2,219 research outputs found
The effects of soil moisture, field-scale toposequential position, and slope on yields in irrigated upland rice fields in Flores, Comayagua, Honduras
Rice (Oryza sativa L.) is an important cash crop in Honduras because of the rice lobby’s size, willingness to protest, and ability to negotiate favorable price guarantees on a year-to-year basis. Despite the availability of inexpensive irrigation in the study area in Flores, La Villa de San Antonio, Comayagua, the rice farmers do not cultivate the crop using prescribed methods such as land leveling, puddling, and water conservation structures. Soil moisture (Volumetric Water Content) was measured using a soil moisture probe after the termination of the first irrigation within the tillering/vegetative, panicle emergence/flowering, post-flowering/pre-maturation and maturation stages. Yield data was obtained by harvesting on 1 m2 plots in each soil moisture testing site. Data was analyzed to find the influence of toposequential position along transects, slope, soil moisture, and farmers on yields. The results showed that toposequential position was more important than slope and soil moisture on yields. Soil moisture was not a significant predictor of rice yields. Irrigation politics, precipitation, and land tenure were proposed as the major explanatory variables for this result
On the structure and spectrum of classical two-dimensional clusters with a logarithmic interaction potential
We present a numerical study of the effect of the repulsive logarithmic
inter-particle interaction on the ground state configuration and the frequency
spectrum of a confined classical two-dimensional cluster containing a finite
number of particles. In the case of a hard wall confinement all particles form
one ring situated at the boundary of the potential. For a general r^n
confinement potential, also inner rings can form and we find that all
frequencies lie below the frequency of a particular mode, namely the
breathing-like mode. An interesting situation arises for the parabolic confined
system(i.e. n=2). In this case the frequency of the breathing mode is
independent of the number of particles leading to an upper bound for all
frequencies. All results can be understood from Earnshaw's theorem in two
dimensions. In order to check the sensitivity of these results, the spectrum of
vortices in a type II superconductor which, in the limit of large penetration
depths, interact through a logarithmic potential, is investigated.Comment: 11 pages, 6 figure
An AC electric trap for ground-state molecules
We here report on the realization of an electrodynamic trap, capable of
trapping neutral atoms and molecules in both low-field and high-field seeking
states. Confinement in three dimensions is achieved by switching between two
electric field configurations that have a saddle-point at the center of the
trap, i.e., by alternating a focusing and a defocusing force in each direction.
AC trapping of 15ND3 molecules is experimentally demonstrated, and the
stability of the trap is studied as a function of the switching frequency. A 1
mK sample of 15ND3 molecules in the high-field seeking component of the
|J,K>=|1,1> level, the ground-state of para-ammonia, is trapped in a volume of
about 1 mm^3
Fermions on the Electroweak String
We construct a simple class of exact solutions of the electroweak theory
including the naked --string and fermion fields. It consists in the
--string configuration (), the {\it time} and components
of the neutral gauge bosons () and a fermion condensate
(lepton or quark) zero mode. The --string is not altered (no feed back from
the rest of fields on the --string) while fermion condensates are zero modes
of the Dirac equation in the presence of the --string background (no feed
back from the {\it time} and components of the neutral gauge bosons on the
fermion fields). For the case of the --vortex --string the number of zero
modes found for charged leptons and quarks is (according to previous results by
Jackiw and Rossi) equal to , while for (massless) neutrinos is .
The presence of fermion fields in its core make the obtained configuration a
superconducting string, but their presence (as well as that of
) does not enhance the stability of the --string.Comment: 12 text pages (Latex) and 8 postscript figures in a uuencoded fil
Open/Closed String Topology and Moduli Space Actions via Open/Closed Hochschild Actions
In this paper we extend our correlation functions to the open/closed case.
This gives rise to actions of an open/closed version of the Sullivan PROP as
well as an action of the relevant moduli space. There are several unexpected
structures and conditions that arise in this extension which are forced upon us
by considering the open sector. For string topology type operations, one cannot
just consider graphs, but has to take punctures into account and one has to
restrict the underlying Frobenius algebras. In the moduli space, one first has
to pass to a smaller moduli space which is closed under open/closed duality and
then consider covers in order to account for the punctures
Photon Channelling in Foams
Experiments by Gittings, Bandyopadhyay, and Durian [Europhys. Lett.\
\textbf{65}, 414 (2004)] demonstrate that light possesses a higher probability
to propagate in the liquid phase of a foam due to total reflection. The authors
term this observation photon channelling which we investigate in this article
theoretically. We first derive a central relation in the work of Gitting {\em
et al.} without any free parameters. It links the photon's path-length fraction
in the liquid phase to the liquid fraction . We then construct
two-dimensional Voronoi foams, replace the cell edges by channels to represent
the liquid films and simulate photon paths according to the laws of ray optics
using transmission and reflection coefficients from Fresnel's formulas. In an
exact honeycomb foam, the photons show superdiffusive behavior. It becomes
diffusive as soon as disorder is introduced into the foams. The dependence of
the diffusion constant on channel width and refractive index is explained by a
one-dimensional random-walk model. It contains a photon channelling state that
is crucial for the understanding of the numerical results. At the end, we
shortly comment on the observation that photon channelling only occurs in a
finite range of .Comment: 9 pages, minor change
Objectification in Action: Self- and Other-Objectification in Mixed-Sex Interpersonal Interactions
Although the process of sexual objectification is theorized to occur within interpersonal interactions, we believe this is the first study to examine sexual objectification and self-objectification in actual (nonconfederate) interpersonal encounters. Men and women were brought into the laboratory and interacted in mixed-sex dyads. We used dyadic analysis to detect whether partners’ objectification of each other affected state self-objectification, and the resulting feelings of comfort and authenticity during the interaction. After the interaction, participants completed a cognitive performance task, a measure of career aspirations, and a measure of relationship agency. Results showed that for women only, being objectified by their male interaction partner was associated with an increase in state self-objectification, and state self-objectification led to perceptions that the interaction was less comfortable and less authentic. Furthermore, for women but not for men, having authentic interactions was found to relate positively to relationship agency, career aspirations, and cognitive performance. This research shows that self-objectification is not only a self-process but an interpersonal process heightened by the real-time sexual objectification of a male interaction partner. Online slides for instructors who want to use this article for teaching are available to PWQ subscribers on PWQ\u27s website at http://pwq.sagepub.com/supplementa
An intermediate-mass black hole candidate in M51?
We present the current results of an investigation into M51 ULX-7, using archival data from XMM-Newton, Chandra and NuSTAR, and optical and radio data from HST and VLA. The source has a consistently hard power-law X-ray spectrum and high short-term variability. This is unusual variability behaviour for a ULX, as we would expect highly variable ULXs to have soft energy spectra. The power spectrum features a break at ∼ 10^(–3) Hz, from low frequency spectral index α = 0.1 to high frequency spectral index α = 0.8, analogous to the low frequency break found in power spectra of black holes accreting in the low/hard state. We do not observe a corresponding high frequency break, however taking the white noise level as a frequency lower limit of the break, we can calculate a black hole mass upper limit of 9.12×104 M, assuming that the ULX is in the low/hard state. While there is no radio detection, we find a flux density upper limit of 87 µJy/beam. Using the X-ray/radio fundamental plane, we calculate a black hole mass upper limit of 1.95×10^5 M®. Therefore, this ULX is consistent with being an IMBH accreting in the low/hard state
The Fluctuations of the Quark Number and of the Chiral Condensate
The distributions of the quark number and chiral condensate over the gauge
fields are computed for QCD in Euclidean space at nonzero quark chemical
potential. As both operators are non-hermitian the distributions are in the
complex plane. Moreover, because of the sign problem, the distributions are not
real and positive. The computations are carried out within leading order chiral
perturbation theory and give a direct insight into the delicate cancellations
that take place in contributions to the total baryon number and the chiral
condensate.Comment: 19 pages, 2 figure
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