Beyond recurrent costs: an institutional analysis of the unsustainability of donor-supported reforms in agricultural extension

International donors have spent billions of dollars over the past four decades in developing and/or reforming the agricultural extension service delivery arrangements in developing countries. However, many of these reforms, supported through short-term projects, became unsustainable once aid funding had ceased. The unavailability of recurrent funding has predominantly been highlighted in the literature as the key reason for this undesirable outcome, while little has been written about institutional factors. The purpose of this article is to examine the usefulness of taking an institutional perspective in explaining the unsustainability of donor-supported extension reforms and derive lessons for improvement. Using a framework drawn from the school of institutionalism in a Bangladeshi case study, we have found that a reform becomes unsustainable because of poor demands for extension information and advice; missing, weak, incongruent, and perverse institutional frameworks governing the exchange of extension goods (services); and a lack of institutional learning and change during the reform process. Accordingly, we have argued that strategies for sustainable extension reforms should move beyond financial considerations and include such measures as making extension goods (services) more tangible and monetary in nature, commissioning in-depth studies to learn about local institutions, crafting new institutions and/or reforming the weak and perverse institutions prevailing in developing countries. We emphasize the need to address three categories of institutions – regulative, normative, and cultural-cognitive – and call for an alignment among them. We further argue that, in order to be sustainable, a reform should take a systemic approach in institutional capacity building and, for this to be possible, adopt a long-term program approach, as opposed to a short-term project approach

Modelling and characterization of cell collapse in aluminium foams during dynamic loading

Plate-impact experiments have been conducted to investigate the elastic–plastic behaviour of shock wave propagation and pore collapse mechanisms of closed-cell aluminium foams. FE modelling using a meso-scale approach has been carried out with the FE software ABAQUS/Explicit. A micro-computed tomography-based foam geometry has been developed and microstructural changes with time have been investigated to explore the effects of wave propagation. Special attention has been given to the pore collapse mechanism. The effect of velocity variations on deformation has been elucidated with three different impact conditions using the plate-impact method. Free surface velocity (ufs) was measured on the rear of the sample to understand the evolution of the compaction. At low impact velocities, the free-surface velocity increased gradually, whereas an abrupt rise of free-surface velocity was found at an impact velocity of 845 m/s with a copper flyer-plate which correlates with the appearance of shock. A good correlation was found between experimental results and FE predictions

Quality of fresh tomato fruit stored inside a solar adsorption cooling storage system as function of low pressure treatment

This paper assessed the physiological loss in weight, total color development and total soluble solids of stored fresh tomato inside solar adsorption cooling storage system. Fresh and treated tomato stored inside solar adsorption cooling storage system at the temperature range of 10°C to 12°C with an average relative humidity level of 80%. The results showed that tomato stored at ambient condition lost weight 5% after seven days of storage then 0.008 MPa treated tomato for 15 minutes, which lost 4.6% after 25 days of storage inside a solar adsorption cooling system. Soluble solids decreased slightly from 7.1% to 6.6% after 25 days storage. The skin brightness L* values of stored tomato at ambient condition increased from 46.1 to 47.9 after seven days of storage at ambient condition and tomato treated with 0.008 MPa treatment for 15 min stored inside solar adsorption cooling storage system decreased from 44.7 to 35.5 after 25 days of storage. The skin redness a* values of stored tomato at ambient condition increased from 18.8 to 20.5 after seven days of storage but tomato treated with 0.008 MPa treatment for 15 min stored inside solar adsorption cooling storage system showed a* values increased from 20.4 to 21.4 after 25 days of storage. The skin yellowness b* value of stored tomato at ambient condition decreased from 10.2 to 7.6 after seven days of storage and tomato treated with 0.008 MPa treatment for 15 min stored inside solar adsorption cooling system decreased from 8.9 to 8.6 after 25 days of storage. These results suggest that the low-cost and energy-saving solar adsorption cooling storage system with low pressure treatment method is useful to keep the fresh tomato fruit quality

Rotated stripe order and its competition with superconductivity in La1.88_{1.88}Sr0.12_{0.12}CuO4_4

We report the observation of a bulk charge modulation in La$_{1.88}$Sr$_{0.12}$CuO$_4$ (LSCO) with a characteristic in-plane wave-vector of (0.236, $\pm \delta$), with $\delta$=0.011 r.l.u. The transverse shift of the ordering wave-vector indicates the presence of rotated charge-stripe ordering, demonstrating that the charge ordering is not pinned to the Cu-O bond direction. On cooling through the superconducting transition, we find an abrupt change in the growth of the charge correlations and a suppression of the charge order parameter indicating competition between the two orderings. Orthorhombic LSCO thus helps bridge the apparent disparities between the behavior previously observed in the tetragonal "214" cuprates and the orthorhombic yttrium and bismuth-based cuprates and thus lends strong support to the idea that there is a common motif to charge order in all cuprate families.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figue

Quantum temporal correlations and entanglement via adiabatic control of vector solitons

It is shown that optical pulses with a mean position accuracy beyond the standard quantum limit can be produced by adiabatically expanding an optical vector soliton followed by classical dispersion management. The proposed scheme is also capable of entangling positions of optical pulses and can potentially be used for general continuous-variable quantum information processing.Comment: 5 pages, 1 figure, v2: accepted by Physical Review Letters, v3: minor editing and shortening, v4: included the submitted erratu

Correlation energies by the generator coordinate method: computational aspects for quadrupolar deformations

We investigate truncation schemes to reduce the computational cost of calculating correlations by the generator coordinate method based on mean-field wave functions. As our test nuclei, we take examples for which accurate calculations are available. These include a strongly deformed nucleus, 156Sm, a nucleus with strong pairing, 120Sn, the krypton isotope chain which contains examples of soft deformations, and the lead isotope chain which includes the doubly magic 208Pb. We find that the Gaussian overlap approximation for angular momentum projection is effective and reduces the computational cost by an order of magnitude. Cost savings in the deformation degrees of freedom are harder to realize. A straightforward Gaussian overlap approximation can be applied rather reliably to angular-momentum projected states based on configuration sets having the same sign deformation (prolate or oblate), but matrix elements between prolate and oblate deformations must be treated with more care. We propose a two-dimensional GOA using a triangulation procedure to treat the general case with both kinds of deformation. With the computational gains from these approximations, it should be feasible to carry out a systematic calculation of correlation energies for the nuclear mass table.Comment: 11 pages revtex, 9 eps figure

Electronic Devices Based on Purified Carbon Nanotubes Grown By High Pressure Decomposition of Carbon Monoxide

The excellent properties of transistors, wires, and sensors made from single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) make them promising candidates for use in advanced nanoelectronic systems. Gas-phase growth procedures such as the high pressure decomposition of carbon monoxide (HiPCO) method yield large quantities of small diameter semiconducting SWNTs, which are ideal for use in nanoelectronic circuits. As-grown HiPCO material, however, commonly contains a large fraction of carbonaceous impurities that degrade properties of SWNT devices. Here we demonstrate a purification, deposition, and fabrication process that yields devices consisting of metallic and semiconducting nanotubes with electronic characteristics vastly superior to those of circuits made from raw HiPCO. Source-drain current measurements on the circuits as a function of temperature and backgate voltage are used to quantify the energy gap of semiconducting nanotubes in a field effect transistor geometry. This work demonstrates significant progress towards the goal of producing complex integrated circuits from bulk-grown SWNT material.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, to appear in Nature Material

Household dynamics and small timber consumption in rural Kashmir (J&K), India

The study examined the extraction and consumption pattern of small timber and its socioeconomic and forest resource determinants among the rural people in district Ganderbal of Kashmir. The results showed that the total extraction of small timber from different sources in the sample villages was 39.46 tons annum-1, which is mostly consumed in housing and roofing (39.63%) followed by cattle shed/ store house (15.25%), rural furniture/ packing cases (14.75%), agricultural implements (13.25%), fencing (12.50%) and others (4.62%). The total small timber demand was 47.88 m3 annum-1, which is mostly procured from agroforestry (42.57%) followed by forests (26.09%), homestead forestry (17.05%) and social/ community forestry (14.29%). The people were destitute with respect to socioeconomic attributes while they are well-off regarding forest resource characteristics. Correlation and multiple regression analysis established a robust relationship between small timber consumption and socioeconomic and forest resource parameters. The small timber flow from forests to the sample villages is excessive as compared to the national estimates, creating threats to the biodiversity conservation and ecological stability of the adjoining forests. The over-utilization of forest biomass by the local people is leading to degradation of forest resources and diminished biomass productivity, which in turn induce socioeconomic and livelihood stress. Therefore, some alternative interventions are essential to be implemented efficiently to keep pace with current development and future challenges

Storage behavior of tomato inside a zero energy cool chamber

Tomato fruits were harvested at the middle-ripe stage and stored inside the “Zero energy cool chamber (ZECC)” which has a shelf-life of only about 7 days at ambient temperature (25°C). Storing tomato inside the ZECC could be a practical technique at farmer’s field to extend storage life by reducing the quality degradation. Physiological loss in weight (PLW) was faster for fruits held at ambient temperature. Weight loss during the storage at ambient temperature was 5.4%, but untreated fruits at ZECC over the same period showed at 2.6% loss. Although soluble solids increased over the storage period, there were no significant differences between ZECC and ambient temperature. However effect of hot water treatment on quality of tomatoes was clearly visible by increasing storage life up to 29 days. It reduced weight loss and decay, inhibited color development and maintained firmness of tomatoes but had no effect on total soluble solids content and pH level. Hot water treatment slightly reduced the mold growth of tomatoes stored inside ZECC