About 35 samples were collected from lower and upper parts of the proposed Frasnianamennian boundary in three sections of Upper Devonian marine sediments of the Kerman province. The biostratigraphical and geochemical studies indicate that about 45% extinction of brachiopods probably caused by the Frasnian-Famennian bioevents, which is slightly higher than thr rate of Devonian-Carboniferous exti...

Response to reviewers: The reviewers make excellent suggestions and comments that substantially improve the text. For the most part we modify the text to better reflect their comments. There are a few exceptions, where we do not do as suggested, in which case we explain why we did not. Comments by Reviewer # 1 (Ron Miller) “There seem to be four main conclusions. First, surface extinction, wher...

A novel polarization beam splitter using a two-layer grating coupler is proposed and demonstrated. It can directly couple the normally incident light from fiber into two separate waveguides according to their polarization states while splitting them. It realizes high coupling efficiency and a good extinction ratio by using binary blazed grating couplers. The coupling length is less than 14 micr...

We show that the accumulated light of galaxies in the ultraviolet can be evaluated from their luminosity density as a function of the evolution of the cosmic star formation rate and dust extinction properties. Constraints on the evolution rate are expected in future. Data available at the moment are consistent with an evolution rate at low z steeper than (1 + z). A shallower rate remains possib...

ENVS110 Wildlife in Our Time The modern conservation movement developed from concerns over the loss of wilderness and the extinction of species through exploitation. As a result, the welfare of individual, wild animals has not been a focus of our conservation practices. Instead we have tended to focus on the health of populations, preservation of species, and overall biodiversity. In light of h...

When gene regulatory networks operate in regimes where the number of protein molecules is so small that the molecular species are on the verge of extinction, the death and resurrection of the species greatly modifies the attractor landscape. Deterministic models and the diffusion approximation to the master equation break down at the limits of protein populations in a way very analogous to the ...

We characterize the transmission spectra of out-of-plane, normal-incidence light of two-dimensional silicon photonic crystal slabs and observe excellent agreement between the measured data and finite-difference time-domain simulations over the 1050-1600-nm wavelength range. Crystals that are 340 nm thick and have holes of 330-nm radius on a square lattice of 998-nm pitch show 20-dB extinction i...

A non-invasive method for measuring the refractive index, extinction coefficient and film thickness of absorptive thin films using spectral-domain optical coherent tomography is proposed, analyzed and experimentally demonstrated. Such an optical system employing a normal-incident beam of light exhibits a high spatial resolution. There are no mechanical moving parts involved for the measurement ...