National-scale modelling of N leaching in organic and conventional horticultural crop rotations - policy implications

A method is presented to model N leaching in crop rotations on a national scale. Representative crop rotations for different regions and soil types are used in the cross-disciplinary, plant, soil, environment & economics model EU-Rotate_N. By comparing contrasting farming systems (organic and conventional) in the UK, their strengths and weaknesses in delivering environmental and economic sustainability can be assessed. Modelling results show that the annual leaching in different horticultural rotations and UK regions, using median weather, is within the range of 13-88 kg N/ha/year for organic and 54-130 kg N /ha/year for conventional. The weighted annual average figures are 39 kg N/ha/year for organic and 81 kg N/ha/year for conventional, respectively. It is concluded that organic horticultural rotations, with a current share of 6.1% already contribute to lower overall N losses from agriculture. However, on a UK national scale, only a large share of organic land use (e.g. >50%) has a large effect on reducing N losses. Similar reductions are also predicted by substantial cuts in conventional N inputs, giving a policy choice if pollution from agriculture steps up further on the political agenda

Trends and Prospects of Instructional Material Development and Delivery at the University of Zambia

The major concern addressed in this study is why the University of Zambia UNZA despite being the first national University with so much vast experience in excellence and service as its motto is and being the first institution to offer distance education DE in Zambia has not commensurately grown to competitive and comparative massive enrollment numbers increased number of programmes and courses and development and delivery of instructional materials in Open and Distance Learning ODL The need to introduce DE at UNZA amongst many other compelling reasons could be attributed to the Lockwood Commission whose report in 1963 64 recommended that degree programmes at the Institution should be available by distance study to suitably qualified candidates who might not be in position to attend the University education on full - time basis This study is anchored on questions such as i How does UNZA run distance education ii How does UNZA develop instructional materials iii How does UNZA deliver instructional materials to its distance students iv What successes has UNZA scored in distance education mode of study v Why is distance education at UNZA not expanding as expected vi How best could UNZA deliver its learner support services to its distance students The study employed descriptive design and document analysis review It is largely qualitative in nature The major findings of the study show that UNZA being a dual mode institution depends on lecturers from various teaching schools to service distance education students Institute of Distance Education IDE the Unit of the University with sole responsibilities of administration organisation and coordination of DE programmes depends on lecturers employed under regular mode of study to develop instructional materials conduct face-to-face contact sessions during residential schools prepare assessment and examinations and mark them IDE experiences some degree of resistance from mainstream fac

Trends and Prospects of Instructional Material Development and Delivery at the University of Zambia

The major concern addressed in this study is why the University of Zambia UNZA despite being the first national University with so much vast experience in excellence and service as its motto is and being the first institution to offer distance education DE in Zambia has not commensurately grown to competitive and comparative massive enrollment numbers increased number of programmes and courses and development and delivery of instructional materials in Open and Distance Learning ODL The need to introduce DE at UNZA amongst many other compelling reasons could be attributed to the Lockwood Commission whose report in 1963 64 recommended that degree programmes at the Institution should be available by distance study to suitably qualified candidates who might not be in position to attend the University education on full - time basis This study is anchored on questions such as i How does UNZA run distance education ii How does UNZA develop instructional materials iii How does UNZA deliver instructional materials to its distance students iv What successes has UNZA scored in distance education mode of study v Why is distance education at UNZA not expanding as expected vi How best could UNZA deliver its learner support services to its distance students The study employed descriptive design and document analysis review It is largely qualitative in nature The major findings of the study show that UNZA being a dual mode institution depends on lecturers from various teaching schools to service distance education students Institute of Distance Education IDE the Unit of the University with sole responsibilities of administration organisation and coordination of DE programmes depends on lecturers employed under regular mode of study to develop instructional materials conduct face-to-face contact sessions during residential schools prepare assessment and examinations and mark them IDE experiences some degree of resistance from mainstream fac

War or Peace Discourse? Analysis of News Headlines on Pulwama Attack

Discourse analysis and the theories of war and peace journalism are used to investigate the newspaper coverage of the Pulwama attack of 2019, a recent development in the Kashmir conflict between India and Pakistan that brought the nuclear-armed Asian neighbours on the brink of a war. To identify the journalistic discourses of the Pulwama attack, 686 headlines of news articles published in six popular newspapers on the attack and its aftermath during February 15-25, 2019, are analysed. Three levels of discourse analysis are employed: Lexical, social and ideological stratifications. Under lexical stratification, the news headlines are analysed to identify their lexical choices, syntactics and utterance-type semantics, while under social stratification, the samples are analysed to identify their utterance-token semantics, prosodic structures and social language. In the final ideological stratification, the headlines are analysed to identify the figured worlds, embedded ideologies and intentions. Three distinct discourses—War, News and Peace—are thus identified and characterised. Finally, the study findings are used to theorise and comment on conflict and peace journalism

Making and shaping endochondral and intramembranous bones

Skeletal elements have a diverse range of shapes and sizes specialized to their various roles including protecting internal organs, locomotion, feeding, hearing, and vocalization. The precise positioning, size, and shape of skeletal elements is therefore critical for their function. During embryonic development, bone forms by endochondral or intramembranous ossification and can arise from the paraxial and lateral plate mesoderm or neural crest. This review describes inductive mechanisms to position and pattern bones within the developing embryo, compares and contrasts the intrinsic vs extrinsic mechanisms of endochondral and intramembranous skeletal development, and details known cellular processes that precisely determine skeletal shape and size. Key cellular mechanisms are employed at distinct stages of ossification, many of which occur in response to mechanical cues (eg, joint formation) or preempting future load‐bearing requirements. Rapid shape changes occur during cellular condensation and template establishment. Specialized cellular behaviors, such as chondrocyte hypertrophy in endochondral bone and secondary cartilage on intramembranous bones, also dramatically change template shape. Once ossification is complete, bone shape undergoes functional adaptation through (re)modeling. We also highlight how alterations in these cellular processes contribute to evolutionary change and how differences in the embryonic origin of bones can influence postnatal bone repair

Environmental and economic modelling of organic, stockless, horticultural crop rotations

Selected results from the ongoing “EU-Rotate_N” research project are presented. This EU 5th-framework project is developing a model-based decision support system to optimise nitrogen use in horticultural crop rotations across Europe. This paper introduces the economic and the fertility-building crops sub-models, and shows data from model validation and first model runs on an organic farm in central England. Preliminary results show that the model has the potential to be a powerful support tool for farmers and advisors, making decisions on rotational plan-ning. The economic, agronomic and environmental consequences of different rotational designs can be projected and assessed in detail

Use of Open-Source Software and Cloud Computing Technology for Imparting Training

The Department of Posts, Government of India, to date, has set up six full-time postal training centres (PTC) across India to meet the training requirements of its five-lakh strong workforce. PTC Madurai (PTCM), situated in Tamil Nadu, is one such training centre. PTCM has taken a proactive initiative to explore and adopt information technologies in the training and learning domains. It has partnered with the JRD Tata Memorial Library, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, through a small project to set up a digital infrastructure to manage its training programmes and the library collection. PTCM was looking for a digital library to manage its training materials, an online catalogue for its library collection, and a website. The consultants used three different open-source software to implement the requirements of PTCM viz; EPrints[1] for developing the digital library, Koha[2] for the integrated library management system, and WordPress[3] content management system for developing the website. [1] https://eprints.org/uk [2] https://koha-community.org/ [3] https://wordpress.com