Productive water uses at household level in rural Kenya: case study of the Ukambani district

As a result of the growing world population and enhanced by the rising of living standards, competition for water is growing and this causes increased pressure on water resources worldwide. This tendency gave rise to the development of the integrated water resources management approach (IWRM), acknowledging the need to manage water resources in a holistic and integrated way. The IWRM objective to optimize economic, social and environmental outcomes of water management, can however only be reached if impact of water uses is correctly assessed. Nevertheless, often multiple uses of water within sectors are insufficiently recognized in planning and management. One of these neglected uses is the productive water use by households. Nonetheless, this use is extremely important to the livelihood of the poor, especially in the vast semi-arid rural areas of the developing world. An adequate evaluation of this use will not only help to improve outcome of water management, but will also add to the goal of poverty reduction. In this study, the role of productive water use for the rural community of the Ukambani district in Kenya was monitored, thereby focusing on income contributions and improvements in nutritional status

VICE: Variational Interpretable Concept Embeddings

A central goal in the cognitive sciences is the development of numerical models for mental representations of object concepts. This paper introduces Variational Interpretable Concept Embeddings (VICE), an approximate Bayesian method for embedding object concepts in a vector space using data collected from humans in an odd-one-out triplet task. VICE uses variational inference to obtain sparse, non-negative representations of object concepts with uncertainty estimates for the embedding values. These estimates are used to automatically select the dimensions that best explain the data. We derive a PAC learning bound for VICE that can be used to estimate generalization performance or determine sufficient sample size in experimental design. VICE rivals or outperforms its predecessor, SPoSE, at predicting human behavior in the odd-one-out triplet task. Furthermore, VICE's object representations are more reproducible and consistent across random initializations

Coherent Pion Radiation From Nucleon Antinucleon Annihilation

A unified picture of nucleon antinucleon annihilation into pions emerges from a classical description of the pion wave produced in annihilation and the subsequent quantization of that wave as a coherent state. When the constraints of energy-momentum and iso-spin conservation are imposed on the coherent state, the pion number distribution and charge ratios are found to be in excellent agreement with experiment.Comment: LaTex, 8 text pages, 1 PostScript figure, PSI-PR-93-2

The Wiimote on the Playground Phys. Teach. 51, 272 (2013) Helicopter Toy and Lift Estimation Phys. Teach

The detailed design of a robust and inexpensive optical trap system is presented. The system features high-sensitivity back focal plane position detection, mechanically controlled specimen stage movement, and fluorescence imaging to provide broad experimental applications. Three educational experimental modules are described to cover basic concepts in optical trapping and biophysics at a level appropriate for undergraduate students

Non-cytotoxic 1,2,3-triazole tethered fused heterocyclic ring derivatives display Tax protein inhibition and impair HTLV-1 infected cells

Human T cell lymphotropic virus type 1 (HTLV-1) is a human retrovirus that infects approximately 10–20 million people worldwide and causes an aggressive neoplasia (adult T-cell leukemia/lymphoma - ATL). Therapeutic approaches for the treatment of ATL have variable effectiveness and poor prognosis, thus requiring strategies to identify novel compounds with activity on infected cells. In this sense, we initially screened a small series of 25 1,2,3-triazole derivatives to discover cell proliferation inhibitors and apoptosis inducers in HTLV-1-infected T-cell line (MT-2) for further assessment of their effect on viral tax activity through inducible-tax reporter cell line (Jurkat LTR-GFP). Eight promising compounds (02, 05, 06, 13, 15, 21, 22 and 25) with activity ≥70% were initially selected, based on a suitable cell-based assay using resazurin reduction method, and evaluated towards cell cycle, apoptosis and Tax/GFP expression analyses through flow cytometry. Compound 02 induced S phase cell cycle arrest and compounds 05, 06, 22 and 25 promoted apoptosis. Remarkably, compounds 22 and 25 also reduced GFP expression in an inducible-tax reporter cell, which suggests an effect on Tax viral protein. More importantly, compounds 02, 22 and 25 were not cytotoxic in human hepatoma cell line (Huh-7). Therefore, the discovery of 3 active and non-cytotoxic compounds against HTLV-1-infected cells can potentially contribute, as an initial promising strategy, to the development process of new drugs against ATL

Modular fluidic propulsion robots

We propose a novel concept for modular robots, termed modular fluidic propulsion (MFP), which promises to combine effective propulsion, a large reconfiguration space, and a scalable design. MFP robots are modular fluid networks. To propel, they route fluid through themselves. In this article, both hydraulic and pneumatic implementations are considered. The robots move towards a goal by way of a decentralized controller that runs independently on each module face, uses two bits of sensory information and requires neither run-time memory, nor communication. We prove that 2-D MFP robots reach the goal when of orthogonally convex shape, or reach a morphology-dependent distance from it when of arbitrary shape. We present a 2-D hydraulic MFP prototype and show, experimentally, that it succeeds in reaching the goal in at least 90% of trials, and that 71% less energy is expended when modules can communicate. Moreover, in simulations with 3-D hydraulic MFP robots, the decentralized controller performs almost as well as a state-of-the-art and centralized controller. Given the simplicity of the hardware requirements, the MFP concept could pave the way for modular robots to be used at sub-centimeter-scale, where effective modular propulsion systems have not been demonstrated

The design of a feedback report on students' writing processes

Feedback in schrijfvaardigheidsonderwijs gaat over de kwaliteit van teksten en moet leerlingen helpen hun schrijfvaardigheid verder te ontwikkelen. Jochem Aben, Brenda van den Broek, Nina Vandermeulen, Elke van Steendam en Gert Rijlaarsdam ontwikkelden voor leerlingen in 4 en 5 vwo een feedbackrapport over hun schrijfproces, dat het schrijfgedrag van leerlingen in kaart brengt als zij op de computer een tekst schrijven op basis van bronnen. Het feedbackrapport beoogt gestuurde zelfstudie: de leerlingen worden via uitleg en toepassingsopdrachten vertrouwd gemaakt met hun schrijfprocesgegevens en aangezet tot analyse en verandering. Een test van het rapport in een kleinschalige studie wees uit dat het leerlingen inderdaad in staat stelt zelfstandig concrete acties te formuleren om hun schrijfproces te verbeteren.Feedback in schrijfvaardigheidsonderwijs gaat overde kwaliteit van teksten en moet leerlingen helpen hunschrijfvaardigheid verder te ontwikkelen. Dat zal vooreen deel betekenen dat zij hun schrijfproces andersaan moeten pakken: de betere hardloopcoach zegt zijnpupillen immers niet dát, maar hóe zij harder moetenlopen. In het voortgezet onderwijs is schrijfprocesfeedbacknog niet bekend. In die lacune proberen wijte voorzien door voor leerlingen een feedbackrapportte ontwikkelen dat over hun schrijfproces gaat: hetbeschrijft het schrijfgedrag van leerlingen als zij opde computer een tekst schrijven op basis van bronnen.We genereerden zulke rapporten voor ruim 500 leerlingenuit 4- en 5-vwo op 35 scholen. Die leerlingenschreven ieder vier teksten, zodat ze ook inzicht kregenin de mate waarin hun processen variëren over taken.Het feedbackrapport beoogt gestuurde zelfstudie: deleerlingen worden via uitleg en toepassingsopdrachtenvertrouwd gemaakt met hun schrijfprocesgegevensen aangezet tot analyse en verandering. We testten hetrapport in een kleinschalige studie met drie leerlingen.Het bleek dat het leerlingen inderdaad in staatstelt zelfstandig concrete acties te formuleren om hunschrijfproces te verbeteren