Some integral properties of zonal spherical functions, hypergeometric functions and invariant polynomials are studied for real normed division algebras.

Time series data on cropping pattern at disaggregated level were analysed and its implications on geospatial drought assessment were demonstrated. An index of Cropping Pattern Dissimilarity (CP-DI) between a pair of years, developed in this study, proved that the cropping pattern of a year has a higher degree of similarity with that of recent past years only and tends to be dissimilar with long...

The ubiquity of zonal flows in toroidal plasma is now well recognized (see [1] for review on zonal flow theory and a special March issue of Plasma Physics and Controlled Nuclear Fusion 87 (2006) for the latest experimental papers). Two main branches of zonal flows have been identified. Both have zero poloidal and toroidal mode numbers, m = n = 0. One of them is a zero-frequency, finitebandwidth...

Present status of experiments on zonal flows is overviewed. Innovative use of traditional and modern diagnostics has revealed unambiguously the existence of zonal flows, their spatio-temporal characteristics, their relationship with turbulence, and their effects on confinement. Particularly, a number of observations have been accumulated on the oscillatory branch of zonal flows, dubbed geodesic...

BACKGROUND Harnessing beneficial microbes presents a promising strategy to optimize plant growth and agricultural sustainability. Little is known to which extent and how specifically soil and plant microbiomes can be manipulated through different cropping practices. Here, we investigated soil and wheat root microbial communities in a cropping system experiment consisting of conventional and org...

Soil biological quality can affect key soil functions that support food production and environmental quality. The objective of this study was to determine the effects of management and time on soil biological quality in contrasting dryland cropping systems at eight locations in the North American Great Plains. Alternative (ALT) cropping systems were characterized by greater cropping intensity (...

Multiple cropping systems provide more harvest security for farmers, allow for crop intensification and furthermore influence ground cover, soil erosion, albedo, soil chemical properties, pest infestation and the carbon sequestration potential. We identify the traditional sequential cropping systems in ten sub-Saharan African countries from a survey dataset of more than 8600 households. We find...

Plasma zonal-flow excitation and saturation in fluid electron-drift-wave turbulence are studied spectrally. The zonal flow is a spectral condensation onto the zero-frequency linear-wave structure. In the representation diagonalizing the wave coupling that dominates interactions at long wavelengths, nonlinear triad interactions involving zero-frequency waves are greatly enhanced. Zonal modes are...

The semiannual cycle in zonal wind over the equatorial Indian Ocean is investigated by use of ocean– atmospheric reanalyses, and linear ocean–atmospheric models. In observations, the semiannual cycle in zonal wind is dominant on the equator and confined in the planetary boundary layer (PBL). Results from a momentum budget analysis show that momentum advection generated by the cross-equatorial m...

A study of the generation of zonal flows and zonal magnetic fields by finite beta drift waves and kinetic drift-Alfvén waves is presented. The analysis is a generalization of recent investigations of the modulational instability for zonal flow generation by electrostatic drift waves to finite beta drift waves and kinetic drift-Alfvén waves. The drift wave driven unstable zonal flows/fields are ...