Improving water resources management using different irrigation strategies and water qualities: Field and modelling study

The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of two different irrigation strategies, regulated deficit irrigation, RDI and partial root drying, PRD using surface freshwater (SW) and brackish treated wastewater (TWW) for maize and potato crops. The SALTMED model has been applied using the field measurements of two cropping seasons 2013 and 2014 at the Canale Emiliano Romagnolo, CER’s experimental farm located in Mezzolara di Budrio (Bologna, Italy). In 2013, PRD irrigated potato received 17% less irrigation water than RDI but produced nearly the same yield as under RDI. The water productivity, o naverage, was 11% higher for PRD compared with RDI. For maize 2014 season, the PRD strategy received almost 15% less irrigation water, but produced a yield only 6% lower than that of RDI and gave equal water productivity to RDI. Given that the two strategies received the same amount of rainfall the results favour the PRD over RDI. Had the site not received above average rainfall (258 mm in 2013 and 259 mm during the 2014 growing seasons), PRD might have produced higher yield and water productivity than RDI. In terms of model simulations, overall, the model showed a strong relationship between the observed and the simulated soil moisture and salinity profiles, total dry mater and final yields. This illustrates SALTMED model’s ability to simulate the dry matter and yield of C3 and C4 crops as well as to simulated different water qualities and different water application strategies. Therefore, the model can run with “what if” scenarios depicting several water qualities, crops and irrigation systems and strategies without the need to try them all in the field. This will reduce costs of labour and investment

The Best of Both Worlds: Experiences of Co-developing Innovative Undergraduate Health Care Programmes in Egypt

As medical education has become increasingly globalised, universities across the world have sought to raise standards by partnering with well-established institutions and a number of different partnership models have emerged. This article describes an academic collaboration between University College London (UCL), UK, and Newgiza University (NGU), Egypt, to establish modern and innovative undergraduate medicine, dentistry, and pharmacy programmes delivered in Egypt. Academics from UCL and NGU co-developed programmes using established materials, assessments, and processes from the equivalent programmes at UCL. Dedicated project managers, regular steering group meetings, strong working relationships between project teams, and iterative curriculum and assessment development processes were important features of the success of this work. A multidisciplinary first semester included students across all 3 health care programmes. This promoted collaboration between academics at both institutions. Although UCL resources were the basis of this project, the different sociocultural, ethical, professional, and regulatory frameworks in Egypt have meant that a number of adaptations have been necessary, in both curricula and teaching content. Perhaps the most important factor underpinning the success of this project has been the mutual respect and sensitivity of academics and clinicians from both institutions

Sorption of Cd(II) and Pb(II) ions by nanolimestone from underground water samples from Tehama region of Saudi Arabia

333-340Powdered nano limestone (NLS) has been investigated as an in-expensive adsorbent for removal of heavy toxic metals such as cadmium and lead from aqueous solutions. Batch experiments has been carried out, the favorable pH for maximum metals adsorption is found to be 6.8 for both. The surface area has increased in case of NLS up to 6.2 m2/g. The adsorption capacity calculated by Langmuir equation is found to be 75.1 mg/g for Cd (II) and 68.4 for Pb (II) ions at pH 6.8. The adsorption capacity has increased with temperature and the kinetics followed a First-order rate equation for both. The enthalpy change (ΔH0) is 25.4 J mol−1 for Cd (II) and 20.8 J mol−1 for Pb (II), while entropy change (ΔS0) is 41.6 J K−1 mol−1 for Cd (II) and 38.7 J K−1 mol−1 Pb (II), which indicate that adsorption process is endothermic and spontaneous in nature. About 25 collected samples of groundwater has been tested and found to be contaminated with cadmium and lead elements with different rates, with using NLS as adsorbent able to remove both metals from the samples. All of the results suggested that the NLS is excellent nano-adsorbents for cadmium and lead contaminated water samples

Breaking Borders: How Barriers to Global Mobility Hinder International Partnerships in Academic Medicine

This article describes the authors' personal experiences of collaborating across international borders in academic research. International collaboration in academic medicine is one of the most important ways by which research and innovation develop globally. However, the intersections among colonialism, academic medicine, and global health research have created a neocolonial narrative that perpetuates inequalities in global health partnerships. The authors critically examine the visa process as an example of a racist practice to show how the challenges of blocked mobility increase inequality and thwart research endeavors. Visas are used to limit mobility across certain borders, and this limitation hinders international collaborations in academic medicine. The authors discuss the concept of social closure and how limits to global mobility for scholars from low- and middle-income countries perpetuate a cycle of dependence on scholars who have virtually barrier-free global mobility-these scholars being mainly from high-income countries. Given the current sociopolitical milieu of increasing border controls and fears of illegal immigration, the authors' experiences expose what is at stake for academic medicine when the political sphere, focused on tightening border security, and the medical realm, striving to build international research collaborations, intersect. Creating more equitable global partnerships in research requires a shift from the current paradigm that dominates most international partnerships and causes injury to African scholars

Deforming glassy polystyrene: Influence of pressure, thermal history, and deformation mode on yielding and hardening

The toughness of a polymer glass is determined by the interplay of yielding, strain softening, and strain hardening. Molecular-dynamics simulations of a typical polymer glass, atactic polystyrene, under the influence of active deformation have been carried out to enlighten these processes. It is observed that the dominant interaction for the yield peak is of interchain nature and for the strain hardening of intrachain nature. A connection is made with the microscopic cage-to-cage motion. It is found that the deformation does not lead to complete erasure of the thermal history but that differences persist at large length scales. Also we find that the strain-hardening modulus increases with increasing external pressure. This new observation cannot be explained by current theories such as the one based on the entanglement picture and the inclusion of this effect will lead to an improvement in constitutive modeling