The New Economics of Livestock Production Management

The importance of heterogeneity of animal attributes in livestock production is assessed. Preliminary results indicate that variance and skew measures of attributes may be becoming more important over time.livestock economics, herd management, livestock marketing, Livestock Production/Industries, Marketing,

Noise spectroscopy and interlayer phase-coherence in bilayer quantum Hall systems

Bilayer quantum Hall systems develop strong interlayer phase-coherence when the distance between layers is comparable to the typical distance between electrons within a layer. The phase-coherent state has until now been investigated primarily via transport measurements. We argue here that interlayer current and charge-imbalance noise studies in these systems will be able to address some of the key experimental questions. We show that the characteristic frequency of current-noise is that of the zero wavevector collective mode, which is sensitive to the degree of order in the system. Local electric potential noise measured in a plane above the bilayer system on the other hand is sensitive to finite-wavevector collective modes and hence to the soft-magnetoroton picture of the order-disorder phase transition.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figure

Chicory roots improves the taste and odour of organic pork

The carbohydrate inulin is known to reduce the production of skatole in pigs. This is caused by inulin changing the intestinal flora, so that the bacteria that produce skatole are held in check. This change in intestinal flora also reduces the number of intestinal parasites in the pigs. However the high cost of inulin makes its use in pig feed impractical. Chicory root contains inulin and a series of other carbohydrates and secondary metabolites. Therefore we have examined whether chicory root can replace pure inulin and thereby reduce boar taint, improve the taste of pork and reduce the infection of pigs with pathogenic parasites and bacteria

States interpolating between number and coherent states and their interaction with atomic systems

Using the eigenvalue definition of binomial states we construct new intermediate number-coherent states which reduce to number and coherent states in two different limits. We reveal the connection of these intermediate states with photon-added coherent states and investigate their non-classical properties and quasi-probability distributions in detail. It is of interest to note that these new states, which interpolate between coherent states and number states, neither of which exhibit squeezing, are nevertheless squeezed states. A scheme to produce these states is proposed. We also study the interaction of these states with atomic systems in the framework of the two-photon Jaynes-Cummings model, and describe the response of the atomic system as it varies between the pure Rabi oscillation and the collapse-revival mode and investigate field observables such as photon number distribution, entropy and the Q-function.Comment: 26 pages, 29 EPS figures, Latex, Accepted for publication in J.Phys.

Pulsed Lidar Measurements of Atmospheric CO2 Column Absorption and Range During the ASCENDS 2009-2011 Airborne Campaigns

We have developed a pulsed lidar technique for measuring the tropospheric CO2 concentrations as a candidate for NASA's ASCENDS mission and have demonstrated the CO2 and O2 measurements from aircraft. Our technique uses two pulsed lasers allowing simultaneous measurement of a single CO2 absorption line near 1572 nm, O2 extinction in the Oxygen A-band, surface height and backscatter profile. The lasers are stepped in wavelength across the CO2 line and an O2 line doublet during the measurement. The column densities for the CO2 and O2 are estimated from the differential optical depths (DOD) of the scanned absorption lines via the IPDA technique. For the 2009 ASCENDS campaign we flew the CO2 lidar only on a Lear-25 aircraft, and measured the absorption line shapes of the CO2 line using 20 wavelength samples per scan. Measurements were made at stepped altitudes from 3 to 12.6 km over the Lamont OK, central Illinois, North Carolina, and over the Virginia Eastern Shore. Although the received signal energies were weaker than expected for ASCENDS, clear C02 line shapes were observed at all altitudes. Most flights had 5-6 altitude steps with 200-300 seconds of recorded measurements per step. We averaged every 10 seconds of measurements and used a cross-correlation approach to estimate the range to the scattering surface and the echo pulse energy at each wavelength. We then solved for the best-fit CO2 absorption line shape, and calculated the DOD of the fitted CO2 line, and computed its statistics at the various altitude steps. We compared them to CO2 optical depths calculated from spectroscopy based on HITRAN 2008 and the column number densities calculated from the airborne in-situ readings. The 2009 measurements have been analyzed in detail and they were similar on all flights. The results show clear CO2 line shape and absorption signals, which follow the expected changes with aircraft altitude from 3 to 13 km. They showed the expected nearly the linear dependence of DOD vs altitude. The measurements showed -1 ppm random errors for 8-10 km altitudes and -30 sec averaging times. For the 2010 ASCENDS campaigns we flew the CO2 lidar on the NASA DC-8 and added an O2 lidar channel. During July 2010 we made measurements of CO2 and O2 column absorption during longer flights over Railroad Valley NV, the Pacific Ocean and over Lamont OK. CO2 measurements were made with 30 steps/scan, 300 scans/sec and improved line resolution and receiver sensitivity. Analysis of the 2010 CO2 measurements shows the expected -linear change of DOD with altitude. For measurements at altitudes> 6 km the random errors were 0.3 ppm for 80 sec averaging times. For the summer 2011 ASCENDS campaigns we made further improvements to the lidar's CO2 line scan and receiver sensitivity. The seven flights in the 2011 Ascends campaign were flown over a wide variety of surface and cloud conditions in the US, which produced a wide variety of lidar signal conditions. Details of the lidar measurements and their analysis will be described in the presentation

Continuous Single-Phase Synthesis of [Au₂₅(Cys)₁₈] Nanoclusters and their Photobactericidal Enhancement

Thiolate–gold nanoclusters have various applications. However, most of the synthesis methods require prolonged synthesis times from several hours to days. In the present study, we report a rapid synthesis method for [Au25(Cys)18] nanoclusters and their application for photobactericidal enhancement. For [Au25(Cys)18] synthesis, we employed a tube-in-tube membrane reactor using CO as a reducing agent at elevated temperatures. This approach allows continuous generation of high-quality [Au25(Cys)18] within 3 min. Photobactericidal tests against Staphylococcus aureus showed that crystal violet-treated polymer did not have photobactericidal activity, but addition of [Au25(Cys)18] in the treated polymer demonstrated a potent photobactericidal activity at a low white light flux, resulting in >4.29 log reduction in viable bacteria numbers. Steady-state and time-resolved photoluminescence spectroscopies demonstrated that after light irradiation, photoexcited electrons in crystal violet flowed to [Au25(Cys)18] in the silicone, suggesting that redox reaction from [Au25(Cys)18] enhanced the photobactericidal activity. Stability tests revealed that leaching of crystal violet and [Au25(Cys)18] from the treated silicone was negligible and cyclic testing showed that the silicone maintained a strong photobactericidal activity after repeated use

An accurate description of quantum size effects in InP nanocrystallites over a wide range of sizes

We obtain an effective parametrization of the bulk electronic structure of InP within the Tight Binding scheme. Using these parameters, we calculate the electronic structure of InP clusters with the size ranging upto 7.5 nm. The calculated variations in the electronic structure as a function of the cluster size is found to be in excellent agreement with experimental results over the entire range of sizes, establishing the effectiveness and transferability of the obtained parameter strengths.Comment: 9 pages, 3 figures, pdf file available at http://sscu.iisc.ernet.in/~sampan/publications.htm