Phosphorus status and cycling in native savanna and improved pastures on an acid low-P Colombian Oxisol

On acid low-phosphorus (P) Colombian Oxisols, improved pastures with acid-soil-tolerant grass and legume varieties have increased beef production by a factor of 10 to 15 with only modest P fertilizer inputs. This indicates that the efficiency of P fertilization could be greater than is commonly expected on such strongly P-sorbing soils. To understand the effect of improved pastures on P cycling and availability, we estimated P budgets, and characterized soil P by sequential fractionation, isotopic exchange and biological activity measurements on soil samples from unfertilized native savanna, and fertilized improved grass-only (Brachiaria decumbens cv. Basilisk) and grass-legume (B. decumbens + Pueraria phaseoloides, Kudzu) pastures established in 1978 on a medium-textured isohyperthermic, tropeptic haplustox. Comparison of calculated P budgets, based on inputs and exports, with total soil P contents showed that fertilization, as part of the improved pasture management, had resulted in a measurable increase of total P in the surface 0-20 cm soil layer of nearly 30 mg kg-1 or about 20% over the savanna level. Sequential soil P fractionation of different seasonal samplings indicated that grass-legume maintained higher organic and available inorganic P levels with less temporal variation than the two other types. The linkage of organic P and available P was also reflected in soil biological activity. Estimates of P in microbial biomass and phosphatase activity were significantly higher in grass-legume than grass-only and savanna. The improvement in soil P availability, as measured by solution P concentration, P sorption and exchangeable P, was much greater in grass-legume than in grass-only. With comparable fertilizer inputs and greater product exports, improved P availability in grass-legume cannot be due to differences in budgets but can be attributed to changes in the overall biological activity in the soil-plant system caused by the presence of legumes in the vegetation cover. Total C, organic P content and macrofaunal activity were all significantly higher in grass-legume soils. Greater turnover of organic litter in grass-legume may provide for steadier organic P inputs and, therefore, higher P cycling and availabilit

Query Expansion for Survey Question Retrieval in the Social Sciences

In recent years, the importance of research data and the need to archive and to share it in the scientific community have increased enormously. This introduces a whole new set of challenges for digital libraries. In the social sciences typical research data sets consist of surveys and questionnaires. In this paper we focus on the use case of social science survey question reuse and on mechanisms to support users in the query formulation for data sets. We describe and evaluate thesaurus- and co-occurrence-based approaches for query expansion to improve retrieval quality in digital libraries and research data archives. The challenge here is to translate the information need and the underlying sociological phenomena into proper queries. As we can show retrieval quality can be improved by adding related terms to the queries. In a direct comparison automatically expanded queries using extracted co-occurring terms can provide better results than queries manually reformulated by a domain expert and better results than a keyword-based BM25 baseline.Comment: to appear in Proceedings of 19th International Conference on Theory and Practice of Digital Libraries 2015 (TPDL 2015

additional stressors, increased inequalities

publishersversionpublishe

VUV Study of Electron Impact Dissociative Excitation of Thymine

Dissociative excitation of thymine following electron impact was studied in the energy range up to 430 eV. Emissions in the vacuum ultra-violet spectral region below 150 nm were studied and found to be dominated by the hydrogen Lyman series. Emission cross section data reveal that Lyman-α excitation displays a broad maximum at an electron impact energy of 160 eV. The probability of extracting other excited atoms from the parent molecule is found to be insignificant. Possible excitation and dissociation mechanisms in the parent molecule are discussed

Numerical modelling of physical processes governing larval transport in the southern North Sea

A three-dimensional hydrodynamic model (GETM) was coupled with a particle tracking routine (GITM) to study the inter-annual variability in transport paths of particles in the North Sea and English Channel. For validation, a comparison with observed drifter trajectories is also presented here. This research investigated to what extent variability in the hydrodynamic conditions alone (reflecting passive particle transport) contributed to inter-annual variability in the transport of eggs and larvae. In this idealised study, no a priori selection of specific spawning grounds or periods was made and no active behaviour (vertical migration) or mortality was included. In this study, egg and larval development towards coastal nursery areas was based solely on sea water temperature, while settlement areas were defined by a threshold water depth. Results showed strong inter-annual variability in drift direction and distance, caused by a combination of wind speed and direction. Strong inter-annual variability was observed both in absolute amount of settlement in several coastal areas, and in the relative importance of the different areas. The effects of wind and temperature variability are minor for settlement along the western shores of the North Sea and in the English Channel, but have a very significant impact on settlement along the eastern shores of the North Sea. Years with strong south-westerly winds across the Dover Straight resulted in higher settlement figures along its eastern shores of the North Sea (standard deviation 37% of the mean annual settlement value). Settlement in the western Dutch Wadden Sea did not only show inter-annual variability, but patterns were also variable within each year and revealed seasonal changes in the origin of particles: during winter, stronger currents along with colder temperatures generally result in particles originating from further away

Production of O(1D) following electron impact on CO2

We have studied the excitation of metastable O(1D) following dissociative excitation of CO2 in the electron impact energy range from threshold to 400 eV. A solid Ne matrix at ∼20 K forms the heart of the detector. This is sensitive to the metastable species through the formation of excited excimers (NeO*), The resultant excimer radiation is readily detected, providing a means of measuring the production of the metastables. Using a pulsed electron beam and time-of-flight techniques, we have measured the O(1D) kinetic energy spectrum and its relative production cross sections as a function of electron impact energy. Threshold energy data are used to gain information about the excitation channels involved. In addition, an emission excitation function for the red photons, emitted in coincidence with the exciting electron pulse, has been measured in the 0–400 eV energy range

Investigation of the soil properties that affect Olsen P critical values in different soil types and impact on P fertiliser recommendations

Optimization of phosphorus (P) fertiliser use is desired to ensure more sustainable use of fertiliser, economic food production and reduction of eutrophication of water bodies. Presently, the Olsen P values on which fertiliser recommendations are based to achieve optimum yield are frequently the same for all soils. The aim of this study was to identify the properties of different soils that affect their critical Olsen P values in order to develop better, soil specific P fertiliser recommendations. A pot experiment using 10 soils with low available P with different P additions was carried out to investigate the impact of wide-ranging soil properties on the relationship between P addition, resultant Olsen P values and yield response of ryegrass to Olsen P values. The relationship between added P and Olsen P varied greatly between the individual soils. These relationships were affected by pH, manganese oxide, crystalline aluminium oxide and amorphous iron oxide contents of the soil. Different soils had widely varying critical Olsen P values for ryegrass. However, these could not be related to the measured soil properties. Fertiliser recommendations and critical values for optimum yield of ryegrass based on the Olsen P test should be soil specific. The complexity and lack of clarity over which combination of soil properties governs critical Olsen P values calls for further investigation with more soil types and additional soil property measurements to elucidate the different factors controlling critical Olsen P values in different soils

Assessing gender mainstreaming in the education sector: depoliticised technique or a step towards women's rights and gender equality?

In 1995 the Beijing Conference on Women identified gender mainstreaming as a key area for action. Policies to effect gender mainstreaming have since been widely adopted. This special issue of Compare looks at research on how gender mainstreaming has been used in government education departments, schools, higher education institutions, international agencies and NGOs .1 In this introduction we first provide a brief history of the emergence of gender mainstreaming and review changing definitions of the term. In the process we outline some policy initiatives that have attempted to mainstream gender and consider some difficulties with putting ideas into practice, particularly the tensions between a technical and transformative interpretations . Much of the literature about experiences with gender mainstreaming tends to look at organizational processes and not any specificities of a particular social sector. However, in our second section, we are concerned to explore whether institutional forms and particular actions associated with education give gender mainstreaming in education sites some distinctive features. In our last section we consider some of the debates about global and local negotiations in discussions of gender policy and education and the light this throws on gender mainstreaming. In so doing, we place the articles that follow in relation to contestations over ownership, political economy, the form and content of education practice and the social complexity of gender equality

Open Access Publishing - Models and Attributes

The SOAP (Study of Open Access Publishing) project has compiled data on the present offer for open access publishing in online peer-reviewed journals. Starting from the Directory of Open Access Journals, several sources of data are considered, including inspection of journal web site and direct inquiries within the publishing industry. Several results are derived and discussed, together with their correlations: the number of open access journals and articles; their subject area; the starting date of open access journals; the size and business models of open access publishers; the licensing models; the presence of an impact factor; the uptake of hybrid open access. In addition, a number of qualitative features of open access publishing, relevant to understand the present landscape, are described