Identifying market opportunities for urban and peri-urban farmers in Kampala, Uganda

Kampala, the capital city of Uganda, has a population of approximately 1.2 million inhabitants that is growing at a rate of over 3.9 % per year. The growth of the city represents a large expansion in markets for agricultural products. Many of these markets offer comparative advantages to producers and processors located in or close to the city. Agriculture is widely practiced both within the municipal boundaries and peri-urban areas. In 1992, it was estimated that 56 % of land in the city was used for agriculture. The purpose of the study is to identify a portfolio of agricultural products with market demand, whose production is technically and economically feasible by urban and peri-urban farmers. The study has involved the following steps: a) a participatory rapid urban appraisal, b) a rapid market study, and c) an evaluation of the most promising options for urban and peri-urban farmers. This paper describes the methodology used and results obtained in the first two steps. The evaluation and selection of most promising options is on going. The rapid urban appraisal indicated that the most important commodities that farmers produce for sale are broilers, eggs, milk, pigs and pork, fruit (mango, avocado, jackfruit and paw paw), mushroom

Scenario selection method for system scenario analysis

Scenario analysis is a frequently-used method to explore what a proposed system is required to do in the early phases of system development leading towards finding system requirements. A system which is intended to perform a variety of roles under a range of conditions is likely to result in the need for a quantity of scenarios that becomes intractably pluriform. The consequence of too many scenarios is that either the number of scenarios to be analysed must be reduced to a manageable number or the analysis is likely to be perfunctory, diminishing the value of the analysis. We present a method for reducing the number of scenarios to be analysed through study of the organization of the factors which distinguish scenarios from each other, and for selecting which scenarios need analysis through identifying their points of commonality and identifying where differences may impact system capability. Our method organises the types and potential values of factors related to a particular system development in order to reduce the number of scenarios to be investigate

Systems biology: A tool for charting the antiviral landscape

The host antiviral programs that are initiated following viral infection form a dynamic and complex web of responses that we have collectively termed as “the antiviral landscape”. Conventional approaches to studying antiviral responses have primarily used reductionist systems to assess the function of a single or a limited subset of molecules. Systems biology is a holistic approach that considers the entire system as a whole, rather than individual components or molecules. Systems biology based approaches facilitate an unbiased and comprehensive analysis of the antiviral landscape, while allowing for the discovery of emergent properties that are missed by conventional approaches. The antiviral landscape can be viewed as a hierarchy of complexity, beginning at the whole organism level and progressing downward to isolated tissues, populations of cells, and single cells. In this review, we will discuss how systems biology has been applied to better understand the antiviral landscape at each of these layers. At the organismal level, the Collaborative Cross is an invaluable genetic resource for assessing how genetic diversity influences the antiviral responses. Whole tissue and isolated bulk cell transcriptomics serves as a critical tool for the comprehensive analysis of antiviral responses at both the tissue and cellular levels of complexity. Finally, new techniques in single cell analysis are emerging tools that will revolutionize our understanding of how individual cells within a bulk infected cell population contribute to the overall antiviral landscape

Scenario selection method for system scenario analysis

Scenario analysis is a frequently-used method to explore what a proposed system is required to do in the early phases of system development leading towards finding system requirements. A system which is intended to perform a variety of roles under a range of conditions is likely to result in the need for a quantity of scenarios that becomes intractably pluriform. The consequence of too many scenarios is that either the number of scenarios to be analysed must be reduced to a manageable number or the analysis is likely to be perfunctory, diminishing the value of the analysis. We present a method for reducing the number of scenarios to be analysed through study of the organization of the factors which distinguish scenarios from each other, and for selecting which scenarios need analysis through identifying their points of commonality and identifying where differences may impact system capability. Our method organises the types and potential values of factors related to a particular system development in order to reduce the number of scenarios to be investigate

A biophysical model of prokaryotic diversity in geothermal hot springs

Recent field investigations of photosynthetic bacteria living in geothermal hot spring environments have revealed surprisingly complex ecosystems, with an unexpected level of genetic diversity. One case of particular interest involves the distribution along hot spring thermal gradients of genetically distinct bacterial strains that differ in their preferred temperatures for reproduction and photosynthesis. In such systems, a single variable, temperature, defines the relevant environmental variation. In spite of this, each region along the thermal gradient exhibits multiple strains of photosynthetic bacteria adapted to several distinct thermal optima, rather than the expected single thermal strain adapted to the local environmental temperature. Here we analyze microbiology data from several ecological studies to show that the thermal distribution field data exhibit several universal features independent of location and specific bacterial strain. These include the distribution of optimal temperatures of different thermal strains and the functional dependence of the net population density on temperature. Further, we present a simple population dynamics model of these systems that is highly constrained by biophysical data and by physical features of the environment. This model can explain in detail the observed diversity of different strains of the photosynthetic bacteria. It also reproduces the observed thermal population distributions, as well as certain features of population dynamics observed in laboratory studies of the same organisms

Modern ‘live’ football: moving from the panoptican gaze to the performative, virtual and carnivalesque

Drawing on Redhead's discussion of Baudrillard as a theorist of hyperreality, the paper considers the different ways in which the mediatized ‘live’ football spectacle is often modelled on the ‘live’ however eventually usurps the ‘live’ forms position in the cultural economy, thus beginning to replicate the mediatized ‘live’. The blurring of the ‘live’ and ‘real’ through an accelerated mediatization of football allows the formation of an imagined community mobilized by the working class whilst mediated through the sanitization, selling of ‘events’ and the middle classing of football, through the re-encoding of sporting spaces and strategic decision-making about broadcasting. A culture of pub supporting then allows potential for working-class supporters to remove themselves from the panoptican gazing systems of late modern hyperreal football stadia and into carnivalesque performative spaces, which in many cases are hyperreal and simulated themselves

Molecular and mass spectroscopic analysis of isotopically labeled organic residues

Experimental studies aimed at understanding the evolution of complex organic molecules on interstellar grains were performed. The photolysis of frozen gas mixtures of various compositions containing H2O, CO, NH3, and CH4 was studied. These species were chosen because of their astrophysical importance as deducted from observational as well as theoretical studies of ice mantles on interstellar grains. These ultraviolet photolyzed ices were warmed up in order to produce refractory organic molecules like the ones formed in molecular clouds when the icy mantles are being irradiated and warmed up either by a nearby stellar source or impulsive heating. The laboratory studies give estimates of the efficiency of production of such organic material under interstellar conditions. It is shown that the gradual carbonization of organic mantles in the diffuse cloud phase leads to higher and higher visual absorptivity - yellow residues become brown in the laboratory. The obtained results can be applied to explaining the organic components of comets and their relevance to the origin of life