Benefit-cost analysis of participatory breeding program in Syria

Participatory plant breeding is seen by several scientists as a way to overcome the limitations of conventional breeding by offering farmers the possibility of deciding which varieties better suit their needs and conditions without exposing them to any risk. It exploits the potential gains of breeding for specific adaptation through the selection in the marginal environment. The participation of farmers increases the probability and speed of adoption as well as the breeding efficiency and the effectiveness of the breeding program. The objective of this study is to estimate and compare the benefits and costs of participatory and conventional barley breeding programs. Benefit-cost analysis was used to analyze the costs and benefits of the PPB program at ICARDA and the conventional program at ICARDA and NARS

Decentralized participatory plant breeding

It is widely recognized that conventional plant breeding has been more beneficial to farmers in high potential environments or those who could profitably modify their environment to suit new cultivars, than to the poorest farmers who could not afford to modify their environment through the application of additional inputs and could not risk the replacement of their traditional, well-known and reliable varieties. As a consequence, low yields, crop failures, malnutrition, famine, and eventually poverty are still affecting a large proportion of humanity. Participatory plant breeding is seen by several scientists as a way to overcome the limitations of conventional breeding by offering farmers the possibility of deciding which varieties better suit their needs and conditions without exposing the household to any risk. Participatory plant breeding exploits the potential gains of breeding for specific adaptation through decentralized selection, defined as selection in the target environment, and is the ultimate conceptual consequence of a positive interpretation of genotype x environment interactions. This article describes a model of participatory plant breeding in which genetic variability is generated by professional breeders, selection is conducted jointly by breeders, extension specialists and farmers in a number of target environments, and the best selections are used by breeders in further cycles of recombination. Farmers handle the first phases of seed multiplication of promising breeding material in village-based seed production systems. The model has the following advantages: (i) varieties reach the release phase earlier than in conventional breeding; (ii) the release and seed multiplication concentrate on varieties known to be acceptable by farmers; (iii) it increases biodiversity because different varieties are selected in different locations; (iv) varieties fit to the agronomic management that farmers are familiar with and can afford and therefore can be beneficial to poor farmers. These advantages are particularly relevant to developing countries where large investments in plant breeding have not resulted in production increases, especially in marginal environments

Decentralized participatory plant breeding: a case from Syria

Conventional modern plant breeding has been recognized to be more beneficial to farmers in high potential environments or those who could profitably modify their environment to suit new cultivars, than to the poorest farmers who could not afford to make the necessary modifications. As a consequence, low yields, crop failures, malnutrition and poverty affect a large proportion of humanity

Decentralized Participatory Plant Breeding

This report, presented by Dr. Salvatore Ceccarelli from ICARDA, describes a model of participatory plant breeding in which genetic variability is generated by professional breeders, selection is conducted jointly by breeders, extension specialists and farmers in a number of target environments, and the best selections are used by breeders in further cycles of recombination. Farmers handle the first phases of seed multiplication of promising breeding material in village-based seed production systems. The model has the following advantages: (i) varieties reach the release phase earlier than in conventional breeding; (ii) the release and seed multiplication concentrate on varieties known to be acceptable by farmers; (iii) it increases biodiversity because different varieties are selected in different locations; (iv) varieties fit to the agronomic management that farmers are familiar with and can afford and therefore can be beneficial to poor farmers. These advantages are particularly relevant to developing countries where large investments in plant breeding have not resulted in production increases, especially in marginal environments. This report was discussed at the Stakeholder Meeting at AGM2005

CLEVER: a cooperative and cross-layer approach to video streaming in HetNets

We investigate the problem of providing a video streaming service to mobile users in an heterogeneous cellular network composed of micro e-NodeBs (eNBs) and macro e-NodeBs (MeNBs). More in detail, we target a cross-layer dynamic allocation of the bandwidth resources available over a set of eNBs and one MeNB, with the goal of reducing the delay per chunk experienced by users. After optimally formulating the problem of minimizing the chunk delay, we detail the Cross LayEr Video stReaming (CLEVER) algorithm, to practically tackle it. CLEVER makes allocation decisions on the basis of information retrieved from the application layer aswell as from lower layers. Results, obtained over two representative case studies, show that CLEVER is able to limit the chunk delay, while also reducing the amount of bandwidth reserved for offloaded users on the MeNB, as well as the number of offloaded users. In addition, we show that CLEVER performs clearly better than two selected reference algorithms, while being very close to a best bound. Finally, we show that our solution is able to achieve high fairness indexes and good levels of Quality of Experience (QoE)

Constraining Scalar-Tensor gravity models by S2 star orbits around the Galactic Center

The aim of our investigation is to derive a particular theory among the class of scalar-tensor(ST) theories of gravity, and then to test it by studying kinematics and dynamics of S-stars around supermassive black hole (BH) at Galactic Center (GC). We also discuss the Newtonian limit of this class of ST theories of gravity, as well as its parameters. We compare the observed orbit of S2 star with our simulated orbit which we obtained theoretically with the derived ST potential and constrained the parameters. Using the obtained best fit parameters we calculated orbital precession of S2 star in ST gravity,and found that it has the same direction as in General Relativity (GR), but causes much larger pericenter shift.Comment: 13 pages, 1 table, 6 figures. Accepted for publication in Facta Universitatis: Series Phys. Chem. Tech. (Invited lecture at Balkan Workshop 2018

Multi-scale analysis of the European airspace using network community detection

We show that the European airspace can be represented as a multi-scale traffic network whose nodes are airports, sectors, or navigation points and links are defined and weighted according to the traffic of flights between the nodes. By using a unique database of the air traffic in the European airspace, we investigate the architecture of these networks with a special emphasis on their community structure. We propose that unsupervised network community detection algorithms can be used to monitor the current use of the airspaces and improve it by guiding the design of new ones. Specifically, we compare the performance of three community detection algorithms, also by using a null model which takes into account the spatial distance between nodes, and we discuss their ability to find communities that could be used to define new control units of the airspace.Comment: 22 pages, 14 figure

Theoretical and Numerical Hydromechanics Analysis of Self-Pitching Propellers

The development of design-oriented modelling techniques to predict Self-Pitching Propellers (SPP) hydrodynamic and dynamic behaviour is here addressed. Two hydrodynamics approaches are described and validated against literature data. Both Controllable-Pitch Propellers (CPP) and SPP test cases are considered. In addition, a general theoretical Reduced Order Model (ROM) for blade hydrodynamics unsteady loads is proposed to investigate blade equilibrium stability. Numerical results are shown in terms of performance, spindle moment and pitch setting equilibrium conditions. The proposed Blade Element Momentum Theory (BEMT) model shows to be well suited to capture SPP performance, spindle moment and blade equilibrium condition once a devoted tailoring process of model parameters is performed

A user-friendly database for Participatory Plant Breeding programs

In a decentralized and participatory plant breeding (PPB) program, in contrast to conventional plant breeding, farmers select from a large number of genotypes over a number of cycles in several locations. As selection is for location-specific adaptation a PPB program based on, for example, four stages of selection, generates large, unbalanced data sets. With common spreadsheet software it is not possible, or it is at least very cumbersome to extract all the information, particularly the one that is related to genotype x environment (GE) interactions. Therefore, there is a need for an information system that makes it as easy as possible to retrieve and compare data over all given factors in the PPB-program. Due to a lack of education and financial resources in developing countries, the use of existing databases was not an option because of their complexity and/or price. We have built a simple, free and user-friendly database that allows to store, retrieve and analyze the plant breeding data. The database is implemented using the Java based HyperSQL Database Engine (HSQLDB) in the package of Open Office with links to the input formats of Genstat and GGEbiPlot. The proposed database is capable of managing the following data in a PPBprogram for barley: (I) trial data for any trial or field design (II) field data for any given trait (III) results from statistical analyses (IV) farmers selection individually or in groups