The Socio Bosque Program for Rainforest and Paramo Conservation, Ecuador

The Socio Bosque Program is a state-funded, nation-wide program which provides financial incentive to participating forest landowners in exchange conservation of native forests and other types of native vegetation. The program's objectives include both ecosystem conservation and poverty alleviation goals on lands that belong to local and indigenous communities and individual households

Elemental composition of atmospheric particulate matter during 2006 wet season at a rural background site in Tanzania

The elemental composition of PM10 was studied during 2006 wet season in a rural background site of Morogoro, Tanzania. A Gent PM10 stacked filter unit sampler with coarse and fine Nuclepore polycarbonate filters, providing fine (0.4 μm) and coarse (8 μm) size fractions, was deployed. A total of 29 collections were analysed for the PM mass by weighing. A further analysis was performed for 25 elements by particle-induced x-ray emission spectrometry. The results show  that the concentrations of the heavy metals were lower than those for the elements of crustal origin. The data from PIXE analysis and enrichment factor  (E.F.) calculation, using Fe as a reference of crustal material, showed that for the coarse size fraction, most elements have crustal EFs that are very close to one, while enriched elements (E.F. > 10) like S, Cl, Zn, As, Br, Pb and BC, predominated in fine (PM2) size fraction (an anthropogenic origin can be suggested for the later). Potassium a well-known indicator for biomass burning was mostly associated with the fine particles (as around 56% of the PM10 K was in the PM2 size fraction). This suggests that biomass burning was important in Morogoro. Five-day isentropic backward trajectories as determined by the air trajectory HYSPLIT model were computed for Morogoro and the allocated sector of oceanic origin over continental, mainly through Mozambique and Tanzania) was the most common. However, other sectors such as Oceanic, over Madagascar or continental origins were observed. @JASEMJ. Appl. Sci. Environ. Manage. December, 2010, Vol. 14 (4) 135 – 13

‘The best app is the teacher’ introducing classroom scripts in technology-enhanced education

A quasi-experimental study was set up in secondary education to study the role of teachers while implementing tablet devices in science education. Three different classroom scripts that guided students and teachers' actions during the intervention on two social planes (group and classroom level) are compared. The main goal was to investigate which classroom script leads to the best results regarding progress in domain-specific knowledge and inquiry skills. Besides student achievement, students' experiences towards the role of the teacher and students' perceptions towards learning with tablets within the three conditions were investigated. In the first condition, the classroom script included learning activities that were balanced between the group and the classroom level. In the second condition, the learning activities occurred predominantly on the group level. The third condition entailed the classroom script as the control condition in which the learning activities were situated only on the classroom level, with the tablet used in a traditional way or as ‘book behind glass’. Results show that students perform better on domain-specific knowledge in the conditions where the teacher intervened on the classroom level. Regarding the acquisition of inquiry skills, students performed best in the condition where the learning activities were balanced between the group and the classroom level. Moreover, students who perceived more structure achieved better. These results indicate that the role of the teacher cannot be ignored in technology-enhanced learning. Moreover, these results seem to suggest that one of the best apps remains the teacher

Genetic parameter estimates for plasma oxidative status traits in slaughter pigs

The aim of the present study was to assess the effect of sex and to estimate genetic parameters for several traits related to plasma oxidative status in slaughter pigs, i.e., ferric reducing ability of plasma (FRAP), concentrations of a-tocopherol and malondialdehyde (MDA), and glutathione peroxidase (GPx) activity. Blood samples were collected at slaughter from 477 Pietrain x (Landrace x Large White intercross) pigs of 2 performance test stations. Heritabilities (+/- SE) of plasma oxidative status traits as well as their phenotypic and additive genetic correlations with animal performance traits were estimated with multiple-trait REML animal models using VCE software. Results displayed no significant difference between barrows and gilts for FRAP and alpha-tocopherol in plasma. However, gilts had a significantly higher concentration of MDA and lower GPx activity compared with barrows. Heritability estimates were high for GPx (0.55 +/- 0.05), and medium to low for alpha-tocopherol (0.30 +/- 0.06), FRAP (0.22 +/- 0.05), and MDA (0.15 +/- 0.04). Estimated additive genetic and phenotypic correlations between these four traits were generally low, except for a negative additive genetic correlation between FRAP and GPx of -0.45 (+/- 0.23). Additive genetic correlations between plasma oxidative status traits and animal performance traits were also generally absent or low with maximum values of similar to 0.3. Parameter estimates in this study have to be interpreted with caution because of the small size of the dataset. Nevertheless, it may be concluded that there is considerable additive genetic variance for plasma oxidative status traits in slaughter pigs. More research is warranted on the genetic determination of oxidative stress in farm animals and its relevance in breeding programs

Integration and consolidation in EU banking - an unfinished business

The objective of this paper is to review the obstacles to cross-border integration and consolidation, which confront banks operating within the EU. Theoretical and empirical evidence supports the view that integration and consolidation in the banking sector can enhance overall economic performance via macroeconomic stabilisation, higher levels of efficiency and consumer welfare. While in recent years only slow progress has been recorded in EU cross-border banking integration, a substantial consolidation in the Member State's national banking sectors has occurred leading to rising domestic concentration ratios implying greater efficiency but potentially limiting welfare gains. The lack of progress in cross-border integration can be attributed to various factors, including national differences in market practices, regulation and taxation. A fairly comprehensive list of existing obstacles is provided and their impact on the main avenues for cross-border banking integration is examined, namely on (i) organic growth in the form of foreign branches and subsidiaries, (ii) cross-border mergers and acquisitions and (iii) cross-border provision of banking services. In addition, the role of institutional factors relating to the framework for prudential supervision is considered, notably in the context of the relationship of home and host country supervisors with each other and with market participants. While the highlighted issues are of general relevance in the context of EU financial integration, they might be of special significance in the context of the recently acceded Member States and their largely foreign owned banking system.Banking, banking integration, banking consolidation, cross-border banking, Walkner, Raes, intergation and consolidation in EU banking, EU banking

'Now you know what you’re doing right and wrong!' Peer feedback quality in synchronous peer assessment in secondary education

This study explores the effects of peer assessment (PA) practice on peer feedback (PF) quality of 11th grade secondary education students (N= 36). The PA setting was synchronous: anonymous assessors gave immediate PF using mobile response technology during 10 feedback occasions. The design was quasi-experimental (experimental vs. control condition) in which students in one condition received a scaffold to filter out relevant information they received. It was expected that this filter-out scaffold would influence PF quality in subsequent tasks in which they were assessors. PF content analysis showed that offering multiple PF occasions improved PF quality: messages contained more negative verifications and informative and suggestive elaborations after the intervention. However, no effects were found of filtering out relevant information on PF quality. Moreover, students’ perceived peer feedback skills improved which was in correspondence with their actual quality improvement over time. Additionally, the perceived usefulness of the received feedback was rated high by all participants

A systematic literature review on synchronous hybrid learning : gaps identified

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The Bond Yield Conundrum: Alternative Hypotheses and the State of the Economy

We study the bond yield conundrum in a macro-finance framework. Building upon a exible and non-structural macro-finance model, we test the hypothesis that the bond yield conundrum is connected to various sources of uncertainty in the financial markets. Moreover we explicitly test for the role of the state of the economy. Our findings give a richer description of the drivers of the term premium yet the conun- drum remains. The results in this paper indicate that the underlying observable drivers of the term premium are not yet fully understood.affine models;yield curve;term premium;monetary policy

The interactive impact of dietary PUFA on the deposition of DHA in the egg yolk

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