2,270 research outputs found
African Postharvest Losses Information System – a network for the estimation of cereal weight losses
Soaring food prices during 2007/2008, and the realisation that sporadic food shortages are likely to continue long into the future, has reawakened interest in the benefits of reducing food losses. As a means of making more accurate estimates of how much food is lost, the Joint Research Centre (European Commission) proposed the development of the African Postharvest Losses Information System (APhLIS) (http://www.phlosses.net). APhLIS estimates postharvest losses (PHLs) by cereal crop, by country and by province in East and Southern Africa. The system went live in March 2009 and combines a loss calculator, a free access database of key information, and a network of local experts who contribute the latest data and verify loss estimates. The loss calculator works of loss figures contributed from the literature and by local experts but also takes account of the prevailing climate, scale of farming (small/large), damp weather at harvest, larger grain borer (in the case of maize), proportion of grain held in farm sorage or marketed, and multiple harvests. Before the introduction of APhLIS, the origin and justification of PHL estimates were not well founded. Now PHL estimates are available that are • Transparent in the way they are calculated• Based on a complete screening of available research and literature• Contributed (in part) and verified by local experts• Based on the primary national unit (i.e. province not just country level, so estimates are more relevant)• Upgradeable as more (reliable) data become available, so that there is the opportunity for increasing accuracy in loss estimation over time.• Supported by a downloadable loss calculator that can be used to make loss calculations at ageographical scale below primary national unit.In the future, APhLIS may be expanded in technical scope (crops) and geographical range (countries) and used to help prioritize and justify loss reduction strategies including those for grain storage.Keywords: Weight loss, Loss calculator, Postharvest operations, Cereal suppl
Studies for a Photon Collider at the ILC
One option at the International Linear Collider is to convert the electron
beams into high energy photon beams by Compton scattering a few millimetres in
front of the interaction region. Selected physics channels for this option have
been analysed and technical issues have been studied. So far no showstoppers
for this option have been found.Comment: V2: Minor changes, accepted by NI
Strong Coupling Constant from the Photon Structure Function
We extract the value of the strong coupling constant alpha_s from a
single-parameter pointlike fit to the photon structure function F_2^gamma at
large x and Q^2 and from a first five-parameter full (pointlike and hadronic)
fit to the complete F_2^gamma data set taken at PETRA, TRISTAN, and LEP. In
next-to-leading order and the MSbar renormalization and factorization schemes,
we obtain alpha_s(m_Z)=0.1183 +/- 0.0050(exp.)^+0.0029_-0.0028(theor.)
[pointlike] and alpha_s(m_Z)=0.1198 +/- 0.0028(exp.)^+0.0034_-0.0046(theor.)
[pointlike and hadronic]. We demonstrate that the data taken at LEP have
reduced the experimental error by about a factor of two, so that a competitive
determination of alpha_s from F_2^gamma is now possible.Comment: 11 pages, 2 tables, 2 figures. Version accepted for publication by
Phys. Rev. Let
SSDSS IV MaNGA - Properties of AGN host galaxies
We present here the characterization of the main properties of a sample of 98
AGN host galaxies, both type-II and type-I, in comparison with those of about
2700 non-active galaxies observed by the MaNGA survey. We found that AGN hosts
are morphologically early-type or early-spirals. For a given morphology AGN
hosts are, in average, more massive, more compact, more central peaked and
rather pressurethan rotational-supported systems. We confirm previous results
indicating that AGN hosts are located in the intermediate/transition region
between star-forming and non-star-forming galaxies (i.e., the so-called green
valley), both in the ColorMagnitude and the star formation main sequence
diagrams. Taking into account their relative distribution in terms of the
stellar metallicity and oxygen gas abundance and a rough estimation of their
molecular gas content, we consider that these galaxies are in the process of
halting/quenching the star formation, in an actual transition between both
groups. The analysis of the radial distributions of the starformation rate,
specific star-formation rate, and molecular gas density shows that the
quenching happens from inside-out involving both a decrease of the efficiency
of the star formation and a deficit of molecular gas. All the intermediate
data-products used to derive the results of our analysis are distributed in a
database including the spatial distribution and average properties of the
stellar populations and ionized gas, published as a Sloan Digital Sky Survey
Value Added Catalog being part of the 14th Data Release:
http://www.sdss.org/dr14/manga/manga-data/manga-pipe3d-value-added-catalog/Comment: 48 pages, 14 figures, in press in RMxA
Joint PDF modelling of turbulent flow and dispersion in an urban street canyon
The joint probability density function (PDF) of turbulent velocity and
concentration of a passive scalar in an urban street canyon is computed using a
newly developed particle-in-cell Monte Carlo method. Compared to moment
closures, the PDF methodology provides the full one-point one-time PDF of the
underlying fields containing all higher moments and correlations. The
small-scale mixing of the scalar released from a concentrated source at the
street level is modelled by the interaction by exchange with the conditional
mean (IECM) model, with a micro-mixing time scale designed for geometrically
complex settings. The boundary layer along no-slip walls (building sides and
tops) is fully resolved using an elliptic relaxation technique, which captures
the high anisotropy and inhomogeneity of the Reynolds stress tensor in these
regions. A less computationally intensive technique based on wall functions to
represent boundary layers and its effect on the solution are also explored. The
calculated statistics are compared to experimental data and large-eddy
simulation. The present work can be considered as the first example of
computation of the full joint PDF of velocity and a transported passive scalar
in an urban setting. The methodology proves successful in providing high level
statistical information on the turbulence and pollutant concentration fields in
complex urban scenarios.Comment: Accepted in Boundary-Layer Meteorology, Feb. 19, 200
The Making of a Queen: TOR Pathway Is a Key Player in Diphenic Caste Development
Honey bees (Apis mellifera) provide a principal example of diphenic development. Excess feeding of female larvae results in queens (large reproductives). Moderate diet yields workers (small helpers). The signaling pathway that links provisioning to female developmental fate is not understood, yet we reasoned that it could include TOR (target of rapamycin), a nutrient- and energy-sensing kinase that controls organismal growth.Here, the role of Apis mellifera TOR (amTOR) in caste determination is examined by rapamycin/FK506 pharmacology and RNA interference (RNAi) gene knockdown. We show that in queen-destined larvae, the TOR inhibitor rapamycin induces the development of worker characters that are blocked by the antagonist FK506. Further, queen fate is associated with elevated activity of the Apis mellifera TOR encoding gene, amTOR, and amTOR gene knockdown blocks queen fate and results in individuals with worker morphology.A much-studied insect dimorphism, thereby, can be governed by the TOR pathway. Our results present the first evidence for a role of TOR in diphenic development, and suggest that adoption of this ancestral nutrient-sensing cascade is one evolutionary pathway for morphological caste differentiation in social insects
Stellar Population Properties of ETGs in Compact Groups of Galaxies
We present results on the study of the stellar population in Early-Type
galaxies (ETGs) belonging to 151 Compact Groups (CGs). We also selected a field
sample composed of 846 ETGs to investigate environmental effects on galaxy
evolution. We find that the dependences of mean stellar ages, [Z/H] and
[/Fe] on central stellar velocity dispersion are similar, regardless
where the ETG resides, CGs or field. When compared to the sample of centrals
and satellites from the literature, we find that ETGs in GCs behave similarly
to centrals, especially those embedded in low-mass haloes (). Except for the low-mass limit, where field galaxies present
a Starforming signature, not seen in CGs, the ionization agent of the gas in CG
and field galaxies seem to be similar and due to hot, evolved low-mass stars.
However, field ETGs present an excess of H emission relative to ETGs in
CGs. Additionally, we performed a dynamical analysis, which shows that CGs
present a bimodality in the group velocity dispersion distribution - a high and
low- mode. Our results indicate that high- groups have a
smaller fraction of spirals, shorter crossing times, and a more luminous
population of galaxies than the low groups. It is important to
emphasize that our findings point to a small environmental impact on galaxies
located in CGs. The only evidence we find is the change in gas content,
suggesting environmentally-driven gas loss.Comment: 21 pages, 18 Figure
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