Approaches and achievements of biodynamic vegetable breeding by Kultursaat e.V. (Germany) using the example of RODELIKA one of the first certified biodynamic varieties

Since 1998 RODELIKA is officially registered as a newly bred carrot variety. It had been developed by positive mass-selection over a 13 year period, based on an old-established variety within a farm based biodynamic system. The goal was a fine root with good health and a focus on taste and ability of maturation. Thus a selection-scheme in organoleptic characteristics sweetness and aroma was created. Numerous investigations demonstrate the very high inner quality of RODELIKA. Property rights of this open-pollinated variety are held by the charitable association Kultursaat eV as a common heritage

Channeling 5-min photospheric oscillations into the solar outer atmosphere through small-scale vertical magnetic flux tubes

We report two-dimensional MHD simulations which demonstrate that photospheric 5-min oscillations can leak into the chromosphere inside small-scale vertical magnetic flux tubes. The results of our numerical experiments are compatible with those inferred from simultaneous spectropolarimetric observations of the photosphere and chromosphere obtained with the Tenerife Infrared Polarimeter (TIP) at 10830 A. We conclude that the efficiency of energy exchange by radiation in the solar photosphere can lead to a significant reduction of the cut-off frequency and may allow for the propagation of the 5 minutes waves vertically into the chromosphere.Comment: accepted by ApJ

Representing space for practical reasoning

This paper describes a new approach to representing space and time for practical reasoning, based on space-filling cells. Unlike R n, the new models can represent a bounded region of space using only finitely many cells, so they can be manipulated directly. Unlike Z n, they have useful notions of function continuity and region connectedness. The topology of space is allowed to depend on the situation being represented, accounting for sharp changes in function values and lack of connectedness across object boundaries. Algorithms based on this model of space are neither purely region-based nor purely boundary-based, but a blend of the two. This new style of algorithm design is illustrated by a new program for finding edges in grey-scale images. Although the program is based on a relatively conventional second directional difference operator, it can detect fine texture in the presence of camera noise, produce connected boundaries around sharp corners, and return thin boundaries without "feathering. " New algorithms are presented for combining directional differences, suppressing the effects of camera noise, reconstructing image intensities from the second difference values and merging results from different scales (including suppression of spurious boundaries in staircase patterns).

Canonical Quantization of the Maxwell-Chern-Simons Theory in the Coulomb Gauge

The Maxwell-Chern-Simons theory is canonically quantized in the Coulomb gauge by using the Dirac bracket quantization procedure. The determination of the Coulomb gauge polarization vector turns out to be intrincate. A set of quantum Poincar\'e densities obeying the Dirac-Schwinger algebra, and, therefore, free of anomalies, is constructed. The peculiar analytical structure of the polarization vector is shown to be at the root for the existence of spin of the massive gauge quanta.The Coulomb gauge Feynman rules are used to compute the M\"oller scattering amplitude in the lowest order of perturbation theory. The result coincides with that obtained by using covariant Feynman rules. This proof of equivalence is, afterwards, extended to all orders of perturbation theory. The so called infrared safe photon propagator emerges as an effective propagator which allows for replacing all the terms in the interaction Hamiltonian of the Coulomb gauge by the standard field-current minimal interaction Hamiltonian.Comment: 21 pages, typeset in REVTEX, figures not include

Pattern formation during diffusion limited transformations in solids

We develop a description of diffusion limited growth in solid-solid transformations, which are strongly influenced by elastic effects. Density differences and structural transformations provoke stresses at interfaces, which affect the phase equilibrium conditions. We formulate equations for the interface kinetics similar to dendritic growth and study the growth of a stable phase from a metastable solid in both a channel geometry and in free space. We perform sharp interface calculations based on Green's function methods and phase field simulations, supplemented by analytical investigations. For pure dilatational transformations we find a single growing finger with symmetry breaking at higher driving forces, whereas for shear transformations the emergence of twin structures can be favorable. We predict the steady state shapes and propagation velocities, which can be higher than in conventional dendritic growth.Comment: submitted to Philosophical Magazin

Just Caring: Parsimonious Care in Certain Uncertain Circumstances

Uncertainty is a Hydra-headed phenomenon in health care. From a physician’s perspective there often is uncertainty (many degrees) with respect to diagnosis (and the reliability of the technologies needed to establish a diagnosis), prognosis (and the infinite variety of genetic, physiological, pharmacological, behavioral, technological, economic, and cultural factors that affect the outcome of prognostic judgments), the appropriateness of a therapeutic intervention (perhaps related to medical disagreement), the likely effectiveness of a therapeutic intervention, the risk/ benefit ratio of a therapeutic intervention (potentially complicated by co-morbid conditions), the likelihood of a patient complying with the behaviors needed to maximize the likelihood of a therapeutic outcome, the applicability of a clinical guideline to this patient in the clinic, the reliability of the evidence and research behind that guideline, and, finally, the sheer randomness of natural events at various levels in the health care encounter. That is the background for this presentation. Our question, however, is this: How should all this uncertainty be addressed in the economic/ political context of having to do health care rationing, and in the ethical context of having to do that rationing justly? Today there is an increasing emphasis on the obligation of physicians to provide parsimonious care, i.e., the prudent and cost-effective use of health care resources in caring for individual patients. To focus discussion I offer several common examples, such as $100,000 precision cancer drugs,$40,000 implantable cardiac defibrillators, PCSK9s for lowering “bad” cholesterol, access to ICU beds---- all of which represent uncertain benefit at very great cost. DRGs as a hospital payment mechanism are part of the same problem since they can motivate “premature” discharge of a patient, thereby putting them at uncertain risk for an otherwise avoidable bad health outcome. If physicians cooperate with the intent of DRGs (or other care protocols intended to promote parsimonious care), are they treating their patients unjustly? Must physicians be virtually certain that no harm will come to their patients in order to be just and justified in carrying out parsimonious protocols? “No” is the response I will defend. If a patient does not have a just claim to some health care resource, then the harm that “might” befall them as a result of that denial is properly regarded as being unfortunate but not unjust. Access to health care resources is about access to a limited common good. This is what makes such access a matter of justice rather than a matter of informed consent wherein a patient weighs from their point of view the risks and benefits (and related uncertainty) they are willing to trade off. Matters of justice require social decisions. Patients do not have a presumptive just claim to a $100,000 cancer drug if there is only a small chance that drug would yield an extra six months of life. What level of certainty would generate such a just claim? There is no objectively correct answer to that question. It needs to be resolved, I will argue, through a process of rational democratic deliberation, the results of which will be just and legitimate for all in the relevant clinical circumstances

Last Chance Therapies: Can a Just and Caring Society Do Health Care Rationing When Life Itself Is at Stake?

What does it mean to be a just and caring society (or a just and caring hospital or managed care plan) when we have only limited resources to meet virtually unlimited health care needs, and the need before us now is a person faced with death in the near future unless she or he has access to a very expensive medical intervention that offers only a relatively small chance of a relatively small gain in life expectancy? Such medical interventions are what Norman Daniels and James Sabin refer to as last chance therapies because patients who need them have no other medical options to forestall death in the foreseeable future. It is difficult to imagine a more psychologically and morally burdensome decision than whether to offer a last chance therapy. This Article attempts to determine how such last chance therapy rationing decisions should be made within the broad structure of the U.S. health care system-a very fragmented, public-private system for financing health care that is dominated by a variety of managed care options intended to control h~alth care costs more effectively than the indemnity insurance system. The focus of this Article can be interpreted in two ways: First, what moral norms should be used in making these last chance rationing decisions? Given all of the health care needs that exist in our society, and given limited resources to meet those needs (limits ultimately determined by taxpayers or members of a managed care plan), what priority should access to various last chance therapies have relative to all other health needs that make presumptively just claims on health resources? Second, what should be the political-philosophical framework of managed care plans responsible for making these last chance rationing decisions? That is, would we be more likely to get morally defensible last chance rationing decisions if the political philosophy that shaped the functioning of our managed care plan were libertarian, communitarian (Ezekiel Emanuel\u27s vision), or liberal (in the Rawlsian sense)