Assessing participation in agricultural research projects: an analytical framework

Recent discourse in the field of agricultural research has focused on how to assess and optimize the use of participatory approaches. In this paper, we propose a new Analytical Framework for the Assessment of Participatory Agricultural Research (AFAPAR) that seeks to evaluate participatory research elements along different dimensions and over several research phases and thus takes into account the complexity and dynamics of agricultural research projects. Empirical data from a long-term collaborative research program on ?Sustainable Land Use and Rural Development in Mountainous Regions of Southeast Asia? (The Uplands Program ? SFB 564) are used to explore the potential and shortcomings of AFAPAR. Findings suggest that while there is a need for further refinement, the analytical framework provides a sound basis for a differentiated assessment of participatory approaches in agricultural research that goes beyond the existing one-dimensional typologies of participatory research with their inherent claim of ?the more participation, the better?

Improved Currents for Heavy Quarks

We discuss lattice artifacts for matrix elements of hadrons containing one or more heavy quark. In particular, we analyze interrelations between lattice artifacts and the $1/m_Q$ expansion. The implications for calculations of heavy-light decay constants and of semi-leptonic form factors are discussed.Comment: 3 pages, no figures, uuencoded PostScript, proceedings of Lattice '94. LaTeX at ftp://fnth06.fnal.gov/pub/Fermilab-Pub/95.00

COREPRO-Sim: A Tool for Modeling, Simulating and Adapting Data-driven Process Structures

Industry is increasingly demanding IT support for large engineering process structures consisting of hundreds up to thousands of synchronized processes. In technical domains, such process structures are characterized by their strong relation to the assembly of a product (e.g., a car); i.e., resulting process structures are data-driven. The strong linkage between data and processes can be utilized for automatically creating process structures as well as for (dynamically) adapting them at a high level of abstraction. This paper presents the COREPRO-Sim demonstrator which enables sophisticated support for modeling, coordinating and (dynamically) adapting data-driven process structures. COREPRO-Sim substantiates the COREPRO approach which provides a new paradigm for the integration of data and and process structures

Direct Estimation of Sizes of Higher-Order Graphs

With the aid of simple examples we show how to make simple estimates of the sizes of higher-order Feynman graphs. Our methods enable appropriate values of renormalization and factorization scales to be made. They allow the diagnosis of the source of unusually large corrections that are in need of resummation.Comment: 22 pages Revtex with epsf, postscript figures. Replacement is due to author error. Version is same as origina

On the mechanical quality factors of cryogenic test masses from fused silica and crystalline quartz

Current interferometric gravitational wave detectors (IGWDs) are operated at room temperature with test masses made from fused silica. Fused silica shows very low absorption at the laser wavelength of 1064 nm. It is also well suited to realize low thermal noise floors in the detector signal band since it offers low mechanical loss, i. e. high quality factors (Q factors) at room temperature. However, for a further reduction of thermal noise, cooling the test masses to cryogenic temperatures may prove an interesting technique. Here we compare the results of Q factor measurements at cryogenic temperatures of acoustic eigenmodes of test masses from fused silica and its crystalline counterpart. Our results show that the mechanical loss of fused silica increases with lower temperature and reaches a maximum at 30 K for frequencies of slightly above 10 kHz. The losses of crystalline quartz generally show lower values and even fall below the room temperature values of fused silica below 10 K. Our results show that in comparison to fused silica, crystalline quartz has a considerably narrower and lower dissipation peak on cooling and thus has more promise as a test mass material for IGDWs operated at cryogenic temperatures. The origin of the different Q factor versus temperature behavior of the two materials is discussed.Comment: 11 pages, 2 figures, submitted to Class. Quantum Gra

Lattice QCD calculation of Bˉ→Dlνˉ\bar{B}\to Dl\bar{\nu} decay form factors at zero recoil

A lattice QCD calculation of the $\bar{B}\to Dl\bar{\nu}$ decay form factors is presented. We obtain the value of the form factor $h_+(w)$ at the zero-recoil limit $w=1$ with high precision by considering a ratio of correlation functions in which the bulk of the uncertainties cancels. The other form factor $h_-(w)$ is calculated, for small recoil momenta, from a similar ratio. In both cases, the heavy quark mass dependence is observed through direct calculations with several combinations of initial and final heavy quark masses. Our results are $h_+(1) = 1.007(6)(2)(3)$ and $h_-(1)=-0.107(28)(04)(^{10}_{30})$. For both the first error is statistical, the second stems from the uncertainty in adjusting the heavy quark masses, and the last from omitted radiative corrections. Combining these results, we obtain a precise determination of the physical combination $F_{B\to D}(1)=1.058(^{20}_{17})$, where the mentioned systematic errors are added in quadrature. The dependence on lattice spacing and the effect of quenching are not yet included, but with our method they should be a fraction of $F_{B\to D}-1$.Comment: 32 pp, 10 figs; final, published versio

Beam Current Monitors for FAIR

The FAIR (Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research) accelerator facility presently under construction at GSIwill supply a wide range of beam intensities for physicsexperiments. Design beam intensities range from 2.5×1013protons/cycle to be delivered to the pBar-target andseparator for production of antiprotons, to beams of e.g.109 ions/s in the case of slowly extracted beams. Thelarge intensity range demands for dedicated beam currentmonitors for precise, non-destructive beam intensitymeasurements in the synchrotrons, transport lines andstorage rings of the FAIR facility. This report describesGSI developments of purpose-built beam currentmonitors for the SIS100 synchrotron and high-energybeam transport lines (HEBT) of FAIR. Prototypemeasurements with a SQUID-based Cryogenic CurrentComparator and a resonant beam charge transformer arepresented, and possibilities for further upgrades arediscussed

Immunogenicity Studies in Carnivores Using a Rabies Virus Construct with a Site-Directed Deletion in the Phosphoprotein

Different approaches have been applied to develop highly attenuated rabies virus vaccines for oral vaccination of mesocarnivores. One prototype vaccine construct is SAD dIND1, which contains a deletion in the P-gene severely limiting the inhibition of type-1 interferon induction. Immunogenicity studies in foxes and skunks were undertaken to investigate whether this highly attenuated vaccine would be more immunogenic than the parental SAD B19 vaccine strain. In foxes, it was demonstrated that SAD dIND1 protected the animals against a rabies infection after a single oral dose, although virus neutralizing antibody titres were lower than in foxes orally vaccinated with the SAD B19 virus as observed in previous experiments. In contrast, skunks receiving 107.5 FFU SAD dIND1 did not develop virus neutralizing antibodies and were not protected against a subsequent rabies infection