Consumption of water by livestock

The contents of this report were based on the best available information at the time of publication. It is based in part on various assumptions and predictions. Conditions may change over time and conclusions should be interpreted in the light of the latest information available. Chief Executive Officer, Department of Agriculture Western Australia 2003 Contents 1. Abstract................................................................................................................

Parallel density matrix propagation in spin dynamics simulations

Several methods for density matrix propagation in distributed computing environments, such as clusters and graphics processing units, are proposed and evaluated. It is demonstrated that the large communication overhead associated with each propagation step (two-sided multiplication of the density matrix by an exponential propagator and its conjugate) may be avoided and the simulation recast in a form that requires virtually no inter-thread communication. Good scaling is demonstrated on a 128-core (16 nodes, 8 cores each) cluster.Comment: Submitted for publicatio

Rail commuter service quality in South Africa : results from a longitudinal study

Abstract: Rail transport is a critical mass transit mode in South Africa performing in excess of 400 million passenger trips per annum. Within a high density metropolitan region it is expected that rail passenger transport form the backbone of the public transport system, however in the Gauteng region it is estimated that only 8% of public transport commuting trips are completed by train; approximately 2% of total commuting trip. Total rail passenger trips have declined by nearly 20% since 2013/14. This suggests that the passenger rail service provider, PRASA, is not providing the service levels that commuters require. If rail is to fulfil its expected role, it is crucial that service levels are improved. The 2014 Gauteng Household Travel Survey suggests that train users were generally dissatisfied with train services, citing availability, overcrowding on trains, punctuality and reliability of services, geographical coverage and frequencies of services as key limitations. To more accurately assess the extent of service dissatisfaction, this research applied an adapted SERVQUAL model to determine the gap between commuters’ perceptions of service quality and their expectations. The study utilised a longitudinal approach to determine whether customer perceptions of five dimensions of service quality, i.e. reliability, the extent of the service, comfort, safety and affordability had changed over a two-year period. The results indicate changing gaps in most of the dimensions and a number of attributes were identified as having influenced the perception of service quality significantly enough to lead to customer dissatisfaction

Magnetic Ground State of Pr0.89_{0.89}LaCe0.11_{0.11}CuO4+α−δ_{4+\alpha-\delta} with Varied Oxygen Depletion Probed by Muon Spin Relaxation

The magnetic ground state of an electron-doped cuprate superconductor Pr$_{1-x}$LaCe$_x$CuO$_{4+\alpha-\delta}$ ($x=0.11, \alpha\simeq0.04$) has been studied by means of muon spin rotation/relaxation (\msr) over a wide variety of oxygen depletion, $0.03\le\delta\le0.12$. Appearance of weak random magnetism over entire crystal volume has been revealed by a slow exponential relaxation. The absence of $\delta$-dependence for the random magnetism and the multiplet pattern of muon Knight shift at higher fields strongly suggest that the random moments are associated with excited Pr$^{3+}$ ions under crystal electric field.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, submitted to J. Phys. Soc. Jp