Star and Planet Formation with ALMA: an Overview

Submillimeter observations with ALMA will be the essential next step in our understanding of how stars and planets form. Key projects range from detailed imaging of the collapse of pre-stellar cores and measuring the accretion rate of matter onto deeply embedded protostars, to unravelling the chemistry and dynamics of high-mass star-forming clusters and high-spatial resolution studies of protoplanetary disks down to the 1 AU scale.Comment: Invited review, 8 pages, 5 figures; to appear in the proceedings of "Science with ALMA: a New Era for Astrophysics". Astrophysics & Space Science, in pres

Adoption potential of hedgerow intercropping in maize-based cropping systems in the highlands of western Kenya: I Background and agronomic evaluation.

The biophysical performance of hedgerow intercropping for soil fertility inprovement was assessed in a farmer-participatory trial in western Kenya over three years. Farmers successfully established dense hedgerows (median 6680 trees ha−1 on plots of 790 m2, but annual yields of hedgerow prunings of Leucaena leucocephala and Calliandra calothyrsus (1–4 t ha−1), were low compared to potentials in the region (4–8 t ha−1). The hedgerows reduced slopes from 7.2 to 4.5% within alleys (p < 0.01) but had no effect on grain yield over five seasons. Little of the variation in grain yield between hedgerow plots and control plots without hedgerows (adjusted r2 = 11%) and among control plots (adjusted r2 = 29%) could be accounted for by linear regression with measured agronomic and socio-economic variables. Fully researcher-managed trials are recommended for agronomic evaluation of complex agroforestr

Non-photorefractive cw Tm-indiffused Ti:LiNbO₃ waveguide laser operating at room temperature

We report laser operation at 1.81µm and 1.85µm in a Tm3+:LiNbO3 Ti-diffused waveguide doped by thermal indiffusion at high temperature. We believe this is the first time lasing has been seen in Tm:LiNbO3 at room temperature. Continuous-wave operation was achieved at room temperature with a threshold of ~42 mW absorbed power. The output power was observed to be stable, without any sign of photorefractive damage

Thermally indiffused Tm³⁺:LiNbO₃ waveguide lasers

Rare earth doped LiNbO3 is an interesting laser host as it has nonlinear, electro-optic and acousto-optic properties. Low-loss waveguides can also be made in this material and then combined with thermal indiffusion of the laser dopant. LiNbO3 can also be periodically poled for quasi-phase matching and/or reduced photorefraction. We report the first room temperature lasing of Tm3+:LiNbO3, and the first periodically poled Ti waveguides formed by electric field poling. Lasing was observed at 1.85µm in a Ti-indiffused waveguide with rare earth doping performed by thermal indiffusion

Spectra and energy levels of the trivalent ytterbium ion doped into lithium niobate by thermal indiffusion

An x-cut LiNbO3 substrate has been doped with Yb3+ ions by thermal diffusion from an Yb metal film of thickness 7nm. Polarised absorption and fluorescence spectra of the dopant ion have been measured using Ti-diffused y-propagating channel waveguides prepared in the doped region. Yb is a diode- pumpable laser ion with characteristics which can be compared favourably with those of Nd in some respects; for example the small energy difference between pump and laser photons reduces thermal load facilitating high power operation. A waveguide laser geometry is particularly advantageous for Yb due to the quasi-3-level nature of the laser transition. The simple fabrication technique described here has been used to produce a system which may have the potential to operate as an Yb waveguide laser in an electro-optic host crystal

The Simple View of Reading Made Complex by Morphological Decoding Fluency in Bilingual Fourth-Grade Readers of English

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Wiley via the DOI in this recordThis study examined the complexity of the Simple View of Reading focusing on morphological decoding fluency in fourth-grade readers of English in Singapore. The participants were three groups of students who all learned to become bilingual and biliterate in the English language (EL) and their respective ethnic language in school but differed in the home language they used. The first group was ethnic Chinese students who used English as the dominant home language (Chinese EL1); the other two groups were ethnic Chinese and Malay students whose dominant home language was not English but Chinese (Chinese EL2) and Malay (Malay EL2), respectively. The measures included pseudo word decoding (phonemic decoding), timed decoding of derivational words (morphological decoding fluency), oral vocabulary, and passage comprehension. Path analysis showed that oral vocabulary significantly predicted reading comprehension across all three groups; yet a significant effect of morphological decoding fluency surfaced in the Chinese EL1 and Malay EL2 groups but not the Chinese EL2 group. Multi-group path analysis and commonality analysis further confirmed that morphological decoding played a larger role in the in the Chinese EL1 and Malay EL2 groups. These findings are discussed in light of the joint influence of target language experience and cross-linguistic influence on second language or bilingual reading development.Office of Education Research, National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological Universit

Value co-creation through multiple shopping channels: the interconnections with social exclusion and wellbeing

This study examines consumers’ value co-creation via several shopping channels including a traditional out-of-home shopping channel and “smart” channels where consumers use a computer, a mobile phone or social media. It focuses on the effect that value co-creation has on consumers’ shopping behaviour as well as on the perceived contribution of a shopping channel to their wellbeing, with a focus on individuals who perceive themselves as being socially excluded, particularly by mobility disability. The project was carried out in the USA using an online survey (n=1220). Social exclusion has a positive statistically significant effect on respondents’ self-connection with all channels; for many socially excluded respondents the shopping channel has an important role in their lives. Self-connection with the channel has a positive effect on value co-creation and there is a positive relationship between value co-creation and the perceived contribution of the channel on wellbeing. When consumers help other individuals in their decision making they not only create value for the retailer and for other customers but also contribute positively to their own wellbeing. Importantly, for smart shopping channels where consumers use a computer or a mobile phone, the impact of value co-creation on the perceived contribution of these channels to consumer wellbeing are stronger for shoppers with a mobility disability than for those without such a disability

On the mechanisms governing gas penetration into a tokamak plasma during a massive gas injection

A new 1D radial fluid code, IMAGINE, is used to simulate the penetration of gas into a tokamak plasma during a massive gas injection (MGI). The main result is that the gas is in general strongly braked as it reaches the plasma, due to mechanisms related to charge exchange and (to a smaller extent) recombination. As a result, only a fraction of the gas penetrates into the plasma. Also, a shock wave is created in the gas which propagates away from the plasma, braking and compressing the incoming gas. Simulation results are quantitatively consistent, at least in terms of orders of magnitude, with experimental data for a D 2 MGI into a JET Ohmic plasma. Simulations of MGI into the background plasma surrounding a runaway electron beam show that if the background electron density is too high, the gas may not penetrate, suggesting a possible explanation for the recent results of Reux et al in JET (2015 Nucl. Fusion 55 093013)

Volume I. Introduction to DUNE

The preponderance of matter over antimatter in the early universe, the dynamics of the supernovae that produced the heavy elements necessary for life, and whether protons eventually decay—these mysteries at the forefront of particle physics and astrophysics are key to understanding the early evolution of our universe, its current state, and its eventual fate. The Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) is an international world-class experiment dedicated to addressing these questions as it searches for leptonic charge-parity symmetry violation, stands ready to capture supernova neutrino bursts, and seeks to observe nucleon decay as a signature of a grand unified theory underlying the standard model. The DUNE far detector technical design report (TDR) describes the DUNE physics program and the technical designs of the single- and dual-phase DUNE liquid argon TPC far detector modules. This TDR is intended to justify the technical choices for the far detector that flow down from the high-level physics goals through requirements at all levels of the Project. Volume I contains an executive summary that introduces the DUNE science program, the far detector and the strategy for its modular designs, and the organization and management of the Project. The remainder of Volume I provides more detail on the science program that drives the choice of detector technologies and on the technologies themselves. It also introduces the designs for the DUNE near detector and the DUNE computing model, for which DUNE is planning design reports. Volume II of this TDR describes DUNE\u27s physics program in detail. Volume III describes the technical coordination required for the far detector design, construction, installation, and integration, and its organizational structure. Volume IV describes the single-phase far detector technology. A planned Volume V will describe the dual-phase technology

Search for jet extinction in the inclusive jet-pT spectrum from proton-proton collisions at s=8 TeV

Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published articles title, journal citation, and DOI.The first search at the LHC for the extinction of QCD jet production is presented, using data collected with the CMS detector corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 10.7  fb−1 of proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 8 TeV. The extinction model studied in this analysis is motivated by the search for signatures of strong gravity at the TeV scale (terascale gravity) and assumes the existence of string couplings in the strong-coupling limit. In this limit, the string model predicts the suppression of all high-transverse-momentum standard model processes, including jet production, beyond a certain energy scale. To test this prediction, the measured transverse-momentum spectrum is compared to the theoretical prediction of the standard model. No significant deficit of events is found at high transverse momentum. A 95% confidence level lower limit of 3.3 TeV is set on the extinction mass scale