Innovation dialogue - Being strategic in the face of complexity - Conference report

The Innovation Dialogue on Being Strategic in the Face of Complexity was held in Wageningen on 31 November and 1 December 2009. The event is part of a growing dialogue in the international development sector about the complexities of social, economic and political change. It builds on two previous events hosted the Innovation Dialogue on Navigating Complexity (May 2009) and the Seminar on Institutions, Theories of Change and Capacity Development (December 2008). Over 120 people attended the event coming from a range of Dutch and international development organizations. The event was aimed at bridging practitioner, policy and academic interests. It brought together people working on sustainable business strategies, social entrepreneurship and international development. Leading thinkers and practitioners offered their insights on what it means to "be strategic in complex times". The Dialogue was organized and hosted by the Wageningen UR Centre for Development Innovation working with the Chair Groups of Communication & Innovation Studies, Disaster Studies, Education & Competence Studies and Public Administration & Policy as co; organisers. The theme of the Dialogue aligns closely with Wageningen UR’s interest in linking technological and institutional innovation in ways that enable ‘science for impact’

Journal Staff

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 18th Scandinavian Conference on Image Analysis, SCIA 2013, held in Espoo, Finland, in June 2013. The 67 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 132 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on feature extraction and segmentation, pattern recognition and machine learning, medical and biomedical image analysis, faces and gestures, object and scene recognition, matching, registration, and alignment, 3D vision, color and multispectral image analysis, motion analysis, systems and applications, human-centered computing, and video and multimedia analysis

Prediction of biopore- and matrix-dominated flow from X-ray CT-derived macropore network characteristics

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Assessing the adaptation of arable farmers to climate change using DEA and bio-economic modelling

The objective of this article is to assess the impact of climate change on arable farming systems in Flevoland (the Netherlands) and to explore the adoption of different adaptation strategies. Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) is applied that uses empirical data from individual farms to identify “best” current farm practices and derive relationships regarding current farm managemen

Deprojection of luminosity functions of galaxies in the Coma cluster

We use a simple analytic model to deproject 2-d luminosity functions (LF) of galaxies in the Coma cluster measured by Beijersbergen et al. 2002. We demonstrate that the shapes of the LFs change after deprojection. It is therefore essential to correct LFs for projection effects. The deprojected LFs of the central area have best-fitting Schechter parameters of M^{*}_U=-18.31^{+0.08}_{-0.08} and \alpha_U=-1.27^{+0.018}_{-0.018}, M^{*}_B=-19.79^{+0.14}_{-0.15} and \alpha_B=-1.44^{+0.016}_{-0.016} and M^{*}_r=-21.77^{+0.20}_{-0.28} and \alpha_r=-1.27^{+0.012}_{-0.012}. The corrections are not significant enough to change the previously observed trend of increasing faint end slopes with increasing distance to the cluster center. The weighted U, B, and r band slopes of the deprojected LFs show a slightly weaker steepening with increasing projected cluster radius.Comment: Accepted for publication in A&A as a Research Not

Adapting agriculture in 2050 in Flevoland; perspectives from stakeholders

Although recently more research has gone into farm level studies, little attention has been given to the variety of responses of farmers, considering their characteristics, objectives and the socio-economic, technological and political contexts (Reidsma et al, 2010). In the Agri-Adapt project we focus on farm level adaptation within an agricultural region considering the socio-economic context of 2050

High-Latitude HI in the Low Surface Brightness Galaxy UGC7321

From the analysis of sensitive HI 21-cm line observations, we find evidence for vertically extended HI emission (|z|<~2.4 kpc) in the edge-on, low surface brightness spiral galaxy UGC7321. Three-dimensional modelling suggests that the HI disk of UGC7321 is both warped and flared, but that neither effect can fully reproduce the spatial distribution and kinematics of the highest z-height gas. We are able to model the high-latitude emission as an additional HI component in the form of a ``thick disk'' or ``halo'' with a FWHM~3.3 kpc. We find tentative evidence that the vertically extended gas declines in rotational velocity as a function of z, although we are unable to completely rule out models with constant V(z). In spite of the low star formation rate of UGC7321, energy from supernovae may be sufficient to sustain this high-latitude gas. However, alternative origins for this material, such as slow, sustained infall, cannot yet be excluded.Comment: to appear in the August 20 Astrophysical Journal; 17 pages; version with full resolution figures available at http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/~lmatthew

Secondary inorganic aerosol simulations for Europe with special attention to nitrate

International audienceNitrate is an important component of (secondary inorganic) fine aerosols in Europe. We present a model simulation for the year 1995 in which we account for the formation of secondary inorganic aerosols including ammonium sulphate and ammonium nitrate, a semi volatile component. For this purpose, the chemistry-transport model LOTOS was extended with a thermodynamic equilibrium module and additional relevant processes to account for secondary aerosol formation and deposition. During winter, fall and especially spring high nitrate levels are projected over north western, central and eastern Europe. During winter nitrate concentrations are highest in Italy, in accordance with observed data. In winter nitric acid, the precursor for aerosol nitrate is formed through heterogeneous reactions on the surface of aerosols. Modelled and observed sulphate concentrations show little seasonal variation. Compared to sulphate levels, appreciable ammonium nitrate concentrations in summer are limited to those areas with high ammonia emissions, e.g. the Netherlands, since high ammonia concentrations are necessary to stabilise this aerosol component at high temperatures. As a consequence of the strong seasonal variation in nitrate levels the AOD depth of nitrate over Europe is especially significant compared to that of sulphate in winter and spring when equal AOD values are calculated over large parts of Europe. Averaged over all stations the model reproduces the measured concentrations for NO3, SO4, NH4, TNO3 (HNO3+NO3), TNH4 (NH3+NH4) and SO2 within 20%. The daily variation is captured well, albeit that the model does not always represent the amplitude of single events. The model underestimates wet deposition which was attributed to the crude representation of cloud processes. Comparison of retrieved and computed aerosol optical depth (AOD) showed that the model underestimates AOD significantly, which was expected due to the lack of carbonaceous aerosols, sea salt and dust in the model. The treatment of ammonia was found to be a major source for uncertainties in the model representation of secondary aerosols. Also, inclusion of sea salt is necessary to properly assess the nitrate and nitric acid levels in marine areas

A set of genes conserved in sequence and expression traces back the establishment of multicellularity in social amoebae

BACKGROUND: The developmental cycle of Dictyostelid amoebae represents an early form of multicellularity with cell type differentiation. Mutant studies in the model Dictyostelium discoideum revealed that its developmental program integrates the actions of genes involved in signal transduction, adhesion, motility, autophagy and cell wall and matrix biosynthesis. However, due to functional redundancy and fail safe options not required in the laboratory, this single organism approach cannot capture all essential genes. To understand how multicellular organisms evolved, it is essential to recognize both the conserved core features of their developmental programs and the gene modifications that instigated phenotypic innovation. For complex organisms, such as animals, this is not within easy reach, but it is feasible for less complex forms, such as the Dictyostelid social amoebas.RESULTS: We compared global profiles of gene expression during the development of four social amoebae species that represent 600 mya of Dictyostelia evolution, and identified orthologous conserved genes with similar developmental up-regulation of expression using three different methods. For validation, we disrupted five genes of this core set and examined the phenotypic consequences.CONCLUSION: At least 71 of the developmentally regulated genes that were identified with all methods were likely to be already present in the last ancestor of all Dictyostelia. The lack of phenotypic changes in null mutants indicates that even highly conserved genes either participate in functionally redundant pathways or are necessary for developmental progression under adverse, non-standard laboratory conditions. Both mechanisms provide robustness to the developmental program, but impose a limit on the information that can be obtained from deleting single genes.</p

Climate change adaptation in agriculture; the use of multi-scale modelling and stakeholder participation in the Netherlands

Abstract about a research project to develop a methodology to assess adaptation of agriculture to climatic and socio-economic changes at multiple scales, with a first application in the Province of Flevoland, the Netherlands