Missing the target: Lessons from enabling innovation in South Asia

This paper reflects on the experience of the Research Into Use (RIU) projects in Asia. It reconfirms much of what has been known for many years about the way innovation takes place and finds that many of the shortcomings of RIU in Asia were precisely because lessons from previous research on agricultural innovation were "not put into use" in the programme's implementation. However, the experience provides three important lessons for donors and governments to make use of agricultural research: (i) Promoting research into use requires enabling innovation. This goes beyond fostering collaboration, and includes a range of other innovation management tasks (ii) The starting point for making use of research need not necessarily be the promising research products and quite often identifying the promising innovation trajectories is more rewarding (iii) Strengthening the innovation enabling environment of policies and institutions is critical if research use is to lead to long-term and large-scale impacts. It is in respect of this third point that RIU Asia missed its target, as it failed to make explicit efforts to address policy and institutional change, despite its innovation systems rhetoric. This severely restricted its ability to achieve wide-scale social and economic impact that was the original rationale for the programme.Research Into Use, Innovation Management, Agricultural Research, Innovation, Development, Policy, Value Chain Development, South Asia, Innovation Trajectory

Experiments on Passive Hypervelocity Boundary-Layer Control Using an Ultrasonically Absorptive Surface

Recently performed linear stability analyses suggested that transition could be delayed in hypersonic boundary layers by using an ultrasonically absorptive surface to damp the second mode (Mack mode). Boundary-layer transition experiments were performed on a sharp 5.06-deg half-angle round cone at zero angle of attack in the T5 Hypervelocity Shock Tunnel to test this concept. The cone was constructed with a smooth surface around half the cone circumference (to serve as a control) and an acoustically absorptive porous surface on the other half. Test gases investigated included nitrogen and carbon dioxide at M∞ ≃ 5 with specific reservoir enthalpy ranging from 1.3 to 13.0 MJ/kg and reservoir pressure ranging from 9.0 to 50.0 MPa. Comparisons were performed to ensure that previous results obtained in similar experiments (on a regular smooth surface) were reproduced, and the results were extended to examine the effects of the porous surface. These experiments indicated that the porous surface was highly effective in delaying transition provided that the pore size was significantly smaller than the viscous length scale

Tacit Knowledge and Innovation Capacity: Evidence from the Indian Livestock Sector

To cope and compete in this rapidly-changing world, organisations need to access and apply new knowledge. While explicit knowledge is important, what is often critical is an organisation's ability to create, access, share and apply the tacit or un-codified knowledge that exists among its members, its network and the wider innovation system of which it is a part. This discussion paper explores the role of tacit knowledge in livestock sector innovation capacity though the case of Visakha Dairy, one of the most progressive producer-owned milk marketing companies in India. Analysis of two episodes in Visakha's evolution clearly illustrates how it used tacit knowledge to innovate around challenges. The paper concludes that while tacit knowledge is clearly a major resource that organisations rely on to cope with change, it does not follow that knowledge management approaches that rely on codifying this knowledge are the way forward. Instead, what it does suggest is that better management of the learning processes, through which tacit knowledge is generated, would be a more useful contribution to innovation and innovation capacity - in other words, a shift from knowledge management to learning management.Innovation Systems, Innovation Capacity, Tacit Knowledge, Livestock, India Journal

The New Extensionist: Roles and Cap acities to Strengthen Extension and Advisory Services

Extension and advisory services (EAS) perform an important role in agricultural development and help reduce hunger and poverty. Development efforts are increasingly complicated because of challenges such as natural resource depletion and climate change. Agricultural development frameworks have moved from a linear to a more complex systems perspective. Many scholars today use the agricultural innovation systems (AIS) framework as a conceptual model. This framework has three basic elements: all of the actors in the system that brings about agricultural innovation, their interactions, and the institutions and policies governing their interactions. Taking this approach while dealing with the challenges of development today implies new roles and capacities for extension. The authors discuss these new roles and capacities based on an action inquiry process of global dialog and consensus building, to present a vision for EAS within AIS, called the new extensionist(Sulaiman & Davis, 2012). The authors explore individual roles and capacities, and also those at the organizational and system level (Sulaiman & Davis, 2012). The authors discuss the importance of agricultural education in developing these roles and capacities, and bringing more knowledge to bear on the issu

Prodrug design of NSAIDs: synthesis and pharmacological profiles of amide prodrugs of etodolac with amino acids

Novel amide prodrugs of etodolac with various amino acids were synthesized and the structures were confirmed by elemental and spectral analyses. In vitro hydrolytic studies in various simulated fluids confirmed the hydrolysis of prodrugs in colon. The prodrugs showed an improved anti-inflammatory activity of 74.4 %, 79.3 %, 73.4 % and 74.5 % when compared to 42.5 % of etodolac. Further the mean ulcer index of 10.1, 8.7, 6.8 and 7.3 were observed for the prodrugs while a score of 22.6 for etodolac. The histopathological studies showed less ulceration in the gastric region when treated with prodrugs, thereby proving the prodrugs to be better in action as compared to etodolac and are advantageous in having less gastrointestinal side effects.Colegio de Farmacéuticos de la Provincia de Buenos Aire

Prodrug design of NSAIDs: synthesis and pharmacological profiles of amide prodrugs of etodolac with amino acids

Novel amide prodrugs of etodolac with various amino acids were synthesized and the structures were confirmed by elemental and spectral analyses. In vitro hydrolytic studies in various simulated fluids confirmed the hydrolysis of prodrugs in colon. The prodrugs showed an improved anti-inflammatory activity of 74.4 %, 79.3 %, 73.4 % and 74.5 % when compared to 42.5 % of etodolac. Further the mean ulcer index of 10.1, 8.7, 6.8 and 7.3 were observed for the prodrugs while a score of 22.6 for etodolac. The histopathological studies showed less ulceration in the gastric region when treated with prodrugs, thereby proving the prodrugs to be better in action as compared to etodolac and are advantageous in having less gastrointestinal side effects.Colegio de Farmacéuticos de la Provincia de Buenos Aire

Chronic maternal depressive symptoms are associated with reduced socio-emotional development in children at 2 years of age: Analysis of data from an intervention cohort in rural Pakistan

Background: Maternal depression affects a high proportion of women during the antenatal and postnatal period in low- and middle-income countries. While maternal depression is recognized as a significant risk for poor early child development that warrants interventions, the effects of chronic maternal depression on children\u27s development are less understood. Objective: To determine the association of chronicity of maternal depressive symptoms and early child development in a rural population in southern Pakistan. Materials and Methods: This study employs data from the Pakistan Early Child Development Scale-Up Trial, a randomized controlled study that evaluated the integration of responsive stimulation and nutrition interventions in a community health service. In the present analysis, linear regression was used to test the effects of chronicity of high maternal depressive symptoms on children\u27s early development (n = 1205 mother-infant dyads). Children\u27s development was assessed using the Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development at 24 months of age. Maternal depressive symptoms were assessed at baseline and every 6 months using the Self-Reporting Questionnaire. Results: No significant associations were observed between chronic maternal depressive symptoms and child cognitive, language, or motor development after adjusting for parental characteristics, the caregiving environment and socioeconomic variables. A negative significant association between chronicity of high maternal depressive symptoms and child socio-emotional development (β coefficient -2.57, 95% CI: -5.14; -0.04) was observed after adjusting for the selected variables. Conclusions: The results suggest that interventions designed to promote early child development should also integrate repeat screening for depression and longer-term psychosocial support for mothers

Closed Conduit to Open Channel USU Stilling Basin

Criterion have been developed for designing a stilling basin to serve as a transition from closed conduit flow to open channel flow for a fully submerged pipe outlet. The unique feature of the stilling basin is the short-pipe energy dissipater so located and designed as to provide maximum energy dissipation for the basin configuration. The expanding characteristics of a submerged jet were used in establishing the length of the stilling basin. The unsteadiness of the water surface and the relative boil height in the model basin were used as the criteria for evaluating the effectiveness of the structure for energy dissipation. Relations between the tailwater depth, the outlet flume floor elevation, and the height of boils in the stilling basin, the width of the stilling basin, and the amount of freeboard have been studied. The interrelationships among these variables have been shown graphically

Triazine herbicide prometryn alters epoxide hydrolase activity and increases cytochrome P450 metabolites in murine livers via lipidomic profiling

Oxylipins are a group of bioactive fatty acid metabolites generated via enzymatic oxygenation. They are notably involved in inflammation, pain, vascular tone, hemostasis, thrombosis, immunity, and coagulation. Oxylipins have become the focus of therapeutic intervention since they are implicated in many conditions, such as nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, cardiovascular disease, and aging. The liver plays a crucial role in lipid metabolism and distribution throughout the organism. Long-term exposure to pesticides is suspected to contribute to hepatic carcinogenesis via notable disruption of lipid metabolism. Prometryn is a methylthio-s-triazine herbicide used to control the growth of annual broadleaf and grass weeds in many cultivated plants. The amounts of prometryn documented in the environment, mainly waters, soil and plants used for human and domestic consumption are significantly high. Previous research revealed that prometryn decreased liver development during zebrafish embryogenesis. To understand the mechanisms by which prometryn could induce hepatotoxicity, the effect of prometryn (185 mg/kg every 48 h for seven days) was investigated on hepatic and plasma oxylipin levels in mice. Using an unbiased LC-MS/MS-based lipidomics approach, prometryn was found to alter oxylipins metabolites that are mainly derived from cytochrome P450 (CYP) and lipoxygenase (LOX) in both mice liver and plasma. Lipidomic analysis revealed that the hepatotoxic effects of prometryn are associated with increased epoxide hydrolase (EH) products, increased sEH and mEH enzymatic activities, and induction of oxidative stress. Furthermore, 9-HODE and 13-HODE levels were significantly increased in prometryn treated mice liver, suggesting increased levels of oxidation products. Together, these results support that sEH may be an important component of pesticide-induced liver toxicity