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Single Mode (single + mode)
Selected AbstractsEMPIRICAL EVIDENCE FOR AN OPTIMAL BODY SIZE IN SNAKESEVOLUTION, Issue 2 2003Scott M. Boback Abstract The concept of optimal size has been invoked to explain patterns in body size of terrestrial mammals. However, the generality of this phenomenon has not been tested with similarly complete data from other taxonomic groups. In this study we describe three statistical patterns of body size in snakes, all of which indicate an optimal length of 1.0 m. First, a distribution of largest body lengths of 618 snake species had a single mode at 1.0 m. Second, we found a positive relationship between the size of the largest member of an island snake assemblage and island area and a negative relationship between the size of the smallest member of an island snake assemblage and island area. Best-fit lines through these data cross at a point corresponding to 1.0 m in body length, the presumed optimal size for a one-species island. Third, mainland snake species smaller than 1.0 m become larger on islands whereas those larger than 1.0 m become smaller on islands. The observation that all three analyses converge on a common body size is concordant with patterns observed in mammals and partial analyses of four other disparate animal clades. Because snakes differ so strikingly from mammals (ectotherms, gape-limited predators, elongate body shape) the concordant patterns of these two groups provide strong evidence for the evolution of an optimal body size within independent monophyletic groups. However, snakes differ from other taxonomic groups that have been studied in exhibiting a body size distribution that is not obviously skewed in either direction. We suggest that idiosyncratic features of the natural history of ectotherms allow relatively unconstrained distributions of body size whereas physiological limitations of endotherms constrain distributions of body size to a right skew. [source] AN ORGANIZED SIGNAL IN SNOWMELT RUNOFF OVER THE WESTERN UNITED STATES,JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN WATER RESOURCES ASSOCIATION, Issue 2 2000D. H. Peterson ABSTRACT: Daily-to-weekly discharge during the snowmelt season is highly correlated among river basins in the upper elevations of the central and southern Sierra Nevada (Carson, Walker, Tuolumne, Merced, San Joaquin, Kings, and Kern Rivers). In many cases, the upper Sierra Nevada watershed operates in a single mode (with varying catchment amplitudes). In some years, with appropriate lags, this mode extends to distant mountains. A reason for this coherence is the broad scale nature of synoptic features in atmospheric circulation, which provide anomalous insolation and temperature forcing that span a large region, sometimes the entire western U.S. These correlations may fall off dramatically, however, in dry years when the snowpack is spatially patchy. [source] Rayleigh assisted Brillouin effects in distributed Raman amplifiers under saturated conditions at 40 Gb/sMICROWAVE AND OPTICAL TECHNOLOGY LETTERS, Issue 6 2010M. T. M. Rocco Giraldi Abstract This article analyzes experimentally the limitations observed in lightwave systems using distributed Raman amplifiers operating under large pump power input conditions. The Brillouin effect is observed as the pump power reaches 1 W. The presence of Brillouin peaks degrades the performance of the system. The Raman amplification occurs in single mode and dispersion compensating fibers, being evaluated in a link at transmission rate of 40 Gb/s. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 52: 1331,1335, 2010; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/mop.25162 [source] Variability in red supergiant stars: pulsations, long secondary periods and convection noiseMONTHLY NOTICES OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY, Issue 4 2006L. L. Kiss ABSTRACT We study the brightness variations of galactic red supergiant stars using long-term visual light curves collected by the American Association of Variable Star Observers over the last century. The full sample contains 48 red semiregular or irregular variable stars, with a mean time-span of observations of 61 yr. We determine periods and period variability from analyses of power density spectra and time,frequency distributions. We find two significant periods in 18 stars. Most of these periods fall into two distinct groups, ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand days. Theoretical models imply fundamental, first and possibly second overtone mode pulsations for the shorter periods. Periods greater than 1000 d form a parallel period,luminosity relation that is similar to the long secondary periods of the asymptotic giant branch stars. A number of individual power spectra shows a single mode resolved into multiple peaks under a Lorentzian envelope, which we interpret as evidence for stochastic oscillations, presumably caused by the interplay of convection and pulsations. We find a strong 1/f noise component in the power spectra that is remarkably similar in almost all stars of the sample. This behaviour fits the picture of irregular photometric variability caused by large convection cells, analogous to the granulation background seen in the Sun. [source] Photochemistry in Photonic Crystal Fiber NanoreactorsCHEMISTRY - A EUROPEAN JOURNAL, Issue 19 2010Jocelyn S. Abstract We report the use of a liquid-filled hollow-core photonic crystal fiber (PCF) as a highly controlled photochemical reactor. Hollow-core PCFs have several major advantages over conventional sample cells: the sample volume per optical path length is very small (2.8,nL,cm,1 in the fiber used), long optical path lengths are possible as a result of very low intrinsic waveguide loss, and furthermore the light travels in a diffractionless single mode with a constant transverse intensity profile. As a proof of principle, the (very low) quantum yield of the photochemical conversion of vitamin B12, cyanocobalamin (CNCbl) to hydroxocobalamin ([H2OCbl]+) in aqueous solution was measured for several pH values from 2.5 to 7.5. The dynamics of the actively induced reaction were monitored in real-time by broadband absorption spectroscopy. The PCF nanoreactor required ten thousand times less sample volume compared to conventional techniques. Furthermore, the enhanced sensitivity and optical pump intensity implied that even systems with very small quantum yields can be measured very quickly,in our experiments one thousand times faster than in a conventional cuvette. [source] | ||||||||||