Evaluating the drivers of environmental sustainability practices – mango farm managers’ perspective

Received: April 1st, 2022 ; Accepted: August 4th, 2022 ; Published: September 11th, 2022 ; Correspondence: [email protected], [email protected] study evaluated the drivers of environmental sustainability practices using mango farm managers in Thailand. The purpose was to ascertain farmers' ability to conserve natural resources and protect the ecosystem. This was necessitated to raise environmental awareness, promote sustainable human development, and increase economic growth and quality of life. The study adopted a quantitative survey design with primary data collected from mango farm managers in four provinces in Thailand. Data were collected from a total of 383 respondents. The data was analyzed using CFA and SEM techniques employing SPSS v26 and AMOS v26. The findings showed that Organizational Culture and Employee Training significantly and positively influence Environmental Sustainability Practices in managing mango as a natural resource. Organizational Culture was also found to positively mediate the effect of information system adoption. The study concluded that management and employees in mango farms should be trained about the importance of environmental sustainability and encouraged to cultivate a culture grounded in the sustainability practices of mango as a natural resource. They should be taught how advancing and adopting sustainable practices by subsistence and commercial mango farmers in Thailand can enhance sustainable development, economic growth, and regional cooperation by checking materials and methods

The Suaineadh Project : a stepping stone towards the deployment of large flexible structures in space

The Suaineadh project aims at testing the controlled deployment and stabilization of space web. The deployment system is based on a simple yet ingenious control of the centrifugal force that will pull each of the four daughters sections apart. The four daughters are attached onto the four corners of a square web, and will be released from their initial stowed configuration attached to a central hub. Enclosed in the central hub is a specifically designed spinning reaction wheel that controls the rotational speed with a closed loop control fed by measurements from an onboard inertial measurement sensor. Five other such sensors located within the web and central hub provide information on the surface curvature of the web, and progression of the deployment. Suaineadh is currently at an advanced stage of development: all the components are manufactured with the subsystems integrated and are presently awaiting full integration and testing. This paper will present the current status of the Suaineadh project and the results of the most recent set of tests. In particular, the paper will cover the overall mechanical design of the system, the electrical and sensor assemblies, the communication and power systems and the spinning wheel with its control system

Probiotic properties of Lactobacillus helveticus and Lactobacillus plantarum isolated from traditional Pakistani yoghurt

Probiotic bacteria are of utmost importance owing to their extensive utilisation in dairy products and in the prevention of various intestinal diseases. The objective of this study was to assess the probiotic properties of bacteriocin-producing isolates of Lactobacillus helveticus and Lactobacillus plantarum isolated from traditional Pakistani yoghurt. In this study, ten bacteriocin-producing isolates were selected to screen for the probiotic property. The isolates showed resistance to acidic pH (6-6.5), bile salt (0.01-1%), and 1-7% NaCl salt and showed good growth at acidic pH and antibacterial activity against ten different foodborne pathogens. Interestingly, these isolates were proved to be effective against Actinobacter baumannii but least effective against Klebsiella pneumoniae and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. A few isolates were found to be resistant to some antibiotics like vancomycim, gentamycin, erythromycin, streptomycin, and clindamycin. Our results provide strong evidence in favour of traditional Pakistani yoghurts as a potential source of bacteriocin-producing bacteria with an added benefit of the probiotic property. Specifically, LBh5 was considered a good probiotic isolate as compared to other isolates used in the study. Further extensive research should be done on isolation and characterisation of probiotic isolates from local fermented foods, and then, these isolates should be used in the development of probiotic enriched food supplements in Pakistan

Search for a W' boson decaying to a bottom quark and a top quark in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV

Results are presented from a search for a W' boson using a dataset corresponding to 5.0 inverse femtobarns of integrated luminosity collected during 2011 by the CMS experiment at the LHC in pp collisions at sqrt(s)=7 TeV. The W' boson is modeled as a heavy W boson, but different scenarios for the couplings to fermions are considered, involving both left-handed and right-handed chiral projections of the fermions, as well as an arbitrary mixture of the two. The search is performed in the decay channel W' to t b, leading to a final state signature with a single lepton (e, mu), missing transverse energy, and jets, at least one of which is tagged as a b-jet. A W' boson that couples to fermions with the same coupling constant as the W, but to the right-handed rather than left-handed chiral projections, is excluded for masses below 1.85 TeV at the 95% confidence level. For the first time using LHC data, constraints on the W' gauge coupling for a set of left- and right-handed coupling combinations have been placed. These results represent a significant improvement over previously published limits.Comment: Submitted to Physics Letters B. Replaced with version publishe

Search for the standard model Higgs boson decaying into two photons in pp collisions at sqrt(s)=7 TeV

A search for a Higgs boson decaying into two photons is described. The analysis is performed using a dataset recorded by the CMS experiment at the LHC from pp collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 7 TeV, which corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 4.8 inverse femtobarns. Limits are set on the cross section of the standard model Higgs boson decaying to two photons. The expected exclusion limit at 95% confidence level is between 1.4 and 2.4 times the standard model cross section in the mass range between 110 and 150 GeV. The analysis of the data excludes, at 95% confidence level, the standard model Higgs boson decaying into two photons in the mass range 128 to 132 GeV. The largest excess of events above the expected standard model background is observed for a Higgs boson mass hypothesis of 124 GeV with a local significance of 3.1 sigma. The global significance of observing an excess with a local significance greater than 3.1 sigma anywhere in the search range 110-150 GeV is estimated to be 1.8 sigma. More data are required to ascertain the origin of this excess.Comment: Submitted to Physics Letters

Measurement of the Lambda(b) cross section and the anti-Lambda(b) to Lambda(b) ratio with Lambda(b) to J/Psi Lambda decays in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV

The Lambda(b) differential production cross section and the cross section ratio anti-Lambda(b)/Lambda(b) are measured as functions of transverse momentum pt(Lambda(b)) and rapidity abs(y(Lambda(b))) in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV using data collected by the CMS experiment at the LHC. The measurements are based on Lambda(b) decays reconstructed in the exclusive final state J/Psi Lambda, with the subsequent decays J/Psi to an opposite-sign muon pair and Lambda to proton pion, using a data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 1.9 inverse femtobarns. The product of the cross section times the branching ratio for Lambda(b) to J/Psi Lambda versus pt(Lambda(b)) falls faster than that of b mesons. The measured value of the cross section times the branching ratio for pt(Lambda(b)) > 10 GeV and abs(y(Lambda(b))) < 2.0 is 1.06 +/- 0.06 +/- 0.12 nb, and the integrated cross section ratio for anti-Lambda(b)/Lambda(b) is 1.02 +/- 0.07 +/- 0.09, where the uncertainties are statistical and systematic, respectively.Comment: Submitted to Physics Letters

Search for new physics in events with opposite-sign leptons, jets, and missing transverse energy in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV

A search is presented for physics beyond the standard model (BSM) in final states with a pair of opposite-sign isolated leptons accompanied by jets and missing transverse energy. The search uses LHC data recorded at a center-of-mass energy sqrt(s) = 7 TeV with the CMS detector, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of approximately 5 inverse femtobarns. Two complementary search strategies are employed. The first probes models with a specific dilepton production mechanism that leads to a characteristic kinematic edge in the dilepton mass distribution. The second strategy probes models of dilepton production with heavy, colored objects that decay to final states including invisible particles, leading to very large hadronic activity and missing transverse energy. No evidence for an event yield in excess of the standard model expectations is found. Upper limits on the BSM contributions to the signal regions are deduced from the results, which are used to exclude a region of the parameter space of the constrained minimal supersymmetric extension of the standard model. Additional information related to detector efficiencies and response is provided to allow testing specific models of BSM physics not considered in this paper.Comment: Replaced with published version. Added journal reference and DO

Measurement of isolated photon production in pp and PbPb collisions at sqrt(sNN) = 2.76 TeV

Isolated photon production is measured in proton-proton and lead-lead collisions at nucleon-nucleon centre-of-mass energies of 2.76 TeV in the pseudorapidity range |eta|<1.44 and transverse energies ET between 20 and 80 GeV with the CMS detector at the LHC. The measured ET spectra are found to be in good agreement with next-to-leading-order perturbative QCD predictions. The ratio of PbPb to pp isolated photon ET-differential yields, scaled by the number of incoherent nucleon-nucleon collisions, is consistent with unity for all PbPb reaction centralities.Comment: Submitted to Physics Letters

Search for the associated production of the Higgs boson with a top-quark pair

A search for the standard model Higgs boson produced in association with a top-quark pair t t ¯ H (tt¯H) is presented, using data samples corresponding to integrated luminosities of up to 5.1 fb &#8722;1 and 19.7 fb &#8722;1 collected in pp collisions at center-of-mass energies of 7 TeV and 8 TeV respectively. The search is based on the following signatures of the Higgs boson decay: H &#8594; hadrons, H &#8594; photons, and H &#8594; leptons. The results are characterized by an observed t t ¯ H tt¯H signal strength relative to the standard model cross section, &#956; = &#963;/&#963; SM ,under the assumption that the Higgs boson decays as expected in the standard model. The best fit value is &#956; = 2.8 ± 1.0 for a Higgs boson mass of 125.6 GeV

Studies of jet quenching using isolated-photon + jet correlations in PbPb and pp collisions at sqrt(s[NN]) = 2.76 TeV

Results from the first study of isolated-photon + jet correlations in relativistic heavy ion collisions are reported. The analysis uses data from PbPb collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 2.76 TeV per nucleon pair corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 150 inverse microbarns recorded by the CMS experiment at the LHC. For events containing an isolated photon with transverse momentum pt(gamma) > 60 GeV and an associated jet with pt(Jet) > 30 GeV, the photon + jet pt imbalance is studied as a function of collision centrality and compared to pp data and PYTHIA calculations at the same collision energy. Using the pt(gamma) of the isolated photon as an estimate of the momentum of the associated parton at production, this measurement allows an unbiased characterisation of the in-medium parton energy loss. For more central PbPb collisions, a significant decrease in the ratio pt(Jet)/pt(gamma) relative to that in the PYTHIA reference is observed. Furthermore, significantly more pt(gamma) > 60 GeV photons in PbPb are observed not to have an associated pt(Jet) > 30 GeV jet, compared to the reference. However, no significant broadening of the photon + jet azimuthal correlation is observed.Comment: Submitted to Physics Letters