Participatory varietal selection of potato using the mother & baby trial design: A gender-responsive trainer’s guide.

This guide aims to provide step-by-step guidance on facilitating and documenting the PVS dynamics using the MBT design to select, and eventually release, potato varieties preferred by end-users that suit male and female farmers ’different needs, diverse agro-systems, and management practices, as well as traders ’and consumers’ preferences

Nota sobre la dieta de Ameiva edracantha (Squamata, Teiidae) en el Parque Nacional Cerros de Amotape, Tumbes, Perú

The diet of Ameiva edracantha Bocourt 1874, a terrestrial diurnal teiid lizard distributed in northwestern Peru and southwestern Ecuador is described for the first time. Stomach contents of fifteen individuals collected from quebrada La Angostura were analyzed. Lepidopteran larvae, coleopterans, orthopterans and spiders were the dominant preys in the lizard’s diet. Snout-vent length and head length, width and height were not correlated to prey length, width and volume. Other parameters such as profitability and prey target selection could be involved in prey selection by A. edracantha.Se describe por primera vez la dieta de Ameiva edracantha, una especie de lagartija teiida diurna terrestre que se distribuye en la costa noroeste de Perú y suroeste de Ecuador. Se analizó el contenido estomacal de 15 individuos colectados en la quebrada La Angostura. La dieta de A. edracantha estuvo compuesto principalmente por larvas de lepidópteros, coleópteros, ortópteros y arañas. La longitud hocico-cloaca y la longitud, ancho y alto de la cabeza no se relacionó con la longitud, ancho y volumen de las presas. Otros parámetros como selección específica de presas y profitabilidad, podrían estar involucrados en la selección de presas en A. edracantha

Una transcripción de la entonación del dialecto jerezano de Andalucía, España

Dialect variation in intonation is a widely attested phenomenon in the crosslinguistic literature (see Warren 2005a) and also in the literature on Spanish (Prieto & Roseano 2010, Sosa 1999). Prieto and Roseano (2010) provide an edited volume on the transcription of Spanish intonation for ten different dialects of the language. Two of these chapters characterize the intonation of Spanish spoken in northern and central Spain, but no information is offered on varieties spoken in the southern Andalusia area. This paper is designed to fill this gap in the literature as it investigates the acoustic properties of a series of F0 contours produced in an intonation survey by nine speakers from Jerez de la Frontera, a coastal city located in the southwest province of Cádiz, Spain. Speech data were analyzed in Praat (Boersma & Weenink 2011) following the original Sp_ToBI transcription system (Beckman, Díaz-Campos, McGory, & Morgan 2002) and the revised system put forth in Estebas-Vilaplana and Prieto (2008). Results show that neutral and biased statements were communicated by the L* L% vs. L+H* L% contrast, respectively. Confirmation questions show a variety of patterns based on the speaker’s belief of the proposition in question. Two configurations are possible for informationseeking wh-questions, H+L* L% and L+¡H* L%. Commands are the only pragmatic intent for which the M% boundary tone is used, and vocatives are characterized by L+H* HL% in neutral and marked intents. Although Jerezano Andalusian speakers share intonational characteristics with other varieties of European and American Spanish, there are important differences that motivate a thorough investigation of this language variety. Finally, dialect comparisons are provided to achieve a more comprehensive account of intonational variation in Spanish.La variación dialectal de la entonación es un fenómeno ampliamente corroborado en la literatura especializada en el análisis lingüístico de las lenguas (ver Warren 2005a) así como en múltiples publicaciones sobre el español (Prieto & Roseano 2010, Sosa 1999). Prieto y Roseano (2010) ofrecen un volumen editado sobre la transcripción de la entonación española de diez dialectos diferentes. Aunque dos de estos capítulos especifican la entonación del español peninsular en las zonas norte y central, no se aporta ninguna información sobre las variedades habladas en el sur de Andalucía. Este proyecto está diseñado para suplir esta carencia y de este modo, ofrecer una investigación sobre las propiedades acústicas de una serie de contornos F0 producidos en una encuesta entonativa realizada por 9 hablantes de Jerez de la Frontera, ciudad localizada al suroeste de la provincia de Cádiz, España. Los datos de producción oral fueron analizados con Praat (Boersma & Weenink 2011) siguiendo tanto el sistema de transcripción para Sp_ToBI (Beckman, Díaz- Campos, McGory, & Morgan 2002), como el sistema revisado de Estebas- Vilaplana y Prieto (2008). Los resultados muestran que las afirmaciones neutrales y no neutrales se produjeron mediante el contraste L* L% vs. L+H* L% respectivamente. En cuanto a las preguntas de confirmación, éstas muestran una variedad de patrones basados en la creencia que el hablante tiene de la pregunta en cuestión. Sobre las preguntas QU (o pronominales), dos configuraciones resultaron posibles: H+L* L% y L+¡H* L%. Las órdenes resultaron ser la única intención pragmática para las que se usa la frontera tonal M%, y por último, los vocativos se produjeron mediante L+H* HL% en intenciones de habla neutrales y marcadas. Aunque los hablantes del acento jerezano del andaluz comparten características entonativas con otras variedades del español europeo y americano, hay diferencias importantes que motivan una investigación profunda de esta variedad. Por último, se proporcionan comparaciones dialectales con la intención de conseguir una explicación más completa de la variación entonativa del español

The Political Cost of Public-Private Partnerships: Theory and Evidence from Colombian Infrastructure Development

Infrastructure public–private partnerships (PPPs) eschew traditional public management to provide distributive goods worldwide. Yet, in Colombia, the context of our study, both the promise of and voters' experience with PPPs hinder incumbent parties in elections when theories of distributive politics expect otherwise. We argue that negative experiences with PPPs introduce a sociotropic turn in individual voting: bad experience crowds out the possibility that promising a new project will improve a voter's own welfare. Studying what are, to our knowledge, all 109 Colombian PPP projects between 1998 and 2014, and over 8,700 individual survey responses, our evidence shows that vote intention for the incumbent executive or his party decreases as experience with more PPPs in respondents' districts increases. Our analysis and results introduce an important agenda for research into the political significance of these legacies of new public management

The debris disk - terrestrial planet connection

The eccentric orbits of the known extrasolar giant planets provide evidence that most planet-forming environments undergo violent dynamical instabilities. Here, we numerically simulate the impact of giant planet instabilities on planetary systems as a whole. We find that populations of inner rocky and outer icy bodies are both shaped by the giant planet dynamics and are naturally correlated. Strong instabilities -- those with very eccentric surviving giant planets -- completely clear out their inner and outer regions. In contrast, systems with stable or low-mass giant planets form terrestrial planets in their inner regions and outer icy bodies produce dust that is observable as debris disks at mid-infrared wavelengths. Fifteen to twenty percent of old stars are observed to have bright debris disks (at wavelengths of ~70 microns) and we predict that these signpost dynamically calm environments that should contain terrestrial planets.Comment: Contribution to proceedings of IAU 276: Astrophysics of Planetary System