27,666 research outputs found
Quantifying N response and N use efficiency in Rice-Wheat (RW) cropping systems under different water management
About 0·10 of the food supply in China is produced in rice¿wheat (RW) cropping systems. In recent decades, nitrogen (N) input associated with intensification has increased much more rapidly than N use in these systems. The resulting nitrogen surplus increases the risk of environmental pollution as well as production costs. Limited information on N dynamics in RW systems in relation to water management hampers development of management practices leading to more efficient use of nitrogen and water. The present work studied the effects of N and water management on yields of rice and wheat, and nitrogen use efficiencies (NUEs) in RW systems. A RW field experiment with nitrogen rates from 0 to 300 kg N/ha with continuously flooded and intermittently irrigated rice crops was carried out at the Jiangpu experimental station of Nanjing Agricultural University of China from 2002 to 2004 to identify improved nitrogen management practices in terms of land productivity and NUE. Nitrogen uptake by rice and wheat increased with increasing N rates, while agronomic NUE (kg grain/kg N applied) declined at rates exceeding 150 kg N/ha. The highest combined grain yields of rice and wheat were obtained at 150 and 300 kg N/ha per season in rice and wheat, respectively. Carry-over of residual N from rice to the subsequent wheat crop was limited, consistent with low soil nitrate after rice harvest. Total soil N hardly changed during the experiment, while soil nitrate was much lower after wheat than after rice harvest. Water management did not affect yield and N uptake by rice, but apparent N recovery was higher under intermittent irrigation (II). In one season, II management in rice resulted in higher yield and N uptake in the subsequent wheat season. Uptake of indigenous soil N was much higher in rice than in wheat, while in rice it was much higher than values reported in the literature, which may have consequences for nitrogen fertilizer recommendations based on indigenous N suppl
Observation of Magnetic Moments in the Superconducting State of YBaCuO
Neutron Scattering measurements for YBaCuO have identified
small magnetic moments that increase in strength as the temperature is reduced
below and further increase below . An analysis of the data shows
the moments are antiferromagnetic between the Cu-O planes with a correlation
length of longer than 195 \AA in the - plane and about 35 \AA along the
c-axis. The origin of the moments is unknown, and their properties are
discusssed both in terms of Cu spin magnetism and orbital bond currents.Comment: 9 pages, and 4 figure
Episodic self-imitation learning with hindsight
Episodic self-imitation learning, a novel self-imitation algorithm with a trajectory selection module and an adaptive loss function, is proposed to speed up reinforcement learning. Compared to the original self-imitation learning algorithm, which samples good state–action pairs from the experience replay buffer, our agent leverages entire episodes with hindsight to aid self-imitation learning. A selection module is introduced to filter uninformative samples from each episode of the update. The proposed method overcomes the limitations of the standard self-imitation learning algorithm, a transitions-based method which performs poorly in handling continuous control environments with sparse rewards. From the experiments, episodic self-imitation learning is shown to perform better than baseline on-policy algorithms, achieving comparable performance to state-of-the-art off-policy algorithms in several simulated robot control tasks. The trajectory selection module is shown to prevent the agent learning undesirable hindsight experiences. With the capability of solving sparse reward problems in continuous control settings, episodic self-imitation learning has the potential to be applied to real-world problems that have continuous action spaces, such as robot guidance and manipulation
Destruction of Neel order and appearance of superconductivity in electron-doped cuprates by oxygen annealing process
We use thermodynamic and neutron scattering measurements to study the effect
of oxygen annealing on the superconductivity and magnetism in
PrLaCeCuO. Although the transition temperature
measured by susceptibility and superconducting coherence length increase
smoothly with gradual oxygen removal from the annealing process, bulk
superconductivity, marked by a specific heat anomaly at and the presence
of a neutron magnetic resonance, only appears abruptly when is close to
the largest value. These results suggest that the effect of oxygen annealing
must be first determined in order to establish a Ce-doping dependence of
antiferromagnetism and superconductivity phase diagram for electron-doped
copper oxides.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, accepted by Phys. Rev.
Collisionless Magnetic Reconnection via Alfven Eigenmodes
We propose an analytic approach to the problem of collisionless magnetic
reconnection formulated as a process of Alfven eigenmodes' generation and
dissipation. Alfven eigenmodes are confined by the current sheet in the same
way that quantum mechanical waves are confined by the tanh^2 potential. The
dynamical time scale of reconnection is the system scale divided by the
eigenvalue propagation velocity of the n=1 mode. The prediction of the n=1 mode
shows good agreement with the in situ measurement of the
reconnection-associated Hall fields
South Asian summer monsoon projections constrained by the Intedacadal Pacific Oscillation
A reliable projection of future South Asian summer monsoon (SASM) benefits a large population in Asia. Using a 100-member ensemble of simulations by the Max Planck Institute Earth System Model (MPI-ESM) and a 50-member ensemble of simulations by the Canadian Earth System Model (CanESM2), we find that internal variability can overshadow the forced SASM rainfall trend, leading to large projection uncertainties for the next 15 to 30 years. We further identify that the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation (IPO) is, in part, responsible for the uncertainties. Removing the IPO-related rainfall variations reduces the uncertainties in the near-term projection of the SASM rainfall by 13 to 15% and 26 to 30% in the MPI-ESM and CanESM2 ensembles, respectively. Our results demonstrate that the uncertainties in near-term projections of the SASM rainfall can be reduced by improving prediction of near-future IPO and other internal modes of climate variabilit
Universal quasiparticle decoherence in hole- and electron-doped high-Tc cuprates
We use angle-resolved photoemission to unravel the quasiparticle decoherence
process in the high- cuprates. The coherent band is highly renormalized,
and the incoherent part manifests itself as a nearly vertical ``dive'' in the
- intensity plot that approaches the bare band bottom. We find that the
coherence-incoherence crossover energies in the hole- and electron-doped
cuprates are quite different, but scale to their corresponding bare bandwidth.
This rules out antiferromagnetic fluctuations as the main source for
decoherence. We also observe the coherent band bottom at the zone center, whose
intensity is strongly suppressed by the decoherence process. Consequently, the
coherent band dispersion for both hole- and electron-doped cuprates is
obtained, and is qualitatively consistent with the framework of Gutzwiller
projection.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
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