Mapping the variability of soil quality indicators in natural versus agricultural ecosystems

Traditionally, Kentucky agriculture has focused on crop production and soil fertility while overlooking soil quality and its dependence on land management type. This research attempted to reveal the importance of land management types and their individual effects on physical soil quality indicators. The second objective of this study was to show the variance of physical soil quality indicators across different land managements by using layered maps. Such visual representation of the data along with statistical analysis also showed which soil quality parameters are more sensitive to change in land management type. Land management types included three undisturbed grassland and undisturbed deciduous woodland fields to represent natural ecosystems, and three conventionally tilled and no-till agriculture fields to represent ecosystems. The study was conducted in silt loam soils in Lyons and Trigg counties of South Western Kentucky. Averaged soil data for individual soil parameters were mapped out for each field as vector polygons in ArcGIS. Elevation and watershed raster data layers were also added to show the relationship between soil parameters, topography, and watershed. The results showed that soil organic matter, aggregate percentage, and compaction were more sensitive indicators than macroporosity, bulk density or water holding capacity. The results also showed that natural land management types had healthier soils overall and more variability between individual fields

Forum

Non

An Empirical Analysis of Agricultural Production: The Sway of Economic Growth in Nigeria

The study examined the impact of agricultural output on economic growth in Nigeria from 1985 to 2015 The econometrics methods of Ordinary Least Squares Cointegration and Granger causality test were employed as the main analytical techniques The Co-integration results revealed that there exists a long-run relationship between the variables The short run regression result revealed that Commercial Banks credit to the agricultural sector and the interest rate has a significant relationship with economic growth in Nigeria during the period of study While agricultural output has no significant relationship with economic growth in Nigeria during the studied period The study therefore concluded that suitable or effective agricultural output enhancement policy should be put in place by the government There should be appropriate interest rate policies that would bring about the stability of the economy and economic growth Without agricultural produce to keep the people alive as well as lubricating our machines with agricultural oil there can be no growth Everything is sustained by agriculture and without it there shall be no true living Also conscious efforts should be made by the monetary authorities with the emphasis on funding agriculture in order to increase economic growth in Nigeria This can be achieved if the government avoids mismanagement and diversifies the econom

ANTS:Articulated Nested Telescoping Simulation

This paper addresses the problem of scale in simulations by investigating a novel kind of interactive simulation system which can be run on desktop machines. In this system, data is represented at various levels of abstraction. The system is navigated in such a way that the data can be viewed and modified at each of those levels. However, at deeper levels in the model, only a subset of the total system is represented in detail. This subset is generated, as the user moves down a level, out of aggregates in the level above and compressed into aggregates, when the user moves up a level. Simulation rules are applied to each level of the simulation in a modular manner, independent of the level of the simulation. This system is found to increase efficiency dramatically, since only a subset of the data is represented in detail. A certain amount of data loss inevitably occurs as a result of data compression. The system is therefore only appropriate in those cases where data precision is not of paramount importance. An interface was designed by means of the PICTIVE participatory design technique. A subset of this interface design was implemented. It was then evaluated using the constructive interaction method and was found to be generally intuitive and user friendly

Honoring the Legacy: an Exhibition of Works Presented by ART CART: SAVING THE LEGACY

The story of ART CART: SAVING THE LEGACY is one of tenacity, resilience and positive aging where art, education, health, and aging intersect to provide a model for society (www.artsandcultureresearch.org/artcart ). In the mid-2000s the Research Center for Arts and Culture (RCAC) conducted the only research on professional visual artists age 62 and over in the New York City metro area. ABOVE GROUND1 found that 61% of professional visual artists age 62+ have made no preparation for their work after their death; 95% have not archived their work; 97% have no estate plan; 3 out of every 4 artists have no will and 1 in 5 have no documentation of their work at all.2 Yet, in many respects they are a model for society, maintaining strong social networks and an astonishing resilience as they age. ART CART is a response to this research, begun by six women faculty in higher education from the arts, education, health and aging. We all valued interdisciplinary, inter-generational education and saw too little of it in our practice. We saw advantages for our students to gain a grounding in both creativity and aging, learn basic health prevention principles, and take these lessons back to a variety of disciplines from social work and occupational therapy to art education, art history, arts administration, museum studies, art therapy, oral history, and dance education. We saw a model of experiential learning where students could put what they learned into immediate practice. For artists, we saw a way to keep their work from their greatest fear: the dumpster. We saw a mechanism to help them get organized, urge them to sign, date, and document their work, archive their digital records at Columbia University, obtain wills and estate plans,3 while participating fully in an inter-generational team where an artist, an artist-selected working partner and student fellows worked together towards the same goals. ART CART began with six artists and twelve students at Columbia University in 2010. By 2016, it operates both in New York City and Washington, DC, with 18 artists and 18 fellows. Alumni artists post-ART CART have secured lifetime achievement awards, grants, studio space, sales, gallery representation, exhibitions and a rejuvenated appreciation of their work across generations. And they are still documenting their work

Mary Miss: Catalog of Works and Images

Mary Miss has reshaped the boundaries between sculpture, architecture, landscape design, and installation art by articulating a vision of the public sphere where it is possible for an artist to address the issues of our time.  She has developed the "City as Living Lab", a framework for making issues of sustainability tangible through collaboration and the arts, with Marda Kirn of EcoArts Connections. Trained as a sculptor, her work creates situations emphasizing a site’s history, its ecology, or aspects of the environment that have gone unnoticed.  Mary Miss has collaborated closely with architects, planners, engineers, ecologists, and public administrators on projects as diverse as creating a temporary memorial around the perimeter of Ground Zero, marking the predicted flood level of Boulder, Colorado, revealing the history of the Union Square Subway station in New York City or turning a sewage treatment plant into a public space. Recent projects include an installation focused on water resources in China for the Olympic Park in Beijing and a temporary installation at a seventeenth-century park in Delhi, India as part of the exhibition 49°: Public Art and Ecology.  A proposal for a permanent project at the North Carolina Museum of Art explores the presence and movement of water through the site by recovering and revitalizing elements of the watershed to reveal the wetland processes in the region.  A recipient of multiple awards, Mary Miss has been the subject of exhibitions at the Harvard University Art Museum, Brown University Gallery, The Institute of Contemporary Art in London, the Architectural Association in London, Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design, and the Des Moines Art Center.  Among others, her work has been included in the exhibitions: Decoys, Complexes and Triggers at the Sculpture Center in New York, Weather Report: Art and Climate Change curated by Lucy Lippard, co-presented by the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art and EcoArts Connections, More Than Minimal: Feminism and Abstraction in the 70’s, Brandeis Museum’s Rose Art Museum, and Century City: Art and Culture in the Modern Metropolis at the Tate Modern. Types of work include: sculpture. landscape design, installation

Forum

Non

Evaluation of Physical Soil Quality Indicators in Natural vs Agricultural Ecosystems

Soil quality indicators are generally used to evaluate sustainable land management in agroecosystems. The objective of this research was to evaluate the physical soil quality indicators, including water holding capacity (WHC), macroporosity, bulk density and soil compaction under two natural and two agricultural ecosystems. The study was conducted in silt loam soils in Lyons and Trigg Counties of South Western KY. Natural ecosystems included undisturbed grasslands and undisturbed deciduous woodlands while agricultural ecosystems included conventional tilled agriculture soils and no-till agriculture soils. Agricultural soils were cultivated in a corn, soy, wheat, tobacco rotation. Subsoil compaction was measured with a penetrometer. Undisturbed soil cores were sampled from topsoil at 0 - 7.5 cm and 15 – 21 cm deep to measure bulk density, macroporosity and WHC. The data was statistically measured using ANOVA single factor at α 5%. The results indicated that the range of WHC was 36.8 to 40.8%. The range of macroporosity was 34.6% to 37.5%. The range of bulk density was 1.26 to 1.74 g/cm3, with the highest average measurement observed in grasslands and the lowest in no-till systems. Subsoil compaction was between 121 to 230 psi with the highest compaction detected in conventional tilled systems and the lowest in grassland. Overall, natural ecosystems showed significantly lower compaction and higher variation across the fields compared to agricultural ecosystems; and conventionally tilled soils suffer from significantly higher soil compaction. There was no significant difference in WHC. These findings reveal that bulk density and soil compaction are more sensitive indicators than water holding capacity and macro porosity. Keywords: Bulk density, compaction, macroporosity, silt loam, water holding capacity, soil ecosystems, soil quality, soil indicators, tillage, no-til