Helium or neopentane can be used as surrogate gas fill for deuterium (D2) or deuterium-tritium (DT) in laser-plasma interaction studies. Surrogates are convenient to avoid flammability hazards or the integration of cryogenics in an experiment. To test the degree of equivalency between deuterium and helium, experiments were conducted in the Pecos target chamber at Sandia National Laboratories. Observables such as laser propagation and signatures of laser-plasma instabilities (LPI) were recorded for multiple laser and target configurations. It was found that some observables can differ significantly despite the apparent similarity of the gases with respect to molecular charge and weight. While a qualitative behaviour of the interaction may very well be studied by finding a suitable compromise of laser absorption, electron density, and LPI cross sections, a quantitative investigation of expected values for deuterium fills at high laser intensities is not likely to succeed with surrogate gases.

For several years the Círculos Bolivarianos were a key organized component of the movement supporting President Hugo Chávez in Venezuela and the question of their democratic qualities a source of considerable controversy, but until recently there was little data to test the competing claims of supporters and opponents. We report the results of a survey of 110 members of Círculos and several interviews carried out in four Venezuelan states during June and July 2004. After providing basic information on the Círculos, we analyze their tendency to contribute to a democratic civil society. We find that respondents had highly democratic goals and methods; however, their organizations embodied a charismatic mode of linkage to Chávez that undermined their ability to become institutionalized. In addition, although the Círculos performed valuable social work, they often reinforced clientelistic relations between Chávez and the voters, and they did not significantly enhance the level of pluralism in the broader civil society.

Kottwitz’s conjecture describes the contribution of a supercuspidal representation to the cohomology of a local Shimura variety in terms of the local Langlands correspondence. A natural extension of this conjecture concerns Scholze’s more general spaces of local shtukas. Using a new Lefschetz–Verdier trace formula for v-stacks, we prove the extended conjecture, disregarding the action of the Weil group, and modulo a virtual representation whose character vanishes on the locus of elliptic elements. As an application, we show that, for an irreducible smooth representation of an inner form of $\operatorname {\mathrm {GL}}_n$ , the L-parameter constructed by Fargues–Scholze agrees with the usual semisimplified parameter arising from local Langlands.

We prove a generic smoothness result in rigid analytic geometry over a characteristic zero non-archimedean field. The proof relies on a novel notion of generic points in rigid analytic geometry which are well adapted to ‘spreading out’ arguments, in analogy with the use of generic points in scheme theory. As an application, we develop a six-functor formalism for Zariski-constructible étale sheaves on characteristic zero rigid spaces. Among other things, this implies that characteristic zero rigid spaces support a well-behaved theory of perverse sheaves.

We completely classify the possible extensions between semistable vector bundles on the Fargues–Fontaine curve (over an algebraically closed perfectoid field), in terms of a simple condition on Harder–Narasimhan (HN) polygons. Our arguments rely on a careful study of various moduli spaces of bundle maps, which we define and analyze using Scholze’s language of diamonds. This analysis reduces our main results to a somewhat involved combinatorial problem, which we then solve via a reinterpretation in terms of the Euclidean geometry of HN polygons.

We prove a rigid analytic analogue of the Artin–Grothendieck vanishing theorem. Precisely, we prove (under mild hypotheses) that the geometric étale cohomology of any Zariski-constructible sheaf on any affinoid rigid space $X$ vanishes in all degrees above the dimension of $X$. Along the way, we show that branched covers of normal rigid spaces can often be extended across closed analytic subsets, in analogy with a classical result for complex analytic spaces. We also prove some new comparison theorems relating the étale cohomology of schemes and rigid analytic varieties, and give some applications of them. In particular, we prove a structure theorem for Zariski-constructible sheaves on characteristic-zero affinoid spaces.

It is commonplace in current legal scholarship that pay packages for executives that were not tied to the impact of these executives' policies on shareholder wealth maximization often caused harm to shareholder interests and their companies, especially in the long term. The no-pay-without-performance postulate is as old as the first global economic crisis of the 20th century – the deep depression. Since then, this postulate has been repeated and substantiated innumerous times by the majority of experts in corporate law and business economics, but without real success. There are, however, commentators who deny the existence of a link between skewed incentive pay, excessive risk-taking, and financial losses. They instead insist on the superiority of the traditional director-centric model of corporate governance, which would allegedly preserve the balance that has generally worked well between the limited role and limited liability of shareholders and the active role, fiduciary duties, and potential liability of managers, which allegedly renders additional executive pay regulation unnecessary.

Dietary phosphoglycerides and n-3 long-chain PUFA (LC-PUFA) play important functions in the development of pikeperch (Sander lucioperca) larvae. This study aimed to determine optimal dietary levels of soyabean lecithin (SBL)-derived phospholipids (PL) in starter feeds for pikeperch larvae 10–30 d post-hatch (DPH) and examine performance and ontogeny by additional supplementation of n-3 LC-PUFA in the form of Algatrium DHA 70 (glyceride product; 660–700 mg/g DHA; EPA 60–75 mg/g). In total, six isoproteic and isoenergetic extruded diets were formulated with increasing levels of PL (3·7, 8·3 or 14·5 % wet weight (w.w.), respectively); however, three of the diets were supplemented with three levels of Algatrium DHA 70 (0·6, 2·0 or 3·4 %, respectively). Liver proteomic analyses of larvae at 30 DPH were included for effects of PL and primarily DHA on performance, physiological expression and interactions in larval proteins. In addition, bone anomalies, digestive enzymatic activity, candidate gene expression and skeleton morphogenesis were examined. Results confirmed the importance of dietary PL levels of at least 8·2 % w.w., and an additional beneficiary effect of supplementation with DHA plus EPA. Thus, combined supplementation of SBL (up to 14·51 % w.w. PL) and n-3 LC-PUFA (1·004 % DM DHA and 0·169 % DM EPA) in the form of TAG resulted in highest growth and lowest incidence of anomalies, improved digestive enzyme activity and had differential effect on liver proteomics. The results denote that essential fatty acids can be supplemented as TAG to have beneficial effects in pikeperch larvae development.

Studies of dislocation density evolution are fundamental to improved understanding in various areas of deformation mechanics. Recent advances in cross-correlation techniques, applied to electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) data have particularly shed light on geometrically necessary dislocation (GND) behavior. However, the framework is relatively computationally expensive—patterns are typically saved from the EBSD scan and analyzed offline. A better understanding of the impact of EBSD pattern degradation, such as binning, compression, and various forms of noise, is vital to enable optimization of rapid and low-cost GND analysis. This paper tackles the problem by setting up a set of simulated patterns that mimic real patterns corresponding to a known GND field. The patterns are subsequently degraded in terms of resolution and noise, and the GND densities calculated from the degraded patterns using cross-correlation ESBD are compared with the known values. Some confirmation of validity of the computational degradation of patterns by considering real pattern degradation is also undertaken. The results demonstrate that the EBSD technique is not particularly sensitive to lower levels of binning and image compression, but the precision is sensitive to Poisson-type noise. Some insight is also gained concerning effects of mixed patterns at a grain boundary on measured GND content.

An ∼8400 cal yr record of vegetation change from the northern Peten, Guatemala, provides new insights into the environmental history of the archaeological area known as the Mirador Basin. Pollen, loss on ignition, and magnetic susceptibility analyses indicate warm and humid conditions in the early to mid-Holocene. Evidence for a decrease in forest cover around 4600 cal yr B.P. coincides with the first appearance of Zea mays pollen, suggesting that human activity was responsible. The period between 3450 cal yr B.P. and 1000 cal yr B.P. is characterized by a further decline in forest pollen types, includes an abrupt increase in weedy taxa, and exhibits the highest magnetic susceptibility values since the early Holocene, all of which suggest further agricultural disturbance in the watershed. A brief drop in disturbance indicators around 1800 cal yr B.P. may represent the Preclassic abandonment of the area. Changing pollen frequencies around 1000 cal yr B.P. indicate a cessation of human disturbance, which represents the Late Classic collapse of the southern Maya lowlands.

Weed interference with crop growth is often attributed to water, nutrient, or light competition; however, specific physiological responses to these stresses are not well described. This study's objective was to compare growth, yield, and gene expression responses of corn to nitrogen (N), low light (40% shade), and weed stresses. Corn vegetative parameters from V2 to V12 stages, yield parameters, and gene expression using transcriptome (2008) and quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) (2008/09) analyses at V8 were compared among the stresses and with nonstressed corn. N stress did not affect vegetative parameters, although grain yield was reduced by 40% compared with nonstressed plants. Shade, present until V2, reduced biomass and leaf area > 50% at V2, and recovering plants remained smaller than nonstressed plants at V12. However, grain yields of shade-stressed and nonstressed plants were similar, unless shade remained until V8. Weed stress reduced corn growth and yield in 2008 when weeds remained until V6. In 2009, weed stress until V2 reduced corn vegetative growth, but yield reductions occurred only if weed stress remained until V6 or later. Principle component analysis of differentially expressed genes indicated that shade and weed stress had more similar gene expression patterns to each other than they did to nonstressed or N-stressed tissues. However, corn grown in N-stressed conditions shared 252 differentially expressed genes with weed-stressed plants. Ontologies associated with light/photosynthesis, energy conversion, and signaling were down-regulated in response to all three stresses. Shade and weed stress clustered most tightly together, based on gene expression, but shared only three ontologies, O-METHYLTRANSFERASE activity (lignification processes), POLY(U)-BINDING activity (posttranscriptional gene regulation), and stomatal movement. Based on morphologic and genomic observations, weed stress to corn was not explained by individual effects of N or light stress. Therefore, we hypothesize that these stresses share limited signaling mechanisms.

Pheasant hunting benefits of the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) were approximately $80 million/year in 1991 in states where the CRP appears most critical to pheasant populations. To obtain this benefit measure, the demand for pheasant hunting was estimated using a recently developed multi-site demand model, a national survey on recreation, and environmental data processed through a geographic information system (GIS). Thus not only is the resulting evaluation of the CRP's environmental impacts more accurately assessed than through the use of the generalized, supply-demand equilibrium models of previous work, but, more importantly, the environmental benefits of program acreage can be compared across field locations allowing subtle changes in policy to be assessed and the design and operation of a program to be optimized.