Tertiary sub-system management: proceedings of one-day workshop held on June 18, 1995 in Lahore, Pakistan

Irrigation management / Watercourses / Institution building / Water conveyance / Water distribution / Irrigation practices / Economic aspects / Pakistan

Actual crop water use in project countries : a synthesis at the regional level

This report aims to synthesize the results of a crop water use study conducted by country teams of the GEF/World Bank project, Regional Climate, Water, and Agriculture: Impacts on and Adaptation of Agro-ecological Systems in Africa. It also presents the results of the second phase of the study based on climate change scenarios, conducted by the South Africa country team. The actual evapotranspiration of five commonly grown crops-maize, millet, sorghum, groundnuts, and beans-in two selected districts were analyzed by six country teams. In addition, two country teams also analyzed other crops grown in the districts. The regional analysis shows that the actual yield of the different crops-specifically of maize and groundnuts-improves with an increase in actual evapotranspiration, although the gap remains wide between actual and potential yield and actual and maximum evapotranspiration, especially for the rainfed crops. This highlights the importance of improved water management if agriculture is to play an important role as a source of food security and better livelihoods. The report highlights the vulnerability of maize to water stress and the increased risks to the viability of rainfed farming systems based on this crop. The results of the second phase of analysis show that a 2°C increase in the temperature and a doubling of carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere will shorten the growing period of maize, which will result in decreased crop water requirement and use. The authors recommend extending this type of analysis to other crops as well as to other countries to developa clearer picture of the changing pattern in crop water use of the major crops grown in the project countries.Water Supply and Sanitation Governance and Institutions,Crops&Crop Management Systems,Water Conservation,Water Supply and Systems,Town Water Supply and Sanitation

What is the effect of sustainability practices by Norwegian hotels on their customer satisfaction?

Abstract Customer satisfaction is vital for the hospitality industry in today's competitive marketplace. This study aimed to see how sustainable hotel practices influenced customer satisfaction. Concerns about the environment are on the rise these days. Every business sets CSR and sustainability goals, and hotel customers keep an eye on them. As a result, hotels should adapt to new sustainable practices and deliver services so that the environment is not negatively impacted. Because hotels must listen to and react to the demands of their consumers, it is crucial to observe how youthful hotel customers engage with sustainable practices. The literature was aimed to discuss five variables for the study: sustainable hotel practices, hotel room price, CSR & Sustainable goals, hotel services, and customer satisfaction. The study looked at the effects of sustainability practices employed by Norwegian hotels on customer satisfaction. A random sample of 129 respondents who live in Norway and stay in hotels there was chosen to test the study findings. SPSS was used to perform Harman's Single Factor Test, Pearson correlation, and regression analysis. Sustainability practices have a favorable and considerable effect on consumer satisfaction. Furthermore, research has shown that modifications in sustainable practices do not affect hotel room pricing or costs. In reality, hotels increase their profit margins. The findings of this study will have practical benefits for sustainability, marketing, and human resources departments. This study will also be helpful to academia in understanding local hotel customer satisfaction resulting from sustainable practices

A Pharmacological Strategy Against African Sleeping Sickness

Trypanosoma brucei is a parasitic eukaryote and is the causal agent of the disease known as African sleeping sickness, transmitted via the bite of a tsetse fly. If left untreated, the parasite ultimately crosses the blood-brain eventually leading to death. Currently there are 5 approved drugs used to treat it, each with toxic side effects and effective at specific disease stages. A more effective and less toxic drug candidate is highly sought after. The essential enzyme, dUTPase, is an excellent drug target in the parasite while utilizing S. cerevisiae as a model system. dUTPase is essential in T. brucei (tbdUTPase), yeast (yDut1), and humans (hDUT). dUTPase being a dimer in T. brucei but a trimer in yeast and humans, we hypothesize there may be a molecule that inhibits the function of tbdUTPase but not of yDut1 and hDUT. The endogenous yDut1 was knocked down via auxin inducible degron system in order to complement its loss by transforming plasmids containing human and T. brucei dUTPase genes. Induced expression of hDUT and tbdUTPase did not seem to complement the loss of yDut1. As an alternative strategy, the dUTPase genes from human and T. brucei were next integrated into the yeast genome at the inactive HO locus. The results of this experiment were inconclusive and remains to be further explored. In order to identify a small molecule ligand of T. brucei dUTPase, a high throughput virtual drug screen was performed through Schrödinger’s Suite. This led to the discovery of 13 molecules that bind to tbdUTPase but not to hDUT. Out of the 13, one molecule showed cytotoxic effects against the parasite but not against yeast. To see if the single molecule found was dUTPase specific, yDut1, hDUT, and tbdUTPase proteins were purified and their enzymatic activity were measured in the presence of the single molecule. The results indicated that the molecule found to have cytotoxic effect against T. bruceicells was not dUTPase specific. Although the results do not support the initial hypothesis, the dUTPase pathway as well as virtual drug screening hold promise and require further research

Flexible joint robotic manipulator: Modeling and design of robust control law

This paper presents modeling and sophisticated control of a single Degree Of Freedom (DOF) flexible robotic arm. The derived model is based on Euler-Lagrange approach while the first and second order (super twisting) Sliding Mode Control (SMC) is proposed as a non-linear control strategy. The control laws are subjected to various test inputs including step and sinusoids to demonstrate their tracking efficiency by observing transient and steady state behaviours. Both orders of SMC are then compared to characterize the control performance in terms of robustness, handling external disturbances and chattering. Results dictate that the super twisting SMC is more accurate and robust against the external noise and chattering phenomena compared to the first order SMC

Role of bone graft materials for cleft lip and palate patients: A systematic review

AbstractCleft lip and palate is a congenital anomaly. Its management requires a long term commitment, multidisciplinary and structured treatment. Treatment is initiated at infancy and continues till adolescence. Bone grafting is performed in order to provide bony stabilization for cleft maxillary alveolar arch and room for subsequent canine tooth eruption. The aim of this review was to discuss the success of various bone graft materials in managing unilateral and bilateral cleft lip and palate patients. For this purpose, a detailed literature search was performed using available electronic databases for peer reviewed papers published in English language. The review is based on published papers reporting the use of various bone graft materials for managing cleft lip and palate patients. The success of bone grafts was studied using the grading scales measuring the bone height at the grafted sites. Various types of bone graft materials including autogenous and allogenic were reviewed. Implant placement in cleft lip and palate patients required bone grafting after orthodontic expansion because of deficient bone in the anterior maxillary region. The grafted bone consequently provides stability and support to the maxillary alveolar arch. Success of bone graft as well as dental implants is multifactorial and therefore depends upon the type of bone graft, bone quality at cleft site and severity of cleft lip and palate

Farmers actions and improvements in irrigation performance below the Mogha : how farmers manage water scarcity and abundance in a large scale irrigation system in South-Eastern Punjab, Pakistan

The irrigation systems of Punjab, Pakistan are not functioning effectively in relation to design criteria or farmers' needs. This under-performance is attributed to among others, scarcity of irrigation water, changes in cropping intensity and mis-allocation of available resources. Presently irrigation system management in Pakistan is undergoing institutional reforms- to introduce Participatory Irrigation Management with involvement of new Farmers Organisations in water management- that is expected to result in improved water distribution performance and financial sustainability of the system. This study was conducted to investigate the impact, value and capability of farmers' local water management actions in a large-scale canal irrigation system, to contribute in the wider debates about Participatory Irrigation Management and sustainability of groundwater use in such schemes in Pakistan.An interdisciplinary, socio-technical approach was used as the main methodological approach for this study. A comparative study method was used to analyse farmers' actions for water management. The research was undertaken in the Fordwah Irrigation System, which serves a command area of 232,000 hectares. Six watercourses along the two distributaries (at the tail of the system) were selected for in-depth study. Fieldwork was conducted between November 1996 to April 1998. Water delivery performance was measured at the outlets of these watercourses. Collective and individual water management actions were studied to understand their dynamics and their impact on improving water delivery to the farm.The study suggests that there is neither a standard set of water management activities nor they are strictly planned, in the study area. Farmers' actions are mostly subject to their desires to match water demand with supply, however one can still see some of the water management activities that are inevitable to operate the system. The actions taken and the way and time these activities are organised and performed is difficult to predict in advance. Collective action is undertaken more at the watercourse or higher level in the irrigation system, whereas individual actions are mainly undertaken at the farm level.The four main findings of the study are: 1) that farmers are knowledgeable and capable actors who take actions that improve water supply and compensate for dysfunctional delivery; 2) farmers actions are not only technically and economically sound but also have motives other than just economic benefit; 3) farmers' management cannot be classified as 'contingent management' and is rather performance-oriented; and 4) current performance indicators, which are not able to show realities of social relations shaping water availability, could be improved by including criteria to assess performance of irrigation system from the perspectives of different actors. By incorporating the way farmers intervene with the system and thus appropriate the water delivery, such new performance studies could portray local water dynamics of a system and support recommendations based on reality to improve the functioning of the irrigation system.The patterns of conjunctive water use at the farm level suggest that in future groundwater must continue to provide significant amount of water for crop production. Farmers already organise management actions in the irrigation system: new Farmers' Organisation may improve the accountability of these to other farmers.</p

A field investigation of the relationship between rotating shifts, sleep, mental health and physical activity of Australian paramedics

Paramedics working on a rotating shift are at an increased risk of developing chronic health issues due to continuous circadian rhythm disruption. The acute effects of shift rotation and objectively measured sleep have rarely been reported in paramedics. This study investigated the relationships between a rotating shift schedule and sleep (using actigraphy), subjective reports of sleepiness, mood, stress and fatigue. Galvanic Skin Response, energy expenditure and physical activity (BodyMedia SenseWear Armband) were also recorded across the shift schedule. Paramedics were monitored for a period of eight consecutive days across pre-shift, day shift, night shift, and 2 days off. Fifteen paramedics (M age = 39.5 and SD = 10.7 years) who worked rotational shifts experienced sleep restriction during night shift compared to pre-shift, day shift and days off (p < 0.001). Night shift was also associated with higher levels of stress (p < 0.05), fatigue (p < 0.05), and sleepiness (p < 0.05). One day off was related to a return to pre-shift functioning. Such shift-related issues have a compounding negative impact on an already stressful occupation with high rates of physical and mental health issues. Therefore, there is an urgent need to investigate methods to reduce rotating shift burden on the health of paramedics. This could be through further research aimed at providing recommendations for shift work schedules with sufficient periods for sleep and recovery from stress. © 2021, The Author(s)

High gain dual parasitic patch loaded wideband antenna for 28 GHz 5G applications

Proceedings of: 2021 International Symposium on Antennas and Propagation (ISAP), 19-22 October, 2021, Taipei, Taiwan.This work presents the design of a high gain wideband antenna for 28 GHz band application. The antenna structure was inspired from a conventional circular patch which is modified using consecutive loading of two parasitic patch. The presented antenna offers a wideband to completely cover the globally allocated band spectrum for 28 GHz 5G applications. Moreover, the broad side radiation pattern, relatively compact size and high gain makes the proposed work potential candidate for future 5G applications.This project has received funding from Universidad Carlos III de Madrid and the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant Agreement No 801538. Also, this work is partially supported by Antenna and Wireless Propagation Group (AWPG). https://sites.google.com/view/awpgrp

Hybrid parallel computing beyond MPI & OpenMP - introducing PGAS & StarSs

High-performance architectures are becoming more and more complex with the passage of time. These large scale, heterogeneous architectures and multi-core system are difficult to program. New programming models are required to make expression of parallelism easier, while keeping productivity of the developer higher. Partition Global Address-space (PGAS) languages such as UPC appeared to augment developer’s productivity for distributed memory systems. UPC provides a simpler, shared memory-like model with a user control over data layout. But it is developer’s responsibility to take care of the data locality, by using appropriate data layouts. SMPSs/StarSs programming model tries to simplify the parallel programming on multicore architectures. It offers task level parallelism, where dependencies among the tasks are determined at the run time. In addition, runtime take cares of the data locality, while scheduling tasks. Hence, providing two-folds improvement in productivity; first, saving developer’s time by using automatic dependency detection, instead of hard coding them. Second, save cache optimization time, as runtime take cares of data locality. The purpose of this thesis is to use the PGAS programming model e.g. UPC for different nodes with the shared memory task based parallelization model i.e. StarSs to take the advantage of the multi core systems and contrast this approach to the legacy MPI and OpenMP combination. Performance as well as programmability is considered in the evaluation. The combination UPC + SMPSs, results in approximately the same execution time as MPI and OpenMP. The current lack of features such as multi-dimensional data distribution or virtual topologies in UPC, make the hybrid UPC + SMPSs/StarSs programming model less programmable than MPI + OpenMP for the application studied in this thesis