Litter fall, litter stocks and decomposition rates in rainforest and agroforestry sites in central Amazonia

The sustainability of agroforestry systems in Amazonia was assessed from their litter dynamics and decomposition. Litter fall and litter stocks were determined from July 1997 to March 1999 in four sites in central Amazonia: a primary rainforest, a 13-year-old secondary forest, and two sites of a polyculture forestry system which consisted of four planted tree species of commercial use amidst upcoming secondary growth. The average annual litter fall in the undisturbed primary rainforest (FLO) was 8.4 t ha^–1 year^–1, which is within the range of litter fall in other rainforests in the region. It was similar in one of the two polyculture sites (8.3 t ha^–1 year^–1), but lower in the secondary forest and in the second polyculture site. In the litter fall in secondary forest and agroforestry sites, the leaf portion was higher (76–82% of total litter fall) than in FLO, due to reduced fine matter and wood fall. Leaf litter fall variability was much lower in the plantation sites than in the forests, which is explained by the much more homogeneous stand structure of the plantations. The quality of the produced litter, measured as C/N ratio, differed significantly between the primary forest site and one polyculture and the secondary forest site. The cumulative input of nitrogen through litter fall was 144 kg ha^–1 year^–1 in FLO, and 91–112 kg ha^–1 year^–1 in the polycultures and the secondary forest. Litter fall was not correlated with soil parameters, but had a significant linear regression with canopy closure. For the primary rainforest, litter fall was also (inversely) correlated with monthly rainfall. Litter fall was higher in the first year (1997–1998; an El Niño period) than in 1998–1999. Litter stocks on the forest floor were highest in the secondary forest (24.7 t ha^–1), and much lower in the polyculture sites (15.1–16.2 t ha^–1) and the primary forest (12.0 t ha^–1). There were no differences in the relative N content (C/N ratio) of the litter stocks between the sites, but the larger stocks led to higher absolute N contents in the litter layer in the secondary forest. From the monthly values of litter stocks (S) and litter fall (P), the decomposition coefficient k _e=P/S was calculated, which was, on average, highest for the primary forest (0.059), followed by the polyculture systems (0.040–0.042), and by the secondary forest (0.024). Thus, due to low decomposition rates, the secondary forest site showed large litter accumulations in spite of a relatively low litter fall. In contrast, the primary forest showed high litter fall but low stocks, due to high decomposition rates. The decomposition coefficients of the polyculture systems ranged between the primary and the secondary forest. The reduced decomposition rates in the man-managed agroecosystems indicate quantitative and/or qualitative changes in the decomposer communities of these systems that lead to a higher build-up of litter stocks on the forest floor. However, the decomposer systems in the polyculture sites still were more functional than in the site of non-managed secondary growth. Thus, from a soil biological viewpoint, ecologically sustainable low-input agroforestry in Amazonia will benefit from the application of these polyculture systems.     

Specific changes of the uterine cervix due to contraceptives]

A group of 344 cervices, produced by conisation within a period of 5 1/2 years, were examined for specific effects of contraceptives. In half of all women, who used oral contraceptives, specific lesions such as "siebartige polypoide Hyperplasie" (cribriform polypoid hyperplasia) were found. The findings and their etiology and importance are discussed.     

Fourier methods for quasi‐periodic oscillations

Quasi‐periodic oscillations and invariant tori play an important role in the study of forced or coupled oscillators. This paper presents two new numerical methods for the investigation of quasi‐periodic oscillations. Both algorithms can be regarded as generalizations of the averaging and the harmonic (spectral) balance methods. The algorithms are easy to implement and require only minimal a priori knowledge of the system. Most importantly, the methods do not depend on an a priori co‐ordinate transformation. The methods are applied to a number of illustrative examples from non‐linear electrical engineering and the results show that the methods are efficient and reliable. In addition, these examples show that the presented algorithms can also continue through regions of sub‐harmonic (phase‐locked) resonance even though they are designed only for the quasi‐periodic case. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Science and technology in the region: The output of regional science and technology, its strengths and its leading institutions

Summary We operationalize scientific output in a region by means of the number of articles (as in the SciSearch database) per year and technology output by means of the number of patent applications (as in the database of the European Patent Office) per priority year. All informetric analyses were done using the DIALOG online-system. The main research questions are the following: Which scientific and technological fields or topics are most influent within a region and which institutions or companies are mainly publishing articles or holding patents? Do the distributions of regional science and technology fields and of publishing institutions follow the well-known informetric function? Are there - as it is expected - only few fields and few institutions which dominate the region? Is there a connection between the economic power of a region and the regional publication and patent output? Examples studied in detail are seven German regions: Aachen, Düsseldorf, Hamburg, Köln (Cologne), Leipzig - Halle - Dessau, München (Munich), and Stuttgart. Three different indicators were used, science and technology attraction of a region (number of scientific articles and patents), science and technology intensity (articles and patents per 1,000 inhabitants), and science and technology density (articles and patents per 1 billion EURO gross value added). Top region concerning both attraction and intensity is Munich, concerning density it is Aachen.     

Two-machine open shop scheduling with secondary criteria

This paper considers two-machine open shop problems with secondary criteria where the primary criterion is the minimization of makespan and the secondary criterion is the minimization of the total flow time, total weighted flow time, or total weighted tardiness time. In view of the strongly NP-hard nature of these problems, two polynomially solvable special cases are given and constructive heuristic algorithms based on insertion techniques are developed. A strongly connected neighborhood structure is derived and used to develop effective iterative heuristic algorithms by incorporating iterative improvement, simulated annealing and multi-start procedures. The proposed insertion and iterative heuristic algorithms are empirically evaluated by solving problem instances with up to 80 jobs.     

Self-Consistent Quantum Mechanical Monte Carlo MOSFET Device Simulation

We have developed a self-consistent quantum mechanical Monte Carlo device simulator that takes electron transport in quantized states into consideration. Two-dimensional quantized states in MOSFET channels are constructed from one-dimensional solutions of the Schrödinger equation at different positions along the channel, and the Schrödinger and Poisson equations are solved self-consistently in terms of electron concentration and electrostatic potential distribution. The channel electron concentration, velocity and drain currents are calculated with the one particle Monte Carlo approach incorporating the intra-valley acoustic phonon and inter-valley phonon scattering mechanisms. This simulator was applied to a 70 nm n-MOSFET transistor, and we found that current mostly flows through the lowest subband and transport is quasi-ballistic near the source junction. To quantitatively estimate the performance of advanced devices, we have developed an inversion carrier transport simulator based on a full-band model. Our simulation method enables us to evaluate device characteristics and analyze the transport properties of ultra-small MOSFETs.     

Simulation of thermally induced package effects with regard to piezoresistive pressure sensors

Microsystems are on their way out of laboratories into production. One of these microsystems, a piezoresistive pressure sensor developed by Robert Bosch GmbH, is examined within this paper. Obviously, one can detect undesirable temperature effects resulting from the sensor package, which influence the electrical characteristics of the sensor. By means of finite-element modelling (FEM), a simulation of the temperature effects can be managed. It is also possible to search for alternative designs of the sensor package.     

Spherical harmonic coefficients for the potential of a constant-density polyhedron

Recurrent relationships for the definitions of fully normalized spherical harmonic coefficients C?_n,m and S?_n,m are derived and integrated analytically to yield the gravitational potential of a constant-density polyhedron. The algorithm is expressed in a C language computer program.     

Software quality management in turbulent times – are there alternatives to process oriented software quality management?

Software Quality Journal - There is a widely accepted paradigm of successful software development, called process oriented software quality management (PSQM). The proponents of PSQM claim that it...