Impacts of Agricultural Expansion on Irrigation Water Requirements in Taita Hills, Kenya

The presented work aims to evaluate the impacts of agricultural expansion on irrigation water requirements in Taita Hills, SE-Kenya. The first procedure of this research consists in implementing and calibrating an Evapotraspiration (ET) model for the study area. The ET is an important component of the hydrological cycle and an accurate quantification of such component is crucial for the design, operation and managment of irrigation systems. Three temperature based ET models are evaluated, namely the Hargreaves, the Thornthwaite and the Blaney-Criddle, given that these are the most recommended approaches when only air temperature data are available at weather stations. To overcome the insufficient data retrieved from ground stations, remote sensing land surface temperature data are used as input for the models. One weather station with complete climate datasets is used to calibrate the selected model using as reference the FAO-56 Penman -Monteith method. Simultaneously, future land use scenarios are simulated using a Land Use and Land Cover Change (LUCC) model. Synthetic weather datasets (temperature and precipitation) are generated using a Monte Carlo simulation. Finally, the ET model and the LUCC model are integrated into a modeling framework in order to delineate Irrigation Water Requirement (IW) scenarios. The simulations indicate that throughout the next 20 years the low availability of space in highlands will drive agricultural expansion to areas with higher IWR in the foothills. However, climate changes predicted by GCMs will likely decrease IWR when compared with scenarios using the same temperature and precipitation averages as in the historical dataset

Internal structure of Skyrme black hole

We consider the internal structure of the Skyrme black hole under a static and spherically symmetric ansatz. $@u8(Be concentrate on solutions with the node number one and with the "winding" number zero, where there exist two solutions for each horizon radius; one solution is stable and the other is unstable against linear perturbation. We find that a generic solution exhibits an oscillating behavior near the sigularity, as similar to a solution in the Einstein-Yang-Mills (EYM) system, independently to stability of the solution. Comparing it with that in the EYM system, this oscillation becomes mild because of the mass term of the Skyrme field. We also find Schwarzschild-like exceptional solutions where no oscillating behavior is seen. Contrary to the EYM system where there is one such solution branch if the node number is fixed, there are two branches corresponding to the stable and the unstable ones.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, some contents adde

Stringy Sphalerons and Non-Abelian Black Holes

Static spherically symmetric asymptotically flat particle-like and black hole solutions are constructed within the SU(2) sector of 4-dimensional heterotic string effective action. They separate topologically distinct Yang-Mills vacua and are qualitatively similar to the Einstein-Yang-Mills spha- lerons and non-abelian black holes discussed recently. New solutions possess quantized values of the dilaton charge.Comment: 12 pages, LATEX, (8 figures upon request

Consistent ADD scenario with stabilized extra dimension

A model with one compact extra dimension and a scalar field of Brans-Dicke type in the bulk is discussed. It describes two branes with non-zero tension embedded into the space-time with flat background. This setup allows one to use a very simple method for stabilization of the size of extra dimension. It appears that the four-dimensional Planck mass is expressed only through parameters of the scalar field potentials on the branes.Comment: 11 pages, LaTeX, enlarged content, corrected typo

Fluctuating brane in a dilatonic bulk

We consider a cosmological brane moving in a static five-dimensional bulk spacetime endowed with a scalar field whose potential is exponential. After studying various cosmological behaviours for the homogeneous background, we investigate the fluctuations of the brane that leave spacetime unaffected. A single mode embodies these fluctuations and obeys a wave equation which we study for bouncing and ever-expanding branes.Comment: 17 pages, 7 figures, revte

Bulk scalar field in the braneworld can mimic the 4D inflaton dynamics

Based on the recently proposed scenario of inflation driven by a bulk scalar field in the braneworld of the Randall-Sundrum (RS) type, we investigate the dynamics of a bulk scalar field on the inflating braneworld. We derive the late time behavior of the bulk scalar field by analyzing the property of the retarded Green function. We find that the late time behavior is basically dominated by a single (or a pair of) pole(s) in the Green function irrespective of the initial condition and of the signature of $m^{2}=V''(\phi)$, where $V(\phi)$ is the potential of the bulk scalar field. Including the lowest order back-reaction to the geometry, this late time behavior can be well approximated by an effective 4-dimensional scalar field with $m^2_{\mathrm{eff}}=m^2/2$. The mapping to the 4-dimensional effective theory is given by a simple scaling of the potential with a redefinition of the field. Our result supports the picture that the scenario of inflation driven by a bulk scalar field works in a quite similar way to that in the standard 4-dimensional cosmology.Comment: 12 pages, no figures, final version to be published in PR

Holographic Cosmic Quintessence on Dilatonic Brane World

Recently quintessence is proposed to explain the observation data of supernova indicating a time-varying cosmological constant and accelerating universe. Inspired by this and its mysterious origin, we look for the possibility of quintessence as the holographic dark matters dominated in the late time in the brane world scenarios. We consider both the cases of static and moving brane in a dilaton gravity background. For the static brane we use the Hamilton-Jacobi method motivated by holographic renormalization group to study the intrinsic FRW cosmology on the brane and find out the constraint on the bulk potential for the quintessence. This constraint requires a negative slowly varying bulk potential which implies an anti-de Sitter-like bulk geometry and could be possibly realized from the higher dimensional supergravities or string theory. We find the similar constraint for the moving brane cases and that the quintessence on it has the effect as a mildly time-varying Newton constant.Comment: 16pages, no figure, Latex; revised version, references added, typos corrected, abstract and comments improved; final version, will appear in PR

Brane gravity, higher derivative terms and non-locality

In brane world scenarios with a bulk scalar field between two branes it is known that 4-dimensional Einstein gravity is restored at low energies on either brane. By using a gauge-invariant gravitational and scalar perturbation formalism we extend the theory of weak gravity in the brane world scenarios to higher energies, or shorter distances. We argue that weak gravity on either brane is indistinguishable from 4-dimensional higher derivative gravity, provided that the inter-brane distance (radion) is stabilized, that the background bulk scalar field is changing near the branes and that the background bulk geometry near the branes is warped. This argument holds for a general conformal transformation to a frame in which matter on the branes is minimally coupled to the metric. In particular, Newton's constant and the coefficients of curvature-squared terms in the 4-dimensional effective action are determined up to an ambiguity of adding a Gauss-Bonnet topological term. In other words, we provide the brane-world realization of the so called $R^2$-model without utilizing a quantum theory. We discuss the appearance of composite spin-2 and spin-0 fields in addition to the graviton on the brane and point out a possibility that the spin-0 field may play the role of an effective inflaton to drive brane-world inflation. Finally, we conjecture that the sequence of higher derivative terms is an infinite series and, thus, indicates non-locality in the brane world scenarios.Comment: Latex, 18 pages; a comment on the spurious tensor mode was added; recovery condition of higher derivative gravity clarifie

Brane-World and Holography

We consider the brane-world in the holographic point of view. Bearing the realistic models in mind, the bulk massless scalar field is introduced. First of all, we find the constraint on the coupling of the scalar fields with the matter(not holographic CFT) on the brane. We show that the traceless part of the energy-momentum tensor of holographic CFT is a part of the bulk Weyl tensor. The trace part which comes from the trace-anomaly is corresponding to the $\rho^2$-term appeared in the generalized FRW equation in the brane-world.Comment: 4 pages, minor change

Assessing the degeneration of cassava under high-virus inoculum conditions in coastal Tanzania

Open Access Article; Published online: 19 Jul 2019Cassava brown streak disease (CBSD), caused by cassava brown streak ipomoviruses (CBSIs), has become the most debilitating biotic stress to cassava production in East and Central Africa. Lack of CBSD-resistant varieties has necessitated the search for alternative control measures. Most smallholder farmers reuse stems from previous crops for planting in the new season. Recycling planting material in this way can lead to “degeneration” owing to the compounding effects of disease. In this study, degeneration was defined as the increase in CBSD incidence and reduction in marketable root yield over time. An experiment was established to study the rates of degeneration in selected cassava varieties Chereko, KBH2002_135, Kipusa, Kizimbani, and Mkuranga1 and cultivars Kiroba and Kikombe under high-CBSD inoculum conditions in Bagamoyo, Tanzania from 2013 to 2017. The experiment was replicated across two seasons: the first planted during the long rains (Masika) between March and June and the second planted during the short rains (Vuli) between October and December. Mean abundance of the whitefly vector (Bemisia tabaci) was much greater during the Vuli season (>19 insects per plant) than the Masika season (<2 insects per plant). CBSD shoot symptoms occurred naturally and were observed only on Kikombe, Kiroba, and Kipusa. New materials had overall lower CBSD shoot incidences (1.5%) compared with recycled materials (6.9%) in Masika, although no significant differences were obvious in Vuli. However, Masika (8.7%) had an overall lower CBSD shoot incidence than Vuli (16.5%) in the varieties that had shoot symptoms. CBSD root incidences were higher in Vuli (10.3%) than Masika (4.4%), and root yields in Masika (29.4 t/ha) were significantly greater than those in Vuli (22.5 t/ha). The highest percentage of roots rendered unusable owing to CBSD was observed in Vuli. There was significantly higher unusable root incidence in recycled materials (3.7%) than in new materials (1.4%) in Masika but not in Vuli. Overall root yield was similar between recycled and new materials in either season. Significant reductions in root yield over the course of the experiment were observed both in Masika and Vuli, whereas changes in marketable yield were significant only in Masika. Differences in the response of varieties to degeneration led to the identification of four degeneration patterns, namely “strong,” “moderate,” “mild,” and “delayed” degeneration. The strongest effects of degeneration were most obvious in the susceptible cultivar (Kikombe), which also had the lowest marketable yield in either season. Seasonal differences were a key driver of degeneration, because its effects were much greater in Vuli than Masika. To the best of our knowledge, this work reports the first study of degeneration caused by cassava viruses