FIELD TRIALS AS AN EXTENSION TECHNIQUE: THE CASE OF SWAZILAND

One potentially serious problem in evaluating the effectiveness of extension programs is that participants are not picked at random. Self-selection can be a problem, and it can be compounded if extension officials concentrate on the most progressive farms. This study explores the relationships between adoption of maize high-yielding varieties (HYVs) and participation in field trials intended to foster HYV usage, drawing on data from Swaziland. Results indicate that it is impossible to say if field trials had any effect on adoption. Participating farms used more HYVs, but this could have been due to self-selection or the government's selection process.Teaching/Communication/Extension/Profession,

Signature of nearly icosahedral structures in liquid and supercooled liquid Copper

A growing body of experiments display indirect evidence of icosahedral structures in supercooled liquid metals. Computer simulations provide more direct evidence but generally rely on approximate interatomic potentials of unproven accuracy. We use first-principles molecular dynamics simulations to generate realistic atomic configurations, providing structural detail not directly available from experiment, based on interatomic forces that are more reliable than conventional simulations. We analyze liquid copper, for which recent experimental results are available for comparison, to quantify the degree of local icosahedral and polytetrahedral order

Scale-free switching of polarization in the layered ferroelectric material CuInP2_2S6_6

Using first-principles calculations we model the out-of-plane switching of local dipoles in CuInP$_2$S$_6$ (CIPS) that are largely induced by Cu off-centering. Previously, a coherent switching of polarization via a quadruple-well potential was proposed for these materials. In the super-cells we considered, we find multiple structures with similar energies but with different local polar order. Our results suggest that the individual dipoles are weakly coupled in-plane and under an electric field at very low temperatures these dipoles in CIPS should undergo incoherent disordered switching. The barrier for switching is determined by the single Cu-ion switching barrier. This in turn suggests a scale-free polarization with a switching barrier of $\sim$ 203.6-258.0 meV, a factor of five smaller than that of HfO$_2$ (1380 meV) a prototypical scale-free ferroelectric. The mechanism of polarization switching in CIPS is mediated by the switching of each weakly interacting dipole rather than the macroscopic polarization itself as previously hypothesized. These findings reconcile prior observations of a quadruple well with sloping hysteresis loops, large ionic conductivity even at 250~K well below the Curie temperature (315~K), and a significant wake-up effects where the macroscopic polarization is slow to order and set-in under an applied electric field. We also find that computed piezoelectric response and the polarization show a linear dependence on the local dipolar order. This is consistent with having scale-free polarization and other polarization-dependent properties and opens doors for engineering tunable metastability by-design in CIPS (and related family of materials) for neuromorphic applications

FABRICATION OF SODIUM ALGINATE/GUM GHATTI IPN MICROBEADS INTERCALATED WITH KAOLIN NANO CLAY FOR CONTROLLED RELEASE OF CURCUMIN

Objective: The objective of this study is to fabricate sodium alginate (SA)/gum ghatti (GG) microbeads intercalated with Kaolin (KA) nano clay for the sustained release of curcumin (CUR). Methods: The microbeads were prepared by a simple ionotropic gelation technique. The developed beads were characterized by fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), X-ray diffraction (X-RD), and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Swelling studies and in vitro release studies were investigated under both pH 7.4 and pH 1.2 at 37 °C. Results: The developed microbeads were characterized by FTIR, which confirms the interaction between CUR, polymeric matrix and KA. DSC and XRD analysis reveals that the CUR has molecularly dispersed in the polymer matrix. In vitro results illustrated that microbeads were influenced by the pH of test media, which might be suitable for intestinal drug delivery. The drug release mechanism was analyzed by fitting the release data into different kinetic equations and n values are obtained in the range of 0.609-0.640, suggesting that the developed microbeads showed the non-Fickian diffusion type drug release. Conclusion: These results clearly illustrated that the developed KA intercalated polymeric microbeads are potential drug carriers for the controlled release of CUR

Mass function and dynamical study of the open clusters Berkeley 24 and Czernik 27

We present a $UBVI$ photometric study of the open clusters Berkeley 24 (Be 24) and Czernik 27 (Cz 27). The radii of the clusters are determined as 2\farcm7 and 2\farcm3 for Be 24 and Cz 27, respectively. We use the Gaia Data Release 2 (GDR2) catalogue to estimate the mean proper motions for the clusters. We found the mean proper motion of Be 24 as $0.35\pm0.06$ mas yr$^{-1}$ and $1.20\pm0.08$ mas yr$^{-1}$ in right ascension and declination for Be 24 and $-0.52\pm0.05$ mas yr$^{-1}$ and $-1.30\pm0.05$ mas yr$^{-1}$ for Cz 27. We used probable cluster members selected from proper motion data for the estimation of fundamental parameters. We infer reddenings $E(B-V)$ = $0.45\pm0.05$ mag and $0.15\pm0.05$ mag for the two clusters. Analysis of extinction curves towards the two clusters show that both have normal interstellar extinction laws in the optical as well as in the near-IR band. From the ultraviolet excess measurement, we derive metallicities of [Fe/H]= $-0.025\pm0.01$ dex and $-0.042\pm0.01$ dex for the clusters Be 24 and Cz 27, respectively. The distances, as determined from main sequence fitting, are $4.4\pm0.5$ kpc and $5.6\pm0.2$ kpc. The comparison of observed CMDs with $Z=0.01$ isochrones, leads to an age of $2.0\pm0.2$ Gyr and $0.6\pm0.1$ Gyr for Be 24 and Cz 27, respectively. In addition to this, we have also studied the mass function and dynamical state of these two clusters for the first time using probable cluster members. The mass function is derived after including the corrections for data incompleteness and field star contamination. Our analysis shows that both clusters are now dynamically relaxedComment: 16 pages including 8 tables. 22 figures. Accepted by MNRA

Knowledge, awareness and attitude regarding WHO recommended ANC visits among pregnant women attending antenatal clinic at D.Y. Patil hospital, Kolhapur, Maharashtra, India

Background: ANC is the care woman receives throughout the pregnancy in order to ensure that both the mother and child remain healthy. Promotion of maternal and child health is the most important component of family welfare programme of Govt. of India. It is useful to promote, prevent and protect maternal and perinatal health for the sustainable growth and development of country. Unfortunately, many women in developing countries do not receive such care. This study is conducted to identify, address and to assess the awareness and knowledge about own health during pregnancy and to improve maternal health, to improve maternal health services and to limit barriers among health systems working at all levels.Methods: This study is done in D.Y. Patil Hospital, Kolhapur among pregnant women attending ANC from April to June 2017. A questionnaire was used to collect data and assessed in either positive or negative response. Statistical analysis was done in terms of percentage.Results: During the analysis 48.1% had knowledge about ANC check-ups and 26.7% admitted about the importance of ANC check-up and visits. Regarding awareness, 35.8% were aware about the importance of ANC card, 28.3% were aware about the parameters, check-ups and investigations. 23% agreed that each ANC visit can improve the health and baby’s growth, while evaluating Attitude 32.6% enquired about their improvement or complications they will have to face.Conclusions: Present study data is baseline but informative for further planning of health in intervention programme. It is also useful for enhancing awareness of antenatal care and for motivating the women to utilize maternal care services

A geometric constraint over k-dimensional objects and shapes subject to business rules

This report presents a global constraint that enforces rules written in a language based on arithmetic and first-order logic to hold among a set of objects. In a first step, the rules are rewritten to Quantifier-Free Presburger Arithmetic (QFPA) formulas. Secondly, such formulas are compiled to generators of k-dimensional forbidden sets. Such generators are a generalization of the indexicals of cc(FD). Finally, the forbidden sets generated by such indexicals are aggregated by a sweep-based algorithm and used for filtering. The business rules allow to express a great variety of packing and placement constraints, while admitting efficient and effective filtering of the domain variables of the k-dimensional object, without the need to use spatial data structures. The constraint was used to directly encode the packing knowledge of a major car manufacturer and tested on a set of real packing problems under these rules, as well as on a packing-unpacking problem

Interstellar extinction towards the inner Galactic Bulge

DENIS observations in the J (1.2 micron) and K_S (2.15 micron) bands together with isochrones calculated for the RGB and AGB phase are used to draw an extinction map of the inner Galactic Bulge. The uncertainty in this method is mainly limited by the optical depth of the Bulge itself. A comparison with fields of known extinction shows a very good agreement. We present an extinction map for the inner Galactic Bulge (approx. 20 sq. deg.)Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in A&A as a letter, see also http://www-denis.iap.fr/articles/extinction