Agricultural research and poverty reduction:

International agricultural research has contributed enormously to increasing world food supplies to their current state of plenty. Yet poverty remains a major problem and the challenge for agricultural research now lies in developing strategies that more explicitly address the needs of the poor. This paper, based on the study commissioned by the Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) of the CGIAR system, addresses this issue. Based on an analysis of the links between agricultural research and poverty alleviation in different types of countries and rural regions, Peter Hazell and Lawrence Haddad identify six key priorities for a pro-poor agricultural research agenda and discuss strategies for achieving each of these goals with the least trade-off in national agricultural growth. (Excerpted from Forward by Per Pinstrup-Andersen and Emil Javier)agricultural research, poverty, food supply,

Impacts of agricultural research on poverty: findings of an integrated economic and social analysis

Agricultural research, Sustainable livelihoods, Agricultural growth, Gender, Agricultural technology,

Caracterização molecular de populações de Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. cubense em regiões produtoras de banana na Bahia.

O mal-do-Panamá, causado pelo fungo Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. cubense (Foc), é uma das doenças mais destrutivas da bananeira, sendo considerada entre as cinco doenças economicamente mais importantes de todos os tempos. O fato de ser causada por um fungo do solo que, mesmo na ausência da cultura, sobrevive por períodos prolongados, faz com que a medida de controle mais efetiva seja o uso de variedades resistentes. Desta forma, o projeto tem como objetivo caracterizar populações brasileiras de Foc por meio de marcadores SSR

Radio Detection of Cosmic Ray Air Showers with Codalema

Studies of the radio detection of Extensive Air Showers is the goal of the demonstrative experiment CODALEMA. Previous analysis have demonstrated that detection around $5.10^{16}$ eV was achieved with this set-up. New results allow for the first time to study the topology of the electric field associated to EAS events on a event by event basis.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures Proceedings of the Rencontres de Moriond, Very High Energy Phenomena in the Universe, La Thuile, Italy (March 12-19, 2005

Radio Detection of Extensive Air Showers with CODALEMA

The principle and performances of the CODALEMA experimental device, set up to study the possibility of high energy cosmic rays radio detection, are presented. Radio transient signals associated to cosmic rays have been identified, for which arrival directions and shower's electric field topologies have been extracted from the antenna signals. The measured rate, about 1 event per day, corresponds to an energy threshold around 5.10^16 eV. These results allow to determine the perspectives offered by the present experimental design for radiodetection of UHECR at a larger scale.Comment: 4 pages and 3 figures. To appear in the Proceedings of the 29th ICRC, Pune (2005

A self‐consistent model of Γ‐X mixing in GaAs/AlAs/GaAs quantum well structures using the quantum transmitting boundary method

We present a numerical study of the Γ‐X mixing in GaAs/AlAs/GaAs quantum well structures. A Γ‐X mixing model proposed by Liu [Appl. Phys. Lett. 51, 1019 (1987)] is extended to include the effects of self‐consistency and nonzero transverse momentum. In the present model, the coupled Schrödinger equations for Γ and X electron envelope wave functions are solved self‐consistently with Poisson’s equation to calculate the electron transmission probability and wave functions, which lead to the current‐voltage (I‐V) characteristics of single barrier and double barrier resonant tunneling diode structures. The quantum transmitting boundary method is employed in the model for numerical solution of the coupled Schrödinger equations, which proves to be very stable and efficient, even for large (≳2000 Å) structures. The features of Γ‐X mixing, such as the resonance/antiresonance in the transmission probability and the virtual bound states, are clearly demonstrated. Additional physical features are observed in the transmission probability and the wave functions under applied bias conditions. Our work shows that inclusion of transverse momentum, variable effective mass, and the self‐consistent potential is important in the realistic modeling of I‐V characteristics for structures exhibiting Γ‐X coupling.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/69686/2/JAPIAU-74-8-5053-1.pd

Survey to Inform the Development of an Online Support System for Higher Education Students - Higher Education and Online Support

An increasing number of higher education students face mental health difficulties, but the universities’ student support services (SSS) struggle to meet demand with limited resources. Web-based alternatives hold promise as a novel medium through which students could access support. Online interventions appear to be effective and may therefore provide a cost-effective alternative, relieving some of the burden on struggling SSS. This paper presents results from an explorative survey of 61 students questioned about their opinion of online support systems. The majority of students indicated that they would use such a system and that it should be interactive and personalized, focusing on time and money management, relaxation exercises, and building social skills. Future directions towards the development of such a system are discussed

Online intervention, ‘MePlusMe’, supporting mood, wellbeing, study skills, and everyday functioning in students in higher education: a protocol for a feasibility study

Background: Psychological and study skill difficulties faced by students in higher education can lead to poor academic performance, sub-optimal mental health, reduced study satisfaction, and drop out from study. At the same time, higher education institutions’ support services are costly, oversubscribed, and struggle to meet demand whilst facing budget reductions. The purpose of the proposed study is to evaluate the acceptability of a new online intervention, MePlusMe, aimed at students in higher education facing mild to moderate psychological and/or study skill difficulties. The study will also assess the feasibility of proposed recruitment and outcome assessment protocols for a future trial of effectiveness. The system supports self-management strategies alongside ongoing monitoring facilitated by a messaging service, as well as featuring a built-in community of student users. It is based on current clinical guidelines for the management of common mental health problems, together with best practice from the educational field. Methods/design: Two hundred and forty two students will be recruited to a within-subjects, repeated measures study conducted over 8 weeks. Self-report measures of depression and anxiety symptoms, mental wellbeing, academic self-efficacy, and everyday functioning will be collected at baseline, and then at 2, 4, and 8 weeks. During this period, students will have access to the intervention system. UK higher education institutions Bournemouth University and University of Warwick will participate in the study. Data on student satisfaction and engagement will also be collected. Study findings will help to determine the most appropriate primary outcome and the required sample size for a future trial. Discussion: This study will evaluate the acceptability of an online intervention system for students facing psychological and/or study skill difficulties and will test recruitment procedures and outcome measures for a future trial of effectiveness. The system is designed to be implemented as a stand-alone service or a service complementary to student support services, which is accessible to the majority of students and effective in improving student experience at higher education institutions

Radio Detection of Cosmic Ray Extensive Air Showers: present status of the CODALEMA experiment

Data acquisition and analysis for the CODALEMA experiment, in operation for more than one year, has provided improved knowledge of the characteristics of this new device. At the same time, an important effort has been made to develop processing techniques for extracting transient signals from data containing interference.Comment: september 200

Radiodetection of Cosmic Ray Extensive Air Showers

We present the characteristics and performance of a demonstration experiment devoted to the observation of ultra high- energy cosmic ray extensive air showers using a radiodetection technique. In a first step, one antenna narrowed band filtered acting as trigger, with a 4 $\sigma$ threshold above sky background-level, was used to tag any radio transient in coincidence on the antenna array. Recently, the addition of 4 particle detectors has allowed us to observe cosmic ray events in coincidence with antennas