340 research outputs found
What agro-input dealers know, sell and say to smallholder farmers about pesticides: a mystery shopping and KAP analysis in Uganda
BACKGROUND: Pesticides can have negative effects on human and environmental health, especially when not handled as intended. In many countries, agro-input dealers sell pesticides to smallholder farmers and are supposed to provide recommendations on application and handling. This study investigates the role of agro-input dealers in transmitting safety information from chemical manufacturers to smallholder farmers, assesses the safety of their shops, what products they sell, and how agro-input dealers abide by laws and recommendations on best practices for preventing pesticide risk situations. METHODS: Applying a mixed-methods approach, we studied agro-input dealers in Central and Western Uganda. Structured questionnaires were applied to understand agro-input dealers' knowledge, attitude and practices on pesticides (n = 402). Shop layout (n = 392) and sales interaction (n = 236) were assessed through observations. Actual behavior of agro-input dealers when selling pesticides was revealed through mystery shopping with local farmers buying pesticides (n = 94). RESULTS: While 97.0% of agro-input dealers considered advising customers their responsibility, only 26.6% of mystery shoppers received any advice from agro-input dealers when buying pesticides. 53.2% of products purchased were officially recommended. Sales interactions focused mainly on product choice and price. Agro-input dealers showed limited understanding of labels and active ingredients. Moreover, 25.0% of shops were selling repackaged products, while 10.5% sold unmarked or unlabeled products. 90.1% of shops were lacking safety equipment. Pesticides of World Health Organization toxicity class I and II were sold most frequently. Awareness of health effects seemed to be high, although agro-input dealers showed incomplete hygiene practices and were lacking infrastructure. One reason for these findings might be that only 55.7% of agro-input dealers held a certificate of competency on safe handling of pesticides and even fewer (5.7%) were able to provide a government-approved up-to-date license. CONCLUSION: The combination of interviews, mystery shopping and observations proved to be useful, allowing the comparison of stated and actual behavior. While agro-input dealers want to sell pesticides and provide the corresponding risk advice, their customers might receive neither the appropriate product nor sufficient advice on proper handling. In light of the expected increase in pesticide use, affordable, accessible and repeated pesticide training and shop inspections are indispensable
Yangian Symmetry at Two Loops for the su(2|1) Sector of N=4 SYM
We present the perturbative Yangian symmetry at next-to-leading order in the
su(2|1) sector of planar N=4 SYM. Just like the ordinary symmetry generators,
the bi-local Yangian charges receive corrections acting on several neighboring
sites. We confirm that the bi-local Yangian charges satisfy the necessary
conditions: they transform in the adjoint of su(2|1), they commute with the
dilatation generator, and they satisfy the Serre relations. This proves that
the sector is integrable at two loops.Comment: 13 pages, v2: minor correction
Integrability and Transcendentality
We derive the two-loop Bethe ansatz for the sl(2) twist operator sector of
N=4 gauge theory directly from the field theory. We then analyze a recently
proposed perturbative asymptotic all-loop Bethe ansatz in the limit of large
spacetime spin at large but finite twist, and find a novel all-loop scaling
function. This function obeys the Kotikov-Lipatov transcendentality principle
and does not depend on the twist. Under the assumption that one may extrapolate
back to leading twist, our result yields an all-loop prediction for the
large-spin anomalous dimensions of twist-two operators. The latter also appears
as an undetermined function in a recent conjecture of Bern, Dixon and Smirnov
for the all-loop structure of the maximally helicity violating (MHV) n-point
gluon amplitudes of N=4 gauge theory. This potentially establishes a direct
link between the worldsheet and the spacetime S-matrix approach. A further
assumption for the validity of our prediction is that perturbative BMN
(Berenstein-Maldacena-Nastase) scaling does not break down at four loops, or
beyond. We also discuss how the result gets modified if BMN scaling does break
down. Finally, we show that our result qualitatively agrees at strong coupling
with a prediction of string theory.Comment: 45 pages LaTeX, 3 postscript figures. v2: Chapter on BMN scaling and
transcendentality added. v3: version accepted for publication in JSTA
T-Duality Transformation and Universal Structure of Non-Critical String Field Theory
We discuss a T-duality transformation for the c=1/2 matrix model for the
purpose of studying duality transformations in a possible toy example of
nonperturbative frameworks of string theory. Our approach is to first
investigate the scaling limit of the Schwinger-Dyson equations and the
stochastic Hamiltonian in terms of the dual variables and then compare the
results with those using the original spin variables. It is shown that the
c=1/2 model in the scaling limit is T-duality symmetric in the sphere
approximation. The duality symmetry is however violated when the higher-genus
effects are taken into account, owing to the existence of global Z_2 vector
fields corresponding to nontrivial homology cycles. Some universal properties
of the stochastic Hamiltonians which play an important role in discussing the
scaling limit and have been discussed in a previous work by the last two
authors are refined in both the original and dual formulations. We also report
a number of new explicit results for various amplitudes containing macroscopic
loop operators.Comment: RevTex, 46 pages, 5 eps figure
Matching Higher Conserved Charges for Strings and Spins
We demonstrate that the recently found agreement between one-loop scaling
dimensions of large dimension operators in N=4 gauge theory and energies of
spinning strings on AdS_5 x S^5 extends to the eigenvalues of an infinite
number of hidden higher commuting charges. This dynamical agreement is of a
mathematically highly intricate and non-trivial nature. In particular, on the
gauge side the generating function for the commuting charges is obtained by
integrable quantum spin chain techniques from the thermodynamic density
distribution function of Bethe roots. On the string side the generating
function, containing information to arbitrary loop order, is constructed by
solving exactly the Backlund equations of the integrable classical string sigma
model. Our finding should be an important step towards matching the integrable
structures on the string and gauge side of the AdS/CFT correspondence.Comment: Latex, 33 pages, v2: new section added (completing the analytic proof
that the entire infinite towers of commuting gauge and string charges match);
references adde
Computing power indices for weighted voting games via dynamic programming
We study the efficient computation of power indices for weighted voting games using the paradigm of dynamic programming. We survey the state-of-the-art algorithms for computing the Banzhaf and Shapley-Shubik indices and point out how these approaches carry over to related power indices. Within a unified framework, we present new efficient algorithms for the Public Good index and a recently proposed power index based on minimal winning coalitions of the smallest size, as well as a very first method for computing the Johnston indices for weighted voting games efficiently. We introduce a software package providing fast C++ implementations of all the power indices mentioned in this article, discuss computing times, as well as storage requirements
Yangian symmetry and bound states in AdS/CFT boundary scattering
We consider the problem of boundary scattering for Y=0 maximal giant graviton
branes. We show that the boundary S-matrix for the fundamental excitations has
a Yangian symmetry. We then exploit this symmetry to determine the boundary
S-matrix for two-particle bound states. We verify that this boundary S-matrix
satisfies the boundary Yang-Baxter equations.Comment: 17 page
The property of maximal transcendentality in the N=4 SYM
We show results for the universal anomalous dimension gamma_{uni}(j) of
Wilson twist-2 operators in the N=4 Supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory in the
first three orders of perturbation theory. These expressions are obtained by
extracting the most complicated contributions from the corresponding anomalous
dimensions in QCD.Comment: 6 pages, published in the Proceedings of International Bogolyubov
Conference "Problems of Theoretical and Mathematical Physics" (dedicated to
the 100th anniversary of the birth of N.N. Bogolyubov (1909-1992)), Dubna,
Russia, August 21 - 27, 2009 (Phys.Part.Nucl. in press
The Factorized S-Matrix of CFT/AdS
We argue that the recently discovered integrability in the large-N CFT/AdS
system is equivalent to diffractionless scattering of the corresponding hidden
elementary excitations. This suggests that, perhaps, the key tool for finding
the spectrum of this system is neither the gauge theory's dilatation operator
nor the string sigma model's quantum Hamiltonian, but instead the respective
factorized S-matrix. To illustrate the idea, we focus on the closed fermionic
su(1|1) sector of the N=4 gauge theory. We introduce a new technique, the
perturbative asymptotic Bethe ansatz, and use it to extract this sector's
three-loop S-matrix from Beisert's involved algebraic work on the three-loop
su(2|3) sector. We then show that the current knowledge about semiclassical and
near-plane-wave quantum strings in the su(2), su(1|1) and sl(2) sectors of
AdS_5 x S^5 is fully consistent with the existence of a factorized S-matrix.
Analyzing the available information, we find an intriguing relation between the
three associated S-matrices. Assuming that the relation also holds in gauge
theory, we derive the three-loop S-matrix of the sl(2) sector even though this
sector's dilatation operator is not yet known beyond one loop. The resulting
Bethe ansatz reproduces the three-loop anomalous dimensions of twist-two
operators recently conjectured by Kotikov, Lipatov, Onishchenko and Velizhanin,
whose work is based on a highly complex QCD computation of Moch, Vermaseren and
Vogt.Comment: 38 pages, LaTeX, JHEP3.cl
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