Economic Impact Evaluation of the ICRISAT Jewels

Agricultural research and development (R&D) can address a range of strategic priorities including food sufficiency, poverty alleviation, sustainable resource management, and women’s empowerment among others. Given the diverse forms of impact possible, measuring the full impact of a given technology is likely to require a multidimensional approach. While the goals of R&D are many, the return on investment constitutes a basic gauge for evaluation. Determining the value of crop production generated per dollar invested in developing a crop technology can indicate whether the investment was warranted and the scale of the pay-off to successful programs. This analysis, therefore, presents both baseline and pessimistic results for ICRISAT crop variety initiatives such as Drought Tolerant Groundnuts in Anantapur District, India (1991-2020), Malawi (1983-2013) and Nigeria (1996-2013), Extra-Early Pearl Millet Hybrid in Northwestern India (1999-2013), Pigeonpea in Northern Tanzania (1993-2022), Wilt Resistant Pigeonpea in India (1975-2013), fertilizer microdosing in Zimbabwe (1999-2013) and Niger (1994-2013), HPRC Pearl Millet in India and HPRC Sorghum Hybrids in India. The report also looks at an assessment of return on investment on Watershed Management in Lucheba, China (2003-2013). For projects that have not yet matured, an ex-ante analysis is carried out for the following; Guinea-Race Sorghum Hybrids in Mali (2000-2024), Sweet Sorghum in India (2002-2020) and Pigeonpea Genome in India (2010-2024)

A minimal Beta Beam with high-Q ions to address CP violation in the leptonic sector

In this paper we consider a Beta Beam setup that tries to leverage at most existing European facilities: i.e. a setup that takes advantage of facilities at CERN to boost high-Q ions (8Li and 8B) aiming at a far detector located at L = 732 Km in the Gran Sasso Underground Laboratory. The average neutrino energy for 8Li and 8B ions boosted at \gamma ~ 100 is in the range E_\nu = [1,2] GeV, high enough to use a large iron detector of the MINOS type at the far site. We perform, then, a study of the neutrino and antineutrino fluxes needed to measure a CP-violating phase delta in a significant part of the parameter space. In particular, for theta_13 > 3 deg, if an antineutrino flux of 3 10^19 useful 8Li decays per year is achievable, we find that delta can be measured in 60% of the parameter space with 6 10^18 useful 8B decays per year.Comment: 19 pages, 10 figures, added references and corrected typo

Lifetime of sub-THz coherent acoustic phonons in a GaAs-AlAs superlattice

We measure the lifetime of the zone-center 340 GHz longitudinal phonon mode in a GaAs-AlAs superlattice excited and probed with femtosecond laser pulses. By comparing measurements conducted at room temperature and liquid nitrogen temperature, we separate the intrinsic (phonon-phonon scattering) and extrinsic contributions to phonon relaxation. The estimated room temperature intrinsic lifetime of 0.95 ns is compared to available calculations and experimental data for bulk GaAs. We conclude that ∼0.3 THz phonons are in the transition zone between Akhiezer and Landau-Rumer regimes of phonon-phonon relaxation at room temperature.United States. Dept. of Energy. Office of Basic Energy Sciences (Award DE-SC0001299)United States. Dept. of Energy (Grant DE-FG02-00ER15087

Capability interactions and adaptation to demand‐side change

Research summaryWe examine how interactions among a firm’s capabilities influence the extent and direction of firm adaptation under conditions of demand‐side change. Our empirical context is the U.S. defense industry, within which we study firms receiving defense‐related Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) awards around September 11, 2001, an event which constituted an exogenous demand‐side shock in which technology‐related preferences of customers were reshuffled. We find that under demand‐side change, preexisting customer relationships have a double‐edged effect: They facilitate “extension‐based” adaptation when interacted with technology capabilities experiencing a decline in customer preferences, and they hinder “novelty‐based” adaptation when interacted with technology capabilities experiencing an increase in such preferences. We also find that both types of technological capabilities together facilitate adaptation along the extension and novelty paths.Managerial summaryDemand‐side change, in which customer preferences for particular technologies are reshuffled, occurs in many industry settings. A deeper understanding of the factors shaping firm adaptation under this form of change can influence managers’ decisions to implement strategies to plan for and react to such change. Using a sample of firms receiving defense‐related SBIR awards around September 11, 2001, we show that the customer relationships a firm develops prior to demand‐side change can have a double‐edged effect on firm adaptation. Such relationships facilitate “extension‐based” adaptation when combined with technology capabilities declining in customer preferences and hinder “novelty‐based” adaptation when combined with technology capabilities increasing in customer preferences. In addition, the combination of the two technological capability types facilitates adaptation along both paths.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/156170/3/smj3137-sup-0001-Supinfo.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/156170/2/smj3137.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/156170/1/smj3137_am.pd

Two experiments for the price of one? -- The role of the second oscillation maximum in long baseline neutrino experiments

We investigate the quantitative impact that data from the second oscillation maximum has on the performance of wide band beam neutrino oscillation experiments. We present results for the physics sensitivities to standard three flavor oscillation, as well as results for the sensitivity to non-standard interactions. The quantitative study is performed using an experimental setup similar to the Fermilab to DUSEL Long Baseline Neutrino Experiment (LBNE). We find that, with the single exception of sensitivity to the mass hierarchy, the second maximum plays only a marginal role due to the experimental difficulties to obtain a statistically significant and sufficiently background-free event sample at low energies. This conclusion is valid for both water Cherenkov and liquid argon detectors. Moreover, we confirm that non-standard neutrino interactions are very hard to distinguish experimentally from standard three-flavor effects and can lead to a considerable loss of sensitivity to \theta_{13}, the mass hierarchy and CP violation.Comment: RevTex 4.1, 23 pages, 10 figures; v2: Typos corrected, very minor clarifications; matches published version; v3: Fixed a typo in the first equation in sec. III

Universal Rights and Wrongs

This paper argues for the important role of customers as a source of competitive advantage and firm growth, an issue which has been largely neglected in the resource-based view of the firm. It conceptualizes Penrose’s (1959) notion of an ‘inside track’ and illustrates how in-depth knowledge about established customers combines with joint problem-solving activities and the rapid assimilation of new and previously unexploited skills and resources. It is suggested that the inside track represents a distinct and perhaps underestimated way of generating rents and securing long-term growth. This also implies that the sources of sustainable competitive advantage in important respects can be sought in idiosyncratic interfirm relationships rather than within the firm itself

Discovery of a relation between black hole mass and soft X-ray time lags in active galactic nuclei

We carried out a systematic analysis of time lags between X-ray energy bands in a large sample (32 sources) of unabsorbed, radio quiet active galactic nuclei (AGN), observed by XMM-Newton. The analysis of X-ray lags (up to the highest/shortest frequencies/time-scales), is performed in the Fourier-frequency domain, between energy bands where the soft excess (soft band) and the primary power law (hard band) dominate the emission. We report a total of 15 out of 32 sources displaying a high frequency soft lag in their light curves. All 15 are at a significance level exceeding 97 per cent and 11 are at a level exceeding 99 per cent. Of these soft lags, 7 have not been previously reported in the literature, thus this work significantly increases the number of known sources with a soft/negative lag. The characteristic time-scales of the soft/negative lag are relatively short (with typical frequencies and amplitudes of \nu\sim 0.07-4 \times 10^{-3} Hz and \tau\sim 10-600 s, respectively), and show a highly significant (\gsim 4\sigma) correlation with the black hole mass. The measured correlations indicate that soft lags are systematically shifted to lower frequencies and higher absolute amplitudes as the mass of the source increases. To first approximation, all the sources in the sample are consistent with having similar mass-scaled lag properties. These results strongly suggest the existence of a mass-scaling law for the soft/negative lag, that holds for AGN spanning a large range of masses (about 2.5 orders of magnitude), thus supporting the idea that soft lags originate in the innermost regions of AGN and are powerful tools for testing their physics and geometry.Comment: 12 pages, 6 figures. Revised version, accepted for publication in MNRA

Enriching strategic variety in new ventures through external knowledge

To build profitable market positions, new ventures have to address multiple challenges on several fronts. These ventures can compete by being simple (focused) or applying varied ways to compete. The likelihood of these ventures remaining competitive depends on their ability to build novelty into their products and operations, an activity that requires infusing knowledge into their operations. Most ventures, however, have limited knowledge bases and the reach (scope) of their external connections is limited, a factor that prompts them to tap into different external sources in their local areas. This article reports an empirical study of 140 new ventures located in seven regional clusters in Spain. The results show that new ventures can enrich the variety of their strategic repertoire by accessing diverse sources of external knowledge and being exposed to external novel knowledge, while absorptive capacity moderates this relationship. The degree of social development of these clusters also has a positive impact on the strategic variety of new ventures, exhibiting an inverted U-shape curve

Intrinsic to extrinsic phonon lifetime transition in a GaAs–AlAs superlattice

We have measured the lifetimes of two zone-center longitudinal acoustic phonon modes, at 320 and 640 GHz, in a 14 nm GaAs/2 nm AlAs superlattice structure. By comparing measurements at 296 and 79 K we separate the intrinsic contribution to phonon lifetime determined by phonon–phonon scattering from the extrinsic contribution due to defects and interface roughness. At 296 K, the 320 GHz phonon lifetime has approximately equal contributions from intrinsic and extrinsic scattering, whilst at 640 GHz it is dominated by extrinsic effects. These measurements are compared with intrinsic and extrinsic scattering rates in the superlattice obtained from first-principles lattice dynamics calculations. The calculated room-temperature intrinsic lifetime of longitudinal phonons at 320 GHz is in agreement with the experimentally measured value of 0.9 ns. The model correctly predicts the transition from predominantly intrinsic to predominantly extrinsic scattering; however the predicted transition occurs at higher frequencies. Our analysis indicates that the 'interfacial atomic disorder' model is not entirely adequate and that the observed frequency dependence of the extrinsic scattering rate is likely to be determined by a finite correlation length of interface roughness.United States. Dept. of Energy. Office of Basic Energy Sciences (Award DE-FG02-00ER15087)United States. Dept. of Energy. Office of Basic Energy Sciences (Award DE-SC0001299/DE-FG02-09ER46577