异质性环境中两种匍匐茎草本植物的克隆可塑性

　　克隆植物常常生长在资源异质性分布的环境中，克隆植物特有的生活史特征使其对环境和资源变化产生的反应规范（Reaction norm）具有特殊的表现和适应意义。本文以匍匐茎草本植物蛇莓(Duchesnea indica)和活血丹(Glechoma longituba)为材料，研究克隆植物在不同异质性环境中的反应规范，即可塑性（plasticity）和克隆分株间相互作用（即克隆整合（clonal integration））对表型的影响及其适应意义。 蛇莓和活血丹是具有不同分枝类型的两种匍匐茎草本植物。对于匍匐茎草本植物而言，生境中光资源分布在时间和空间上的变化极为丰富。本文主要研究在不同环境中，这两种克隆植物克隆分株间的相互作用是如何通过影响其形态特征，从而影响其光资源获取策略。 实验涉及了4种光照条件，分为5个部分，分别在大棚和野外进行。 1．同质光环境中蛇莓和活血丹克隆片段的可塑性 在大棚中，将整个克隆片段（clonal fragment）都放置在光照强度分别为自然光照PPFD（Photosynthetic Photon Flux Density）的100％、50％和10％三种不同的同质光环境中，目标是通过比较不同光照强度同质环境中不同基因型的形态特征，揭示匍匐茎草本克隆植物的反应规范及遗传差异。实验结果发现，当光照强度从100% PPFD 降到 50% PPFD时，活血丹增加对地上部分生物量投资，增加部分多投入到匍匐茎上，用于支持匍匐茎实现觅食行为，叶片和叶柄的变化不大。同样条件下，蛇莓的生物量投资却向根部转移，地上部分叶片和叶柄形态上的变化比匍匐茎的形态变化显著，出现增强对光资源吸收能力的变化。当光照强度从50%降到 10%时，活血丹继续增加对地上部分的生物量投资，但由于光照强度弱，几乎不足以维持新的匍匐茎的发生，所有增加的生物量部分都投入到叶片和叶柄的变化上。这种条件下，蛇莓的生物量投资依然向根部转移，叶片和叶柄为增加对光资源吸收能力而发生了相应变化，匍匐茎的新增数减少，形态变化也不大。实验证明，可能由于匍匐茎的发生方式不同，活血丹的匍匐茎节间长度，叶片和叶柄的关联程度比蛇莓相应性状的关联程度强。不同基因型的蛇莓和活血丹对光照梯度的反应有显著差异。 2．异质光环境中蛇莓克隆片段的可塑性 针对克隆植物分株间在相当长的时间里形体相连，而环境异质性可能存在于分株大小的空间尺度，设置异质环境，将蛇莓的不同相连分株放置在不同的光资源斑块中，研究其整合作用在适应异质性环境过程中的作用及其对表型的影响。首先设置同一种资源（光资源）的梯度差异斑块。 在光斑块中，整合作用发生与否、作用方式与资源梯度、分株自身所处斑块的资源条件和分株的年龄结构有关。在不同的条件下，整合作用可能造成对表型的不同影响，从而可能加剧或削弱分株对本地资源的反应（局部反应，local response）。整合作用对分株局部反应的影响强度和方向，在不同基因型间存在明显差异。这些基因型间的差异暗示，整合作用可能也是具有遗传基础的一种独立性状。 3．光块斑和养分斑块共存环境中活血丹克隆片段的可塑性 设置光和养分的资源互补性斑块。将相连分株种植在不同斑块中。当生长在高光低养斑块中的分株与其互补斑块（低光高养斑块）的分株相连时，其适合度相关性状的值增加，根冠比是可塑的，通过相应的形态变化，高光照斑块中的分株捕获光资源的能力增强，但两种斑块中植株的吸收养分的能力却没有大的变化。收益－损耗分析显示整合作用有益于异质环境中的植株，低光高养斑块中植株的生物量获益。实验结果证明了异质环境中相连分株间存在光合产物和养分传递。在这种环境种，分株形态的变化对本地斑块发生趋富反应，形态的改变有助于对本地丰富资源的吸收。这种反应有利于克隆片段对资源的吸收。 4．野外环境中蛇莓克隆片段的可塑性 基于大棚实验资料，对野外林下蛇莓种群进行监测。首先对单株在林下复杂的光环境中的表现进行了跟踪，结果发现，随着分株数目的增加，适合度相关性状值有所提高，而处于不同位置的相连分株在形态上的差异不显著。大棚实验中发现的显著形态变化在具有显著差异的自然环境条件下没有发生，这可能暗示着在资源条件变化频率较高的环境中整合作用的作用方式。分株不是对某一时刻资源条件进行形态特化，而是通过对所扩展的总体区域的总的环境条件调整表型。这样，从克隆片段的水平上看，资源的吸收可能达到较高水平。在密度增大，植株间互相荫蔽使得光照减弱的情况下，匍匐茎的变化没有表现出觅食行为，叶片和叶柄出现增大增长等增强吸收光能力的相应表型变化，证明叶片叶柄是克服光照不足的主要器官。这些结果与大棚实验结果一致。蛇莓基株对于相连分株内部可能具有密度调节功能，从而通过减弱叶片增大的趋势，增长匍匐茎，分散新生分株，使密度保持在一定程度，不对种群的发展造成阻碍作用。非相连分株间随着密度的增大，相互间的作用方式类似于非克隆植物：出现叶片增大，叶柄增长的现象，同时密度制约了适合度相关性状如分株数目等的增加。 5．野外环境中蛇莓种群格局动态 最后，在进化的单位，种群水平上对蛇莓种群在自然界的动态进行了调查。Spearman相关分析，没有发现光资源和测量指标在量上的相关。在自然界中整合作用使大量分散分布、相互连接的分株相互作用，以促进基株对资源的获取。Moran’s I指数分析显示，随时间的推进，各个指标在相关尺度上有所增加。这暗示了整合作用的存在，分株间联系的加强。大棚实验中观察到的关于各个器官的作用的结论在自然界中得到进一步的验证。蛇莓匍匐茎在遮荫环境中不是作为觅食器官。为了争取对更多光资源的吸收，蛇莓在叶片数和叶形态上发生改变。对分株数、叶片数、匍匐茎数目的分布格局的调查显示出没有一定的规律性，而且处于不断的变化中。这一结果可能暗示种群发展过程中处理异质性分布资源的对策的变化。 此外，本文还揭示了可塑性和整合作用在基因型间的差异，针对所发现的现象，从作用的遗传机制上对可塑性及其适应意义进行了讨论。结合分子生物学和地统计学等学科的研究成果，对进一步的实验提出了方法和路线。

A case study on the impact of industrial effluent disposal on the fishery of Amba River estuary, Maharashtra

The impact of waste discharge on fishery resources is a matter of great concern. The accepted norm in all environmental impact assessment studies is to avoid areas of high fishery potential while locating a marine outfall. Contemplating on this aspect a case study was conducted in the Amba River estuary before and after the establishment of a petrochemical complex at Nagothane. The treated wastewater from this complex is released through a subsurface outfall after adopting effective control measures for marine disposal of waste. Experimental trawling was done at five locations covering a distance of 30 km during 1990 to 1991. The catch rate within the estuary varied from 0.6 to 255 kg/h (av 24 kg/h). The trend indicated considerable decrease in fishery potential from the mouth of the estuary (av 64 kg/h) to the upstream location (av 11 kg/h). A total of 49 species of fishes, 16 species of prawns, 7 species of crabs and 1 species of lobster were identified from the collections. Number of species gradually increased from the interior segment at Dharamtar (8) to the outer area near Revas (18). A comparison of the quantitative and qualitative nature of the post outfall and pre outfall data revealed only marginal difference. The study indicates that if necessary precautions are taken to render the waste harmless the marine ecology will hardly be affected.

Addressing the cognitive and social influence inhibitors during the ideation stages of technology roadmapping workshops

Technology roadmapping workshops are essentially a social mechanism for exploring, creating, shaping and implementing ideas. The front-end of a roadmapping session is based on brainstorming in order to tap into the group's diverse knowledge. The aim of this idea stimulation activity is to capture and share as many perspectives as possible across the full scope of the area of interest. The premise to such group brainstorming is that the sharing and exchange of ideas leads to cognitive stimulation resulting in a greater overall group idea generation performance in terms of the number, variety and originality of ideas. However, it must be recognized that the ideation stage in a roadmapping workshop is a complex psychosocial phenomenon with underlying cognitive and social processes. Thus, there are downsides to group interactions and these must be addressed in order to fully benefit from the power of a roadmapping workshop. This paper will highlight and discuss the key cognitive and social inhibitors involved. These include: production blocking, evaluation apprehension, free riding/social loafing, low norm setting/matching. Facilitation actions and process adjustments to counter such negative factors will be identified so as to provide a psychosocial basis for improving the running of roadmapping workshops. © 2009 PICMET.

Min-Max Moving Horizon Estimation for a Class of Hybrid Systems

In this paper, a strategy for min-max Moving Horizon Estimation (MHE) of a class of uncertain hybrid systems is proposed. The class of hybrid systems being considered are Piecewise Affine systems (PWA) with both continuous valued and logic components. Furthermore, we consider the case when there is a (possibly structured) norm bounded uncertainty in each subsystem. Sufficient conditions on the time horizon and the penalties on the state at the beginning of the estimation horizon to guarantee convergence of the MHE scheme will be provided. The MHE scheme will be implemented as a mixed integer semidefinite optimisation for which an efficient algorithm was recently introduced.

Restoration of images and 3D data to higher resolution by deconvolution with sparsity regularization

Image convolution is conventionally approximated by the LTI discrete model. It is well recognized that the higher the sampling rate, the better is the approximation. However sometimes images or 3D data are only available at a lower sampling rate due to physical constraints of the imaging system. In this paper, we model the under-sampled observation as the result of combining convolution and subsampling. Because the wavelet coefficients of piecewise smooth images tend to be sparse and well modelled by tree-like structures, we propose the L0 reweighted-L2 minimization (L0RL2 ) algorithm to solve this problem. This promotes model-based sparsity by minimizing the reweighted L2 norm, which approximates the L0 norm, and by enforcing a tree model over the weights. We test the algorithm on 3 examples: a simple ring, the cameraman image and a 3D microscope dataset; and show that good results can be obtained. © 2010 IEEE.

Fast L0-based sparse signal recovery

This paper develops an algorithm for finding sparse signals from limited observations of a linear system. We assume an adaptive Gaussian model for sparse signals. This model results in a least square problem with an iteratively reweighted L2 penalty that approximates the L0-norm. We propose a fast algorithm to solve the problem within a continuation framework. In our examples, we show that the correct sparsity map and sparsity level are gradually learnt during the iterations even when the number of observations is reduced, or when observation noise is present. In addition, with the help of sophisticated interscale signal models, the algorithm is able to recover signals to a better accuracy and with reduced number of observations than typical L1-norm and reweighted L1 norm methods. ©2010 IEEE.

On Solving Non-Standard H-/H2/H-Infinity Fault Detection Problems

We discuss solvability issues of H_-/H_2/infinity optimal fault detection problems in the most general setting. A solution approach is presented which successively reduces the initial problem to simpler ones. The last computational step generally may involve the solution of a non-standard H_-/H_2/infinity optimization problem for which we discuss possible solution approaches. Using an appropriate definition of the H- index, we provide a complete solution of this problem in the case of H2-norm. Furthermore, we discuss the solvability issues in the case of H-infinity-norm.

On solving non-standard ℍ -/ℍ 2/∞ fault detection problems

We discuss solvability issues of ℍ -/ℍ 2/∞ optimal fault detection problems in the most general setting. A solution approach is presented which successively reduces the initial problem to simpler ones. The last computational step generally may involve the solution of a non-standard ℍ -/ ℍ 2/∞ optimization problem for which we discuss possible solution approaches. Using an appropriate definition of the ℍ -- index, we provide a complete solution of this problem in the case of ℍ 2-norm. Furthermore, we discuss the solvability issues in the case of ℍ ∞-norm. © 2011 IEEE.

Balanced realisations of all-pass systems using exact arithmetic with application to the approximation of delay systems

Numerically well-conditioned state-space realisations for all-pass systems, such as Padé approximations to exp(-s), are derived that can be computed using exact integer arithmetic. This is then applied to the a series of functions of exp(-s). It is also shown that the H-infinity norm of the transfer function from the input to the state of a balanced realisation of the Padé approximation of exp(-s) is unity. © 2012 IEEE.

Stable multivariate rational interpolation for parameter-dependent aerospace models

A multivariate, robust, rational interpolation method for propagating uncertainties in several dimensions is presented. The algorithm for selecting numerator and denominator polynomial orders is based on recent work that uses a singular value decomposition approach. In this paper we extend this algorithm to higher dimensions and demonstrate its efficacy in terms of convergence and accuracy, both as a method for response suface generation and interpolation. To obtain stable approximants for continuous functions, we use an L2 error norm indicator to rank optimal numerator and denominator solutions. For discontinous functions, a second criterion setting an upper limit on the approximant value is employed. Analytical examples demonstrate that, for the same stencil, rational methods can yield more rapid convergence compared to pseudospectral or collocation approaches for certain problems. © 2012 AIAA.

Sustainability: A new imperative in contaminated land remediation

Land is not only a critical component of the earth's life support system, but also a precious resource and an important factor of production in economic systems. However, historical industrial operations have resulted in large areas of contaminated land that are only slowly being remediated. In recent years, sustainability has drawn increasing attention in the environmental remediation field. In Europe, there has been a movement towards sustainable land management; and in the US, there is an urge for green remediation. Based on a questionnaire survey and a review of existing theories and empirical evidence, this paper suggests the expanding emphasis on sustainable remediation is driven by three general factors: (1) increased recognition of secondary environmental impacts (e.g., life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions, air pollution, energy consumption, and waste production) from remediation operations, (2) stakeholders' demand for economically sustainable brownfield remediation and "green" practices, and (3) institutional pressures (e.g., social norm and public policy) that promote sustainable practices (e.g., renewable energy, green building, and waste recycling). This paper further argues that the rise of the "sustainable remediation" concept represents a critical intervention point from where the remediation field will be reshaped and new norms and standards will be established for practitioners to follow in future years. This paper presents a holistic view of sustainability considerations in remediation, and an integrated framework for sustainability assessment and decision making. The paper concludes that "sustainability" is becoming a new imperative in the environmental remediation field, with important implications for regulators, liability owners, consultants, contractors, and technology vendors. © 2014 Elsevier Ltd.

Mass chains with passive interconnection: Complex iterative maps and scalability

This paper introduces the problem of passive control of a chain of N identical masses in which there is an identical passive connection between neighbouring masses and a similar connection to a movable point. The problem arises in the design of multi-storey buildings which are subjected to earthquake disturbances, but applies in other situations, for example vehicle platoons. The paper will study the scalar transfer functions from the disturbance to a given intermass displacement. It will be shown that these transfer functions can be conveniently represented in the form of complex iterative maps and that these maps provide a method to establish boundedness in N of the H ∞-norm of these transfer functions for certain choices of interconnection impedance. © 2013 IEEE.

Coalition and distribution in fuzzy dynamic supply chain systems

In this paper, two models of coalition and income's distribution in FSCS (fuzzy supply chain systems) are proposed based on the fuzzy set theory and fuzzy cooperative game theory. The fuzzy dynamic coalition choice's recursive equations are constructed in terms of sup-t composition of fuzzy relations, where t is a triangular norm. The existence of the fuzzy relations in FSCS is also proved. On the other hand, the approaches to ascertain the fuzzy coalition through the choice's recursive equations and distribute the fuzzy income in FSCS by the fuzzy Shapley values are also given. These models are discussed in two parts: the fuzzy dynamic coalition choice of different units in FSCS; the fuzzy income's distribution model among different participators in the same coalition. Furthermore, numerical examples are given aiming at illustrating these models., and the results show that these models are feasible and validity in FSCS.

Influence of indium composition on the surface morphology of self-organized InxGa1-xAs quantum dots on GaAs substrates

InxGa1-xAs self-organized quantum dots with x=1.0, 0.5, and 0.35 have been grown by molecular beam epitaxy. The areal density, distribution, and shapes have been found to be dependent on x. The dot shape changes from a round shape for x=1.0 to an elliptical shape for x less than or equal to 0.5. The major axis and minor axis of the elliptical InxGa1-xAs dots are along the [(1) over bar 10] and [110] directions, respectively. The ordering phenomenon is also discussed. It is suggested that the dot-dot interaction may play important roles in the self-organization process. (C) 2000 American Institute of Physics. [S0021-8979(00)10701-7].

Self-organization of wire-like InAs nanostructures on InP

The initial InAs growth on InP(1 0 0) during molecular beam epitaxy has been investigated. The as-grown islands were shaped like nanowires and formed dense arrays over the entire surface in the 3-6 monolayer InAs deposition range. The wires were oriented along the [(1) over bar 1 0] direction. Transmission electron microscopy images confirm that the wires are coherently grown on the substrates. Our results suggest that the coherent wire-shaped island formation may be a possible method to fabricate self-organized InAs nanowires. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.