Global Agricultural Knowledge Initiative: Strengthening the Global Competence of Students, Faculty and Extension Agents

Education and Training traditionally involve learning from teachers and other pedagogical standards. The role of the teacher is to impart knowledge to those who do not possess them. Teachers talk in front of the class, and the pupils have to listen and write down what the “knowing” teacher says. This top-down method is not only used in the formal education system, also training staff uses this method to train the people. Even though this way of teaching and learning is part of our culture, the changing scenarios and expectation of today’s learners demand that teachers adapt new ways to update their skills and knowledge for making information and knowledge available to farmers

Rapid Production of E-Learning Materials with Reusable Learning Objects: Experiences from the Global Academy for Extension Practice

Open educational resources, institutional collaborations, and content reusability approaches have been quickly emerging to minimize the time and money spent on developing e-learning materials. Reusing content with reusable learning objects (RLOs) is carving a new path for research on reusing and repurposing available high quality e-learning content. Prior research shows that this component-based approach best fits how educators prefer to access materials. In this paper, without arguing the merits and demerits of RLOs as a concept, the authors present an effective and affordable approach to creating e-learning materials with RLOs. The authors also present how they have implemented the proposed RLO approach in converting learning modules of the Global Academy for Extension Practice into multiple e-learning material formats

A Theoretical Framework for Rural Knowledge Centers

Exponential growth in ICTs (Information and Communication Technologies) and establishment of RKCs (Rural Knowledge Centers) have been fast spreading across the globe. In the continuous process, there are tens of thousands of RKCs are being established by various agencies, to provide shared public access to ICTs for meeting educational, social, personal, economic and entertainment needs of the rural community. As most of these initiatives are relatively new, there are mixed opinions on the social and economic impacts of RKCs. There is also lack of good understanding on the conceptual and theoretical framework for planning and designing of RKCs. The authors conducted a study to fill this information gap by assessing selected ICT4D (ICT for development) project sites in rural India. Through the systemic analysis of the data and continuous interpretation of the observations, the study proposes a framework for planning and designing of RKCs. In this paper, the authors present the study results, and discuss the evolution process of RKCs and factors that influences planning and designing of RKCs

Towards a Framework for Planning and Designing of Rural Knowledge Centres

Exponential growth in Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and establishment of telecentres1 have been fast spreading across the globe. Telecentres equipped with ICTs have become new ways of reaching the people and delivering services in the developing countries [3]. In the continuous process, these centres have been acknowledged as new institutions in the global rural milieu, to empower the rural communities by bringing the benefits of contemporary ICTs in their reach such as e-governance, telemedicine, digital literacy, e-agriculture....

Seasonal variations in inorganic carbon components in the central and eastern Arabian Sea

Extensive observations have been made on the carbon dioxide system in the Arabian Sea during three different seasons as part of the Indian Joint Global Ocean Flux Study (JGOFS) Programme. Concentrations of total carbon dioxide and partial pressure of carbon dioxide exhibited seasonal variability, with pronounced north-south gradients in surface layers. Total carbon dioxide in surface waters was higher by approx 100 μM during winter compared to the intermonsoon period due to winter cooling and convective mixing. The partial pressure of carbon dioxide (pCO2) in surface layers was generally in excess over the atmospheriec value, suggesting that the central and eastern Arabian Sea is a perennial source to atmospheric carbon dioxide. The flux of carbon dioxide to atmosphere reached a maximum of approx 40 m mole m-2 d-1 around 16 degrees N in the central Arabian SEa during monsoon season. The carbon dioxide regenerated from soft tissue was higher during winter and is the least in monsoon. The aragonite saturation horizon occurred around 500 m

High biological productivity in the central Arabian Sea during the summer monsoon driven by Ekman pumping and lateral advection

Open oceans are generally oligotrophic and support less biological production. Results from the central Arabian Sea show that it may be an exception to this. We provide the observational evidence of fairly high biological production (up to 1700 mg C m-2 d-1) in the central Arabian Sea, along 64oE, during the summer monsoons of 1995 and 1996. The reasons for the observed high biological production, comparable to that from the traditionally well-known Somali upwelling region, were examined in light of the physical forcing and prevailing chemical fields. In the northern part of the central Arabian Sea, north of the axis of the Findlater Jet, upward Ekman pumping and entrainment driven by basin-wide winds along with advection of upwelled waters from the coastal region of Arabia supply nutrients to the upper layers. In the southern part, production is supported by nutrients advected from the Somali upwelling regio

White Paper: Shifting the goal post - from high impact journals to high impact data

The purpose of this white paper is to provide an overview of the ongoing initiatives at center level to respond to changing public expectations and to the challenge of improving the conduct of science by making research data widely available. We also attempt to provide a framework for implementing open access for research data to maximize CGIAR’s impact on development. The remainder of this paper proceeds as follows; firstly a summary of the diversity of research data produced by the centers is given, followed by an overview of the existing infrastructure for data management for each Center. Secondly, some of the limitations and barriers faced by the centers in their process to mainstream research data publishing are addressed. The paper concludes with recommendations for how these limitations and barriers can be tackled

Marine bioinvasion: concern for ecology and shipping

Marine bioinvasion - introduction of marine organisms alien to local ecosystem through ship hulls and ballast water - has serious consequences to native biota, fishery and general coastal ecosystem. Over 80% of the world cargo is mobilized transoceanically and over 12 billion tones of ballast water is filled at one part of the ocean and discharged at the other. These ballast waters offer conducive situation for bacteria, viruses, algae, dinoflagellates and a variety of macro-faunal larval/cyst stages to translocate to alien regions, usually along the coasts of the continents. As an example, there are over 18 species of animals and plants documented along the Indian coasts as those that might have got invaded and established. They can cause deleterious effects to local flora and fauna through their toxigenic, proliferative and over-competitive characteristics. This article points out the threats arising out of marine bioinvasion and various technological developments needed to deal with this unavoidable scourge in global shipping transport

Integrated Assessments of the Impact of Climate Change on Agriculture: An Overview of AgMIP Regional Research in South Asia

South Asia encompasses a wide and highly varied geographic region, and includes climate zones ranging from the mountainous Himalayan territory to the tropical lowland and coastal zones along alluvial floodplains. The region’s climate is dominated by a monsoonal circulation that heralds the arrival of seasonal rainfall, upon which much of the regional agriculture relies (Mall et al., 2006). The spatial and temporal distribution of this rainfall is, however, not uniform over the region. Northern South Asia, central India, and the west coast receive much of their rainfall during the southwest monsoon season, between June and September. These rains partly result from the moisture transport accompanying the monsoonal winds, which move in the southwesterly direction from the equatorial Indian Ocean. Regions further south, such as south/southeast India and Sri Lanka, may receive rains both from the southwest monsoon, and also during the northeast monsoon season between October and December (with northeasterly monsoonal wind flow and moisture flux), which results in a bi- or multi-modal rainfall distribution. In addition, rainfall across South Asia displays a large amount of intraseasonal and interannual variability (Fig. 1). Interannual variability is influenced by many drivers, both natural (e.g., El Ni˜no Southern Oscillation; ENSO) and man-made (e.g., rising temperatures due to increasing greenhouse gas concentrations), and it is challenging to obtaining accurate time-series of annual rainfall, even amongst various observed data products, which display inconsistencies amongst themselves (exemplified in Fig. 1). These climatic and rainfall variations can further complicate South Asia’s agricultural and water management

Natural sub‑bituminous coal as fller enhances mechanical, insulation and fame retardant properties of coir–polypropylene bio‑composites

Additives provide substantial improvement in the properties of composites. Although biobased composites are preferred over synthetic polymer and metal-based composites, they do not have the requisite properties to meet specifc needs. Hence, organic, inorganic and metallic additives are included to improve the properties of bio-based composites. Coal is a readily available resource with high thermal insulation, fame resistance and other properties. This work demonstrates the addition of 20–30% natural sub-bituminous coal as fller for coir-reinforced polypropylene (PP) composites and exhibits an increased tensile strength by 66% and fexural strength by 55% compared to the composites without any fller. Such composites are intended for insulation applications and as a replacement for gypsum-based false ceiling tiles. Various ratios of coal samples were included in the composites and their efect on mechanical, acoustic, thermal insulation, fame and water resistance have been determined. A substantial improvement in both fexural and tensile properties has been observed due to the addition of coal. However, a marginal improvement has been observed in both thermal conductivity (0.65 W/mK) and fame resistance values due to the presence of coal. Adding coal increases the intensity of noise absorption, particularly at a higher frequency, whereas water sorption of the composites tends to decrease with an increase in the coal content. The addition of coal improves and adds unique properties to composites, allowing coir–coal–PP composites to outperform commercially available gypsum-based insulation panels