Fuelwood consumption and participation in community forestry in India

Decentralized forest management is an important policy issue in India and elsewhere. Yet there are few careful studies of the impacts of community forestry. The authors try to fill this gap by analyzing National Sample Survey data from 524 villages in five states in India. Their analysis seeks to answer two key questions: (1) Who participates in community forestry and what are the determinants of participation? (2) What is the impact of participation on household fuelwood consumption? The authors find that proximity to forests, leadership, and fuelwood dependence are significant factors in explaining village participation in community forestry. Household participation is strongly correlated with scarcity, a result that has implications for a recent policy to expand community forestry from degraded to less degraded forests. The authors'most important findings are that fuelwood consumption and participation are linked, and household participation has a significant positive impact on consumption. However, the presence of a village level forestry institution does not have a direct effect.Community Development and Empowerment,Silviculture,Housing&Human Habitats,Environmental Economics&Policies,Crops&Crop Management Systems,Forestry,Silviculture,Community Development and Empowerment,Environmental Economics&Policies,Housing&Human Habitats

Forests, biomass use, and poverty in Malawi

In this paper, the authors seek to answer three questions about poverty and forests in Malawi: (1) What is the extent of biomass available for meeting the energy needs of the poor in Malawi and how is this distributed? (2) To what extent does fuelwood scarcity affect the welfare of the poor? (3) How do households cope with scarcity? In particular, do households spend more time in fuelwood collection and less time in agriculture in response to scarcity? The authors attempt to answer these questions using household and remote-sensing data. They find that 80 percent of rural poor households in Malawi are likely to benefit from an increase in biomass per hectare in their community. Rural women respond to biomass scarcity by increasing the time they spend on fuelwood collection. But the actual decrease in consumption expenditure and increase in time in fuelwood collection are small and biomass scarcity is not associated with a reduction in agricultural labor supply.Renewable Energy,Crops&Crop Management Systems,Wildlife Resources,Climate Change,Ecosystems and Natural Habitats

HYPOTHETICAL ANALYSIS OF THE CONCEPT OF LANGHANA WITH RESPECT TO AUTOPHAGY

Langhana is the treatment part of Ayurveda highly elaborated in its scientific approach. It is the form of Apatarpana generally opted for Santarpanajanya Vyadhi. Autophagy is relatively new and incidental finding of modern medicine which is currently researched on a very large scale for its anticipated outcomes in gerontology, autoimmune diseases as well as life style disorders. The results that are expected out of Langhana and the effects of autophagic mechanisms as presented today appear to be congruent although they are explained on different platforms with diverse terminology. Hence this is an attempt to put forth few complimentary aspects of both Langhana and autophagy which needs concrete scientific validation.&nbsp

Do households gain from community-based natural resource management? An evaluation of community conservancies in Namibia

Community-based natural resource managementis an important strategy to conserve and sustainably use biodiversity and wildlife in Namibia. The authors examine the extent to which conservancies have been successful in meeting their primary goal of improving the lives of rural households. They evaluate the benefits of community conservancies in Namibia by asking three questions: Do conservancies increase household welfare? Are conservancies pro-poor? And, do participants in conservancies gain more relative to those who choose not to participate? The authors base their analyses on a 2002 survey covering seven conservancies and 1,192 households. The results suggest that community conservancies have a positive impact on household welfare. This impact is poverty-neutral in some regions and pro-poor in others. Further, welfare benefits from conservancies appear to be somewhat evenly distributed between participant and nonparticipant households.Poverty Monitoring&Analysis,Economic Theory&Research,Health Economics&Finance,Housing&Human Habitats,Decentralization,Housing&Human Habitats,VN-Acb Mis -- IFC-00535908,Poverty Monitoring&Analysis,Economic Theory&Research,Poverty Assessment

Optimal Mass Variables for Semivisible Jets

Strongly coupled hidden sector theories predict collider production of invisible, composite dark matter candidates mixed with regular hadrons in the form of semivisible jets. Classical mass reconstruction techniques may not be optimal for these unusual topologies, in which the missing transverse momentum comes from massive particles and has a nontrivial relationship to the visible jet momentum. We apply the artificial event variable network, a semisupervised, interpretable machine learning technique that uses an information bottleneck, to derive superior mass reconstruction functions for several cases of resonant semivisible jet production. We demonstrate that the technique can extrapolate to unknown signal model parameter values. We further demonstrate the viability of conducting an actual search for new physics using this method, by applying the learned functions to standard model background events from quantum chromodynamics.Comment: To be submitted to SciPost Phy

A Methodology for Afterburner Evaluation

A preliminary investigation of the performance of an afterburner module proposed by the Gas Turbine Research Establishment, Bangalore for the Kaveri engine has been carried out. The investigation, which was both theoretical and experimental, evaluated the af-terburner configuration on the basis of flame stability, combustion efficiency and total pressure loss. An evaluation methodology, which was formulated, has been employed to arrive at design modifications for improved performance

USCID fourth international conference

Presented at the Role of irrigation and drainage in a sustainable future: USCID fourth international conference on irrigation and drainage on October 3-6, 2007 in Sacramento, California.Includes bibliographical references.The performance of an executed subsurface drainage system was evaluated under unsteady flow conditions. The impulse-response relation has been studied for two different conditions of drain spacings, namely, the executed drain spacing based on steady state flow conditions and the drain spacing proposed on unsteady state flow conditions, incorporating the effects of drainable porosity. It is found rational to use the "Dezeeuw-Hellinga model" for prediction of impulse response relations in terms of temporal water table fluctuations against rainfall — recharge under unsteady state flow conditions. The responses of a sub-surface drainage system for the impulse of incessant rainfall have been studied. The values of calculated drain spacings varied from 11 to 15 m. However, due to economic conditions, the practical drain spacings of the layout have been fixed at wider value of 35m and 55m. It is found that the drain spacings adopted for unsteady state flow conditions might have resulted in a better performance of the drains compared to steady state drain spacing as depicted by Dezeeuw-Hellinga model run. The drainable porosity being the vital parameter in an unsteady state equation, the Dezeeuw-Hellinga model was also used for varying levels of drainable porosity under given drain spacing conditions. Generally, the reference drainable porosity value is taken as 10 per cent for most of the drainage studies and the influence on drain outflows were compared for an increased value of 20 per cent and decreased value of 5 per cent, since the drainable porosity value in the study area varied from 5 to 20 per cent. It was found that the change in drainable porosity significantly influence the drain performance as depicted by Dezeeuw-Hellinga model run over all the standard week of year. The executed sub-surface drainage system has been found satisfactory in bringing down the soil salinity levels to desirable limits below 4 dSm-1. The executed sub-surface drainage system has also resulted in appreciable crop productivity improvements in the locality