1,792 research outputs found
Spatial and temporal variability of CO2 emisions in soils under conventional tillage and no-till farming
Agricultural soils can act as a carbon sink depending on the soil management practices employed. As a result of this functional duality, soil management systems are present in international documents relating to climate change mitigation. Agricultural practices are responsible for 14% of total greenhouse gas emissions (GHG’s) (MMA, 2009)(1). Conservation agriculture (CA) is one of the most effective agricultural systems for reducing CO2 emissions, as it increases the sequestration of atmospheric carbon in the soil.
In order to assess the performance of CA in terms of CO2 emissions, a field trial was conducted comparing soil derived CO2 fluxes under No-till (NT) farming and under conventional tillage. Three pilot farms were selected in the cereal-growing area of southern Spain, located in Las Cabezas de San Juan (Seville), Carmona (Seville) and Cordoba. Each pilot farm comprises six experimental plots with an approximate area of five hectares; three of the six plots implement CA practices, while the other three use conventional tillage techniques. The subdivision of each tillage system into 3 plots allowed the simultaneous cropping of the three crops of the wheat-sunflower-legume rotation each year.
Results showed that carbon dioxide emissions were 31 to 91% higher in tilled soils than in untilled soils, and that there was a great seasonal variability of CO2 emissions, as weather conditions also differed considerably for the different sampling periods. In all cases, the CO2 fluxes emitted into the atmosphere were always higher when soil was subject to conventional tillage
Antiproton-nucleus electromagnetic annihilation as a way to access the proton timelike form factors
Contrary to the reaction pbar + p --> e+ e- with a high momentum incident
antiproton on a free target proton at rest, in which the invariant mass M of
the (e+ e-) pair is necessarily much larger than the (pbar p) mass, in the
reaction pbar + d --> n e+ e- the value of M can take values near or below the
(pbar p) mass. In the antiproton-deuteron electromagnetic annihilation, this
allows to access the proton electromagnetic form factors in the time-like
region of q^2 near the (pbar p) threshold. We estimate the cross section
dsigma(pbar +d --> e+ e- n)/dM for an antiproton beam momentum of 1.5 GeV/c. We
find that near the (pbar p) threshold this cross section is about 1 pb/MeV. The
case of heavy nuclei target is also discussed. Elements of experimental
feasibility are presented for the process pbar + d --> n e+ e- in the context
of the Panda project.Comment: 14 pages, 11 figures. submitted to EPJ
Long-term variation in the Sun's activity caused by magnetic Rossby waves in the tachocline
Long-term records of sunspot number and concentrations of cosmogenic
radionuclides (10Be and 14C) on the Earth reveal the variation of the Sun's
magnetic activity over hundreds and thousands of years. We identify several
clear periods in sunspot, 10Be, and 14C data as 1000, 500, 350, 200 and 100
years. We found that the periods of the first five spherical harmonics of the
slow magnetic Rossby mode in the presence of a steady toroidal magnetic field
of 1200-1300 G in the lower tachocline are in perfect agreement with the time
scales of observed variations. The steady toroidal magnetic field can be
generated in the lower tachocline either due to the steady dynamo magnetic
field for low magnetic diffusivity or due to the action of the latitudinal
differential rotation on the weak poloidal primordial magnetic field, which
penetrates from the radiative interior. The slow magnetic Rossby waves lead to
variations of the steady toroidal magnetic field in the lower tachocline, which
modulate the dynamo magnetic field and consequently the solar cycle strength.
This result constitutes a key point for long-term prediction of the cycle
strength. According to our model, the next deep minimum in solar activity is
expected during the first half of this century.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, accepted in ApJ
Antiproton-Hydrogen annihilation at sub-kelvin temperatures
The main properties of the interaction of ultra low-energy antiprotons ( a.u.) with atomic hydrogen are established. They include the
elastic and inelastic cross sections and Protonium (Pn) formation spectrum. The
inverse Auger process () is taken into account in the
framework of an unitary coupled-channels model. The annihilation cross-section
is found to be several times smaller than the predictions made by the black
sphere absorption models. A family of nearthreshold metastable
states is predicited. The dependence of Protonium formation probability on the
position of such nearthreshold S-matrix singularities is analysed. An
estimation for the annihilation cross section is obtained.Comment: latex.tar.gz file, 22 pages, 9 figure
Determination of the liquid pool surfactant and protein concentration for semi-batch foam fractionation columns
A model is derived for the change with time of the concentration of a surface-active component in the liquid pool of a semi-batch foam fractionation process. The transport of surface-active material to the gas-liquid interface was assumed to be limited by the mass transfer rates, and the concentration of the adsorbed material at the interface was assumed to be in equilibrium with the concentration of liquid adjacent to the bubble gas surface. This model was compared to experimental data obtained for semi-batch foam fractionation of aqueous solutions of bovine serum albumin and cetyltrimetylammonium bromide.114Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento CientÃfico e Tecnológico (CNPq
The importance of few-nucleon physics at low energy
This manuscript originated from the discussion at the workshop on the "Future
of Few-body Low Energy Experimental Physics" (FFLEEP), which was held at the
University of Trento on December 4-7, 2002 and has been written in its present
form on March 19, 2003. It illustrates a selection of theoretical advancements
in the nuclear few-body problem, including two- and many-nucleon interactions,
the three-nucleon bound and scattering system, the four-body problem, the
A-body (A4) problem, and fields of related interest, such as reactions of
astrophysical interest and few-neutron systems. Particular attention is called
to the contradictory situation one experiences in this field: while theory is
currently advancing and has the potential to inspire new experiments, the
experimental activity is nevertheless rapidly phasing out. If such a trend will
continue, advancements in this area will become critically difficult.Comment: 29 pages, 21 figures. Manuscript originated from the discussion at
the workshop on the "Future of Few-body Low Energy Experimental Physics"
(FFLEEP), University of Trento, December 4-7, 2002, written in its present
form on March 19, 2003, circulated mainly among the participants to the
FFLEEP workshop. Since the authors have been repeatedly solicited to make the
manuscript accessible to a larger audience potentially interested in its
scientific content, they have decided to post it on this archiv
Iminodiacetic acid (IDA) cation-exchange nonwoven membranes for efficient capture of antibodies and antibody fragments
There is strong need to reduce the manufacturing costs and increase the downstream purification efficiency of high-value therapeutic monoclonal antibodies (mAbs). This paper explores the performance of a weak cation-exchange membrane based on the coupling of IDA to poly(butylene terephthalate) (PBT) nonwoven fabrics. Uniform and conformal layers of poly(glycidyl methacrylate) (GMA) were first grafted to the surface of the nonwovens. Then IDA was coupled to the polyGMA layers under optimized conditions, resulting in membranes with very high permeability and binding capacity. This resulted in IgG dynamic binding capacities at very short residence times (0.1–2.0 min) that are much higher than those achieved by the best cation-exchange resins. Similar results were obtained in the purification of a single-chain (scFv) antibody fragment. As is customary with membrane systems, the dynamic binding capacities did not change significantly over a wide range of residence times. Finally, the excellent separation efficiency and potential reusability of the membrane were confirmed by five consecutive cycles of mAb capture from its cell culture harvest. The present work provides significant evidence that this weak cation-exchange nonwoven fabric platform might be a suitable alternative to packed resin chromatography for low-cost, higher productivity manufacturing of therapeutic mAbs and antibody fragments
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