Assessment of irrigation schemes in Turkey based on management types

Increasing population and demand for food, combined with finite land and water resources makes developing and monitoring the performance of irrigation systems inevitable in the 21st century. This study presents a comparative performance analysis of irrigation schemes based on their management types (State Hydraulic Works (SHW) and Water User Associations (WUAs)-operated schemes). The assessment used the International Water Management Institute (IWMI)’s six performance indicators for the year 2001. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) test results indicated that the differences in the output per cropped area (OPCA), output per unit water consumed (OPUWC), and irrigation intensity (II) between the two management types were statistically significant, whereas the differences in the output per unit command (OPUC), output per unit irrigation supply (OPUIS), and relative water supply (RWS) between the two management types were not significant. Although the II was higher and RWS was lower in the WUAs-operated schemes comparing with SHW, the other indicators (OPCA, OPUIS and OPWC) were also lower in the WUAs-operated schemes except for OPUC indicator. This suggests that the WUAs-operated schemes are not optimally managed, possibly due to factors such as inappropriate crop pattern and intensity, irrigation infrastructure, lack of an effective monitoring and evaluation system, insufficient awareness among managers and farmers, or unstable administrative structure.Key Words: Comparative indicators, irrigation project, management types, irrigation management, performance, Turkey

How Can Mobile Applications Reduce Energy Consumption? An Experimental Investigation of Electric Vehicles

The role of information systems for environmental sustainability has received considerable attention over the last several years. In view of global warming and climate change, a transition from combustion to electric vehicles (EVs) can help reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Since sustainable behavior often lacks relevant information about its environmental effects, the role of information systems in influencing energy consumption is being explored in this paper. The main focus is to investigate the impact of driver assistance systems in form of mobile applications on the energy consumption of EVs. To test such an impact, a field experiment is conducted by defining a control group and an experimental group. Test drives are performed with an all-electric, lithium-ion battery powered, small passenger city car. As the treatment of the study, a mobile application is chosen that monitors excessive acceleration and hard braking. The results reveal significant differences among the groups, which indicate that using smartphone-based driver assistance systems significantly reduces the energy consumption of EVs. This can entail several benefits, including an increase of range of EVs, electricity cost savings, decrease of vehicle wear, and reduction of GHG emissions. The findings are discussed and implications for research and practice are given

Future of Flexible Work in the Digital Age: Bring Your Own Device Challenges of Privacy Protection

The future of work is getting increasingly flexible due to the rising expectations of employees away from traditional 9-to-5 office work towards flexible work hours, which drives employees to use their mobile devices for work. This ever-growing phenomenon of Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) creates security risks for companies, which leads to an implementation of mobile device management (MDM) solutions to secure and monitor employees’ mobile devices. We present insights from two multinational case companies, where works councils have expressed their concerns for privacy intrusion into employees’ lives through BYOD. To examine whether employees share works councils’ concerns, we conducted a survey with 542 employees from three countries: United States, Germany, and South Korea. Results of a structural equation modeling show that American employees place greater emphasis on BYOD risks associated with privacy concerns compared to employees from Germany and South Korea

ZIF-8 metal organic framework for the conversion of glucose to fructose and 5-hydroxymethyl furfural

Herein, Zeolitic imidazolate framework-8 (ZIF-8) is considered as an easy and cheap to prepare alternative catalyst for the isomerization of glucose and production of 5-hydroxymethyl furfural (HMF). For the synthesis of the ZIF-8 catalysts two preparation methods were evaluated, being room temperature and hydrothermal synthesis at 140 °C. Of these, the hydrothermal synthesis method yields a material with exceptionally high surface area (1967 m2·g−1). As a catalyst, the ZIF-8 materials generated excellent fructose yields. Specifically, ZIF-8 prepared by hydrothermal synthesis yielded a fructose selectivity of 65% with a glucose conversion of 24% at 100 °C in aqueous reaction medium. However, this selectivity dropped dramatically when the reactions were repeated at higher temperatures (~140 °C). Interestingly, greater quantities of mannose were produced at higher temperatures too. The lack of strong Brønsted acidity in both ZIF-8 materials resulted in poor HMF yields. In order to improve HMF yields, reactions were performed at a lower pH of 1.0. At 140 °C the lower pH was found to drive the reaction towards HMF and double its yield. Despite the excellent performance of ZIF-8 catalysts in batch reactions, their activity did not translate well to the flow reactor over a continuous run of 8 h, which was operating with a residence time of 6 min. The activity of ZIF-8 halved in the flow reactor at 100 °C in ~3 h, which implies that the catalyst’s stability was not maintained in the long run

Toward a Decision Support System for Mitigating Urban Heat

With the continuous rise of global urbanization, city planners and policymakers are increasingly concerned with urban heat islands (UHI), which are metropolitan areas that are significantly warmer than their surrounding rural areas. We address the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goal 11 “Sustainable Cities and Communities,” and we design and develop a decision support system (DSS), which will help city planners and policymakers to overcome economic barriers to reach environmental sustainability goals

Complex regional pain syndrome type I: efficacy of stellate ganglion blockade

PubMed ID: 19888550Background: This study was performed to evaluate the treatment of complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS) type I with stellate ganglion blockade. Materials and methods: We performed three blockades at weekly intervals in 22 patients with CRPS type I in one hand. The patients were divided into two groups depending on the time between symptom onset and treatment initiation. Group 1and 2 patients had short and long symptom-onset-to-treatment intervals, respectively. Pain intensity, using a visual analog score (VAS), and range of motion (ROM) for the wrist joint were assessed before and 2 weeks after treatment and were compared using nonparametric statistical analysis. Results: Treatment produced a statistically significant difference in wrist ROM for all patients (P < 0.001). VAS values showed an overall decrease from 8 ± 1 to 1 ± 1 following treatment, and there was a significant difference in VAS value between groups 1 and 2 (P < 0.05). Conclusions: We concluded that stellate ganglion blockade successfully decreased VAS and increased ROM of wrist joints in patients with CRPS type I. Further, the duration between symptom onset and therapy initiation was a major factor affecting blockade success. © 2009 Springer-Verlag

Concern for information privacy:a cross-nation study of the United Kingdom and South Africa

Individuals have differing levels of information privacy concern, formed by their expectations and the confidence they have that organisations meet this in practice. Variance in privacy laws and national factors may also play a role. This study analyses individuals’ information privacy expectation and confidence across two nations, the United Kingdom and South Africa, through a survey of 1463 respondents. The findings indicate that the expectation for privacy in both countries are very high. However, numerous significant differences exist between expectations and confidence when examining privacy principles. The overall results for both countries show that there is a gap in terms of the privacy expectations of respondents compared to the confidence they have in whether organisations are meeting their expectations. Governments, regulators, and organisations with an online presence need to consider individuals’ expectations and ensure that controls that meet regulatory requirements, as well as expectations, are in place