Impact of Innovations in Value Chain on Sorghum Farmers

The paper has studied the implementation of millets value chain pilot project under the NAIP to create demand for sorghum through diversification in farm production, procurement, ultimately aiming at economical benefits to both farmers and other stakeholders. This 4.5 years novel initiative is still in the mid-way. The study has reported that technological backstopping of sorghum cultivation with end-product specific improved cultivars has realized 51 per cent rise in incremental net income of Rs 16098/ha for the participating farmers (58 per cent rise in kharif and 44 per cent in rabi farmers). The inconvenience in the preparation of sorghum foods which has been the important reason for the decrease in its consumption, has been eliminated through development of convenient and ready-to-eat/cook foods. The factorization of the investment expenditure made per farmer (one acre of sorghum per participating farmer) has been worked out to be Rs 356 (equivalent of Rs 890/ha) in a season resulting in 51 per cent rise in incremental net income over baseline which is slightly higher in kharif sorghum than in rabi sorghum. The output pricing in kharif has helped in attaining these benefits. However, the benefit-cost ratio has worked out in favour of rabi sorghum farmers, i.e. 1:7.5 vis-à-vis kharif farmers BC ratio of 1: 4.2. The study has observed that linking up of the entire stakeholders through value addition throughout the value chain system would renew and uplift the diminishing sorghum area and production and its ultimate economical benefits to farmers and other stakeholders in the value chain.Agricultural and Food Policy,

Surface tension of the isotropic-nematic interface

We present the first calculations of the pressure tensor profile in the vicinity of the planar interface between isotropic liquid and nematic liquid crystal, using Onsager's density functional theory and computer simulation. When the liquid crystal director is aligned parallel to the interface, the situation of lowest free energy, there is a large tension on the nematic side of the interface and a small compressive region on the isotropic side. By contrast, for perpendicular alignment, the tension is on the isotropic side. There is excellent agreement between theory and simulation both in the forms of the pressure tensor profiles, and the values of the surface tension.Comment: Minor changes; to appear in Phys. Rev.

Programming Cognitive Agents in Defeasible Logic

Defeasible Logic is extended to programming languages for cognitive agents with preferences and actions for planning. We define rule-based agent theories that contain preferences and actions, together with inference procedures. We discuss patterns of agent types in this setting. Finally, we illustrate the language by an example of an agent reasoning about web-services

Fast Transition between High-soft and Low-soft States in GRS 1915+105: Evidence for a Critically Viscous Accretion Flow

We present the results of a detailed analysis of RXTE observations of class $\omega$ which show an unusual state transition between high-soft and low-soft states in the microquasar GRS 1915+105. Out of about 600 pointed RXTE observations, the source was found to exhibit such state transition only on 16 occasions. An examination of the RXTE/ASM data in conjunction with the pointed observations reveals that these events appeared as a series of quasi-regular dips in two stretches of long duration (about 20 days during each occasions) when hard X-ray and radio flux were very low. The X-ray light curve and color-color diagram of the source during these observations are found to be different from any reported so far. The duration of these dips is found to be of the order of a few tens of seconds with a repetition time of a few hundred seconds. The transition between these dips and non-dips which differ in intensity by a factor of ~ 3.5, is observed to be very fast (~ a few seconds). It is observed that the low-frequency narrow QPOs are absent in the power density spectrum (PDS) of the dip and non-dip regions of class $\omega$ and the PDS is a power law in 0.1 - 10 Hz frequency range. There is a remarkable similarity in the spectral and timing properties of the source during the dip and non-dip regions in these set of observations. These properties of the source are distinctly different from those seen in the observations of other classes. This indicates that the basic accretion disk structure during both dip and non-dip regions of class $\omega$ is similar, but differ only in intensity. To explain these observations, we invoke a model in which the viscosity is very close to critical viscosity and the shock wave is weak or absent.Comment: Replaced with correct figures, Jour. of Astrophysics and Astronomy (accepted

Controlling the structures of organic semiconductor–quantum dot nanocomposites through ligand shell chemistry

Nanocrystal quantum dots (QD) functionalised with active organic ligands hold significant promise as solar energy conversion materials, capable of multiexcitonic processes that could improve the efficiencies of single-junction photovoltaic devices. Small-angle X-ray and neutron scattering (SAXS and SANS) were used to characterize the structure of lead sulphide QDs post ligand-exchange with model acene-carboxylic acid ligands (benzoic acid, hydrocinnamic acid and naphthoic acid). Results demonstrate that hydrocinnamic acid and naphthoic acid ligated QDs form monolayer ligand shells, whilst benzoic acid ligated QDs possess ligand shells thicker than a monolayer. Further, the formation of a range of nanocomposite materials through the self-assembly of such acene-ligated QDs with an organic small-molecule semiconductor [5,12-bis((triisopropylsilyl)ethynyl)tetracene (TIPS-Tc)] is investigated. These materials are representative of a wider set of functional solar energy materials; here the focus is on structural studies, and their optoelectronic function is not investigated. As TIPS-Tc concentrations are increased, approaching the solubility limit, SANS data show that QD fractal-like features form, with structures possibly consistent with a diffusion limited aggregation mechanism. These, it is likely, act as heterogeneous nucleation agents for TIPS-Tc crystallization, generating agglomerates containing both QDs and TIPS-Tc. Within the TIPS-Tc crystals there seem to be three distinct QD morphologies: (i) at the crystallite centre (fractal-like QD aggregates acting as nucleating agents), (ii) trapped within the growing crystallite (giving rise to QD features ordered as sticky hard spheres), and (iii) a population of aggregate QDs at the periphery of the crystalline interface that were expelled from the growing TIPS-Tc crystal. Exposure of the QD:TIPS-Tc crystals to DMF vapour, a solvent known to be able to strip ligands from QDs, alters the spacing between PbS–hydrocinnamic acid and PbS–naphthoic acid ligated QD aggregate features. In contrast, for PbS–benzoic acid ligated QDs, DMF vapour exposure promotes the formation of ordered QD colloidal crystal type phases. This work thus demonstrates how different QD ligand chemistries control the interactions between QDs and an organic small molecule, leading to widely differing self-assembly processes. It highlights the unique capabilities of multiscale X-ray and neutron scattering in characterising such composite materials

Effect of VAM fungi and bacterial biofertilizers on mulberry leaf quality and silkworm cocoon characters under semiarid conditions

The influence of VAM fungi and bacterial biofertilizer (BBF) with 50% reduction in the recommended dose of (N and P) chemical fertilizers on leaf quality traits of mulberry variety (S-13) and its impact on silkworm (PM ? NB4D2) growth and cocoon characters were studied under semi-arid conditions. Four different treatments were imposed i.e., T1: Control (only 100% NPK); T2: VAM (50% cut in P); T3: BBF (50% cut in N) and T4: BBF and VAM (50% cut in N and P). The results revealed that reduction (50%) in the dose of chemical fertilizers in T2, T3 and T4 did not affected the leaf quality traits or cocoon parameters, this may be due to the effect of microbial inoculants in these treatments, which had efficiently regulated the normal growth, metabolism and physiological activity in plants. Among the three-biofertilizer treatments, leaf quality, silkworm growth and cocoon parameters were found improved in T4 and was on par with T1 control. The dual inoculation (T4) proved economical and beneficial with regard to saving of 50 % cost of chemical fertilizers and improvement in soil fertility, leaf quality and cocoon parameters, thus this technology can be recommended to sericulture

How resilient are waterways of the Asian Himalayas? Finding adaptive measures for future sustainability

OnlinePublThe high-mountain system, a storehouse of major waterways that supportimportant ecosystem services to about 1.5 billion people in the Himalaya, isfacing unprecedented challenges due to climate change during the 21st cen-tury. Intensified floods, accelerating glacial retreat, rapid permafrost degrada-tion, and prolonged droughts are altering the natural hydrological balancesand generating unpredictable spatial and temporal distributions of water avail-ability. Anthropogenic activities are adding further pressure onto Himalayanwaterways. The fundamental question of waterway management in this regionis therefore how this hydro-meteorological transformation, caused by climatechange and anthropogenic perturbations, can be tackled to find avenues forsustainability. This requires a framework that can diagnose threats at a rangeof spatial and temporal scales and provide recommendations for strong adap-tive measures for sustainable future waterways. This focus paper assesses thecurrent literature base to bring together our understanding of how recent cli-matic changes have threatened waterways in the Asian Himalayas, how societyhas been responding to rapidly changing waterway conditions, and what adap-tive options are available for the region. The study finds that Himalayan water-ways are crucial in protecting nature and society. The implementation ofintegrated waterways management measures, the rapid advancement of waterway infrastructure technologies, and the improved governance of water-ways are more critical than ever.Giri R. Kattel, Amelie Paszkowski, Yadu Pokhrel, Wenyan Wu, Dongfeng Li, Mukund P. Ra

Information-Geometric Indicators of Chaos in Gaussian Models on Statistical Manifolds of Negative Ricci Curvature

A new information-geometric approach to chaotic dynamics on curved statistical manifolds based on Entropic Dynamics (ED) is proposed. It is shown that the hyperbolicity of a non-maximally symmetric 6N-dimensional statistical manifold M_{s} underlying an ED Gaussian model describing an arbitrary system of 3N degrees of freedom leads to linear information-geometric entropy growth and to exponential divergence of the Jacobi vector field intensity, quantum and classical features of chaos respectively.Comment: 8 pages, final version accepted for publicatio

Declarative Event-Based Workflow as Distributed Dynamic Condition Response Graphs

We present Dynamic Condition Response Graphs (DCR Graphs) as a declarative, event-based process model inspired by the workflow language employed by our industrial partner and conservatively generalizing prime event structures. A dynamic condition response graph is a directed graph with nodes representing the events that can happen and arrows representing four relations between events: condition, response, include, and exclude. Distributed DCR Graphs is then obtained by assigning roles to events and principals. We give a graphical notation inspired by related work by van der Aalst et al. We exemplify the use of distributed DCR Graphs on a simple workflow taken from a field study at a Danish hospital, pointing out their flexibility compared to imperative workflow models. Finally we provide a mapping from DCR Graphs to Buchi-automata.Comment: In Proceedings PLACES 2010, arXiv:1110.385