Conflict and inequality in surface irrigation: a socio-ecological perspective

This paper attempts to understand the role of institutions and governance, in explaining unequal access to canal water under different rules of the game. Two states at different levels of agricultural productivity with different rules of distribution of canal water are chosen to study the problem at project level. While Bihar, at low level of agricultural productivity, represents absence of scientific method of distribution of water, Punjab offers high level of agricultural productivity with the warabandi system. The two case studies offer interesting similarities and dissimilarities in terms of unequal access to water by the tail enders and mechanisms needed to mitigate this inequality. Some similarities are: (a) the tail enders suffer the most with low access to water forcing them to adopt only low water intensive crops in comparison to the head reach and mid reach farmers; and (b) the farmers supplement canal water with ground water. The dissimilarities noticed are: (a) while over exploitation of ground water in Punjab has reached levels beyond natural recharge of aquifers in several places; in Bihar, with low withdrawal of ground water and natural endowment of high water table, such a situation has not arisen; (b) the breaking of canal and water courses for own benefit by the powerful with political clout is rampant in Bihar, rarely attracting a penalty from the irrigation department; (c) the water market for tubewell water (Rs.70 to 80 per hour) has developed in Bihar partly mitigating inequality in access to canal water by the tail enders; no such phenomenon is common in Punjab. The plausible reason for the low density of tubewells in Bihar in contrast to Punjab is low incomes making affordability of tubewell an issue, and (d) cooperative efforts by farmers to lay down pipes through neighbors’ plots to minimize loss of water has succeeded in Punjab; in Bihar such efforts succeeded initially at a small scale but could not sustain without government assistance. The absence of scientific rule for distribution of canal water and the weak canal governance system aggravates the misery of tail enders. In such a scenario, the mitigation of unequal access to water by the tail enders is facilitated by the development of water markets at high cost in a complex situation with tiny holdings and lack of cooperation among the farmers.Length: pp.808-818CanalsWater distributionCrop managementGroundwaterWater market

Isolation and Characterization of Soil Bacteria from Radium Springs, GA, and Analysis of Antibiotic Secretions Under Various Conditions

Since the discovery of the first antibiotics, they have been a cornerstone of medical treatment for bacterial infections. With the evolution of resistance to these existing agents, it is becoming increasingly important to find novel antibiotics to maintain the level of care of modern medicine. The Small World Initiative created at Yale University aims to tackle this problem by crowdsourcing the study of antibiotics that may be present in soil and sediment in different environments. According to the Small World Initiative, over two thirds of antibiotics originate from soil bacteria or fungi. We aim to characterize the bacteria in soil obtained from Radium Springs, GA and analyze their metabolic products for antibiotic activity against Staphylococcus aureus and Acinetobacter baumannii under various conditions of environmental stress. This site was chosen because we hypothesized that the presence of trace amounts of radium in the natural water supply may give the local biome unique characteristics. We isolated bacteria from soil samples collected from several locations with differing levels of moisture. The isolates were co-cultured with S. aureus and A. baumannii (our “tester” strains). We also exposed our tester strains to the metabolites from the soil bacteria to determine if antibiotic activity was inherent to the soil bacteria even without the presence of the target bacteria. Our research did not find any significant antibiotic activity from the metabolites of our soil bacteria against S. aureus or A. baumannii. Further tests should be conducted on these samples with different methodologies that may induce the production of other metabolites or varying levels of the same metabolites

Direct Evidence on the Informational Properties of Earnings in Loan Contracts

Using a sample of firms that disclose the realizations of earnings used for determining covenant compliance in loan contracts, we provide the first direct evidence on the informational properties of earnings used in the performance covenants included in debt contracts. We find that the earnings measure used in performance covenants does not exhibit asymmetric loss timeliness and has significantly greater cash flow predictive ability than GAAP measures of earnings. We suggest that these results reflect the idea that contracting parties design accounting rules for performance covenants to enhance their efficacy as “tripwires”

Women\u27s Schooling, Home Teaching, and Economic Growth

The hypothesis that increases in the schooling of women enhance the human capital of the next generation and thus make a unique contribution to economic growth is assessed on the basis of data describing green revolution India. Estimates are obtained that indicate that a component of the significant and positive relationship between maternal literacy and child schooling in the Indian setting reflects the productivity effect of home teaching and that the existence of this effect, combined with the increase in returns to schooling for men, importantly underlies the expansion of female literacy following the onset of the green revolution

Women\u27s Schooling, Home Teaching, and Economic Growth

The hypothesis that increases in the schooling of women enhance the human capital of the next generation and thus make a unique contribution to economic growth is assessed on the basis of data describing green revolution India. Estimates are obtained that indicate that a component of the significant and positive relationship between maternal literacy and child schooling in the Indian setting reflects the productivity effect of home teaching and that the existence of this effect, combined with the increase in returns to schooling for men, importantly underlies the expansion of female literacy following the onset of the green revolution

Declining drinking among adolescents: are we seeing a denormalisation of drinking and a normalisation of non-drinking?

Background In the early 2000s, alcohol use among young people began to decline in many western countries, especially among adolescents (aged between 12-17 years old). These declines have continued steadily over the past two decades, against the backdrop of much smaller declines among the general population. Argument Hypotheses examining individual factors fail adequately to provide the necessary ‘big picture’ thinking needed to understand declines in adolescent drinking. We use the normalisation thesis to argue that there is strong international evidence for both processes of denormalisation of drinking and normalisation of non-drinking occurring for adolescents in many western countries. Conclusions Research on declining adolescent drinking provides evidence of both denormalisation of alcohol consumption and normalisation of non-drinking. This has implications for enabling policy environments more amenable to regulation and increasing the acceptability of non-drinking in social contexts. Normalisation theory (and its various interpretations) provides a useful multi-dimensional tool for understanding declines in adolescent drinking

Amplification of Fluctuations in Unstable Systems with Disorder

We study the early-stage kinetics of thermodynamically unstable systems with quenched disorder. We show analytically that the growth of initial fluctuations is amplified by the presence of disorder. This is confirmed by numerical simulations of morphological phase separation (MPS) in thin liquid films and spinodal decomposition (SD) in binary mixtures. We also discuss the experimental implications of our results.Comment: 15 pages, 4 figure

Response to commentaries: (de)normalization of drinking and its implications for young people, sociality, culture and epidemiology

Commentar

Examining trends in the representation of young people and alcohol in Australian newspapers over twenty years (2000-2019)

Background: The news media can reflect and influence public opinion, as well as affect individual practice. In the context of significant changes in alcohol consumption among young people over the past twenty years, we examined Australian newspaper reporting of young people (under 18 years) and alcohol to assess whether there have been changes over time in the content and slant of articles that reflect or elucidate these trends. Methods: Factiva was used to search newspaper articles from major Australian newspapers over a twenty year period (2000-2019). After screening, two researchers coded 2,415 newspaper articles across four key domains: article type, article theme, sources cited and topic slant (e.g. approving, disapproving tone). Change over time across the study period was assessed using joinpoint Poisson regression analyses. Results: There was a significant increase in articles on young people and alcohol between 2000 and 2008, before a corresponding decrease to 2019. Policy or prevention strategies were the most common theme of articles (35.8%), followed by articles reporting on risks or harms associated with alcohol use for young people (18.1%). Researchers were the most common source reported (25.1%), followed by politicians (19.0%). Three quarters of articles (75.9%) had a socially disapproving topic slant, which increased significantly up until 2011, with a corresponding decrease thereafter. Conclusion: Attention to, and problematisation of, young people and alcohol increased in the first decade of this millennium which may have acted to sustain or accelerate declining drinking trends. However, this dissipated back to baseline levels in the second decade, which may indicate a lag time in recognition of young people’s drinking becoming less of a public health ‘problem’