Remembering Darrell Posey´s Contribution to Ethnobiology and Ethnoecology

The main purpose of this article is to provide an account of Darrell Posey’s academic life, from a north-American undergraduate student interested in entomology into one of the main figures and builders of Ethnobiology and major advocate of Indigenous Peoples ‘rights around the world. This short biography highlights his relations with the Kayapó indigenous people and his role in coordinating a decade-long interdisciplinary ethnobiology research project named “The Kayapó Project”. It was mostly through the development of this team effort that he contributed fundamental and long-lasting theoretical, methodological and practical advancements to the field of ethnobiology.

The gamma-ray spectrum of Geminga and the inverse Compton model of pulsar high energy emission

We reanalyze the Fermi spectra of the Geminga and Vela pulsars. We find that the spectrum of Geminga above the break is exceptionally well approximated by a simple power law without the exponential cut-off, making Geminga's spectrum similar to that of Crab. Vela's broadband gamma-ray spectrum is equally well fit with both the exponential cut-off and the double power law shapes. In the broadband double power-law fits, for a typical Fermi spectrum of a bright \gamma-ray pulsar, most of the errors accumulate due to the arbitrary parametrization of the spectral roll-off. In addition, a power law with an exponential cut-off gives an acceptable fit for the underlying double power-law spectrum for a very broad range of parameters, making such fitting procedures insensitive to the underlying Fermi photon spectrum. Our results have important implications for the mechanism of pulsar high energy emission. A number of observed properties of \gamma-ray pulsars, i.e., the broken power law spectra without exponential cut-offs and stretching in case of Crab beyond the maximal curvature limit, spectral breaks close to or exceeding the maximal breaks due to curvature emission, a Crab patterns of relative intensities of the leading and trailing pulses repeated in the X-ray and \gamma-ray regions, all point to the inverse Compton origin of the high energy emission from majority of pulsars

Phase resolved spectroscopy of the Vela pulsar with XMM-Newton

The ~10^4 y old Vela Pulsar represents the bridge between the young Crab-like and the middle-aged rotation powered pulsars. Its multiwavelength behaviour is due to the superposition of different spectral components. We take advantage of the unprecedented harvest of photons collected by XMM-Newton to assess the Vela Pulsar spectral shape and to study the pulsar spectrum as a function of its rotational phase. As for the middle-aged pulsars Geminga, PSR B0656+14 and PSR B1055-52 (the "Three Musketeers"), the phase-integrated spectrum of Vela is well described by a three-component model, consisting of two blackbodies (T_bb1=(1.06+/-0.03)x10^6 K, R_bb1=5.1+/-0.3 km, T_bb2=(2.16+/-0.06)x10^6 K, R_bb2=0.73+/-0.08 km) plus a power-law (gamma=2.2+/-0.3). The relative contributions of the three components are seen to vary as a function of the pulsar rotational phase. The two blackbodies have a shallow 7-9% modulation. The cooler blackbody, possibly related to the bulk of the neutron star surface, has a complex modulation, with two peaks per period, separated by ~0.35 in phase, the radio pulse occurring exactly in between. The hotter blackbody, possibly originating from a hot polar region, has a nearly sinusoidal modulation, with a single, broad maximum aligned with the second peak of the cooler blackbody, trailing the radio pulse by ~0.15 in phase. The non thermal component, magnetospheric in origin, is present only during 20% of the pulsar phase and appears to be opposite to the radio pulse. XMM-Newton phase-resolved spectroscopy unveils the link between the thermally emitting surface of the neutron star and its charge-filled magnetosphere, probing emission geometry as a function of the pulsar rotation. This is a fundamental piece of information for future 3-dimensional modeling of the pulsar magnetosphere.Comment: 27 pages, 9 figures. Accepted for publication in Ap

Explorations of the viability of ARM and Xeon Phi for physics processing

We report on our investigations into the viability of the ARM processor and the Intel Xeon Phi co-processor for scientific computing. We describe our experience porting software to these processors and running benchmarks using real physics applications to explore the potential of these processors for production physics processing.Comment: Submitted to proceedings of the 20th International Conference on Computing in High Energy and Nuclear Physics (CHEP13), Amsterda

Improving Groat Β-Glucan Content of Developed Hexaploid Oat Lines Derivative of Interspecific Crosses

Oat grains, untapped reservoir of nutrients and phytochemicals, are very beneficial for food and feed. β-glucan content of sixteen derivative hexaploid lines, derivative of interspecific crosses between two tetraploid oat species A. magna and/or A. murphyi with five Moroccan hexaploid oat cultivars of A. sativa, aiming the improvement of their groat nutritive value, was accurately assessed. The new developed lines as well as their hexaploid oat parents were tested for agronomic performance under Moroccan climatic conditions in two different locations. Groat’s composition analysis has revealed that β-glucan content ranged from 1,37% to 6,05%. Significant β-glucan contents were detected for the cultivar Zahri (6,05±1,19) followed by the lines A. magna F11-4 (magxsat) (5,77±0,20)%, F11-5 (magxsat) (5,79±0,31)%, and F11-8 (magxsat) (5,55±0,41)%. The obtained results indicated that these lines are very promising. Furthermore, substantial differences among cultivars and lines over locations were observed and therefore, the genetic variability, the environmental conditions and their interaction has exerted statistically high significant effects on the groat β-glucan content (p < 0,0001). Thus, four among sixteen assessed lines which present high β-glucan content could be conceived for human consumption. These results confirm the success of acheived crosses and enhances the valorization of oats owing to its high content in β-glucans and other nutraceutical substances. Keywords: Oat, β-glucan content, tetraploid oat, A. magna, A. murphyi, hexaploid oat, A. sativa, genotype x environmental conditions

Variation of some physical and chemical quality traits of Moroccan domesticated tetraploid oat lines of <i>Avena murphyi</i> Ladiz.

A potential in improving nutrition and health is the consumption of high balanced whole grains. A breeding program was launched by the National Institute for Agricultural Research (INRA-Morocco), aiming to develop new domesticated tetraploid oat lines of Avena murphyi Ladiz., with high nutritional benefits. A sequence-based diversity study was conducted on ten tetraploid oat lines of A. murphyi to shed light not only on the importance of domesticating wild oat species for crop improvement but also to highlight the nutritional traits of those oat lines. In this study, we assessed the lines for some grain nutritional traits, such as groat contents of proteins and lipids as well as ash, fiber fractions, carbohydrates, and minerals.The obtained results showed a wide range of chemical contents among lines. The results revealed a high significant difference (P &lt; 0.001) in the groat contents of proteins (11.46–15.12%), fat (4.14–10.14%), carbohydrates (48.68–57.38%), and ash (2.71–5.18%). Analysis of total fiber fractions (NDF, ADF, ADL and CF), showed the presence of significant differences between the assessed lines. The lines A. murphyi 8 and 9, recorded the highest groat protein contents of 15.12% and 13.66%, with an interesting macroelement profile, mainly magnesium and phosphorus, and iron and manganese as minor mineral profile.Due to their biochemical composition, Moroccan domesticated tetraploid oat lines of A. murphyi offer many opportunities to improve oat cultivation in Morocco and serve as an excellent raw material for foodstuffs formulation

ASSESSMENT OF IMPORTANT TECHNOLOGICAL PARAMETERS OF NEW MOROCCAN DOMESTICATED TETRAPLOID OAT LINES OF AVENA MAGNA

Results of studying the oat collection of the N. I. Vavilov All-Russian Institute of Plant Genetic Resources are presented. Field and Nine tetraploid oat lines of Avena magna Murph. et Terr. were assessed for their technological performance. Physicochemical analyses were performed, including moisture, ash, proteins, fibre fractions, lipids, carbohydrates, and minerals. Statistical analysis revealed noteworthy differences in the chemical composition between the cultivars

Extended hard X-ray emission from the Vela pulsar wind nebula

The nebula powered by the Vela pulsar is one of the best examples of an evolved pulsar wind nebula, allowing to access the particle injection history and the interaction with the supernova ejecta. We report on the INTEGRAL discovery of extended emission above 18 keV from the Vela nebula. The northern side has no known counterparts and it appears larger and more significant than the southern one, which is in turn partially coincident with the cocoon, the soft X-ray and TeV filament towards the center of the remnant. We also present the spectrum of the Vela nebula in the 18-400 keV energy range as measured by IBIS/ISGRI and SPI on board the INTEGRAL satellite. The apparent discrepancy between IBIS/ISGRI, SPI, and previous measurements is understood in terms of point spread function, supporting the hypothesis of a nebula more diffuse than previously thought. A break at ~25 keV is found in the spectrum within 6' from the pulsar after including the Suzaku XIS data. Interpreted as a cooling break, this points out that the inner nebula is composed by electrons injected in the last ~2000 years. Broad-band modeling also implies a magnetic field higher than 10 microGauss in this region. Finally, we discuss the nature of the northern emission, which might be due to fresh particles injected after the passage of the reverse shock.Comment: 15 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ Letter