Improving European Organic Market Information - The OrganicDataNetwork Project

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has observed an increased need for the provision of market information and Market Information Services (MIS) in recent years

Evaluation of biodegradation kinetic constants for aromatic compounds by means of aerobic batch experiments

Kinetics of aerobic biodegradation have been investigated for twenty aromatic species using sludges collected from the aeration basin of municipal sewage treatment plants. The reproducibility of the results is tested with respect to the sludges period of collection and the wastewater treatment plant where they are taken. The comparison of kinetic constants, estimated for the investigated chemicals, allows to evaluate the reactivity effect of single groups (i.e., -OH, -CH3, -Cl, -NO2) into the aromatic structures. The search for easy structure-reactivity relationships is also attempted by means of contributing group methods

Entanglement magnification induced by local manipulations

We study the entanglement capability of the evolution of a pair of qubits evolving under unitary dynamics, when the local dynamical parameters cannot be modified during the time-evolution. Unlike the fast local control regime, we find that local and non-local contributions to the dynamics are strictly interconnected. Moreover, it is possible to strongly increase the entanglement capability by suitably initializing the characteristic energies of the two parties.Comment: 4 page

Slow motion for a hyperbolic variation of Allen-Cahn equation in one space dimension

The aim of this paper is to prove that, for specific initial data $(u_0,u_1)$ and with homogeneous Neumann boundary conditions, the solution of the IBVP for a hyperbolic variation of Allen-Cahn equation on the interval $[a,b]$ shares the well-known dynamical metastability valid for the classical parabolic case. In particular, using the "energy approach" proposed by Bronsard and Kohn [8], if $\varepsilon\ll 1$ is the diffusion coefficient, we show that in a time scale of order $\varepsilon^{-k}$ nothing happens and the solution maintains the same number of transitions of its initial datum $u_0$. The novelty consists mainly in the role of the initial velocity $u_1$, which may create or eliminate transitions in later times. Numerical experiments are also provided in the particular case of the Allen-Cahn equation with relaxation

Purity and impurity in nondualistic Śaiva Tantrism

Indian civilisation has been strongly characterised by the work of containment erected by the Brahmanical elite over the almost two thousand years of its grandiose attempt at culturally and so- cially dominating the Indian world as a whole. Lacking any direct power, the Brahmans have re- placed it by successfully imposing, as an alternative, an opposition between purity and impurity that has marked every aspect of Indian culture: purity of spirit, purity of philosophy, purity of rites, purity of language, purity of social and religious conduct, etc. Nondualistic Śaiva Tantrism’s re- sponse starts by questioning the legitimacy and very basis of the division between pure and impure, destined to crumble progressively beneath the thrust of deliberate “non-dual” behaviour (advaitācāra). Purity or impurity are not properties of things. They are quali cations pertaining to the knower depending on whether he perceives the object as united with consciousness or not. “Impure is what has fallen away from consciousness: therefore everything is pure if it has achieved identity with consciousness.” Moreover, if Śiva “is” the universe, there may be no impu- rity. In the Tantric texts special emphasis is laid on the necessity to overcome śaṅkā (“hesitation, inhibition”), viewed as the ultimate purpose of the Brahmanical rules concerning purity/impurity, acting as a subtle and effective instrumentum regni