1,337 research outputs found
Impact of human activities and livestock on the African environment: An attempt to partition the pressure
The impact of human endeavours on the environment in the struggle to eke out a living through crop and animal agriculture is examined in a holistic context. Analyses focus on all the sources of pressure that modify the vegetation cover of rural Africa, including the effects of fires and burning of biomass, fuel wood extraction and deforestation and land clearing
Galactic structure from the Calar Alto Deep Imaging Survey (CADIS)
We used 1627 faint (15.5< R<23) stars in five fields of the Calar Alto Deep
Imaging Survey (CADIS) to estimate the structure parameters of the Galaxy. The
results were derived by applying two complementary methods: first by fitting
the density distribution function to the measured density of stars
perpendicular to the Galactic plane, and second by modelling the observed
colors and apparent magnitudes of the stars in the field, using Monte Carlo
simulations. The best-fitting model of the Galaxy is then determined by
minimising the C-statistic, a modified chisquared. Our model includes a double
exponential for the stellar disk with scaleheights h_1 and h_2 and a power law
halo with exponent alpha. 24480 different parameter combinations have been
simulated. Both methods yield consistent results: the best fitting parameter
combination is alpha=3.0 (or alpha=2.5, if we allow for a flattening of the
halo with an axial ratio of (c/a)=0.6), h_1=300 pc, h_2=900 pc, and the
contribution of thick disk stars to the disk stars in the solar neighbourhood
is found to be between 4 and 10%.Comment: 16 pages, 10 figures, submitted to Astronomy and Astrophysic
Self-gravitating branes of codimension 4 in Lovelock gravity
We construct a familly of exact solutions of Lovelock equations describing
codimension four branes with discrete symmetry in the transverse space. Unlike
what is known from pure Einstein gravity, where such brane solutions of higher
codimension are singular, the solutions we find, for the complete Lovelock
theory, only present removable singularities. The latter account for a
localised tension-like energy-momentum tensor on the brane, in analogy with the
case of a codimension two self-gravitating cosmic string in pure Einstein
gravity. However, the solutions we discuss present two main distinctive
features : the tension of the brane receives corrections from the induced
curvature of the brane's worldsheet and, in a given Lovelock theory, the
spectrum of possible values of the tension is discrete. These solutions provide
a new framework for the study of higher codimension braneworlds.Comment: 22 page
Locating poor livestock keepers at the global level for research and development targeting
P.K. Thornton, R.L. Kruska, P.M. Kristjanson, R.S. Reid and T.P. Robinson are ILRI authorsMany research and development agencies are committed to halving the number of people living in extreme poverty by 2015. Knowledge of where the poor are, and what characterises them, is patchy at best. Here we describe a global livestock and poverty mapping study designed to assist in targeting research and development activities concerning livestock. Estimates of the numbers of poor livestock keepers by production system and region are presented. While these estimates suffer from various problems, improvements in global databases are critical to improve the targeting of interventions that can meet the challenges posed by poverty and to chart progress against international development indicators
Cattle trypanosomiasis in Africa to 2030
Trypanosomiasis diseases are caused by single-cell organisms and affect both humans and cattle. This indicative study modelled the effect of climate change and population growth on the future range of tsetse flies, their main vector, in sub- Saharan Africa. Projected climate change to 2030 has a limited effect on their distribution. Population growth has more significant consequences, mainly caused by the land-use change that accompanies it. It could reduce the area in which tsetse flies are found by 15% by 2030. The main effect would be in drier areas of western, eastern and southern Africa, and in Ethiopia. Humid areas would be less altered. The authors say that other factors such as disease control efforts and changing agricultural practices may also affect the future range of the flies and of the diseases with which they are associated
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