Influence of air pollution and site conditions on trends of carbon and oxygen isotope ratios in tree ring cellulose

Oxygen and carbon isotopic compositions of tree ring cellulose (δ¹³C_cell and δ¹⁸O_cell) were measured for pines growing at four sites in east Germany. Three sites differed markedly in soil water availability within a short distance and the fourth site served as a reference. The choice of the sites was guided by the desire to detect effects of air pollution on the long-term trend of isotopic compositions and to examine the influence of soil water availability on the relationship between the carbon and oxygen isotope ratios. Locations in east Germany are particularly well suited for the study of pollution effects because there was a steady increase in environmental contamination until the German Reunification in 1990, followed by a sharp decline due to the implementation of stricter environmental standards.

The long-term trend of δ¹³C_cell showed an extraordinary increase in the period 1945–1990 and a rapid decrease after 1990, whereas δ¹⁸O_cell remained nearly constant. The increase of δ¹³C_cell is explained by secondary fractionation caused by phytotoxicity of SO₂. Two effects are mainly responsible for the secondary fractionation under SO₂ exposure: increase of dark respiration, and changes in photosynthate allocation and partitioning. Both effects do not influence δ¹⁸O_cell. Furthermore, a significant positive correlation between the year-to-year variations of carbon and oxygen isotope ratios (δ¹³C_resid and δ¹⁸O_resid) has been found for all sites. The slopes of the relationship between δ¹³C_resid and δ¹⁸O_resid differ insignificantly. It is concluded that this relationship is not influenced by soil water availability but by climatic variables.     

Cohomology of Oriented Tree Diagram Lie Algebras

Xu introduced a family of root-tree-diagram nilpotent Lie algebras of differential operators, in connection with evolution partial differential equations. We generalized his notion to more general oriented tree diagrams. These algebras are natural analogues of the maximal nilpotent Lie subalgebras of finite-dimensional simple Lie algebras. In this article, we use Hodge Laplacian to study the cohomology of these Lie algebras. The “total rank conjecture” and “b ₂-conjecture” for the algebras are proved. Moreover, we find the generating functions of the Betti numbers by means of Young tableaux for the Lie algebras associated with certain tree diagrams of single branch point. By these functions and Euler–Poincaré principle, we obtain analogues of the denominator identity for finite-dimensional simple Lie algebras. The result is a natural generalization of the Bott's classical result in the case of special linear Lie algebras.     

Distance unimodular equivalence of graphs

Let G be a connected graph and D(G) be its distance matrix. In this article, the Smith normal forms of the integer matrices D(G) are determined for trees, wheels, cycles, complements of cycles and are reduced for complete multipartite graphs.     

Maximizing the distance between center,centroid and characteristic set of a tree

Consider a tree P_n-g,g , n≥ 2, 1≤ g≤ n-1 on n vertices which is obtained from a path on [1,2,?…?,n-g] vertices by adding g pendant vertices to the pendant vertex n-g. We prove that over all trees on n?≥?5 vertices, the distance between center and characteristic set, centroid and characteristic set, and center and centroid is maximized by trees of the form P_n-g,g , 2?≤?g?≤?n-3. For n≥ 5, we also supply the precise location of the characteristic set of the tree P_n-g,g , 2?≤?g?≤?n-3.     

On the Ratio Between 2-Domination and Total Outer-Independent Domination Numbers of Trees

A 2-dominating set of a graph G is a set D of vertices of G such that every vertex of V(G)\D has at least two neighbors in D.A total outer-independent dominating set of a graph G is a set D of vertices of G such that every vertex of G has a neighbor in D,and the set V(G)\D is independent.The 2-domination(total outer-independent domination,respectively)number of a graph G is the minimum cardinality of a 2-dominating(total outer-independent dominating,respectively)set of G.We investigate the ratio between2-domination and total outer-independent domination numbers of trees.     

Free vibration of polar orthotropic circular plates with elastic growth stresses and drying stresses

This study was performed to analyze effect of transverse growth stresses and drying stresses on natural frequencies of transverse free vibration of thin tree disk with free boundary condition. Using Rayleigh-Ritz method and finite element method, explicit closed form expression was derived for homogeneous orthotropic circular plates with internal stresses, which enables to predict both the effects of growth stresses, drying stresses, and combined growth and drying stresses on the natural frequency changes. This model can be used for predicting growth stresses from known natural frequencies. The same approach can also be undertaken to validate models visco-elastic drying stresses.