Ammonia emissions from livestock production in Chile: an inventory and uncertainty analysis

Indexación: Web of Science; Scielo.The objective of this work was to quantify the country's NH3 emissions from livestock production. This calculation was based on the mass flow of total ammoniacal nitrogen (TAN). The analysis was performed for all 15 geographical regions in Chile. The definition of livestock subcategories was based on data from the Chilean Agriculture and Forestry Census as well as technical reports published by the Chilean National Statistics Institute. Significant differences were observed among the sources of livestock emissions in Chile's regions, and there was high variability depending on the degree of livestock confinement. In 2013, the total calculated emissions were 69.1 kt NH3/year (± 31.1). The O’Higgins Region had the highest NH3 emissions in Chile, representing 45% of the total. In terms of livestock production, 45% of the emissions were generated by pigs, 22% by poultry, 16% by cattle, 11% by equines and 4% by sheep. Emissions from the TAN that was available during manure and slurry management and the degree of animal confinement were the primary sources of uncertainty. This uncertainty could be greatly reduced by developing regional emission factors and by including the degree of animal confinement in Chile's national statistics such as the Agriculture, Livestock and Forestry Census.http://www.scielo.cl/scielo.php?pid=S0718-95162016005000005&script=sci_abstrac

An Introduction to Pervasive Interface Automata

Pervasive systems are often context-dependent, component based systems in which components expose interfaces and offer one or more services. These systems may evolve in unpredictable ways, often through component replacement. We present pervasive interface automata as a formalism for modelling components and their composition. Pervasive interface automata are based on the interface automata of Henzinger et al, with several significant differences. We expand their notion of input and output actions to combinations of input, output actions, and callable methods and method calls. Whereas interfaces automata have a refinement relation, we argue the crucial relation in pervasive systems is component replacement, which must include consideration of the services offered by a component and assumptions about the environment. We illustrate pervasive interface autmotata and component replacement with a small case study of a pervasive application for sports predictions

The Large-NN Limit of the Two-Hermitian-matrix model by the hidden BRST method

This paper discusses the large N limit of the two-Hermitian-matrix model in zero dimensions, using the hidden BRST method. A system of integral equations previously found is solved, showing that it contained the exact solution of the model in leading order of large $N$.Comment: 19 pages, Latex,CERN--TH-6531/9

The Fractal Dimension of Projected Clouds

The interstellar medium seems to have an underlying fractal structure which can be characterized through its fractal dimension. However, interstellar clouds are observed as projected two-dimensional images, and the projection of a tri-dimensional fractal distorts its measured properties. Here we use simulated fractal clouds to study the relationship between the tri-dimensional fractal dimension (D_f) of modeled clouds and the dimension resulting from their projected images. We analyze different fractal dimension estimators: the correlation and mass dimensions of the clouds, and the perimeter-based dimension of their boundaries (D_per). We find the functional forms relating D_f with the projected fractal dimensions, as well as the dependence on the image resolution, which allow to estimatethe "real" D_f value of a cloud from its projection. The application of these results to Orion A indicates in a self-consistent way that 2.5 < D_f < 2.7 for this molecular cloud, a value higher than the result D_per+1 = 2.3 some times assumed in literature for interstellar clouds.Comment: 27 pages, 13 figures, 1 table. Accepted for publication in ApJ. Minor change

Mean-payoff Automaton Expressions

Quantitative languages are an extension of boolean languages that assign to each word a real number. Mean-payoff automata are finite automata with numerical weights on transitions that assign to each infinite path the long-run average of the transition weights. When the mode of branching of the automaton is deterministic, nondeterministic, or alternating, the corresponding class of quantitative languages is not robust as it is not closed under the pointwise operations of max, min, sum, and numerical complement. Nondeterministic and alternating mean-payoff automata are not decidable either, as the quantitative generalization of the problems of universality and language inclusion is undecidable. We introduce a new class of quantitative languages, defined by mean-payoff automaton expressions, which is robust and decidable: it is closed under the four pointwise operations, and we show that all decision problems are decidable for this class. Mean-payoff automaton expressions subsume deterministic mean-payoff automata, and we show that they have expressive power incomparable to nondeterministic and alternating mean-payoff automata. We also present for the first time an algorithm to compute distance between two quantitative languages, and in our case the quantitative languages are given as mean-payoff automaton expressions

Adaptable transition systems

We present an essential model of adaptable transition systems inspired by white-box approaches to adaptation and based on foundational models of component based systems. The key feature of adaptable transition systems are control propositions, imposing a clear separation between ordinary, functional behaviours and adaptive ones. We instantiate our approach on interface automata yielding adaptable interface automata, but it may be instantiated on other foundational models of component-based systems as well. We discuss how control propositions can be exploited in the specification and analysis of adaptive systems, focusing on various notions proposed in the literature, like adaptability, control loops, and control synthesis

Minimal Unitary Realizations of Exceptional U-duality Groups and Their Subgroups as Quasiconformal Groups

We study the minimal unitary representations of noncompact exceptional groups that arise as U-duality groups in extended supergravity theories. First we give the unitary realizations of the exceptional group E_{8(-24)} in SU*(8) as well as SU(6,2) covariant bases. E_{8(-24)} has E_7 X SU(2) as its maximal compact subgroup and is the U-duality group of the exceptional supergravity theory in d=3. For the corresponding U-duality group E_{8(8)} of the maximal supergravity theory the minimal realization was given in hep-th/0109005. The minimal unitary realizations of all the lower rank noncompact exceptional groups can be obtained by truncation of those of E_{8(-24)} and E_{8(8)}. By further truncation one can obtain the minimal unitary realizations of all the groups of the "Magic Triangle". We give explicitly the minimal unitary realizations of the exceptional subgroups of E_{8(-24)} as well as other physically interesting subgroups. These minimal unitary realizations correspond, in general, to the quantization of their geometric actions as quasi-conformal groups as defined in hep-th/0008063.Comment: 28 pages. Latex commands removed from the abstract for the arXiv. No changes in the manuscrip