1,287 research outputs found
Economics and Marketing of Aromatic Rice - A Case Study of Chhattisgarh
In recent years there has been a serious concern among the farmers, scientists, policymakers and environmentalists regarding the continuous erosion of genetic biodiversity of rice cultivars in Chhattisgarh which has traditionally been known as bowl of scented rices in central India. In view of India’s potential competitiveness in aromatic rices in the international market, it is imperative to understand the dynamics of domestic trade in aromatic rice. In this study, marketing and price-spread patterns of aromatic rice in the state of Chhattisgarh have been examined. A few policy interventions have been suggested for promoting aromatic rices in the state.Crop Production/Industries, Marketing,
Nonperturbative aspects of the quark-photon vertex
The electromagnetic interaction with quarks is investigated through a
relativistic, electromagnetic gauge-invariant treatment. Gluon dressing of the
quark-photon vertex and the quark self-energy functions is described by the
inhomogeneous Bethe-Salpeter equation in the ladder approximation and the
Schwinger-Dyson equation in the rainbow approximation respectively. Results for
the calculation of the quark-photon vertex are presented in both the time-like
and space-like regions of photon momentum squared, however emphasis is placed
on the space-like region relevant to electron scattering. The treatment
presented here simultaneously addresses the role of dynamically generated
vector bound states and the approach to asymptotic behavior. The
resulting description is therefore applicable over the entire range of momentum
transfers available in electron scattering experiments. Input parameters are
limited to the model gluon two-point function, which is chosen to reflect
confinement and asymptotic freedom, and are largely constrained by the obtained
bound-state spectrum.Comment: 8 figures available on request by email, 25 pages, Revtex,
DOE/ER/40561-131-INT94-00-5
Xanthine oxidase-derived reactive oxygen metabolites contribute to liver necrosis: protection by 4-hydroxypyrazolo[3,4-d]pyrimidine
AbstractXanthine oxidase (XO) generates reactive oxygen metabolites (ROM) as a by-product while catalyzing their reaction. The present study implicates these ROM in the pathogenesis of liver necrosis produced in rats by the intraperitoneal administration of thioacetamide (TAA; 400 mg/kg b.wt.). After 16 h of TAA administration, the activity of rat liver XO increased significantly compared to that of the control group. At the same time, the level of serum marker enzymes of liver necrosis (aminotransferases and alkaline phosphatase) and tissue malondialdehyde content also increased in TAA treated rats. Tissue malondialdehyde concentration is an indicator of lipid peroxidation and acts as a useful marker of oxidative damage. Pretreatment of rats with XO inhibitor (4-hydroxypyrazolo[3,4-d]pyrimidine; allopurinol (AP)) followed by TAA could lower the hepatotoxin-mediated rise in malondialdehyde level as well as the level of marker enzymes associated with liver necrosis. The survival rate also increased in rats given AP followed by the lethal dose of TAA. In either case, the effect of AP was dose-dependent. Results presented in the paper indicate that increased production of XO-derived ROM contributes to liver necrosis, which can be protected by AP
Incremental Medians via Online Bidding
In the k-median problem we are given sets of facilities and customers, and
distances between them. For a given set F of facilities, the cost of serving a
customer u is the minimum distance between u and a facility in F. The goal is
to find a set F of k facilities that minimizes the sum, over all customers, of
their service costs.
Following Mettu and Plaxton, we study the incremental medians problem, where
k is not known in advance, and the algorithm produces a nested sequence of
facility sets where the kth set has size k. The algorithm is c-cost-competitive
if the cost of each set is at most c times the cost of the optimum set of size
k. We give improved incremental algorithms for the metric version: an
8-cost-competitive deterministic algorithm, a 2e ~ 5.44-cost-competitive
randomized algorithm, a (24+epsilon)-cost-competitive, poly-time deterministic
algorithm, and a (6e+epsilon ~ .31)-cost-competitive, poly-time randomized
algorithm.
The algorithm is s-size-competitive if the cost of the kth set is at most the
minimum cost of any set of size k, and has size at most s k. The optimal
size-competitive ratios for this problem are 4 (deterministic) and e
(randomized). We present the first poly-time O(log m)-size-approximation
algorithm for the offline problem and first poly-time O(log m)-size-competitive
algorithm for the incremental problem.
Our proofs reduce incremental medians to the following online bidding
problem: faced with an unknown threshold T, an algorithm submits "bids" until
it submits a bid that is at least the threshold. It pays the sum of all its
bids. We prove that folklore algorithms for online bidding are optimally
competitive.Comment: conference version appeared in LATIN 2006 as "Oblivious Medians via
Online Bidding
Shapes of the Proton
A model proton wave function, constructed using Poincare invariance, and
constrained by recent electromagnetic form factor data, is used to study the
shape of the proton. Spin-dependent quark densities are defined as matrix
elements of density operators in proton states of definite spin-polarization,
and shown to have an infinite variety of non-spherical shapes. For high
momentum quarks with spin parallel to that of the proton, the shape resembles
that of a peanut, but for quarks with anti-parallel spin the shape is that of a
bagel.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figures, to be submitted to Phys. Rev. C This corrects a
few typos and explains some further connections with experiment
Heavy pseudoscalar mesons in a Schwinger-Dyson--Bethe-Salpeter approach
The mass spectrum of heavy pseudoscalar mesons, described as quark-antiquark
bound systems, is considered within the Bethe-Salpeter formalism with
momentum-dependent masses of the constituents. This dependence is found by
solving the Schwinger-Dyson equation for quark propagators in rainbow-ladder
approximation. Such an approximation is known to provide both a fast
convergence of numerical methods and accurate results for lightest mesons.
However, as the meson mass increases, the method becomes less stable and
special attention must be devoted to details of numerical means of solving the
corresponding equations. We focus on the pseudoscalar sector and show that our
numerical scheme describes fairly accurately the , , , and
ground states. Excited states are considered as well. Our calculations
are directly related to the future physics programme at FAIR.Comment: 9 pages, 3 figures; Based on materials of the contribution
"Relativistic Description of Two- and Three-Body Systems in Nuclear Physics",
ECT*, October 19-23, 200
Minimizing the stabbing number of matchings, trees, and triangulations
The (axis-parallel) stabbing number of a given set of line segments is the
maximum number of segments that can be intersected by any one (axis-parallel)
line. This paper deals with finding perfect matchings, spanning trees, or
triangulations of minimum stabbing number for a given set of points. The
complexity of these problems has been a long-standing open question; in fact,
it is one of the original 30 outstanding open problems in computational
geometry on the list by Demaine, Mitchell, and O'Rourke. The answer we provide
is negative for a number of minimum stabbing problems by showing them NP-hard
by means of a general proof technique. It implies non-trivial lower bounds on
the approximability. On the positive side we propose a cut-based integer
programming formulation for minimizing the stabbing number of matchings and
spanning trees. We obtain lower bounds (in polynomial time) from the
corresponding linear programming relaxations, and show that an optimal
fractional solution always contains an edge of at least constant weight. This
result constitutes a crucial step towards a constant-factor approximation via
an iterated rounding scheme. In computational experiments we demonstrate that
our approach allows for actually solving problems with up to several hundred
points optimally or near-optimally.Comment: 25 pages, 12 figures, Latex. To appear in "Discrete and Computational
Geometry". Previous version (extended abstract) appears in SODA 2004, pp.
430-43
Exclusive Queueing Process with Discrete Time
In a recent study [C Arita, Phys. Rev. E 80, 051119 (2009)], an extension of
the M/M/1 queueing process with the excluded-volume effect as in the totally
asymmetric simple exclusion process (TASEP) was introduced. In this paper, we
consider its discrete-time version. The update scheme we take is the parallel
one. A stationary-state solution is obtained in a slightly arranged matrix
product form of the discrete-time open TASEP with the parallel update. We find
the phase diagram for the existence of the stationary state. The critical line
which separates the parameter space into the regions with and without the
stationary state can be written in terms of the stationary current of the open
TASEP. We calculate the average length of the system and the average number of
particles
QCD Form Factors and Hadron Helicity Non-Conservation
Recent data for the ratio shocked the
community by disobeying expectations held for 50 years. We examine the status
of perturbative QCD predictions for helicity-flip form factors. Contrary to
common belief, we find there is no rule of hadron helicity conservation for
form factors. Instead the analysis yields an inequality that the leading power
of helicity-flip processes may equal or exceed the power of helicity conserving
processes. Numerical calculations support the rule, and extend the result to
the regime of laboratory momentum transfer . Quark orbital angular
momentum, an important feature of the helicity flip processes, may play a role
in all form factors at large , depending on the quark wave functions.Comment: 25 pages, 5 figure
Magnetic Nanoparticles for Power Absorption: optimizing size, shape and magnetic properties
We present a study on the magnetic properties of naked and silica-coated
Fe3O4 nanoparticles with sizes between 5 and 110 nm. Their efficiency as
heating agents was assessed through specific power absorption (SPA)
measurements as a function of particle size and shape. The results show a
strong dependence of the SPA with the particle size, with a maximum around 30
nm, as expected for a Neel relaxation mechanism in single-domain particles. The
SiO2 shell thickness was found to play an important role in the SPA mechanism
by hindering the heat outflow, thus decreasing the heating efficiency. It is
concluded that a compromise between good heating efficiency and surface
functionality for biomedical purposes can be attained by making the SiO2
functional coating as thin as possible.Comment: 15 pages, 7 figures, 2 table
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