International partnership for rice improvement in Latin America: CIRAD, a case study.

In Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), rice is an important staple food. A significant increase in rice production has bean achieved mainly through the release and adoption of high yielding varieties. during the last 40 years, about 300 varieties were released. They were developed by national and international rice research institutions. The Centre for International Cooperation in Agricultural Research for Development, Food Crop Department (CIRAD-CA), in Montpellier, France, worked in collarotation with Embrapa Rice and Beans, Goiânia, Brazil, and the International Centre for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), Cali, Colombia, in the development of varieties for LAC. This study looks at the contribution made by CIRAD's international partnership to rice improvement, with emphasis in Latin America. The presence of CIRAD's lines was detected in the breeding programs in Brazil, Bolivia, Colombia, Mexico, Guatemala and Peru. The following results were obtained: a) 61 unique lines developed by CIRAD were used as parents in mote than 2,000 crosses in the region; b) five CIRAD's lines were directly released as commercial cultivars; c) 25 varieties released to farmers in the region have at least one line from CIRAD participating on its crosses; and d) six breeding lines are in the pipeline for release in Brazil, Colombia, Nicaragua and Peru

Domain-wall profile in the presence of anisotropic exchange interactions: Effective on-site anisotropy

Starting from a D-dimensional XXZ ferromagnetic Heisenberg model in an hypercubic lattice, it is demonstrated that the anisotropy in the exchange coupling constant leads to a D-dependent effective on-site anisotropy interaction often ignored for D>1. As a result the effective width of the wall depends on the dimensionality of the system. It is shown that the effective one-dimensional Hamiltonian is not the one-dimensional XXZ version as assumed in previous theoretical work. We derive a new expression for the wall profile that generalizes the standard Landau-Lifshitz form. Our results are found to be in very good agreement with earlier numerical work using the Monte Carlo method. Preceding theories concerning the domain wall contribution to magnetoresistance have considered the role of D only through the modification of the density of states in the electronic band structure. This Brief Report reveals that the wall profile itself contains an additional D dependence for the case of anisotropic exchange interactions.Comment: 4 pages; new title and abstract; 1 figure comparing our results with earlier numerical work; a more general model containing the usual on-site anisotropy; new remarks and references on the following two topics: (a) experimental evidence for the existence of spin exchange anisotropy, and (b) preceding theories concerning the domain wall contribution to magnetoresistance; to appear in Phys. Rev.

Older Adults’ Views on Social Interactions and Online Socializing Games–A Qualitative Study

Age-related difficulties and quarantine restrictions impede the possibilities to maintain contact with one’s social network. Maintaining these contacts may be supported by digital games. To develop effective and feasible digital tools to foster social interaction, we aimed to explore what older adults find important in social contact and what barriers and enablers they foresee in digital gaming interventions as network support aids. Two focus groups and 20 semi-structured interviews (N = 29) with older adults (aged 55–87) were held to explore the research questions. Furthermore, a questionnaire was administered (N = 29) containing measures of loneliness, frailty, and social network size. Participants found ‘reciprocity’, ‘in-person contact’, and ‘personal connection’ important in contact with strong ties. Online games were not used much for socializing but may be used in the future, particularly by less mobile older adults. Future social gaming interventions should be challenging, user-friendly, and offer the possibility to communicate. Digital co-designed interventions that are feasible, challenging, intuitive, and trigger meaningful communication may strengthen social interactions in older adults. They may be a relevant social support tool in periods of interaction limitations due to functional impairment or social isolation

Analysis for water conflict transformation

This article proposes and fleshes out an analytical method designed to support efforts to transform inequitable and unsustainable transboundary water arrangements. Such ‘transformative analysis’ leverages socio-ecological thinking to critically evaluate the processes that have established and maintain an arrangement, including hydro-diplomacy itself. Transformative analysis facilitates the interpretation of strategies to deflect transformation, identification of destructive forms of cooperation, and strategic classification of opportunities for transformation. The assertions are premised on an understanding of the particularities of water conflict, and followed by a discussion of ways researchers may overcome the challenges inherent in the method