Rainwater Harvesting and Its Impact on Farming Systems

Landless, small holders and other poors supplement their livelihood and adapt to climate change by grazing, stall feeding with crop residues and fodder cultivated under rainfed and irrigated conditions. Improving productivity by conserving rainfall, ground water recharging, harvesting and recycling of rainwater especially in degraded open access or shared land with community participation was quite successful over a wide range of precipitation and ecological situations. Various types of trenches, bunding, vegetative barriers, gully plugs, ponds, check dams, land slides and mine spoils stabilization etc. retained more soil moisture, seeds, vegetative propagules etc. in situ and prevented soil erosion. It regenerated and enhanced biomass production of grasses, other forages, crop residues and environmental externalities. It reduced socially undesirable seasonal migration of herders by 35-100%, number of goats, dependency on open or common access resources and increased bovine population, stall feeding and milk productivity. Limited irrigation with harvested and recharged rainwater led to farm diversification, more availability of crop residues and better income. Climate change has reduced number of rainy days, increased intensity and frequency of run off producing events and can be converted into still better opportunities of adaptation by rain water harvesting

Multivisceral resection of pancreatic neuroendocrine tumours: a report of two cases

Pancreatic neuroendocrine tumours (pNETs) are rare and surgical resection offers the only possibility of cure for localised disease. The role of surgery in the setting of locally advanced and metastatic disease is more controversial. Emerging data suggests that synchronous surgical resection of pancreas and liver may be associated with increased survival. We report two cases of synchronous, one stage multivisceral resections for pNET and associated reconstruction. We highlight the technical issues involved in such extensive resections and demonstrate that one stage multivisceral operations can be achieved safely

Pneumocephalus after posterior fossa exploration in the sitting position

Entrainment of air following exploration of posterior cranial fossa in the sitting position was studied in five patients. Intracranial pressure was monitored through a ventriculostomy catheter after closure of the dura. In three patients nitrous oxide was added to the breathing mixture only after the baseline intracranial pressure had stabilised following closure of the dura. A marked rise in intracranial pressure was observed immediately. A rapid decrease in intracranial pressure occurred when nitrous oxide administration was stopped. Two patients were given nitrous oxide from the beginning. No change in intracranial pressure was noted. Computerised tomogram on the first postoperative day revealed a significant amount of air in eight cases.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/72920/1/j.1365-2044.1982.tb01711.x.pd

Mapping Children's Discussions of Evidence in Science to Assess Collaboration and Argumentation

The research reported in this paper concerns the development of children's skills of interpreting and evaluating evidence in science. Previous studies have shown that school teaching often places limited emphasis on the development of these skills, which are necessary for children to engage in scientific debate and decision-making. The research, undertaken in the UK, involved four collaborative decision-making activities to stimulate group discussion, each was carried out with five groups of four children (10-11 years old). The research shows how the children evaluated evidence for possible choices and judged whether their evidence was sufficient to support a particular conclusion or the rejection of alternative conclusions. A mapping technique was developed to analyse the discussions and identify different "levels" of argumentation. The authors conclude that suitable collaborative activities that focus on the discussion of evidence can be developed to exercise children's ability to argue effectively in making decisions

Il monastero benedettino di S. Giorgio in Braida a Verona: nuove prospettive di ricerca sulla rifabbrica romanica (sec. XII)

L’attuale aspetto rinascimentale della chiesa di San Giorgio in Braida è frutto di una serie di interventi promossi dai canonici veneziani di San Giorgio in Alga a partire dalla fine del XV secolo. Il monastero benedettino, tuttavia, fu fondato nella metà dell’XI secolo e completamente ricostruito fra il terzo e il quarto decennio del secolo successivo per volere del vescovo Bernardo. L’articolo ripercorre le vicende storiche dell’istituzione in età medievale e rende nota l’esistenza di alcune parti della compagine romanica tuttora inedite, che permettono d’inserire il cantiere di San Giorgio in Braida nel contesto delle coeve manifestazioni architettoniche veronesi

Vicious walkers, friendly walkers and Young tableaux II: With a wall

We derive new results for the number of star and watermelon configurations of vicious walkers in the presence of an impenetrable wall by showing that these follow from standard results in the theory of Young tableaux, and combinatorial descriptions of symmetric functions. For the problem of $n$-friendly walkers, we derive exact asymptotics for the number of stars and watermelons both in the absence of a wall and in the presence of a wall.Comment: 35 pages, AmS-LaTeX; Definitions of n-friendly walkers clarified; the statement of Theorem 4 and its proof were correcte

White matter abnormalities in active elite adult rugby players

The recognition, diagnosis and management of mild traumatic brain injuries is difficult and confusing. It is unclear how the severity and number of injuries sustained relate to brain injuries such as diffuse axonal injury, diffuse vascular injury and progressive neurodegeneration. Advances in neuroimaging techniques enable the investigation of neuropathologies associated with acute and long-term effects of injury. Head injuries are the most commonly reported injury seen during professional rugby. There is increased vigilance for the immediate effects of these injuries in matches, but there has been surprisingly little research investigating the longer-term effects of rugby participation. Here we present a longitudinal observational study investigating the relationship of exposure to rugby participation and sub-acute head injuries in professional adult male and female rugby union and league players using advanced MRI. Diffusion tensor imaging and susceptibility weighted imaging was used to assess white matter structure and evidence of axonal and diffuse vascular injury. We also studied changes in brain structure over time using Jacobian Determinant statistics extracted from serial volumetric imaging. We tested 41 male and 3 female adult elite rugby players, of whom 21 attended study visits after a head injury, alongside 32 non-sporting controls, 15 non-collision-sport athletic controls and 16 longitudinally assessed controls. 18 rugby players participated in the longitudinal arm of the study, with a second visit at least 6 months after their first scan. Neuroimaging evidence of either axonal injury or diffuse vascular injury was present in 23% (10/44) of players. In the non-acutely injured group of rugby players, abnormalities of fractional anisotropy and other diffusion measures were seen. In contrast, non-collision-sport athletic controls were not classified as showing abnormalities. A group level contrast also showed evidence of sub-acute injury using diffusion tensor imaging in rugby players. Examination of longitudinal imaging revealed unexpected reductions in white matter volume in the elite rugby players studied. These changes were not related to self-reported head injury history or neuropsychological test scores and might indicate excess neurodegeneration in white matter tracts affected by injury. Taken together, our findings suggest an association of participation in elite adult rugby with changes in brain structure. Further well-designed large scale studies are needed to understand the impact of both repeated sports related head impacts and head injuries on brain structure, and to clarify whether the abnormalities we have observed are related to an increased risk of neurodegenerative disease and impaired neurocognitive function following elite rugby participation