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Farmers doing it for themselves: how farmer-inventors are frustrated by their interactions with the Agricultural Knowledge and Innovation System
Notwithstanding recent policy commitments to formally involve farmers in innovation through initiatives such as the European Innovation Partnership (EIP-AGRI), the traditional perspective of the policy and academic literature in Europe has been that agricultural innovations are provided by others for farmers to adopt. In this context there has been relatively little research on the approaches of farmers who independently invent useful products and processes for themselves. This paper presents an analysis of Irish farmersâ inventing processes as a form of user innovation, using data generated from in-depth interviews with farmer-inventors and semi-structured interviews with key informants from agricultural organisations. The farmer-inventors mostly use tacit knowledge and practical skills to create their inventions with the objective of increasing efficiency as a means to improving family farm viability. Farmer-inventors with entrepreneurial intentions were less inclined to share their ideas freely and described financial and temporal constraints in commercialising their inventions. The Agricultural Knowledge and Innovation System (AKIS) concept was used to frame an analysis of farmer-inventorsâ interactions with innovation support organisations from the perspective of the farmers themselves. This allowed appraisal of the Irish AKISâ support of farmer-led innovation relating to the positioning, visibility, and representation of farmersâ knowledge, inventions, and networks. This study contributes new knowledge about user innovation in European agriculture as EIP-AGRI co-production structures become established. It is proposed that farmers are a hitherto underappreciated source of independent knowledge and inventions in agricultural development and are poorly supported by AKIS institutions
The cult of collaboration in Public Policy
A 'cult of collaboration' is emerging in Australian public policy circles. In this article I argue this reflects a misunderstanding of the concept and its distinctive characteristics. Here I reintroduce collaboration vis-Ă -vis other forms of 'working to
Impact of pig slurry amendments on phosphorus, suspended sediment and metal losses in laboratory runoff boxes under simulated rainfall
peer-reviewedLosses of phosphorus (P) when pig slurry applications to land are followed by a rainfall event or losses from soils with high P contents can contribute to eutrophication of receiving waters. The addition of amendments to pig slurry spread on high P Index soils may reduce P and suspended sediment (SS) losses. This hypothesis was tested at laboratory-scale using runoff boxes under simulated rainfall conditions. Intact grassed soil samples, 100 cm-long, 22.5 cm-wide and 5 cm-deep, were placed in runoff boxes and pig slurry or amended pig slurry was applied to the soil surface. The amendments examined were: (1) commercial grade liquid alum (8% Al2O3) applied at a rate of 0.88:1 [Al:total phosphorus (TP)] (2) commercial-grade liquid ferric chloride (38% FeCl3) applied at a rate of 0.89:1 [Fe:TP] and (3) commercial-grade liquid poly-aluminium chloride (PAC) (10% Al2O3) applied at a rate of 0.72:1 [Al:TP]. The grassed soil was then subjected to three rainfall events (10.3 ± 0.15 mm hâ1) at time intervals of 48, 72, and 96 h following slurry application. Each sod received rainfall on 3 occasions. Results across three rainfall events showed that for the control treatment, the average flow weighted mean concentration (FWMC) of TP was 0.61 mg Lâ1, of which 31% was particulate phosphorus (PP), and the average FWMC of SS was 38.1 mg Lâ1. For the slurry treatment, there was an average FWMC of 2.2 mg TP Lâ1, 47% of which was PP, and the average FWMC of SS was 71.5 mg Lâ1. Ranked in order of effectiveness from best to worst, PAC reduced the average FWMC of TP to 0.64 mg Lâ1 (42% PP), FeCl3 reduced TP to 0.91 mg Lâ1 (52% PP) and alum reduced TP to 1.08 mg Lâ1 (56% PP). The amendments were in the same order when ranked for effectiveness at reducing SS: PAC (74%), FeCl3 (66%) and alum (39%). Total phosphorus levels in runoff plots receiving amended slurry remained above those from soil only, indicating that, although incidental losses could be mitigated by chemical amendment, chronic losses from the high P index soil in the current study could not be reduced.The first author gratefully acknowledges the award of the EMBARK scholarship from
IRCSET to support this study
Lead identification and structure-activity relationships of heteroarylpyrazole arylsulfonamides as allosteric CC-chemokine receptor 4 (CCR4) antagonists
A knowledge-based library of aryl 2,3-dichlorophenylsulfonamides was synthesised and screened as human CCR4 antagonists, in order to identify a suitable hit for the start of a lead-optimisation programme. X-ray diffraction studies were used to identify the pyrazole ring as a moiety that could bring about intramolecular hydrogen bonding with the sulfonamide NH and provide a clip or orthogonal conformation that was believed to be the preferred active conformation. Replacement of the core phenyl ring with a pyridine, and replacement of the 2,3-dichlorobenzenesulfonamide with 5- chlorothiophenesulfonamide provided compound 33 which has excellent physicochemical properties and represents a good starting point for a lead optimisation programme. Electronic structure calculations indicated that the preference for the clip or orthogonal conformation found in the small molecule crystal structures of 7 and 14 was in agreement with the order of potency in the biological assay
Session notes and action points from the Livestock and Fish theory of change-based planning, monitoring, evaluation and learning system workshop, Nairobi, 26-27 January 2016
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