Temperature Isotropization in Solar Flare Plasmas due to the Electron Firehose Instability

The isotropization process of a collisionless plasma with an electron temperature anisotropy along an external magnetic field ($T_\| ^e\gg T_\perp^e$, $\|$ and $\perp$ with respect to the background magnetic field) and isotropic protons is investigated using a particle-in-cell(PIC) code. Restricting wave growth mainly parallel to the external magnetic field, the isotropization mechanism is identified to be the Electron Firehose Instability (EFI). The free energy in the electrons is first transformed into left-hand circularly polarized transverse low-frequency waves by a non-resonant interaction. Fast electrons can then be scattered towards higher perpendicular velocities by gyroresonance, leading finally to a complete isotropization of the velocity distribution. During this phase of the instability, Langmuir waves are generated which may lead to the emission of radio waves. A large fraction of the protons is resonant with the left-hand polarized electromagnetic waves, creating a proton temperature anisotropy $T_\|^p < T_\perp^p$. The parameters of the simulated plasma are chosen compatible to solar flare conditions. The results indicate the significance of this mechanism in the particle acceleration context: The EFI limits the anisotropy of the electron velocity distribution, and thus provides the necessary condition for further acceleration. It enhances the pitch-angle of the electrons and heats the ions.Comment: To appear in Astrnonmy & Astrophysic

High-Performance Data Analysis Tools for Sun-Earth Connection Missions

The data analysis tool of choice for many Sun-Earth Connection missions is the Interactive Data Language (IDL) by ITT VIS. The increasing amount of data produced by these missions and the increasing complexity of image processing algorithms requires access to higher computing power. Parallel computing is a cost-effective way to increase the speed of computation, but algorithms oftentimes have to be modified to take advantage of parallel systems. Enhancing IDL to work on clusters gives scientists access to increased performance in a familiar programming environment. The goal of this project was to enable IDL applications to benefit from both computing clusters as well as graphics processing units (GPUs) for accelerating data analysis tasks. The tool suite developed in this project enables scientists now to solve demanding data analysis problems in IDL that previously required specialized software, and it allows them to be solved orders of magnitude faster than on conventional PCs. The tool suite consists of three components: (1) TaskDL, a software tool that simplifies the creation and management of task farms, collections of tasks that can be processed independently and require only small amounts of data communication; (2) mpiDL, a tool that allows IDL developers to use the Message Passing Interface (MPI) inside IDL for problems that require large amounts of data to be exchanged among multiple processors; and (3) GPULib, a tool that simplifies the use of GPUs as mathematical coprocessors from within IDL. mpiDL is unique in its support for the full MPI standard and its support of a broad range of MPI implementations. GPULib is unique in enabling users to take advantage of an inexpensive piece of hardware, possibly already installed in their computer, and achieve orders of magnitude faster execution time for numerically complex algorithms. TaskDL enables the simple setup and management of task farms on compute clusters. The products developed in this project have the potential to interact, so one can build a cluster of PCs, each equipped with a GPU, and use mpiDL to communicate between the nodes and GPULib to accelerate the computations on each node

Survey on the requirements in organic plant breeding

In the German speaking countries, an Internet survey was conducted on the requirements in organic plant breeding from the beginning of May until the end of June 2015. The survey was supported by main representatives from the organic branch (Bioland, Naturland, BioSuisse, Demeter, BÖLW) and aimed at gathering up the requirements of the organic industry (incl. breeding, farming, processing and trade sector) when it comes to plant breeding and prioritizing breeding goals and crops to be dealt with. In the survey, participants were not only organic breeders, researchers and representatives of the seed sector but also representatives from all levels of organic production and related sectors (farmers, advisors, processors, wholesalers, retailers, and associations, NGOs) in order to ensure that research in plant breeding will actually improve the marketability of the new varieties. Methods The preparation of the questionnaire for the survey was created with the help of the freely accessible Google-App "Forms" and the survey was also performed on the online functionality of this tool. People involved in the organic food industry or directly or indirectly involved in the organic plant breeding through their line of work such as farmers, gardeners, plant breeders, producers of seeds or vegetative propagating material, researchers, representatives of associations or dealers etc. were personally contacted. In addition, the link to the online survey was forwarded to corresponding specialized committees via farming associations, published in bioaktuell.ch and sent to the existing contacts of FiBL networks. The survey focused mainly on Germany and Switzerland

Was ist uns gute Züchtung wert?

Züchter verdienen nur an neuen Pflanzensorten, wenn diese zigtausendfach verkauft und angebaut werden. Deshalb kommen viele Neuentwicklungen von international tätigen Saatgutkonzernen. Doch wollen wir ihnen allein die Zukunft unserer Nutzpflanzen überlassen

Umfrage zu Bedarfen in der ökologischen Pflanzenzüchtung

Von Anfang Mai bis Ende Juni 2015 wurde im deutschsprachigen Raum eine internetgestützte Umfrage zu den Bedarfen in der ökologischen Pflanzenzüchtung durchgeführt. Ziel der Umfrage war es mit Unterstützung von Branchenvertretern (Bioland, Naturland, BioSuisse, Demeter, BÖLW) die Bedürfnisse des Öko‐Sektors inklusive der vor‐ (Züchtung, Saatgutvermehrung) und nachgelagerten Bereiche (Verarbeitung, Handel und Verbraucher) zu erheben, um daraus eine Priorisierung von Züchtungszielen und zukunftsfähige Projekte abzuleiten. Um sicherzustellen, dass die Züchtungsforschung die Marktfähigkeit der Neuzüchtungen erhöht,wurden neben den ökologischen Züchtern, Züchtungsforschern und der Saatgutbranche vor allem Vertreter aus allen Ebenen der ökologischen Produktionskette und angrenzender Bereiche (Landwirte, Berater, Verarbeiter, Großhändler, Einzelhändler, Verbände, NGOs) kontaktiert

Perfusion of the interventricular septum during ventilation with positive end-expiratory pressure (PEEP)

Objective: To determine whether regional hypoperfusion of the interventricular septum occurs during ventilation with positive end-expiratory pressure. Design: Animal study. Animals: Anesthetized, closed chest dogs (n = 8). Interventions: Induction of experimental adult respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) and then ventilation with 10,15, and 20 cm H2O of positive end-expiratory pressure. Measurements and Main Results: Cardiac output and regional interventricular septum blood flow 'were assessed at control, at induction of experimental ARDS, and at each level of positive end-expiratory pressure. Ventilation with 20 cm H2O of positive end-expiratory pressure decreased cardiac output (-32% vs. control, p <.05), and did not change absolute, but increased relative (to cardiac output) interventricular septum blood flow. During experimental ARDS and ventilation at 20 cm H2O end-expiratory pressure, there was a redistribution of flow toward the right ventricular free wall (+93%, p < .001) and the right ventricular part of the interventricular septum (+68%, p < .01), while flow to the left ventricular interventricular septum and to the left ventricular free wall remained unchanged. Locally hypoperfused interventricular septum areas or findings indicative of interventricular septum ischemia were not observed during positive end-expiratory pressure. Conclusions: The decrease in cardiac output during positive end-expiratory pressure is not caused by impaired interventricular septum blood supply. The preferential perfusion of the right ventricular interventricular septum indicates increased local right ventricular interventricular septum oxygen-demand and suggests that during positive end-expiratory pressure, this part of the interventricular septum functionally dissociates from the left ventricular interventricular septum and the left ventricular free wall to support the stressed right ventricle

Genotype x Environment Interactions of Winter Wheat

Winter wheat cultivars for organic farming have to be adapted to highly variable environments. Yield and yield stability, the nutritional value and the bread making quality are here of major importance. Particularly, seed quality, tillering capacity, regeneration ability after harrowing, weed suppression ability, resistance or tolerance against diseases and improved nutrient use efficiency (NUE) under limited nutrient conditions need to be improved by specific breeding efforts (Kunz et al., 2006; Löschenberger et al., 2008). Ten winter wheat cultivars were grown in 2007 in two organic systems of the DOK long-term experiment in CH-Therwil. Eight of these cultivars were tested in 2008 at three organic farms in different pedo-climatic environments in Switzerland to observe genotype x environment interactions under different organic conditions. In contrast to the DOK site on a fertile loess soil, the on-farm sites were located on sandy or sandy-loamy sites with lower inherent yield potential. We assessed grain yield, yield components and parameters related to baking quality and NUE. Grain yield at the on-farm sites ranged between 2.2 t ha-1 and 2.8 t ha-1 and was much lower than at the DOK sites ( 3.7 t ha-1 to 4.2 t ha-1) (Hildermann et al., 2009). Cultivars and sites significantly affected grain yield. Genotype x environment interactions were significant across the three on-farm sites; however they were not significant across all five organically managed sites. Calculated across the on farm sites, there was a tendency towards higher yields of the organically bred cultivars. This effect was statistically significant at the lowest yielding site, where yield of the organically bred cultivars was 14% higher than yields of the conventionally bred cultivars. However, at the DOK sites and averaged across all five organic sites, the organically bred cultivars could not outperform the conventionally bred cultivars. Similar to the grain yield, the total gluten content increased from the on-farm sites to the DOK sites. Irrespective of the site, the gluten index of the cultivars Scaro, Antonius and Caphorn was stable. In contrast, the gluten index of the cultivars Sandomir, CCP and Titlis highly varied between the tested environments. Yield was significantly correlated with grain N yield (r = 0.93) and nitrogen (N) utilization efficiency (NUtE) (r = 0.72). Genotype x environment interactions were not significant for grain N yield, however strongly significant for NUtE (p < 0.01). The conventionally bred cultivars strongly responded to environmental conditions and showed a low NUtE under at low N supply. In contrast, NUtE of the organically bred cultivars Scaro and Sandomir was stable across all test environments. Beside high yields, cultivars suitable for organic farming should achieve high baking quality and nutrient use efficiency under nutrient limited conditions. Among the tested cultivars, the organically bred cultivar Scaro revealed such a performance across all tested sites

Apar-T: code, validation, and physical interpretation of particle-in-cell results

We present the parallel particle-in-cell (PIC) code Apar-T and, more importantly, address the fundamental question of the relations between the PIC model, the Vlasov-Maxwell theory, and real plasmas. First, we present four validation tests: spectra from simulations of thermal plasmas, linear growth rates of the relativistic tearing instability and of the filamentation instability, and non-linear filamentation merging phase. For the filamentation instability we show that the effective growth rates measured on the total energy can differ by more than 50% from the linear cold predictions and from the fastest modes of the simulation. Second, we detail a new method for initial loading of Maxwell-J\"uttner particle distributions with relativistic bulk velocity and relativistic temperature, and explain why the traditional method with individual particle boosting fails. Third, we scrutinize the question of what description of physical plasmas is obtained by PIC models. These models rely on two building blocks: coarse-graining, i.e., grouping of the order of p~10^10 real particles into a single computer superparticle, and field storage on a grid with its subsequent finite superparticle size. We introduce the notion of coarse-graining dependent quantities, i.e., quantities depending on p. They derive from the PIC plasma parameter Lambda^{PIC}, which we show to scale as 1/p. We explore two implications. One is that PIC collision- and fluctuation-induced thermalization times are expected to scale with the number of superparticles per grid cell, and thus to be a factor p~10^10 smaller than in real plasmas. The other is that the level of electric field fluctuations scales as 1/Lambda^{PIC} ~ p. We provide a corresponding exact expression. Fourth, we compare the Vlasov-Maxwell theory, which describes a phase-space fluid with infinite Lambda, to the PIC model and its relatively small Lambda.Comment: 24 pages, 14 figures, accepted in Astronomy & Astrophysic