Combining roller crimpers and flaming for the termination of cover crops in herbicide-free no-till cropping systems

The termination of cover crops in conventional no-till systems is mostly conducted mechanically in combination with herbicides. Combining flaming and roller crimpers could be a viable solution to avoid using herbicides for cover crop termination in farming systems where herbicides are banned, or at least to reduce their use in an integrated management approach. This research tested the effects of flaming used in combination with three different types of roller crimpers to terminate a fall-sown cover crop mixture of winter pea and barley. The cover crop termination rate was visually assessed in terms of percentage of green cover provided by cover crop plants at different intervals from the termination date, and estimated using a log-logistic non-linear regression model with four parameters. Machine performance data are also reported. The results show that, irrespective of the roller type, flaming significantly boosted the effect of the roller crimpers. In fact, an economic threshold for cover crop suppression of 85% was reached only when the rollers were used in combination with flaming. Nevertheless, none of the methods were able to reach the 100% of cover crop suppression. In some case, the combined use of flaming and roller crimpers allowed reaching the 90% of cover crop devitalisation, which happened six weeks after the termination date. More importantly, the use of flaming in combination with rollers shortened the time needed to achieve the estimated levels of devitalisation, compared with the rollers used alone. We conclude that flaming is an effective tool to increase the effectiveness of roller crimpers. Nevertheless, further research is needed to identify solutions to overcome the barrier of the high operational costs of flaming, which is constraining its wider adoption by farmers. Future studies could focus, for instance, on the development of a new prototype of combined machine for crimping and flaming the cover crops simultaneously, which could potentially reduce the operational costs

Memory beyond memory in heart beating: an efficient way to detect pathological conditions

We study the long-range correlations of heartbeat fluctuations with the method of diffusion entropy. We show that this method of analysis yields a scaling parameter $\delta$ that apparently conflicts with the direct evaluation of the distribution of times of sojourn in states with a given heartbeat frequency. The strength of the memory responsible for this discrepancy is given by a parameter $\epsilon^{2}$, which is derived from real data. The distribution of patients in the ($\delta$, $\epsilon^{2}$)-plane yields a neat separation of the healthy from the congestive heart failure subjects.Comment: submitted to Physical Review Letters, 5 figure

Commissioning of the MEG II tracker system

The MEG experiment at the Paul Scherrer Institut (PSI) represents the state of the art in the search for the charged Lepton Flavour Violating (cLFV) $\mu^+ \rightarrow e^+ \gamma$ decay. With the phase 1, MEG set the new world best upper limit on the \mbox{BR}(\mu^+ \rightarrow e^+ \gamma) < 4.2 \times 10^{-13} (90% C.L.). With the phase 2, MEG II, the experiment aims at reaching a sensitivity enhancement of about one order of magnitude compared to the previous MEG result. The new Cylindrical Drift CHamber (CDCH) is a key detector for MEG II. CDCH is a low-mass single volume detector with high granularity: 9 layers of 192 drift cells, few mm wide, defined by $\sim 12000$ wires in a stereo configuration for longitudinal hit localization. The filling gas mixture is Helium:Isobutane (90:10). The total radiation length is $1.5 \times 10^{-3}$ \mbox{X}_0, thus minimizing the Multiple Coulomb Scattering (MCS) contribution and allowing for a single-hit resolution $< 120$ $\mu$m and an angular and momentum resolutions of 6 mrad and 90 keV/c respectively. This article presents the CDCH commissioning activities at PSI after the wiring phase at INFN Lecce and the assembly phase at INFN Pisa. The endcaps preparation, HV tests and conditioning of the chamber are described, aiming at reaching the final stable working point. The integration into the MEG II experimental apparatus is described, in view of the first data taking with cosmic rays and $\mu^+$ beam during the 2018 and 2019 engineering runs. The first gas gain results are also shown. A full engineering run with all the upgraded detectors and the complete DAQ electronics is expected to start in 2020, followed by three years of physics data taking.Comment: 10 pages, 12 figures, 1 table, proceeding at INSTR'20 conference, accepted for publication in JINS

Dynamical instabilities in a simple minority game with discounting

We explore the effect of discounting and experimentation in a simple model of interacting adaptive agents. Agents belong to either of two types and each has to decide whether to participate a game or not, the game being profitable when there is an excess of players of the other type. We find the emergence of large fluctuations as a result of the onset of a dynamical instability which may arise discontinuously (increasing the discount factor) or continuously (decreasing the experimentation rate). The phase diagram is characterized in detail and noise amplification close to a bifurcation point is identified as the physical mechanism behind the instability.Comment: 8 page

Assessment of a Chain Mower Performance for Weed Control under Tree Rows in an Alley Cropping Farming System

In the area under tree rows of alley cropping systems, coarse plant material as well as pruning material or stones may be present, so the use of a mower equipped with chains as cutting a tool could be advantageous. A mower designed for under-row weed control in orchards, equipped with an automatic tree-skipping mechanism, was modified by replacing blades with chains with the aim of evaluating its performance in an alley cropping system. A first trial was carried out in an open field to preliminarily compare the chain mower with the version equipped with blades in relation to different settings of working speed (1.6 and 2.4 km center dot h(-1)) and rotation speed of the cutting tool (1830 and 2500 rpm). Weed biomass reduction, weed cover reduction, weed height reduction, weed biomass regrowth, and clipping size were assessed. In a second trial, the performance of the mowers with different setting configurations was assessed in an alley cropping system under a more critical environmental condition for mowing, i.e., the presence of dew. Weed biomass reduction, weed cover reduction, weed height reduction, and the mowers' field capacity with different working speed settings were assessed. No major differences emerged between the mowers and the chain mower performance was comparable to that of the standard blade mower. The setting with the high working speed and high rotation speed of the cutting tool turns out to be the best compromise, obtaining a weed biomass reduction of 59.6%, a weed cover reduction of 40.9%, and a higher field capacity compared to the setting with the low working speed, with an increase of 47.9%

Turnover, account value and diversification of real traders: evidence of collective portfolio optimizing behavior

Despite the availability of very detailed data on financial market, agent-based modeling is hindered by the lack of information about real trader behavior. This makes it impossible to validate agent-based models, which are thus reverse-engineering attempts. This work is a contribution to the building of a set of stylized facts about the traders themselves. Using the client database of Swissquote Bank SA, the largest on-line Swiss broker, we find empirical relationships between turnover, account values and the number of assets in which a trader is invested. A theory based on simple mean-variance portfolio optimization that crucially includes variable transaction costs is able to reproduce faithfully the observed behaviors. We finally argue that our results bring into light the collective ability of a population to construct a mean-variance portfolio that takes into account the structure of transaction costsComment: 26 pages, 9 figures, Fig. 8 fixe

Displacement power spectrum measurement of a macroscopic optomechanical system at thermal equilibrium

The mirror relative motion of a suspended Fabry-Perot cavity is studied in the frequency range 3-10 Hz. The experimental measurements presented in this paper, have been performed at the Low Frequency Facility, a high finesse optical cavity 1 cm long suspended to a mechanical seismic isolation system identical to that one used in the VIRGO experiment. The measured relative displacement power spectrum is compatible with a system at thermal equilibrium within its environmental. In the frequency region above 3 Hz, where seismic noise contamination is negligible, the measurement distribution is stationary and Gaussian, as expected for a system at thermal equilibrium. Through a simple mechanical model it is shown that: applying the fluctuation dissipation theorem the measured power spectrum is reproduced below 90 Hz and noise induced by external sources are below the measurement.Comment: 11 pages, 9 figures, 2 tables, to be submitte

Quality Assurance on a custom SiPMs array for the Mu2e experiment

The Mu2e experiment at Fermilab will search for the coherent $\mu \to e$ conversion on aluminum atoms. The detector system consists of a straw tube tracker and a crystal calorimeter. A pre-production of 150 Silicon Photomultiplier arrays for the Mu2e calorimeter has been procured. A detailed quality assur- ance has been carried out on each SiPM for the determination of its own operation voltage, gain, dark current and PDE. The measurement of the mean-time-to-failure for a small random sample of the pro-production group has been also completed as well as the determination of the dark current increase as a function of the ioninizing and non-ioninizing dose.Comment: 4 pages, 10 figures, conference proceeding for NSS-MIC 201

The Mu2e undoped CsI crystal calorimeter

The Mu2e experiment at Fermilab will search for Charged Lepton Flavor Violating conversion of a muon to an electron in an atomic field. The Mu2e detector is composed of a tracker, an electromagnetic calorimeter and an external system, surrounding the solenoid, to veto cosmic rays. The calorimeter plays an important role to provide: a) excellent particle identification capabilities; b) a fast trigger filter; c) an easier tracker track reconstruction. Two disks, located downstream of the tracker, contain 674 pure CsI crystals each. Each crystal is read out by two arrays of UV-extended SiPMs. The choice of the crystals and SiPMs has been finalized after a thorough test campaign. A first small scale prototype consisting of 51 crystals and 102 SiPM arrays has been exposed to an electron beam at the BTF (Beam Test Facility) in Frascati. Although the readout electronics were not the final, results show that the current design is able to meet the timing and energy resolution required by the Mu2e experiment.Comment: 6 pages, 8 figures, proceedings of the "Calorimetry for the high energy frontier (CHEF17)" conference, 2-6 October 2017, Lyon, Franc

Echoes from a long time ago: Chewbacca inflation

The cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation offers a unique avenue for exploring the early Universe's dynamics and evolution. In this paper, we delve into the fascinating realm of slow-roll inflation, contextualizing the primordial acoustic perturbations as the resonant echoes akin to the iconic sound of Chewbacca from the Star Wars universe. By extrapolating polynomial potentials for these primordial sounds, we illuminate their role in shaping the inflationary landscape. Leveraging this framework, we calculate the scalar spectral index ($n_s$) and tensor-to-scalar ratio ($r$), providing insights into the underlying physics governing the inflationary epoch. Employing a rigorous chi-square ($\chi^2$) analysis, we meticulously scrutinize the Planck data combined with that offered by the BICEP/Keck collaboration to identify the Chewbacca sound profile that best aligns with observational constraints. Our findings not only shed light on the intricate interplay between sound and cosmology but also unveil intriguing parallels between the cosmic symphony of the early universe and beloved cultural icons.Comment: 8 pages + references, 5 figures. Prepared for submission to the Annals of Improbable Research on April 1st 2024. Find "The Sound of the Big Bang" in the audio folder of the source fil