Effects of industrial plantations on ecosystem services and livelihoods : Perspectives of rural communities in China

This paper addresses the current research void on local community views of changes in ecosystem services associated with rapid land use transformation in the context of plantation-based forestry. This interview-based study, conducted in southern China, aims at assessing the perspectives of local communities of: 1) the effects of Eucalyptus industrial plantations on selected ecosystem services and on local development; and 2) opportunities for future community livelihood development, based on the relations with the government and with forest industry operating locally. We analysed data from semi-structured interviews with 70 villagers for their views on changes in ecosystem services after the establishment of plantations, and their future expectations on the local livelihood development. Most interviewees mentioned some negative development on environmental quality after the establishment of the industrial plantations, especially on soil and water. Furthermore, the reduced productivity of cropland surrounding industrial plantations, coupled with other financial drivers, induced several villagers to switch from agricultural crops to household plantations. In the absence of destructive typhoons, household plantations can provide owners more free time, higher income, while industrial plantations provided some employment opportunities. Interviewees' expectations for the future included receiving financial support and capacity building for household plantations and crops, support to local roads and schools, and higher employment opportunities. Some interviewees suggested that solutions should be implemented for improving degraded water quality, while others suggested reducing forestry operations. Even though being highly context-specific, our findings open up the discussion about the further community development opportunities in the context of plantation forestry. In particular, the potential of value sharing mechanisms between the private sector and the local communities should be further studied. (C) 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.Peer reviewe

Preheating and Affleck-Dine leptogenesis after thermal inflation

Previously, we proposed a model of low energy Affleck-Dine leptogenesis in the context of thermal inflation. The lepton asymmetry is generated at the end of thermal inflation, which occurs at a relatively low energy scale with the Hubble parameter somewhere in the range 1 \keV \lesssim H \lesssim 1 \MeV. Thus Hubble damping will be ineffective in bringing the Affleck-Dine field into the lepton conserving region near the origin, leaving the possibility that the lepton number could be washed out. Previously, we suggested that preheating could damp the amplitude of the Affleck-Dine field allowing conservation of the lepton number. In this paper, we demonstrate numerically that preheating does efficiently damp the amplitude of the Affleck-Dine field and that the lepton number is conserved as the result. In addition to demonstrating a crucial aspect of our model, it also opens the more general possibility of low energy Affleck-Dine baryogenesis.Comment: 38 pages, 17 figure

Phonon Life-times from first principles self consistent lattice dynamics

Phonon lifetime calculations from first principles usually rely on time consuming molecular dynamics calculations, or density functional perturbation theory (DFPT) where the zero temperature crystal structure is assumed to be dynamically stable. Here a new and effective method for calculating phonon lifetimes from first principles is presented, not limited to crystal structures stable at 0 K, and potentially much more effective than most corresponding molecular dynamics calculations. The method is based on the recently developed self consistent lattice dynamical method and is here tested by calculating the bcc phase phonon lifetimes of Li, Na, Ti and Zr, as representative examples.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figur

Revealing Influenced Selected Feature for P2P Botnet Detection

P2P botnet has become a serious security threat for computer networking systems. Botnet attack causes a great financial loss and badly impact the information and communication technology (ICT) system. Current botnet detection mechanisms have limitations and flaws to deal with P2P botnets which famously known for their complexity and scalable attack. Studies show that botnets behavior can be detected based on several detection features. However, some of the feature parameters may not represent botnet behavior and may lead to higher false alarm detection rate. In this paper, we reveal selected feature that influences P2P botnets detection. The result obtained by selecting features shows detection attack rate of 99.74%

Throughput efficient AODV for improving QoS routing in energy aware mobile adhoc network

Mobile Ad hoc Networks (MANETs) is a type of wireless network that is made up of mobile nodes which coordinate themselves without the help of a central coordinator. The network topology changes as nodes are mobile. One of the major challenges of MANET is limited bandwidth which tends to mitigate the Quality of Service (QoS) of the network as users are not satisfied. A variety of routing protocols has been employed aiming at improving the throughput of the network in order to meet user demands. This paper proposes the development of a throughput efficient Ad-hoc On demand Distance Vector (TE-AODV) routing protocol targeted towards improving the QoS of MANET by mitigating network overhead. In this work, all nodes are assumed to be transmitting while calculating their Instant Processing State (IPS) using the concept of knapsack problem. A threshold value for node IPS is set and any node below the set threshold value is not considered during data transmission. An improved Location Aided Routing (iLAR) is used for route search process which helped in reducing network overhead. Results from simulation showed that TE-AODV has improved the throughput of energy aware Ad-hoc On demand Distance Vector (E-AODV) routing protocol. TE-AODV improved the network throughput by 2.9% as a function of simulation time and 3.7% as a function of mobility of node over the E-AODV routing protocol

Scaling and non-Abelian signature in fractional quantum Hall quasiparticle tunneling amplitude

We study the scaling behavior in the tunneling amplitude when quasiparticles tunnel along a straight path between the two edges of a fractional quantum Hall annulus. Such scaling behavior originates from the propagation and tunneling of charged quasielectrons and quasiholes in an effective field analysis. In the limit when the annulus deforms continuously into a quasi-one-dimensional ring, we conjecture the exact functional form of the tunneling amplitude for several cases, which reproduces the numerical results in finite systems exactly. The results for Abelian quasiparticle tunneling is consistent with the scaling anaysis; this allows for the extraction of the conformal dimensions of the quasiparticles. We analyze the scaling behavior of both Abelian and non-Abelian quasiparticles in the Read-Rezayi Z_k-parafermion states. Interestingly, the non-Abelian quasiparticle tunneling amplitudes exhibit nontrivial k-dependent corrections to the scaling exponent.Comment: 16 pages, 4 figure

High-field spectroscopy of singlet-triplet transitions in the spin-dimer systems Sr3Cr2O8 and Ba3Cr2O8

Magnetic excitations in the isostructural spin-dimer systems Sr3Cr2O8 and Ba3Cr2O8 are probed by means of high-field electron spin resonance at sub-terahertz frequencies. Three types of magnetic modes were observed. One mode is gapless and corresponds to transitions within excited states, while two other sets of modes are gapped and correspond to transitions from the ground to the first excited states. The selection rules of the gapped modes are analyzed in terms of a dynamical Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction, suggesting the presence of phonon-assisted effects in the low-temperature spin dynamics of Sr3Cr2O8 and Ba3Cr2O8Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, all comments are welcome and appreciate

Mobility gap in fractional quantum Hall liquids: Effects of disorder and layer thickness

We study the behavior of two-dimensional electron gas in the fractional quantum Hall regime in the presence of finite layer thickness and correlated disordered potential. Generalizing the Chern number calculation to many-body systems, we determine the mobility gaps of fractional quantum Hall states based on the distribution of Chern numbers in a microscopic model. We find excellent agreement between experimentally measured activation gaps and our calculated mobility gaps, when combining the effects of both disordered potential and layer thickness. We clarify the difference between mobility gap and spectral gap of fractional quantum Hall states and explain the disorder-driven collapse of the gap and the subsequent transitions from the fractional quantum Hall states to insulator.Comment: 13 pages, 8 figure

Neutrino Masses, Lepton Flavor Mixing and Leptogenesis in the Minimal Seesaw Model

We present a review of neutrino phenomenology in the minimal seesaw model (MSM), an economical and intriguing extension of the Standard Model with only two heavy right-handed Majorana neutrinos. Given current neutrino oscillation data, the MSM can predict the neutrino mass spectrum and constrain the effective masses of the tritium beta decay and the neutrinoless double-beta decay. We outline five distinct schemes to parameterize the neutrino Yukawa-coupling matrix of the MSM. The lepton flavor mixing and baryogenesis via leptogenesis are investigated in some detail by taking account of possible texture zeros of the Dirac neutrino mass matrix. We derive an upper bound on the CP-violating asymmetry in the decay of the lighter right-handed Majorana neutrino. The effects of the renormalization-group evolution on the neutrino mixing parameters are analyzed, and the correlation between the CP-violating phenomena at low and high energies is highlighted. We show that the observed matter-antimatter asymmetry of the Universe can naturally be interpreted through the resonant leptogenesis mechanism at the TeV scale. The lepton-flavor-violating rare decays, such as $\mu \to e + \gamma$, are also discussed in the supersymmetric extension of the MSM.Comment: 50 pages, 22 EPS figures, macro file ws-ijmpe.cls included, accepted for publication in Int. J. Mod. Phys.

Resident phenotypically modulated vascular smooth muscle cells in healthy human arteries.

Vascular interstitial cells (VICs) are non-contractile cells with filopodia previously described in healthy blood vessels of rodents and their function remains unknown. The objective of this study was to identify VICs in human arteries and to ascertain their role. VICs were identified in the wall of human gastro-omental arteries using transmission electron microscopy. Isolated VICs showed ability to form new and elongate existing filopodia and actively change body shape. Most importantly sprouting VICs were also observed in cell dispersal. RT-PCR performed on separately collected contractile vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs) and VICs showed that both cell types expressed the gene for smooth muscle myosin heavy chain (SM-MHC). Immunofluorescent labelling showed that both VSMCs and VICs had similar fluorescence for SM-MHC and αSM-actin, VICs, however, had significantly lower fluorescence for smoothelin, myosin light chain kinase, h-calponin and SM22α. It was also found that VICs do not have cytoskeleton as rigid as in contractile VSMCs. VICs express number of VSMC-specific proteins and display features of phenotypically modulated VSMCs with increased migratory abilities. VICs, therefore represent resident phenotypically modulated VSMCs that are present in human arteries under normal physiological conditions