Ecohydrological Modeling in Agroecosystems: Examples and Challenges

Human societies are increasingly altering the water and biogeochemical cycles to both improve ecosystem productivity and reduce risks associated with the unpredictable variability of climatic drivers. These alterations, however, often cause large negative environmental consequences, raising the question as to how societies can ensure a sustainable use of natural resources for the future. Here we discuss how ecohydrological modeling may address these broad questions with special attention to agroecosystems. The challenges related to modeling the two‐way interaction between society and environment are illustrated by means of a dynamical model in which soil and water quality supports the growth of human society but is also degraded by excessive pressure, leading to critical transitions and sustained societal growth‐collapse cycles. We then focus on the coupled dynamics of soil water and solutes (nutrients or contaminants), emphasizing the modeling challenges, presented by the strong nonlinearities in the soil and plant system and the unpredictable hydroclimatic forcing, that need to be overcome to quantitatively analyze problems of soil water sustainability in both natural and agricultural ecosystems. We discuss applications of this framework to problems of irrigation, soil salinization, and fertilization and emphasize how optimal solutions for large‐scale, long‐term planning of soil and water resources in agroecosystems under uncertainty could be provided by methods from stochastic control, informed by physically and mathematically sound descriptions of ecohydrological and biogeochemical interactions

Studi Kualitas (Quality Assurance) Pemeriksaan Mikroskopis Malaria Di Pulau Sumba Tahun 2009

Malaria diketahui sebagai masalah kesehatan masyarakat yang sudah lama terjadi di Pulau Sumba Provinsi Nusa Tenggara Timur yang diukur sebagian besar melalui diagnosa klinis dan hanya sebagian kecil yang didiagnosa berdasarkan hasil pemeriksaan mikrokospik. Tujuan dari penelitian ini adalah untuk mengevaluasi system manajemen SOP (Standard Operational Procedure) dan kualitas diagnosa berdasarkan pemeriksaan mikroskopik. Peneltiian ini menggunakan disain kros seksional yang berlokasi di 8 Puskesmas di Pulau Sumba selama periode waktu Mei sampai dengan November 2009. Jumlah sample adalah sebanyak 400 sampel darah. Pemeriksaan mikroskopik dilakukan dengan mengukur reliabilitas diagnosa di Puskesmas dengan pemeriksaan di Badan Litbangkes sebagi ‘gold standard\u27. Pemeriksaan dilakukan berdasarkan ketersediaan peralatan, reagensia dan ketrampilan dari pembacaan mikrokospik. Hasil dari penelitian ini menunjukkan bahwa kemampuan delapan Puskesmas di Pulau Sumba dalam melakukan diagnosa mikroskopik malaria menunjukkan nilai sensitifitas, spesifisitas dan akurasi yang kurang dari 80%

Gambaran Rabies dan Upaya Pengendalian di Kabupaten Ngada Provinsi Nusa Tenggara Timur (NTT)

. Rabies is still problem for world health including Indonesia. Rabies in Indonesia come to be a serious health problem in community because always almost fatal after symptom clinikal of a disease with level death till 100%. Since 2004 till December 2009 rabies spreading scattered at 24 Provinsi. Provinsi East Nusa Tenggara specially Flores island quantity case from the bite of a mad dog is 16.000 case on year. Flores was preveously and isolated rabies- free. It stared with the importation of three dogs from rabies endemic Sulawesi in September of 1997. 3 year since first dogs bite in Larantuka aerth Flores and had been state that sample of dogs head, which dilivered to Balai Besar veterinary Maros,was positif infected by rabies. Rabies has spread troughout Flores island. Rabies has long been known as one of the major public health problems in Ngada district, East Nusa Tenggara. Type of this study is cross sectional. The aim of this study is to know description distribution rabies case and to effort controlling rabies thougth the govenment programs. The result of this study showed the improvement of the last five years (2004 until August 2008) occurrence of dog bite cases highest 79 cases (53.74 %) in community health centers Watumanu and human deaths in community health centers Koeloda and Kota respectively 1 cases and population dog higghest in Riung subdistric 4599 (35.51%) althought coverage immunization very low 2523 (10.77%) from number of populasi 6210. Median dog bite cases on Juli. Key word : distribution, rabies case, controlling Abstrak. Rabies masih merupakan masalah kesehatan dunia termasuk juga Indonesia. Di Indonesia merupakan masalah kesehatan masyarakat yang sangat serius karena hampir selalu menyebabkan kematian setelah timbul gejala klinis dengan tingkat kematian mencapai 100%. Sejak tahun 2004 hingga Desember 2009 rabies telah menyebar pada 24 propinsi. Propinsi Nusa Tenggara Timur (NTT) khususnya pulau Flores jumlah kasus gigitan anjing gila sebanyak 1600 setiap tahunnya. Flores tergolong daerah bebas rabies. Berawal dari masuknya 3 ekor anjing yang dibawa dari Sulawesi yang merupakan daerah endemis rabies, pada September 1997. Kasus rabies pertama kali terjadi di Larantuka, ibu kota kabupaten Flores Timur pada tahun 1997. Setelah 3 (tiga) tahun dari kasus gigitan pertama dan dinyatakan positif rabies oleh Balai Besar Veteriner Maros,dari sampel kepala anjing yang dikirim, rabies sudah menyebar keseluruh kabupaten di pulau Flores. Rabies sudah lama menjadi masalah utama kesehatan masyarakat kabupaten Ngada. Tujuan penelitian untuk mengetahui gambaran penyebaran kasus rabies dan upaya pengendalian rabies melalui program pemerintah. Jenis penelitian cross sectional. Hasil penelitian menunjukan perkembangan 5 tahun terakhir (2004 sampai Agustus 2008) kejadian kasus gigitan cukup tinggi terdapat 79 kasus (53,74%) di puskesmas Watumanu dan kasus meninggal di puskesmas Koeloda dan Kota masing-masing 1 kasus dan populasi anjing tertinggi di kecamatan Riung 4599 ekor (35,51%) sedangakan cakupan imunisasi terendah 2523 ekor ( 10,77%) dari jumlah populasi 6210 ekor. Median kasus gigitan pada bulan Juli. Kata Kunci: gambaran, kasus rabies, pengendalia

Pemetaan Daerah Penyebaran Kasus Rabies Dengan Metode Gis (Geographical Informasion System) Di Kabupaten Sikka Provinsi Nusa Tenggara Timur

.Rabies has become an important public health concern in countries in Asia and Afrika. Rabies isstill problem for world health including Indonesia.Rabies in Indonesia to be series problem healthcommunity because always almost fatal after symptom clinical of a disease with level death untill100%. Provinsi East Nusa Tenggara quantity case from the bite of a mad dog is 16.000 case oneyear. The aim of this research is to analyze the epidemiological spatial pattern of rabies in Sikkadistrict in 2010 using Geographical Information System (GIS) in case mapping the distribute areato be as information in planning prevention and eliminasi rabies Sikka district. Tipe of research iscross sectional using Geographical Information Sistem approach which is able to visualize,excess, sort, and the data spatial. The population is the whole cases of rabies in register of district health office and register community health centers at Sikka district. Sample is the wholefill the conditioan was 135 rabies patient. The analysis of the spatial pattern showed stratificationspreading rabies case can be devided in 3 cluster. Centers dot cluster I in coordinate 8,622296 LS122,215432 BT with radius 1,48 Km. Quantity dot case 58 (42,96%). Centres dot cluster II incoordinate 8,699204 LS 122,31267313 with radius 13,25 Km.Quantity dot case 41 (30,37%) andcenters dot cluster III in coordinate 8,681881 LS 122,167690 BT. Quantitydot case 36 (26,66% ).Specification cluster used Satcan v7.0.2 witth analysis space time permutation. Radius of casewith community health centers to have been divided in 3 zone buffer. Zone buffer 1. The distance2 Km subdistrict Alok, zone buffer 2 the distance 4 Km subdistrict Kewapante also Nita and zonebuffer 3 the distance 8 Km subdistrict Kangae

Ultrahigh sensitivity of slow-light gyroscope

Slow light generated by Electromagnetically Induced Transparency is extremely susceptible with respect to Doppler detuning. Consequently, slow-light gyroscopes should have ultrahigh sensitivity

Tingkat Ketahanan Klon Potensial Ubi Jalar Lokal Asal NTT Terhadap Hama Lanas (Cylas Formicarius Fab.)

A laboratory experiment was carried out to evaluate the potential sweetpotato clones from NTT for the following objectives: 1) to determine resistance level of the clones to sweetpotato weevil (SPW), 2) to investitage the effect of genotype by tuber production site interaction on SPW-resistance level, 3) to identify SPW-resistant clones. Sweetpotato roots employed in the experiment were obtained from two production sites in the fields. The experiment was laid out in a Completely Randomized Design with a factorial treatment of two factors: sweetpotato genotype (10 clones) and root production sites (two sites). Experimental unit was replicated three times. Variables observed included percentage of SPW-injured root, severity of root injury, number of larva, pupae and imago, and root morphological characters. Quantitative data were subjected to analysis of variance while qualititave data were descriptively analyzed. Results of the study revealed significant interaction effect of genotype by tuber production site on severity of root injury and number of larva+pupae+imago. NBN-01 and NPL-02 produced the lowest (4.50%) and the greatest (67.03%) severity of root injury. NBN-01 was classified “resistant” and NPL-02 was “susceptible” while the remaining eight clones/check varieties were “moderately resistant” to SPW

Light Rays at Optical Black Holes in Moving Media

Light experiences a non-uniformly moving medium as an effective gravitational field, endowed with an effective metric tensor $\tilde{g}^{\mu \nu}=\eta^{\mu \nu}+(n^2-1)u^\mu u^\nu$, $n$ being the refractive index and $u^\mu$ the four-velocity of the medium. Leonhardt and Piwnicki [Phys. Rev. A {\bf 60}, 4301 (1999)] argued that a flowing dielectric fluid of this kind can be used to generate an 'optical black hole'. In the Leonhardt-Piwnicki model, only a vortex flow was considered. It was later pointed out by Visser [Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 85}, 5252 (2000)] that in order to form a proper optical black hole containing an event horizon, it becomes necessary to add an inward radial velocity component to the vortex flow. In the present paper we undertake this task: we consider a full spiral flow, consisting of a vortex component plus a radially infalling component. Light propagates in such a dielectric medium in a way similar to that occurring around a rotating black hole. We calculate, and show graphically, the effective potential versus the radial distance from the vortex singularity, and show that the spiral flow can always capture light in both a positive, and a negative, inverse impact parameter interval. The existence of a genuine event horizon is found to depend on the strength of the radial flow, relative to the strength of the azimuthal flow. A limitation of our fluid model is that it is nondispersive.Comment: 30 pages, LaTeX, 4 ps figures. Expanded discussion especially in section 6; 5 new references. Version to appear in Phys. Rev.

Two-pion-exchange contributions to the pp\to pp\pi^0 reaction

Our previous study of the near-threshold pp\to pp\pi^0 reaction based on a hybrid nuclear effective field theory is further elaborated by examining the momentum dependence of the relevant transition operators. We show that the two-pion exchange diagrams give much larger contributions than the one-pion exchange diagram, even though the former is of higher order in the Weinberg counting scheme. The relation between our results and an alternative counting scheme, the momentum counting scheme, is also discussed.Comment: 11 pages, minor change, a few references are adde

Growth and Yield Stability of Sweet Potato Clones Across Four Locations in East Nusa Tenggara

A number of promising sweet potato clones from East Nusa Tenggara and a checked cultivar were evaluated in several locations for the following objectives: 1) to elucidate genotype by environment effect on growth and yield of the sweet potato clones, and 2) to determine growth and yield stability of the clones across diverse locations in East Nusa Tenggara province. The study was carried out in four locations and was laid out in a Randomized Block Design consisting of 10 sweet potato genotypes as treatments and two replicates. Obtained data were subjected to combined analysis of variance to determine GxE interaction, followed by stability analysis based on joint regression model of Eberhart and Russell. Research results revealed that genotypes, locations and genotype by location interaction posed significant effect on the observed variables. Most of the evaluated clones were unstable for vegetative growth characters but were stable for tuber yield and yield components. The local clone LB-01 produced the highest mean tuber yield over all locations, averaging at 4.15 kg.plant-1 (~ 46.11 t.ha-1). Two local clones, i.e. ON-06 and LB-01, and the check cultivar Kidal were the most stable clones for tuber yield and yield components across diverse environments