Assessment of EGM2008 over Sri Lanka, an area where 'fill-in' data were used in EGM2008

The tide-free EGM2008 combined global geopotential model is compared with land and marine gravity observations and co-located GPS-levelling on and around Sri Lanka (formerly Ceylon). Not all these data are in the public domain, so offer an informative test of how the 'fill-in' methodology used in EGM2008 performs versus observed data. Sri Lanka is also in an area where the geoid exhibits its lowest elevation with respect to a geocentric reference ellipsoid. A -1.75 m bias between the GPS-levelling and EGM2008 led to an investigation into the Sri Lankan geodetic datums, showing a bias in the ellipsoidal heights. After rejection of 15 outliers, the standard deviation of the difference between 207 Sri Lankan GPS-levelling points and EGM2008 is 0.184 m. The difference between the gravity anomalies and EGM2008 showed that the Sri Lankan gravity data is based on the old Potsdam datum. The Sri Lankan land gravity data, after rejection of outliers, yielded standard deviations of 6.743 mGal for 20 GPS-coordinated gravity points on fundamental benchmarks, 14.704 mGal for 42 gravity points on fundamental benchmarks but with coarse locations, and 6.367 mGal for 1032 digitised and reconstructed free-air anomalies from a Bouguer anomaly map. The ship-track gravity data have not been crossover adjusted, and yield a standard deviation of 43.683 mGal. Importantly, the ability of EGM2008 to identify datum deficiencies is an implicit validation and leads to its applicationin other areas to search for datum deficiencies

Economics of soil moisture conservation in coconut lands using coconut husks and coir dust

Economic feasibility of soil moisture conservation in coconut production using coconut husks and coir dust was examined in this study. The preliminary data for the study were collected from two trials conducted by the CRI along with the several other secondary information. The results of the analysis revealed that calculated benefit-cost rations and Net Present Values are financially and economically acceptable under all the scenaries addressed in this study. Three different interest rates, such as 10 per cent, 15 per cent, 18 per cent, and two effective time periods (viz. six and nine years) were used for the analysis. Based on the estimated economic parameters, it is concluded that the efforts on moisture conservation using coconut husks and coir dust in lateritic gravel and sandy soils are economically viable propositions. As the initial cost of investment is substantial, other means to overcome the problems of financial constraints in investment may be looked into

Science Requirements and Conceptual Design for a Polarized Medium Energy Electron-Ion Collider at Jefferson Lab

This report presents a brief summary of the science opportunities and program of a polarized medium energy electron-ion collider at Jefferson Lab and a comprehensive description of the conceptual design of such a collider based on the CEBAF electron accelerator facility.Comment: 160 pages, ~93 figures This work was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Nuclear Physics, under Contract No. DE-AC05-06OR23177, DE-AC02-06CH11357, DE-AC05-060R23177, and DESC0005823. The U.S. Government retains a non-exclusive, paid-up, irrevocable, world-wide license to publish or reproduce this manuscript for U.S. Government purpose

Blockchain and Government Transformation

In today’s digital age, transactions are made increasingly in the virtual universe. Some do all financial transactions online, but some do not even want to think about this possibility since the consideration is unreliable. To make online financial transactions more reliable, many technologies have already been tested. Since passwords, tokens, physical code generation accessories, there have been many attempts, being the most elaborate, the blockchain. Governments, especially in developed countries, often find it difficult to gain the trust of their citizens, especially when it comes to evidence of service provision and improvement of existing services. In developing countries, blockchain requests from governments would be useful in eliminating some important problems, such as corruption, while ensuring more effective deployment and distribution of resources. The adoption of such technologies can also help to facilitate better use of resources. In this paper, we will analyze the impact of the application of blockchain technology on e-government.2020-2

Conceptual Design of a Polarized Medium Energy Electron-Ion Collider at JLab

A medium energy electron-ion collider is envisioned as the primary future of the JLab nuclear science program beyond the 12 GeV upgraded CEBAF. The present conceptual design selects a ring-ring collider option, covers a CM energy range up to 65 GeV for collisions of polarized electrons with polarized light ions or unpolarized light to heavy ions, and reaches a luminosity at above 1034 cm-2s-1 per detector over multiple interaction points. This paper presents a brief description of the current conceptual design of the accelerator

High-resolution mapping reveals hotspots and sex-biased recombination in Populus trichocarpa

16 Pág. Instituto de Ciencias Forestales (ICIFOR)Fine-scale meiotic recombination is fundamental to the outcome of natural and artificial selection. Here, dense genetic mapping and haplotype reconstruction were used to estimate recombination for a full factorial Populus trichocarpa cross of 7 males and 7 females. Genomes of the resulting 49 full-sib families (N = 829 offspring) were resequenced, and high-fidelity biallelic SNP/INDELs and pedigree information were used to ascertain allelic phase and impute progeny genotypes to recover gametic haplotypes. The 14 parental genetic maps contained 1,820 SNP/INDELs on average that covered 376.7 Mb of physical length across 19 chromosomes. Comparison of parental and progeny haplotypes allowed fine-scale demarcation of cross-over regions, where 38,846 cross-over events in 1,658 gametes were observed. Cross-over events were positively associated with gene density and negatively associated with GC content and long-terminal repeats. One of the most striking findings was higher rates of cross-overs in males in 8 out of 19 chromosomes. Regions with elevated male cross-over rates had lower gene density and GC content than windows showing no sex bias. High-resolution analysis identified 67 candidate cross-over hotspots spread throughout the genome. DNA sequence motifs enriched in these regions showed striking similarity to those of maize, Arabidopsis, and wheat. These findings, and recombination estimates, will be useful for ongoing efforts to accelerate domestication of this and other biomass feedstocks, as well as future studies investigating broader questions related to evolutionary history, perennial development, phenology, wood formation, vegetative propagation, and dioecy that cannot be studied using annual plant model systems.This research was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Office of Biological and Environmental Research through the Center for Bioenergy Innovation (CBI), and a DOE Bioenergy Research Center. The publisher, by accepting the article for publication, acknowledges that the U.S. Government retains a nonexclusive, paid-up, irrevocable, worldwide license to publish, or reproduce the published form of this work, or allow others to do so, for U.S. Government purposes. The views expressed in the article do not necessarily represent the views of the U.S. Department of Energy or the United States Government. Work on heterochiasmy was supported by the National Science Foundation (award 1542509 to SD). The breeding of the 7×7 population was initially funded by an award under the Western Sun Grant program to Washington State University (Subgrant T-0013A). Dr Macaya-Sanz was partially supported by “Atracción de Talento Investigador” of the Community of Madrid (ref. 2019-T2/BIO-12780). The project “Conservación y promoción de recursos genéticos forestales contempladas en el programa nacional de desarrollo rural” (ref. IMP2018-002), funded by the Spanish Ministry of Ecological Transition, also covered some expenses of this study.Peer reviewe