Optimization of Agro-Socio-Hydrological Networks under Water Scarcity Conditions: Inter- and Trans-disciplinary Approaches for Sustainable Water Resources Management

Sustainable agriculture is one of the greatest challenges of our time. The pathways to sustainable agriculture consist of successive decisions for optimization that are often a matter of negotiation as resources are shared at all levels. This work essentially comprises three research projects with novel inter- and transdisciplinary methods to better understand and optimize agricultural water management under water scarcity conditions. In the first project, climate variability in the US Corn Belt was analyzed with a focus on deficit irrigation to find the optimal irrigation strategies for possible future changes. Two optimization methods for deficit irrigation showed positive water savings and yield increases in the predicted water scarcity scenarios. In the second project, a serious board game was developed and game sessions were carried out to simulate the complex decision space of actors in irrigated agriculture under climate and groundwater variability. The aim of the game was to understand how decisions are made by actors by observing the course of the game and linking these results to common behavioral theories implemented in socio-ecological models. In the third project, two frameworks based on innovation theories and agro-social-hydrological networks were developed and tested using agent-based models. In the first framework, centralized and decentralized irrigation management in Kansas US was compared to observe the development of collective action and the innovation diffusion of sustainable irrigation strategies. The second framework analyzed different decision processes to perform a sensitivity analysis of innovation implementation, groundwater abstraction and saline water intrusion in the Al Batinah region in Oman. Both frameworks allowed the evaluation of diverse behavior theories and decision-making parameters to find the optimal irrigation management and the impact of diverse socio-ecological policies. Inter- and Trans-disciplinary simulations of the interactions between human decisions and water systems, like the ones presented in here, improve the understanding of irrigation systems as anthropogenic landscapes in socio-economic and ecological contexts. The joint application of statistical and participatory approaches enables different but complementary perspectives that allow for a multidimensional analysis of irrigation strategies and water resources management.:Contents Declaration of Independent Work i Declaration of Conformity iii List of Publications v Acknowledgments ix Abstract xi Zusammenfassung xiii Contents xv List of Figures xvii List of Tables xix List of Abbreviations xxi 1. Introduction 3 1.1 Complex Networks Approach 3 1.2 Research Objectives 4 1.3 Thesis Outline 5 2. Literature Review 9 2.1 Agro-Hydrological Systems 9 2.1.1 Necessary Disciplinary Convergence 9 2.1.2 Multi-Objective Optimization Approaches 10 2.2 Optimization of Crop-Water Productivity 11 2.2.1 Irrigation Strategies 11 2.3 Sustainable Management of A-S-H Networks 12 2.3.1 Socio-Hydrology 13 2.3.2 Representation of Decision-Making Processes 14 2.3.3 Influence of Social Network 16 2.4 Socio-Hydrological Modeling Approaches 17 2.4.1 Game Theory Approach 17 2.4.2 Agent-Based Modeling 18 2.4.3 Participatory Modeling 20 2.5 Education for Sustainability 21 2.5.1 Experiential Learning 21 2.5.2 Serious Games 22 2.6 Summary of Research Gaps 24 3. Irrigation Optimization in The US Corn Belt 27 3.1 Agriculture in The Corn Belt 27 3.2 Historical and Prospective Climatic Variability 29 3.3 Simulated Irrigation Strategies 29 3.4 Optimal Irrigation Strategies Throughout the Corn Belt 30 3.5 Summary 31 4. Participatory Analysis of A-S-H Dynamics 35 4.1 Decision-Making Processes in A-S-H Networks 36 4.1.1 Collaborative and Participatory Data Collection Approaches 37 4.2 MAHIZ 38 4.2.1 Serious Game Development 38 4.2.2 Implementation of Serious Game Sessions 39 4.4 Evaluation of The Learning Process in Serious Games 40 4.5 Evaluation of Behavior Theories and Social Parameters 42 4.6 Summary 43 5 Robust Evaluation of Decision-Making Processes In A-S-H Networks 47 5.1 Innovation in A-S-H Networks 47 5.1.1 Multilevel Social Networks 48 5.1.2 Theoretical Framework of Developed ABMs 49 5.2 DInKA Model: Irrigation Expansion in Kansas, US 50 5.2.1 Robust Analysis of Innovation Diffusion 53 5.3 SAHIO Implementation: Coastal Agriculture in Oman 54 5.3.1 SAHIO Sensitivity analysis 58 5.4 Summary 60 6 Conclusions and Outlook 63 6.1 Limitations 64 6.2 Outlook 64 Bibliography 69 Appendix A. Implementation Code 79 A.1 DInKA 79 A.2 SAHIO 82 Appendix B. SAHIO’s Decision-Making Process for Each MoHuB Theory 91 Appendix C. SAHIO A-S-H Innovation Results 97 Appendix D. Selected Publications 101 D.1 Evaluation of Hydroclimatic Variability and Prospective Irrigation Strategies in the U.S. Corn Belt. 103 D.2 A Serious Board Game to Analyze Socio-Ecological Dynamics towards Collaboration in Agriculture. 121 D.2.1 MAHIZ Rulebook 140 D.2.2 MAHIZ Feedback Form 15

Charles Darwin’s final book on earthworms, 1881

This article focuses on the publication of Darwin’s final book (1881) in the context of Darwin’s larger attempts to resist the habitual anthropocentrism of human beings. It begins with Darwin’s discussion of animal cognition and the senses of worms. It concludes with his emphasis on the significant effects worm digestion has on the landscape and the fertility of the earth. The article links Darwin’s Worms Edwin Abbott’s 1884 novella Flatland, arguing that both texts are engaged in dismantling human perceptions that stem from possessing a highly visual brain, and that both throw doubt on the belief that a single objective world exists independent of particular observers.http://www.branchcollective.org/?ps_articles=anna-henchman-charles-darwins-final-book-on-earthworms-1881http://www.branchcollective.org/?ps_articles=anna-henchman-charles-darwins-final-book-on-earthworms-1881Published versio

Norm Generation in Multi-Agent Systems

Projecte realitzat en col.laboració amb el Departament de Matemàtica Aplicada i Anàlisi de l'Universitat de Barcelon

Aerospace medicine and biology. A continuing bibliography (supplement 231)

This bibliography lists 284 reports, articles, and other documents introduced into the NASA scientific and technical information system in March 1982

The Neurophysiological Validation of the Hyperpolarization Theory of Internal Inhibition

En los experimentos con conejos conscientes no inmovilizados se ha mostrado que la interrupción de lasreacciones tras la supresión del refuerzo, es decir, la elaboración de la inhibición interna, se ve acompañada por el incremento de fases, la alternancia de la activación y la inhibición del disparo de las neuronas, y sus correspondientes oscilaciones lentas de potencial. Estos cambios pueden ser locales, principalmente en las estructuras del estímulo condicionado o, en caso de incremento del estado de inhibición, generalizados sobre las estructuras del cerebro. Basándonos en nuestros datos y en los de la literatura actual se llega a la conclusión de que ese fenómeno está condicionado por el incremento de los procesos inhibitorios de hiperpolarización a raíz del incremento de la reactividad de los sistemas inhibitorios de la acción del estímulo, que adquiere significado inhibitorio durante el proceso de aprendizaje. La oscilación de la excitabilidad y reactividad en las poblaciones de elementos nerviosos que surge durante el incremento de la inhibición de la hiperpolarización, divergentes en distintas estructuras del cerebro, juega un papel activo en la ejecución de la función básica de la inhibición interna, la limitación de la transmisión de la excitación a los efectores. El mediador inhibidor, el ácido gama aminobutírico (GABA), juega un papel esencial en la desarrollo de la inhibición de la excitación al estímulo que ha perdido su significado biológico. Estos datos experimentales y su interpretación a la luz de los datos de la literatura dan fundamento al desarrollo de la teoría de hiperpolarización de la inhibición interna.The experiments in conscious non-immobilized rabbits showed that cessation of the reactions without reinforcement (elaboration of the internal inhibition) is accompanied by an enhanced phasic state, by alternation of activation and inhibition of neuron firing, and by the corresponding slow potential oscillation (SPO). These changes can be either localized, predominantly in the structures of conditioned stimulus, or, under enhancement of the inhibitory state, generalized in the brain structures. On the basis of our experience and published data, it is concluded that the above event results from relative enhancement of the inhibitory hyperpolarizing processes due to increase in reactivity of the inhibitory systems to stimulus, which acquires inhibitory properties during learning. Changes in the excitability and reactivity of neuron populations appearing during enhancement of the hyperpolarizing inhibition, and differing in the various brain structures, play an active role in the execution of the main function of the internal inhibition: limitation of excitation transmission to the effectors. An inhibitory mediator gamma aminobutyric acid (GABA) is of great importance in inhibiting the excitation in response to the stimulus which lost its biological significance. These experimental data and their interpretation in the light of published data give the basis for the development of the hyperpolarization theory of internal inhibition

From Biological to Synthetic Neurorobotics Approaches to Understanding the Structure Essential to Consciousness (Part 3)

This third paper locates the synthetic neurorobotics research reviewed in the second paper in terms of themes introduced in the first paper. It begins with biological non-reductionism as understood by Searle. It emphasizes the role of synthetic neurorobotics studies in accessing the dynamic structure essential to consciousness with a focus on system criticality and self, develops a distinction between simulated and formal consciousness based on this emphasis, reviews Tani and colleagues' work in light of this distinction, and ends by forecasting the increasing importance of synthetic neurorobotics studies for cognitive science and philosophy of mind going forward, finally in regards to most- and myth-consciousness

Behavioral Patterns Associated with Chemotherapy-Induced Emesis: A Potential Signature for Nausea in Musk Shrews

Nausea and vomiting are common symptoms in patients with many diseases, including cancer and its treatments. Although the neurological basis of vomiting is reasonably well known, an understanding of the physiology of nausea is lacking. The primary barrier to mechanistic research on the nausea system is the lack of an animal model. Indeed investigating the effects of anti-nausea drugs in pre-clinical models is difficult because the primary readout is often emesis. It is known that animals show a behavioral profile of sickness, associated with reduced feeding and movement, and possibly these general measures are signs of nausea. Studies attempting to relate the occurrence of additional behaviors to emesis have produced mixed results. Here we applied a statistical method, temporal pattern (t-pattern) analysis, to determine patterns of behavior associated with emesis. Musk shrews were injected with the chemotherapy agent cisplatin (a gold standard in emesis research) to induce acute (<24 h) and delayed (>24 h) emesis. Emesis and other behaviors were coded and tracked from video files. T-pattern analysis revealed hundreds of non-random patterns of behavior associated with emesis, including sniffing, changes in body contraction, and locomotion. There was little evidence that locomotion was inhibited by the occurrence of emesis. Eating, drinking, and other larger body movements including rearing, grooming, and body rotation, were significantly less common in emesis-related behavioral patterns in real versus randomized data. These results lend preliminary evidence for the expression of emesis-related behavioral patterns, including reduced ingestive behavior, grooming, and exploratory behaviors. In summary, this statistical approach to behavioral analysis in a pre-clinical emesis research model could be used to assess the more global effects and limitations of drugs used to control nausea and its potential correlates, including reduced feeding and activity levels