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No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

In biochemical networks transient dynamics plays a fundamental role, since the activation of signalling pathways is determined by thresholds encountered during the transition from an initial state (e.g. an initial concentration of a certain protein) to a steady-state. These thresholds can be defined in terms of the inflection points of the stimulus-response curves associated to the activation processes in the biochemical network. In the present work, we present a rigorous discussion as to the suitability of finite-time Lyapunov exponents and metabolic control coefficients for the detection of inflection points of stimulus-response curves with sigmoidal shape.

Purpose: To review the roles of the different vascular beds nourishing the inner retina [retinal ganglion cells (RGCs)] during normal development of the human eye, using our own tissue specimens to support our conclusions. Methods: An extensive search of the appropriate literature included PubMed, Google scholar, and numerous available textbooks. In addition, choroidal and retinal NADPH-diaphorase stained whole mount preparations were investigated. Results: The first critical interaction between vascular bed and RGC formation occurs in the sixth to eighth month of gestation leading to a massive reduction of RGCs mainly in the peripheral retina. The first 3 years of age are characterized by an intense growth of the eyeball to near adult size. In the adult eye, the influence of the choroid on inner retinal nutrition was determined by examining the peripheral retinal watershed zones in more detail. Conclusion: This delicately balanced situation of RGC nutrition is described in the different regions of the eye, and a new graphic presentation is introduced to combine morphological measurements and clinical visual field data.

A growing interest in using forest biomass for bioenergy generation may stimulate intensive harvesting scenarios in Germany. We calculated and compared nutrient exports of conventional stem only (SO), whole tree without needles (WT excl. needles), and whole tree (WT) harvesting in two medium aged Norway spruce (Picea abies L. Karst.) and Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) stands differing in productivity, and related them to soil nutrient pools and fluxes at the study sites. We established allometric biomass functions for each aboveground tree compartment and analyzed their nutrient contents. We analyzed soil nutrient stocks, estimated weathering rates, and obtained deposition and seepage data from nearby Level II stations. WT (excl. needles) and WT treatments cause nutrient losses 1.5 to 3.6 times higher than SO, while the biomass gain is only 1.18 to 1.25 in case of WT (excl. needles) and 1.28 to 1.30 in case of WT in the pine and spruce stand, respectively. Within the investigated 25-year period, WT harvesting would cause exports of N, K+, Ca2+, and Mg2+ of 6.6, 8.8, 5.4, and 0.8 kg·ha−1 in the pine stand and 13.9, 7.0, 10.6, and 1.8 kg·ha−1 in the spruce stand annually. The relative impact of WT and WT (excl. needles) on the nutrient balance is similar in the pine and spruce stands, despite differences in stand productivities, and thus the absolute amount of nutrients removed. In addition to the impact of intensive harvesting, both sites are characterized by high seepage losses of base cations, further impairing the nutrient budget. While intensive biomass extraction causes detrimental effects on many key soil ecological properties, our calculations may serve to implement measures to improve the nutrient balance in forested ecosystems.

Visible and near-infrared diffuse reflectance spectroscopy has been demonstrated to be a fast and cheap tool for estimating a large number of chemical and physical soil properties, and effective features extracted from spectra are crucial to correlating with these properties. We adopt a novel methodology for feature extraction of soil spectroscopy based on fractal geometry. The spectrum can be divided into multiple segments with different step–window pairs. For each segmented spectral curve, the fractal dimension value was calculated using variation estimators with power indices 0.5, 1.0 and 2.0. Thus, the fractal feature can be generated by multiplying the fractal dimension value with spectral energy. To assess and compare the performance of new generated features, we took advantage of organic soil samples from the large-scale European Land Use/Land Cover Area Frame Survey (LUCAS). Gradient-boosting regression models built using XGBoost library with soil spectral library were developed to estimate N, pH and soil organic carbon (SOC) contents. Features generated by a variogram estimator performed better than two other estimators and the principal component analysis (PCA). The estimation results for SOC were coefficient of determination (R2) = 0.85, root mean square error (RMSE) = 56.7 g/kg, the ratio of percent deviation (RPD) = 2.59; for pH: R2 = 0.82, RMSE = 0.49 g/kg, RPD = 2.31; and for N: R2 = 0.77, RMSE = 3.01 g/kg, RPD = 2.09. Even better results could be achieved when fractal features were combined with PCA components. Fractal features generated by the proposed method can improve estimation accuracies of soil properties and simultaneously maintain the original spectral curve shape.

Managed aquifer recharge (MAR) is the purposeful recharge of an aquifer for later recovery or environmental benefits and represents a valuable method for sustainable water resources management. Models can be helpful tools for the assessment of MAR systems. This review encompasses a survey and an analysis of case studies which apply flow and transport models to evaluate MAR. The observed modeling objectives include the planning or optimization of MAR schemes as well as the identification and quantification of geochemical processes during injection, storage and recovery. The water recovery efficiency and the impact of the injected water on the ambient groundwater are further objectives investigated in the reviewed studies. These objectives are mainly solved by using groundwater flow models. Unsaturated flow models, solute transport models, reactive geochemical models as well as water balance models are also frequently applied and often coupled. As each planning step to setup a new MAR facility requires cost and time investment, modeling is used to minimize hazard risks and assess possible constraints of the system such as low recovery efficiency, clogging and geochemical processes.

Particle-based films are today an important part of various designs and they are implemented in structures as conductive parts, i.e., conductive paste printing in the manufacture of Li-ion batteries, solar cells or resistive paste printing in IC. Recently, particle based films were also implemented in the 3D printing technique, and are particularly important for use in aircraft, wind power, and the automotive industry when incorporated onto the surface of composite structures for protection against damages caused by a lightning strike. A crucial issue for the lightning protection area is to realize films with high homogeneity of electrical resistance where an in-situ noninvasive method has to be elaborated for quality monitoring to avoid undesirable financial and time costs. In this work the drying process of particle based films was investigated by high-frequency eddy current (HFEC) spectroscopy in order to work out an automated in-situ quality monitoring method with a focus on the electrical resistance of the films. Different types of particle based films deposited on dielectric and carbon fiber reinforced plastic substrates were investigated in the present study and results show that the HFEC method offers a good opportunity to monitor the overall drying process of particle based films. Based on that, an algorithm was developed, allowing prediction of the final electrical resistance of the particle based films throughout the drying process, and was successfully implemented in a prototype system based on the EddyCus® HFEC device platform presented in this work. This prototype is the first solution for a portable system allowing HFEC measurement on huge and uneven surfaces.