Harvesting induced stability and instability in a tri-trophic food chain.

Non-equilibrium dynamics in the form of oscillations or chaos is often found to be a natural phenomenon in complex ecological systems. In this paper, we first analyze a tri-trophic food chain, which is an extension of the Rosenzweig-MacArthur di-trophic food chain. We then explore the impact of harvesting individual trophic levels to answer the following questions : a) when a non-equilibrium dynamics persists, b) whether it can locally be stabilized to a steady state, c) when the system switches from a stable steady state to a non-equilibrium dynamics and d) whether the Maximum Sustainable Yield (MSY) always exists when the top predator is harvested.

Thermally Twistable, Photobendable, Elastically Deformable, and Self-Healable Soft Crystals.

The first example of a smart crystalline material, the 2:1 cocrystal of probenecid and 4,4'-azopyridine, which responds reversibly to multiple external stimuli (heat, UV light, and mechanical pressure) by twisting, bending, and elastic deformation without fracture is reported. This material is also able to self-heal on heating and cooling, thereby overcoming the main setbacks of molecular crystals for future applications as crystal actuators. The photo- and thermomechanical effects and self-healing capabilities of the material are rooted in reversible trans-cis isomerization of the azopyridine unit and crystal-to-crystal phase transition.

Biological conservation through marine protected areas in the presence of alternative stable states.

This article addresses how depleted stock can be restored by creation of marine reserve and species mobility when alternative stable states persist in a marine ecosystem. To understand the role of a marine protected area, we develop a two-patch version of an originally single-patch model. In the two-patch model, we prove that some of the locally stable equilibria are not stable equilibria from an ecological viewpoint.

Fano Scattering: Manifestation of Acoustic Phonons at the Nanoscale.

Size-dependent asymmetric low-frequency Raman line shapes have been observed from silicon (Si) nanostructures (NSs) due to a quantum confinement effect. The acoustic phonons in Si NSs interact with an intraband quasi-continuum to give rise to Fano interaction in the low-frequency range. The experimental asymmetric Raman line shape has been explained by developing a theoretical model that incorporates the quantum-confined phonons interacting with an intraband quasi-continuum available in Si NSs as a result of discretization of energy levels with unequal separation.

Particle dynamics in a symmetrically driven underdamped inhomogeneous periodic potential system.

We numerically solve the underdamped Langevin equation to obtain the trajectories of a particle in a sinusoidal potential driven by a temporally sinusoidal force in a medium with coefficient of friction periodic in space as the potential but with a phase difference. With the appropriate choice of system parameters, like the mean friction coefficient and the period of the applied field, only two kinds of periodic trajectories are obtained for all possible initial conditions at low noise strengths: one with a large amplitude and a large phase lag with respect to the applied field and the other with a small amplitude and a small phase lag. Thus, the periodic potential system is effectively mapped dynamically into a bistable system.

A copyright protection scheme for digital images based on shuffled singular value decomposition and visual cryptography.

This paper proposes a new watermarking algorithm based on the shuffled singular value decomposition and the visual cryptography for copyright protection of digital images. It generates the ownership and identification shares of the image based on visual cryptography. It decomposes the image into low and high frequency sub-bands.

Differential Cross Sections and Product Rovibrational Distributions for (16)O + (32)O2 and (18)O + (36)O2 Collisions.

We report rotationally resolved opacity functions, product rotational distributions, and differential cross sections for the (16)O + (16)O(16)O (v = 0,j = 1) → (16)O(16)O (v' = 0,j') + (16)O and (18)O + (18)O(18)O (v = 0,j = 1) → (18)O(18)O (v' = 0,j') + (18)O collisions calculated by a time-independent quantum mechanical method employing one of the latest potential energy surface of ozone [ Dawes ; et al. J. Chem.

Quantum Dynamics of the (18)O + (36)O2 Collision Process.

We report full quantum cross sections and rate constants for the (18)O + (36)O2 → (36)O2 + (18)O collision process. This constitutes to the best of our knowledge the first dynamical study of the (18)O(18)O(18)O system, with three identical (18)O oxygen atoms. We emphasize the comparison with the (16)O + (32)O2 collision as this latter presents the exact same features as the one treated here, except the consistent change of mass for all three atoms.

Solution to automatic generation control problem using firefly algorithm optimized I(λ)D(µ) controller.

Present work focused on automatic generation control (AGC) of a three unequal area thermal systems considering reheat turbines and appropriate generation rate constraints (GRC). A fractional order (FO) controller named as I(λ)D(µ) controller based on crone approximation is proposed for the first time as an appropriate technique to solve the multi-area AGC problem in power systems. A recently developed metaheuristic algorithm known as firefly algorithm (FA) is used for the simultaneous optimization of the gains and other parameters such as order of integrator (λ) and differentiator (μ) of I(λ)D(µ) controller and governor speed regulation parameters (R).