Economics in the university

Inaugural lecture delivered at Rhodes UniversityRhodes University Libraries (Digitisation

Profiling soil microbial communities influenced by reduced summer precipitation and farming system history

Soil bacteria and fungi are the basis of soil food webs and contribute to a wide range of essential soil functions in arable lands. Intense land use and climate change induced reductions in summer precipitation can have varying influences on abundance, composition, and activity of microbial communities with largely unknown consequences for soil functions and plant growth including crop yields. The impact of altered precipitation patterns on soil biodiversity and associated ecosystem functions is on top of the list of eight major research gaps identified by an expert group for the European Commission still, this relationship is rarely studied under field conditions

Creating materials for teaching essay writing in upper secondary school

Writing is often seen as culturally specific, learned behaviour (Brown 2001: 334). A student who is able to write an excellent essay in one’s mother tongue might not be able to do it in a foreign language (Kaplan 2001). Thus, essay writing is a skill which needs to be taught consistently. When writing an English essay, one has to consider several aspects; in addition to using appropriate vocabulary and grammar along with correct spelling and punctuation, development of ideas, as well as requirements established to organisation, are to be paid attention to. To foster that students focus on the content rather than just the accuracy of their essays, principles of the process approach could be beneficial.https://www.ester.ee/record=b5195645*es

Soil biochemistry and microbial activity in vineyards under conventional and organic management at Northeast Brazil.

The São Francisco Submedium Valley is located at the Brazilian semiarid region and is an important center for irrigated fruit growing. This region is responsible for 97% of the national exportation of table grapes, including seedless grapes. Based on the fact that orgThe São Francisco Submedium Valley is located at the Brazilian semiarid region and is an important center for irrigated fruit growing. This region is responsible for 97% of the national exportation of table grapes, including seedless grapes. Based on the fact that organic fertilization can improve soil quality, we compared the effects of conventional and organic soil management on microbial activity and mycorrhization of seedless grape crops. We measured glomerospores number, most probable number (MPN) of propagules, richness of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) species, AMF root colonization, EE-BRSP production, carbon microbial biomass (C-MB), microbial respiration, fluorescein diacetate hydrolytic activity (FDA) and metabolic coefficient (qCO2). The organic management led to an increase in all variables with the exception of EE-BRSP and qCO2. Mycorrhizal colonization increased from 4.7% in conventional crops to 15.9% in organic crops. Spore number ranged from 4.1 to 12.4 per 50 g-1 soil in both management systems. The most probable number of AMF propagules increased from 79 cm-3 soil in the conventional system to 110 cm-3 soil in the organic system. Microbial carbon, CO2 emission, and FDA activity were increased by 100 to 200% in the organic crop. Thirteen species of AMF were identified, the majority in the organic cultivation system. Acaulospora excavata, Entrophospora infrequens, Glomus sp.3 and Scutellospora sp. were found only in the organically managed crop. S. gregaria was found only in the conventional crop. Organically managed vineyards increased mycorrhization and general soil microbial activity

Interpretation of Yes/No Questions as Metaphor Recognition

Proceedings of the 16th Nordic Conference of Computational Linguistics NODALIDA-2007. Editors: Joakim Nivre, Heiki-Jaan Kaalep, Kadri Muischnek and Mare Koit. University of Tartu, Tartu, 2007. ISBN 978-9985-4-0513-0 (online) ISBN 978-9985-4-0514-7 (CD-ROM) pp. 398-401