Molecular documentation of polyembryony and the micro-spatial dispersion of clonal sibships in the nine-banded armadillo, Dasypus novemcinctus.

A battery of allelic markers at highly polymorphic microsatellite loci was developed and employed to confirm genetically the clonal nature of sibships in nine-banded armadillos. This phenomenon of consistent polyembryony, otherwise nearly unknown among the vertebrates, then was capitalized upon to describe the micro-spatial distributions of numerous clonal sibships in a natural population of armadillos. Adult clonemates were significantly more dispersed than were juvenile sibs, suggesting limited opportunities for altruistic behavioral interactions among mature individuals. These results, and considerations of armadillo natural history, suggest that evolutionary explanations for polyembryony in this species may not reside in the kinds of ecological and kin selection theories relevant to some of the polyembryonic invertebrates. Rather, polyembryony in armadillos may be associated evolutionarily with other reproductive peculiarities of the species, including delayed uterine implantation of a single egg.

Parameter sensitivity for optimal design of 65 nm node SOI transistors

Mixed-mode simulation, where device simulation is embedded directly within a circuit simulator, is used for the first time to provide scaling guidelines to achieve optimal digital circuit performance for double gate SOI MOSFETs. This significant advance overcomes the lack of availability of SPICE model parameters. The sensitivity of the gate delay and on-off current ratio to each of the key geometric and technological parameters of the transistor is quantified. The impact of the source-drain doping profile on circuit performance is comprehensively investigated.

Solving the advection-dispersion equation using the discrete puff particle method

A flexible, mass-conservative numerical technique for solving the advection-dispersion equation for miscible contaminant transport is presented. The method combines features of puff transport models from air pollution studies with features from the random walk particle method used in water resources studies, providing a deterministic time-marching algorithm which is independent of the grid Peclet number and scales from one to higher dimensions simply. The concentration field is discretised into a number of particles, each of which is treated as a point release which advects and disperses over the time interval. The dispersed puff is itself discretised into a spatial distribution of particles whose masses can be pre-calculated. Concentration within the simulation domain is then calculated from the mass distribution as an average over some small volume. Comparison with analytical solutions for a one-dimensional fixed-duration concentration pulse and for two-dimensional transport in an axisymmetric flow field indicate that the algorithm performs well. For a given level of accuracy the new method has lower computation times than the random walk particle method.

A comparison of a range of models for dispersion in a partially stratified room

A comparative study of models used to predict contaminant dispersion in a partially stratified room is presented. The experiments were carried out in a ventilated test room, with an initially evenly dispersed pollutant. Air was extracted from the outlet in the ceiling of the room at 1 and 3 air changes per hour. A small temperature difference between the top and bottom of the room causes very low air velocities, and higher concentrations, in the lower half of the room. Grid-independent CFD calculations were compared with predictions from a zonal model and from CFD using a very coarse grid. All the calculations show broadly similar contaminant concentration decay rates for the three locations monitored in the experiments, with the zonal model performing surprisingly well. For the lower air change rate, the models predict a less well mixed contaminant distribution than the experimental measurements suggest. With run times of less than a few minutes, the zonal model is around two orders of magnitude faster than coarse-grid CFD and could therefore be used more easily in parametric studies and sensitivity analyses. For a more detailed picture of internal dispersion, a CFD study using coarse and standard grids may be more appropriate.

Time operators for one parameter semigroups

We develop two simple approaches to the construction of time operators for semigroups of continuous linear operators in Hilbert spaces provided that the generators of these semigroups are normal operators. The first approach enables us to give explicit formulas (in the spectral representations) both for the time operators and for their eigenfunctions. The other approach provides no explicit formula. However, it enables us to find necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of time operators for semigroups of continuous linear operators in separable Hilbert spaces with normal generators. Time superoperators corresponding to unitary groups are also discussed.