exploiting realistic effective interactions in very large single-particle bases. The aim of this exercise is to see if both the single-beta and double-beta decay observables related to the ground states of the initial, intermediate and final nuclei participant in the decays can be described simultaneously by changing the value of the axial-vector coupling constant gA. In spite of the very different responses to single and 2νββ decays of the considered nuclear systems, the obtained results point consistently to a quenched effective value of gA that is (slightly) different for the single and 2νββ decays.Fil: Suhonen, Jouni. Universidad de Jyvaskyla; FinlandiaFil: Civitarese, Enrique Osvaldo. Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas. Departamento de Física; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentin

Chaperone-assisted translocation of flexible polymers in three dimensions

Polymer translocation through a nanometer-scale pore assisted by chaperones binding to the polymer is a process encountered in vivo for proteins. Studying the relevant models by computer simulations is computationally demanding. Accordingly, previous studies are either for stiff polymers in three dimensions or flexible polymers in two dimensions. Here, we study chaperone-assisted translocation of flexible polymers in three dimensions using Langevin dynamics. We show that differences in binding mechanisms, more specifically, whether a chaperone can bind to a single or multiple sites on the polymer, lead to substantial differences in translocation dynamics in three dimensions. We show that the single-binding mode leads to dynamics that is very much like that in the constant-force driven translocation and accordingly mainly determined by tension propagation on the cis side. We obtain $\beta \approx 1.26$ for the exponent for the scaling of the translocation time with polymer length. This fairly low value can be explained by the additional friction due to binding particles. The multiple-site binding leads to translocation whose dynamics is mainly determined by the trans side. For this process we obtain $\beta \approx 1.36$. This value can be explained by our derivation of $\beta = 4/3$ for constant-bias translocation, where translocated polymer segments form a globule on the trans side. Our results pave the way for understanding and utilizing chaperone-assisted translocation where variations in microscopic details lead to rich variations in the emerging dynamics.Comment: 10 pages, 12 figure

Urbanization and species occupancy frequency distribution patterns in core zone areas of European towns

More and more of the globe is becoming urbanized. Thus, characterizing the distribution and abundance of species occupying different towns is critically important. The primary aim of this study was to examine the effect of urbanization and latitude on the patterns of species occupancy frequency distribution (SOFD) in urban core zones of European towns (38 towns) along a 3850-km latitudinal gradient. We determined which of the three most common distributional models (unimodal-satellite dominant, bimodal symmetrical, and bimodal asymmetrical) provides the best fit for urban bird communities using the AICc-model selection procedure. Our pooled data exhibited a unimodal-satellite SOFD pattern. This result is inconsistent with the results from previous studies that have been conducted in more natural habitats, where data have mostly exhibited a bimodal SOFD pattern. Large-sized towns exhibited a bimodal symmetric pattern, whereas smaller-sized towns followed a unimodal-satellite dominated SOFD pattern. The difference in environmental diversity is the most plausible explanation for this observation because habitat diversity of the study plots decreased as urbanization increased. Southern towns exhibited unimodal satellite SOFD patterns, central European towns exhibited bimodal symmetric, and northern towns exhibited bimodal asymmetric SOFD patterns. One explanation for this observation is that urbanization is a more recent phenomenon in the north than in the south. Therefore, more satellite species are found in northern towns than in southern towns. We found that core species in European towns are widely distributed, and their regional population sizes are large. Our results indicated that earlier urbanized species are more common in towns than the species that have urbanized later. We concluded that both the traits of bird species and characteristics of towns modified the SOFD patterns of urban-breeding birds. In the future, it would be interesting to study how the urban history impacts SOFD patterns and if the SOFD patterns of wintering and breeding assemblages are the same

Double beta decay to the excited states: experimental review

A brief review on double beta decay to excited states of daughter nuclei is given. The ECEC(ov) transision to the excited states are discussed in association with a possible enhancement of the decay rate by several orders of magnitude.Comment: 5 pages; talk at MEDEX'07 ("Matrix Elements for the Double-beta-decay Experiments"; Prague, June 11-14, 2007

De l’humour noir au rire jaune : les mécanismes textuels de l’ironie chez Marie-Claire Blais et Rosa Liksom

L’article propose une étude des mécanismes textuels de l’ironie dans Une saison dans la vie d’Emmanuel, roman de l’auteure québécoise Marie-Claire Blais (1965) et dans le recueil de nouvelles Noirs paradis de sa consoeur finlandaise Rosa Liksom (1989). L’écriture ironique a recours à deux procédés linguistiques : sémantique (antiphrase, antonymie, isotopie, polysémie) qui tire son essence du cotexte, et pragmatique (pacte de lecture, polyphonie, significations implicites) qui est dépendant du contexte. C’est surtout la dimension pragmatique de l’ironie qui fait que l’humour noir se mute en rire jaune, prenant pour cible les préjugés que partage le lecteur. L’omniprésence de l’absurde transforme les récits du sérieux au comique et le rire peu « politiquement correct » fait que le comique, parallèlement, devient critique.This article proposes a study of the textual mechanisms of irony in Une saison dans la vie d’Emmanuel (A Season in the Life of Emmanuel), a novel by the Québec author Marie-Claire Blais (1965) and in the short story collection Noirs paradis (Dark Paradise) by her Finnish sister in writing, Rosa Liksom (1989). Ironic writing has recourse to two linguistic processes: semantics (antiphrase, antonymy, isotopy, polysemy), which takes its essence from the cotext, and pragmatics (reading pact, polyphony, implicit meanings), which is dependent upon context. The pragmatic dimension of irony, especially, is the reason why black humour changes into yellow laughter, its target being the prejudices shared by the reader. The omnipresence of the absurd transforms the narratives from serious to comical, and the less than “politically correct” laughter turns the comical at the same time into criticism