Innovation and research in organic farming: A multi‐level approach to facilitate cooperation among stakeholders

A wider range of stakeholders is expected to be involved in organic research. A decision‐support tool is needed to define priorities and to allocate tasks among institutions. Based on research and management experience in organic research, the authors have developed a framework for experimental and research projects. The framework is based on a multi‐level approach. Each level is defined according to the directness of the innovation impact on the organic systems. The projects carried out for each level were assessed over a ten-year period. Two applications are presented: analysis of crop protection strategies in horticulture and plant breeding programmes. When combined with four development models of organic farming, this multi‐level analysis appears to be promising for defining research agendas

Multifragmentation of non-spherical nuclei : Analysis of central Xe + Sn collisions at 50 MeV/nucl

The influence of shape of expanding and rotating source on various characteristics of the multifragmentation process is studied. The analysis is based on the extension of the statistical microcanonical multifragmentation model. The comparison with the data is done for central Xe+Sn collisions at 50 A MeV as measured by INDRA Collaboration.Comment: 9 pages, 2 figures; Talk given at the XXVII International Workshop on Gross Properties of Nuclei and Nuclear Excitation, Hirschegg (Austria), January 17 - 23, 199

Differential-geometric approach to the integrability of hydrodynamic chains: the Haantjes tensor

The integrability of an m-component system of hydrodynamic type, u_t=V(u)u_x, by the generalized hodograph method requires the diagonalizability of the mxm matrix V(u). This condition is known to be equivalent to the vanishing of the corresponding Haantjes tensor. We generalize this approach to hydrodynamic chains -- infinite-component systems of hydrodynamic type for which the infinite matrix V(u) is `sufficiently sparse'. For such systems the Haantjes tensor is well-defined, and the calculation of its components involves finite summations only. We illustrate our approach by classifying broad classes of conservative and Hamiltonian hydrodynamic chains with the zero Haantjes tensor. We prove that the vanishing of the Haantjes tensor is a necessary condition for a hydrodynamic chain to possess an infinity of semi-Hamiltonian hydrodynamic reductions, thus providing an easy-to-verify necessary condition for the integrability.Comment: 36 pages, the classification results and proofs are refined. A section on generating functions is adde

Determination of population structure and stock composition of chum salmon (Oncorhynchus keta) in Russia determined with microsatellites

Variation at 14 microsatellite loci was examined in 34 chum salmon (Oncorhynchus keta) populations from Russia and evaluated for its use in the determination of population structure and stock composition in simulated mixed-stock fishery samples. The genetic differentiation index (Fst) over all populations and loci was 0.017, and individual locus values ranged from 0.003 to 0.054. Regional population structure was observed, and populations from Primorye, Sakhalin Island, and northeast Russia were the most distinct. Microsatellite variation provided evidence of a more fine-scale population structure than those that had previously been demonstrated with other genetic-based markers. Analysis of simulated mixed-stock samples indicated that accurate and precise regional estimates of stock composition were produced when the microsatellites were used to estimate stock compositions. Microsatellites can be used to determine stock composition in geographically separate Russian coastal chum salmon fisheries and provide a greater resolution of stock composition and population structure than that previously provided with other techniques

Towards a Smarter organization for a Self-servicing Society

Traditional social organizations such as those for the management of healthcare are the result of designs that matched well with an operational context considerably different from the one we are experiencing today. The new context reveals all the fragility of our societies. In this paper, a platform is introduced by combining social-oriented communities and complex-event processing concepts: SELFSERV. Its aim is to complement the "old recipes" with smarter forms of social organization based on the self-service paradigm and by exploring culture-specific aspects and technological challenges.Comment: Final version of a paper published in the Proceedings of International Conference on Software Development and Technologies for Enhancing Accessibility and Fighting Info-exclusion (DSAI'16), special track on Emergent Technologies for Ambient Assisted Living (ETAAL

Hard thermal loops with a background plasma velocity

I consider the calculation of the two and three-point functions for QED at finite temperature in the presence of a background plasma velocity. The final expressions are consistent with Lorentz invariance, gauge invariance and current conservation, pointing to a straightforward generalization of the hard thermal loop formalism to this physical situation. I also give the resulting expression for the effective action and identify the various terms.Comment: 11 pages, no figure