Differential impacts of an irrigation project : case study of the Swar Dam Project in Yedashe, Bago region of Myanmar

In Myanmar, the government has made a vast investment in the construction of dams to improve crop productivity and to ensure socioeconomic development. This study explores the differential impacts, in terms of socioeconomic conditions, of these investments for paddy farmers in Yedashe Township, in the Bago region in the south-central part of Myanmar. A farm survey among 95 respondents is used to compare the situation before and after the construction of a dam. It is observed that after the installation of the dam, the farmers could practice double rice cropping enabling them to gain higher income. The impact of the dam project on the employment rate, paddy yields and incomes were measured using normalized vector equations. A positive effect on all these factors was observed. The incomes of the farmers increased by benefiting from higher crop productivity, more crops per year, and more benefits over variable costs. However, the return above variable cash costs (RAVCC) and the benefit over cost (BC) ratio of head-end users was significantly higher than that of middle-reach and tail-end users. Therefore, the study additionally explored the problems of unequal water access and farmer-oriented solutions to these problems. The lack of monitoring and management of the irrigation institutions was found to be a major constraint for the development of the irrigation sector. Therefore, efficient utilisation of irrigation water by water-users, and policies as well as investments in the development of irrigation infrastructure need to be emphasised

Identification of pulling factors for enhancing the sustainable development of diverse agriculture in Myanmar

The study on Myanmar consists mainly of field surveys conducted in agro-ecologically distinct sites in two townships in Myanmar , namely Thonegwa Township in the delta area and Monywa Township in the central dry zone. Survey design covers the profiles of the study sites, respondents and their households, overall conditions of secondary farming, the marketing and industrial processing systems, the effect of agricultural diversification on poverty alleviation, risk mitigation and environmental conservation, policy impact, infrastructure and institutional support, and the potential and constraints for enhancing sustainable agricultural diversification at the study sites.International Development,

Tracking performance and cycle slipping in the all-digital symbol synchronizer loop of the block 5 receiver

Computer simulated noise performance of the symbol synchronizer loop (SSL) in the Block 5 receiver is compared with the theoretical noise performance. Good agreement is seen at the higher loop SNR's (SNR(sub L)'s), with gradual degradation as the SNR(sub L) is decreased. For the different cases simulated, cycle slipping is observed (within the simulation time of 10(exp 4) seconds) at SNR(sub L)'s below different thresholds, ranging from 6 to 8.5 dB, comparable to that of a classical phase-locked loop. An important point, however, is that to achieve the desired loop SNR above the seemingly low threshold to avoid cycle slipping, a large data-to-loop-noise power ratio, P(sub D)/(N(sub 0)B(sub L)), is necessary (at least 13 dB larger than the desired SNR(sub L) in the optimum case and larger otherwise). This is due to the large squaring loss (greater than or equal to 13 dB) inherent in the SSL. For the special case of symbol rates approximately equaling the loop update rate, a more accurate equivalent model accounting for an extra loop update period delay (characteristic of the SSL phase detector design) is derived. This model results in a more accurate estimation of the noise-equivalent bandwidth of the loop

Distributed Algorithms for Improving Wireless Sensor Network Lifetime with Adjustable Sensing Range

Wireless sensor networks are made up of a large number of sensors deployed randomly in an ad-hoc manner in the area/target to be monitored. Due to their weight and size limitations, the energy conservation is the most critical issue. Energy saving in a wireless sensor network can be achieved by scheduling a subset of sensor nodes to activate and allowing others to go into low power sleep mode, or adjusting the transmission or sensing range of wireless sensor nodes. In this thesis, we focus on improving the lifetime of wireless sensor networks using both smart scheduling and adjusting sensing ranges. Firstly, we conduct a survey on existing works in literature and then we define the sensor network lifetime problem with range assignment. We then propose two completely localized and distributed scheduling algorithms with adjustable sensing range. These algorithms are the enhancement of distributed algorithms for fixed sensing range proposed in the literature. The simulation results show that there is almost 20 percent improvement of network lifetime when compare with the previous approaches

Agricultural efficiency of rice farmers in Myanmar : a case study in selected areas

This paper try to analyze unique data set for rice producing agricultural households in some selected areas of Bago and Yangon divisions to examine the households' profit efficiency and the relationship between farm and household attributes and profit inefficiency using a Cobb-Douglas production frontier function. The frequency distribution reveals that the mean technical inefficiency is 0.1627 with a minimum of 3 percent and maximum of 73 percent which indicates that, on average, about 16% of potential maximum output is lost owing to technical inefficiency in both studied areas. While 85% of the sample farms exhibit profit inefficiency of 20% or less, about 40% of the sample farms is found to exhibit technical inefficiency of 20% or less, indicating that among the sample farms technical inefficiency is much lower than profit inefficiency.Myanmar, Rice, Farmers, Agricultural economies, Household, Efficiency, Production frontier function

Effective Accountability Mechanisms for New York State's English Language Learners

In September 2011, the New York State Department of Education convened a School and District Accountability Think Tank to provide public input regarding the creation of a second generation educational accountability system for the State's Elementary and Secondary Education Act waiver application. The Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF) and Advocates for Children of New York (AFC) participated in the Think Tank and submitted a set of comprehensive recommendations regarding sound accountability practices for English Language Learners (ELLs). In May 2012, the U.S. Department of Education granted New York's waiver application, which included several of AALDEF's and AFC's recommendations. We believe our ELL accountability recommendations have relevance beyond the ESEA waiver, and now release this paper which sets forth key principles for a sound ELL accountability framework in New York State

Hepatitis C and Risk of Adverse Treatment Outcomes among Patients with HIV and Multidrug-resistant Tuberculosis

BACKGROUND Multidrug-resistant (MDR) tuberculosis (TB) is a public health emergency that causes substantial morbidity and mortality. Treatment of MDR-TB requires 9-24 months of second-line regimens, has poor success rates, and frequently results in harmful side effects. Hepatitis C virus (HCV) co-infection is a common comorbidity among patients with MDR-TB/HIV and contributes to acute and chronic liver conditions, potentially increasing the risk of hepatotoxicity and adverse treatment outcomes. The aim of this study was to estimate the association between HCV co-infection and adverse MDR-TB treatment outcomes among patients with MDR-TB and HIV. METHODS We conducted a retrospective cohort study among MDR-TB patients co-infected with HIV receiving clinical care from Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) in Yangon, Myanmar during 2009-2017. Eligible patients included adults aged ≥18 years who had final MDR-TB treatment outcome and HCV status documented. HCV status was determined by OraQuick® antibody test. Treatment outcome was classified as favorable (cured and treatment completed) or adverse (default, failed, died, not evaluated). RESULTS Among patients with MDR-TB and HIV (n=220), the overall treatment success rate was 65% (95%CI 59 – 71%) and 8% (95%CI 5-12%) had HCV. Co-infection with HCV was not significantly associated with adverse treatment outcome in unadjusted (OR 1.33, 95%CI 0.49 – 3.65) or adjusted analyses (aOR 1.43, 95%CI 0.50 – 4.03). CONCLUSION Whether patients with HIV/HCV co-infection require altered MDR-TB treatment regimens remains an important gap in knowledge. Additional research is needed to determine the relationship between the extent of hepatotoxicity due to HCV co-infection, interaction with second-line TB medications, and risk of poor MDR-TB treatment outcomes among patients with and without HIV

Numerical cognition in bees and other insects

The ability to perceive the number of objects has been known to exist in vertebrates for a few decades, but recent behavioral investigations have demonstrated that several invertebrate species can also be placed on the continuum of numerical abilities shared with birds, mammals, and reptiles. In this review article, we present the main experimental studies that have examined the ability of insects to use numerical information. These studies have made use of a wide range of methodologies, and for this reason it is striking that a common finding is the inability of the tested animals to discriminate numerical quantities greater than four. Furthermore, the finding that bees can not only transfer learnt numerical discrimination to novel objects, but also to novel numerosities, is strongly suggestive of a true, albeit limited, ability to count. Later in the review, we evaluate the available evidence to narrow down the possible mechanisms that the animals might be using to solve the number-based experimental tasks presented to them. We conclude by suggesting avenues of further research that take into account variables such as the animals' age and experience, as well as complementary cognitive systems such as attention and the time sense.This publication was funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and the University of Wuerzburg in the funding program Open Access Publishing. Shaowu Zhang was supported by the ARC-CoE in Vision Science