Supply Chains and Rural Development in the Asia Pacific Region

Rapid income growth and urbanization are having profound impacts on the food system, food producers and rural areas in the developing Asia Pacific economies. Meeting the challenge of rural development will depend on better integrating rural areas with fast-growing urban areas where the composition of food demand is changing and the logistics of supply are growing more complex. Possible government options include investment in transportation infrastructure—roads, railroads and waterway—and providing rural communities and small-scale producers the tools they need to better adapt to the rapid spread of modern supermarkets and their supply chains.Community/Rural/Urban Development,

Microscopic Enhancement of Heavy-Element Production

Realistic fusion barriers are calculated in a macroscopic-microscopic model for several soft-fusion heavy-ion reactions leading to heavy and superheavy elements. The results obtained in such a realistic picture are very different from those obtained in a purely macroscopic model. For reactions on 208:Pb targets, shell effects in the entrance channel result in fusion-barrier energies at the touching point that are only a few MeV higher than the ground state for compound systems near Z = 110. The entrance-channel fragment-shell effects remain far inside the touching point, almost to configurations only slightly more elongated than the ground-state configuration, where the fusion barrier has risen to about 10 MeV above the ground-state energy. Calculated single-particle level diagrams show that few level crossings occur until the peak in the fusion barrier very close to the ground-state shape is reached, which indicates that dissipation is negligible until very late in the fusion process. Whereas the fission valley in a macroscopic picture is several tens of MeV lower in energy than is the fusion valley, we find in the macroscopic-microscopic picture that the fission valley is only about 5 MeV lower than the fusion valley for soft-fusion reactions leading to compound systems near Z = 110. These results show that no significant ``extra-extra-push'' energy is needed to bring the system inside the fission saddle point and that the typical reaction energies for maximum cross section in heavy-element synthesis correspond to only a few MeV above the maximum in the fusion barrier.Comment: 7 pages. LaTeX. Submitted to Zeitschrift fur Physik A. 5 figures not included here. Complete preprint, including device-independent (dvi), PostScript, and LaTeX versions of the text, plus PostScript files of the figures, available at http://t2.lanl.gov/publications/publications.html or at ftp://t2.lanl.gov/pub/publications/mehe

The 1986 and 1988 Droughts in Georgia

Proceedings of the 1989 Georgia Water Resources Conference, May 16-17, 1989, Athens, Georgia.In making water-resources decisions, especially those related to water supply and wastewater discharge, management agencies rely heavily on low-flow data, typically the 7-day 10-year low-flow statistic. The U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, Environmental Protection Division, and other agencies, collects and subsequently analyzes low-flow data for use by water-management agencies. The two most recent droughts of 1986 and 1988 affected much of the State, and a preliminary analysis of those droughts is presented here. Except where stated otherwise, the term "drought" refers to a hydrologic drought.Sponsored by U.S. Geological Survey, Georgia Department of Natural Resources, the University of Georgia, Georgia State University, and Georgia Institute of Technology.This book was published by the Institute of Natural Resources, The University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia 30602 with partial funding provided by the U.S. Department of the Interior, Geological Survey, through the Georgia Water Research Institute as authorized by the Water Resources Research Act of 1984 (P.L. 98242). The views and statements advanced in this publication are solely those of the authors and do not represent official views or policies of The University of Georgia or the U.S. Geological Survey or the conference sponsors

State of the science on controversial topics: missing maxillary lateral incisors--a report of the Angle Society of Europe 2012 meeting.

BACKGROUND: The optimal long-term management of the congenitally missing maxillary lateral incisor continues to cause controversy within the specialty. The Angle Society of Europe meeting 2012 dedicated a day to address some of the current controversies relating to the management of these missing lateral incisors. FINDINGS: The format of the day consisted of morning presentations and afternoon breakout sessions to discuss a variety of questions related to the management of missing lateral incisors. CONCLUSIONS: The consensus viewpoint from this day was that the care of patients with congenitally missing lateral incisors is best achieved through a multi-disciplinary approach. The current evidence base is weak, and further well-designed, prospective trials are needed

Plasma procalcitonin concentrations are increased in dogs with sepsis

Sepsis, the life-threatening organ dysfunction caused by a dysregulated host response to infection, is difficult to identify and to prognosticate for. In people with sepsis, procalcitonin (PCT) measurement aids diagnosis, enables therapeutic monitoring and improves prognostic accuracy. This study used a commercial canine PCT assay to measure plasma PCT concentrations in dogs with gastric dilatation volvulus (GDV) syndrome and in dogs with sepsis. It was hypothesised that dogs with GDV syndrome and with sepsis have greater plasma PCT concentrations than healthy dogs and that dogs with sepsis have greater PCT concentrations than dogs with GDV syndrome. Before analysing canine plasma samples, the ability of the assay to identify canine PCT, in addition to assay imprecision and the lower limit of detection were established. The assay had low imprecision with coefficients of variation 644.5 per cent. The lower limit of detection was 3.4\u2009pg/ml. Plasma PCT concentrations were measured in 20 dogs with sepsis, in 32 dogs with GDV syndrome and in 52 healthy dogs. Median (IQR) PCT concentration in dogs with sepsis 78.7\u2009pg/ml (39.1-164.7) was significantly greater than in healthy dogs 49.8\u2009pg/ml (36.2-63.7) (P=0.019), but there were no significant differences between PCT concentrations in dogs with GDV syndrome and controls (P=0.072) or between dogs with sepsis and GDV syndrome (P=1.000). Dogs with sepsis have significantly increased plasma PCT concentrations compared with healthy dogs, although considerable overlap between these populations was identified. Future investigations should confirm this finding in other populations and evaluate the diagnostic and prognostic value of PCT in dogs with sepsis

Fission-Residues Produced in the Spallation Reaction 238U+p at 1 A GeV

Fission fragments from 1 A GeV 238U projectiles irradiating a hydrogen target were investigated by using the fragment separator FRS for magnetic selection of reaction products including ray-tracing and DE-ToF techniques. The momentum spectra of 733 identified fragments were analysed to provide isotopic production cross sections, fission-fragment velocities and recoil momenta of the fissioning parent nuclei. Besides their general relevance, these quantities are also demanded for applications. Calculations and simulations with codes commonly used and recently developed or improved are compared to the data.Comment: 60 pages, 21 figures, 4 tables, 2 appendices (15 pages

Elastic behavior and pressure-induced structural modifications of the microporous Ca(VO)Si4O10·4H2O dimorphs cavansite and pentagonite

The behavior of natural microporous cavansite and pentagonite, orthorhombic dimorphs of Ca(VO) (Si4O10)x4H2O, was studied at high pressure by means of in situ synchrotron X-ray powder diffraction with a diamond anvil cell using two different pressure-transmitting fluids: methanol:ethanol: water = 16:3:1 (m.e.w.) and silicone oil (s.o.). In situ diffraction-data on a cavansite sample were collected up to 8.17(5) GPa in m.e.w, and up to 7.28(5) GPa in s.o. The high-pressure structure evolution was studied on the basis of structural refinements at 1.08(5), 3.27(5) and 6.45(5) GPa. The compressional behavior is strongly anisotropic. When the sample is compressed in s.o. from Pamb to 7.28(5) GPa, the volume contraction is 12.2%, whereas a, b and c decrease by 1.6%, 10.3% and 0.3%, respectively. The main deformation mechanisms at high-pressure are basically driven by variation of the T\u2013O\u2013T angles. Powder diffraction data on a pentagonite sample were collected up to 8.26(5) GPa in m.e.w and 8.35(5) GPa in s.o. Additional single-crystal X-ray diffraction experiments were performed in m.e.w. up to 2.04(5) GPa. In both cases, pressure-induced over-hydration was observed in m.e.w. at high pressure. The penetration of a new H2O molecule leads to a stiffening effect of the whole structure. Moreover, between 2.45(5) and 2.96(5) GPa in m.e.w., a phase transition from an orthorhombic to a triclinic phase was observed. In s.o. pentagonite also transformed to a triclinic phase above 1.71(5) GPa. The overall compressibility of pentagonite and cavansite in s.o. is comparable, with a volume contraction of 11.6% and 12.2%, respectively

Search for long lived heaviest nuclei beyond the valley of stability

The existence of long lived superheavy nuclei (SHN) is controlled mainly by spontaneous fission and $\alpha$-decay processes. According to microscopic nuclear theory, spherical shell effects at Z=114, 120, 126 and N=184 provide the extra stability to such SHN to have long enough lifetime to be observed. To investigate whether the so-called "stability island" could really exist around the above Z, N values, the $\alpha$-decay half lives along with the spontaneous fission and $\beta$-decay half lives of such nuclei are studied. The $\alpha$-decay half lives of SHN with Z=102-120 are calculated in a quantum tunneling model with DDM3Y effective nuclear interaction using $Q_\alpha$ values from three different mass formulae prescribed by Koura, Uno, Tachibana, Yamada (KUTY), Myers, Swiatecki (MS) and Muntian, Hofmann, Patyk, Sobiczewski (MMM). Calculation of spontaneous fission (SF) half lives for the same SHN are carried out using a phenomenological formula and compared with SF half lives predicted by Smolanczuk {\it et al}. Possible source of discrepancy between the calculated $\alpha$-decay half lives of some nuclei and the experimental data of GSI, JINR-FLNR, RIKEN are discussed. In the region of Z=106-108 with N$\sim$ 160-164, the $\beta$-stable SHN $^{268}_{106}Sg_{162}$ is predicted to have highest $\alpha$-decay half life ($T_\alpha \sim 3.2hrs$) using $Q_\alpha$ value from MMM. Interestingly, it is much greater than the recently measured $T_\alpha$ ($\sim 22s$) of deformed doubly magic $^{270}_{108}Hs_{162}$ nucleus. A few fission-survived long-lived SHN which are either $\beta$-stable or having large $\beta$-decay half lives are predicted to exist near $^{294}110_{184}$, $^{293}110_{183}$, $^{296}112_{184}$ and $^{298}114_{184}$. These nuclei might decay predominantly through $\alpha$-particle emission.Comment: 14 pages, 6 figures, 1 tabl