Spatial Distribution of Micro Finance Institutions and Agricultural Development in Ekiti State, Nigeria

This study examines the impact of spatial distribution of Micro-finance institutions on Agricultural development in Ekiti State, Nigeria. Agriculture is an engine for economic growth in developing countries and rural microfinance is also critical to that growth. Data for this study were collected through primary sources. Three hundred (300) copies of questionnaires were administered on randomly selected farmers in the tree local government, selected across the three Senatorial Districts in Ekiti State Nigeria. The finding shows that problems of collateral security and poor facilities were the major impediments to agricultural development in the study area. This study therefore suggests a relaxed policy of collateral security to facilitate credit facilities for the farmers, especially in the study area.Key words: Agriculture, Development, Ekiti State, Nigeria, Micro- Finance, Institutions and Spatial Distribution

Robust and Efficient Quantum Repeaters with Atomic Ensembles and Linear Optics

In the last few years there has been a lot of interest in quantum repeater protocols using only atomic ensembles and linear optics. Here we show that the local generation of high-fidelity entangled pairs of atomic excitations, in combination with the use of two-photon detections for long-distance entanglement generation, permits the implementation of a very attractive quantum repeater protocol. Such a repeater is robust with respect to phase fluctuations in the transmission channels, and at the same time achieves higher entanglement generation rates than other protocols using the same ingredients. We propose an efficient method of generating high-fidelity entangled pairs locally, based on the partial readout of the ensemble-based memories. We also discuss the experimental implementation of the proposed protocol.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures, accepted version (to appear in Phys. Rev. A

Berry's Phase in the Presence of a Stochastically Evolving Environment: A Geometric Mechanism for Energy-Level Broadening

The generic Berry phase scenario in which a two-level system is coupled to a second system whose dynamical coordinate is slowly-varying is generalized to allow for stochastic evolution of the slow system. The stochastic behavior is produced by coupling the slow system to a heat resevoir which is modeled by a bath of harmonic oscillators initially in equilibrium at temperature T, and whose spectral density has a bandwidth which is small compared to the energy-level spacing of the fast system. The well-known energy-level shifts produced by Berry's phase in the fast system, in conjunction with the stochastic motion of the slow system, leads to a broadening of the fast system energy-levels. In the limit of strong damping and sufficiently low temperature, we determine the degree of level-broadening analytically, and show that the slow system dynamics satisfies a Langevin equation in which Lorentz-like and electric-like forces appear as a consequence of geometrical effects. We also determine the average energy-level shift produced in the fast system by this mechanism.Comment: 29 pages, RevTex, submitted to Phys. Rev.

Estimation of nitrogen use efficiency for ryegrass-fed dairy cows: model development using diet and animal-based proxy measures

This study aimed to identify suitable predictors of nitrogen (N) use efficiency (NUE; milk N/N intake) for cows that differed in breeds and were fed with ryegrass pasture, using existing data from the scientific literature. Data from 16 studies were used to develop models based on the relationships between NUE and dietary and animal-based factors. Data from a further 10 studies were used for model validation. Milk urea N (MUN) and dietary water-soluble carbohydrate-to-crudeprotein ratio (WSC/CP) were the best and most practical animal- and diet-based proxies to predict NUE. The results indicate that it might be necessary to adopt separate models for different breeds when using WSC/CP to predict NUE but not when using MUN

Perturbation of an Eigen-Value from a Dense Point Spectrum : An Example

We study a perturbed Floquet Hamiltonian $K+\beta V$ depending on a coupling constant $\beta$. The spectrum $\sigma(K)$ is assumed to be pure point and dense. We pick up an eigen-value, namely $0\in\sigma(K)$, and show the existence of a function $\lambda(\beta)$ defined on $I\subset\R$ such that $\lambda(\beta) \in \sigma(K+\beta V)$ for all $\beta\in I$, 0 is a point of density for the set $I$, and the Rayleigh-Schr\"odinger perturbation series represents an asymptotic series for the function $\lambda(\beta)$. All ideas are developed and demonstrated when treating an explicit example but some of them are expected to have an essentially wider range of application.Comment: Latex, 24 pages, 51

Association of Diurnal Rainfall in Northeastern Tibetan Plateau with the Retreat of the South Asian High

The characteristics of intense diurnal precipitation occurring beneath the South Asian High (SAH) are diagnosed in the summer monsoon season from 2010 to 2015 using observational data. The diagnostics indicate that summer nighttime rainfall events in the northeastern Tibetan Plateau can intensify towards the end of the monsoon period. By defining a transition index to identify the transition day during which the episodes of diurnal convection start to decline, daily thermodynamic properties and precipitation from each year were composited before and after the transition date. The analysis reveals that warmer air, increased moisture, and stronger upward velocity are present in the atmosphere before the transition day, potentially elevating nighttime convective precipitation. Enhanced upward velocity that is present through the two months prior to transition date coincides with the timing of the peak SAH, while weakened upward velocity afterwards coincides with its subsequent retreat. The large-scale lift due to terrain-ambient air interaction underneath the SAH and the increased moisture content can enhance the potential for diurnal convection, which lends support to the nighttime peak of rainfall. This feature persists until the transition date, after which the SAH starts to retreat

Risk-Driven Design Processes: Balancing Efficiency with Resilience in Product Design

Current design methods and approaches focus on increasing the efficiency of the product design system by, for example, eliminating waste and focusing on value creation. However, continuing failures in the development of complex, large scale products and systems point towards weaknesses in the existing approaches. We argue that product development organizations are hindered by the many uncertainties that are inherent in the process. Common management heuristics ignore uncertainty and thus overly simplify the decision making process. Creating transparency regarding uncertainties and the associated risks (i.e. effect of uncertainties on design objectives) is not seen as an explicit priority. Consequently organizations are unable to balance risk and return in their development choices. Product development processes do not emphasize reduction of risks, particularly those risks that are apparent early in the process. In addition, the resilience of the PD system, i.e. its ability to deliver on-target results under uncertainty, is not deliberately designed to match the level of residual uncertainty. This chapter introduces the notion of Risk-Driven Design and its four principles of 1. Creating transparency regarding design risks; 2. Risk-driven decision making; 3. Minimizing uncertainty; and 4. Creating resilience.Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Lean Advancement InitiativeCenter for Clean Water and Clean Energy at MIT and KFUP

Experimental demonstration of a BDCZ quantum repeater node

Quantum communication is a method that offers efficient and secure ways for the exchange of information in a network. Large-scale quantum communication (of the order of 100 km) has been achieved; however, serious problems occur beyond this distance scale, mainly due to inevitable photon loss in the transmission channel. Quantum communication eventually fails when the probability of a dark count in the photon detectors becomes comparable to the probability that a photon is correctly detected. To overcome this problem, Briegel, D\"{u}r, Cirac and Zoller (BDCZ) introduced the concept of quantum repeaters, combining entanglement swapping and quantum memory to efficiently extend the achievable distances. Although entanglement swapping has been experimentally demonstrated, the implementation of BDCZ quantum repeaters has proved challenging owing to the difficulty of integrating a quantum memory. Here we realize entanglement swapping with storage and retrieval of light, a building block of the BDCZ quantum repeater. We follow a scheme that incorporates the strategy of BDCZ with atomic quantum memories. Two atomic ensembles, each originally entangled with a single emitted photon, are projected into an entangled state by performing a joint Bell state measurement on the two single photons after they have passed through a 300-m fibre-based communication channel. The entanglement is stored in the atomic ensembles and later verified by converting the atomic excitations into photons. Our method is intrinsically phase insensitive and establishes the essential element needed to realize quantum repeaters with stationary atomic qubits as quantum memories and flying photonic qubits as quantum messengers.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure

Effective Mass of Composite Fermions and Fermionic Chern-Simons Theory in Temporal Gauge

The definitions of the effective mass of the composite fermion are discussed for the half-filled Landau level problem. In a recent work, Shankar and Murthy show a finite effective mass of the composite fermion by a canonical transformation while the perturbative calculation gives the logarithmic divergence of the effective mass at the Fermi surface. We will emphasize that the different definition of the effective mass has the different physical processes. The finite one could be defined for any momentum of the composite fermion while the divergence only appears at the Fermi surface. We work with the standard Halperin-Lee-Read model but in the temporal gauge. The advantage of this gauge to be employed is that the finite effective mass could be calculated in the Hartree-Fock approximation. Furthermore, it is precisely equal to the result that Shankar and Murthy obtained which is well-fit with the numerical calculation from the ground state energy analysis and a semi-classical estimation. However, if we consider the random phase approximation, one sees that the divergence of the effective mass of the quasiparticle at the Fermi surface emerges again no matter that we work on the temporal or Coulomb gauges. We develop an effective theory where the finite effective mass serves as a `bare' effective mass and show that the same divergence of the RPA effective mass. On the other hand, the correct behavior of the response functions in the small band mass limit could be seen clearly in the temporal gauge since there is a self-interaction among the magnetoplasmons.Comment: 27 pages,6 eps figure

Bacterial isolates from blood cultures of children with suspected septicaemia in Calabar, Nigeria

BACKGROUND: Septicaemia is a common cause of morbidity and mortality among children in the developing world. This pattern has changed little in the past decade. Physical signs and symptoms, though useful in identifying possible cases have limited specificity. Definitive diagnosis is by bacteriologic culture of blood samples to identify organisms and establish antibiotic susceptibility. These results are usually not available promptly. Therefore a knowledge of epidemiologic and antimicribial susceptibility pattern of common pathogens is useful for prompt treatment of patients. This report highlights the pattern of bacterial isolates in our environment from a retrospective study of our patients' records. METHODS: One thousand, two hundred and one blood samples were analysed from children aged 0–15 years, admitted into the children's wards of the University of Calabar Teaching Hospital, Calabar, Nigeria with features suggesting septicaemia. Samples were collected under aseptic conditions and cultured for aerobic and anaerobic organisms. Isolates were identified using bacteriologic and biochemical methods and antibiotic sensitivity determined by agar diffusion method using standard antibiotic discs. RESULTS: Bacteria was isolated in 552 (48.9%) of samples with highest rates among newborns (271 : 50.8). The most frequent isolates were Staphylococcal aureus (48.7%) and Coliforms (23.4%). Results showed high susceptibilities to the Cephalosporins (Ceftriazone- 100%:83.2%, Cefuroxime-100%:76.5%) and Macrolides (Azithromycin-100%:92.9%) for S. aureus and coliforms respectively. This study underscores the importance of septicaemia as a common cause of febrile illness in children and provides information on common prevalent aetiologic agents and drug susceptibilities of the commonest pathogens. CONCLUSION: Staphylococcus aureus and coliforms were the leading causes of septicaemia in children in this locality, and the third generation cephalosporins and azithromycin were shown to be effective against these pathogens