2,320 research outputs found
Global agenda for livestock research: Proceedings of a conference on development of livestock research priorities in Asia
This proceedings presents the results and conclusions of ILRI's role in livestock research and development in Asia. It provides a detailed testimony of the success of the consultation, and especially about ILRI's commitment to form integrated programmes for livestock and agricultural research with national partners and others. Topics of discussion include ILRI's mission, vision, programme and collaboration; animal genetic resources in Asia, ILRI's Animal Health Improvement Programme, Sustainable Production Systems Programme; ruminant feed resources research, and partnerships with NARS for technology transfer
Biochar: The Black Diamond for Soil Sustainability, Contamination Control and Agricultural Production
Production of biochars from agricultural wastes reduces significantly the volume and weight of the wastes, and hence, it can be considered as a promising means for managing the agricultural wastes. Biochar has received great interest during the last few years, due to its beneficial role to mitigate CO2 emission through enhancing the long-term carbon sequestration. The effects of biochar on soil properties vary widely, depending on the characteristics of soil and the biochar. Most types of biochars are of alkaline nature and of high C content. Addition of biochar to the soil can improve the cation exchange capacity enrich soil with the nutrients and enhance the microbial growth, and improve some soil physical properties such as water retention and aggregation. For contamination control, biochars have proven to be a suitable tool for controlling the contaminants in the environment. The high surface area, porous structure, alkaline nature, and the presence of functional groups characterized the biochar as alternative option for the remediation of heavy metal contaminated waters and soils. However, there is a lack of knowledge regarding the effects of biochar in the presence of mineral and/or organic fertilizers on the plant growth and nutrient transformation in soils. In addition, biochar is successfully used for treating the acid soils; therefore, future studies are needed to investigate the neutralization of alkaline performance of biochar to be used safely in alkaline soils
An image reconstruction algorithm based on the semiparametric model for electrical capacitance tomography
AbstractElectrical capacitance tomography (ECT) is considered as a promising tomography technology, and exactly reconstructing the original objects is highly desirable in real applications. In this paper, a generalized image reconstruction model that simultaneously considers the inaccurate property in the measured capacitance data and the linearization approximation error is presented. A generalized objective function, which has been developed using a combinational M-estimation and an extended stabilizing item, is proposed. The objective function unifies six estimation methods into a concise formula, where different estimation methods can be easily obtained by selecting different parameters. The homotopy method that integrates the beneficial advantages of the alternant iteration scheme is employed to solve the proposed objective function. Numerical simulations are implemented to evaluate the numerical performances and effectiveness of the proposed algorithm, and the numerical results reveal that the proposed algorithm is efficient and overcomes the numerical instability in the process of ECT image reconstruction. For the reconstructed objects in this paper, a dramatic improvement in accuracy and spatial resolution can be achieved, which indicates that the proposed algorithm is a promising candidate for solving ECT inverse problems
Efficacy of different protein descriptors in predicting protein functional families
10.1186/1471-2105-8-300BMC Bioinformatics8-BBMI
IDRC's support to livestock research in developing countries
Meeting: USAID World Bank Donor Meeting on Livestock Development, 6-9 Dec. 1992, Paris, F
Suppression of Superconducting Critical Current Density by Small Flux Jumps in Thin Films
By doing magnetization measurements during magnetic field sweeps on thin
films of the new superconductor , it is found that in a low temperature
and low field region small flux jumps are taking place. This effect strongly
suppresses the central magnetization peak leading to reduced nominal
superconducting critical current density at low temperatures. A borderline for
this effect to occur is determined on the field-temperature (H-T) phase
diagram. It is suggested that the small size of the flux jumps in films is due
to the higher density of small defects and the relatively easy thermal
diffusion in thin films in comparison with bulk samples.Comment: 7 figures Phys. Rev. B accepted scheduled issue: 01 Feb 200
Stopping and Isospin Equilibration in Heavy Ion Collisions
We investigate the density behaviour of the symmetry energy with respect to
isospin equilibration in the combined systems at relativistic
energies of 0.4 and . The study is performed within a relativistic
framework and the contribution of the iso-vector, scalar field to the
symmetry energy and the isospin dynamics is particularly explored. We find that
the isospin mixing depends on the symmetry energy and a stiff behaviour leads
to more transparency. The results are also nicely sensitive to the "fine
structure" of the symmetry energy, i.e. to the covariant properties of the
isovector meson fields. The isospin tracing appears much less dependent on the
in-medium neutron-proton cross-sections () and this makes such
observable very peculiar for the study of the isovector part of the nuclear
equation of state. Within such a framework, comparisons with experiments
support the introduction of the meson in the description of the
iso-vector equation of state.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figures. Accepted for publication in Phys.Lett.
Isospin Dynamics in Peripheral Heavy Ion Collisions at Fermi Energies
We present a detailed study of isospin dynamics in peripheral collisions at
Fermi energies. We consider symmetric and mixed collisions of (124,112)Sn
isotopes at 35 and 50 AMeV to study the isospin transport between the different
reaction components (residues, gas and possibly intermediate mass fragments)
and, in particular, the charge equilibration in the mixed system. We evaluate
the effects of drift terms due to asymmetry and density gradients, which are
directly related to the poorly known value and slope of the symmetry energy
below saturation density. We verify the importance of an isoscalar momentum
dependence of the mean field, which is found to influence the isospin transport
since it changes the reaction times. We finally suggest two observables
particularly sensitive to the isovector part of the nuclear equation-of-state:
the correlation between isospin equilibration and kinetic energy loss for
binary events, and the isospin content of the produced mid-rapidity fragments
for neck fragmentation events.Comment: 34 pages, 15 figures, Nucl.Phys. A, in pres
Analysis of logistics distribution path optimization planning based on traffic network data
With the development of economy, the distribution problem of logistics becomes more and more complex. Based on the traffic network data, this study analyzed the vehicle routing problem (VRP), designed a dynamic vehicle routing problem with time window (DVRPTW) model, and solved it with genetic algorithm (GA). In order to improve the performance of the algorithm, the genetic operation was improved, and the output solution was further optimized by hill climbing algorithm. The analysis of example showed that the improved GA algorithm had better performance in path optimization planning, the total cost of planning results was 31.44 % less than that of GA algorithm, and the total cost of planning results increased by 11.48 % considering the traffic network data. The experimental results show that the improved GA algorithm has good performance and can significantly reduce the cost of distribution and that research on VRP based on the traffic network data is more in line with the actual situation of logistics distribution, which is conducive to the further application of the improved GA algorithm in VRP
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