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Trabecular bone is a spongy bone tissue that serves as a scaffolding-like support inside many skeletal elements. Previous research found allometric variation in some aspects of trabecular bone architecture (TBA) and bone microstructure, whereas others scale isometrically. However, most of these studies examined very wide size and phylogenetic ranges or focused exclusively on primates or lab mice. We examined the impact of body size on TBA across a smaller size range in the mammalian clade Xenarthra (sloths, armadillos, and anteaters). We µCT-scanned the last six presacral vertebrae of 23 xenarthran specimens (body mass 120 g–35 kg). We collected ten gross-morphology measurements and seven TBA metrics and analyzed them using phylogenetic and nonphylogenetic methods. Most metrics had similar allometries to previous work. However, because ecology and phylogeny align closely in Xenarthra, the phylogenetic methods likely removed some covariance due to ecology; clarifying the impact of ecology on TBA in xenarthrans requires further work. Regressions for Folivora had high P-values and low R-squared values, indicating that the extant sloth sample either is too limited to determine patterns or that the unique way sloths load their vertebral columns causes unusually high TBA variation. The southern three-banded armadillo sits far below the regression lines, which may be related to its ability to roll into a ball. Body size, phylogeny, and ecology impact xenarthran TBA, but parsing these effects is highly complex.

 

The effects of total ionizing dose (TID) on SRAM physical unclonable functions (PUF) are studied through x-ray and proton irradiation of commercially available SRAM. Negative shifts in the Fractional Hamming Weight (FHW) were measured with increasing TID, indicating a migration of bistable cells towards logic low. Additionally, positive shifts in the intra-die Fractional Hamming Distance (FHD) were measured and indicate changes to the virtual fingerprint of an SRAM PUF with TID, especially in devices that were dosed while holding data. Shifts in inter-die FHD were negligible, allowing individual SRAMs still to be easily identified based on the FHD between a known and unknown sample even after moderate amounts of TID. In some cases, SRAMs could still be identified by their PUFs after the devices had failed. In all cases, the irradiated SRAM devices retain their virtual fingerprint after recovery through annealing. 

Chlorophyll (Chl) is widely taken as a proxy for phytoplankton biomass, despite well-known variations in Chl:C:biomass ratios as an acclimative response to changing environmental conditions. For the sake of simplicity and computational efficiency, many large scale biogeochemical models ignore this flexibility, compromising their ability to capture phytoplankton dynamics. Here we evaluate modelling approaches of differing complexity for phytoplankton growth response: fixed stoichiometry, fixed stoichiometry with photoacclimation, classical variable-composition with photoacclimation, and Instantaneous Acclimation with optimal resource allocation. Model performance is evaluated against biogeochemical observations from time-series sites BATS and ALOHA, where phytoplankton composition varies substantially. We analyse the sensitivity of each model variant to the affinity parameters for light and nutrient, respectively. Models with fixed stoichiometry are more sensitive to parameter perturbations, but the inclusion of photoacclimation in the fixed-stoichiometry model generally captures Chl observations better than other variants when individually tuned for each site and when using similar parameter sets for both sites. Compared to the fixed stoichiometry model including photoacclimation, models with variable C:N ratio perform better in cross-validation experiments using model-specific parameter sets tuned for the other site; i.e., they are more portable. Compared to typical variable composition approaches, instantaneous acclimation, which requires fewer state variables, generally yields better performance but somewhat lower portability than the fully dynamic variant. Further assessments using objective optimisation and more contrasting stations are suggested. 

Abstract The elliptic algebras in the title are connected graded $\mathbb {C}$ -algebras, denoted $Q_{n,k}(E,\tau )$ , depending on a pair of relatively prime integers $n>k\ge 1$ , an elliptic curve E and a point $\tau \in E$ . This paper examines a canonical homomorphism from $Q_{n,k}(E,\tau )$ to the twisted homogeneous coordinate ring $B(X_{n/k},\sigma ',\mathcal {L}^{\prime }_{n/k})$ on the characteristic variety $X_{n/k}$ for $Q_{n,k}(E,\tau )$ . When $X_{n/k}$ is isomorphic to $E^g$ or the symmetric power $S^gE$ , we show that the homomorphism $Q_{n,k}(E,\tau ) \to B(X_{n/k},\sigma ',\mathcal {L}^{\prime }_{n/k})$ is surjective, the relations for $B(X_{n/k},\sigma ',\mathcal {L}^{\prime }_{n/k})$ are generated in degrees $\le 3$ and the noncommutative scheme $\mathrm {Proj}_{nc}(Q_{n,k}(E,\tau ))$ has a closed subvariety that is isomorphic to $E^g$ or $S^gE$ , respectively. When $X_{n/k}=E^g$ and $\tau =0$ , the results about $B(X_{n/k},\sigma ',\mathcal {L}^{\prime }_{n/k})$ show that the morphism $\Phi _{|\mathcal {L}_{n/k}|}:E^g \to \mathbb {P}^{n-1}$ embeds $E^g$ as a projectively normal subvariety that is a scheme-theoretic intersection of quadric and cubic hypersurfaces. 

Synopsis Teeth lie at the interface between an animal and its environment and, with some exceptions, act as a major component of resource procurement through food acquisition and processing. Therefore, the shape of a tooth is closely tied to the type of food being eaten. This tight relationship is of use to biologists describing the natural history of species and given the high instance of tooth preservation in the fossil record, is especially useful for paleontologists. However, correlating gross tooth morphology to diet is only part of the story, and much more can be learned through the study of dental biomechanics. We can explore the mechanics of how teeth work, how different shapes evolved, and the underlying forces that constrain tooth shape. This review aims to provide an overview of the research on dental biomechanics, in both mammalian and non-mammalian teeth, and to synthesize two main approaches to dental biomechanics to develop an integrative framework for classifying and evaluating dental functional morphology. This framework relates food material properties to the dynamics of food processing, in particular how teeth transfer energy to food items, and how these mechanical considerations may have shaped the evolution of tooth morphology. We also review advances in technology and new techniques that have allowed more in-depth studies of tooth form and function.