129 research outputs found
Aerobic Rice - responding to water scarcity, An impact assessment of the âSTAR in Asiaâ project
Rice, a staple food for over 70% of Asians, is also the single biggest user of water, requiring 2-3 times more input (irrigation plus rain) water per unit of grain produced than crops such as wheat and maize. With growing populations, increased urbanisation and environmental degradation, the supply of fresh water is depleting. Recognising the water constraints to rice yield, the aim of the project entitled âDeveloping a System of Temperate and Tropical Aerobic Rice (STAR) in Asiaâ was to develop water-efficient aerobic rice technologies. This paper highlights the success of that project
Heat Capacity Evidence for the Suppression of Skyrmions at Large Zeeman Energy
Measurements on a multilayer two-dimensional electron system (2DES) near
Landau level filling =1 reveal the disappearance of the nuclear spin
contribution to the heat capacity as the ratio between the Zeeman
and Coulomb energies exceeds a critical value 0.04. This
disappearance suggests the vanishing of the Skyrmion-mediated coupling between
the lattice and the nuclear spins as the spin excitations of the 2DES make a
transition from Skyrmions to single spin-flips above . Our
experimental is smaller than the calculated =0.054
for an ideal 2DES; we discuss possible origins of this discrepancy.Comment: Experimental paper, 6 figure
Production de références pour optimiser la fertilisation organique en riziculture biologique camarguaise (France)
La vitesse de minĂ©ralisation dâun engrais organique commercial a Ă©tĂ© Ă©valuĂ©e durant trois annĂ©es dans une riziĂšre biologique en Camargue (France). Lâeffet de diffĂ©rentes doses dâengrais apportĂ©es Ă diffĂ©rentes pĂ©riodes a Ă©tĂ© testĂ©. En conditions inondĂ©es, lâengrais organique minĂ©ralise rapidement. Sur la base de ce rĂ©sultat, nous montrons quâune adaptation des pratiques de fertilisation organique, inspirĂ©e de celles appliquĂ©es pour des engrais minĂ©raux, permet une meilleure valorisation des engrais organiques, dĂ©coulant sur une meilleure rentabilitĂ©
Local Density of States in Mesoscopic Samples from Scanning Gate Microscopy
We study the relationship between the local density of states (LDOS) and the
conductance variation in scanning-gate-microscopy experiments on
mesoscopic structures as a charged tip scans above the sample surface. We
present an analytical model showing that in the linear-response regime the
conductance shift is proportional to the Hilbert transform of the
LDOS and hence a generalized Kramers-Kronig relation holds between LDOS and
. We analyze the physical conditions for the validity of this
relationship both for one-dimensional and two-dimensional systems when several
channels contribute to the transport. We focus on realistic Aharonov-Bohm rings
including a random distribution of impurities and analyze the LDOS-
correspondence by means of exact numerical simulations, when localized states
or semi-classical orbits characterize the wavefunction of the system.Comment: 8 pages, 8 figure
Critical Behavior of Nuclear-Spin Diffusion in GaAs/AlGaAs Heterostructures near Landau Level Filling \nu=1
Thermal measurements on a GaAs/AlGaAs heterostructure reveal that the state
of the confined two-dimensional electrons dramatically affects the nuclear-spin
diffusion near Landau level filling factor \nu=1. The experiments provide
quantitative evidence that the sharp peak in the temperature dependence of heat
capacity near \nu=1 is due to an enhanced nuclear-spin diffusion from the GaAs
quantum wells into the AlGaAs barriers. We discuss the physical origin of this
enhancement in terms the possible Skyrme solid-liquid phase transition.Comment: 1 LateX file, 3 figures, submitte
French lag in scientific research on organic farming: a scientometric approach
France suffers from a large research deficit in most areas related to sustainable development and public health. The case of research on organic farming, within the framework of the broader sector of agronomic research, constitutes a largely under-investigated field. Even if the demand for organic products is rapidly growing in Europe, research in this field still suffers from a lack of funding and researchers.
A bibliometric analysis based on key words from scientific publications (in English only) taken from Thomson Scientificâs ISI Web of Science reference database made it possible to determine sufficiently relevant indicators for a comparison of national research efforts from 2000-2006, and to therefore assess actual research priorities in the area of organic farming. Beyond traditional specialisation analyses, the ratio between the world share of publications of a given country in organic farming and its world share of publications in specific disciplines and sub-disciplines (according to the nomenclature of the French Observatory for Sciences and Techniques) allowed us to obtain these prioritisation indexes that act as policy and priority (or prioritisation activity) indicators for research institutions involved in the concerned area. An index above 1 indicates an over-specialisation, whereas an index below 1 indicates an under-specialisation.
For the period 2000-2006, the European Union obtained a specialisation index of 1.52 in the area of organic farming, compared to 0.68 for the US, 0.98 for Brazil and 0.18 for China. However, this seemingly satisfactory average for Europe as a whole hides important disparities between European countries. Moreover, France is at the very end of the classification for all indexes with only 0.47 specialisation, compared to Germany with 1.19, Italy with 1.39, Austria with 2.78, Sweden with 3.99, Finland with 4.46 and Denmark with 12.19. The prioritisation index for organic farming in comparison to the discipline, âApplied biology and ecologyâ, is 1.65 for the EU27, 0.69 for the US, 1.7 for Germany, 3.98 for Austria, 3.84 for Finland, 9.45 for Denmark and 0.49 for France. In comparison to the subdiscipline, âAgriculture, plant biologyâ the index is 1.5 for the EU27, 0.98 for the US, 1.61 for Germany, 3.28 for Austria, 1.52 for Finland, 9.79 for Denmark, and 0.41 for France. Finally, for the sub-discipline, âAgro-foodâ, it is 1.86 for the EU27, 0.73 for the US, 1.98 for Germany, 6.92 for Austria, 7.39 for Finland, 9.39 for Denmark and 0.58 for France.
These results confirm that research on organic farming is largely under-prioritised in France. The French national research effort is therefore far from meeting the ecological and economic challenges facing agriculture in the 21st century
Establishing references to optimise organic fertilisation in organic rice farming in the Camargue region of France
The mineralization rate of a commercial organic fertiliser was evaluated over the course of three years in an organic rice field in the Camargue (France). The effect of different mounts of fertiliser applied at different periods was tested. The organic fertiliser rapidly mineralised under flooded conditions. On the basis of this result, we demonstrated that an adaptation of organic fertilisation practices, similar to those employed for mineral fertilisers, would result in the optimisation of organic fertilisers, leading to improved profitability
Transport inefficiency in branched-out mesoscopic networks: An analog of the Braess paradox
We present evidence for a counter-intuitive behavior of semiconductor
mesoscopic networks that is the analog of the Braess paradox encountered in
classical networks. A numerical simulation of quantum transport in a two-branch
mesoscopic network reveals that adding a third branch can paradoxically induce
transport inefficiency that manifests itself in a sizable conductance drop of
the network. A scanning-probe experiment using a biased tip to modulate the
transmission of one branch in the network reveals the occurrence of this
paradox by mapping the conductance variation as a function of the tip voltage
and position.Comment: 2nd version with minor stylistic corrections. To appear in Phys. Rev.
Lett.: Editorially approved for publication 6 January 201
Coherent-State Approach to Two-dimensional Electron Magnetism
We study in this paper the possible occurrence of orbital magnetim for
two-dimensional electrons confined by a harmonic potential in various regimes
of temperature and magnetic field. Standard coherent state families are used
for calculating symbols of various involved observables like thermodynamical
potential, magnetic moment, or spatialdistribution of current. Their
expressions are given in a closed form and the resulting Berezin-Lieb
inequalities provide a straightforward way to study magnetism in various limit
regimes. In particular, we predict a paramagnetic behaviour in the
thermodynamical limit as well as in the quasiclassical limit under a weak
field. Eventually, we obtain an exact expression for the magnetic moment which
yields a full description of the phase diagram of the magnetization.Comment: 21 pages, 6 figures, submitted to PR
Wigner and Kondo physics in quantum point contacts revealed by scanning gate microscopy
Quantum point contacts exhibit mysterious conductance anomalies in addition
to well known conductance plateaus at multiples of 2e^2/h. These 0.7 and
zero-bias anomalies have been intensively studied, but their microscopic origin
in terms of many-body effects is still highly debated. Here we use the charged
tip of a scanning gate microscope to tune in situ the electrostatic potential
of the point contact. While sweeping the tip distance, we observe repetitive
splittings of the zero-bias anomaly, correlated with simultaneous appearances
of the 0.7 anomaly. We interpret this behaviour in terms of alternating
equilibrium and non-equilibrium Kondo screenings of different spin states
localized in the channel. These alternating Kondo effects point towards the
presence of a Wigner crystal containing several charges with different
parities. Indeed, simulations show that the electron density in the channel is
low enough to reach one-dimensional Wigner crystallization over a size
controlled by the tip position
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