The Aleutian Islands were colonized, perhaps several times, from the Alaskan mainland. Earlier work documented transitions in the relative frequencies of mtDNA haplogroups over time, but little is known about potential source populations for prehistoric Aleut migrants. As part of a pilot investigation, we sequenced the mtDNA first hypervariable region (HVRI) in samples from two archaeological s...

Understanding infiltration pathways throughout the different compartments of karst systems (soil-epikarst-unsaturated zone-saturated zone) is vital to assess recharge processes, vulnerability pollution, and general hydrogeological functioning these kind aquifers. To gain deeper insight into soil-water-rock hydrogeochemical processes occurring vertically hierarchized aquifer evaluate applicabili...

Offshore wind turbines (OWTs) are dynamically loaded structures and therefore the estimation of the natural frequency is an important design calculation to avoid resonance and resonance related effects (such as fatigue). Monopiles are currently the most used foundation type and are also being considered in deeper waters (430 m) where a stiff transition piece will join the monopile and the taper...

Plant expression of thermostable endoglucanase (E1) [pdb:1ECE] has been proposed for improved conversion of lignocellulose to ethanol for fuel production. Since E1 was isolated from hot springs and has thermostable properties, it may have increased stability when released to agricultural soils during post-harvest residue decomposition. Endoglucanases are a subclass of cellulases and act by clea...

Malaysia has a great number of hot springs, especially along the flank of the Banjaran Titiwangsa mountain range. Biological studies of the Malaysian hot springs are rare because of the lack of comprehensive information on their microbial communities. In this study, we report a cultivation-independent census to describe microbial communities in six hot springs. The Ulu Slim (US), Sungai Klah (S...

A formulation for design of continuous, hinge-free compliant mechanisms is developed and examined within a continuum structural topology optimization framework. The formulation makes use of two distinctly different sets of springs, the first of which are artificial springs of relatively large stiffness attached to the input and output ports of the mechanism model, and the second of which are sp...

In this paper, we aim at minimizing the actuator torques of robots working on production lines by adding to the mechanism dynamic equilibrators based on nonlinear springs, that work in parallel with the joints. We propose a method to simultaneously optimize the trajectory of the robot and the force profiles of the nonlinear springs to minimize the actuator torques. First, we express the traject...

The river Gacka springs catchment area is located in the Dinaric karst, which is globally known as the locus typicus, or classical Karst. It is composed of four major and several minor karst springs of different discharge rates. The river Gacka springs are characterised by great discharge and exceptional quality, so the catchment area of the river is indicated in the Water Management Strategy (...

The meaning of orbital energies (OOEs) in Kohn-Sham (KS) density functional theory (DFT) is subject to a longstanding controversy. In local, semilocal, and hybrid density functionals (DFs) a Koopmans' approach, where OOEs approximate negative ionization potentials (IPs), is unreliable. We discuss a methodology based on the Baer-Neuhauser-Livshits range-separated hybrid DFs for which Koopmans' a...

One of the largest karst springs in North China, the Jinci Springs, dried up and has remained dry since 1994. We develop a correlation analysis with time-lag and a regression analysis with time-lag to study the relation between spring flow and precipitation. This allows us to obtain a better understanding of karst hydrological processes by differentiating the contribution of variation in precip...