Pilot evaluation of the Index Based Flood Insurance in Bihar, India: Lessons of experiences

The Government of Bihar (GOB) with the help of Government of India (GOI) introduced and implemented various crop insurance programs, to provide protection against losses caused by fluctuations in the output of a crop from one year to another or from one crop season to another. Traditional agricultural insurances are designed to make compensation to client farmers affected by various disasters and natural calamities based on individual yield losses or damage to crops and livestock (Ahmed, 2013; Swain and Patnaik, 2016). For developing countries like India, with large numbers of smallholder farmers, measuring such individual losses would incur enormous costs for insurance companies. The index-based insurance offers an alternative in which individual assessment is not necessary. Advances in satellite technology and data analysis were integrated to develop index insurance products, which were piloted in different countries throughout the world such as India, Ethiopia, Senegal, and United States. The index insurance products help minimize the high transaction costs and have the potential to expand the reach of insurance policies to rural areas that were previously considered uninsurable (Swain and Patnaik, 2016; Smith and Watts, 2019). The International Water Management Institute (IWMI) has developed an Index-Based Flood Insurance (IBFI) product integrating hi-tech modeling and satellite imagery (Amarnath and Sikka, 2018; Matheswaran et al. 2019). The product was pilot tested among 200 farmers in six villages of the Gaighat Block of Muzaffarpur District, Bihar during the Khariff season, 2017. This report presents the findings of the IBFI ex-post evaluation undertaken in the pilot areas in Muzaffarpur. The findings of this study provide lessons on how index-based insurance schemes can be made more inclusive, and inform any development of a scheme for future upscaling by IWMI. The findings are based on the qualitative assessment made in April 2018 and a household survey conducted in July 2018

Influence of seismic activity on the atmospheric electric field in Lisbon (Portugal) from 1955 to 1991

In the present study, we considered the influence of seismic activity on the atmospheric electric field recorded at Portela meteorological station (Lisbon, Portugal) for the period from 1955 to 1991. To this end, an exploratory method was developed, which involved the selection of events for which the distance from the atmospheric electrical field sensor to the earthquake epicenter is smaller than the preparation radius of the event. This enabled the correlation of the atmospheric electric field variations with a quantity S, defined basically as the ratio of the earthquake preparation radius to the distance between the sensor and the event epicenter. The first results show promising perspectives, but clearly a more profound study is required, in which a careful analysis of the weather conditions and other variables, like atmospheric radon levels, must be considered

Six-membered ring systems: with O and/or S atoms

The most interesting chemistry published in 2020 on the synthesis of O- and S-six-membered heterocycles is reviewed. This personal overview is focused on the developments made on the synthesis of a large variety of natural compounds, specific reactions, and reagents for the preparation of natural and synthetic pyrans, chromenes and chromans, isochromenes and isochromans, pyranones, coumarins and isocoumarins, chromones and chromanones, xanthenes and xanthones, thiopyrans and analogues, dioxanes, dithiins, and also oxathianes.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Synthesis of chromone-related pyrazole compounds

Chromones, six-membered oxygen heterocycles, and pyrazoles, five-membered two-adjacent-nitrogen-containing heterocycles, represent two important classes of biologically active compounds. Certain derivatives of these scaffolds play an important role in medicinal chemistry and have been extensively used as versatile building blocks in organic synthesis. In this context, we will discuss the most relevant advances on the chemistry that involves both chromone and pyrazole rings. The methods reviewed include the synthesis of chromone-pyrazole dyads, synthesis of chromone-pyrazole-fused compounds, and chromones as starting materials in the synthesis of 3(5)-(2-hydroxyaryl)pyrazoles, among others. This review will cover the literature on the chromone and pyrazole dual chemistry and their outcomes in the 21st century.Thanks are due to University of Aveiro and FCT/MEC for the financial support of the QOPNA research unit (FCT UID/QUI/00062/2013) and CIQ-UP, University of Porto (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-006980; FCT: UID/QUI/00081/2013) through national founds and, where applicable, co-financed by the FEDER, within the PT2020 Partnership Agreement, as well as to the Polytechnic Institute of Bragança. V.L.M.S. is grateful to FCT for her grant (SFRH/BPD/108807/2015), in the ambit of “QREN e POCH e Tipologia 4.1 e Formação Avançada”, co-sponsored by FSE and by national funds of MCTES.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Arylxanthones and arylacridones: a synthetic overview

Arylxanthones and arylacridones although not yet found in nature are becoming an important group of heterocyclic compounds due to their promising biological activities. Their central cores, xanthone and acridone, are recognized as interesting motifs for drug development mainly to be used in antitumour chemotherapy. The synthesis of this type of compounds is still scarce but several successful examples were recently published and a large variety of arylated xanthone and acridone derivatives were prepared. A systematic survey of the literature dedicated to their synthesis will be presented and discussed in this review.Thanks are due to the University of Aveiro, Polytechnic Institute of Bragança, Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) FCT/MEC for the financial support of the QOPNA research Unit (FCT UID/QUI/00062/2013) through national founds and, where applicable, co-financed by the FEDER, within the PT2020 Partnership Agreement. V.L.M. Silva also acknowledges FCT for the financial support of her post-doctoral grant (SFRH/BPD/108807/2015), in the ambit of “QREN e POCH e Tipologia 4.1 e Formação Avançada”, co-sponsored by FSE and by national funds of MCTESinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Avaliação do desempenho e mudança em contabilidade de gestão: o caso do Direção Regional de Administração Educativa da Região Autónoma da Madeira

Os objetivos desta investigação foram compreender como e por que foi introduzido o istema Integrado de gestão e Avaliação do Desempenho na Administração Pública (SIADAP) na Região Autónoma da Madeira (RAM), como e por que se implementou o SIADAP-RAM na Direção Regional da Administração Educativa (DRAE), e, por fim, como tem sido utilizada a informação proveniente do SIADAP-RAM na DRAE e porquê. Com enquadramento na teoria institucional, o estudo de caso fez uma análise dos documentos legais e, com base nos resultados das entrevistas realizadas aos avaliadores e avaliados, concluiu-se que os avaliadores da DRAE não executam o processo de avaliação do desempenho, estabelecido por lei, de forma uniforme. O SIADAP surgiu em substituição do Sistema de Classificação de Serviço. A mudança surgiu por imposição legal, conforme com o fenómeno de isomorfismo coercivo a que se refere a literatura.info:eu-repo/semantics/draf

Epoxidação de (E,E)-Cinamilidenoacetofenonas com Peróxido de Hidrogénio

As (E,E)-cinamilidenoacetofenonas pertencem a um importante grupo de cetonas a,β,Y,∂-insaturadas, cuja síntese envolve a condensação aldólica de acetofenonas com cinamaldeídos adequadamente substituídos. Certos derivados saturados, as 1,5-diaril-1-pentanonas, foram isolados a partir de plantas usadas na medicina tradicional da Africa tropical, da Ásia e da Austrália e demonstraram possuir forte actividade anti-bacteriana.2 No entanto, os compostos desta família com mais aplicações são as (E,E)-2'-hidroxicinamilidenoacetofenonas, as quais constituem uma importante classe de intermediários na síntese de 2- estirilcromonas.3 A epoxidação deste tipo de compostos com dimetildioxirano ou com o método de epoxidação assimétrica de Juliá já foi descrita, embora neste último caso se tenha utilizado um só derivado.4 Tendo em conta o nosso estudo da reactividade de (E,E)- cinamilidenoacetofenonas e a potencialidade dos epóxidos obtidos na síntese duma grande variedade de novos compostos, decidiu-se estudar o efeito da utilização do catalisador de salen Mn(III) na epoxidação da (E,E)-cinamilidenoacetofenona 1a usando o H2O2 como oxidante

Novel Hydroxy-9H-xanthen-9-ones derivatives: synthesis and bioactive properties

9H-Xanthen-9-ones commonly referred as xanthones are a large group of natural heterocyclic compounds with significant bioactive properties (e.g. anti-inflammatory, antibacterial, antimalarial, cytotoxicity and radical scavenging activity).1 In order to explore some of these biological assessments, we developed two methodologies for the synthesis of novel hydroxylated 2,3-diarylxanthone derivatives. The first synthetic route is based on the Heck reaction of the 3-bromochromone 2 followed by aldol condensation and electrocyclisation/oxidation processes to afford the 2,3-diaryl-9H-xanthen-9-ones 1. An efficient and more general approach is the Heck reaction of 3-bromo-2-styrylchromones 3 with styrenes as olefins followed by the in situ electrocyclisation/oxidation processes.2 Pharmacological studies involving the hydroxy-9H-xanthen-9-ones 1,3 which are obtained after cleavage of the methyl group, will also be presented and discussed

Synthesis of new hydroxy-2-styrylchromones

http://apps.isiknowledge.com/full_record.do?product=UA&search_mode=GeneralSearch&qid=5&SID=V1M67gPH3IpI7j5a98j&page=1&doc=1&colname=WOSHydroxy-2-styrylchromones 5a−i were prepared by debenzylation of benzyloxy-2-styrylchromones 3a−i, which were synthesised by the Baker−Venkataraman method. The last step of this method, the cyclodehydration 5-aryl-3-hydroxy- 1-(2-hydroxyaryl)-2,4-pentadien-1-ones 2a−i, was carried out with a catalytic amount of iodine, or p-toluenesulfonic acid, in DMSO. Benzyloxy-3-cinnamoyl-2-styrylchromones 4a−f were obtained as by-products in both procedures, but the latter procedure gave benzyloxy-2- styrylchromones 3a−i in better yields. The structures of all new compounds were established by extensive NMR studies

NMR in the epoxidation of (E,E)-Cinnamylideneacetophenones

The epoxidation of cinnamylideneacetophenones have been already performed with hydrogen peroxide as an oxidant in Julia's method [1] and with dimethyldioxirane [2], however no studies were performed using salen Mn(III) complexes as catalysts.The epoxidation of cinnatnylideneacetophenones have been already performed with hydrogen peroxide as oxidant in Julia's method [1] and with dimethyldioxirane [2], however no studies were performed using salen Mn(lll) complexes as catalysts. On these basis, we developed a study on the epoxidation of cinnamylideneacetophenones 1, catalyzed by coinmercially available Jacobsen's catalyst [salen Mn(IIl)] and using iodosy I benzene and hydrogen peroxide as oxidants. The structure of the epoxidation products 2-5, their stereochemistry and the regiochemistry of the monoepoxides 2 fotmation were established by ID and 2D NMR spectroscopy. These studies will be presented and discussed