Recent studies have suggested that species-specific pit properties such as pit membrane thickness, pit membrane porosity, torus-to-aperture diameter ratio and pit chamber depth influence xylem vulnerability to cavitation. Despite the indisputable importance of using mean pit characteristics, considerable variability in pit structure within a single species or even within a single pit field shou...

Neolithic and Bronze Age topsoil relicts revealed enhanced extractable phosphorus (P) and plant available inorganic P fractions, thus raising the question whether there was targeted soil amelioration in prehistoric times. This study aimed (i) at assessing the overall nutrient status and the soil organic matter content of these arable topsoil relicts, and (ii) at tracing ancient soil fertilizing...

Compressive properties of sperm whale dentin were measured as a function of orientation of incremental lines. With respect to the general incremental lines' direction, three specimen orientations were selected: longitudinal, oblique (45°) radial and transverse radial. The machined cylindrical specimens were compressed in a mechanical testing machine. A load cell provided with the force values d...

n A common decision in openpit mining is to determine the extraction sequence of notional three-dimensional production blocks so as to maximize the net present value of the extracted orebody, while adhering to precedence and operational resource constraints. This openpit block sequencing (OPBS) problem is commonly formulated as an integer program, with binary variables representing if and when ...

in the open-pit mining, one of the first decisions that must be made in production planning stage, after completing the design of final pit limits, is determining of the processing plant cut-off grade. since this grade has an essential effect on operations, choosing the optimum cut-off grade is of considerable importance. different goals may be used for determining optimum cut-off grade. one of...

*Correspondence: Ryan A. York, Department of Biology, Stanford University, 371 Serra Mall, Stanford, CA 94305, USA e-mail: [email protected]; J. Todd Streelman, Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience, Georgia Institute of Technology, 310 Ferst Drive, Atlanta, GA 30332-0230, USA e-mail: todd.streelman@ biology.gatech.edu Despite considerable research, we still know little about th...

Pavlovian conditioned stimuli can influence instrumental responding, an effect called Pavlovian-instrumental transfer (PIT). During the last decade, PIT has been subdivided into two types: specific PIT and general PIT, each having its own neural substrates. Specific PIT happens when a conditioned stimulus (CS) associated with a reward enhances an instrumental response directed to the same rewar...

In themining optimisation literature, most researchers focused on two strategic-level and tactical-level openpit mine optimisation problems, which are respectively termed ultimate pit limit (UPIT) or constrained pit limit (CPIT). However, many researchers indicate that the substantial numbers of variables and constraints in realworld instances (e.g., with 50–1000 thousand blocks) make the CPIT’...

Abstract The automation of mining haulage vehicles has great potential in terms safety and economy. performance autonomous depends largely on highly accurate vehicle state information. Deep mines are especially challenging, as satellite-based localization methods reaching their limits. Therefore, we introduce a new navigation filter concept for the precise robust fleet that can handle ...

Sungun Copper Mine is located in an area with a high level of seismic hazard. Most recently, the Ahar-Varzeqan earthquake with a magnitude of 6.2 on Richter scale occurred on August 11, 2012; at a distance about 40 kilometers away from the mine. Nevertheless, the seismic stability of the final pit wall has not been comprehensively reviewed. In this research, the southwestern wall of the final p...