Confronting conflicts:history teachers’ reactions on spontaneous controversial remarks

Sometimes, things don't go to plan. Current events come into the classroom, especially the history classroom. How should students' responses to current affairs be dealt with there? How should students' desire to voice their opinions be handled if their opinion is unpopular. What if the student is simply wrong? How far can moral relativism be acknowledged, explored and scrutinised in the history classroom, when the topic under discussion is controversial and urgent? Working in the Netherlands and Belgium, Wansink, Patist, Zuiker, Savenije and Janssenswillen have developed and refined ways of doing this. In this article they provide an overview of researchers' thinking on the issue, and clear strategies and guidelines for what a history teacher might do to ensure that any unplanned discussion is, at least, respectful, engaging and rigorous

Assessment of strip tillage systems for maize production in semi-arid Ethiopia: effects on grain yield and water balance

International audienceThe traditional tillage implement, the Maresha plow, and the tillage systems that require repeated and cross plowing have caused poor rainfall partitioning, land degradation and hence low water productivity in Ethiopia. Conservation tillage could alleviate these problems. However, no-till can not be feasible for smallholder farmers in semi-arid regions of Ethiopia because of difficulties in maintaining soil cover due to low rainfall and communal grazing and because of high costs of herbicides. Strip tillage systems may offer a solution. This study was initiated to test strip tillage systems using implements that were modified forms of the Maresha plow, and to evaluate the impacts of the new tillage systems on water balance and grain yields of maize (Zea mays XX). Experiments were conducted in two dry semi arid areas called Melkawoba and Wulinchity, in the central Rift Valley of Ethiopia during 2003?2005. Strip tillage systems that involved cultivating planting lines at a spacing of 0.75 m using the Maresha plow followed by subsoiling along the same lines (STS) and without subsoiling (ST) were compared with the traditional tillage system of 3 to 4 times plowing with the Maresha plow (CONV). Soil moisture was monitored to a depth of 1.8 m using Time Domain Reflectometer while surface runoff was measured using rectangular trough installed at the bottom of each plot. STS resulted in the least surface runoff (Qs=17 mm-season?1), the highest transpiration (T=196 mm-season?1), the highest grain yields (Y=2130 kg-ha?1) and the highest water productivity using total evaporation (WPET=0.67 kg-m?3) followed by ST (Qs=25 mm-season?1, T=178 mm-season?1, Y=1840 kg-ha?1, WPET=0.60 kg-m?3) and CONV (Qs=40 mm-season?1,T=158 mm-season?1, Y=1720 kg-ha?1, WPET=0.58 kg-m?3). However, when the time between the last tillage operation and planting of maize was more than 26 days, the reverse occurred. There was no statistically significant change in soil physical and chemical properties after three years of experimenting with different tillage systems

Open Access in Nederland: de volgende stap

Ten gevolge van de invloed van ICT-ontwikkelingen op onderzoek en wetenschappelijke communicatie zien we een fundamentele verandering ten opzichte van het ‘papieren tijdperk’. Toegang tot wetenschappelijke kennis, informatie en data, essentieel voor hoger onderwijs en onderzoek, kan door deze technische ontwikkeling drastisch verbeterd worden. Het is binnen de instellingen de basis voor de kennisoverdracht (onderwijs) en kennisontwikkeling (onderzoek). Maar ook in de relatie met de samenleving (kennisvalorisatie) is toegang tot kennis en informatie van groot belang. Uitgangspunt is dat resultaten van met publieke middelen gefinancierd onderzoek ook publiekelijk toegankelijk dienen te zijn. De afgelopen jaren heeft Open Access een relatief hoge vlucht genomen. Vele instellingen wereldwijd (waaronder alle Nederlandse universiteiten) hebben de zgn. Berlin Declaration ondertekend, daarmee aangevend dat men Open Access van wetenschappelijke informatie actief wil bevorderen. Er is sprake van Open Access wanneer: 1. een publicatie online wordt gepubliceerd en in minimaal een online repository (een vrij toegankelijk digitaal archief) wordt opgenomen; 2. de publicatie voor iedereen met een internetverbinding kosteloos toegankelijk is en blijft; 3. de auteur de gebruiker toestemming geeft om de content te mogen (her)gebruiken voor onderzoek en onderwijs; 4. die toestemming voor (her)gebruik twee voorwaarden heeft: een correcte bronvermelding en geen plagiaat; 5. de auteur deze toestemming vooraf geeft voor het vrije, wereldwijde en onherroepelijke gebruik. Er zijn twee scenario’s m.b.t. Open Access: 1. The Green Road / Repositories: vrijwel alle universiteiten in Europa en de VS en hebben een begin gemaakt met een “institutional repository” waarin publicaties van de instelling voor iedereen toegankelijk kunnen worden ontsloten. Via harvesting kunnen vervolgens disciplinegewijs aanvullende diensten worden geleverd met het in repositories aanwezige materiaal. De universiteit van Nottingham houdt een lijst bij van alle repositories (OpenDoar). Nederland, waar alle universiteiten, dank zij het DARE project inmiddels een redelijk gevuld repository hebben, is koploper. 2. The Golden Road / Open Access Tijdschriften: dit zijn tijdschriften waar niet de lezer betaalt (in de vorm van een abonnementsprijs) maar de kosten op een andere wijze worden gedekt. Een veel voorkomende variant is dat dit geschiedt in de vorm van article processing charges (publicatiekosten, ook wel publication fees genoemd), wat betekent dat de financier/opdrachtgever voor het onderzoek betaalt

Climate and southern Africa's water-energy-food nexus

In southern Africa, the connections between climate and the water-energy-food nexus are strong. Physical and socioeconomic exposure to climate is high in many areas and in crucial economic sectors. Spatial interdependence is also high, driven for example, by the regional extent of many climate anomalies and river basins and aquifers that span national boundaries. There is now strong evidence of the effects of individual climate anomalies, but associations between national rainfall and Gross Domestic Product and crop production remain relatively weak. The majority of climate models project decreases in annual precipitation for southern Africa, typically by as much as 20% by the 2080s. Impact models suggest these changes would propagate into reduced water availability and crop yields. Recognition of spatial and sectoral interdependencies should inform policies, institutions and investments for enhancing water, energy and food security. Three key political and economic instruments could be strengthened for this purpose; the Southern African Development Community, the Southern African Power Pool, and trade of agricultural products amounting to significant transfers of embedded water

Climate change adaptation in European river basins

This paper contains an assessment and standardized comparative analysis of the current water management regimes in four case-studies in three European river basins: the Hungarian part of the Upper Tisza, the Ukrainian part of the Upper Tisza (also called Zacarpathian Tisza), Alentejo Region (including the Alqueva Reservoir) in the Lower Guadiana in Portugal, and Rivierenland in the Netherlands. The analysis comprises several regime elements considered to be important in adaptive and integrated water management: agency, awareness raising and education, type of governance and cooperation structures, information management and—exchange, policy development and—implementation, risk management, and finances and cost recovery. This comparative analysis has an explorative character intended to identify general patterns in adaptive and integrated water management and to determine its role in coping with the impacts of climate change on floods and droughts. The results show that there is a strong interdependence of the elements within a water management regime, and as such this interdependence is a stabilizing factor in current management regimes. For example, this research provides evidence that a lack of joint/participative knowledge is an important obstacle for cooperation, or vice versa. We argue that there is a two-way relationship between information management and collaboration. Moreover, this research suggests that bottom-up governance is not a straightforward solution to water management problems in large-scale, complex, multiple-use systems, such as river basins. Instead, all the regimes being analyzed are in a process of finding a balance between bottom-up and top–down governance. Finally, this research shows that in a basin where one type of extreme is dominant—like droughts in the Alentejo (Portugal) and floods in Rivierenland (Netherlands)—the potential impacts of other extremes are somehow ignored or not perceived with the urgency they might deserv

Distinguishing Asthma Phenotypes Using Machine Learning Approaches.

Asthma is not a single disease, but an umbrella term for a number of distinct diseases, each of which are caused by a distinct underlying pathophysiological mechanism. These discrete disease entities are often labelled as asthma endotypes. The discovery of different asthma subtypes has moved from subjective approaches in which putative phenotypes are assigned by experts to data-driven ones which incorporate machine learning. This review focuses on the methodological developments of one such machine learning technique-latent class analysis-and how it has contributed to distinguishing asthma and wheezing subtypes in childhood. It also gives a clinical perspective, presenting the findings of studies from the past 5 years that used this approach. The identification of true asthma endotypes may be a crucial step towards understanding their distinct pathophysiological mechanisms, which could ultimately lead to more precise prevention strategies, identification of novel therapeutic targets and the development of effective personalized therapies