The Need for Interdisciplinary Research and Education for Sustainable Human Development to Deal with Global Challenges

Major issues in society - developing alternate sources of energy and a sustainable environment, improving health, and minimizing the effects of climate change require a collective effort by different disciplines working in interdisciplinary groups. Indeed, the boundaries between the different disciplines are becoming increasingly blurred. Society’s responses to major social challenges must be informed by an improved understanding of human perceptions, responses, and of the economic and social impacts of the physical, and biological processes to promote social wellbeing. A comprehensive understanding of the main social challenges requires the collaboration of physical scientists, social scientists, humanities scholars and engineers, and will be highly interdisciplinary. For example climate systems are highly variable, changing in hours, days or years. The need to create a new generation of students who combine a rigorous disciplinary depth with the ability to reach out to other disciplines and work in interdisciplinary teams is more urgent. Because these skills cut across traditional disciplinary boundaries, there is increasing support from government and business for the interdisciplinary programs that focus on identifiable long-term problems in the economy, society, and government, as opposed to department-based programs that focus on academically defined disciplinary paradigms. Interdisciplinary research preparation and education are central to future competitiveness, because knowledge creation and innovation frequently occur at the interface of disciplines. Interdisciplinary programs help to ensure better educational programs, which give students better ability to work in a problem-oriented way and at the same time the ability to think across fields and interact. It responds to the need to prepare students for an increasingly interdisciplinary, collaborative, and global job market. Interdisciplinary programs provide opportunities to strengthen the interaction between the business sector and research, especially in relation to the humanities and social science research and education, where interaction has been especially underdeveloped. There is a consensus that the current academic administrative structure is the most important barrier to interdisciplinary collaboration; other barriers like poor communication, etc., emanate from it. How can interdisciplinary education and research flourish while maintaining strong backgrounds in the disciplines? How can universities lower or remove barriers to faculty participation in interdisciplinary education and research and create porous, flexible, less redundant environment that facilitates the flow of ideas, people and resources across disciplinary boundaries? Is possible to have disciplines without disciplinary departments? In this short paper, the barriers and the challenges for developing interdisciplinary education and research will be summarized, lessons from some successful attempts and failures will be presented, and some approaches will be recommended for newly established institutions of higher education if the developing world such as Africa further discussion

Protocol-Dependence and State Variables in the Force-Moment Ensemble

Stress-based ensembles incorporating temperature-like variables have been proposed as a route to an equation of state for granular materials. To test the efficacy of this approach, we perform experiments on a two-dimensional photoelastic granular system under three loading conditions: uniaxial compression, biaxial compression, and simple shear. From the interparticle forces, we find that the distributions of the normal component of the coarse-grained force-moment tensor are exponential-tailed, while the deviatoric component is Gaussian-distributed. This implies that the correct stress-based statistical mechanics conserves both the force-moment tensor and the Maxwell-Cremona force-tiling area. As such, two variables of state arise: the tensorial angoricity ($\hat{\alpha}$) and a new temperature-like quantity associated with the force-tile area which we name {\it keramicity} ($\kappa$). Each quantity is observed to be inversely proportional to the global confining pressure; however only $\kappa$ exhibits the protocol-independence expected of a state variable, while $\hat{\alpha}$ behaves as a variable of process

Weed Population Dynamics in Four Year Conservation (CA) and Conventional (CN) Agriculture Plots in Southern Maize belt of Ethiopia

CA methods have become increasingly popular in world due to increasing fuel cost and environmental concern. But, the sustainability of CA systems depends on the development of economical and effective weed management systems. Weed scoring was conducted on plots of conventional (CN) and conservation agriculture (CA) during the main cropping season of 2012 and 2015 in Sidama zone (Loka abya, Boricha and Awassa) with an objective of characterizing weed population dynamics in the permanent plots of maize based production systems. From each location four samples were taken using a 0.5mx 0.5m (0.25m2) quadrant. A total of 27 weed species identified in the base year became 28 weed species in the fourth year. After four years, weeds species composition, frequency, abundance and dominancy were analyzed. There was a shift in weed population from time to time and from location to location.  Quantitatively, the broadleaf weeds were found to be the most abundant family under CA systems suggesting that weed management practices should focus more on broad-leaved weeds under CA. conversely, both grass, sedge and broadleaved weeds were common in CN. The findings of this assessment could also provide important information about weed density under CA and CN systems to design site specific weed management strategies for the future as well as to assess weed dynamics under CA agriculture system. Academia, research, development organizations and policy makers shall consider annual weed surveillance to harness newly emerging weed species. Keywords: CA (conservation agriculture), CN (conventional agriculture), weeds species, frequency, abundance, dominanc

LeMMINGs - IV. The X-ray properties of a statistically complete sample of the nuclei in active and inactive galaxies from the Palomar sample

All 280 of the statistically complete Palomar sample of nearby ( 20 degrees have been observed at 1.5 GHz as part of the LeMMINGs e-MERLIN legacy survey. IIere, we present Chandra X-ray observations of the nuclei of 213 of these galaxies, including a statistically complete sub-set of 113 galaxies in the declination range 40 degrees <delta < 65 degrees. We observed galaxies of all optical spectral types, including 'active' galaxies [e.g. low-ionization nuclear emission line regions (LINERs) and Seyferts] and 'inactive' galaxies like H II galaxies and absorption line galaxies (ALG). The X-ray flux limit of our survey is 1.65 x 10(-14) erg s(-1) cm(-2) (0.3-10 keV). We detect X-ray emission coincident within 2 arcsec of the nucleus in 150/213 galaxies, including 13/14 Seyferts, 68/77 LINERs, 13/22 ALGs and 56/100 H II galaxies, but cannot completely rule out contamination from non-AGN processes in sources with nuclear luminosities less than or similar to 10(39) erg s(-1). We construct an X-ray Luminosity function (XI,F) and find that the local galaxy XLF, when including all active galactic nucleus (AGN) types, can be represented as a single power law of slope -0.54 +/- 0.06. The Eddington ratio of the Seyferts is usually 2-4 decades higher than that of the LINERs, ALGs, and H II galaxies, which are mostly detected with Eddington ratios less than or similar to 10(-3). Using [O III] line measurements and black hole masses from the literature, we show that LINERs, H II galaxies and ALGs follow similar correlations to low luminosities, suggesting that some 'inactive' galaxies may harbour AGN

Ultramassive black holes in the most massive galaxies: MBH−σM_{\rm BH}-\sigma versus MBH−RbM_{\rm BH}-R_{\rm b}

[Abridged] We investigate the nature of the relations between black hole (BH) mass ($M_{\rm BH}$) and the central velocity dispersion ($\sigma$) and, for core-S\'ersic galaxies, the size of the depleted core ($R_{\rm b}$). Our sample of 144 galaxies with dynamically determined $M_{\rm BH}$ encompasses 24 core-S\'ersic galaxies, thought to be products of gas-poor mergers, and reliably identified based on high-resolution HST imaging. For core-S\'ersic galaxies -- i.e., combining normal-core ($R_{\rm b} < 0.5$ kpc) and large-core galaxies ($R_{\rm b} \gtrsim 0.5$ kpc), we find that $M_{\rm BH}$ correlates remarkably well with $R_{\rm b}$ such that $M_{\rm BH} \propto R_{\rm b}^{1.20 \pm 0.14}$ (rms scatter in log $M_{\rm BH}$ of $\Delta_{\rm rms} \sim 0.29$ dex), confirming previous works on the same galaxies except three new ones. Separating the sample into S\'ersic, normal-core and large-core galaxies, we find that S\'ersic and normal-core galaxies jointly define a single log-linear $M_{\rm BH}-\sigma$ relation $M_{\rm BH} \propto \sigma^{ 4.88 \pm 0.29}$ with $\Delta_{\rm rms} \sim 0.47$ dex, however, at the high-mass end large-core galaxies (four with measured $M_{\rm BH}$) are offset upward from this relation by ($2.5-4) \times \sigma_{\rm s}$, explaining the previously reported steepening of the $M_{\rm BH}-\sigma$ relation for massive galaxies. Large-core spheroids have magnitudes $M_{V} \le -23.50$ mag, half-light radii Re $>$ 10 kpc and are extremely massive $M_{*} \ge 10^{12}M_{\odot}$. Furthermore, these spheroids tend to host ultramassive BHs ($M_{\rm BH} \ge 10^{10}M_{\odot}$) tightly connected with their $R_{\rm b}$ rather than $\sigma$. The less popular $M_{\rm BH}-R_{\rm b}$ relation exhibits $\sim$ 62% less scatter in log $M_{\rm BH}$ than the $M_{\rm BH}- \sigma$ relations.Comment: 11 pages, 4 figures, accepted (2020, November 27) for publication in Ap

Laser Spectroscopy for Atmospheric and Environmental Sensing

Lasers and laser spectroscopic techniques have been extensively used in several applications since their advent, and the subject has been reviewed extensively in the last several decades. This review is focused on three areas of laser spectroscopic applications in atmospheric and environmental sensing; namely laser-induced fluorescence (LIF), cavity ring-down spectroscopy (CRDS), and photoluminescence (PL) techniques used in the detection of solids, liquids, aerosols, trace gases, and volatile organic compounds (VOCs)

The (black hole mass)-(color) relations for early- and late-type galaxies: red and blue sequences

[Abridged] Tight correlations between supermassive black hole (SMBH) mass ($M_{\rm BH}$) and the properties of the host galaxy have useful implications for our understanding of the growth of SMBHs and evolution of galaxies. Here, we present newly observed correlations between $M_{\rm BH}$ and the host galaxy total UV$-$ [3.6] color ($\mathcal{C_{\rm UV,tot}}$, Pearson's r = $0.6-0.7$) for a sample of 67 galaxies (20 early-type galaxies and 47 late-type galaxies) with directly measured $M_{\rm BH}$ in the GALEX/S$^{4}$G survey. The colors are carefully measured in a homogeneous manner using the galaxies' FUV, NUV and 3.6 \micron magnitudes and their multi-component structural decompositions in the literature. We find that more massive SMBHs are hosted by (early- and late-type) galaxies with redder colors, but the $M_{\rm BH}- \mathcal{C_{\rm UV,tot}}$ relations for the two morphological types have slopes that differ at $\sim 2 \sigma$ level. Early-type galaxies define a red sequence in the $M_{\rm BH}- \mathcal{C_{\rm UV,tot}}$ diagrams, while late-type galaxies trace a blue sequence. Within the assumption that the specific star formation rate of a galaxy (sSFR) is well traced by $L_{\rm UV}/L_{\rm 3.6}$, it follows that the SMBH masses for late-type galaxies exhibit a steeper dependence on sSFR than those for early-type galaxies. The $M_{\rm BH}- \mathcal{C_{\rm UV,tot}}$ and $M_{\rm BH}-L_{\rm 3.6,tot}$ relations for the sample galaxies reveal a comparable level of vertical scatter in the log $M_{\rm BH}$ direction, roughly $5\%-27\%$ more than the vertical scatter of the $M_{\rm BH}-\sigma$ relation. Our $M_{\rm BH}- \mathcal{C_{\rm UV,tot}}$ relations suggest different channels of SMBH growth for early- and late-type galaxies, consistent with their distinct formation and evolution scenarios.Comment: 27 pages, 8 figures, 6 tables, accepted for publication in Ap