Confronting Misconceptions and Acknowledging Imperfections: A Response to Khaled Abou El Fadl\u27s Islam and Democracy

Professor Abou El Fadl\u27s Article, Islam and the Challenge of Democracy, demonstrates the need to move forward with knowledge of the nuance and depth of the historic, philosophic, legal, and theological foundations of both political stasis and political change in Muslim countries. The author comments on three aspects of Khaled Abou El Fadl\u27s paper. First, the author will juxtapose the discourse that Professor Abou El Fadl is stimulating with other perspectives in order to delineate the sets of actors in this debate among Muslims. The author will also argue that “Islamic exceptionalism,” so prominent in post-modern critiques, is unhelpful. Second, the author will comment on the centrality of Shari‘ah to the internal debate, and discuss widespread misconceptions about Shari‘ah among non-Muslims. Third, the author will comment on the problem of human agency and imperfect institutions. This imperfection becomes a critical issue when sacred texts are codified into secular law

Weed management in grain legumes using an intercropping approach

Grain legumes benefit the farming system via symbiotic N2 fixation and subsequent residue incorporation contributing to soil fertility together with their effect as break-crop in cereal rich rotations. However, grain legumes are weak competitors towards weeds and consequently weeds constitute a major problem. Since the European policies for reducing the negative effects of agricultural plant production on the environment point to reductions in pesticide use (Mortensen et al., 2000), there is a requirement to further develop strategies to reduce weeds. Intercropping involves the simultaneous growing of several plant species in the same field and the cropping strategy is known to involve interspecific interferences increasing the use of plant growth resources in space and time (Ofori and Stern, 1987) improving crop competitive ability towards weeds (Hauggaard-Nielsen et al., 2001). The main objectives of the present study was to determine the effects of grainlegume-cereal intercropping on the weed biomass production as compared to the respective sole crops using successive harvests in a three-year field study

Stabilization and plant uptake of N from 15N-labelled pea residue 16.5 years after incorporation in soil

The decline of N from 15N-labelled mature pea residues was followed in unplanted soil over 16.5 yr. Eight years after residue incorporation, 24% of the residue 15N input was still present in the soil and, after 16.5 yr, 16% of the residue 15N input remained. A double exponential model successfully described the decay of N from 15N-labelled pea residues. The total residual 15N declined with average decay constants of 1.45 yr−1 for the 30 d to 1 yr period and of 0.07 yr−1 for the 1–16 yr period. Sixteen years following incorporation of the residues, indicator plants growing in residues-amended soils were obtaining 1.7% of their N from residue N. This is, to our knowledge, the longest study on decay of N in soils from 15N-labelled crop residues. The current study thus provides a unique data set for our empirical understanding of N-dynamics in agricultural systems, which is a prerequisite to parameterize and validate N-simulation models

Keyboard and Mouse Input for Controlling a Remote Machine via A Mobile Device

Controlling a remote machine via a mobile device can be difficult due to the challenges in capturing touchscreen input from the mobile device in a manner that can support the various functionalities of a full external keyboard and mouse/ trackpad. Directly relaying a character corresponding to the touchscreen text input to the remote machine does not support mobile input techniques such as swiping, gliding, or flicking across the keyboard, handwriting recognition, voice input, etc., and fails for languages that require multiple key presses to generate a single character. This disclosure describes techniques to provide users of mobile devices the full range of keyboard and mouse input functionality needed to control a remote machine accessed using the mobile device. A dual-mode touchscreen keyboard is provided to control a remote machine with a soft keyboard mode to generate key codes corresponding to key presses and a standard mode that functions similar to the usual mobile device keyboard. The techniques also support the full range of mouse input via direct touch or trackpad mode. The keyboard and mouse modes can be combined to relay input events that can include key presses and mouse clicks occurring simultaneously

Population ageing, public debt and sustainable fiscal policy

Due to rising life expectancy and declining fertility, the world’s population is ageing rapidly. Not only does the number of elderly relative to the number of working-age people increase, so does the proportion of the very old in the general population of the aged. In consequence, government spending on pensions, health care and other services provided for the aged is increasing and has been projected to rise on an even larger scale after the turn of the century. How can the old-age social expenditures be accommodated into a sustainable path for the general government budget?2 In most European countries, public outlays allocated to the elderly are financed on a pay-as-you-go (PAYG) basis, i.e. benefits paid to retired people are directly financed by contemporaneous taxes levied on workers. In periods with dramatic swings in the age structure, the tax rate is likely to swing as well. For example, when the population is ageing, the ratio of the number of persons of drawing age to that of those of contributing age increases, and PAYG financing implies an increase in the transfers from young to old. Does that cause generational conflicts, and will the PAYG scheme eventually be undermined?

Why diversify annual biomass production for energy – exemplified by green house gas emissions from the Danish IBUS bioethanol production concept

There is a need for integrating the biomass starting point into the energy manufacturing steps. It will secure that bioenergy is produced with limited use of non-renewable fossil fuel to secure that in the application of biomass a net emission reduction of green house gasses take place along the whole chain. Intercropping, defined as the cultivation of two or more species simultaneously on the same area of land, is an traditional practice still widespread in the tropics and common in developed countries before the ‘fossilization’ of agriculture. This cropping strategy is based on the manipulation of plant interactions in time and space to optimize resource use and productivity. It is regarded as the practical application of basic ecological principles such as diversity, competition and facilitation (Hauggaard-Nielsen et al., 2007). Cereal-legume annual intercropping show the possibility to increase input of leguminous symbiotic nitrogen (N) fixation into cropping systems reducing the need for fertilizer N applications (Jensen, 1996). Moreover, less need for pesticides are obtained due to improved competition towards weeds (Hauggaard-Nielsen et al., 2001) and less general damages on intercropped species by pest and disease organisms (Hauggaard-Nielsen et al., 2007). Intercropping is a more adaptive management practice as compared to the present arable crop rotations consisting mainly of sole crops. Perennials like clover-grass intercrops or mixtures are obviously more diversified than traditional annual crops. Clover-grass leys are important in many agroecosystems today due to quality as feed for livestock, a high dry matter production (10 t ha-1 yr-1 unfertilized, where 95% of the N accumulation is N2 fixed by clover (Jørgensen et al., 1999) providing a nitrogen-rich residue, which may significantly reduce fertilizer requirements for the succeeding crop when mineralized (Hauggaard-Nielsen et al., 1998). Furthermore, clover-grass lays can be harvested several times a year and processed to ethanol throughout the year. It is very much questioned whether bioethanol is a sustainable energy resource that can offer environmental and long-term economic advantages over fossil fuels, like gasoline or diesel. The aim of the present presentation is to debate the substitution of fossil fuels by crop biomass requiring the right selection of plant species according not only to chemical quality for efficient conversion but also to secure the development of ecologically benign farming system including biomass for energy

Competitive ability of grain legume-barley intercrops towards volunteer crops and weeds

Field pea (Pisum sativum L.) and blue lupin (Lupinus angustifolius L.) were either sole cropped or inter-cropped with barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) at two levels of nitrogen application to determine the effects of interspecific interaction in an intercrop and nitro-gen fertility on competitive ability towards volunteer crops - exemplified by red clover (Trifolium pratense). The dynamically change of competitive ability by intercropped species over time was shown to be im-portant in order to reduce opportunities for growth of volunteer crops and weed

Multiconfigurational Short-Range Density-Functional Theory for Open-Shell Systems

Many chemical systems cannot be described by quantum chemistry methods based on a singlereference wave function. Accurate predictions of energetic and spectroscopic properties require a delicate balance between describing the most important configurations (static correlation) and obtaining dynamical correlation efficiently. The former is most naturally done through a multiconfigurational (MC) wave function, whereas the latter can be done by, e.g., perturbation theory. We have employed a different strategy, namely, a hybrid between multiconfigurational wave functions and density-functional theory (DFT) based on range separation. The method is denoted by MC short-range (sr) DFT and is more efficient than perturbative approaches as it capitalizes on the efficient treatment of the (short-range) dynamical correlation by DFT approximations. In turn, the method also improves DFT with standard approximations through the ability of multiconfigurational wave functions to recover large parts of the static correlation. Until now, our implementation was restricted to closed-shell systems, and to lift this restriction, we present here the generalization of MC-srDFT to open-shell cases. The additional terms required to treat open-shell systems are derived and implemented in the DALTON program. This new method for open-shell systems is illustrated on dioxygen and [Fe(H2O)6]3+.Comment: 37 pages, 3 figures, 4 tables, 1 appendix and 79 references Changes in v2: 1) Appendix B and reference 81 removed 2) Removed dublicated reference and corrected reference 31. 3) Added spin-charge cross terms to GGA (Appendix A). Code changed accordingly and GGA results recalculated. All GGA results are revised -only small modifications observed. Conclusions are unchange