Reconciling Techno-simplicity and Eco-complexity for future food security

Ecological intensification has been proposed as a paradigm for ensuring global food security while preserving biodiversity and ecosystem integrity. Ecologicalintensification was originally coined to promote precise site-specific farming practices aimed at reducing yield gaps, while avoiding negative environmental impacts (techno-simplicity). Recently, it has been extended to stress the importance of landscape complexity to preserve biodiversity and ecosystem services (eco-complexity). While these perspectives on ecological intensification may seem distinct, they are not incompatible and should be interwoven to create more comprehensive and practical solutions. Here, we argue that designing cropping systems to be more diverse, across space and time would be an effective route to accomplish environmentally-friendly intensification of crop production. Such a novel approach will require better integration of knowledge at the landscape level for increasing agro-biodiversity(focused on interventions outside fields) with strategies diversifying croppingsystems to manage weeds and pests (focused on interventions inside fields).Fil: Poggio, Santiago Luis. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Parque Centenario. Instituto de Investigaciones Fisiológicas y Ecológicas Vinculadas a la Agricultura. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Agronomía. Instituto de Investigaciones Fisiológicas y Ecológicas Vinculadas a la Agricultura; Argentina. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Agronomía. Departamento de Producción Vegetal. Cátedra de Producción Vegetal; ArgentinaFil: Macfadyen, Sarina. CSIRO; AustraliaFil: Bohan, David A.. Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique; Franci

Building Stronger Nonprofits Through Better Financial Management: Early Efforts in 26 Youth-Serving Organizations

Outlines the Financial Management in Out-of-School Time initiative to improve nonprofits' long-term financial management capacity and reform funding practices that weaken it, challenges participating nonprofits faced, progress to date, and early lessons

Dynamics of a structured slug population model in the absence of seasonal variation

We develop a novel, nonlinear structured population model for the slug Deroceras reticulatum, a highly significant agricultural pest of great economic impact, in both organic and non-organic settings. In the absence of seasonal variations, we numerically explore the effect of life history traits that are dependent on an individual's size and measures of population biomass. We conduct a systematic exploration of parameter space and highlight the main mechanisms and implications of model design. A major conclusion of this work is that strong size dependent predation significantly adjusts the competitive balance, leading to non-monotonic steady state solutions and slowly decaying transients consisting of distinct generational cycles. Furthermore, we demonstrate how a simple ratio of adult to juvenile biomass can act as a useful diagnostic to distinguish between predated and non-predated environments, and may be useful in agricultural settings

Greenhouse gas emissions from croplands of China

China possesses cropland of 1.33 million km 2. Cultivation of the cropland not only altered the biogeochemical cycles of carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) in the agroecosystems but also affected global climate. The impacts of agroecosystems on global climate attribute to emissions of three greenhouse gases, namely carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O)

Indiana Government Officials and Trust in Nonprofits

This briefing analyzes the extent to which local government officials (LGOs) -- individuals in strategic positions to assess the contribu-tions of Indiana nonprofits -- say they trust local charities and other nonprofits to do the "right thing" and what may explain such trust. It is the fourth in a series of briefings focusing on non-profit-government relations in Indiana from the Indiana Nonprofits: Scope and Community Di-mensions project. The first three briefings ex-plored LGOs' attitudes toward 2-1-1 services, payments in lieu of [property] taxes or PILOTs, and collaboration between local government and nonprofits. Subsequent briefings will up-date our analysis of attitudes towards PILOTs and other topics. All briefings are available at the project website: www.indiana.edu/~non-pro

Indiana Nonprofit Employment: 2009 Update

Analyzes recent trends in the state's nonprofit employment, including proportion of overall employment; payroll growth, distribution, and wages by sector; nonprofit and for-profit wage gap; and proportion of nonprofit workers employed by charities

A national registry for juvenile dermatomyositis and other paediatric idiopathic inflammatory myopathies: 10 years' experience; the Juvenile Dermatomyositis National (UK and Ireland) Cohort Biomarker Study and Repository for Idiopathic Inflammatory Myopathies

Objectives: The paediatric idiopathic inflammatory myopathies (IIMs) are a group of rare chronic inflammatory disorders of childhood, affecting muscle, skin and other organs. There is a severe lack of evidence base for current treatment protocols in juvenile myositis. The rarity of these conditions means that multicentre collaboration is vital to facilitate studies of pathogenesis, treatment and disease outcomes. We have established a national registry and repository for childhood IIM, which aims to improve knowledge, facilitate research and clinical trials, and ultimately to improve outcomes for these patients. Methods: A UK-wide network of centres and research group was established to contribute to the study. Standardized patient assessment, data collection forms and sample protocols were agreed. The Biobank includes collection of peripheral blood mononuclear cells, serum, genomic DNA and biopsy material. An independent steering committee was established to oversee the use of data/samples. Centre training was provided for patient assessment, data collection and entry. Results: Ten years after inception, the study has recruited 285 children, of which 258 have JDM or juvenile PM; 86% of the cases have contributed the biological samples. Serial sampling linked directly to the clinical database makes this a highly valuable resource. The study has been a platform for 20 sub-studies and attracted considerable funding support. Assessment of children with myositis in contributing centres has changed through participation in this study. Conclusions: This establishment of a multicentre registry and Biobank has facilitated research and contributed to progress in the management of a complex group of rare muscloskeletal conditions

Enhancement of bichromatic high-harmonic generation with a high-frequency field

Using a high-frequency field superposed to a linearly polarized bichromatic laser field composed by a wave with frequency $\omega$ and a wave with frequency $2\omega$, we show it is possible to enhance the intensity of a group of high harmonics in orders of magnitude. These harmonics have frequencies about 30% higher than the monochromatic-cutoff frequency, and, within the three-step-model framework, correspond to a set of electron trajectories for which tunneling ionization is strongly suppressed. Particular features in the observed enhancement suggest that the high-frequency field provides an additional mechanism for the electron to reach the continuum. This interpretation is supported by a time-frequency analysis of the harmonic yield. The additional high frequency field permits the control of this group of harmonics leaving all other sets of harmonics practically unchanged, which is an advantage over schemes involving only bichromatic fields.Comment: 6 pages RevTex, 5 figures (ps files), Changes in text, figures, references and equations include

Indiana Nonprofit Employment: Historical Trends in Arts, Entertainment and Recreation, 1995-2009

Nonprofit organizations make significant contributions to the quality of life for the residents of Indiana. In particular, arts, entertainment, and recreation organizations play an important role in preserving culture, enriching the lives of children and adults, fostering creative expression, and providing sport and entertainment. These organizations may also serve as a powerful economic force for the state by attracting not only tourists, but also a young, educated workforce that can have a major positive impact on regional output and productivity. This report from the Indiana Nonprofits: Scope and Community Dimensions project presents new data on the size, composition, and distribution of paid arts, entertainment, and recreation employment in Indiana's private nonprofit sector over the 1995-2009 time period. All dollars are adjusted for inflation and are reported in constant 2009 dollars. Note that there are too few government employees in the arts, entertainment and recreation industry to allow for separate analysis of public sector employment

A categorification of Morelli's theorem

We prove a theorem relating torus-equivariant coherent sheaves on toric varieties to polyhedrally-constructible sheaves on a vector space. At the level of K-theory, the theorem recovers Morelli's description of the K-theory of a smooth projective toric variety. Specifically, let $X$ be a proper toric variety of dimension $n$ and let M_\bR = \mathrm{Lie}(T_\bR^\vee)\cong \bR^n be the Lie algebra of the compact dual (real) torus T_\bR^\vee\cong U(1)^n. Then there is a corresponding conical Lagrangian \Lambda \subset T^*M_\bR and an equivalence of triangulated dg categories \Perf_T(X) \cong \Sh_{cc}(M_\bR;\Lambda), where \Perf_T(X) is the triangulated dg category of perfect complexes of torus-equivariant coherent sheaves on $X$ and \Sh_{cc}(M_\bR;\Lambda) is the triangulated dg category of complex of sheaves on M_\bR with compactly supported, constructible cohomology whose singular support lies in $\Lambda$. This equivalence is monoidal---it intertwines the tensor product of coherent sheaves on $X$ with the convolution product of constructible sheaves on M_\bR.Comment: 20 pages. This is a strengthened version of the first half of arXiv:0811.1228v3, with new results; the second half becomes arXiv:0811.1228v