Impact of crop varieties on household food security in Haor areas of Bangladesh

The purpose of the study was to identify the crop varieties in the Haor area of Netrokona district to minimize the food vulnerability situation during food crisis. The study was conducted in four selected villages of Madan and Khaliajuri Upazilas under the Netrokona district. Data were collected from randomly selected 400 farmers from the study area in the year 2011. The findings of the study revealed that farmers usually cultivate only three HYV boro rice varieties (BR 19, BRRI dhan 28 and BRRI dhan 29) in the Haor area under study. In aman season farmers mostly cultivate local varieties and they get minimum yield. Only few vegetables found to cultivate by the farmers in Haor area. The vegetables are: onion, garlic, chilli, bottle gourd, sweet gourd, ladys finger and tomato. Among these onion, garlic and chilli are mostly cultivated. Many farmers reported that during the flood they had to face serious problems in respect of communication, diseases, increased price of different commodities, and lack of adequate government safety net programs/relief. Farmers lack of flood preparedness has been observed while some farmers remained uncared about the occurrence of flood and consequently they did not take any preparedness for flood. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3329/ijarit.v3i2.17812 Int. J. Agril. Res. Innov. & Tech. 3 (2): 7-11, December, 201

The return trip effect: Why the return trip often seems to take less time

Three studies confirm the existence of the return trip effect: The return trip often seems shorter than the initial trip, even though the distance traveled and the actual time spent traveling are identical. A pretest shows that people indeed experience a return trip effect regularly, and the effect was found on a bus trip (Study 1), a bicycle trip (Study 2), and when participants watched a video of someone else traveling (Study 3). The return trip effect also existed when another, equidistant route was taken on the return trip, showing that it is not familiarity with the route that causes this effect. Rather, it seems that a violation of expectations causes this effect

<i>C-elegans</i> model identifies genetic modifiers of alpha-synuclein inclusion formation during aging

Inclusions in the brain containing alpha-synuclein are the pathological hallmark of Parkinson's disease, but how these inclusions are formed and how this links to disease is poorly understood. We have developed a &lt;i&gt;C-elegans&lt;/i&gt; model that makes it possible to monitor, in living animals, the formation of alpha-synuclein inclusions. In worms of old age, inclusions contain aggregated alpha-synuclein, resembling a critical pathological feature. We used genome-wide RNA interference to identify processes involved in inclusion formation, and identified 80 genes that, when knocked down, resulted in a premature increase in the number of inclusions. Quality control and vesicle-trafficking genes expressed in the ER/Golgi complex and vesicular compartments were overrepresented, indicating a specific role for these processes in alpha-synuclein inclusion formation. Suppressors include aging-associated genes, such as sir-2.1/SIRT1 and lagr-1/LASS2. Altogether, our data suggest a link between alpha-synuclein inclusion formation and cellular aging, likely through an endomembrane-related mechanism. The processes and genes identified here present a framework for further study of the disease mechanism and provide candidate susceptibility genes and drug targets for Parkinson's disease and other alpha-synuclein related disorders

Theorization as institutional work: The dynamics of roles and practices

This study unpacks the construct of theorization – the process by which organizational ideas become delocalized and abstracted into theoretical models to support their diffusion across time and space. We adopt an institutional work lens to analyze the key components of theorization in contexts where institutional work is in transition from creating institutions to maintaining them. We build on a longitudinal inductive study of theorization by the Fair Labor Association (FLA), a private regulatory initiative which created and then enforced a code of conduct for working conditions in apparel factories. Our study reveals that when institutional work shifts from creating to maintaining an institutional arrangement of corporate social responsibility, there is a key change in how the FLA theorizes roles and practices related to this arrangement. We observe that theorization on key practices largely remain intact, whereas the roles of different actors are theorized in a dramatically different manner. Our findings contribute to a better understanding of the work involved in the aftermath of radical change by demonstrating the relative plasticity of roles over the rigidity of practices

Portfolio selection problems in practice: a comparison between linear and quadratic optimization models

Several portfolio selection models take into account practical limitations on the number of assets to include and on their weights in the portfolio. We present here a study of the Limited Asset Markowitz (LAM), of the Limited Asset Mean Absolute Deviation (LAMAD) and of the Limited Asset Conditional Value-at-Risk (LACVaR) models, where the assets are limited with the introduction of quantity and cardinality constraints. We propose a completely new approach for solving the LAM model, based on reformulation as a Standard Quadratic Program and on some recent theoretical results. With this approach we obtain optimal solutions both for some well-known financial data sets used by several other authors, and for some unsolved large size portfolio problems. We also test our method on five new data sets involving real-world capital market indices from major stock markets. Our computational experience shows that, rather unexpectedly, it is easier to solve the quadratic LAM model with our algorithm, than to solve the linear LACVaR and LAMAD models with CPLEX, one of the best commercial codes for mixed integer linear programming (MILP) problems. Finally, on the new data sets we have also compared, using out-of-sample analysis, the performance of the portfolios obtained by the Limited Asset models with the performance provided by the unconstrained models and with that of the official capital market indices

The Challenges of Adopting PLM Tools Involving Diversified Technologies in Today’s Automotive Supplier Business

In order to reduce product development (PD) costs and duration, PD cycles are being accelerated in order to reduce the time to market and satisfy the end customer needs. Another key challenge in PD today, is product diversification in the technologies used, requiring improved collaboration amongst local and dispersed multi disciple PD teams. A main stream tool that aids and support engineers in PD to collaborate and share information/knowledge is Product Lifecycle Management (PLM). This research explores the benefits and requirements of implementing a PLM system for a PD and manufacturing company within the automotive supply chain. This paper first provides a brief background of the subject area, followed by an explanation of the initial industrial investigation for the implementation of a PLM system, from which investigation the resulting conclusions and recommendations are presented as the building blocks of the implementation project

Evaluating Promotional Approaches for Citizen Science Biological Recording: Bumblebees as a Group Versus Harmonia axyridis as a Flagship for Ladybirds

Over the past decade, the number of biological records submitted by members of the public have increased dramatically. However, this may result in reduced record quality, depending on how species are promoted in the media. Here we examined the two main promotional approaches for citizen science recording schemes: flagship-species, using one charismatic species as an umbrella for the entire group (here, Harmonia axyridis (Pallas) for Coleoptera: Coccinellidae), and general-group, where the group is promoted as a whole and no particular prominence is given to any one species (here, bumblebees, genus Bombus (Hymenoptera: Apidae)). Of the two approaches, the general-group approach produced data that was not biased towards any one species, but far fewer records per year overall. In contrast, the flagship-species approach generated a much larger annual dataset, but heavily biased towards the flagship itself. Therefore, we recommend that the approach for species promotion is fitted to the result desired