Fossil bone collagen C dating and δC and δN isotopic measurements of the rodent Canariomys bravoi from Tenerife (Canary Islands, Spain) were used to test two different hypotheses about the causes of extinctions of endemic vertebrates on islands, climate versus humans. For the Tenerife giant rat, we show that it survived the climatic change that occurred between the Middle and Late Holocene, but...

AI Technologies are applicable to Homeland Security, particularly in problems of analysis, discovery and prediction. We describe relevant AI techniques including Link Analysis, dynamic Decision Support and Agent Organization modeling, whereby anomalous activities may be detected and threats deterred. We also discuss application of techniques in local government and to security matters close to ...

The paper is devoted to linear and nonlinear optical properties of disordered clusters and nanocomposites. Linear and nonlinear optical polarizabilities of large disordered clusters, fractal clusters in particular, and susceptibilities of nanocomposites are found and calculated numerically. A spectral theory with dipole interaction is used to obtain quantitative results. Major properties of sys...

ETWEEN 1947 AND 1962, the population of the United States grew at an average annual rate near 2 percent, a large increase from the average annual growth rate near 1 percent during the 20 years prior to World War II. Moreover, since 1962, the average population growth rate has fallen to its pre-war level. This large but temporary increase in the population growth rate, more familiarly called the...

Although forest fragmentation and degradation have been recognized as one of major threats to wild panda population, little is known about the relationship between panda distribution and forest fragmentation. This study is unique as it presents a first attempt at understanding the effects of forest fragmentation on panda spatial distribution for the entire wild panda population. Using a moving ...

The non-linear nature of string theory on non-trivial backgrounds related to the AdS/CFT correspondence suggests to look for simplifications. Two such simplifications proved to be useful in studying string theory. These are the pp-wave limit which describes point-like strings and the so called “near flat space” limit which connects two different sectors of string theory – pp-waves and “giant ma...

We investigate giant magnons from classical rotating strings in two different backgrounds. First we generalize the solution of Hofman and Maldacena and investigate magnon excitations of a spin chain which are dual to a string on R× S with three nonvanishing angular momenta. We find a dispersion relation similar to that of Hofman and Maldacena and to the one found by Dorey for the two spin case ...

This paper describes a study conducted in the summer of 2006 aimed at exploring the play patterns and lifestyles of gamers who fall into the loose demographic of “Baby Boomers,” typically defined as people born between 1946 and 1964. This independent study, including over 300 participants, combined quantitative and qualitative techniques in order paint a multi-faceted picture of the gaming life...

This review is dedicated to electric field effects on giant unilamellar vesicles, a cell-size membrane system. We summarize various types of behavior observed when vesicles are subjected either to weak AC fields at various frequency, or to strong DC pulses. Different processes such as electrodeformation, -poration and -fusion of giant vesicles are considered. We describe some recent development...

There are estimated to be between 1.4 and 3.8 million LGBT Americans over the age of 65. This population is expected to increase between 3.6 and 7.2 million due to the Baby Boom generation. The older adult population is the most rapidly growing age group in the United States and experiences normal age-related changes in cognition as well as in internal and external physical health. Although dif...