Assessing economic impacts of deficit irrigation as related to water productivity and water costs

Research Paper:SW-Soil and WaterThis study aims at assessing the feasibility of deficit irrigation of maize, wheat and sunflower through an analysis of the economic water productivity (EWP). It focuses on selected sprinkler-irrigated fields in Vigia Irrigation District, Southern Portugal. Various scenarios of water deficits and water availability were considered. Simulations were performed for average, high and very high climatic demand. The potential crop yields were estimated from regional climatic data and local information. Using field collected data on yield values, production costs, water costs, commodity prices and irrigation performance, indicators on EWP were calculated. Results show that a main bottleneck for adopting deficit irrigation is the presently low performance of the irrigation systems used in the considered fields, which leads to high water use and low EWP. Decreasing water use through deficit irrigation also decreases the EWP. Limited water deficits for maize are likely to be viable when the irrigation performance is improved if water prices do not increase much, and the commodity price does not return to former low levels. The sunflower crop, despite lower sensitivity to water deficits than maize, does not appear to be a viable solution to replace maize when water restrictions are high; however it becomes an attractive crop if recently high commodity prices are maintained. With improved irrigation performance, wheat deficit irrigation is viable including when full water costs are applied, if former low prices are not returned to. However, under drought conditions full water costs are excessive. Thus, adopting deficit irrigation requires not only an appropriate irrigation scheduling but higher irrigation performance, and that the application of a water prices policy would be flexible, thus favouring the improvement of the irrigation systems

GoalD: A Goal-Driven Deployment Framework for Dynamic and Heterogeneous Computing Environments

Context: Emerging paradigms like Internet of Things and Smart Cities utilize advanced sensing and communication infrastructures, where heterogeneity is an inherited feature. Applications targeting such environments require adaptability and context-sensitivity to uncertain availability and failures in resources and their ad-hoc networks. Such heterogeneity is often hard to predict, making the deployment process a challenging task. Objective: This paper proposes GoalD as a goal-driven framework to support autonomous deployment of heterogeneous computational resources to fulfill requirements, seen as goals, and their correlated components on one hand, and the variability space of the hosting computing and sensing environment on the other hand. Method: GoalD comprises an offline and an online stage to fulfill autonomous deployment by leveraging the use of goals. Deployment configuration strategies arise from the variability structure of the Contextual Goal Model as an underlying structure to guide autonomous planning by selecting available as well as suitable resources at runtime. Results: We evaluate GoalD on an existing exemplar from the selfadaptive systems community – the Tele Assistance Service provided by Weyns and Calinescu [1]. Furthermore, we evaluate the scalability of GoalD on a repository consisting of 430,500 artifacts. The evaluation results demonstrate the usefulness and scalability of GoalD in planning the deployment of a system with thousands of components in a few milliseconds

Effect of chronic ethanol exposure on rat ventilatory responses to hypoxia and hypercapnia

OBJECTIVE: The effect of chronic ethanol exposure on chemoreflexes has not been extensively studied in experimental animals. Therefore, this study tested the hypothesis that known ethanol-induced autonomic, neuroendocrine and cardiovascular changes coincide with increased chemoreflex sensitivity, as indicated by increased ventilatory responses to hypoxia and hypercapnia. METHODS: Male Wistar rats were subjected to increasing ethanol concentrations in their drinking water (first week: 5% v/v, second week: 10% v/v, third and fourth weeks: 20% v/v). At the end of each week of ethanol exposure, ventilatory parameters were measured under basal conditions and in response to hypoxia (evaluation of peripheral chemoreflex sensitivity) and hypercapnia (evaluation of central chemoreflex sensitivity). RESULTS: Decreased respiratory frequency was observed in rats exposed to ethanol from the first until the fourth week, whereas minute ventilation remained unchanged. Moreover, we observed an increased tidal volume in the second through the fourth week of exposure. The minute ventilation responses to hypoxia were attenuated in the first through the third week but remained unchanged during the last week. The respiratory frequency responses to hypoxia in ethanol-exposed rats were attenuated in the second through the third week but remained unchanged in the first and fourth weeks. There was no significant change in tidal volume responses to hypoxia. With regard to hypercapnic responses, no significant changes in ventilatory parameters were observed. CONCLUSIONS: Our data are consistent with the notion that chronic ethanol exposure does not increase peripheral or central chemoreflex sensitivity

Impactos ambientais do manejo agroecológico da caatinga no Rio Grande do Norte.

O objetivo deste trabalho foi avaliar os impactos ambientais do manejo agroecológico da caatinga, em unidades de produção familiar no Rio Grande do Norte, pelo método Ambitec de produção animal - dimensão ambiental, desenvolvido pela Embrapa Meio Ambiente. Foram avaliadas sete unidades de produção familiar, em quatro projetos de assentamentos de reforma agrária do Município de Apodi, RN. Os dados para o levantamento foram obtidos por meio de questionários aplicados aos representantes das unidades produtivas familiares, que atribuíram, a cada variável estudada, um valor que representou a alteração proporcionada pela implementação da tecnologia. Após a inserção dos coeficientes de alteração de cada variável dos indicadores por unidade de produção, o coeficiente de impacto foi automaticamente calculado por meio da planilha Ambitec. O manejo agroecológico da caatinga resultou num impacto ambiental positivo, e suas maiores contribuições foram relacionadas aos efeitos positivos dos seguintes indicadores: capacidade produtiva do solo, uso de insumos materiais, qualidade do produto e diminuição da emissão de poluentes à atmosfera. Dois indicadores geraram efeitos negativos: o uso de energia e o uso de recursos naturais. Pela superioridade dos benefícios gerados, o manejo agroecológico da caatinga é uma inovação tecnológica geradora de impactos ambientais positivos

The Prevalence of Thyroid Dysfunction in Elderly Cardiology Patients with Mild Excessive Iodine Intake in the Urban Area of São Paulo

OBJECTIVES: To evaluate the prevalence of thyroid dysfunction in elderly cardiac patients in an outpatient setting. SUBJECTS AND METHODS: A total of 399 consecutive patients (268 women, age range 60-92 years) who were followed at Heart Institute were evaluated for thyroid dysfunction with serum free T4, TSH, anti-Peroxidase antibodies, urinary iodine excretion measurements and thyroid ultrasound. RESULTS: Hyperthyroidism (overt and subclinical) was present in 29 patients (6.5%), whereas hypothyroidism (overt and subclinical) was found in 32 individuals (8.1%). Cysts were detected in 11 patients (2.8%), single nodules were detected in 102 (25.6%), and multinodular goiters were detected in 34 (8.5%). Hashimoto's thyroiditis was present in 16.8% patients, most of whom were women (83.6%). The serum TSH increased with age and was significantly higher (p= <0.01) in patients, compared to the normal control group. No significant differences in serum TSH and free T4 values were observed when patients with atrial fibrillation (AF) where compared with those without arrhythmia. The median urinary iodine levels were 210 µg/L (40-856 µg/L), and iodine levels were higher in men than in women (p<0.01). Excessive iodine intake (urinary iodine >300 µg/L) was observed in one-third of patients (30.8%). CONCLUSIONS: Elderly patients have a higher prevalence of both hypo- and hyperthyroidism as well as thyroid nodules when compared with the general population. About one-third of the older patients had elevated urinary secretion of iodine and a higher prevalence of chronic Hashimoto's thyroiditis. It is recommended that ultrasonographic studies, tests for thyroid function and autoimmunity should be evaluated in elderly patients

Reconstruction of field theory from excitation spectra of defects

We show how to reconstruct a field theory from the spectrum of bound states on a topological defect. We apply our recipe to the case of kinks in 1+1 dimensions with one or two bound states. Our recipe successfully yields the sine-Gordon and $\lambda \phi^4$ field theories when suitable bound state spectra are assumed. The recipe can also be used to globally reconstruct the inflaton potential of inflationary cosmology if the inflaton produces a topological defect. We discuss how defects can provide ``smoking gun'' evidence for a class of inflationary models.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figures. Included proof (Appendix B) that wall fluctuation potentials have supersymmetric form. Added reference

Influence of autonomic control on the specific intermittent performance of judo athletes

Judo is a high-intensity intermittent combat sport which causes cardiac adaptations both morphologically and related to the autonomic nervous system (ANS). Therefore, this study aims to verify the correlation between heart rate variability (HRV) at rest with performance in the Special Judo Fitness Test (SJFT) and whether groups with different RR values at rest show different performance in the SJFT and during post-test recovery. Sixteen judo athletes with 7.2 +/- 3.9 years of training experience participated in the study. Before and after the SJFT execution HRV and lactate measurements were conducted. For HRV analysis, we used the mean interval RR, the standard deviation of the RR interval (SDNN), the root mean square of successive differences in RR intervals (RMSSD), the low frequency (LF) and high frequency (HF) in normalized and absolute units. The sample was split into two groups (low RR and high RR) to verify if this variable could differentiate between specific performance. For the SDNN, a significant and moderate correlation (r = 0.53) was found with the total number of throws and throws in the series A (r = 0.56) and B (r = 0.54) and for the RMSSD a correlation with throws during series B (r = 0.59) in the SJFT. However, the groups did not differ in performance and recovery. Therefore, HRV is related to intermittent judo performance; however, it cannot differentiate between judokas at different levels of performance