Farmers' management of rice varietal diversity in the mid-hills of Nepal: implications for on-farm conservation and crop improvement

Season-long monitoring of on-farm rice (Oryza sativa, L.) plots in Nepal explored farmers' decision-making process on the deployment of varieties to agroecosystems, application of production inputs to varieties, agronomic practices and relationship between economic return and area planted per variety. Farmers deploy varieties [landraces (LRs) and modern varieties (MVs)] to agroecosystems based on their understanding of characteristics of varieties and agroecosystems, and the interaction between them. In marginal growing conditions, LRs can compete with MVs. Within an agroecosystem, economic return and area planted to varieties have positive relationship, but this is not so between agroecosystems. LRs are very diverse on agronomic and economic traits; therefore, they cannot be rejected a priori as inferior materials without proper evaluation. LRs have to be evaluated for useful traits and utilized in breeding programmes to generate farmer-preferred materials for marginal environments and for their conservation on-farm

Manipulating quantum information by propagation

We study creation of bi- and multipartite continuous variable entanglement in structures of coupled quantum harmonic oscillators. By adjusting the interaction strengths between nearest neighbors we show how to maximize the entanglement production between the arms in a Y-shaped structure where an initial single mode squeezed state is created in the first oscillator of the input arm. We also consider the action of the same structure as an approximate quantum cloner. For a specific time in the system dynamics the last oscillators in the output arms can be considered as imperfect copies of the initial state. By increasing the number of arms in the structure, multipartite entanglement is obtained, as well as 1 to M cloning. Finally, we are considering configurations that implement the symmetric splitting of an initial entangled state. All calculations are carried out within the framework of the rotating wave approximation in quantum optics, and our predictions could be tested with current available experimental techniques.Comment: 9 pages, APS forma

Theoretical and Experimental Analysis of the Equilibrium Contours of Liquid Bridges of Arbitrary Shape

The equilibrium shape of the liquid bridge interface is analyzed theoretically and experimentally.Both axisymmetric and nonaxisymmetric perturbations are considered. The axisymmetric deviationsare those related to volume effects, the difference between the radii of the disks, and the axial forcesacting on the liquid bridge. The nonaxisymmetric deviations are those due to the eccentricity of thedisk and the action of lateral forces. The theoretical study is performed using three differenttechniques: ~i! an analytical expansion around the cylindrical solution, ~ii! a finite differencescheme, and ~iii! an approximate numerical approach valid only for slight nonaxisymmetricdeviations. The results of the three methods are compared systematically. There is a very goodagreement between the analytical and the numerical approaches for contours which are close tocylindrical, and the agreement extends to configurations with only moderate deviations fromcylindrical. Experiments are performed using the so-called neutral buoyancy or plateau technique.Theoretical and experimental contours are compared considering a wide range of values for theparameters characterizing the perturbations. In general, the finite difference method providesreasonably accurate predictions even for large deviations of the liquid bridge contour fromcylindrical

Mobilized Peripheral Blood Stem Cells Versus Unstimulated Bone Marrow As a Graft Source for T-Cell-Replete Haploidentical Donor Transplantation Using Post-Transplant Cyclophosphamide.

Purpose T-cell-replete HLA-haploidentical donor hematopoietic transplantation using post-transplant cyclophosphamide was originally described using bone marrow (BM). With increasing use of mobilized peripheral blood (PB), we compared transplant outcomes after PB and BM transplants. Patients and Methods A total of 681 patients with hematologic malignancy who underwent transplantation in the United States between 2009 and 2014 received BM (n = 481) or PB (n = 190) grafts. Cox regression models were built to examine differences in transplant outcomes by graft type, adjusting for patient, disease, and transplant characteristics. Results Hematopoietic recovery was similar after transplantation of BM and PB (28-day neutrophil recovery, 88% v 93%, P = .07; 100-day platelet recovery, 88% v 85%, P = .33). Risks of grade 2 to 4 acute (hazard ratio [HR], 0.45; P \u3c .001) and chronic (HR, 0.35; P \u3c .001) graft-versus-host disease were lower with transplantation of BM compared with PB. There were no significant differences in overall survival by graft type (HR, 0.99; P = .98), with rates of 54% and 57% at 2 years after transplantation of BM and PB, respectively. There were no differences in nonrelapse mortality risks (HR, 0.92; P = .74) but relapse risks were higher after transplantation of BM (HR, 1.49; P = .009). Additional exploration confirmed that the higher relapse risks after transplantation of BM were limited to patients with leukemia (HR, 1.73; P = .002) and not lymphoma (HR, 0.87; P = .64). Conclusion PB and BM grafts are suitable for haploidentical transplantation with the post-transplant cyclophosphamide approach but with differing patterns of treatment failure. Although, to our knowledge, this is the most comprehensive comparison, these findings must be validated in a randomized prospective comparison with adequate follow-up

New Results from the Cryogenic Dark Matter Search Experiment

Using improved Ge and Si detectors, better neutron shielding, and increased counting time, the Cryogenic Dark Matter Search (CDMS) experiment has obtained stricter limits on the cross section of weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) elastically scattering from nuclei. Increased discrimination against electromagnetic backgrounds and reduction of neutron flux confirm WIMP-candidate events previously detected by CDMS were consistent with neutrons and give limits on spin-independent WIMP interactions which are >2X lower than previous CDMS results for high WIMP mass, and which exclude new parameter space for WIMPs with mass between 8-20 GeV/c^2.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

Life-history traits of the giant squid Architeuthis dux revealed from stable isotope signatures recorded in beaks

Peer reviewedPreprin

Spin Star as Switch for Quantum Networks

Quantum state transfer is an important task in quantum information processing. It is known that one can engineer the couplings of a one-dimensional spin chain to achieve the goal of perfect state transfer. To leverage the value of these spin chains, a spin star is potentially useful for connecting different parts of a quantum network. In this work, we extend the spin-chain engineering problem to the problems with a topology of a star network. We show that a permanently coupled spin star can function as a network switch for transferring quantum states selectively from one node to another by varying the local potentials only. Together with one-dimensional chains, this result allows applications of quantum state transfer be applied to more general quantum networks.Comment: 10 pages, 2 figur

Tackling the muon identification in water Cherenkov detectors problem for the future Southern Wide-field Gamma-ray Observatory by means of Machine Learning

We would like to thank to A. Bueno for all the support and useful discussions during the development of this work. The authors thank also for the financial support by OE - Portugal, FCT, I. P., under project PTDC/FIS-PAR/29158/2017. R. C. is grateful for the financial support by OE-Portugal, FCT, I. P., under DL57 /2016/cP1330/cT0002. A. G. is grateful for the financial support by the projects MINECO FPA2017-85197-P and PID2019-104676GB-C32. B.S.G. is grateful for the financial support by grant LIP/BI - 14/2020, under project IC&DT, POCI-01-0145-FEDER-029158.This paper presents several approaches to deal with the problem of identifying muons in a water Cherenkov detector with a reduced water volume and 4 PMTs. Different perspectives of information representation are used, and new features are engineered using the specific domain knowledge. As results show, these new features, in combination with the convolutional layers, are able to achieve a good performance avoiding overfitting and being able to generalise properly for the test set. The results also prove that the combination of state-of-the-art machine learning analysis techniques and water Cherenkov detectors with low water depth can be used to efficiently identify muons, which may lead to huge investment savings due to the reduction of the amount of water needed at high altitudes. This achievement can be used in further research to be able to discriminate between gamma and hadron-induced showers using muons as discriminant.OE - Portugal, FCT, I. P. PTDC/FIS-PAR/29158/2017 DL57 /2016/cP1330/cT0002Spanish Government FPA2017-85197-P PID2019-104676GB-C32 LIP/BI - 14/2020 POCI-01-0145-FEDER-02915

Impact Factor: outdated artefact or stepping-stone to journal certification?

A review of Garfield's journal impact factor and its specific implementation as the Thomson Reuters Impact Factor reveals several weaknesses in this commonly-used indicator of journal standing. Key limitations include the mismatch between citing and cited documents, the deceptive display of three decimals that belies the real precision, and the absence of confidence intervals. These are minor issues that are easily amended and should be corrected, but more substantive improvements are needed. There are indications that the scientific community seeks and needs better certification of journal procedures to improve the quality of published science. Comprehensive certification of editorial and review procedures could help ensure adequate procedures to detect duplicate and fraudulent submissions.Comment: 25 pages, 12 figures, 6 table