A digital method to calculate the true areas of sunspot groups

The areas of sunspots are the most prominent feature of the development of sunspot groups. Since the size of sunspot areas depend on the strength of the magnetic field, accurate measurements of these areas are important. In this study, a method which allows to measure true areas of the sunspots is introduced. A Stonyhurst disk is created by using a computer program and is coincided with solar images. By doing this, an accurate heliographic coordinate system is formed. Then, the true area of the whole sunspot group is calculated in square degrees with the aid of the heliographic coordinates of each picture element forming the image of the sunspot group. This technique's use is not limited with sunspot areas only. The areas of the flare and filaments observed on the chromospheric disk can also be calculated with the same method. In addition to this, it is possible to calculate the area of any occurrence on the solar disk, whether it is related to an activity or not.Comment: 14 pages, including 10 figures and 2 tables, accepted for publication in Experimental Astronom

Structural Change and Market Opening in Agriculture: Turkey towards EU Accession

The membership negotiations of Turkey with EU may start after satisfactory developments in the Copenhagen Criteria. Agriculture is expected to be one of the toughest areas in the accession negotiations. The difficulty will not only arise from the state of agriculture in Turkey, but also from the ever changing agricultural policy framework of EU. The structural and institutional adjustment abilities of Turkey during the pre-accession period will be the determining factors to ease the accession. The purpose of this study is to identify major elements in the pre-accession period through the description of agricultural environment in Turkey, together with the possible effects of accession on agriculture. Land and labor stem as the major divergences from the EU averages, and hence will form the basis of the accession negotiations. The next section is devoted to the structure of the basic factors of production in agriculture and to a general overview of agricultural production. The recent policy shifts and the costs and benefits of the agricultural policies are provided in the second section. The recent developments in the trade between EU and Turkey and the trade potential are presented in the third section. The last section is reserved for the concluding remarks.Turkey, European Union, agriculture

EU Integration of Turkey: Implications for Turkish Agriculture

Turkey’s membership to the EU will involve full liberalization of agricultural trade with the EU. The effects of liberalization are bound to depend on the path of agricultural policies in Turkey and in the EU during the accession negotiations. In order to evaluate the possible impacts of a variety of policy alternatives and scenarios, an economic modelling approach based on non-linear mathematical programming is appropriate. In this framework, the major purpose of this paper is to evaluate the impact of Turkish integration to the EU on agriculture using an agricultural sector model for Turkey. The basic approach undertaken supplements the past efforts by incorporating Maximum Entropy to the positive mathematical programming, together with updated base period and including recent policy changes. Following the integration with EU, the net exports in agro-food products decline mainly due to the expansion of trade in livestock products. Overall welfare effects of including agrofood products in the customs union and membership are small. Consumers benefit from declining prices. CAP supports are determinative for producers’ welfare. The results of the simulations provide also updated estimates about the possible size of CAP expenditures for Turkish agriculture.Turkish Agricultural Sector Model (TAGRIS), Maximum Entropy Based Positive Mathematical Programming, Turkey’s Membership of EU, International Relations/Trade,

Application of the no-signaling principle to obtain quantum cloners for any allowed value of fidelity

Special relativity forbids superluminal influences. Using only the no-signaling principle and an assumption about the form of the Schmidt decomposition, we show that for "any" allowed fidelity there is a "unique" approximate qubit cloner which can be written explicitly. We introduce the prime cloners whose fidelities have multiplicative property and show that the fidelity of the prime cloners for the infinite copy limit is 1/2.Comment: 8 pages, no figure

First-forbidden β\mathbf{\beta}-decay rates, energy rates of β\beta-delayed neutrons and probability of β\beta-delayed neutron emissions for neutron-rich nickel isotopes

First-forbidden (FF) transitions can play an important role in decreasing the calculated half-lives specially in environments where allowed Gamow-Teller (GT) transitions are unfavored. Of special mention is the case of neutron-rich nuclei where, due to phase-space amplification, FF transitions are much favored. We calculate the allowed GT transitions in various pn-QRPA models for even-even neutron-rich isotopes of nickel. Here we also study the effect of deformation on the calculated GT strengths. The FF transitions for even-even neutron-rich isotopes of nickel are calculated assuming the nuclei to be spherical. Later we take into account deformation of nuclei and calculate GT + unique FF transitions, stellar $\beta$-decay rates, energy rate of $\beta$-delayed neutrons and probability of $\beta$-delayed neutron emissions. The calculated half-lives are in excellent agreement with measured ones and might contribute in speeding-up of the $r$-matter flow.Comment: 22 pages, 10 figures, 7 tables. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1301.5225 by other author