Field-guided proton acceleration at reconnecting X-points in flares

An explicitly energy-conserving full orbit code CUEBIT, developed originally to describe energetic particle effects in laboratory fusion experiments, has been applied to the problem of proton acceleration in solar flares. The model fields are obtained from solutions of the linearised MHD equations for reconnecting modes at an X-type neutral point, with the additional ingredient of a longitudinal magnetic field component. To accelerate protons to the highest observed energies on flare timescales, it is necessary to invoke anomalous resistivity in the MHD solution. It is shown that the addition of a longitudinal field component greatly increases the efficiency of ion acceleration, essentially because it greatly reduces the magnitude of drift motions away from the vicinity of the X-point, where the accelerating component of the electric field is largest. Using plasma parameters consistent with flare observations, we obtain proton distributions extending up to gamma-ray-emitting energies (>1MeV). In some cases the energy distributions exhibit a bump-on-tail in the MeV range. In general, the shape of the distribution is sensitive to the model parameters.Comment: 14 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in Solar Physic

Farm Co-ops: How Special a Status?

How far may farm co-ops go to gain more market power? Are they, as some believe, totally exempt from antitrust prosecution? Apparently not, and court decisions are beginning to outline ~he boundaries for co-op action

Geometric approach to Fletcher's ideal penalty function

Original article can be found at: www.springerlink.com Copyright Springer. [Originally produced as UH Technical Report 280, 1993]In this note, we derive a geometric formulation of an ideal penalty function for equality constrained problems. This differentiable penalty function requires no parameter estimation or adjustment, has numerical conditioning similar to that of the target function from which it is constructed, and also has the desirable property that the strict second-order constrained minima of the target function are precisely those strict second-order unconstrained minima of the penalty function which satisfy the constraints. Such a penalty function can be used to establish termination properties for algorithms which avoid ill-conditioned steps. Numerical values for the penalty function and its derivatives can be calculated efficiently using automatic differentiation techniques.Peer reviewe

Coordinated egg production and marketing in the north central states V. Least-cost egg marketing organization under alternative production patterns

Important changes are taking place in the mid-western egg industry. Changes in Iowa are broadly representative of the transformations taking place in this industry throughout the region. One of the most significant changes has been the decline in the number of farms producing eggs. In 1940, 198,000 Iowa farms -or 93 percent of all farms-reported chickens on hand. In 1950, the number was 174,000, or 86 percent. By 1959, there had been a further decline to 68 percent. Along with the changing number of farms producing eggs, there has been a change in the sizes of flocks on farms. In Iowa, the proportion of very small flocks has remained nearly constant. In 1940 and 1950, roughly 13 percent of all Iowa flocks had fewer than 50 hens. This rose to about 15 percent in 1959. A sharp decline in medium-sized flocks of 50 to 400 hens occurred in the same period, from 86 percent in 1940 to 71 percent in 1959. Numbers of flocks larger than 400 hens have shown substantial increases, as shown in table 1 (1, 8, 14). Small flocks (less than 50 hens) are of little commercial importance. They are maintained mainly to supply the farm household with eggs for consumption. Farm flocks of 50 to 400 hens are most numerous; they have served as a means of acquiring a steady flow of cash for the household and an outlet for family labor on the family farm. For our study, flocks of this size take on great importance; they are the main component of the existing production pattern. Flocks larger than 400 hens are increasing rapidly and will probably continue to increase because of economies of scale in egg production and possible economies in marketing operations. This study emphasizes these larger flocks to ascertain their relationship to assembly and processing costs

Theory of phonon-drag thermopower of extrinsic semiconducting single-wall carbon nanotubes and comparison with previous experimental data

A theoretical model for the calculation of the phonon-drag thermopower, $S^{g}$, in degenerately doped semiconducting single-wall carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) is proposed. Detailed calculations of $S^{g}$ are performed as a function of temperature, tube radius and position of the Fermi level. We derive a simple analytical expression for $S^{g}$ that can be utilized to determine the free carrier density in doped nanotubes. At low temperatures $S^{g}$ shows an activated behavior characteristic of the one-dimensional (1D) character of carriers. Screening effects are taken into account and it is found that they dramatically reduce the magnitude of $S^{g}$. Our results are compared with previous published experimental data in bulk p-doped SWCNT materials. Excellent agreement is obtained in the temperature range 10-200 K for a consistent set of parameters. This is a striking result in view of the complexity of these systems.Comment: 21 pages, 6 figures. This version has been accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.

Evaluation of the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Grants in English Further Education

The Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Grants, managed by the Skills Funding Agency (the Agency) and the Learning and Skills Improvement Service (LSIS) aimed to support innovative and sustainable projects which developed the capacity of the sector to meet the public sector Equality Duty. This report evaluates three years of the EDI Grants, 2010-2011 (EDI-2), 2011-2012 (EDI-3) and 2012-2013 (EDI-4). The Grants were open to organisations in England whose primary function was to provide further education and training, and well as to National Careers Service prime providers

Output Management for Agriculture?

Could agriculture learn to manage its output from some other industries? Some industries have experience in managing excess capacity. Agriculture might want to look at the alternative methods and their consequences

Escherichia coli contamination and health aspects of soil and tomatoes (Solanum lycopersicum L.) subsurface drip irrigated with on-site treated domestic wastewater.

Faecal contamination of soil and tomatoes irrigated by sprinkler as well as surface and subsurface drip irrigation with treated domestic wastewater were compared in 2007 and 2008 at experimental sites in Crete and Italy. Wastewater was treated by Membrane Bio Reactor (MBR) technology, gravel filtration or UV-treatment before used for irrigation. Irrigation water, soil and tomato samples were collected during two cropping seasons and enumerated for the faecal indicator bacterium Escherichia coli and helminth eggs. The study found elevated levels of E. coli in irrigation water (mean: Italy 1753 cell forming unit (cfu) per 100 ml and Crete 488 cfu per 100 ml) and low concentrations of E. coli in soil (mean: Italy 95 cfu g(-1) and Crete 33 cfu g(-1)). Only two out of 84 tomato samples in Crete contained E. coli (mean: 2700 cfu g(-1)) while tomatoes from Italy were free of E. coli. No helminth eggs were found in the irrigation water or on the tomatoes from Crete. Two tomato samples out of 36 from Italy were contaminated by helminth eggs (mean: 0.18 eggs g(-1)) and had been irrigated with treated wastewater and tap water, respectively. Pulsed Field Gel Electrophoresis DNA fingerprints of E. coli collected during 2008 showed no identical pattern between water and soil isolates which indicates contribution from other environmental sources with E. coli, e.g. wildlife. A quantitative microbial risk assessment (QMRA) model with Monte Carlo simulations adopted by the World Health Organization (WHO) found the use of tap water and treated wastewater to be associated with risks that exceed permissible limits as proposed by the WHO (1.0 × 10(-3) disease risk per person per year) for the accidental ingestion of irrigated soil by farmers (Crete: 0.67 pppy and Italy: 1.0 pppy). The QMRA found that the consumption of tomatoes in Italy was deemed to be safe while permissible limits were exceeded in Crete (1.0 pppy). Overall the quality of tomatoes was safe for human consumption since the disease risk found on Crete was based on only two contaminated tomato samples. It is a fundamental limitation of the WHO QMRA model that it is not based on actual pathogen numbers, but rather on numbers of E. coli converted to estimated pathogen numbers, since it is widely accepted that there is poor correlation between E. coli and viral and parasite pathogens. Our findings also stress the importance of the external environment, typically wildlife, as sources of faecal contamination

Neptune at Summer Solstice: Zonal Mean Temperatures from Ground-Based Observations 2003-2007

Imaging and spectroscopy of Neptune's thermal infrared emission is used to assess seasonal changes in Neptune's zonal mean temperatures between Voyager-2 observations (1989, heliocentric longitude Ls=236) and southern summer solstice (2005, Ls=270). Our aim was to analyse imaging and spectroscopy from multiple different sources using a single self-consistent radiative-transfer model to assess the magnitude of seasonal variability. Globally-averaged stratospheric temperatures measured from methane emission tend towards a quasi-isothermal structure (158-164 K) above the 0.1-mbar level, and are found to be consistent with spacecraft observations of AKARI. This remarkable consistency, despite very different observing conditions, suggests that stratospheric temporal variability, if present, is $\pm$5 K at 1 mbar and $\pm$3 K at 0.1 mbar during this solstice period. Conversely, ethane emission is highly variable, with abundance determinations varying by more than a factor of two. The retrieved C2H6 abundances are extremely sensitive to the details of the T(p) derivation. Stratospheric temperatures and ethane are found to be latitudinally uniform away from the south pole (assuming a latitudinally-uniform distribution of stratospheric methane). At low and midlatitudes, comparisons of synthetic Voyager-era images with solstice-era observations suggest that tropospheric zonal temperatures are unchanged since the Voyager 2 encounter, with cool mid-latitudes and a warm equator and pole. A re-analysis of Voyager/IRIS 25-50 {\mu}m mapping of tropospheric temperatures and para-hydrogen disequilibrium suggests a symmetric meridional circulation with cold air rising at mid-latitudes (sub-equilibrium para-H2 conditions) and warm air sinking at the equator and poles (super-equilibrium para-H2 conditions). The most significant atmospheric changes are associated with the polar vortex (absent in 1989).Comment: 35 pages, 19 figures. Accepted for publication in Icaru

Bostonia. Volume 14

Founded in 1900, Bostonia magazine is Boston University's main alumni publication, which covers alumni and student life, as well as university activities, events, and programs