Establishing field trials to promote smallholder forestry in Leyte, The Philippines

The quality of planting material is one of the key factors that determine the success of tree farming and reforestation activities. In the Philippines, low quality seedlings are commonly used in smallholder plantings for reasons such as the limited supply of high quality seedlings and smallholders’ lack of awareness of the benefits of using high quality planting stock. The ACIAR-funded seedling enhancement project has been carrying out training and extension activities to enhance the knowledge of tree farmers about the importance of high quality planting material and improve the capacity of nursery operators in the production of high quality seedlings. Various field trials were established to gain new knowledge on tree farming and to demonstrate to smallholders the result of adopting the best management practices

Initial gas exchange results from field trials

Gas exchange measurements were undertaken at field trials to investigate the impact of thinning of 12 year old gmelina plantations located at Bato. Amax for leaves at the thinned site were significantly higher (pnarra>mahogany>mayapis. This pattern is also reflected in the average height of each species but not in the pattern for average biomass (number of leaves) and dbh which followed the pattern of falcata>mahogany>narra>mayapis. The reversal of mahogany and narra suggests a different pattern of resource allocation. Narra has high rates of Amax with a smaller number of leaves compared with mahogany which has a lower rate of Amax but a much greater number of leaves and total leaf biomass. There was a substantial difference between the light curves for 11 month old gmelina trees in the three experiment plots with a 3 m x 3 m spacing compared with gmelina trees in the one experimental plot with a 4 m x 4 m spacing (Figure 6). The preliminary interpretation of these results is that at even a very early age, resources are becoming limiting for photosynthesis at a 3 m x 3 m spacing. This unexpected finding will be investigated further with a variable spacing trial

A Review of Low-end, Middle-end and High-end IoT Devices

Internet of Things (IoT) devices play a crucial role in the overall development of IoT in providing countless applications in various areas. Due to the increasing interest and rapid technological growth of sensor technology, which have certainly revolutionized the way we live today, a need to provide a detailed analysis of the embedded platforms and boards is consequential. This paper presents a comprehensive survey of the recent and most-widely used commercial and research embedded systems and boards in different classification emphasizing their key attributes including processing and memory capabilities, security features, connectivity and communication interfaces, size, cost and appearance, operating system (OS) support, power specifications and battery life and listing some interesting projects for each device. Through this exploration and discussion, readers can have an overall understanding on this area and foster more subsequent studies

A submillimeter search for pre- and proto-brown dwarfs in Chamaeleon II

Context. Chamaeleon II molecular cloud is an active star forming region that offers an excellent opportunity for studying the formation of brown dwarfs in the southern hemisphere. Aims. Our aims are to identify a population of pre- and proto- brown dwarfs (5 sigma mass limit threshold of ~0.015 Msun) and provide information on the formation mechanisms of substellar objects. Methods. We performed high sensitivity observations at 870 microns using the LABOCA bolometer at the APEX telescope towards an active star forming region in Chamaeleon II. The data are complemented with an extensive multiwavelength catalogue of sources from the optical to the far-infrared to study the nature of the LABOCA detections. Results. We detect fifteen cores at 870 microns, and eleven of them show masses in the substellar regime. The most intense objects in the surveyed field correspond to the submillimeter counterparts of the well known young stellar objects DK Cha and IRAS 12500-7658. We identify a possible proto-brown dwarf candidate (ChaII-APEX-L) with IRAC emission at 3.6 and 4.5 microns. Conclusions. Our analysis indicates that most of the spatially resolved cores are transient, and that the point-like starless cores in the sub-stellar regime (with masses between 0.016 Msun and 0.066 Msun) could be pre-brown dwarfs cores gravitationally unstable if they have radii smaller than 220 AU to 907 AU (1.2" to 5" at 178 pc) respectively for different masses. ALMA observations will be the key to reveal the energetic state of these pre-brown dwarfs candidates.Comment: 11 pages, 6 figure

The Influence of Land and Tree Tenure on Participation of Smallholder and Community Forestry in the Philippines

Key impediments to forestry development have been identified as part of a research program on smallholder and community forestry currently being conducted on Leyte Island, the Philippines, funded by the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR). A number of studies conducted as part of that research program have identified land and tree tenure issues as being a key impediment to the expansions of smallholder and community forestry. This paper examines the impacts of uncertainty of land and tree tenure on woodlot establishment, based on the results of three separate studies. A study of household needs and attitudes in relation to forestry development identified a number of policy issues associated with land and tree tenure as needing to be addressed. A second study investigated why microfinancing of woodlots was not an option for many smallholders. That study revealed that landholders are unwilling to commit resources to forestry because they do not have land titling and hence regard their land tenure as insecure. Similarly, banks appear unwilling to lend to smallholders for investment in forestry, being influenced by lack of collateral associated with insecure land tenure. A third study of tree nursery practices revealed that land ownership appears to play an important role in the sustainability of nurseries that are raising seedlings for sale. In addition, nursery owners with secure land tenure were more likely to attend training sessions

A search for pre- and proto-brown dwarfs in the dark cloud Barnard 30 with ALMA

In this work we present ALMA continuum observations at 880 $\mu$m of 30 sub-mm cores previously identified with APEX/LABOCA at 870$\mu$m in the Barnard 30 cloud. The main goal is to characterize the youngest and lowest mass population in the cloud. As a result, we report the detection of five (out of 30) spatially unresolved sources with ALMA, with estimated masses between 0.9 and 67 M$_{\rm Jup}$. From these five sources, only two show gas emission. The analysis of multi-wavelength photometry from these two objects, namely B30-LB14 and B30-LB19, is consistent with one Class II- and one Class I low-mass stellar object, respectively. The gas emission is consistent with a rotating disk in the case of B30-LB14, and with an oblate rotating envelope with infall signatures in the case of LB19. The remaining three ALMA detections do not have infrared counterparts and can be classified as either deeply embedded objects or as starless cores if B30 members. In the former case, two of them (LB08 and LB31) show internal luminosity upper limits consistent with Very Low Luminosity objects, while we do not have enough information for LB10. In the starless core scenario, and taking into account the estimated masses from ALMA and the APEX/LABOCA cores, we estimate final masses for the central objects in the substellar domain, so they could be classified as pre-BD core candidates.Comment: Published in A&

First detection of thermal radio jets in a sample of proto-brown dwarf candidates

We observed with the JVLA at 3.6 and 1.3 cm a sample of 11 proto-brown dwarf candidates in Taurus in a search for thermal radio jets driven by the most embedded brown dwarfs. We detected for the first time four thermal radio jets in proto-brown dwarf candidates. We compiled data from UKIDSS, 2MASS, Spitzer, WISE and Herschel to build the Spectral Energy Distribution (SED) of the objects in our sample, which are similar to typical Class~I SEDs of Young Stellar Objects (YSOs). The four proto-brown dwarf candidates driving thermal radio jets also roughly follow the well-known trend of centimeter luminosity against bolometric luminosity determined for YSOs, assuming they belong to Taurus, although they present some excess of radio emission compared to the known relation for YSOs. Nonetheless, we are able to reproduce the flux densities of the radio jets modeling the centimeter emission of the thermal radio jets using the same type of models applied to YSOs, but with corresponding smaller stellar wind velocities and mass-loss rates, and exploring different possible geometries of the wind or outflow from the star. Moreover, we also find that the modeled mass outflow rates for the bolometric luminosities of our objects agree reasonably well with the trends found between the mass outflow rates and bolometric luminosities of YSOs, which indicates that, despite the "excess" centimeter emission, the intrinsic properties of proto-brown dwarfs are consistent with a continuation of those of very low mass stars to a lower mass range. Overall, our study favors the formation of brown dwarfs as a scaled-down version of low-mass stars.Comment: 18 pages, 8 figures, 14 tables, accepted by the Astrophysical Journa

A survey for water maser emission towards planetary nebulae. New detection in IRAS 17347-3139

We report on a water maser survey towards a sample of 27 planetary nebulae (PNe) using the Robledo de Chavela and Medicina single-dish antennas, as well as the Very Large Array (VLA). Two detections have been obtained: the already known water maser emission in K 3-35, and a new cluster of masers in IRAS 17347-3139. This low rate of detections is compatible with the short life-time of water molecules in PNe (~100 yr). The water maser cluster at IRAS 17347-3139 are distributed on a ellipse of size ~ 0.2" x 0.1", spatially associated with compact 1.3 cm continuum emission (simultaneously observed with the VLA). From archive VLA continuum data at 4.9, 8.4, and 14.9 GHz, a spectral index alpha = 0.76 +- 0.03 is derived for this radio source, which is consistent with either a partially optically thick ionized region or with an ionized wind. However, the latter scenario can be ruled out on mass-loss considerations, thus indicating that this source is probably a young PN. The spatial distribution and the radial velocities of the water masers are suggestive of a rotating and expanding maser ring, tracing the innermost regions of a torus formed at the end of the AGB phase. Given that the 1.3 cm continuum emission peak is located near one of the tips of the major axis of the ellipse of masers, we speculate on a possible binary nature of IRAS 17347-3139, where the radio continuum emission could belong to one of the components and the water masers would be associated with a companion.Comment: Accepted by The Astrophysical Journal. 25 pages, 6 figure

Debates sobre procedimientos de deteccion de conductas sospechosas en AVSEC

Las tareas cotidianas realizadas por los agentes de seguridad aeroportuaria incluyen procedimientos informales o semi-formales basados en la experiencia adquirida, los cuales complementan a los mecanismos formales utilizados en los puntos de inspección y registro previos al embarque en el Aeropuerto Internacional de Ezeiza. Sin embargo, tales procedimientos que comprenden ciertas técnicas de detección de comportamientos sospechosos, no han sido examinados sistemáticamente, ni documentados, e incluso escasas veces han sido sometidos a discusión en nuestro país. Con el objeto de comprender en profundidad la manera en que se aplican las medidas de seguridad a nivel local, de analizar las ventajas y desventajas de los procedimientos que actualmente se llevan a cabo en los aeropuertos, y de generar propuestas para optimizar la labor de los responsables de la seguridad aeroportuaria argentina, el trabajo expuesto en este congreso reúne las discusiones actuales en torno a la problemática de las metodologías empleadas para identificar sospechosos y consecuentemente someterlos a controles adicionales, y esboza propuestas de análisis de la misma en el contexto argentino.Facultad de Ingenierí

Debates sobre procedimientos de deteccion de conductas sospechosas en AVSEC

Las tareas cotidianas realizadas por los agentes de seguridad aeroportuaria incluyen procedimientos informales o semi-formales basados en la experiencia adquirida, los cuales complementan a los mecanismos formales utilizados en los puntos de inspección y registro previos al embarque en el Aeropuerto Internacional de Ezeiza. Sin embargo, tales procedimientos que comprenden ciertas técnicas de detección de comportamientos sospechosos, no han sido examinados sistemáticamente, ni documentados, e incluso escasas veces han sido sometidos a discusión en nuestro país. Con el objeto de comprender en profundidad la manera en que se aplican las medidas de seguridad a nivel local, de analizar las ventajas y desventajas de los procedimientos que actualmente se llevan a cabo en los aeropuertos, y de generar propuestas para optimizar la labor de los responsables de la seguridad aeroportuaria argentina, el trabajo expuesto en este congreso reúne las discusiones actuales en torno a la problemática de las metodologías empleadas para identificar sospechosos y consecuentemente someterlos a controles adicionales, y esboza propuestas de análisis de la misma en el contexto argentino.Facultad de Ingenierí