Effect of a magnetic field on the flow and blood oxygenation in channels of variable cross-section

The effect of a magnetic field on the flow and oxygenation of an incompressible Newtonian conducting fluid in channels with irregular boundaries has been investigated. The geometric parameter δ, which is a ratio of the mean half width of the channel d to the characteristic length λ along the channel over which the significant changes in the flow quantities occur, has been used for perturbing the governing equations. Closed form solutions of the various order equations are presented for the stream function. The equations for oxygen partial pressure remain nonlinear even after perturbation, therefore a numerical solution is presented. The expressions for shear stress at a wall and pressure distributions are derived. Here the separation in the flow occurs at a higher Reynolds number than the corresponding non-magnetic case. It is found that the magnetic field has an effect on local oxygen concentration but has a little effect on the saturation length.

Comparison of growth rates of relocated and local steers

Beef producers have expressed concern that cattle moved from one location to another do not always perform as well as comparable local cattle. Research station records and field trial data were examined to determine the effect of relocation on growth rate using data sets for animals of different age and liveweight at relocation and of different genotypes. 21st Biennial Conference. 8-12 July University of Queensland, Brisbane.

Sorghum ergot can develop without local Claviceps africana inoculum from nearby infected plants

Batches of glasshouse-grown flowering sorghum plants were placed in circular plots for 24 h at two field sites in southeast Queensland, Australia on 38 occasions in 2003 and 2004, to trap aerial inoculum of Claviceps africana. Plants were located 20-200 m from the centre of the plots. Batches of sorghum plants with secondary conidia of C. africana on inoculated spikelets were placed at the centre of each plot on some dates as a local point source of inoculum. Plants exposed to field inoculum were returned to a glasshouse, incubated at near-100% relative humidity for 48 h and then at ambient relative humidity for another week before counting infected spikelets to estimate pathogen dispersal. Three times as many spikelets became infected when inoculum was present within 200 m of trap plants, but infected spikelets did not decline with increasing distance from local source within the 200 m. Spikelets also became infected on all 10 dates when plants were exposed without a local source of infected plants, indicating that infection can occur from conidia surviving in the atmosphere. In 2005, when trap plants were placed at 14 locations along a 280 km route, infected spikelets diminished with increasing distance from sorghum paddocks and infection was sporadic for distances over 1 km. Multiple regression analysis showed significant influence of moisture related weather variables on inoculum dispersal. Results suggest that sanitation measures can help reduce ergot severity at the local level, but sustainable management will require better understanding of long-distance dispersal of C. africana inoculum.

Thermal requirements, field mortality and population phenology modelling of Paropsis atomaria Olivier, an emergent pest in subtropical hardwood plantations

Paropsis atomaria is a recently emerged pest of eucalypt plantations in subtropical Australia. Its broad host range of at least 20 eucalypt species and wide geographical distribution provides it the potential to become a serious forestry pest both within Australia and, if accidentally introduced, overseas. Although populations of P. atomaria are genetically similar throughout its range, population dynamics differ between regions. Here, we determine temperature-dependent developmental requirements using beetles sourced from temperate and subtropical zones by calculating lower temperature thresholds, temperature-induced mortality, and day-degree requirements. We combine these data with field mortality estimates of immature life stages to produce a cohort-based model, ParopSys, using DYMEX™ that accurately predicts the timing, duration, and relative abundance of life stages in the field and number of generations in a spring–autumn (September–May) field season. Voltinism was identified as a seasonally plastic trait dependent upon environmental conditions, with two generations observed and predicted in the Australian Capital Territory, and up to four in Queensland. Lower temperature thresholds for development ranged between 4 and 9 °C, and overall development rates did not differ according to beetle origin. Total immature development time (egg–adult) was approximately 769.2 ± S.E. 127.8 DD above a lower temperature threshold of 6.4 ± S.E. 2.6 °C. ParopSys provides a basic tool enabling forest managers to use the number of generations and seasonal fluctuations in abundance of damaging life stages to estimate the pest risk of P. atomaria prior to plantation establishment, and predict the occurrence and duration of damaging life stages in the field. Additionally, by using local climatic data the pest potential of P. atomaria can be estimated to predict the risk of it establishing if accidentally introduced overseas. Improvements to ParopSys’ capability and complexity can be made as more biological data become available.

Incompressible boundary layer for longitudinal flow over a cylinder with an applied magnetic field

The flow, heat and mass transfer problem for a steady laminar incompressible boundary layer flow in an electrically conducting fluid over a longitudinal cylinder with an applied magnetic field has been studied. The partial differential equations governing the flow have been solved numerically using an implicit finite-difference scheme. The results are found to be strongly dependent on the magnetic field and dissipation parameter. The effect of the mass transfer is more pronounced on the skin friction than on the heat transfer. The results have been compared with those of the series solution, the asymptotic solution, the Glauert and Lighthill's solution, local similarity, local nonsimilarity and difference-differential methods. Good agreement is found with all of them, except with the results of the local similarity and series solution methods.

Integrated semantic processing of complex pictures and spoken sentences - Evidence from event-related potentials

It has been suggested that semantic information processing is modularized according to the input form (e.g., visual, verbal, non-verbal sound). A great deal of research has concentrated on detecting a separate verbal module. Also, it has traditionally been assumed in linguistics that the meaning of a single clause is computed before integration to a wider context. Recent research has called these views into question. The present study explored whether it is reasonable to assume separate verbal and nonverbal semantic systems in the light of the evidence from event-related potentials (ERPs). The study also provided information on whether the context influences processing of a single clause before the local meaning is computed. The focus was on an ERP called N400. Its amplitude is assumed to reflect the effort required to integrate an item to the preceding context. For instance, if a word is anomalous in its context, it will elicit a larger N400. N400 has been observed in experiments using both verbal and nonverbal stimuli. Contents of a single sentence were not hypothesized to influence the N400 amplitude. Only the combined contents of the sentence and the picture were hypothesized to influence the N400. The subjects (n = 17) viewed pictures on a computer screen while hearing sentences through headphones. Their task was to judge the congruency of the picture and the sentence. There were four conditions: 1) the picture and the sentence were congruent and sensible, 2) the sentence and the picture were congruent, but the sentence ended anomalously, 3) the picture and the sentence were incongruent but sensible, 4) the picture and the sentence were incongruent and anomalous. Stimuli from the four conditions were presented in a semi-randomized sequence. Their electroencephalography was simultaneously recorded. ERPs were computed for the four conditions. The amplitude of the N400 effect was largest in the incongruent sentence-picture -pairs. The anomalously ending sentences did not elicit a larger N400 than the sensible sentences. The results suggest that there is no separate verbal semantic system, and that the meaning of a single clause is not processed independent of the context.

Estimation of local forest attributes, utilizing two-phase sampling and auxiliary data

This thesis examines the feasibility of a forest inventory method based on two-phase sampling in estimating forest attributes at the stand or substand levels for forest management purposes. The method is based on multi-source forest inventory combining auxiliary data consisting of remote sensing imagery or other geographic information and field measurements. Auxiliary data are utilized as first-phase data for covering all inventory units. Various methods were examined for improving the accuracy of the forest estimates. Pre-processing of auxiliary data in the form of correcting the spectral properties of aerial imagery was examined (I), as was the selection of aerial image features for estimating forest attributes (II). Various spatial units were compared for extracting image features in a remote sensing aided forest inventory utilizing very high resolution imagery (III). A number of data sources were combined and different weighting procedures were tested in estimating forest attributes (IV, V). Correction of the spectral properties of aerial images proved to be a straightforward and advantageous method for improving the correlation between the image features and the measured forest attributes. Testing different image features that can be extracted from aerial photographs (and other very high resolution images) showed that the images contain a wealth of relevant information that can be extracted only by utilizing the spatial organization of the image pixel values. Furthermore, careful selection of image features for the inventory task generally gives better results than inputting all extractable features to the estimation procedure. When the spatial units for extracting very high resolution image features were examined, an approach based on image segmentation generally showed advantages compared with a traditional sample plot-based approach. Combining several data sources resulted in more accurate estimates than any of the individual data sources alone. The best combined estimate can be derived by weighting the estimates produced by the individual data sources by the inverse values of their mean square errors. Despite the fact that the plot-level estimation accuracy in two-phase sampling inventory can be improved in many ways, the accuracy of forest estimates based mainly on single-view satellite and aerial imagery is a relatively poor basis for making stand-level management decisions.

Plant species diversity of buffer zones in agricultural landscapes: in search of determinants from the local to regional scale

Buffer zones are vegetated strip-edges of agricultural fields along watercourses. As linear habitats in agricultural ecosystems, buffer strips dominate and play a leading ecological role in many areas. This thesis focuses on the plant species diversity of the buffer zones in a Finnish agricultural landscape. The main objective of the present study is to identify the determinants of floral species diversity in arable buffer zones from local to regional levels. This study was conducted in a watershed area of a farmland landscape of southern Finland. The study area, Lepsämänjoki, is situated in the Nurmijärvi commune 30 km to the north of Helsinki, Finland. The biotope mosaics were mapped in GIS. A total of 59 buffer zones were surveyed, of which 29 buffer strips surveyed were also sampled by plot. Firstly, two diversity components (species richness and evenness) were investigated to determine whether the relationship between the two is equal and predictable. I found no correlation between species richness and evenness. The relationship between richness and evenness is unpredictable in a small-scale human-shaped ecosystem. Ordination and correlation analyses show that richness and evenness may result from different ecological processes, and thus should be considered separately. Species richness correlated negatively with phosphorus content, and species evenness correlated negatively with the ratio of organic carbon to total nitrogen in soil. The lack of a consistent pattern in the relationship between these two components may be due to site-specific variation in resource utilization by plant species. Within-habitat configuration (width, length, and area) were investigated to determine which is more effective for predicting species richness. More species per unit area increment could be obtained from widening the buffer strip than from lengthening it. The width of the strips is an effective determinant of plant species richness. The increase in species diversity with an increase in the width of buffer strips may be due to cross-sectional habitat gradients within the linear patches. This result can serve as a reference for policy makers, and has application value in agricultural management. In the framework of metacommunity theory, I found that both mass effect(connectivity) and species sorting (resource heterogeneity) were likely to explain species composition and diversity on a local and regional scale. The local and regional processes were interactively dominated by the degree to which dispersal perturbs local communities. In the lowly and intermediately connected regions, species sorting was of primary importance to explain species diversity, while the mass effect surpassed species sorting in the highly connected region. Increasing connectivity in communities containing high habitat heterogeneity can lead to the homogenization of local communities, and consequently, to lower regional diversity, while local species richness was unrelated to the habitat connectivity. Of all species found, Anthriscus sylvestris, Phalaris arundinacea, and Phleum pretense significantly responded to connectivity, and showed high abundance in the highly connected region. We suggest that these species may play a role in switching the force from local resources to regional connectivity shaping the community structure. On the landscape context level, the different responses of local species richness and evenness to landscape context were investigated. Seven landscape structural parameters served to indicate landscape context on five scales. On all scales but the smallest scales, the Shannon-Wiener diversity of land covers (H') correlated positively with the local richness. The factor (H') showed the highest correlation coefficients in species richness on the second largest scale. The edge density of arable field was the only predictor that correlated with species evenness on all scales, which showed the highest predictive power on the second smallest scale. The different predictive power of the factors on different scales showed a scaledependent relationship between the landscape context and local plant species diversity, and indicated that different ecological processes determine species richness and evenness. The local richness of species depends on a regional process on large scales, which may relate to the regional species pool, while species evenness depends on a fine- or coarse-grained farming system, which may relate to the patch quality of the habitats of field edges near the buffer strips. My results suggested some guidelines of species diversity conservation in the agricultural ecosystem. To maintain a high level of species diversity in the strips, a high level of phosphorus in strip soil should be avoided. Widening the strips is the most effective mean to improve species richness. Habitat connectivity is not always favorable to species diversity because increasing connectivity in communities containing high habitat heterogeneity can lead to the homogenization of local communities (beta diversity) and, consequently, to lower regional diversity. Overall, a synthesis of local and regional factors emerged as the model that best explain variations in plant species diversity. The studies also suggest that the effects of determinants on species diversity have a complex relationship with scale.

Water-ethanol mixtures by molecular dynamics and x-ray Compton scattering

Water-ethanol mixtures are commonly used in industry and house holds. However, quite surprisingly their molecular-level structure is still not completely understood. In particular, there is evidence that the local intermolecular geometries depend significantly on the concentration. The aim of this study was to gain information on the molecular-level structures of water-ethanol mixtures by two computational methods. The methods are classical molecular dynamics (MD), where the movement of molecules can be studied, and x-ray Compton scattering, in which the scattering cross section is sensitive to the electron momentum density. Firstly, the water-ethanol mixtures were studied with MD simulations, with the mixture concentration ranging from 0 to 100%. For the simulations well-established force fields were used for the water and ethanol molecules (TIP4P and OPLS-AA, respectively). Moreover, two models were used for ethanol, rigid and non-rigid. In the rigid model the intramolecular bond lengths are fixed, whereas in the non-rigid model the lengths are determined by harmonic potentials. Secondly, mixtures with three different concentrations employing both ethanol models were studied by calculating the experimentally observable x-ray quantity, the Compton profile. In the MD simulations a slight underestimation in the density was observed as compared to experiment. Furthermore, a positive excess of hydrogen bonding with water molecules and a negative one with ethanol was quantified. Also, the mixture was found more structured when the ethanol concentration was higher. Negligible differences in the results were found between the two ethanol models. In contrast, in the Compton scattering results a notable difference between the ethanol models was observed. For the rigid model the Compton profiles were similar for all the concentrations, but for the non-rigid model they were distinct. This leads to two possibilities of how the mixing occurs. Either the mixing is similar in all concentrations (as suggested by the rigid model) or the mixing changes for different concentrations (as suggested by the non-rigid model). Either way, this study shows that the choice of the force field is essential in the microscopic structure formation in the MD simulations. When the sources of uncertainty in the calculated Compton profiles were analyzed, it was found that more statistics needs to be collected to reduce the statistical uncertainty in the final results. The obtained Compton scattering results can be considered somewhat preliminary, but clearly indicative of the behaviour of the water-ethanol mixtures when the force field is modified. The next step is to collect more statistics and compare the results with experimental data to decide which ethanol model describes the mixture better. This way, valuable information on the microscopic structure of water-ethanol mixtures can be found. In addition, information on the force fields in the MD simulations and on the ability of the MD simulations to reproduce the microscopic structure of binary liquids is obtained.

Influence of Band Non-Parabolicity on Few Ballistic Properties of III-V Quantum Wire Field Effect Transistors Under Strong Inversion

A simplified yet analytical approach on few ballistic properties of III-V quantum wire transistor has been presented by considering the band non-parabolicity of the electrons in accordance with Kane's energy band model using the Bohr-Sommerfeld's technique. The confinement of the electrons in the vertical and lateral directions are modeled by an infinite triangular and square well potentials respectively, giving rise to a two dimensional electron confinement. It has been shown that the quantum gate capacitance, the drain currents and the channel conductance in such systems are oscillatory functions of the applied gate and drain voltages at the strong inversion regime. The formation of subbands due to the electrical and structural quantization leads to the discreetness in the characteristics of such 1D ballistic transistors. A comparison has also been sought out between the self-consistent solution of the Poisson's-Schrodinger's equations using numerical techniques and analytical results using Bohr-Sommerfeld's method. The results as derived in this paper for all the energy band models gets simplified to the well known results under certain limiting conditions which forms the mathematical compatibility of our generalized theoretical formalism.

A field investigation into a suspected outbreak of pyrrolizidine alkaloid toxicosis in horses in western Queensland

A disease outbreak investigation was conducted in western Queensland to investigate a rare suspected outbreak of pyrrolizidine alkaloid (PA) toxicosis in horses. Thirty five of 132 horses depastured on five properties on the Mitchell grass plains of western Queensland died in the first six months of 2010. Clinical–pathological findings were consistent with PA toxicosis. A local variety of Crotalaria medicaginea was the only hepatotoxic plant found growing on affected properties. Pathology reports and departure and arrival dates of two brood mares provided evidence of a pre wet season exposure period. All five affected properties experienced a very dry spring and early summer preceded by a large summer wet season. The outbreak was characterised as a point epidemic with a sudden peak of deaths in March followed by mortalities steadily declining until the end of June. The estimated morbidity (serum IGG > 50 IU/L) rate was 76%. Average crude mortality was 27% but higher in young horses (67%) and brood mares (44%). Logistic regression analysis showed that young horses and brood mares and those grazing denuded pastures in December were most strongly associated with dying whereas those fed hay and/or grain based supplements were less likely to die. This is the first detailed study of an outbreak of PA toxicosis in central western Queensland and the first to provide evidence that environmental determinants were associated with mortality, that the critical exposure period was towards the end of the dry season, that supplementary feeding is protective and that denuded pastures and the horses physiological protein requirement are risk factors.

Conformal Field Theory Methods for Variants of Schramm-Loewner Evolutions

This thesis consists of an introduction, four research articles and an appendix. The thesis studies relations between two different approaches to continuum limit of models of two dimensional statistical mechanics at criticality. The approach of conformal field theory (CFT) could be thought of as the algebraic classification of some basic objects in these models. It has been succesfully used by physicists since 1980's. The other approach, Schramm-Loewner evolutions (SLEs), is a recently introduced set of mathematical methods to study random curves or interfaces occurring in the continuum limit of the models. The first and second included articles argue on basis of statistical mechanics what would be a plausible relation between SLEs and conformal field theory. The first article studies multiple SLEs, several random curves simultaneously in a domain. The proposed definition is compatible with a natural commutation requirement suggested by Dubédat. The curves of multiple SLE may form different topological configurations, ``pure geometries''. We conjecture a relation between the topological configurations and CFT concepts of conformal blocks and operator product expansions. Example applications of multiple SLEs include crossing probabilities for percolation and Ising model. The second article studies SLE variants that represent models with boundary conditions implemented by primary fields. The most well known of these, SLE(kappa, rho), is shown to be simple in terms of the Coulomb gas formalism of CFT. In the third article the space of local martingales for variants of SLE is shown to carry a representation of Virasoro algebra. Finding this structure is guided by the relation of SLEs and CFTs in general, but the result is established in a straightforward fashion. This article, too, emphasizes multiple SLEs and proposes a possible way of treating pure geometries in terms of Coulomb gas. The fourth article states results of applications of the Virasoro structure to the open questions of SLE reversibility and duality. Proofs of the stated results are provided in the appendix. The objective is an indirect computation of certain polynomial expected values. Provided that these expected values exist, in generic cases they are shown to possess the desired properties, thus giving support for both reversibility and duality.

Nonsimilar incompressible laminar boundary layers with magnetic field.

The solution of the steady laminar incompressible nonsimilar magneto-hydrodynamic boundary layer flow and heat transfer problem with viscous dissipation for electrically conducting fluids over two-dimensional and axisymmetric bodies with pressure gradient and magnetic field has been presented. The partial differential equations governing the flow have been solved numerically using an implicit finite-difference scheme. The computations have been carried out for flow over a cylinder and a sphere. The results indicate that the magnetic field tends to delay or prevent separation. The heat transfer strongly depends on the viscous dissipation parameter. When the dissipation parameter is positive (i.e. when the temperature of the wall is greater than the freestream temperature) and exceeds a certain value, the hot wall ceases to be cooled by the stream of cooler air because the ‘heat cushion’ provided by the frictional heat prevents cooling whereas the effect of the magnetic field is to remove the ‘heat cushion’ so that the wall continues to be cooled. The results are found to be in good agreement with those of the local similarity and local nonsimilarity methods except near the point of separation, but they are in excellent agreement with those of the difference-differential technique even near the point of separation.

Enhancing the shopping experience with ambient displays: A field study in a retail store

This paper discusses the prototypical implementation of an ambient display and the results of an empirical study in a retail store. It presents the context of shopping as an application area for Ambient Intelligence (AmI) technologies. The prototype consists of an ambient store map that enhances the awareness of customer activity. The results of our study indicate potentials and challenges for an improvement of the shopping experience with AmI technologies. Based on our findings we discuss challenges and future developments for applying AmI technologies to shopping environments.

Compressible magnetohydrodynamic boundary layer swirling nozzle and diffuser flows with a magnetic field

The flow, heat and mass transfer problem for boundary layer swirling flow of a laminar steady compressible electrically conducting gas with variable properties through a conical nozzle and a diffuser with an applied magnetic field has been studied. The partial differential equations governing the flow have been solved numerically using an implicit finite-difference scheme after they have been transformed into dimensionless form using the modified Lees transformation. The results indicate that the skin friction and heat transfer strongly depend on the magnetic field, mass transfer and variation of the density-viscosity product across the boundary layer. However, the effect of the variation of the density-viscosity product is more pronounced in the case of a nozzle than in the case of a diffuser. It has been found that large swirl is required to produce strong effect on the skin friction and heat transfer. Separationless flow along the entire length of the diffuser can be obtained by applying appropriate amount of suction. The results are found to be in good agreement with those of the local nonsimilarity method, but they differ quite significantly from those of the local similarity method.