Plagiochila rutilans (Hepaticae): A poorly known species from tropical America

The neotropical liverwort, Plagiochila rutilans Lindenb., is conspecific with P. remotifolia Hampe and Gottsche, P. farlowii Steph., P. harrisana Steph, and P. organensis Herzog. Plagiochila standleyi Carl is reduced to a variety of P. rutilans. Plagiochila gymnocalycina (Lehm. and Lindenb.) Mont. and P. portoricensis Hampe and Gottsche (= P. simplex (Sw.) Lindenb.) are excluded from the synonymy of P. rutilans. Plagiochila rutilans var. liebmanniana Gottsche is a synonym of P. crispabilis Lindenb.; P. rutilans var. laxa Lindenb. and var. angustifolia Herzog are conspecific with P. gymnocalycina. Sporophytes of P. rutilans are described for the first time. Fresh material of P. rutilans exhibits a distinct odor of peppermint caused by the presence of several menthane monoterpenoids, principally pulegone. NMR (nuclear magnetic resonance) fingerprints and GC-MS data indicate that the lipophilic secondary metabolite profiles are distinct for the two varieties accepted in this study

SURE Impact? An Empirical Investigation of Moral Hazard and Adverse Selection Behavior

The Supplemental Revenue Assistance Payments (SURE) program, enacted under the 2008 Farm Bill, is intended to provide indemnity payments to producers whose crop losses exceed 50% of their historical average yields. However, indemnification does not require that the farm is located in a region designated a disaster relief area -- a provision that can create significant moral hazard incentives. This study is the first to perform an empirical analysis of possible moral hazard behavior in corn, soybean, and wheat markets in response to the SURE program. Results suggest that an increase in crop insurance demand after the enactment of SURE may be due to the program's moral hazard incentives.Agricultural and Food Policy, Farm Management,

Further development of a charged liquid colloid source for electrostatic propulsion Final report

Performance characteristics of charged liquid droplet electrostatic propulsion syste

Interface enhancement of Gilbert damping from first-principles

The enhancement of Gilbert damping observed for Ni80Fe20 (Py) films in contact with the non-magnetic metals Cu, Pd, Ta and Pt, is quantitatively reproduced using first-principles scattering theory. The "spin-pumping" theory that qualitatively explains its dependence on the Py thickness is generalized to include a number of factors known to be important for spin transport through interfaces. Determining the parameters in this theory from first-principles shows that interface spin-flipping makes an essential contribution to the damping enhancement. Without it, a much shorter spin-flip diffusion length for Pt would be needed than the value we calculate independently

A posteriori teleportation

The article by Bouwmeester et al. on experimental quantum teleportation constitutes an important advance in the burgeoning field of quantum information. The experiment was motivated by the proposal of Bennett et al. in which an unknown quantum state is `teleported' by Alice to Bob. As illustrated in Fig. 1, in the implementation of this procedure, by Bouwmeester et al., an input quantum state is `disembodied' into quantum and classical components, as in the original protocol. However, in contrast to the original scheme, Bouwmeester et al.'s procedure necessarily destroys the state at Bob's receiving terminal, so a `teleported' state can never emerge as a freely propagating state for subsequent examination or exploitation. In fact, teleportation is achieved only as a postdiction.Comment: 1 page LaTeX including 1 figure. Scientific Correspondence about: "Experimental quantum teleportation" Nature 390, 575 (1997

Degradation of AB25 dye in liquid medium by atmospheric pressure non-thermal plasma and plasma combination with photocatalyst TiO2

In this work, degradation of the anthraquinonic dye Acid Blue 25 by non-thermal plasma at atmospheric pressure with and without photocatalyst is investigated. Titanium dioxide (TiO2) is used as a photocatalyst. The dye degradation by plasma in the presence of TiO2 is investigated as a function of TiO2 concentration, dye concentration and pH. The degradation rate is higher in acidic solutions with pH of 2 to 4.3, especially at pH 2, and decreases to 0.38 mg L-1 min(-1) with the increase of pH from 2 to 5.65. A similar effect is observed in basic media, where a higher degradation rate is found at pH = 10.3. The degradation rate increases in the presence of TiO2 compared to the discharge without photocatalysis. The results show that the degradation of the dye increases in the presence of TiO2 until the catalyst load reaches 0.5 g L-1 after which the suppression of AB25 degradation is observed. The results indicate that the tested advanced oxidation processes are very effective for the degradation of AB25 in aqueous solutions

Direct Method for Calculating Temperature-Dependent Transport Properties

We show how temperature-induced disorder can be combined in a direct way with first-principles scattering theory to study diffusive transport in real materials. Excellent (good) agreement with experiment is found for the resistivity of Cu, Pd, Pt (and Fe) when lattice (and spin) disorder are calculated from first principles. For Fe, the agreement with experiment is limited by how well the magnetization (of itinerant ferromagnets) can be calculated as a function of temperature. By introducing a simple Debye-like model of spin disorder parameterized to reproduce the experimental magnetization, the temperature dependence of the average resistivity, the anisotropic magnetoresistance and the spin polarization of a Ni$_{80}$Fe$_{20}$ alloy are calculated and found to be in good agreement with existing data. Extension of the method to complex, inhomogeneous materials as well as to the calculation of other finite-temperature physical properties within the adiabatic approximation is straightforward.Comment: Accepted as a Rapid Communication in Physical Review