Modeling Lake Ladoga Zoobenthos and Studying Its Role in Phosphorus Exchange at the Water–Bed Interface

A zoobenthos submodel is included in an ecosystem model. The new model is used to assess the role of zoobenthos in the phosphorus exchange at the water–bed interface, in particular, the phosphorus cycle in the water body ecosystem is described more accurately. The calculated zoobenthos distribution over the bed of a lake can be used in modeling the lake ichthyocenoses.     

Mineralized Microbiota: A Possible Indicator of Hydrocarbon Flows in the Rift Zone of Iceland

Relationships of mineralized microbiota with the content of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in hydrothermal systems are considered. It has been established that the mineralized microbiota can serve as an indicator of hydrothermal hydrocarbon flows in present-day and ancient deposits.     

Apparent and real bias in numerical transfer functions in palaeolimnology

We present an evaluation of the procedure by which model prediction bias is examined in palaeolimnological transfer function inference models. We argue that most of the prediction biases commonly reported in the literature are, in fact, fallacious, and are the artificial consequence of the inappropriate manner in which residuals are traditionally examined. We show that the extent of the specious model bias is entirely predictable from first principles and is essentially determined by the strength of the predictive model. We suggest that the analysis of residuals should always be examined as a function of the model's predictions and we discuss the implications of the old and new approaches.     

GARDENS AND DWELLING: PEOPLE IN VERNACULAR GARDENS*

ABSTRACT. Investigations of dooryard gardens, kitchen gardens, home gardens, and houselot gardens fall unequally into one of three groupings. The first are those that treat the plants in the gardens as biological entities and define a space considered a culturally controlled biological community or habitat. The second are those that consider plants cultural traits and the space defined by their positions a setting for household activities. The third conceives of plants as design elements within a garden or a landscape that frames a house or provides a setting for formal human performances. Recent decades have witnessed a broadening focus in the study of gardens, from spatial characteristics and biological content to social and cultural concerns such as reciprocity networks, contested spaces, and the concept of “dwelling.”     

Reconstruction of palaeosalinity using carbon isotopes and benthic associations: a comparison

Carbon and oxygen isotopes were determined on 40 recrystallized shells of Late Jurassic bivalves from the Lusitanian Basin of Portugal. In contrast with the oxygen isotopes, which exhibited considerable diagenetic distortion, the carbon isotopes are thought to preserve a record of the salinity of the Jurassic marginal marine seas in which these bivalves lived. The reconstructed palaeosalinities range from 35%o (euhaline) to 5% (oligohaline). Comparing these values with the palaeosalinity reconstructed from a palaeoecological analysis of 17 stratigraphic levels within the basin, the independently derived values agree in most cases. Strongly differing values are explained as being due to biotic factors and to diagenetic distortion of the isotopic signal; they are less likely to be due to smallscale time-averaging or insufficient microstratigraphic sampling. On the whole, the carbon isotope analyses are thought to produce reasonable palaeosalinity values, although data from infaunal, originally aragonitic bivalves appear to be less reliable than those from epifaunal bivalves with a predominantly or exclusively calcitic shell. As diagenetic alteration of the carbon isotope signal is, however, unpredictable and biotic effects on the isotopic composition are insufficiently known, palaeosalinity reconstructions based on stable isotope data should be supported by palaeoecological data.     

Simulation Study on High Energy Cosmic Electron Detection by Shower Image

Many projects have recently been carried out and proposed for observing high energy electrons since it is realized that cosmic ray electrons are very important when study-ing the dark matter particles and the acceleration mechanism of cosmic rays. An imaging calorimeter,BETS (Balloon-borne Electron Telescope with Scintillator fiber),has been de-veloped for this purpose. Using pattern analysis of the shower development,the electrons can be selected from those primary cosmic ray proton events with flux heights one-tenth that of the electrons. The Monte-Carlo simulation is indispensable for the instrument design,the sig-nal trigger and the data analysis. We present different shower simulation codes and compare the simulation results with the beam test and the flight data of BETS. We conclude that the code FLUKA2002 gives the most consistent results with the experimental data.