Self-awareness of driving impairment in patients with cataract or glaucoma

This study compared the driving performance of individuals with the eye diseases cataracts or glaucoma with age-matched controls, as well as the individual’s own perceptions of driving. Participants included drivers over the age of 50 years who had been diagnosed with glaucoma (n=29) or cataracts (n=33) and a control group with no ocular pathology (n=13). Driving performance was measured on a closed road circuit using a range of standardised measures of vehicle control and hazard recognition and avoidance, while visual performance was measured with a battery of tests including visual acuity, contrast sensitivity and visual fields. Perceptions of vision and driving were assessed using the Activities of Daily Vision Scale, Driver Behaviour Questionnaire and a driving exposure questionnaire. Driving performance was significantly poorer (p<0.05) for each of the ocular disease groups compared to the control group. Impaired contrast sensitivity and the higher disease severity scores (for the glaucoma group only) correlated most strongly with poorer driving performance. While participants with cataracts rated their vision significantly more poorly than those in the glaucoma and control groups, there were no significant differences between the participant groups rating of their own driving performance. These findings suggest that there is no direct relationship between self-rated driving ability and actual vision and driving performance. This has serious road safety implications

Selling Technical Sales to Engineering Learners

Sales engineering or technical sales programs bridge engineering and business to educate engineering students in sales specific to their discipline. Students develop business awareness through such programs, providing the sales workforce with technically knowledgeable salespeople. The following study analyzed cohorts of students enrolled in a technical sales for engineers course to assess the changing perceptions and attitudes of engineering students toward technical sales. Students reported statistically significant changes in perceptions regarding interest, need, and rank of current ability toward technical sales and social skills after completing the course. Student perceptions of sales skills being innate and ingrained decreased. Group analysis – enrollment in the sales minor or previous sales experience – revealed expected differences including higher ranked prior ability and initial interest in sales. A separate analysis of 20 technical sales skills at the end of the course was used to highlight the level students perceived they had achieved each skill

Evaluation of a new cropping option using a participatory approach with on-farm monitoring and simulation: a case study of spring-sown mungbeans

In the northern Australian cropping region, mungbean is commonly sown as an opportunity crop, usually on low soil water after a winter cereal, and consequently has a reputation for being a low yielding, high risk crop. Yield prospects could be improved and risks reduced if it was sown on soils with a higher soil water content, for instance in spring after a winter fallow. However, there is a lack of experience and confidence in alternative roles for mungbean in the farming system. This paper describes a research approach involving researchers, farmers, advisers, and grain traders in which on-farm monitoring of spring-sown commercial crops and cropping systems simulation with APSIM were used to explore yield prospects for a spring-sown crop after a winter fallow. The key elements of the approach are: (1) identification of possible options through simulation of scenarios, (2) testing the new practice with innovative farmers, and (3) monitoring of the management and performance of commercial crops and comparing yields with benchmarks estimated with a model. In this case, after 2 years of on-farm testing, spring-sown mungbean has been shown to have a potential for high returns in the northern cropping systems

Success factors for Participatory Farming Systems projects - field notes from the north

This paper documents three participatory farming systems project teams‟ perceptions of the key success factors for good participatory RD&E projects. The relative importance of each factor is scored and the current level of achievement benchmarked. The factors of most importance were participation, communication and leadership. The factors of lesser importance were project focus and outcomes, evaluation and philosophies of RD&E. Reasons for the importance and achievement scores are explored and may provide insights to other farming systems projects on where to focus their efforts

The Journey to R4D: An institutional history of an Australian Initiative on Food Security in Africa

Internal Revie

Expanding supply of improved seed to farmers in northern Ghana to increase food security

The global problem of food security is particularly acute in many parts of west Africa, where food production needs to increase to meet growing demand. The ‘Green Revolution', where improved crop varieties are matched with improved management practices (particularly fertilisers), has been very successful in increasing food production in many parts of the world. However, in much of west Africa farmers have not adopted improved crop varieties. There are many reasons behind this lack of implementation, such as access to finance, access to improved varieties, access to market and government policy constraints. One major roadblock to adoption of improved varieties identified in Savelugu, northern Ghana, was a lack of sufficient improved cowpea seed (an important cash crop). In northern Ghana there are very few certified seed producers, mainly due to the highly regulated certification process. More than 90% of seed is traded between farmers in an ‘informal' seed market. In trials conducted in the Savelugu region improved, certified, cowpea varieties consistently outperformed farmer varieties and at field days farmers showed a strong preference for improved varieties.In the Savelugu region we worked with an Innovation Platform on a pilot system where one seed producer contracted ‘out‐growers' to produce certified seed, while the seed producer performed the certification processes and provide the required inputs and technical support. These out‐growers were situated in villages around Savelugu, where they were able to use the informal supply chain to deliver 20 additional tonnes of certified seed to farmers in the first year of operation

The growth and development of pearl millet as affected by plant population

Pearlmillet (Pennisetum americanum (L.) Leeke) was grown at ICRISAT, Hyderabad, India at 20 densities ranging from 50 000 to 400 000 plants ha−1 using a Nelder fan design. Studies were made on the effect of population on the distribution of plant dry weight, leaf area, grain yield and yield components throughout the season. The first effect of increasing population was evident at panicle initiation (<6% final dry weight produced) where dry weight accumulation in the main axis was unaffected but that in the tillers was reduced. Subsequently, the increased plant population resulted in reductions of 77% in total weight per plant, 66% in leaf area per plant and 59% in tiller number per plant at 50% anthesis. Thedevelopmentof green leaf area per plant followed the same trend over the range of populations, so that leaf area index ranged with increasing population from 2.9 to 6.7 at 50% anthesis; severe leaf senescence occurred in the latter part of grain filling. As population increased, thedevelopmentof tillers terminated earlier in thegrowthofthe plant, resulting in a reduced tiller survival rate and therefore reduced productive head numbers per plant. Grain yield per plant declined owing to the reduced head numbers and also to lower seed numbers per head. Seed size remained largely unchanged. Population influenced plant yield chiefly through the highly responsive yield fraction of tillers, asthe yield ofthe main axis was relatively stable. Grain yield ha−1 increased to a maximum at 150 000 plants ha−1, which was maintained through to 400 000 plants ha−1 due to the large degree of plasticity in productive tiller number per plan

Science & Technology based Entrepreneurship Development

The transformational role of entrepreneurship for socio-economic development is well documented: entrepreneurs apply innovative solutions to address local issues leading to creative destruction of the status quo, that has a multiplier effect on enhancing employment and income generation, supporting local economic growth, creating knowledge clusters and enhancing national competitiveness

Simulating growth, development, and yield of tillering pearl millet I. Leaf area profiles on main shoots and tillers

Pearl millet (Pennisteum americanum L.) is an essential crop in farming systems of the dry areas of the semi-arid tropics and its tillering habit is an important adaptive feature. This is the first paper in a series aiming at developing and validating a pearl millet simulation model that recognises tillers as functional entities, analogous to intercrops. The objective of this paper is to quantify the effects of total leaf number per axis (TLN), cultivar, plant density and axis number on parameters that are used to simulate potential leaf area per plant. Four cultivars with different phenology and tillering habit were grown under well-watered and well-fertilised conditions at two locations in India, covering a range of daylengths and plant densities. For selected plants, the area of fully expanded leaves was measured non-destructively. A bell-shaped function adequately described the relationship between individual leaf area and leaf position on an axis. Its shape was determined by the position (X0) and area (Y0) of the largest leaf and by the breadth and skewness of the leaf area profile curve. TLN affected all four parameters, although the association with Y0 was weak. Cultivar only affected Y0, suggesting that parameterising new cultivars is straightforward. The observed density effect confirmed that competition for light between axes started during stem elongation. The results highlighted the consistent differences between leaf area profiles of main shoots and tillers. For a high-tillering crop like pearl millet, modelling leaf area dynamics through individual leaves is justified, as this approach can potentially deal with cultivar and environmental effects on tillering