Representing and Evaluating Legal Narratives with Subscenarios in a Bayesian network

In legal cases, stories or scenarios can serve as the context for a crime when reasoning with evidence. In order to develop a scientifically founded technique for evidential reasoning, a method is required for the representation and evaluation of various scenarios in a case. In this paper the probabilistic technique of Bayesian networks is proposed as a method for modeling narrative, and it is shown how this can be used to capture a number of narrative properties. Bayesian networks quantify how the variables in a case interact. Recent research on Bayesian networks applied to legal cases includes the development of a list of legal idioms: recurring substructures in legal Bayesian networks. Scenarios are coherent presentations of a collection of states and events, and qualitative in nature. A method combining the quantitative, probabilistic approach with the narrative approach would strengthen the tools to represent and evaluate scenarios. In a previous paper, the development of a design method for modeling multiple scenarios in a Bayesian network was initiated. The design method includes two narrative idioms: the scenario idiom and the merged scenarios idiom. In this current paper, the method of Vlek, et al. (2013) is extended with a subscenario idiom and it is shown how the method can be used to represent characteristic features of narrative

Effect of Zai Soil and Water Conservation Technique on Water Balance and the Fate of Nitrate from Organic Amendments Applied: A Case of Degraded Crusted Soils in Niger

Experiments were conducted on degraded crusted soils to study water status and nitrogen release in the soil during the dry seasons of 1999 at ICRISAT research station and on-farm during the rainy seasons of 1999 and 2000 in Niger. Zai is a technology applied on degraded crusted soil, which creates conditions for runoff water harvesting in small pits. The harvested water accumulates in the soil and constitutes a reservoir for plants. The organic amendment applied in the Zai pits releases nutrients for the plants. Soil water status was monitored through weekly measurement with neutron probe; access tubes were installed for the purpose. Nutrient leaching was measured as soil samples were collected three times throughout the cropping season. A rapid progress of the wetting front during the cropping period was observed. It was below 125 cm in the Zai-treated plots 26 days after the rain started versus 60 cm in the non-treated plots. Applying cattle manure leads to shallower water profile due to increased biomass production. Total nitrate content increased throughout the profile compared to the initial status, suggesting possible loss below the plant rooting system due to drainage, which was less pronounced when cattle manure was applied. This study shows that the system improves soil water status allowing plants to escape from dry spells. However, at the same time it can lead to loss of nutrients, particularly nitrogen

Leguminosas de habito lianescente: importancia chave para a fixacao biologica de nitrogenio na sucessao secundaria inicial?

Estudo da importancia da fixacao biologica de nitrogenio (FBN) para recuperacao de nitrogenio em sistemas agroflorestais, em Presidente Figueiredo-AM (Brasil)

Effect of planting technique and amendment type on pearl millet yield, nutrient uptake, and water use on degraded land in Niger

Due to increased population pressure and limited availability of fertile land, farmers on desert fringes increasingly rely on marginal land for agricultural production, which they have learned to rehabilitate with different technologies for soils and water conservation. One such method is the indigenous zai technique used in the Sahel. It combines water harvesting and targeted application of organic amendments by the use of small pits dug into the hardened soil. To study the resource use efficiency of this technique, experiments were conducted 1999–2000, on-station at ICRISAT in Niger, and on-farm at two locations on degraded lands. On-station, the effect of application rate of millet straw and cattle manure on millet dry matter production was studied. On-farm, the effects of organic amendment type (millet straw and cattle manure, at the rate of 300 g per plant) and water harvesting (with and without water harvesting) on millet grain yield, dry matter production, and water use were studied. First, the comparison of zai vs. flat planting, both unamended, resulted in a 3- to 4-fold (in one case, even 19- fold) increase in grain yield on-farm in both years, which points to the yield effects of improved water harvesting in the zai alone. Zai improved the water use efficiency by a factor of about 2. The yields increased further with the application of organic amendments. Manure resulted in 2–68 times better grain yields than no amendment and 2–7 times better grain yields than millet straw (higher on the more degraded soils). Millet dry matter produced per unit of manure N or K was higher than that of millet straw, a tendency that was similar for all rates of application. Zai improved nutrient uptake in the range of 43–64% for N, 50–87% for P and 58–66% for K. Zai increased grain yield produced per unit N (8 vs. 5 kg kg-1) and K (10 vs. 6 kg kg-1) compared to flat; so is the effect of cattle manure compared to millet straw (9 vs. 4 kg kg-1, and 14 vs. 3 kg kg-1), respectively, Therefore zai shows a good potential for increasing agronomic efficiency and nutrient use efficiency. Increasing the rate of cattle manure application from 1 to 3 t ha-1 increased the yield by 115% TDM, but increasing the manure application rate further from 3 to 5 t ha-1 only gave an additional 12% yield increase, which shows that optimum application rates are around 3t ha-

Effect of planting technique and amendment type on pearl millet yield, nutrient uptake, and water use on degraded land in Niger

Due to increased population pressure and limited availability of fertile land, farmers on desert fringes increasingly rely on marginal land for agricultural production, which they have learned to rehabilitate with different technologies for soils and water conservation. One such method is the indigenous zai technique used in the Sahel. It combines water harvesting and targeted application of organic amendments by the use of small pits dug into the hardened soil. To study the resource use efficiency of this technique, experiments were conducted 1999–2000, on-station at ICRISAT in Niger, and on-farm at two locations on degraded lands. On-station, the effect of application rate of millet straw and cattle manure on millet dry matter production was studied. On-farm, the effects of organic amendment type (millet straw and cattle manure, at the rate of 300 g per plant) and water harvesting (with and without water harvesting) on millet grain yield, dry matter production, and water use were studied. First, the comparison of zai vs. flat planting, both unamended, resulted in a 3- to 4-fold (in one case, even 19- fold) increase in grain yield on-farm in both years, which points to the yield effects of improved water harvesting in the zai alone. Zai improved the water use efficiency by a factor of about 2. The yields increased further with the application of organic amendments. Manure resulted in 2–68 times better grain yields than no amendment and 2–7 times better grain yields than millet straw (higher on the more degraded soils). Millet dry matter produced per unit of manure N or K was higher than that of millet straw, a tendency that was similar for all rates of application. Zai improved nutrient uptake in the range of 43–64% for N, 50–87% for P and 58–66% for K. Zai increased grain yield produced per unit N (8 vs. 5 kg kg-1) and K (10 vs. 6 kg kg-1) compared to flat; so is the effect of cattle manure compared to millet straw (9 vs. 4 kg kg-1, and 14 vs. 3 kg kg-1), respectively, Therefore zai shows a good potential for increasing agronomic efficiency and nutrient use efficiency. Increasing the rate of cattle manure application from 1 to 3 t ha-1 increased the yield by 115% TDM, but increasing the manure application rate further from 3 to 5 t ha-1 only gave an additional 12% yield increase, which shows that optimum application rates are around 3t ha-

Final report on impact of catchment scale processes and climate change on cause-effect and recovery-chains

Catchment wide integrated basin management requires knowledge on cause-effect and recovery chains within water bodies as well as on the interactions between water bodies and categories. In the WISER WP6.4 recovery processes in rivers, lakes and estuarine and coastal waters were evaluated. The major objectives were: - to analyse and compare (cause-effect and) recovery chains within water categories based on processes and structural and functional features; - to detect commonalities among different chains in different water categories ( to compare recovery chains between water categories); - to link recovery chains to over-arching biological processes and global change; - to develop a method to combine recovery effects in a summarising ‘catchment’ metric. The main stressors studied to reach these objectives were acidification, eutrophication and hydromorphological changes

Effects of slash & burn vs.slash & mulch on water, solute and sediment dynamics at the watershed level.

Editado por Reinhard Lieberei, Helmut Bianchi, Vera Boehm, Christoph Reisdorff