Global Retail Chains, International Trade and Developing Country Farmers:Evidence from Madagascar.

Global retail companies (“supermarkets”) have an increasing influence on developing countries, through foreign investments and/or through the imposition of their private standards. The impact on developing countries and poverty is often assessed as negative. In this paper we show the opposite, based on an analysis of primary data collected to measure the impact of supermarkets on small contract farmers in Madagascar, one of the poorest countries in the world. Almost 10,000 farmers in the Highlands of Madagascar produce vegetables for supermarkets in Europe. In this global supply chain, small farmers’ micro-contracts are combined with extensive farm assistance and supervision programs to fulfill complex quality requirements and phyto-sanitary standards of supermarkets. Small farmers that participate in these contracts have higher welfare, more income stability and shorter lean periods. We also find significant effects on improved technology adoption, better resource management and spillovers on the productivity of the staple crop rice. The small but emerging modern retail sector in Madagascar does not (yet) deliver these benefits as they do not (yet) request the same high standards for their supplies.

Heavy oil production with energy effective steam-assisted gravity drainage

In reservoirs with extra heavy oil and bitumen, thermal methods are used to reduce the viscosity, in order to extract the oil. Steam-assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) is a thermal method where continuous steam injection is used. In this method, two horizontal wells are placed in parallel. The upper well injects steam and the lower well produces oil and condensed water. The continuous steam injection creates a chamber with uniform temperature. Heavy oil and bitumen reserves in Western Canada, which exceed 175 billion barrels, are becoming increasingly important petroleum sources due to the technical success of the SAGD processes. This study includes Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modelling and simulations of a horizontal oil well with SAGD. The simulations are performed with inflow control devices (ICD) and autonomous inflow control valves (AICV) completion. In the SAGD processes, it is important that the residence time for steam in the reservoir is high enough to ensure that all the injected steam condenses in the reservoir to reduce the amount of steam injection and thereby making the SAGD process more energy effective. The simulations are carried out with ICD completion to delay the steam breakthrough and with AICV completion to prevent breakthrough of steam and water to the well. The numerical results showed that a most of the steam was produced together with the oil when ICD completion was used. AICV was able to close for steam and water, and the steam was thereby forced to condense in the reservoir, resulting in better utilization of the condensation energy

Drivers for change in primary care of diabetes following a protected learning time educational event: interview study of practitioners

Background: A number of protected learning time schemes have been set up in primary care across the United Kingdom but there has been little published evidence of their impact on processes of care. We undertook a qualitative study to investigate the perceptions of practitioners involved in a specific educational intervention in diabetes as part of a protected learning time scheme for primary health care teams, relating to changing processes of diabetes care in general practice. Methods: We undertook semistructured interviews of key informants from a sample of practices stratified according to the extent they had changed behaviour in prescribing of ramipril and diabetes care more generally, following a specific educational intervention in Lincolnshire, United Kingdom. Interviews sought information on facilitators and barriers to change in organisational behaviour for the care of diabetes. Results: An interprofessional protected learning time scheme event was perceived by some but not all participants as bringing about changes in processes for diabetes care. Participants cited examples of change introduced partly as a result of the educational session. This included using ACE inhibitors as first line for patients with diabetes who developed hypertension, increased use of aspirin, switching patients to glitazones, and conversion to insulin either directly or by referral to secondary care. Other reported factors for change, unrelated to the educational intervention, included financially driven performance targets, research evidence and national guidance. Facilitators for change linked to the educational session were peer support and teamworking supported by audit and comparative feedback. Conclusion: This study has shown how a protected learning time scheme, using interprofessional learning, local opinion leaders and early implementers as change agents may have influenced changes in systems of diabetes care in selected practices but also how other confounding factors played an important part in changes that occurred in practice

Digital compression algorithms for HDTV transmission

Digital compression of video images is a possible avenue for high definition television (HDTV) transmission. Compression needs to be optimized while picture quality remains high. Two techniques for compression the digital images are explained and comparisons are drawn between the human vision system and artificial compression techniques. Suggestions for improving compression algorithms through the use of neural and analog circuitry are given

Extractable nitrogen and microbial community structure respond to grassland restoration regardless of historical context and soil composition.

Grasslands have a long history of invasion by exotic annuals, which may alter microbial communities and nutrient cycling through changes in litter quality and biomass turnover rates. We compared plant community composition, soil chemical and microbial community composition, potential soil respiration and nitrogen (N) turnover rates between invaded and restored plots in inland and coastal grasslands. Restoration increased microbial biomass and fungal : bacterial (F : B) ratios, but sampling season had a greater influence on the F : B ratio than did restoration. Microbial community composition assessed by phospholipid fatty acid was altered by restoration, but also varied by season and by site. Total soil carbon (C) and N and potential soil respiration did not differ between treatments, but N mineralization decreased while extractable nitrate and nitrification and N immobilization rate increased in restored compared with unrestored sites. The differences in soil chemistry and microbial community composition between unrestored and restored sites indicate that these soils are responsive, and therefore not resistant to feedbacks caused by changes in vegetation type. The resilience, or recovery, of these soils is difficult to assess in the absence of uninvaded control grasslands. However, the rapid changes in microbial and N cycling characteristics following removal of invasives in both grassland sites suggest that the soils are resilient to invasion. The lack of change in total C and N pools may provide a buffer that promotes resilience of labile pools and microbial community structure

Electronic and optical properties in non-uniformly shaped QDashes

We theoretically study the optical properties and the electronic structure of highly elongated quantum dots (quantum dashes) and show how carrier trapping due to geometrical fluctuations of the confining potential affects the excitonic spectrum of the system. We focus on the study of the optical properties of a single exciton confined in the structure. The dependence of the absorption and emission intensities on the geometrical properties (depth and position) of the trapping center of a quantum dash is analyzed and the dependence of the degree of linear polarization on these geometrical parameters is studied in detail.Comment: 17 pages, 9 figure

Data quality predicts care quality: findings from a national clinical audit

Background: Missing clinical outcome data are a common occurrence in longitudinal studies. Data quality in clinical audit is a particular cause for concern. The relationship between departmental levels of missing clinical outcome data and care quality is not known. We hypothesise that completeness of key outcome data in a national audit predicts departmental performance. Methods: The National Clinical Audit for Rheumatoid and Early Inflammatory Arthritis (NCAREIA) collected data on care of patients with suspected rheumatoid arthritis (RA) from early 2014 to late 2015. This observational cohort study collected data on patient demographics, departmental variables, service quality measures including time to treatment, and the key RA clinical outcome measure, disease activity at baseline, and 3 months follow-up. A mixed effects model was conducted to identify departments with high/low proportions of missing baseline disease activity data with the results plotted on a caterpillar graph. A mixed effects model was conducted to assess if missing baseline disease activity predicted prompt treatment. Results: Six thousand two hundred five patients with complete treatment time data and a diagnosis of RA were recruited from 136 departments. 34.3% had missing disease activity at baseline. Mixed effects modelling identified 13 departments with high levels of missing disease activity, with a cluster observed in the Northwest of England. Missing baseline disease activity was associated with not commencing treatment promptly in an adjusted mix effects model, odds ratio 0.50 (95% CI 0.41 to 0.61, p < 0.0001). Conclusions: We have shown that poor engagement in a national audit program correlates with the quality of care provided. Our findings support the use of data completeness as an additional service quality indicator

What is the potential for biogas digesters to improve soil fertility and crop production in Sub-Saharan Africa?

Acknowledgements We are very grateful to the UK Department for International Development (DFID) New and Emerging Technologies Research Call for funding this work. PS is a Royal Society-Wolfson Research Merit Award holder.Peer reviewedPostprin

Can biogas digesters help to reduce deforestation in Africa?

Acknowledgements The authors are grateful for financial support for this work in part from the UK Department for International Development (DFID) New and Emerging Technologies Research Call, and in part from the EU under the REDD-ALERT (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation from Alternative Land Uses in Rainforests of the Tropics) project, Grant agreement number 226310. The authors thank Dr Hoang Viet Anh, Dr Suyanto and Mr. Gamma Galudra for their input on the manuscript.Peer reviewedPostprin

The sound of concepts: The link between auditory and conceptual brain systems

Concepts in long-term memory are important building blocks of human cognition and are the basis for object recognition, language and thought. While it is well accepted that concepts are comprised of features related to sensory object attributes, it is still unclear how these features are represented in the brain. Of central interest is whether concepts are essentially grounded in perception. This would imply a common neuroanatomical substrate for perceptual and conceptual processing. Here we show using functional magnetic resonance imaging and recordings of event-related potentials that acoustic conceptual features rapidly recruit auditory areas even when implicitly presented through visual words. Recognizing words denoting objects for which acoustic features are highly relevant (e.g. &#x22;telephone&#x22;) suffices to ignite cell assemblies in the posterior superior and middle temporal gyrus (pSTG/MTG) that were also activated by listening to real sounds. Activity in pSTG/MTG had an onset of 150 ms and increased parametrically as a function of acoustic feature relevance. Both findings suggest a conceptual origin of this effect rather than post-conceptual strategies such as imagery. The presently demonstrated link between auditory and conceptual brain systems parallels observations in other memory systems suggesting that modality-specificity represents a general organizational principle in cortical memory representation. The understanding of concepts as a partial reinstatement of brain activity during perception stresses the necessity of rich sensory experiences for concept acquisition. The modality-specific nature of concepts could also explain the difficulties in achieving a consensus about overall definitions of abstract concepts such as freedom or justice unless embedded in a concrete, experienced situation