On Scale Invariance and Anomalies in Quantum Mechanics

We re-consider the quantum mechanics of scale invariant potentials in two dimensions. The breaking of scale invariance by quantum effects is analyzed by the explicit evaluation of the phase shift and the self-adjoint extension method. We argue that the breaking of scale invariance reported in the literature for the $\delta$(r) potential, is an example of explicit and not an anomaly or quantum mechanical symmetry breaking.Comment: 15 pp in latex, no figure

Simultaneous Identification of the Diffusion Coefficient and the Potential for the Schr\"odinger Operator with only one Observation

This article is devoted to prove a stability result for two independent coefficients for a Schr\"odinger operator in an unbounded strip. The result is obtained with only one observation on an unbounded subset of the boundary and the data of the solution at a fixed time on the whole domain

Future challenges of representing land-processes in studies on land-atmosphere interactions

Over recent years, it has become increasingly apparent that climate change and air pollution need to be considered jointly for improved attribution and projections of human-caused changes in the Earth system. Exchange processes at the land surface come into play in this context, because many compounds that either act as greenhouse gases, as pollutant precursors, or both, have not only anthropogenic but also terrestrial sources and sinks. And since the fluxes of multiple gases and particulate matter between the terrestrial biota and the atmosphere are directly or indirectly coupled to vegetation and soil carbon, nutrient and water balances, quantification of their geographic patterns or changes over time requires due consideration of the underlying biological processes. In this review we highlight a number of critical aspects and recent progress in this respect, identifying in particular a number of areas where studies have shown that accounting for ecological process understanding can alter global model projections of land-atmosphere interactions substantially. Specifically, this concerns the improved quantification of uncertainties and dynamic system responses, including acclimation, and the incorporation of exchange processes that so far have been missing from global models even though they are proposed to be of relevance for our understanding of terrestrial biota-climate feedbacks. Progress has also been made regarding studies on the impacts of land use/land cover change on climate change, but the absence of a mechanistically based representation of human responseprocesses in ecosystem models that are coupled to climate models limits our ability to analyse how climate change or air pollution in turn might affect human land use. A more integrated perspective is necessary and should become an active area of research that bridges the socio-economic and biophysical communities

Evaluating the Effectiveness of Marketing Mix Used By Transport Network Vehicle Services

This research assessed the level of effectiveness of the 4Ps or the marketing mix employed by Grab Car using the Four Ps of Marketing—Price, Place, Promotion, and to identify if Grab Car really is living up to the expectations of the riding public in the NCR. Findings may have shown that passengers are satisfied with the services provided by Grab Car, focusing on the concerns of the commuters can still be used by Grab and other Transport Network Vehicle Services in improving their marketing strategies. Keywords: Grab Car, Marketing Mix, Marketing Strategies, Transport Network Vehicle Service

Seedling Production Systems for Smallholder Forestry Development: Local Practices versus National Policies in the Philippines

The tree seedling nursery sector in the Philippines is influenced by a number of national level policies affecting the number and type of species produced. Policies favour high-volume production of a limited range of mostly exotic species, and research indicates that seedlings are often of low physical and genetic quality. Local knowledge on best species for sites is not being communicated to people planting. A project funded by the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research is investigating measures to improve the performance and effectiveness of the forestry seedling production system in Leyte and Mindanao in the Philippines. Seedlings are produced by government agencies, in community forestry projects and by individual private operators; the main customers are smallholder tree farmers. Communities and private individuals quickly set up nurseries when there is a demand for seedlings, but these nurseries tend to be ephemeral and lack financial sustainability. While large nurseries offer opportunities for economies of scale, small nurseries operate on a low cost basis, and are more widely distributed, and their seedlings are more accessible to smallholders, who lack transport facilities. Small private nurseries, while having limited access to new technology, often produce seedlings of quality similar to government and community nurseries. However, they require assistance in access to high-quality germplasm and training in improved seed production technology, to play a greater role in expansion of plantation forestry. This paper reports survey findings on seedling production systems, and examines the link between national level policies and local level practices

Habitability: CAMELOT 4

During 1988 to 1989 the NASA/USRA Advanced Design Program sponsored research and design efforts aimed at developing habitability criteria and at defining a habitability concept as a useful tool in understanding and evaluating dwellings for prolonged stays in extraterrestrial space. The Circulating Auto sufficient Mars-Earth Luxurious Orbital Transport (CAMELOT) was studied as a case in which the students would try to enhance the quality of life of the inhabitants by applying architectural design methodology. The study proposed 14 habitability criteria considered necessary to fulfill the defined habitability concept, which is that state of equilibrium that results from the interaction between components of the Individual Architecture Mission Complex, which allows a person to sustain physiological homeostatis, adequate performance, and acceptable social relationships. Architecture, design development, refinements and revisions to improve the quality of life, new insights on artificial gravity, form and constitution problems, and the final design concept are covered

Studying the impact of biomass burning aerosol radiative and climate effects on the Amazon rainforest productivity with an Earth system model

Diffuse light conditions can increase the efficiency of photosynthesis and carbon uptake by vegetation canopies. The diffuse fraction of photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) can be affected by either a change in the atmospheric aerosol burden and/or a change in cloudiness. During the dry season, a hotspot of biomass burning on the edges of the Amazon rainforest emits a complex mixture of aerosols and their precursors and climate-active trace gases (e.g. CO2, CH4, NOx). This creates potential for significant interactions between chemistry, aerosol, cloud, radiation and the biosphere across the Amazon region. The combined effects of biomass burning on the terrestrial carbon cycle for the present day are potentially large, yet poorly quantified. Here, we quantify such effects using the Met Office Hadley Centre Earth system model HadGEM2-ES, which provides a fully coupled framework with interactive aerosol, radiative transfer, dynamic vegetation, atmospheric chemistry and biogenic volatile organic compound emission components. Results show that for present day, defined as year 2000 climate, the overall net impact of biomass burning aerosols is to increase net primary productivity (NPP) by +80 to +105 TgC yr−1, or 1.9 % to 2.7 %, over the central Amazon Basin on annual mean. For the first time we show that this enhancement is the net result of multiple competing effects: an increase in diffuse light which stimulates photosynthetic activity in the shaded part of the canopy (+65 to +110 TgC yr−1), a reduction in the total amount of radiation (−52 to −105 TgC yr−1) which reduces photosynthesis and feedback from climate adjustments in response to the aerosol forcing which increases the efficiency of biochemical processes (+67 to +100 TgC yr−1). These results illustrate that despite a modest direct aerosol effect (the sum of the first two counteracting mechanisms), the overall net impact of biomass burning aerosols on vegetation is sizeable when indirect climate feedbacks are considered. We demonstrate that capturing the net impact of aerosols on vegetation should be assessed considering the system-wide behaviour

Vegetation distribution and terrestrial carbon cycle in a carbon cycle configuration of JULES4.6 with new plant functional types

This is the final version. Available on open access from EGU via the DOI in this recordDynamic global vegetation models (DGVMs) are used for studying historical and future changes to vegetation and the terrestrial carbon cycle. JULES (the Joint UK Land Environment Simulator) represents the land surface in the Hadley Centre climate models and in the UK Earth System Model. Recently the number of plant functional types (PFTs) in JULES was expanded from five to nine to better represent functional diversity in global ecosystems. Here we introduce a more mechanistic representation of vegetation dynamics in TRIFFID, the dynamic vegetation component of JULES, which allows for any number of PFTs to compete based solely on their height; therefore, the previous hardwired dominance hierarchy is removed. With the new set of nine PFTs, JULES is able to more accurately reproduce global vegetation distribution compared to the former five PFT version. Improvements include the coverage of trees within tropical and boreal forests and a reduction in shrubs, the latter of which dominated at high latitudes. We show that JULES is able to realistically represent several aspects of the global carbon (C) cycle. The simulated gross primary productivity (GPP) is within the range of observations, but simulated net primary productivity (NPP) is slightly too high. GPP in JULES from 1982 to 2011 is 133PgCyrg'1, compared to observation-based estimates (over the same time period) between 1238 and 150-175PgCyrg'1. NPP from 2000 to 2013 is 72PgCyrg'1, compared to satellite-derived NPP of 55PgCyrg'1 over the same period and independent estimates of 56.214.3PgCyrg'1. The simulated carbon stored in vegetation is 542PgC, compared to an observation-based range of 400-600PgC. Soil carbon is much lower (1422PgC) than estimates from measurements ( > 2400PgC), with large underestimations of soil carbon in the tropical and boreal forests. We also examined some aspects of the historical terrestrial carbon sink as simulated by JULES. Between the 1900s and 2000s, increased atmospheric carbon dioxide levels enhanced vegetation productivity and litter inputs into the soils, while land use change removed vegetation and reduced soil carbon. The result is a simulated increase in soil carbon of 57PgC but a decrease in vegetation carbon of 98PgC. The total simulated loss of soil and vegetation carbon due to land use change is 138PgC from 1900 to 2009, compared to a recent observationally constrained estimate of 15550PgC from 1901 to 2012. The simulated land carbon sink is 2.01.0PgCyrg'1 from 2000 to 2009, in close agreement with estimates from the IPCC and Global Carbon Project.The authors acknowledge support from the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) Joint Weather and Climate Research Programme through grant numbers NE/K016016/1 (Anna B. Harper) and NEC05816 (Lina M. Mercado). NERC support was also provided to Lina M. Mercado through the UK Earth System Modelling project (UKESM, grant NE/N017951/1). Anna B. Harper also acknowledges support from her EPSRC Fellowship (EP/N030141/1) and the EU H2020 project CRESCENDO (GA641816). The EU project FP7 LUC4C (GA603542) provided support for Stephen Sitch and Pierre Friedlingstein. The Met Office authors were supported by the Joint UK BEIS/Defra Met Office Hadley Centre Climate Programme (GA01101)

Heterologous expression of AtNPR1 gene in olive for increasing fungal tolerance

The NPR1 gene encodes a key component of SAR signaling mediated by salicylic acid (SA). After a pathogen infection, the accumulation of SA releases NPR1 monomers in the cytosol that are translocated to the nucleus, activating the expression of pathogenesis-related (PR) genes. Overexpression of NPR1 has conferred resistance to fungal, viral and bacterial pathogens in several plant species. The aim of this research was to generate transgenic olive plants expressing the gene AtNPR1 from Arabidopsis thaliana to obtain material resistant to fungal pathogens. Three transgenic lines expressing AtNPR1 gene under the control of the constitutive promoter CaMV35S were obtained following the protocol of Torreblanca et al. (2010), using an embryogenic line derived from a seed of cv. Picual. Level of AtNPR1 expression in transgenic calli varied greatly among the different lines, being higher in the line NPR1-780. The elicitation of embryogenic calli in liquid medium with AS did not increase endochitinase activity, a PR protein. However, jasmonic acid induced a transient increase in chitinase activity after 24 h of treatment in all the lines, being the increment higher in transgenic NPR1 than in control. After maturation and germination of transgenic somatic embryos, plants were micropropagated and acclimated to ex vitro conditions. The expression of AtNPR1 did not alter the growth of transgenic plants neither in vitro nor in the greenhouse. Experiments are in progress to determine the resistance of transgenic AtNPR1 plants to V. dalihae and R. necatrix.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech. Research projects: Plan Nacional AGL2014-52518-C2-1-R; AGL2017-83368-C2-1-R and Junta de Andalucía P11-AGR799