Integrated Farming Systems in the Frame Work of Bio-Economic Modelling for Sustainable Development of Small and Marginal Farmers under Changing Climatic Scenario

In order to meet the multiple objectives of poverty reduction, food security, competitiveness and sustainability several researchers have recommended to adopt integrated farming systems (IFS). IFS is an approach in which different landbased enterprises are integrated within the bio-physical and socio-economic situations taking farmers preference and goal in to consideration. This is a multi-disciplinary approach and very effective for solving the problems of small and marginal farmers (Gangwar, 1993). Under the gradual shrinking of land holding in India and other developing countries, it is necessary to go for IFS to make farming more profitable and sustainable. In agricultural research and development activities in India and other developing countries, the major emphasis is given to component and commodity based research projects This research have proved largely inadequate in addressing the multifarious problems of small farmers (Jha, 2003). Due to this, there has been a demand for holistic approach for technology generation and dissemination. However, mechanisms are lacking to provide the whole farm picture. Providing such a picture in the context of a farm or village or a region is a tedious process and difficult to calculate by human mind since number of factors are involved. Such problems can be overcome by the bio-economic modelling approaches. The research in IFS for the last few decades reveals that the enterprise planning and implementation needs scientific and systematic approach. In this situation, optimization techniques are useful for resource allocation and designing of IFS in a scientific basis (Mahapatra and Behera, 2004). Farming system studies involving a number of enterprises and taking the physical, socio-economic and bio-physical environments into consideration are complicated, expensive and time-consuming (Mahapatra and Behera, 2004). This is one of the reasons for slow progress in the field of farming systems research in India and elsewhere (Jha, 2003). This problem could be overcome by construction and application of suitable whole farm models (Dent, 1990). Optimization models optimize the use of farm resources, and can analyse farm response to policy change in an effective way (Loucks et al., 1981). Among available, linear programming (LP) is one of the most applied solution methodology in agricultural planning to determine the optimal policy (Loucks et al., 1981) in single and multiple objective framework. In this paper different bio-economic modelling techniques, which can help for optimal combination of the enterprises within the farming systems by taking farmers single and multi-objectives into consideration as well as an advanced modelling tool “MODAM” which has potentiality to integrate the environment and ecological goal with economic goal in the context of a farm/society or region are discussed briefly

Coconut (Cocos nucifera)-based farming system: a viable land use option for small and marginal farmers in coastal Odisha

An investigation was carried out during 2012-2013 in Puri district of Odisha to study the composition, structure and role of coconut (Cocos nucifera L.) based farming in 15 different holding sizes, i.e. 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.4, 0.5, 0.6, 0.7, 0.8, 0.9, 1.0, 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.4 and 1.5 acre. The experiment was laid out in randomised block design with three replications. The smaller holdings were found close to houses as homegardens and comparatively larger holdings were found little away from the houses. The composition was found very diverse consisting of perennial trees, annual crops and seasonal crops. The coconut based agroforestry systems of various sizes are playing important role for the household which include productive role, protective and ameliorative role, recreational and educational role as well as developmental role giving various kinds of tangible and intangible benefits. As the natural forest cover is less in coastal Odisha, a substantial quantity of fuel wood was found to be derived from homegarden and the contribution of fuel wood production increased with increase of holding size up to 1.2 acre. The net return varied from Rupees 5 617 to Rupees 32 850/annum showing the income level increased with increase in holding size, while the economics was calculated on acre basis, the net income ranged from Rupees 56 167 to Rupees 21 900 indicating decreasing trend towards higher holding sizes. In terms of market orientation, the smaller unit sizes were found more subsistence and less commercial than bigger holding sizes and vice versa. The coconut based agroforestry system of size 0.8 acre (perennials-coconut, siris, rain tree, eucalyptus, acacia, areca nut, mango, sissoo, teak, jackfruit, bamboo, guava, pomegranate, papaya, drumstick, bael, citrus, banana, curry leaf ; seasonals-pine apple, yam, arrowroot, turmeric, ginger, brinjal, okra, bitter gourd, ridge gourd, chilli, greens, cowpea, tomato, cauliflower, pumpkin; mushroom-paddy straw/oyster; fish- rohu, silver crap, grass crap; cattle, buffalo, goat, poultry, duck) was found to be the best among the holding sizes studied with regard to viability of landuse

Shoreline Change Near Gopalpur Port, East Coast of India

Source: ICHE Conference Archive - https://mdi-de.baw.de/icheArchiv

A review of chemical leaching of coal by acid and alkali solution

Low rank or low-grade (LRC or LGC) coals are most abundant distribute around the several regions in the world. The contribution of low-rank coal is a significant role in the energy sectors and chemical feedstock to the industries. The hard coal reserves are gradually depleting, and the mining operation at deeper coal seam with greater difficulties as well as the cost of exploration is so high, which has a significant issue for plant economics. Therefore, the low-grade coal can be used as an alternative energy source to minimize these problems. Low-rank coals are usually associated with high mineral matter and moisture content, which exerts substantial impacts on their consumption including pyrolysis, liquefaction, gasification and combustion process. In order to understand the essential treatment of coal for efficient removal of mineral matters and improve coal properties by beneficiation techniques are crucial to developing advanced technologies. The present article provides a comprehensive overview of the various processes concerning demineralization of coal by chemical beneficiation technique. It has been found from the study; the degree of demineralization was greater in chemical beneficiation compared to physical beneficiation. It is because the chemical reagents are attacked to the interior of coal which removes the inorganic materials and finely dispersed minerals from the coal matrix. The chemical methods have separated all types of minerals from the coal matrix. However, the separation of minerals by the physical method depends on the mineral properties. Chemical beneficiation is an appropriate method to reduce both organic and inorganic mineral constituents from the LGC by leaching method. The chemical reagents are diffusing to the interior of coal matrix through the pores and subsequently dissolute the minerals. Throughout the study challenges, the chemical cleaning of low-grade coal has been efficient techniques for reducing the minerals to a minimum level that can be upgraded to high rank coal

Comfort Women in Indonesia: A Consideration of the Prewar Socio-legal context in Indonesia and Japan

14 páginas, 5 figuras, 10 tablas.A mechanistic lactation model, based on a theory of mammary cell proliferation and cell death, was studied and compared to the equation of Wood (1967). Lactation curves of British Holstein Friesian cows (176 curves), Spanish Churra sheep (40 curves) and Spanish Murciano-Granadina goats (30 curves) were used for model evaluation. Both models were fitted in their original form using non-linear least squares estimation. The parameters were compared among species and among parity groups within species. In general, both models provided highly significant fits to lactation data and described the data accurately. The mechanistic model performed well against Wood's 1967 equation (hereafter referred to as Wood's equation), resulting in smaller residual mean square values in more than two-thirds of the datasets investigated, and producing parameter estimates that allowed appropriate comparisons and noticeable trends attributed to shape. Using Akaike or Bayesian information criteria, goodness-of-fit with the mechanistic model was superior to that with Wood's equation for 1 Lie cow lactation curves, with no significant differences between models when fitted to goat or sheep lactation curves. The rate parameters of the mechanistic model, representing specific proliferation rate of mammary secretory cells at parturition, decay associated with reduction in cell proliferation capacity with time and specific death rate of mammary secretory cells, were smaller for primiparous than for multiparous cows. Greater lactation persistency of cows compared to goats and sheep, and decrease in persistency with parity, were shown to be represented by different values of the specific secretory cell death rate parameter in the mechanistic model. The plausible biological interpretation and fitting properties of the mechanistic model enable it to be used in complex models of whole-cow digestion and metabolism and as a tool in selection programmes and by dairy producers for management decisions.Canada Research Chairs ProgramPeer reviewe

Individualization as driving force of clustering phenomena in humans

One of the most intriguing dynamics in biological systems is the emergence of clustering, the self-organization into separated agglomerations of individuals. Several theories have been developed to explain clustering in, for instance, multi-cellular organisms, ant colonies, bee hives, flocks of birds, schools of fish, and animal herds. A persistent puzzle, however, is clustering of opinions in human populations. The puzzle is particularly pressing if opinions vary continuously, such as the degree to which citizens are in favor of or against a vaccination program. Existing opinion formation models suggest that "monoculture" is unavoidable in the long run, unless subsets of the population are perfectly separated from each other. Yet, social diversity is a robust empirical phenomenon, although perfect separation is hardly possible in an increasingly connected world. Considering randomness did not overcome the theoretical shortcomings so far. Small perturbations of individual opinions trigger social influence cascades that inevitably lead to monoculture, while larger noise disrupts opinion clusters and results in rampant individualism without any social structure. Our solution of the puzzle builds on recent empirical research, combining the integrative tendencies of social influence with the disintegrative effects of individualization. A key element of the new computational model is an adaptive kind of noise. We conduct simulation experiments to demonstrate that with this kind of noise, a third phase besides individualism and monoculture becomes possible, characterized by the formation of metastable clusters with diversity between and consensus within clusters. When clusters are small, individualization tendencies are too weak to prohibit a fusion of clusters. When clusters grow too large, however, individualization increases in strength, which promotes their splitting.Comment: 12 pages, 4 figure

Performance studies of the Belle II Silicon Vertex Detector with data taken at the DESY test beam in April 2016

Belle II is a multipurpose detector currently under construction which will be operated at the next generation B-factory SuberKEKB in Japan. Its main devices for the vertex reconstruction are the Silicon Vertex Detector (SVD) and the Pixel Detector (PXD). In April 2016 a sector of the Belle II SVD and PXD have been tested in a beam of high energetic electrons at the test beam facility at DESY Hamburg (Germany). We report here the results for the hit efficiency estimation and the measurement of the resolution for the Belle II silicon vertex etector. We find that the hit efficiencies are on average above 99.5% and that the measured resolution is within the expectations