Pacific Islands Cookbook

This cookbook has been compiled from recipes used in the Pacific islands, for the purpose of promoting the use of local foods. The importance and value of local foods can be addressed from many different perspectives. It is our hope that this cookbook can play a role in maintaining and developing cultural strengths, economic self-sufficiency, and healthy populations in the region.Funded through the US Department of Agriculture Cooperative State Research Service

Detection of DC currents and resistance measurements in longitudinal spin Seebeck effect experiments on Pt/YIG and Pt/NFO

In this work we investigated thin films of the ferrimagnetic insulators YIG and NFO capped with thin Pt layers in terms of the longitudinal spin Seebeck effect (LSSE). The electric response detected in the Pt layer under an out-of-plane temperature gradient can be interpreted as a pure spin current converted into a charge current via the inverse spin Hall effect. Typically, the transverse voltage is the quantity investigated in LSSE measurements (in the range of \mu V). Here, we present the directly detected DC current (in the range of nA) as an alternative quantity. Furthermore, we investigate the resistance of the Pt layer in the LSSE configuration. We found an influence of the test current on the resistance. The typical shape of the LSSE curve varies for increasing test currents.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure

Topological Test Spaces

A test space is the set of outcome-sets associated with a collection of experiments. This notion provides a simple mathematical framework for the study of probabilistic theories -- notably, quantum mechanics -- in which one is faced with incommensurable random quantities. In the case of quantum mechanics, the relevant test space, the set of orthonormal bases of a Hilbert space, carries significant topological structure. This paper inaugurates a general study of topological test spaces. Among other things, we show that any topological test space with a compact space of outcomes is of finite rank. We also generalize results of Meyer and Clifton-Kent by showing that, under very weak assumptions, any second-countable topological test space contains a dense semi-classical test space.Comment: 12 pp., LaTeX 2e. To appear in Int. J. Theor. Phy

Turnover of grassland roots in mountain ecosystems revealed by their radiocarbon signature: role of temperature and management

Root turnover is an important carbon flux component in grassland ecosystems because it replenishes substantial parts of carbon lost from soil via heterotrophic respiration and leaching. Among the various methods to estimate root turnover, the root’s radiocarbon signature has rarely been applied to grassland soils previously, although the value of this approach is known from studies in forest soils. In this paper, we utilize the root’s radiocarbon signatures, at 25 plots, in mountain grasslands of the montane to alpine zone of Europe.We place the results in context of a global data base on root turnover and discuss driving factors. Root turnover rates were similar to those of a subsample of the global data, comprising a similar temperature range, but measured with different approaches, indicating that the radiocarbon method gives reliable, plausible and comparable results. Root turnover rates (0.06–1.0 y-1) scaled significantly and exponentially with mean annual temperatures. Root turnover rates indicated no trend with soil depth. The temperature sensitivity was significantly higher in mountain grassland, compared to the global data set, suggesting additional factors influencing root turnover. Information on management intensity from the 25 plots reveals that root turnover may be accelerated under intensive and moderate management compared to low intensity or semi-natural conditions. Because management intensity, in the studied ecosystems, co-varied with temperature, estimates on root turnover, based on mean annual temperature alone, may be biased. A greater recognition of management as a driver for root dynamics is warranted when effects of climatic change on belowground carbon dynamics are studied in mountain grasslands.KB received support from the Swiss National Science Foundation, project 200021-115891 (www.snf.ch). SM received support from the Swiss State Secretariat for Education and Research, project C07.0031 (www.sbfi.admin.ch). MTS received support from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation, (project CAPAS, CGL2010-22378-C03- 01) (www.idi.mineco.gob.es)

Glueball Regge Trajectories in (2+1) Dimensional Gauge Theories

We compute glueball masses for even spins ranging from 0 to 6, in the D=2+1 SU(2) lattice gauge theory. We do so over a wide range of lattice spacings, and this allows a well-controlled extrapolation to the continuum limit. When the resulting spectrum is presented in the form of a Chew-Frautschi plot we find that we can draw a straight Regge trajectory going through the lightest glueballs of spin 0, 2, 4 and 6. The slope of this trajectory is small and turns out to lie between the predictions of the adjoint-string and flux-tube glueball models. The intercept we find, \alpha_0 ~ -1, is much lower than is needed for this leading trajectory to play a `Pomeron-like' role of the kind it is often believed to play in D=3+1. We elaborate the Regge theory of high energy scattering in 2 space dimensions, and we conclude, from the observed low intercept, that high-energy glueball scattering is not dominated by the leading Regge pole exchange, but rather by a more complex singularity structure in the region 0 <= Re{\lambda} <= 1/2 of the complex angular momentum \lambda plane. We show that these conclusions do not change if we go to larger groups, SU(N>2), and indeed to SU(\infty), and we contrast all this with our very preliminary calculations in the D=3+1 SU(3) gauge theory.Comment: 28 pages, 4 figure

Magnetothermodynamics: Measurements Of The Thermodynamic Properties In A Relaxed Magnetohydrodynamic Plasma

We have explored the thermodynamics of compressed magnetized plasmas in laboratory experiments and we call these studies ‘magnetothermodynamics’. The experiments are carried out in the Swarthmore Spheromak eXperiment device. In this device, a magnetized plasma source is located at one end and at the other end, a closed conducting can is installed. We generate parcels of magnetized plasma and observe their compression against the end wall of the conducting cylinder. The plasma parameters such as plasma density, temperature and magnetic field are measured during compression using HeNe laser interferometry, ion Doppler spectroscopy and a linear dot{B} probe array, respectively. To identify the instances of ion heating during compression, a PV diagram is constructed using measured density, temperature and a proxy for the volume of the magnetized plasma. Different equations of state are analysed to evaluate the adiabatic nature of the compressed plasma. A three-dimensional resistive magnetohydrodynamic code (NIMROD) is employed to simulate the twisted Taylor states and shows stagnation against the end wall of the closed conducting can. The simulation results are consistent to what we observe in our experiments