Achieving accountability through decentralization : lessons for integrated river basin management

While decentralization holds out the promise of increased flexibility and efficiency, the preconditions for realizing it are daunting. To draw lessons for productive decentralization in integrated river basin management, this paper surveys the decentralization experience in education, health care, roads, irrigation, and public infrastructure services. Case studies reveal that the prime focus in the design of a decentralized structure must be accountability, based on principles of subsidiarity, transparency, and allocation of property rights. While some debates are sector-specific, others, such as the need for political and financial accountability, the related data requirements, educating stakeholders and potential beneficiaries of the new system, and ensuring effective participation are true of decentralization wherever it is to unfold. Inturn, initial conditions and the adaptation of political leadership to suit the historical context determine the success of decentralization. Four issues demand high priority in integrated river basin management. These are (1) overcoming financial inadequacy at the local level; (2) commitment to upgrading skills, particularly management skills, while also ensuring that the expertise accumulated in central bureaucracies is not dissipated; (3) assuring pre-reform beneficiaries that their rights would be protected; and (4) sustaining a long-term commitment to an inevitably slow and drawn out decentralization process. The main conclusions of the literature survey caution those who believe that decentralization is, in itself, a solution to problems of inefficiency and inequity in developing countries. Tradeoffs and tensions need to be reconciled (such as economies of scale versus local monitoring and integrated management or interregional equity versus local control).Municipal Financial Management,Decentralization,Water Conservation,Banks&Banking Reform,Environmental Economics&Policies,Municipal Financial Management,Environmental Economics&Policies,National Governance,Water Supply and Sanitation Governance and Institutions,Banks&Banking Reform

Comparative Study of the Microbiome of the Native Plant \u3ci\u3eCeanothus velutinus\u3c/i\u3e (Snowbrush) From Different Locations and Greenhouse Studies

Climatic change is one of the biggest threats to the ecosystem and biodiversity by enhancing environmental stresses. Environmental stresses such as biotic and abiotic stresses affect plant health and reduce crop production. The rhizosphere microbiome of a plant plays a significant role in a plant\u27s defense against various biotic and abiotic stresses. In this study, we are investigating the microbiome diversity of bulk soil, rhizosphere, and endosphere of Ceanothus velutinus, snowbrush. Ceanothus is an evergreen native plant that is usually found in dry areas and thrives well in harsh conditions. The snowbrush samples were collected from different locations 1920m, 1950m, and 2289m of the Tony Grove area of the Intermountain West region of the United States. The snowbrush plants propagated from cuttings under the greenhouse conditions were treated with the native soil. The rhizosphere and roots samples were collected from treatment and control plants after 3 months of inoculation for microbiome studies. The DNA was isolated from all the samples of native plants and greenhouse plants and sequenced for 16s rRNA for bacteria and ITS for fungi. The NGS data has been analyzed by the QIIME tool to investigate microbial diversity. The results revealed the dominance of Proteobacteria followed by Actinobacteria and Acidobacteria in all the bulk soil; Actinobacteria, Proteobacteria and Gemmatimonadetes in rhizosphere; Proteobacteria, Actinobacteria and Bacteroidetes in endosphere native soil samples; Proteobacteria, Actinobacteria and Verrucomicrobia in the control and treatment samples from the greenhouse. There were a few phyla that were absent in control but present in the treated plants and the native soil like Nitrospirae. The taxonomic classification of the native soil samples revealed the presence of various Plant Growth Promoting Rhizobacteria (PGPR) which were also found in the treated plants in the greenhouse but absent in control. They include Rhodococcus that helps in phosphate solubilization. Dyadobacter that fixes atmospheric nitrogen and Sphingobium that helps in siderophore production. The ITS sequencing analysis of the native soil samples revealed the presence of an Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi (AMF) that helps in glycoprotein production in plants. These microorganisms will further be isolated, characterized for their functions in promoting plant growth and development. Presentation Time: Wednesday, 3-4 p.m

Microbial Community of the Rhizosphere of \u3ci\u3eCeanothus velutinus\u3c/i\u3e Improves the Plant\u27s Growth and Development Under Greenhouse Conditions

Climatic change-induced environmental stresses affect crop production. Drought is such a stress which affect crop production and landscaping adversely. Native plants are great for low water use landscaping and can adapt to the natural environment. USU Center for Water-Efficient Landscaping has released a list of native plants that can be used for this purpose. This study focuses on a native plant Ceanothus velutinus (snowbrush) which is an evergreen plant native to western North America. It thrives well in harsh conditions and can act as ornamental plant in low water use landscaping but is difficult to propagate under landscape conditions. Here, we are investigating the effect of microbes in the native soil of snowbrush on the cutting propagation and growth and development of snowbrush in greenhouse conditions. The effect of native soil on cutting propagation showed increased rooting and callusing (13.33%) and survival rate (7.5%) in treatment cuttings when compared to control rooting and callusing (3.125%)and survival rate(2.09%) under 50% native soil inoculation after two months of transplantation. The snowbrush plants from cuttings and seedlings in greenhouse conditions were grown in 1gallon pots inoculated with 200ml of native soil showed an improved growth, higher NO3 content (2.5 and 2.6 folds), higher number of secondary shoots (6.8 and 2.3 folds), and an increased plant width (3.3 and 1.3 fold) compared to control. The treated seedling plants also showed nodulation whereas no nodulation was observed in control. The microbial diversity analysis of the treated cuttings plants showed the presence of the same PGPR as in the native soil. These results showed a significant role of rhizosphere microbes in the improvement of cutting propagation and growth of snowbrush plants in greenhouse conditions. Further, we intend to develop a propagation method from snowbrush cuttings for low water use landscaping by identifying the PGPR in treatment plants. Presentation Time: Thursday, 10-11 a.m. Zoom link: https://usu-edu.zoom.us/j/87913811390?pwd=RTR2dEJjaEJ1akJVYTdFMmZIcDNrQT0

The Plant Growth Promoting Ability of the Microbiome of \u3cem\u3eCeanothus velutinus\u3c/em\u3e from the Intermountain West Region

Due to the ever-changing climate and deterioration of the earth’s ecosystem, environmental stresses like abiotic (drought, salinity) and biotic stresses (pathogen infection) gravely affected plant growth. Native plants are a great way of improving these effects on the urban landscape. They can be used as ornamental plants in landscaping as they are accustomed to their natural environment. The Center for Water-Efficient Landscaping at Utah State University has released a list of plants to be used for low water use landscaping. One such native plant is Ceanothus velutinus (snowbrush ceanothus). They are evergreen plants that can grow in dry and harsh conditions and are native to the Intermountain West region of North America. This study focused on the effect of rhizosphere and endosphere microbiome on the growth and development of snowbrush ceanothus plants. A comparative metagenomic study in the bulk soil, rhizosphere, and endosphere of snowbrush ceanothus revealed the microbial diversity and presence of several plant growth promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR). So next, the effect of this native soil was observed on the growth and development of snowbrush ceanothus under the greenhouse conditions. Inoculation of native soil to the propagation media enhanced the rooting and survival rate of snowbrush ceanothus cuttings. The inoculation of native soil in the snowbrush ceanothus plants developed from cutting propagation and seedlings in the greenhouse revealed an improved growth compared to control plants. The metagenomic study of the rhizosphere and endosphere of snowbrush ceanothus plants treated with native soil revealed the presence of several PGPR that were absent in the control plants. Nodulation was observed for the first time in snowbrush ceanothus plants grown in the greenhouse and inoculated with native soil. So finally, an attempt was made to isolate as many PGPR species as possible from the rhizosphere and endosphere of snowbrush ceanothus plants. Many of these isolates tested positive for one or more specific traits such as siderophore production, indole acetic acid production, catalase production, nitrogen fixation, and phosphate solubilization. The isolates were further tested for their plant growth-promoting properties in plants. We found many of these bacterial isolates could potentially be used as bio-fertilizers or bio-stimulants

Interference Mitigation in Radio Altimeter

Ever since its advent in the late 19th century, wireless technology has evolved substantially. Towards the end of 20th century, wireless system was being considered as a replacement for wired connections between digital avionic systems in an aircraft. Although it seemed to be a possible breakthrough in aviation, it came with its own set of challenges which included interference avoidance with aircraft electronics, dedicated reserved frequency band and many more. Hence, the existing wireless solutions could not be used directly and there is a need to develop specialized solutions. The primary objective of this research is to devise a technique to manage the interference, arising due to the Wireless Avionics Intra-Communication (WAIC) System, in the radio altimeter present in an aircraft. The altimeter along with the in-flight environment has been simulated in MATLAB. Its performance has been evaluated for the scenario when the interference due to WAIC system is introduced. Also, various techniques which utilize vacant bandwidth of the altimeter to aid the avionics intra-communication, thus managing the interference for the altimeter, have been analyzed

Global Entropy Based Greedy Algorithm for discretization

Discretization algorithm is a crucial step to not only achieve summarization of continuous attributes but also better performance in classification that requires discrete values as input. In this thesis, I propose a supervised discretization method, Global Entropy Based Greedy algorithm, which is based on the Information Entropy Minimization. Experimental results show that the proposed method outperforms state of the art methods with well-known benchmarking datasets. To further improve the proposed method, a new approach for stop criterion that is based on the change rate of entropy was also explored. From the experimental analysis, it is noticed that the threshold based on the decreasing rate of entropy could be more effective than a constant number of intervals in the classification such as C5.0

Mathematical Simulation of Direct Glucose Fuel Cell

Enzymatic glucose fuel cell and microbial fuel cell are limited by their extremely low power and short durability. Direct Glucose Fuel Cell (DGFC) appears to be a promising alternative power source in low power portable devices and medicinal implants. In this thesis, a one dimensional mathematical model is developed to simulate Direct Glucose Fuel Cell performance. The model accounts simultaneously for mass transport of reactants, products and intermediate species, together with reaction kinetics and ohmic resistance effects in a Direct Glucose Fuel Cell system. It resulted in two sets (for anode and cathode) of first order nonlinear differential equations (derived from conservation equations) valid for heterogeneous domain consisting of electrodes, gas diffusion layers, anion exchange membrane, catalyst layers and flow channels. These equations were solved using numerical techniques such as Runge-Kutta 4th order method and Shooting technique in MATLAB. The influence of various parameters such as anionic conductivity, active catalyst surface area, glucose concentration, temperature on DGFC performance is investigated. Our results show that, the increase in glucose concentration after certain limit does not increase the DGFC performance and increase in the catalyst surface area always increases the performance of DGFC. Also, the anodic overpotential is large compared to cathodic overpotential due to complex kinetics of the glucose electrooxidation

Development of molecular methods to study hemocyte biology and functions in Aedes aegypti

The mosquito innate immune system is a critical determinant of vector competence. Mosquito immune cells known as hemocytes serve primary roles in immune recognition and pathogen killing, with important functions in Anopheles gambiae that limit malaria parasite survival in the mosquito host. However, the role of mosquito hemocytes in antiviral defense has yet to be established. Previous studies suggest potential roles of hemocytes in arbovirus infection and dissemination in the mosquito host, yet these studies have been limited by the lack of genetic tools to assess the functional contributions of mosquito hemocytes. To approach these questions, we have identified potential genetic markers for mosquito hemocyte populations to study their biology and developed methods to chemically deplete phagocytic cell populations in Aedes aegypti to determine the functional contribution of these immune cells on arbovirus infection. Our results demonstrate that nimrod, peroxidasin and lozenge are potential candidate marker genes for granulocytes and oenocytoids respectively, that can be utilized to create transgenic constructs to label hemocytes. To enable the study of hemocyte functions, phagocytic cell populations were effectively depleted through chemical treatment as validated through light microscopy, reduced expression of hemocyte-specific genes, and impaired immune function following bacterial challenge. Analysis of subsets using flow cytometry argue for presence of additional subsets of hemocytes that vary in phagocytic ability and morphology. Current studies look to further develop these molecular tools to examine viral-host interactions and better understand the role of mosquito cellular immunity in shaping arbovirus infection and transmission