Producing more rice with less water from irrigated systems

Irrigation management / Water use efficiency / Crop production / Water requirements / Water balance / Rice / Water distribution / Irrigated farming / Productivity / On-farm research / Irrigation scheduling / Groundwater / Conjunctive use / Rehabilitation / Modernization / Farmer participation / Farming systems / Irrigation systems / Crop-based irrigation / Asia / Philippines / Sri Lanka / Bangladesh / China / Malaysia / USA

An Editor for Helping Novices to Learn Standard ML

This paper describes a novel editor intended as an aid in the learning of the functional programming language Standard ML. A common technique used by novices is programming by analogy whereby students refer to similar programs that they have written before or have seen in the course literature and use these programs as a basis to write a new program. We present a novel editor for ML which supports programming by analogy by providing a collection of editing commands that transform old programs into new ones. Each command makes changes to an isolated part of the program. These changes are propagated to the rest of the program using analogical techniques. We observed a group of novice ML students to determine the most common programming errors in learning ML and restrict our editor such that it is impossible to commit these errors. In this way, students encounter fewer bugs and so their rate of learning increases. Our editor, C Y NTHIA, has been implemented and is due to be tested on st..

Distinct OGT-Binding Sites Promote HCF-1 Cleavage.

Human HCF-1 (also referred to as HCFC-1) is a transcriptional co-regulator that undergoes a complex maturation process involving extensive O-GlcNAcylation and site-specific proteolysis. HCF-1 proteolysis results in two active, noncovalently associated HCF-1N and HCF-1C subunits that regulate distinct phases of the cell-division cycle. HCF-1 O-GlcNAcylation and site-specific proteolysis are both catalyzed by O-GlcNAc transferase (OGT), which thus displays an unusual dual enzymatic activity. OGT cleaves HCF-1 at six highly conserved 26 amino acid repeat sequences called HCF-1PRO repeats. Here we characterize the substrate requirements for OGT cleavage of HCF-1. We show that the HCF-1PRO-repeat cleavage signal possesses particular OGT-binding properties. The glutamate residue at the cleavage site that is intimately involved in the cleavage reaction specifically inhibits association with OGT and its bound cofactor UDP-GlcNAc. Further, we identify a novel OGT-binding sequence nearby the first HCF-1PRO-repeat cleavage signal that enhances cleavage. These results demonstrate that distinct OGT-binding sites in HCF-1 promote proteolysis, and provide novel insights into the mechanism of this unusual protease activity

Vetiver Grass as a Potential Resource for Rural Development in Bangladesh

Good quality lands are degraded by water and wind erosion, loss of organic matter, water-logging and salinity in Bangladesh which decreases crop yield and biodiversity. Lands are also contaminated with heavy metals due to growing industrialization. There are lots of expensive methods for controlling soil erosion, soil salinity, and land degradation, which can not be achievable in developing countries. The environment-friendly vetiver grass is available all over Bangladesh and it is economically feasible to control land degradation.  Vetiver grass can also be used for other purposes, as mentioned in this paper, and poor people can earn money utilizing vetiver grass.  But most of the people are unaware of the utility of this natural resource and therefore, motivation and training on the utilization of vetiver products are necessary

Creating "Good Muslims" : Qawmi Madrasa schooling in a rural town of Bangladesh

This thesis is about the processes and practices that underpin everyday life in a Bangladeshi qawmi madrasa, a rather contentious faith-based Islamic schooling system that is very popular among the rural poor. Based on 15 months of ethnographic fieldwork that took place in Biswanath, a rural town in northeastern Bangladesh, this thesis focuses specifically on the processes that are considered by the qawmi madrasa system to be crucial for the creation of a “good Muslim” persona. The thesis is, therefore, primarily about a particular form of (religious) schooling and (religious) identity formation processes in rural Bangladesh. This study describes a wide range of issues, traditions, and practices embedded within the qawmi madrasa system. The economic and social dynamics of the locality have also been observed closely, as these are directly linked with and influenced by the centrality of Islam in the life of the people. The protagonists of this system believe that every Muslim requires authentic Islamic schooling in order to become a “good Muslim”. Essential to the construction of the “good Muslim” within the qawmi madrasa system therefore lies the assumption that this type of schooling is transformative in nature. Hence, my analysis highlights the centrality of the believer’s body and suggests that for the successful construction of a Muslim persona it is the Islamic orthopraxy, rather than the orthodoxy, that they (learners) receive here most of their faith schoolings on. Central to such orthopraxy is Sunnah (ritual and non-ritual actions approved by the Prophet), which is reinforced and inculcated by the wider community of adults (parents, teachers) into learners by systematically addressing and synchronizing various qualities and expectations through the schooling process. Loyalty is one such quality that both the qawmi protagonists and the wider society believe is infusible. Loyalty towards the moral and social order is thought to be achievable through both moral and corporal discipline. Hence, accustoming one’s body and mind to the knowledge of adab (manner) constitutes the fundamental knowledge of all within this system. In other words, in this study I suggest that the qawmi madrasa system is a system of schooling where adab signifies not only the moral but also the political identity of a person. However, an ideal Muslim persona or an approved Muslim body’s construction within this context also rests on religious beliefs (iman) and deeds (amal). In Bangladesh the qawmi madrasa system is categorized as an ultra orthodox Islamic schooling system on the basis of its stance for authentic and scripture based Islam. However, as I will demonstrate, in reality, the system is sustained by both accommodating many secular expectations of the people and by compromising many of its stances.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceCommonwealth CommissionBritish CouncilGBUnited Kingdo

Energy Value of Cassava Products in Broiler Chicken Diets with or without Enzyme Supplementation

This study investigated the metabolizable energy (ME) intake, net energy of production (NEp), heat production (HP), efficiencies of ME use for energy, lipid and protein retention as well as the performance of broiler chickens fed diets based on cassava chips or pellets with or without supplementation with an enzyme product containing xylanase, amylase, protease and phytase. The two products, cassava chips and pellets, were analysed for nutrient composition prior to feed formulation. The cassava chips and pellets contained 2.2% and 2.1% crude protein; 1.2% and 1.5% crude fat; and 75.1% and 67.8% starch, respectively. Lysine and methionine were 0.077%, 0.075%, and 0.017%, 0.020% protein material, respectively, while calculated ME was 12.6 and 11.7 MJ/kg, respectively. Feed intake to day 21 was lower (p<0.01) on the diet containing cassava chips compared to diets with cassava pellets. Enzyme supplementation increased (p<0.01) feed intake on all diets. Live weight at day 21 was significantly (p<0.01) reduced on the diet based on cassava chips compared to pellets, but an improvement (p<0.01) was noticed with the enzyme supplementation. Metabolizable energy intake was reduced (p<0.01) by both cassava chips and pellets, but was increased (p<0.01) on all diets by enzyme supplementation. The NEp was higher (p<0.01) in the maize-based diets than the diets containing cassava. Enzyme supplementation improved (p<0.01) NEp in all the diets. Heat production was highest (p<0.01) on diets containing cassava pellets than on cassava chips. It is possible to use cassava pellets in diets for broiler chickens at a level close to 50% of the diet to reduce cost of production, and the nutritive value of such diets can be improved through supplementation of enzyme products containing carbohydrases, protease, and phytase

Uncertainty Evaluation in the Design of Structural Health Monitoring Systems for Damage Detection

The validation of structural health monitoring (SHM) systems for aircraft is complicated by the extent and number of factors that the SHM system must demonstrate for robust performance. Therefore, a time- and cost-efficient method for examining all of the sensitive factors must be conducted. In this paper, we demonstrate the utility of using the simulation modeling environment to determine the SHM sensitive factors that must be considered for subsequent experiments, in order to enable the SHM validation. We demonstrate this concept by examining the effect of SHM system configuration and flaw characteristics on the response of a signal from a known piezoelectric wafer active sensor (PWAS) in an aluminum plate, using simulation models of a particular hot spot. We derive the signal responses mathematically and through the statistical design of experiments, we determine the significant factors that affect the damage indices that are computed from the signal, using only half the number of runs that are normally required. We determine that the transmitter angle is the largest source of variation for the damage indices that are considered, followed by signal frequency and transmitter distance to the hot spot. These results demonstrate that the use of efficient statistical design and simulation may enable a cost- and time-efficient sequential approach to quantifying sensitive SHM factors and system validation

Structural coloration of chitosan-cationized cotton fabric using photonic crystals

Conventional textile coloration is a wet process involving high levels of water and chemicals consumption and wastewater generation. However, colour in textiles can also be generated by other mechanisms such as: absorption, emission, diffraction, interference and photochromism.[1] Chromotropic effect refers to reversible colour transformation due to external chemical or physical influence.[2] Photonic crystals are an important class of chromotropic materials. Colloidal crystals with a periodicity on the scale of half the wavelength of visible light exhibit structural colours similar to natural opals due to a diffraction effects that result in the appearance of a photonic band gap that forbids propagation of certain wavelengths.[3] Structural colouration is emerging as an innovative technology to produce colourful textiles materials.[4] Various colours impossible to reproduce by chemical coloration can be created by modifying the periodicity of the nanostructures or the environmental conditions using a single material.[5, 6] Photonic crystals can be applied on textile fabrics by colloid self-assembly and the structural colours can be controlled by adjusting the microspheres size and the viewing angles.[7] However, their application for textile structural coloration has been barely reported.[8] In this work, P(St-MMA-AA) composite nanospheres were deposited onto chitosan-cationized woven cotton fabrics. The structural colours of the deposited photonic crystals on the fabrics and its washing fastness were investigated.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

On the fluid-fluid phase separation in charged-stabilized colloidal suspensions

We develop a thermodynamic description of particles held at a fixed surface potential. This system is of particular interest in view of the continuing controversy over the possibility of a fluid-fluid phase separation in aqueous colloidal suspensions with monovalent counterions. The condition of fixed surface potential allows in a natural way to account for the colloidal charge renormalization. In a first approach, we assess the importance of the so called ``volume terms'', and find that in the absence of salt, charge renormalization is sufficient to stabilize suspension against a fluid-fluid phase separation. Presence of salt, on the other hand, is found to lead to an instability. A very strong dependence on the approximations used, however, puts the reality of this phase transition in a serious doubt. To further understand the nature of the instability we next study a Jellium-like approximation, which does not lead to a phase separation and produces a relatively accurate analytical equation of state for a deionized suspensions of highly charged colloidal spheres. A critical analysis of various theories of strongly asymmetric electrolytes is presented to asses their reliability as compared to the Monte Carlo simulations