Assessing Potential Impact of a Farmer Field School Training on Perennial Crop in Cameroon

This study is an attempt of the combination of multiple data sources referring to the same time period and to the same farmer population, it aims at assessing the potential impact of a cocoa Farmer Field School Training on Integrated Pest Management in Cameroon. Using a combination of a latitudinal and a longitudinal comparison, the results indicate that FFS-trained farmers have significantly more knowledge about crop husbandry practices than those in the non-participant comparison group. A 32% production increase and 45% income increase relative to the non-participants was estimated in the latitudinal analysis. The longitudinal comparison is showing significant adoption rates of 94, 93, 90, 66 and 35 % respectively for shade management, phytosanitary harvest, pruning, improved spraying practices and grafting of improved materials. There was a 47 % reduction in the frequency of spraying fungicides and a 17 % reduction in the number of sprayers applied per treatment following the implementation of the training. Labour inputs increased significantly for pruning, phytosanitary harvest, and shade management but decreased for spraying. A partial budget analysis reveals that the IPM practices lowered overall costs of production by 11 % relative to previous practices. The two different analytical tools (longitudinal and latitudinal) are convergent in their results, showing more evidence about the higher potential impact of the farmer field school training on the restructuring process of the cocoa sector in Cameroonintegrated pest management, farmer field school, adoption rate, Agricultural and Food Policy, Community/Rural/Urban Development, Demand and Price Analysis, Environmental Economics and Policy, Farm Management, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, Food Security and Poverty, Land Economics/Use, Marketing, Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies,

Mach number distribution on blade to blade surface of a turbine stator pasage

Mach number distribution on the blade to blade surface l was computed at the hub, mean and tip sections of a stator' blade using the computer program COMPBLADE. These results,; were used to plot i so-Mach contours on the blade to blade surface and surface velocity distribution as a function- of fractional surface length. The results have been presented`' in this report

The development of a mathematical programming technique as a design tool for traffic management

In urban areas, competition for road space at junctions is one of the major causes of congestion and accidents. Routes chosen to avoid conflict at junctions have a mutually beneficial effect which should improve circulation and reduce accidents. A prototype design tool has been developed to provide for traffic management based on such routes. The mathematical model behind the design tool works with a given road network and a given O-D demand matrix to produce feasible routes for all drivers in such a way that the weighted sum of potential conflicts is minimised. The result is a route selection in which all journeys from origin i to destination j follow the same route. The method which works best splits the problem into single commodity problems and solves these repeatedly by the Out-of-Kilter algorithm. Good locally optimal solutions can be produced by this method, even though global optimality cannot be guaranteed. Software for a microcomputer presented here as part of the design tool is capable of solving problems on realistic networks in a reasonable time. This method is embedded in a suite of computer programs which makes the input and output straightforward. Used as a design tool in the early stages of network design it gives a network-wide view of the possibilities for reducing conflict and indicates a coherent set of traffic management measures. The ideal measure would be automatic route guidance, such as the pilot scheme currently being developed for London. Other measures include a set of one-way streets and banned turns. The resulting turning flows could be used as input to the signal optimiser TRANSYT to determine signal settings favouring the routeing pattern. The project was funded by the S. E. R. C. and carried out at Middlesex Polytechnic in collaboration with MVA Systematica

Theoretical predictions of flow distribution in cascades of HP turbine blade HUB section

The stator and rotor blade hub sections designed for a\ud High pressure turbine stage were studied in detail for their\ud Aerodynamic characteristics. The profile sections were tested In the national aeronautical laboratory cascade tunnel over a Range of exit flow mach numbers. The flow field characteristics Of the cascades were analysed by the euler code based on denton"s Method. The results indicated that there is a scope for improving The blade profile sections for high mach number applications.\u

Mass media use and knowledge gap amongst Walter Sisulu University, public relations management students: a content analysis study.

Walter Sisulu University recruits students from the deep rural areas as well as students from urban areas all over the Eastern Cape Province. Students coming from rural areas are completely different from students coming from urban areas. The difference is caused by the different quality of infrastructure each area is exposed to. Urban students are exposed to high quality education whereas rural students have very poor infrastructure that they can hardly use to better their education. Urban students are exposed to all kinds of mass media and they are taught how to use and manipulate them. For rural students the exposure to mass media is too rare to the point where only the minority is able to use them. Therefore, this research was done to find out if there are any differences in understanding social and current events between urban and rural students studying public relations management at Walter Sisulu University. The study therefore sought to find out if this came as a result of their differentiated exposure to the mass media. Literature collected shows that rural students do not benefit as much as urban students from the knowledge and information communicated by the mass media. This is because rural areas lack electricity for television and radio usage, they lack quality roads for newspapers to be delivered to rural areas. However, questionnaires and interviews show that when at university, rural students struggle to cope in their first year of studies but their performance becomes better in their second and final year of study.Thesis (MSoc Sci) (Communication) -- University of Fort Hare, 202

Spatio-temporal patterns of hover fly (Diptera: Syrphidae) diversity across three habitat types in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.

Masters Degree. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg.Hover flies (Diptera: Syrphidae) are poorly studied in southern Africa and as a result, little is known about their abundance throughout the year. Hover fly abundance is generally expected to vary according to vegetation types, due to differences in the type and diversity of floral resources, but this has not yet been investigated in South Africa. This study aims to investigate temporal and spatial patterns of hover flies across three different, but adjacent habitats (forest, grassland, and plantation) in KwaZulu-Natal (South Africa). This was done in two ways, first, by analysing occurrence data from the Global Biodiversity Information Facility’s (GBIF) database across months of the year. Second, by quantifying fly presence and abundance using Malaise traps set up in three different habitats and supplemented with hand-netting data. The Malaise traps were set up from October 2020 - September 2021 and were generally serviced weekly. Hover flies were sorted and identified using available keys at the KwaZulu-Natal Museum. The KZN GBIF database contained 11 tribes that represented three distinct phenological patterns. The Karkloof GBIF dataset contained seven tribes that represented two distinct phenological patterns. The field collection dataset contained eight tribes that represented two distinct monthly patterns, although these slightly differed from the patterns found in the GBIF data. Most records were from January, September and December whereas few records were from May, June and July. Minimum-minimum, average-minimum, average maximum and average temperature showed a positive correlation with hover fly abundance. In terms of spatial patterns, grassland had the highest number of adult hover fly individuals (154), followed by forest (106) and plantation (20). There was an overall effect of habitat type on both the mean number of species and the number of individuals per trap per week. In addition, Shannon’s diversity showed variation among the three habitat types whereas Simpsons Evenness index showed no variation. The results show that hover fly populations remain active throughout the year, but with distinct fluctuations in their abundance. They also show that heterogeneous indigenous habitats such as grassland and forest represent high abundance, diversity, evenness and richness of hover flies and this may be due to the diversity in available microhabitats, compared to the plantation, which is a modified habitat that lacks microhabitat diversity. Nonetheless, further studies should be undertaken in different regions of South Africa to better understand the monthly patterns as well as the effect of habitat type on hover fly diversity

Mass media use and knowledge gap amongst Walter Sisulu University, public relations management students: a content analysis study.

Walter Sisulu University recruits students from the deep rural areas as well as students from urban areas all over the Eastern Cape Province. Students coming from rural areas are completely different from students coming from urban areas. The difference is caused by the different quality of infrastructure each area is exposed to. Urban students are exposed to high quality education whereas rural students have very poor infrastructure that they can hardly use to better their education. Urban students are exposed to all kinds of mass media and they are taught how to use and manipulate them. For rural students the exposure to mass media is too rare to the point where only the minority is able to use them. Therefore, this research was done to find out if there are any differences in understanding social and current events between urban and rural students studying public relations management at Walter Sisulu University. The study therefore sought to find out if this came as a result of their differentiated exposure to the mass media. Literature collected shows that rural students do not benefit as much as urban students from the knowledge and information communicated by the mass media. This is because rural areas lack electricity for television and radio usage, they lack quality roads for newspapers to be delivered to rural areas. However, questionnaires and interviews show that when at university, rural students struggle to cope in their first year of studies but their performance becomes better in their second and final year of study.Thesis (MSoc Sci) (Communication) -- University of Fort Hare, 202

Aerodynamic and Heat Transfer Studies on HUB sections of a high pressure turbine blade: summary report

The stator and rotor blade hub sections designed for a high pressure turbine stage were studied in detail for their aerodynamic and heat transfer characteristics . The profile sections were tested in the National Aeronautical Laboratory Cascade Tunnels over a range of exit flow Mach numbers . The flow field and heat transfer characteristics of the cascades were also code based on Denton's method and the boundary layer code incorporating K- E turbulence model. The results indicated that there was a scope for improving the blade profile sections for high Mach number applications

New values of time and reliability in passenger transport in The Netherlands

We have established new values of time (VOTs) and values of travel time reliability (VORs) for use in cost-benefit analysis (CBA) of transport projects in The Netherlands. This was the first national study in The Netherlands (and one of the first world-wide) to investigate these topics empirically in a joint framework. Stated preference (SP) questionnaires were designed for interviewing travellers, where the hypothetical alternatives were described in terms of travel time, travel costs and travel time reliability, the latter being presented to the respondents in the form of five possible travel times having equal probability. For passenger transport, we first collected interviews using an existing internet panel. Additional data collection recruitment was done by asking travellers at petrol stations/service areas, parking garages, stations, bus stops, airports and ports to participate in the survey. One important conclusion is that the SP survey using members of this internet panel leads to substantially lower VOTs than the SP survey with en-route recruitment, probably because of self-selection bias in the internet panel. We estimated discrete choice models in which the values of time differ between trips with different time and costs levels, different time and costs changes offered in the SP, and different observed characteristics of the respondents (e.g. education, income, age, household composition). By using a panel latent class model, we also account for unobserved differences between respondents in the value of time and for repeated measurements/panel effects. The reference values of time and the reference reliability ratios were estimated on the 2011 sample only, but the effect of time and cost level, time and cost changes offered and socio-economic attributes was estimated on both the 2009 and 2011 samples