ICROFS news 2/2009 - newsletter from ICROFS

News from ICROFS: CORE Organic ERA-net proposal is formulated, FAO side-event was a success, upcoming course in media handling Articles: J. Eriksen, M. Askegaard & K. Søegaard: Nitrogen management on large organic daity farms C. Daugbjerg & K. M. Sønderskov: Organic labelling systems and consumer confidence G. T. Svendsen: Organic farmers can gain from Green House Gas trade H. Egelyng: Certified Organic Agriclture: Policy Instrument for Sustainable Development? M.S. Carter & N. Chirinda: No effect of cropping system on the greenhouse gas N2O J.H. Ingemann: Economics, Policy, and Organic Agriculture Brief news: TP ORganics needs you!, New publication: The World of ORganic Agriculture: Statistics and emerging trends, NJF seminar, Organic farmers bite back!, International conference on organic agriculture in Scope of environmental problems, Expo - MENOPE: 7th Middle East Natural and Organic Product

Organic Rules and Certification

Development of the database, www.organicrules.org: The database was developed by ICROFS (DARCOF) and FiBL in 2005 - 2006 for comparison of European and international standards with the EU Regulation 2092/91 in the EU FP6 project, ”EEC 2092/91 Revision” (www.organic-revision). In the EU FP7 project, Economic Analysis of Certification Systems in Organic Food and Farming, www.CERTCOST.org (2008-2011). The database has been further developed by ICROFS. The information for the database is collected by the 9 partners of the CERTCOST project, and it is edited by Lizzie Melby Jespersen, ICROFS

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Bedre økologisk kontrol og certificering i Europa

Poster presented at the Danish Organic Congress, 17.-18. November 2009, Odense, Denmar

Old open clusters in the outer Galactic disk

The outer parts of the Milky Way disk are believed to be one of the main arenas where the accretion of external material in the form of dwarf galaxies and subsequent formation of streams is taking place. The Monoceros stream and the Canis Major and Argo over-densities are notorious examples. VLT high resolution spectra have been acquired for five distant open clusters. We derive accurate radial velocities to distinguish field interlopers and cluster members. For the latter we perform a detailed abundance analysis and derive the iron abundance [Fe/H] and the abundance ratios of several $\alpha$ elements. Our analysis confirms previous indications that the radial abundance gradient in the outer Galactic disk does not follow the expectations extrapolated from the solar vicinity, but exhibits a shallower slope. By combining the metallicity of the five program clusters with eight more clusters for which high resolution spectroscopy is available, we find that the mean metallicity in the outer disk between 12 and 21 kpc from the Galactic center is [Fe/H] $\approx -0.35$, with only marginal indications for a radial variation. In addition, all the program clusters exhibit solar scaled or slightly enhanced $\alpha$ elements, similar to open clusters in the solar vicinity and thin disk stars. We investigate whether this outer disk cluster sample might belong to an extra-galactic population, like the Monoceros ring. However, close scrutiny of their properties - location, kinematics and chemistry - does not convincingly favor this hypothesis. On the contrary, they appear more likely genuine Galactic disk clusters. We finally stress the importance to obtain proper motion measurements for these clusters to constrain their orbits.Comment: 19 pages, 9 eps figure, in press in A&A, abstract rephrased to fit i

Case Notes

For decades, optical time-domain searches have been tuned to find ordinary supernovae, which rise and fall in brightness over a period of weeks. Recently, supernova searches have improved their cadences and a handful of fast-evolving luminous transients have been identified(1-5). These have peak luminosities comparable to type Ia supernovae, but rise to maximum in less than ten days and fade from view in less than one month. Here we present the most extreme example of this class of object thus far: KSN 2015K, with a rise time of only 2.2 days and a time above half-maximum of only 6.8 days. We show that, unlike type Ia supernovae, the light curve of KSN 2015K was not powered by the decay of radioactive elements. We further argue that it is unlikely that it was powered by continuing energy deposition from a central remnant (a magnetar or black hole). Using numerical radiation hydrodynamical models, we show that the light curve of KSN 2015K is well fitted by a model where the supernova runs into external material presumably expelled in a pre-supernova mass-loss episode. The rapid rise of KSN 2015K therefore probes the venting of photons when a hypersonic shock wave breaks out of a dense extended medium.NASA NNH15ZDA001N NNX17AI64G Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for All-sky Astrophysics CE11000102