Challenges in elevated CO2 experiments on forests

Current forest Free Air CO2 Enrichment (FACE) experiments are reaching completion. Therefore, it is time to define the scientific goals and priorities of future experimental facilities. In this opinion article, we discuss the following three overarching issues (i) What are the most urgent scientific questions and how can they be addressed? (ii) What forest ecosystems should be investigated? (iii) Which other climate change factors should be coupled with elevated CO2 concentrations in future experiments to better predict the effects of climate change? Plantations and natural forests can have conflicting purposes for high productivity and environmental protection. However, in both cases the assessment of carbon balance and how this will be affected by elevated CO2 concentrations and the interacting climate change factors is the most pressing priority for future experiments.

Experiments into biology-technology interaction

In this paper a look is taken at how the use of implant and electrode technology can be employed to create biological brains for robots, to enable human enhancement and to diminish the effects of certain neural illnesses. In all cases the end result is to increase the range of abilities of the recipients. An indication is given of a number of areas in which such technology has already had a profound effect, a key element being the need for a clear interface linking a biological brain directly with computer technology. The emphasis is placed on practical scientific studies that have been and are being undertaken and reported on. The area of focus is the use of electrode technology, where either a connection is made directly with the cerebral cortex and/or nervous system or where implants into the human body are involved. The paper also considers robots that have biological brains in which human neurons can be employed as the sole thinking machine for a real world robot body.

Unraveling the Role of Sulfur Compounds in Acid Rain Formation: Experiments on a Wetted Glass pH Electrode

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

Provenance: The Bridge Between Experiments and Data

Current scientific applications are often structured as workflows and rely on workflow systems to compile abstract experiment designs into enactable workflows that utilise the best available resources. The automation of this step and of the workflow enactment, hides the details of how results have been produced. Knowing how compilation and enactment occurred allows results to be reconnected with the experiment design. We investigate how provenance helps scientists to connect their results with the actual execution that took place, their original experiment and its inputs and parameters.

An Informatics Technical Note on Interaction of DNA - Graphene Chemical Sensor System as Reaction-Diffusion Wave-Based Computing System in Ionised Gaseous environments and their Applications Using Theoretical Studies and Scientific Computation Overview

The physics of plasmas encompasses basic problems from the universe and has assured us of promises in diverse applications to be implemented in a wider range of scientific and engineering domains, linked to most of the evolved and evolving fundamental problems. Substantial part of this domain could be described by R–D mechanisms involving two or more species (reaction–diffusion mechanisms). These could further account for the simultaneous non-linear effects of heating, diffusion and other related losses. We mention here that in laboratory scale experiments, a suitable combination of these processes is of vital importance and very much decisive to investigate and compute the net behaviour of plasmas under consideration. Plasmas are being used in the revolution of information processing, so we considered in this technical note a simple framework to discuss and pave the way for better formalisms and Informatics, dealing with diverse domains of science and technologies. The challenging and fascinating aspects of plasma physics is that it requires a great deal of insight in formulating the relevant design problems, which in turn require ingenuity and flexibility in choosing a particular set of mathematical (and/or experimental) tools to implement them.

Bearded capuchin monkeys` and a human`s efficiency at cracking palm nuts with stone tools: field experiments

Wild bearded capuchins, Cebus libidinosus, in Fazenda Boa Vista, Brazil crack tough palm nuts using hammer stones. We analysed the contribution of intrinsic factors (body weight, behaviour), size of the nuts and the anvil surface (flat or pit) to the efficiency of cracking. We provided capuchins with local palm nuts and a single hammer stone at an anvil. From video we scored the capuchins` position and actions with the nut prior to each strike, and outcomes of each strike. The most efficient capuchin opened 15 nuts per 100 strikes (6.6 strikes per nut). The least efficient capuchin that succeeded in opening a nut opened 1.32 nuts per 100 strikes (more than 75 strikes per nut). Body weight and diameter of the nut best predicted whether a capuchin would crack a nut on a given strike. All the capuchins consistently placed nuts into pits. To provide an independent analysis of the effect of placing the nut into a pit, we filmed an adult human cracking nuts on the same anvil using the same stone. The human displaced the nut on proportionally fewer strikes when he placed it into a pit rather than on a flat surface. Thus the capuchins placed the nut in a more effective location on the anvil to crack it. Nut cracking as practised by bearded capuchins is a striking example of a plastic behaviour where costs and benefits vary enormously across individuals, and where efficiency requires years to attain. (C) 2009 The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Long-distance correlations in TCABR biasing experiments

Long-distance correlations (LDCs) of plasma potential fluctuations in the plasma edge have been investigated in the TCABR tokamak in the regime of edge biasing H-mode using an array of multi-pin Langmuir probes. This activity was carried out as part of the scientific programme of the 4th IAEA Joint Experiment (2009). The experimental data confirm the effect of amplification of LDCs in potential fluctuations during biasing recently observed in stellarators and tokamaks. For long toroidal distances between probes, the cross-spectrum is concentrated at low frequencies f < 60 kHz with peaks at f < 5 kHz, f = 13-15 kHz and f similar to 40 kHz and low wave numbers with a maximum at k = 0. The effects of MHD activity on the LDCs in potential fluctuation are investigated.

Fatigue crack growth assessments in welded components including crack closure effects: Experiments and 3-D numerical modeling

This work provides a numerical and experimental investigation of fatigue crack growth behavior in steel weldments including crack closure effects and their coupled interaction with weld strength mismatch. A central objective of this study is to extend previously developed frameworks for evaluation of crack clo- sure effects on FCGR to steel weldments while, at the same time, gaining additional understanding of commonly adopted criteria for crack closure loads and their influence on fatigue life of structural welds. Very detailed non-linear finite element analyses using 3-D models of compact tension C ( T ) fracture spec- imens with center cracked, square groove welds provide the evolution of crack growth with cyclic stress intensity factor which is required for the estimation of the closure loads. Fatigue crack growth tests con- ducted on plane-sided, shallow-cracked C ( T ) specimens provide the necessary data against which crack closure effects on fatigue crack growth behavior can be assessed. Overall, the present investigation pro- vides additional support for estimation procedures of plasticity-induced crack closure loads in fatigue analyses of structural steels and their weldments

A Framework for the Automation of Discrete-Event Simulation Experiments

Simulation is an important resource for researchers in diverse fields. However, many researchers have found flaws in the methodology of published simulation studies and have described the state of the simulation community as being in a crisis of credibility. This work describes the project of the Simulation Automation Framework for Experiments (SAFE), which addresses the issues that undermine credibility by automating the workflow in the execution of simulation studies. Automation reduces the number of opportunities for users to introduce error in the scientific process thereby improvingthe credibility of the final results. Automation also eases the job of simulation users and allows them to focus on the design of models and the analysis of results rather than on the complexities of the workflow.

On the Synthesis of Microarray Experiments

With many different investigators studying the same disease and with a strong commitment to publish supporting data in the scientific community, there are often many different datasets available for any given disease. Hence there is substantial interest in finding methods for combining these datasets to provide better and more detailed understanding of the underlying biology. We consider the synthesis of different microarray data sets using a random effects paradigm and demonstrate how relatively standard statistical approaches yield good results. We identify a number of important and substantive areas which require further investigation.

What do we mean by Female and Male in Neurocognitive Experiments on Language?

For several years now, neuroscientific research has been striving towards fundamental answers to questions about the relevance of sex/gender to language processing in the brain. This research has been effected through the search for sex/gender differences in the neurobiology of language processing. Thus, the main aim has ever been to focus on the differentiation of the sexes/genders, failing to define what sex, what gender, what female or male is in neurolingustic research. In other words, although neuroscientific findings have provided key insights into the brain functioning of women and men, neuropsychology has rarely questioned the complexity of the sex/gender variable beyond biology. What does “female” or “male” mean in human neurocognition; how are operationalisations implemented along the axes of “femaleness” or “maleness”; or what biological evidence is used to register the variables sex and/or gender? In the neurosciences as well as in neurocognitive research, questions such as these have so far not been studied in detail, even if they are highly significant for the scientific process. Instead, the variable of sex/gender has always been thought as solely dichotomous (as either female or male), oppositional and exclusionary of each other. Here, this theoretical contribution sets in. Based on findings in neuroscience and concepts in gender theory, this poster is dedicated to the reflection about what sex/gender is in the neuroscience of language processing. Following this aim, two levels of interest will be addressed. First: How do we define sex/gender at the level of participants? And second: How do we define sex/gender at the level of the experimental task? For the first, a multifactorial registration (work in progress) of the variable sex/gender will be presented, i.e. a tool that records sex/gender in terms of biology and social issues as well as on a spectrum between femaleness and maleness. For the second, the compulsory dichotomy of a gendered task when neurolinguistically approaching our cognitions of sex/gender will be explored.

Dissolved lithium and silicon through time in microbial dissolution experiments on ODP Leg 209 peridotite

Using peridotite drilled during Ocean Drilling Program Leg 209, a series of enrichment cultures were initiated on board the ship to stimulate microbially enhanced dissolution of olivine. Dissolution was estimated by measured changes in dissolved Li and Si in the media through time (up to 709 days). The results suggest that there was no significant difference between the amounts of dissolved Li and Si in most of the inoculated microbial cultures compared to the control cultures. Alternative explanations for this are that 1. No microbes are living in the culture tubes that can affect the dissolution rates of olivine, 2. The control cultures have microbes effecting the dissolution of olivine as well as the inoculated cultures, 3. Not enough time has passed to build up a large enough microbial population to effect the dissolution of the olivine in the culture tubes, 4. Microbes act to suppress dissolution of olivine instead of enhancing dissolution, and 5. Abiotic dissolution overshadows microbially enhanced dissolution. Further work is required to test these alternatives.

(Table 3) Run conditions and phase relations and proportions during cooling rate experiments on ODP Interval 163-989B-10R-7,55-59

Equilibrium melting and controlled cooling experiments were undertaken to constrain the crystallization and cooling histories of tholeiitic basalts recovered by the Ocean Drilling Program drilling of Site 989 on the Southeast Greenland continental margin. Isothermal experiments conducted at 1 atm. and at the fayalite-magnetite-quartz buffer using lava sample Section 163-989B-10R-7 yielded the equilibrium appearance sequence with decreasing temperature: olivine at 1184 ± 2ºC; plagioclase at 1177ºC ± 5ºC; augite at 1167 ± 5ºC; and pigeonite at 1113 ± 12ºC. In controlled cooling experiments using the same starting composition and cooling rates between 10ºC/hr and 2000ºC/hr, we find a significant temperature delay in the crystallization of olivine, plagioclase, and augite (relative to the equilibrium appearance temperature); pigeonite does not form under any dynamic crystallization conditions. Olivine exhibits the largest suppression in appearance temperature (e.g., 30º for 10ºC/hr and >190º at 100ºC/hr), while plagioclase shows the smallest (~10ºC at 10ºC/hr; 30ºC at 100ºC/hr, and ~80ºC at 1000ºC/hr). These results are in marked contrast to those obtained on lunar basalts, which generally show a large suppression of plagioclase crystallization and modest suppression of olivine crystallization with an increased cooling rate. The results we report agree well with the petrography of lavas recovered from Site 989. Furthermore, the textural analysis of run products, representing a large range of cooling rates and quench temperatures (1150ºC to 1000ºC), provide a framework for evaluating cooling conditions necessary for glass formation, rates of plagioclase growth, and kinetic factors governing plagioclase growth morphology. Specifically, we use these insights to interpret the textural and mineralogical features of the unusual compound flow recovered at Site 989. We concluded from the analysis that this flow most likely records multiple breakouts from a distal tube at an abrupt break in slope, possibly a fault scarp, resulting in the formation of a lava fan delta. This interpretation implies that normal faulting of the oldest lava sequences (lower and, possibly, middle series) preceded eruption of Site 989 lavas.