Cross border Classical Swine Fever control: Improving Dutch and German crisis management systems by an integrated public-private approach

The objective of this research approach is to analyse in which ways crisis management measures against Classical Swine Fever (CSF) can be improved by a public private cross border model. A core activity contains the analysis of information and communication systems: In a case study it has been empirically analysed if a sufficient supply of public and private information enables crisis managers at both sides of the Dutch-German border area to take decisions about CSF control more efficient. At the end of this approach a new crisis management model had been developed. One of the most important aspects thereby is the assessment of data: (1) within private quality management systems in normal times according to the benefit for public management tasks in times of crisis and (2) within public crisis management systems according to the benefit for cross-border CSF-control activities. To this effect two different methodological approaches have been combined within the model: (1) a method to identify and illustrate public actors and their options in crisis management decision making and (2) a system of communication and information exchange between public and private as well as Dutch and German actors (engage& exchange model) which permit to collect and to evaluate data in addition for a predefined time period are activated

Reconstruction of a long-term recovery process from pasture to forest

We used space-for-time substitution to obtain a directed successional sequence for subalpine meadow vegetation in the Swiss National Park. Since human impacts (e.g., domestic animal grazing) ceased in 1914, the successional processes documented are assumed to be autogenic in nature. The data consist of 59 permanent plots spanning almost 90 years, and include many spatial replications. An initial inspection of the individual time series revealed the existence of a variety of response patterns, which are described in the literature as representing different successional types. However, a closer inspection suggested that many of these series can be superimposed, as they are part of a much longer deterministic series. Linking the individual time series proved to be challenging. A heuristic approach produced results that differed depending on initial starting conditions. We therefore derived a deterministic algorithm to produce a unique solution. The resulting sequence largely confirmed the heuristic interpretation, suggesting a trend from early successional (post-grazing) grassland to pine invasion spanning about 400 years. This timespan is valid only for the climatic conditions near the treeline, and for plant species specific to the study site. Our results suggest that the various species temporal response models described in the literature may be artifactual, representing portions of underlying Gaussian responses. The data also indicate that species assemblages may persist for several decades with only minor fluctuations, only to change suddenly for no apparent reason

The nature of the recent extreme outburst of the Herbig Be/FU Ori binary Z CMa

Z CMa is a binary system which consists of two young stars: A Herbig AeBe component "Z CMa NW" embedded in a dust cocoon and a less massive component "Z CMa SE", which is classified as a FU Orionis type star. Recently, the system showed the largest outburst reported during the almost 90 years of available observations. During the recent outburst we detect that the Z CMa system is polarized by 2.6% in the continuum and emission line spectrum, with a position angle still perpendicular to the jet. From the high level of polarization we conclude that the outburst is associated with the dust embedded Herbig AeBe NW component. The main result of our studies is that the bolometric luminosity of Z CMa remained surprisingly constant during the recent "outburst". We conclude that either the geometry of the cavity through which the light escapes from the cocoon has opened a new path, or that the screen of dust, which reflects the light toward the observer became more efficient causing the observed increase of the visual brightness by about 2.5 magnitudes.Comment: letter to A&A, accepted 17/12/200

Real-time dynamics in spin-1/2 chains with adaptive time-dependent DMRG

We investigate the influence of different interaction strengths and dimerizations on the magnetization transport in antiferromagnetic spin-1/2 XXZ-chains. We focus on the real-time evolution of the inhomogeneous initial state with all spins pointing up along the z axis in the left half and down in the right half of the chain, using the adaptive time-dependent density-matrix renormalization group (adaptive t-DMRG). We find on time-scales accessible to us ballistic magnetization transport for small Sz-Sz-interaction and arbitrary dimerization, but almost no transport for stronger Sz-Sz-interaction, with a sharp crossover at Jz=1. At Jz=1 results indicate superdiffusive transport. Additionally, we perform a detailed analysis of the error made by the adaptive time-dependent DMRG using the fact that the evolution in the XX-model is known exactly. We find that the error at small times is dominated by the error made by the Trotter decomposition, whereas for longer times the DMRG truncation error becomes the most important, with a very sharp crossover at some "runaway" time.Comment: 13 pages, 20 figure

Hydrodynamics of the zero-range process in the condensation regime

We argue that the coarse-grained dynamics of the zero-range process in the condensation regime can be described by an extension of the standard hydrodynamic equation obtained from Eulerian scaling even though the system is not locally stationary. Our result is supported by Monte Carlo simulations.Comment: 14 pages, 3 figures. v2: Minor alteration

Theory of ω−4/3\omega^{-4/3} law of the power spectrum in dissipative flows

It is demonstrated that $\omega^{-4/3}$ law of the power spectrum with the angular frequency $\omega$ in dissipative flows is produced by the emission of dispersive waves from the antikink of an congested domain. The analytic theory predicts the spectrum is proportional to $\omega^{-2}$ for relatively low frequency and $\omega^{-4/3}$ for high frequency.Comment: 11 pages, 2 figure

Family of Commuting Operators for the Totally Asymmetric Exclusion Process

The algebraic structure underlying the totally asymmetric exclusion process is studied by using the Bethe Ansatz technique. From the properties of the algebra generated by the local jump operators, we explicitly construct the hierarchy of operators (called generalized hamiltonians) that commute with the Markov operator. The transfer matrix, which is the generating function of these operators, is shown to represent a discrete Markov process with long-range jumps. We give a general combinatorial formula for the connected hamiltonians obtained by taking the logarithm of the transfer matrix. This formula is proved using a symbolic calculation program for the first ten connected operators. Keywords: ASEP, Algebraic Bethe Ansatz. Pacs numbers: 02.30.Ik, 02.50.-r, 75.10.Pq.Comment: 26 pages, 1 figure; v2: published version with minor changes, revised title, 4 refs adde

Motion of condensates in non-Markovian zero-range dynamics

Condensation transition in a non-Markovian zero-range process is studied in one and higher dimensions. In the mean-field approximation, corresponding to infinite range hopping, the model exhibits condensation with a stationary condensate, as in the Markovian case, but with a modified phase diagram. In the case of nearest-neighbor hopping, the condensate is found to drift by a "slinky" motion from one site to the next. The mechanism of the drift is explored numerically in detail. A modified model with nearest-neighbor hopping which allows exact calculation of the steady state is introduced. The steady state of this model is found to be a product measure, and the condensate is stationary.Comment: 31 pages, 9 figure

Spectral Degeneracies in the Totally Asymmetric Exclusion Process

We study the spectrum of the Markov matrix of the totally asymmetric exclusion process (TASEP) on a one-dimensional periodic lattice at ARBITRARY filling. Although the system does not possess obvious symmetries except translation invariance, the spectrum presents many multiplets with degeneracies of high order. This behaviour is explained by a hidden symmetry property of the Bethe Ansatz. Combinatorial formulae for the orders of degeneracy and the corresponding number of multiplets are derived and compared with numerical results obtained from exact diagonalisation of small size systems. This unexpected structure of the TASEP spectrum suggests the existence of an underlying large invariance group. Keywords: ASEP, Markov matrix, Bethe Ansatz, Symmetries.Comment: 19 pages, 1 figur

Relaxation in the XX quantum chain

We present the results obtained on the magnetisation relaxation properties of an XX quantum chain in a transverse magnetic field. We first consider an initial thermal kink-like state where half of the chain is initially thermalized at a very high temperature $T_b$ while the remaining half, called the system, is put at a lower temperature $T_s$. From this initial state, we derive analytically the Green function associated to the dynamical behaviour of the transverse magnetisation. Depending on the strength of the magnetic field and on the temperature of the system, different regimes are obtained for the magnetic relaxation. In particular, with an initial droplet-like state, that is a cold subsystem of finite size in contact at both ends with an infinite temperature environnement, we derive analytically the behaviour of the time-dependent system magnetisation