Storage of organically produced crops (OF0127T)

This is the final report of Defra Project OF0127T. The main objective of this review was to establish best storage practice for field vegetables, potatoes, cereals and top fruit. A literature review was carried out and information was also gathered from the industry. Information relevant to growers and farmers has been drawn together to provide a comprehensive base from which technical advisory leaflets can be produced. The costs of different storage methods are provided, and case studies used wherever possible. In general, organic crops can be stored using the same methods as conventional crops but there is an increased risk that sometimes there will be higher storage losses because pesticides and sprout suppressants are not used. On the whole, specific problems with pests and diseases can be avoided using good organic husbandry techniques and by storing undamaged, healthy crops. In the case of cereals storage at correct moisture content and temperatures can avoid pests and moulds. However, there are some areas where more technical development or research would be useful and these have been identified. Relatively few organic growers store vegetables, but in order to maintain a supply of good quality UK produce throughout the year, more long term cold storage space is required (either on farm or in co-operative type stores). Based on the limited data available, economic analysis revealed that long term storage of organic vegetables has generally not been profitable. However, as the market expands in the future, it is likely that storage will become as essential for vegetables as it is for organic cereals and fruit

Symmetry violations at BABAR

Content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 licence. Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI. Published under licence by IOP Publishing Ltd.2014 J. Phys.: Conf. Ser. 556 012042 (http://iopscience.iop.org/1742-6596/556/1/012042

Reduction of Machine Tool Times Through a Software/Hardware Integrated Solution

Toolmaking is an industry that creates metal moulds, generally of durable tool steels, for producing vacuum-formed and injection moulded plastic parts, which are used in thousands of everyday items such as mobile phones. At present toolmaking is labour intensive with each machining operation requiring manual supervision. The FASTOOL project was a European Union funded collaboration that was aimed at reducing the manpower content of mould toolmaking, and extending the working day. This paper focuses on one element which utilised specially created scheduling and control software that operated an automated overhead gantry system and could remotely start the workshop machines. The software was completely object oriented which allows future proofing by creating new objects for new machines. The results demonstrate that this manufacturing process can be automated, leading to better working conditions for employees and an increase in efficiency and profitability.Mechanical Engineerin

Tree-level contributions to B -> Xs gamma

Weak radiative decay B -> X_s gamma is known to be a loop-generated process. However, it does receive tree-level contributions from CKM-suppressed b -> u ubar s gamma transitions. In the present paper, we evaluate such contributions together with similar ones from the QCD penguin operators. For a low value of the photon energy cutoff E_0 ~ m_b/20 that has often been used in the literature, they can enhance the inclusive branching ratio by more than 10%. For E_0 = 1.6 GeV or higher, the effect does not exceed 0.4%, which is due to phase-space suppression. Our perturbative results contain collinear logarithms that depend on the light quark masses m_q (q=u,d,s). We have allowed m_b/m_q to vary from 10 to 50, which corresponds to values of m_q that are typical for the constituent quark masses. Such a rough method of estimation may be improved in the future with the help of fragmentation functions once the considered effects begin to matter in the overall error budget for BR(B -> X_s gamma).Comment: v3: Corrected factors of 2 in the subdominant T_3 contributions. Minor changes in the numerical results (Table II

The advanced receiver 2: Telemetry test results in CTA 21

Telemetry tests with the Advanced Receiver II (ARX II) in Compatibility Test Area 21 are described. The ARX II was operated in parallel with a Block-III Receiver/baseband processor assembly combination (BLK-III/BPA) and a Block III Receiver/subcarrier demodulation assembly/symbol synchronization assembly combination (BLK-III/SDA/SSA). The telemetry simulator assembly provided the test signal for all three configurations, and the symbol signal to noise ratio as well as the symbol error rates were measured and compared. Furthermore, bit error rates were also measured by the system performance test computer for all three systems. Results indicate that the ARX-II telemetry performance is comparable and sometimes superior to the BLK-III/BPA and BLK-III/SDA/SSA combinations

Real space first-principles derived semiempirical pseudopotentials applied to tunneling magnetoresistance

In this letter we present a real space density functional theory (DFT) localized basis set semi-empirical pseudopotential (SEP) approach. The method is applied to iron and magnesium oxide, where bulk SEP and local spin density approximation (LSDA) band structure calculations are shown to agree within approximately 0.1 eV. Subsequently we investigate the qualitative transferability of bulk derived SEPs to Fe/MgO/Fe tunnel junctions. We find that the SEP method is particularly well suited to address the tight binding transferability problem because the transferability error at the interface can be characterized not only in orbital space (via the interface local density of states) but also in real space (via the system potential). To achieve a quantitative parameterization, we introduce the notion of ghost semi-empirical pseudopotentials extracted from the first-principles calculated Fe/MgO bonding interface. Such interface corrections are shown to be particularly necessary for barrier widths in the range of 1 nm, where interface states on opposite sides of the barrier couple effectively and play a important role in the transmission characteristics. In general the results underscore the need for separate tight binding interface and bulk parameter sets when modeling conduction through thin heterojunctions on the nanoscale.Comment: Submitted to Journal of Applied Physic

Asymptotic motion of a single vortex in a rotating cylinder

We study numerically the behavior of a single quantized vortex in a rotating cylinder. We study in particular the spiraling motion of a vortex in a cylinder that is parallel to the rotation axis. We determine the asymptotic form of the vortex and its axial and azimuthal propagation velocities under a wide range of parameters. We also study the stability of the vortex line and the effect of tilting the cylinder from the rotation axis.Comment: 9 pages, 10 figures. Considerable changes, now close to the published versio

Trajectory generation for road vehicle obstacle avoidance using convex optimization

This paper presents a method for trajectory generation using convex optimization to find a feasible, obstacle-free path for a road vehicle. Consideration of vehicle rotation is shown to be necessary if the trajectory is to avoid obstacles specified in a fixed Earth axis system. The paper establishes that, despite the presence of significant non-linearities, it is possible to articulate the obstacle avoidance problem in a tractable convex form using multiple optimization passes. Finally, it is shown by simulation that an optimal trajectory that accounts for the vehicle’s changing velocity throughout the manoeuvre is superior to a previous analytical method that assumes constant speed