White Paper: Shifting the goal post - from high impact journals to high impact data

The purpose of this white paper is to provide an overview of the ongoing initiatives at center level to respond to changing public expectations and to the challenge of improving the conduct of science by making research data widely available. We also attempt to provide a framework for implementing open access for research data to maximize CGIAR’s impact on development. The remainder of this paper proceeds as follows; firstly a summary of the diversity of research data produced by the centers is given, followed by an overview of the existing infrastructure for data management for each Center. Secondly, some of the limitations and barriers faced by the centers in their process to mainstream research data publishing are addressed. The paper concludes with recommendations for how these limitations and barriers can be tackled

Genomic changes during crop domestication: structural and functional perspectives:

Domestication of crop species occurred through the processes of natural selection followed by human intervention which further diversified the crop species and contributed to the accelerated crop cultivation from the ancient civilizations across the world. Based on the soil and climatic factors, crops were domesticated primarily for food purposes in different regions of the world which now recognized as the centres of origin. The genetic diversity patterns of genomes of crop plants have provided a detailed understanding of domestication processes. Elucidation of structural and functional perspectives of genomic changes during crop domestication covering strategies, current status and future perspectives are discussed in this article. Domestication of crop phenotypes is influenced by both pre-existing variations in the progenitor species as well as novel mutations. Genes responsible for the domestication syndrome in different crops have been dissected through several QTL and GWAS studies. The intergenerational selection of plant traits promotes improved acclimatization and adaptation to agricultural management strategies. Only a small number of genes are involved in crop domestication, despite the lengthy process, some of these genes are conserved across species. De novo wild species domestication as well as targeted re-domestication are both possible. Modern genetic tools can be effectively utilized for the modifications of targeted genes. In the era of global climatic change patterns, the potential of super domesticating wild crop species will play a major role in adaptation processes, which in turn would safeguard food security effectively through sustainable approaches

Village Knowledge Centers and the Use of GIS-derived Products in Enhancing Micro-level Drought Preparedness: a Case study from South Central India

Drought affects hundreds of millions of people in the developing world and causes serious disruption of social and economic activities. Preparedness is better than relief and information is the backbone of drought preparedness. In this paper we report the results from a study in the use of GIS- derived products to assess micro-level drought vulnerability, taking a cluster of 17 villages in the South Central India as the study area. An internet-connected rural information center, linked to village knowledge centers, played a key role in testing the utility of this product, and the associated local-level predictions for seasonal rainfall

Rural Knowledge Centers: Partners in Promoting a New ODL Paradigm

It is called a Rural Knowledge Center (RKC), Village Information Center (VIC) or a Community Learning and Information Center (CLIC). It is a new institution in the Indian rural milieu. It is a one-stop center of the village where community members can be assisted with information ranging from how to manage pod borer infestation in their pigeonpea crop to what are the government schemes currently in operation his/her village. These are increasingly seen as vehicles of capacity building and educational change in rural India. Home to nearly 65% of the countr

Contemporary Information and Knowledge Management: Impact on Farming in India

Farming is an important part of Indian economy and it involves a wide range of stakeholders, of whom the small holder farmers are the largest group. Information sharing on new production processes with farmers was prominent in the ‘sixties which was key to the success of the Green Revolution. Agricultural extension, the process of enabling farmers and experts to exchange information with each other, has since been institutionalized to a high degree and is assessed to be not as effective as it had been a generation back. The advent of digital, technology-mediated information and knowledge management was thought to offer significant new opportunities for knowledge exchange in Indian farming as a whole. These hopes led to the launching of a number of initiatives in different parts of India, which has emerged as the host of the largest number of rural development projects where contemporary information and communication technology (ICT) play a pivotal role. While analyzing the outputs of such initiatives, many studies have pointed out that farming is not a priority concern of most of them. On the other hand, we can notice a non-complimentary strand of ICT in agriculture projects operated by a number of institutions with ICT resources playing a key role in some of them. These efforts, generally speaking, do not promote user participation in information flows quite unlike the contemporary trends

Improved livelihoods and building resilience in the semi-arid tropics: science-led, knowledge-based watershed management

Rainfed agriculture (1.25 billion hectares out of 1.55 billion hectares arable area) plays an important role globally in improving livelihoods and food security as it covers 63 per cent of total agriculture in Asia and 97 per cent in Africa. These areas are not only the hotspots of poverty but are also food insecure, hotspots of malnutrition, water scarcity, prone to severe land degradation and more vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.1 With increasing demand for food production to meet the needs of the growing population (9 billion by 2050), growing incomes and changing food habits, water scarcity will also intensify. The per-capita availability of water has declined considerably; for example, in India water availability was 1,820 cubic metres per person in 2001 compared to 5,177 cubic metres in 1951, and it is expected to decrease further to 1,341 cubic metres by 2025 and 1140 cubic metres by 2050

Optimize Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment in Azure DevOps for a controlled Microsoft .NET environment using different techniques and practices

Abstract Delivering a software is not a simple process, even if it is a completely new software created from the scratch, the enhancement of an existing software or fixing the bugs of an existing application. As per the new industrial standard most of the companies follow the DevOps methodologies to deliver the software products, which leverage the flexibilities of the software delivery with expected quality on time with minimal errors. One of the most important factors of the DevOps methodology is Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment. As the entire software industry is moving towards Cloud Computing one of the most powerful, cost effective and easily maintainable environment to host the software applications. There are various Cloud computing providers available in the industry now. Most of them have its own advantage and dis-advantages. There are many researches going on various topics on these areas and the importance of these topics are getting more relevant in the industry now. There are lot of gaps on the Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment concepts and more improvement options have to be identified and certified throughout the various researches. To understand the importance of this platform, we decided to concentrate the research on the Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment in Azure DevOps for a controlled Microsoft .NET environment using different techniques and practices. Here our intention is to identify the various factors which helps the industry to do a better Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment in the Azure DevOps for a controlled Microsoft .NET environment using different techniques and practices. Among the “n” number of factors identified on this subject, only couple of factors are considered as part of this research.</jats:p

Vulnerability of dairy based livelihoods to climate variability and change- A study of Western Ghat Region- Ratnagiri, Maharashtra, India

This study examines vulnerability of dairy based livelihoods to climate change applying index based approach underlying the principles of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), using 28 indicators to construct an overall Livelihood Vulnerability Index (LVI) to climate change, an important step in evolving appropriate adaptation strategies to climate change. Detailed house hold level data of dairy based livelihoods of Ratnagiri region of Western Ghats were collected through Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) and personal interviews from 180 randomly selected farmers of three talukas of Ratnagiri district complemented by thirty years of gridded weather data and other secondary data sources. The analysis revealed that the dairy farmers of Lanja taluka were most vulnerable among those of Ratnagiri district.The index score of dairy based livelihoods of Lanja taluka was negative with overall value -4.17 with 48% farmers having high level of vulnerability.</jats:p