1,126 research outputs found
Rural-urban food, nutrient and virtual water flows in selected West African cities
Food consumption / Water quality / Nutrients / Urban agricuture / Food production
Informal irrigation in urban West Africa: An overview
Irrigated farming / Urban agriculture / Suburban agriculture / Farm size / Farming systems / Health hazards / Water pollution / Farm income
Bose-Einstein condensates in accelerated double-periodic optical lattices: Coupling and Crossing of resonances
We study the properties of coupled linear and nonlinear resonances. The
fundamental phenomena and the level crossing scenarios are introduced for a
nonlinear two-level system with one decaying state, describing the dynamics of
a Bose-Einstein condensate in a mean-field approximation (Gross-Pitaevskii or
nonlinear Schroedinger equation). An important application of the discussed
concepts is the dynamics of a condensate in tilted optical lattices. In
particular the properties of resonance eigenstates in double-periodic lattices
are discussed, in the linear case as well as within mean-field theory. The
decay is strongly altered, if an additional period-doubled lattice is
introduced. Our analytic study is supported by numerical computations of
nonlinear resonance states, and future applications of our findings for
experiments with ultracold atoms are discussed.Comment: 12 pages, 17 figure
Optical realization of the two-site Bose-Hubbard model in waveguide lattices
A classical realization of the two-site Bose-Hubbard Hamiltonian, based on
light transport in engineered optical waveguide lattices, is theoretically
proposed. The optical lattice enables a direct visualization of the
Bose-Hubbard dynamics in Fock space.Comment: to be published, J Phys. B (Fast Track Communication
Adaptive indexing in modern database kernels
Physical design represents one of the hardest problems for database management systems. Without proper tuning, systems cannot achieve good performance. Offline indexing creates indexes a priori assuming good workload knowledge and idle time. More recently, online indexing monitors the workload trends and creates or drops indexes online. Adaptive indexing takes another step towards completely automating the tuning process of a database system, by enabling incremental and partial online indexing. The main idea is that physical design changes continuously, adaptively, partially, incrementally and on demand while processing queries as part of the execution operators. As such it brings a plethora of opportunities for rethinking and improving every single corner of database system design.
We will analyze the indexing space between offline, online and adaptive indexing through several state of the art indexing techniques, e. g., what-if analysis and soft indexes. We will discuss in detail adaptive indexing techniques such as database cracking, adaptive merging, sideways cracking and various hybrids that try to balance the online tuning overhead with the convergence speed to optimal performance. In addition, we will discuss how various aspects of modern techniques for database architectures, such as vectorization, bulk processing, column-store execution and storage affect adaptive indexing. Finally, we will discuss several open research topics towards fully automomous database kernels
Event Stream Processing with Multiple Threads
Current runtime verification tools seldom make use of multi-threading to
speed up the evaluation of a property on a large event trace. In this paper, we
present an extension to the BeepBeep 3 event stream engine that allows the use
of multiple threads during the evaluation of a query. Various parallelization
strategies are presented and described on simple examples. The implementation
of these strategies is then evaluated empirically on a sample of problems.
Compared to the previous, single-threaded version of the BeepBeep engine, the
allocation of just a few threads to specific portions of a query provides
dramatic improvement in terms of running time
Semiclassical Husimi distributions of Schur vectors in non-Hermitian quantum systems
We construct a semiclassical phase-space density of Schur vectors in non-Hermitian quantum systems. Each Schur vector is associated to a single Planck cell. The Schur states are organised according to a classical norm landscape on phase space - a classical manifestation of the lifetimes which are characteristic of non-Hermitian systems. To demonstrate the generality of this construction we apply it to a highly non-trivial example, a PT-symmetric kicked rotor in the regimes of mixed and chaotic classical dynamics
Peach palm (Bactris gasipaes) in tropical Latin America: implications for biodiversity conservation, natural resource management and human nutrition
Peach palm (Bactris gasipaes) is a multi-purpose palm tree native to tropical Latin America, which is predominantly cultivated by smallholders in agroforestry systems. The fruits are rich in starch and contribute importantly to food security and the cash income of farmers who cultivate them. Complex value chains have emerged that link producers to consumers, but irregular product quality and market chain inequalities undermine the economic well-being of producers and retailers. Peach palm is genetically diverse, but screening for traits of commercial and nutritional interest is required to enhance the use of its genetic resources. Alliances between public organizations and private enterprises are needed to realize the potential for processing novel products from peach palm, especially in the pharmaceutical and cosmetic sectors. The diverse challenges that emerge at different stages of production, processing and marketing require participatory research that directly involves stakeholders from the beginning
CO2 treatment increases glucosinolate hydrolysis products in two Arabidopsis thaliana accessions
Brassicales include many vegetables of nutritional interest because the hydrolysis products of their phytochemicals, the glucosinolates, have health-promoting properties. So far, the impact of rising CO2 concentrations on glucosinolates and their hydrolysis is unclear. Applying a modified atmosphere, we exposed two Arabidopsis thaliana accessions that differ in their glucosinolate hydrolysis behavior, namely Hi-0 and Bur-0, to elevated CO2 concentrations. Glucosinolates and their hydrolysis products were analyzed using UHPLC-DAD-MS and GC-MS.
CO2 treatment increased indicators of primary production, such as biomass, leaf area and electron transport rate, and increased gluco-sinolate levels in Bur-0, but not Hi-0. Significantly, released glucosinolate hydrolysis product levels increased by up to 122% in Bur-0 due to increased epithionitrile formation. Likewise, in Hi-0 glucosinolate hydrolysis product levels increased after CO2 treatment by up to 67%, caused by enhanced nitrile and to some extent isothiocyanate formation. In addition, more alkenyl rather than alkyl glucosinolates were formed in Bur-0 under elevated CO2, thus changing the glucosinolate profile compositions. As CO2 treatment enhanced primary production but also overall glucosinolate hydrolysis pro-duct formation, it is conceivable to recycle excess CO2 by using it as supplement greenhouse gas to produce high-quality food
- …