370 research outputs found
The Irish Hardy Nursery Stock Industry: Recent Trends and Competitive Position.
End of Project ReportTh Irish Hardy Nursery Stock (HNS) industry has grown considerably in recent times. For the industry to maintain this level of growth it must remain competitive, particularly relative to the UK and the Netherlands, Ireland's main trading partners for HNS. Consequently, the objectives of this research were to (i) establish the size and value of the Irish HNS industry in 1999/2000, and (ii) examine the relative competitiveness of the Irish HNS industry, using profitability and value as indicators of competitiveness.
A census of the Irish HNS industry was carried out between September 2000 and June 2001 to establish the size and value of the industry. The results of the census showed that the net value of plants produced on Irish nurseries amounted to €30.6m in 1999, an increase of €6.8m from €23.4m at the last census in 1996. In the same period the total area devoted to HNS production also increased from 391 ha in 1997 to 465ha in 1999. Kildare remains the most important county in the industry in terms of value because of the large area devoted to outdoor containerised production and production under protection.
In terms of competitiveness, unpaid labour (imputed) had a significant effect on profitability levels for the three countries. When an imputed charge for unpaid labour was included in the analysis, the UK and Ireland had relatively higher Net Nursery Income (NNI) than the Netherlands. However, when the imputed charge for unpaid labour was excluded from the analysis, Ireland and the Netherlands had relatively higher NNI values than the UK.
Firm size and mechanisation levels, were examined as possible sources of inter-firm variations in costs of production and profits. Economies of scale appeared to be evident as nursery size increased from `small' to `medium' and dissipated as nursery size increased from `medium' to `large'. This indicated that the minimum economic size for HNS production appeared to be relatively low. Based on the observed relationship between labour productivity and mechanisation levels, it is possible to infer that future mechanisation of the Irish industry may provide a partial solution to labour availability problems.
Although the Irish HNS industry showed a competitive cost advantage, the low added value content of the Irish product is not a reassuring sign for the industry. The research revealed that the competitive potential of the industry in the Netherlands, based on relative value-added properties, was ahead of the Irish and UK industries. However, the Netherlands has not fully succeeded in converting this potential into competitive performance in the Irish market for HNS. The Irish HNS industry remains the largest supplier of HNS to the domestic market, although HNS available from the Netherlands was seen as given better value.
In order for the Irish industry to remain competitive in the future the competitive strategies which the industry adopts must be re-evaluated. Distinct market segments were observed in the Irish market, which offers potential for a focused competitive strategy, which may suit smaller specialist producers. The critical buying criteria identified and subsequent relative performance of the Irish industry should provide the information, which is required for a competitive strategy of differentiation
Measuring Black Hole Spin in OJ287
We model the binary black hole system OJ287 as a spinning primary and a
non-spinning secondary. It is assumed that the primary has an accretion disk
which is impacted by the secondary at specific times. These times are
identified as major outbursts in the light curve of OJ287. This identification
allows an exact solution of the orbit, with very tight error limits. Nine
outbursts from both the historical photographic records as well as from recent
photometric measurements have been used as fixed points of the solution: 1913,
1947, 1957, 1973, 1983, 1984, 1995, 2005 and 2007 outbursts. This allows the
determination of eight parameters of the orbit. Most interesting of these are
the primary mass of , the secondary mass , major axis precession rate per period, and the
eccentricity of the orbit 0.70. The dimensionless spin parameter is
(1 sigma). The last parameter will be more tightly
constrained in 2015 when the next outburst is due. The outburst should begin on
15 December 2015 if the spin value is in the middle of this range, on 3 January
2016 if the spin is 0.25, and on 26 November 2015 if the spin is 0.31. We have
also tested the possibility that the quadrupole term in the Post Newtonian
equations of motion does not exactly follow Einstein's theory: a parameter
is introduced as one of the 8 parameters. Its value is within 30% (1 sigma) of
the Einstein's value . This supports the of black
holes within the achievable precision. We have also measured the loss of
orbital energy due to gravitational waves. The loss rate is found to agree with
Einstein's value with the accuracy of 2% (1 sigma).Comment: 12 pages, 4 figures, IAU26
Vortex Pinball Under Crossed AC Drives in Superconductors with Periodic Pinning Arrays
Vortices driven with both a transverse and a longitudinal AC drive which are
out of phase are shown to exhibit a novel commensuration-incommensuration
effect when interacting with periodic substrates. For different AC driving
parameters, the motion of the vortices forms commensurate orbits with the
periodicity of the pinning array. When the commensurate orbits are present,
there is a finite DC critical depinning threshold, while for the incommensurate
phases the vortices are delocalized and the DC depinning threshold is absent.Comment: 4 pages, 4 postscript figure
Nonorientable spacetime tunneling
Misner space is generalized to have the nonorientable topology of a Klein
bottle, and it is shown that in a classical spacetime with multiply connected
space slices having such a topology, closed timelike curves are formed.
Different regions on the Klein bottle surface can be distinguished which are
separated by apparent horizons fixed at particular values of the two angular
variables that eneter the metric. Around the throat of this tunnel (which we
denote a Klein bottlehole), the position of these horizons dictates an ordinary
and exotic matter distribution such that, in addition to the known diverging
lensing action of wormholes, a converging lensing action is also present at the
mouths. Associated with this matter distribution, the accelerating version of
this Klein bottlehole shows four distinct chronology horizons, each with its
own nonchronal region. A calculation of the quantum vacuum fluctuations
performed by using the regularized two-point Hadamard function shows that each
chronology horizon nests a set of polarized hypersurfaces where the
renormalized momentum-energy tensor diverges. This quantum instability can be
prevented if we take the accelerating Klein bottlehole to be a generalization
of a modified Misner space in which the period of the closed spatial direction
is time-dependent. In this case, the nonchronal regions and closed timelike
curves cannot exceed a minimum size of the order the Planck scale.Comment: 11 pages, RevTex, Accepted in Phys. Rev.
Optical investigation of the charge-density-wave phase transitions in
We have measured the optical reflectivity of the quasi
one-dimensional conductor from the far infrared up to the
ultraviolet between 10 and 300 using light polarized along and normal to
the chain axis. We find a depletion of the optical conductivity with decreasing
temperature for both polarizations in the mid to far-infrared region. This
leads to a redistribution of spectral weight from low to high energies due to
partial gapping of the Fermi surface below the charge-density-wave transitions
at 145 K and 59 K. We deduce the bulk magnitudes of the CDW gaps and discuss
the scattering of ungapped free charge carriers and the role of fluctuations
effects
Numerical Solutions of ideal two-fluid equations very closed to the event horizon of Schwarzschild black hole
The 3+1 formalism of Thorne, Price and Macdonald has been used to derive the
linear two-fluid equations describing transverse and longitudinal waves
propagating in the two-fluid ideal collisionless plasmas surrounding a
Schwarzschild black hole. The plasma is assumed to be falling in radial
direction toward the event horizon. The relativistic two-fluid equations have
been reformulate, in analogy with the special relativistic formulation as
explained in an earlier paper, to take account of relativistic effects due to
the event horizon. Here a WKB approximation is used to derive the local
dispersion relation for these waves and solved numerically for the wave number
k.Comment: 16 pages, 15 figures. arXiv admin note: text overlap with
arXiv:0902.3766, arXiv:0807.459
On the warp drive space-time
In this paper the problem of the quantum stability of the two-dimensional
warp drive spacetime moving with an apparent faster than light velocity is
considered. We regard as a maximum extension beyond the event horizon of that
spacetime its embedding in a three-dimensional Minkowskian space with the
topology of the corresponding Misner space. It is obtained that the interior of
the spaceship bubble becomes then a multiply connected nonchronal region with
closed timelike curves and that the most natural vacuum allows quantum
fluctuations which do not induce any divergent behaviour of the re-normalized
stress-energy tensor, even on the event (Cauchy) chronology horizon. In such a
case, the horizon encloses closed timelike curves only at scales close to the
Planck length, so that the warp drive satisfies the Ford's negative energy-time
inequality. Also found is a connection between the superluminal two-dimensional
warp drive space and two-dimensional gravitational kinks. This connection
allows us to generalize the considered Alcubierre metric to a standard,
nonstatic metric which is only describable on two different coordinate patchesComment: 7 pages, minor comment on chronology protection added, RevTex, to
appear in Phys. Rev.
Focusing and the Holographic Hypothesis
The ``screen mapping" introduced by Susskind to implement 't Hooft's
holographic hypothesis is studied. For a single screen time, there are an
infinite number of images of a black hole event horizon, almost all of which
have smaller area on the screen than the horizon area. This is consistent with
the focusing equation because of the existence of focal points. However, the
{\it boundary} of the past (or future) of the screen obeys the area theorem,
and so always gives an expanding map to the screen, as required by the
holographic hypothesis. These considerations are illustrated with several
axisymmetric static black hole spacetimes.Comment: 8 pages, plain latex, 5 figures included using psfi
Hawking Spectrum and High Frequency Dispersion
We study the spectrum of created particles in two-dimensional black hole
geometries for a linear, hermitian scalar field satisfying a Lorentz
non-invariant field equation with higher spatial derivative terms that are
suppressed by powers of a fundamental momentum scale . The preferred frame
is the ``free-fall frame" of the black hole. This model is a variation of
Unruh's sonic black hole analogy. We find that there are two qualitatively
different types of particle production in this model: a thermal Hawking flux
generated by ``mode conversion" at the black hole horizon, and a non-thermal
spectrum generated via scattering off the background into negative free-fall
frequency modes. This second process has nothing to do with black holes and
does not occur for the ordinary wave equation because such modes do not
propagate outside the horizon with positive Killing frequency. The horizon
component of the radiation is astonishingly close to a perfect thermal
spectrum: for the smoothest metric studied, with Hawking temperature
, agreement is of order at frequency
, and agreement to order persists out to
where the thermal number flux is ). The flux
from scattering dominates at large and becomes many orders of
magnitude larger than the horizon component for metrics with a ``kink", i.e. a
region of high curvature localized on a static worldline outside the horizon.
This non-thermal flux amounts to roughly 10\% of the total luminosity for the
kinkier metrics considered. The flux exhibits oscillations as a function of
frequency which can be explained by interference between the various
contributions to the flux.Comment: 32 pages, plain latex, 16 figures included using psfi
Incommensuration Effects and Dynamics in Vortex Chains
We examine the motion of one-dimensional (1D) vortex matter embedded in a 2D
vortex system with weak pinning using numerical simulations. We confirm the
conjecture of Matsuda et al. [Science 294, 2136 (2001)] that the onset of the
temperature induced motion of the chain is due to an incommensuration effect of
the chain with the periodic potential created by the bulk vortices. In
addition, under an applied driving force we find a two stage depinning
transition, where the initial depinning of the vortex chain occurs through
soliton like pulses. When an ac drive is added to the dc drive, we observe
phase locking of the moving vortex chain.Comment: 4 pages, 4 postscript figure
- …