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Validity in research methods
Threats to validity of research effectiveness and applicability of current and past methods without making false internal and external validity. How do we assess and assure validity in qualitative research this can be a bit of a tricky topic, as qualitative research involves humans understanding. An overview on the main types of validity used in the scientific method home research research methods generalizing results in research validity and. Research methods in psychology: in research, internal validity is the extent to which you are able to say that no other variables except the one you're studying. Coverage includes how market research must meet tests of research validity and research reliability in order to be relevant and useful for marketing decision making.
Assessment methods and tests should have validity and reliability data and research to back up their claims that the test is a sound measure. Methods in behavioral research reliability practical assessment, research & evaluation, 7 how to improve test reliability and validity. Positivism subjectivism internal validity phrase concepts in terms that can be observed and measured in order to hypothesize about causal relationships between. Qualitative research is designed to explore the human elements of a given topic, while specific qualitative methods examine how individuals see and experienc. Validity and reliability are two important aspects in order to approve and validate the quantitative research moskal & leydens (2002) defined the validity.
Quizlet provides validity measurement reliability research methods activities, flashcards and games start learning today for free. Issues of research reliability and validity need to be addressed in methodology chapter in a concise manner reliability refers to the extent to which.
Research methods - free download as powerpoint presentation (ppt / pptx), pdf file (pdf), text file (txt) or view presentation slides online research methods. Reliability and validity in research 00 6 psychology — research methods what research methods and key science skills are used in vce psychology. Validity and reliability in social science and to introduce the major methods to assess validity and validity and reliability in social science research.
Get expert answers to your questions in qualitative research, research methods, reliability and validation and more on researchgate, the professional network for. 78 thomson, s b (2011) qualitative research: validity joaag, vol 6 no 1 introduction researchers have a choice of two broad streams of research design that one. In general, validity is an indication of how sound your research is more specifically, validity applies to both the design and the methods of your research.
Validity in research methods
The following are examples of alternative criteria that can be used to address concerns with validity when using qualitative methods, under the argument that these.
Validity -- generally defined as the trustworthiness of inferences drawn from data -- has always been a concern in educational research questions about validity. Validity must be judged according to the application of each use of the method the validity of an assessment method is never proved absolutely. Validity is one of the most important factors to consider when determining the merits of a psychological test your guide to psychology research methods. Validity: the best available approximation to the truth of a given proposition, inference, or conclusion the first thing we have to ask is: validity of what. The principles of validity and reliability are fundamental cornerstones of the scientific method.
Experimental validity refers to the manner in which variables that influence both the results of the research and allpsych research methods chapter 74. Research validity in surveys relates to the extent at which the survey measures right elements that need to be measured in simple terms, validity refers. Test validity and reliability whenever a test or other allpsych research methods chapter 73 construct validity is the term given to a test that. Research methods for the social chapter 7 scale reliability and validity that must take into account the different types of scale reliability and validity.


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Biodiversity Offsets Threaten Both The Survival And The Meaning Of Nature
Propose a get-out clause and – however many warnings and caveats you wrap round it – before long it will be used. This post is about the dangerous new concept the government has seeded in the minds of developers and planners.
The idea is called biodiversity offsetting. It involves trading places: allowing people to destroy wildlife and habitats if, in return, they pay someone to create new habitats elsewhere. In April the UK government launched six pilot projects to test the idea, which would run for two years.
Four months ago, I wrote this:
"The government warns that these offsets should be used only to compensate for 'genuinely unavoidable damage' and 'must not become a licence to destroy'; but once the principle is established and the market is functioning, for how long do you reckon that line will hold?"
The answer, it seems, is "not very long". A year and a half before the pilot projects have been completed, the new spirit of destruction is roaming the land. A place of outstanding wildlife value is now being considered for demolition, and biodiversity offsetting is being mooted as the means by which it can be justified. It's hard to believe that this scheme would still be receiving serious consideration if the mother of all excuses had not been proposed by the government.
Lodge Hill, close to Gillingham in north Kent, contains what could be the UK's highest concentration of nightingales. The species has suffered an astonishing decline in this country – over 90% in just 40 years – partly as a result of the destruction of its habitat. This site – of just 325 hectares – contains roughly 1% of the remaining population. It is one of the very few places where, on a summer's night, you can still hear the full nightingale orchestra, a sound that would once have been familiar to people across much of the country.
Medway Council has proposed that the land at Lodge Hill be turned into a development of 5,000 houses. This, according to a report by the British Trust for Ornithology, could destroy the area's entire population of nightingales. Even if some birds continue to use the adjoining woods, they are extremely vulnerable to cats, as they nest close to the ground. The pets arriving with the new homes are likely to snuff out what John Clare called "the old woodland's legacy of song."
So how do you justify the unjustifiable? You commission a consultancy (the Environment Bank) to investigate the potential for offsetting: in effect moving the habitat and its nightingales somewhere else. It reported that:
"offsetting could work in principle for nightingales in Kent – it is technically
feasible but it is neither straightforward nor guaranteed"
If a site of around 500 hectares were found and stocked with suitable habitat, a similar number of nightingales might establish itself there. But no one can be sure it will work. If it doesn't, by the time we find out it will be too late: the new habitat will take at least a decade to establish, while the existing habitat will be destroyed and the houses built in just two or three years. If the experiment fails it cannot be reversed.
The report suggests two principal means by which new nightingale habitat could be created in Kent. One is to coppice existing woodland: cutting the trees at ground level so that they resprout to create the shrubby growth that nightingales use. The other is to take an area of agricultural land and either plant it with scrub or allow scrub to regenerate naturally.
This invites two obvious responses. If woods are chosen, the offsetting process would not be creating wildlife habitat, but merely changing an existing habitat into something different. Coppicing favours some species at the expense of others, particularly those which require large trees, dead wood and an undisturbed understorey. What's good for nightingales may be bad for woodpeckers.
If 500 hectares of fields – a bigger site than Lodge Hill – can be taken out of agricultural use to compensate for the destruction of the nightingales' homes, why not spare Lodge Hill and build the houses in the fields?
The prospect of offsetting in this case looks to me like the "licence to destroy" that the government warned against. Rather than compensating for "genuinely unavoidable damage" it looks as if it could be used to justify avoidable destruction: trashing a remarkable place for an unremarkable project which could be built elsewhere.
This case illustrates the danger inherent in the principle of offsetting. It makes nature as fungible as everything else. No place is valued as a place: it is broken down into a list of habitats and animals and plants, which could, in theory, be shifted somewhere else. It subjects our landscape and wildlife to the same process of commodification that has blighted everything else the corporate economy touches.
The notion of a "like for like" replacement is bogus. No two places are the same. No place that has been planned and measured and designed and planted as a wildlife habitat is the same as one that has arisen spontaneously, or that has always been there. Much of the delight of nature is that it is unscripted, spontaneous, unofficial, that it owes little or nothing to human design.Accept the principle of biodiversity offsetting and you accept the idea that place means nothing. That nowhere is to be valued in its own right any more, that everything is exchangeable for everything else, and nothing can be allowed to stand in the way of the graders and degraders. That is not an idea I find easy to swallow.

source: HuggingFaceFW/fineweb-edu


Testicular Cancer Awareness Month: A Focus on Implications of Mental Health Among Testicular Cancer Survivors
In 2021, there will be an estimated 9,470 new cases of testicular cancer in the United States with an estimated 440 testis cancer-related deaths.1 Importantly, the vast majority of men with testis cancer, even in advanced stages, are cured as a result of the success of high dose chemotherapy regimens that are tolerated by this typically young and healthy patient population. Given both the relatively young age at diagnosis and overall high survival rates, there has been a much needed and welcome focus on survivorship for testicular cancer patients.
In addition to concern for long-term treatment toxicity,2,3 infertility,4 secondary malignancy,5,6 and increased risk of cardiovascular disease,7,8 testicular cancer survivors are also at increased risk of mental health issues, which has only recently been adequately brought to light, particularly in national guidelines.9 Over the last several years, there has been an increase in mental health illness awareness in the general population, based in part to important initiatives from Movember, Suicide Awareness month (September), and the Bell "Let's Talk" campaign in Canada, to name a few. As part of testicular cancer awareness month, which takes place each year during the month of April, the remainder of this article will discuss implications for mental health illness amongst testicular cancer survivors, including the impact of anxiety and depression, risk of suicidal death, and the emotional burden on testicular cancer survivor caregivers.
Mental Health and Testicular Cancer Survivors
Post-cancer diagnosis risk of mental health illness is well established amongst common cancers, such as prostate, breast, and lung cancer. This has also included several studies assessing the impact of testicular cancer on incidence of mental health postcancer diagnosis. A recent population-level study published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology evaluated the impact of a testicular cancer diagnosis and treatment on subsequent mental illness and utilization of mental illness healthcare resources.10 This study included all incident cases of testicular cancer treated with orchiectomy in Ontario, Canada from 2000 to 2010, identified using the Ontario Cancer Registry. Cases were matched to controls in a 1:5 ratio based on age and geography. Additional population-level databases were used to identify mental health service use episodes, which included outpatient use accounting for visits to a general practitioner for a mental health concern or any visit to a psychiatrist. The authors used negative binomial regression modeling was used to estimate the rate of mental health service use in the pretreatment (2 years prior until 1 month before orchiectomy), peri-treatment (1 month before until 1 month after orchiectomy), and post-treatment periods (1 month after orchiectomy until end of follow-up). Rate ratios comparing cases with controls in the periand post-treatment periods were adjusted for baseline mental health service use. Overall, there were 2,619 cases of testicular cancer matched to 13,095 controls, for which there was no baseline difference in the rate of mental health service use. Patients with testicular cancer were significantly more likely than controls to have an outpatient visit for a mental health concern in the peri-treatment (adjusted rate ratio [aRR] 2.45, 95% CI 2.06 to 2.92) and post-treatment periods (adjusted RR 1.30, 95% CI 1.12 to 1.52). The difference in mental health service use persisted over a median follow-up of 12 years:
In the post-orchiectomy period, cases with baseline mental health service use were those most likely to use mental health services (adjusted RR 5.64, 95% CI, 4.64 to 6.85). Furthermore, In
the pre-treatment period, cases and controls had comparable use of mental health services for anxiety (61% v 51%) and depression (11% v 7%); controls had substantially more visits for substance-related and addictive disorders (33% v 18%).
Previous work has shown that physical activity has a beneficial influence on an individual's mental health. To explore this potential effect on testicular cancer patients, Thorsen et al.11 performed a cross-sectional study to estimate the association between the level of self-reported physical activity and the prevalence of depression and anxiety disorder among 1,260 testicular cancer survivors and 20,207 men from the general population. Among testicular cancer survivors, 122 (9.7%) had Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS)-defined depression and 254 (20.2%) had HADS-defined anxiety disorder. The vast majority (n=1,090,85.5%) of testicular cancer survivors deemed themselves physically active. The authors found that the prevalence of HADS-defined depression was lower among those who were physically active than in those who were physically inactive (testicular cancer survivors 9% vs 17%, p<0.001; general population 8% vs 15%, p<0.001). Among physically inactive testicular cancer survivors there was a trend towards higher a prevalence of HADS-defined anxiety disorder compared to physically active testicular cancer survivors (p=0.07). Multivariate analysis confirmed the association between physical activity and HADS-defined depression in both the testicular cancer survivors (adjusted OR 0.56, 95% CI 0.31 to 1.02) and the general population (adjusted OR 0.58, 95% CI 0.51 to 0.65), but not the association between physical activity and HADS-defined anxiety disorder.
Work from the British Columbia Cancer Center recently examined the psychosocial needs of patients with germ cell tumors specifically stratifying patients by adolescent and young adults (AYA, age 18-39 years of age), and non-AYA (>39 years of age).12 Each patient completed a pre-consultation health assessment form, which is a validated screening questionnaire for distress, subclinical/clinical symptoms of depression, and anxiety. Among 349 patients recruited to this study between 2011 and 2015, the patient population was predominantly AYA (n = 227) with a median age of 33 (range 18-83) years. The top three AYA concerns based on survey results were financial, work/school, frustration and anger; additionally, AYA patients more commonly scored positive for symptoms of subclinical/clinical anxiety than non-AYA (39.4% vs. 27.9%, p = 0.028). These results suggest that AYA testicular cancer patients have unique needs and experience more self-reported anxiety symptoms with emotional, informational and practical concerns, than older adults with testicular cancer.
To further assess the prevalence of high-levels of stress among testicular cancer survivors compared to the general population, Kreiberg and colleagues utilized the Danish nationwide cohort of patients.13 These authors assessed stress levels stratified by treatment type, including surveillance, chemotherapy (bleomycin, etoposide, and cisplatin (BEP)), or abdominal radiotherapy. In this study, there were 2,252 testicular cancer survivors that filled out the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) questionnaire between 2014 and 2016, a survey designed to specifically ask questions regarding psychological stress. Results from testicular cancer survivors were compared to a general population sample of 61,927 men without a previous history of cancer. Amongst testicular cancer survivors, there were 1,134 on surveillance, 807 that received BEP chemotherapy, and 311 that underwent radiotherapy. Testicular cancer survivors were more likely to have high levels of stress compared to the reference population with a prevalence ratio of 1.56 (95% CI, 1.40-1.73). Furthermore, testicular cancer survivors undergoing surveillance, BEP and radiotherapy also had higher level of stress compared to the reference population. Longitudinally, testicular cancer survivors had a higher prevalence of stress under the age of 70, however over the age of 70 the general population was more likely to have high stress levels13.
Finally, in a systematic review of quantitative observational studies investigating psychological distress among testicular cancer survivors, Ben Smith and colleagues14 evaluated the prevalence, severity, and correlates of anxiety, depression, fear of cancer recurrence, and distress in testicular cancer survivors. Among 36 studies included in this systematic review, testicular cancer survivors' mean anxiety levels were higher than in the general population, while mean depression and distress were no different. More specifically, clinically significant anxiety (~20%) and to a lesser extent distress (~14%), but not depression, were more prevalent in testicular cancer survivors than the general population. Importantly, nearly 33% of testicular cancer survivors experienced significant fear of cancer recurrence. Factors associated with poorer psychological outcomes included testicular cancer survivors who were single, unemployed/low socio-economic status, suffering from comorbidities, experiencing worse symptoms/side effects, and using passive coping strategies. Based on this comprehensive review, although many testicular cancer survivors may not suffer from significant psychological morbidity, anxiety and fear of cancer recurrence in this population are prevalent.
Suicidal Death Amongst Testicular Cancer Survivors
A cancer diagnosis and the long trajectory of both cancer treatment and recovery can take a toll on patients with cancer and their families. Suicide is the culmination of unmanaged distress and is the 10th leading cause of death in the United States, and risk factors for suicide among cancer patients are similar to those among the general population, including male sex and older age.15 Using population-level data from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER database), Zaorsky et al.16 assessed the impact of


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Who were the Titanic's victims?
Who were the people who went down with the Titanic?
In the aftermath of the tragedy authorities in Nova Scotia scrambled to pull together casualty lists and identify the bodies that were pulled from the ocean by crews from ships which steamed to the site of the wreck.
Hastily typed and then overwritten with handwritten notes, the fatality reports provide a unique glimpse into the world below decks on the Titanic and the people - from all over Europe - who went down with the ship.
One of the youngest victims was a two-year-old boy, wearing a grey fur-trimmed coat, pink woollen singlet and brown shoes. Sidney Leslie Goodwin was buried at sea "by special request" by the crew of a cable ship which steamed to the wreck site. His body bore "no marks whatsoever".
Who was he?
Many of the poorer passengers did not carry enough on them to be identified. This man had a tattoo and a simple copper ring on his thumb. The handwritten note reads: "Unable to identify from clothing".
Down with his ship
This unidentified man wore a steward's jacket and the note on his record reads: "Dec. to Jan. 1911; First Saloon waiter S.S. Majestic,". He was carrying a bunch of keys for a locker.
This man, identified as a Greek or an Italian, went to his death carrying a knife, three pennies, and a purse full of golden French francs. But he never made it to the New World to spend them. The archives don't say what happened to the cash.
Many of the bodies are identified as being firemen, who worked stoking the boilers which drove the ship's steam engines.
In the engine room
Another fireman, Joseph Dawson, worked in the Titanic's engine room. Was his name the inspiration for Leonardo DiCaprio's Jack Dawson character? The confusion over his name and address indicates the struggle authorities had to positively identify victims.
While many of the dead are listed as having had virtually no personal effects on them, others, like bandsman John Hume, were better turned out. Hume carried a cigarette case; a silver watch; a knife with a carved pearl handle, a brass button marked "African Royal Mail"; and an English lever watch.
Many of the victims were heavily tattooed, and were identified as sailors: "Tattooed on left arm: Woman's bust and Union Jack; also woman in kilts, and on right arm: Man's head (cowboy); clasped hands and heart (true love), and flower."
Twenty-five-year-old waiter Allario Baptiste went down with the keys to the waiters' lavatory in his pocket. Was he on his way there when the ship hit the iceberg?
Jenny Louisa Hendrickssen was wearing a "cholera belt" - a cummerbund designed to ward of cold and damp, which were thought to cause cholera, dysentery and other ailments.
Source: All images courtesy of Nova Scotia Archives, Halifax, Nova Scotia _URL_


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In California, the CCEECE is committed to taking steps to address this issue, especially as it applies to leadership in our field of Early Care and Education (ECE). We have selected 15 Directors, Director Mentors and Mentor Teachers for the CCEECE Equity Leaders Fellowship in Early Care and Education. This fellowship is designed to help prepare the next generation of ECE supervisors and administrators serving children 0-5 and their families. Our hope is to disrupt the status quo to ensure that the ECE leadership across the state reflects the diverse population of children birth to five years of age and their families.
Goal of the Emerging Leaders Fellowship:
- To develop deep understanding of racial inequities, systemic disparities and the impact of structural, institutional, interpersonal and personal forms of oppression on children, families and communities and the workforce serving them;
- To consider and to act to eradicate inequitable policies and practices
- To prepare participants in both management and leadership skills and dispositions through in-depth, inquiry-based learning.
If you are a member, please follow the link to Live Binder for materials. If you have forgotten your Access Key, please email _EMAIL_.

source: openbmb/Ultra-FineWeb


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We present post-jet-break HST, VLA and Chandra observations of the afterglow of the long γ-ray bursts GRB 160625B (between 69 and 209 days) and GRB 160509A (between 35 and 80 days). We calculate the post-jet-break decline rates of the light curves, and find the afterglow of GRB 160625B inconsistent with a simple t−3/4 steepening over the break, expected from the geometric effect of the jet edge entering our line of sight. However, the favored optical post-break decline (fν ∝ t−1.96±0.07) is also inconsistent with the fν ∝ t−p decline (where p ≈ 2.3 from the pre-break light curve), which is expected from exponential lateral expansion of the jet; perhaps suggesting lateral expansion that only affects a fraction of the jet. The post-break decline of GRB 160509A is consistent with both the t−3/4 steepening and with fν ∝ t−p. We also use boxfit to fit afterglow models to both light curves and find both to be energetically consistent with a millisecond magnetar central engine, although the magnetar parameters need to be extreme (i.e. E ∼ 3 × 1052 erg). Finally, the late-time radio light curves of both afterglows are not reproduced well by boxfit and are inconsistent with predictions from the standard jet model; instead both are well represented by a single power law decline (roughly fν ∝ t−1) with no breaks. This requires a highly chromatic jet break (tj,radio > 10 × tj,optical) and possibly a two-component jet for both bursts.
|State||Published - Jun 8 2019|
- Gamma-ray burst: general
- Gamma-ray burst: individual (GRB 160625B; GRB 160509A)
- Relativistic processes


text: The main scientific goal of this work is the presentation of the role of selected geophysical methods (Ground-Penetrating Radar GPR and Electrical Resistivity Tomography ERT) to identify water escape zones from retention reservoirs. The paper proposes a methodology of geophysical investigations for the identification of water escape zones from a retention fresh water lake (low mineralised water). The study was performed in a lake reservoir in Upper Silesia. Since a number of years the administrators of the lake have observed a decreasing water level, a phenomenon that is not related to the exploitation of the object. The analysed retention lake has a maximal depth between 6 and 10 m, depending on the season. It is located on Triassic carbonate rocks of the Muschelkalk facies. Geophysical surveys included measurements on the water surface using ground penetration radar (GPR) and electrical resistivity tomography (ERT) methods. The measurements were performed from watercrafts made of non-metal materials. The prospection reached a depth of about 1 to 5 m below the reservoir bottom. Due to large difficulties of conducting investigations in the lake, a fragment with an area of about 5,300 m 2, where service activities and sealing works were already commenced, was selected for the geophysical survey. The scope of this work was: (1) field geophysical research (Ground-Penetrating Radar GPR and Electrical Resistivity Tomography ERT with geodesic service), (2) processing of the obtained geophysical research results, (3) modelling of GPR and ERT anomalies on a fractured water reservoir bottom, and (4) interpretation of the obtained results based on the modelled geophysical anomalies. The geophysical surveys allowed for distinguishing a zone with anomalous physical parameters in the area of the analysed part of the retention lake. ERT surveys have shown that the water escape zone from the reservoir was characterised by significantly decreased electrical resistivities. Diffraction hyperboles and a zone of wave attenuation were observed on the GPR images in the lake bottom within the water escape zone indicating cracks in the bottom of the water reservoir. The proposed methodology of geophysical surveys seems effective in solving untypical issues such as measurements on the water surface.


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Each extra jump has a certain type, dictated by the accessory or mount. Jumps of the same type will not stack with each other but will stack with other types, allowing for more than two consecutive jumps. For example, equipping a Cloud in a Bottle and a Tsunami in a Bottle will grant two additional jumps, while combining a Cloud in a Bottle with a Cloud in a Balloon will only grants one extra jump. Each type displays a unique particle effect when used, which always occur in the same order: Summoned mount's jump first, followed by Sandstorm, Blizzard, Fart, Tsunami, and Cloud.
An extra jump uses the same jump speed as the base jump but with different a different jump duration. For example, with default jump speed, a sustained jump from a Sandstorm in a Bottle lasts 3 times longer than a base jump, reaching a maximum height of 21.18 tiles, which is an increase of 238% compared to the base jump reach of 6.27 tiles.
Accessories[edit | edit source]
Extra jumps are granted by the five types of bottle accessories and their upgrades, listed in the following table. As described above, while it is possible to stack multiple jumps of different types (i.e. different rows), it is not possible to stack multiple jumps of the same type (i.e. within the same row).
|Cloud||75%||11.46 tiles (+82.78%)|
|19.97 tiles (+218.5%)|
|Blizzard||150%||14.7 tiles (+134.45%)|
|25.69 tiles (+309.73%)|
|Sandstorm||300%||21.18 tiles (+237.8%)|
|37.15 tiles (+492.5%)|
|Fart||200%||16.86 tiles (+168.9%)|
|29.51 tiles (+370.65%)|
|Tsunami||125%||13.62 tiles (+117.22%)|
|23.79 tiles (+279.43%)|
Mounts[edit | edit source]
There are four mounts that allow an additional jump mid-air.
Notes[edit | edit source]
- Jumping underwater with Flippers will count as an extra jump, preventing that jump from being used after breaching the water's surface.
Tips[edit | edit source]
- Extra jumps can be used shortly before hitting the ground to reset fall damage.
- The maximum total jump reach from a sextuple jump (obtainable e.g. by equipping a Bundle of Balloons, a Fart in a Balloon, and a Sharkron Balloon) is 92.35 tiles (+1372.89%). This can be further increased by equipping some of the boosting accessories: With the Soaring Insignia, a Frog Leg, the Amphibian Boots, and the Moon Lord Legs, the maximum total jump reach from a sextuple jump would be 301.1 tiles (+4702.23%).
Footnotes[edit | edit source]
- In relation to jump duration of the first jump.
- Assuming gravity is default, no other boosts are in effect, only the jump type from the respective row is used, and the second jump is activated immediately after the first one is completed. The increase in percent is referring to the increase from base jump reach (6.27 tiles).
- In relation to jump duration of the first jump with the mount.


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The increase in vertical specialization in Asia has implications for the strength of linkages between the region's economies, and the tendency to manage intra-regional exchange rates.
From the paper:
First, the conventional means of measuring international competitiveness are going to be less and less adequate, as production becomes more fragmented. …
Second, the increasing role of intermediate inputs will likely drive down exchange rate pass through. This is true even if the increase is due to increasing arms-length transactions. …
Third, business cycle correlations are rising throughout the region. The more prominent increases are often associated with China, a finding consistent with China's growing role in the global supply chain. Furthermore, the propagation of shocks throughout the East Asia system is consistent with China driving movements in output, at least in Korea and Taiwan.
Finally, there is evidence that the central banks of the region are paying more heed to the Chinese currency's value. This is true at the high frequency (daily) and at lower frequency (monthly); it's true with respect to rates of depreciation, as well as levels of exchange rates. Since these relationships are not structural, there is no guarantee that they will remain in place. At the same time, continued integration by way of production fragmentation should make central bankers pay extra heed to stabilizing currency values against each other.
The paper documents the increase in business cycle correlations over time, where the business cycles are estimated using both the HP filter, quadratic detrending, and differencing. Synchronization is interesting, but does not provide direct information on the origins of the correlations, and the propagation of shocks. VARs can help illuminate those relationships, although at the cost of imposing some assumptions about exogeneity and the set of relevant variables.
Here are the impulse response functions for a 2 lag VAR including the US, Japan, China and Korea, using the indicated ordering. This means that I assume that HP filter defined output gaps are endogenous, but the US business cycle is more exogenous than Japan's, Japan's is more exogenous than China's, and China's is more exogenous than the cycle of Korea. I show the IRFs for the early, pre-1998 period, and a post-1998 period, respectively.
Figure 1: Impulse response function for VAR ordered US, Japan, China, and Korea output gaps, 1981Q1-1997Q4. Output gaps estimated using HP filter.
Figure 2: Impulse response function for VAR ordered US, Japan, China, and Korea output gaps, 1981Q1-1997Q4. Output gaps estimated using HP filter.
The most relevant IRF is the fourth row of the third column in each block of graphs. There is little evidence of a spillover from China to Korea in the pre-1998 period, while there is a positive response in the latter period. The change is more pronounced in the case of Taiwan (also reported in the paper).
The paper is here.


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TrainingBriefs® Responding to Change with Commitment
Committing to Change
New Micro-Learning! The commitment phase of the Change Response Strategy is all about exploring the consequences, making a choice you're comfortable with and then moving forward. During this course, you'll observe how a team leader uses an experience within her organization to explain the strategy to a friend.
Learning Path & Details
Suggested Industry Usage
- Creating a Collaborative Environment
- Facilitating Change
- Understand how to explore the consequences, making a choice you're comfortable with and then moving forward.
- Understand how to demonstrate the commitment to change with our actions.
- Audible Narration
- Integrated Video
- Interactions and Activities
Training Files (1)
The "commit" step in The Change Response Strategy helps you make a good faith effort to support a change based on the best available information.


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Alphabet Letter A Ape
Preschool Lesson Plan Printable Activities and Worksheets
|Alphabet > Letter A | Animals > Mammals > Endangered > Rainforest > Apes | Holidays & Events > Jun > Zoo and
Aquarium Month - Dec 27th >
Visit the Zoo Day
Here are printable materials and some suggestions to present letter A (long a sound).
Animals > Mammals > Ape > Endangered > Rainforest > Apes
An ape is a mammal in the group of primates, which includes chimpanzees, gibbons, gorillas, and orangutans. Apes do not have tails. They have very flexile hands and feet. Apes live in the forests in Africa and Asia. Apes are endangered animals.
Review the apes theme lesson plan and crafts to present additional information, images, and printable activities about apes.
Alphabet Activity > Letter A is for Ape (long a sound)
Present and display your choice of printable materials listed in the materials column.
Children Age 3 and under:
* Print a letter A coloring page in standard block or D'Nealian font and an ape coloring page image behind it or on a separate page if using paints to decorate later. Discuss other letter A words found on the worksheet.
* Finger Tracing: Trace letter A's in upper and lower case with your finger as you also sound out the letter. Invite the children to do the same on their coloring page.
* Children can trace and color the letter A's. After completing coloring the letter, encourage children to color the ape image. Write the word ape on the finished coloring page.
Children Ages 3+:
Alphabet - beginning letter A sound (short sound) > Present the Letter A Worksheet and Mini Book program. Read suggested instructions for using the worksheet and mini-book. These materials can be used to reinforce letter practice and to identify related words.
Finger and Pencil Tracing: Trace letter A's in upper and lower case with your finger as you also sound out the letter. Invite the children to do the same on their worksheet.
Encourage the children to trace the dotted letter, and demonstrate the direction of the arrows and numbers that help them trace the letter correctly. During the demonstration, you may want to count out loud as you trace so children become aware of how the number order aids them in the writing process.
Find the letter A's: Have the children find all the letter A's in upper and lower case on the page and encourage them to circle or trace/shade them first.
Discuss other letter A words and images in the worksheet. You can also display other posters and coloring pages or even make a letter A classroom book. Visit Letter A Alphabet Printable Activities to make your choice.
Advanced Handwriting Practice:
1. Print your choice of printable lined-paper. Have children draw an ape behind the lined paper or select and print an ape coloring page to color and decorate and writing practice.
2. Drawing and writing paper: encourage children to draw and color an ape in the rainforest | jungle and practice writing letter A a.
Letter A coloring page
Letter A Worksheet & Mini-Book
D'Nealian & Standard block
Drawing & Writing Paper
Apes Coloring Pages


The Forgotten Settler
The Forgotten Settler
With little knowledge of Pok Fu Lam Village, the first impression I got upon visit was the feeling of isolation. The unique setting and architecture of Pok Fu Lam village had separated itself from the surroundings. Its sunken landscape had also made it more enclosed and detached.
The history of Pok Fu Lam Village could be dated back to the 17th century, when Mainland Chinese fled China and settled in this area.
There are a lot of traces in the village that reflect how villagers settle and adapt to the surroundings, these are also evidence of time process of how the village had transformed.
In my photo diary, I have focused on different objects and materials settling into the landscape or surroundings, which to me is an echo to the experience of the villagers and also a reflection of the development of the area.
There are many random pieces in Pok Fu Lam Village that are being abandoned at different stages of time. Some of them are rather obvious and separated from its surrounding, whereas the others are being submerged into the landscape forming rich layers.
These objects to me are very fascinating as they reflect the different process of settlement, which may be contributed by factors such as climate, weather process and human interactions etc.
Pok Fu Lam Village is on the edge of being demolished, the laws being enforced to the area has made the living condition hard for the villagers. People seemed to have forgotten about the rich history and the vibrant cultures this village bears.
Given the condition of Pok Fu Lam Village, and the demand in land in Hong Kong, what is the future of the village?
Iris Ng


text: The biophysical environment is the biotic and abiotic surrounding of an organism or population, and consequently includes the factors that have an influence in their survival, development and evolution. The biophysical environment can vary in scale from microscopic to global in extent. It can also be subdivided according to its attributes. Examples include the marine environment, the atmospheric environment and the terrestrial environment. The number of biophysical environments is countless, given that each living organism has its own environment. The term environment is often used as a short form for the biophysical environment, e.g. the UK's Environment Agency. The expression "the environment" often refers to a singular global environment in relation to humanity.


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The purpose of this research was to measure university students' perceived risk of diabetes and self-reported diabetes risk factors. Informed consent forms and survey questionnaires were distributed to students in randomly sampled courses (n=357), with students aged 18 to 24. Out of the 357 surveys completed, 325 surveys were used for analysis of this study. Forty-eight percent of participants between ages 18 to 24 perceived themselves at minimal risk for developing type II diabetes. Sampled participants reported a mean of 2.25 (type II) diabetes risk factors out of 18 diabetes risk factors. Additionally, there were significant differences (p<0.05) in the number of risk factors reported among perceived risk groups, with the exception of the no risk and minimal risk groups, who reported average of 1.92 risk factors. Among racial groups, there were no significant differences (p<0.05) in the number of risk factors reported. Result corresponds with university students' perception of diabetes, as concerns for developing type II diabetes is not critical or top priority while in higher education (Dong-Chul, 2008). Students' perception may also indicate that they are not knowledgeable about diabetes and diabetes risk factors. Health educators should create awareness about the development of diabetes at an earlier age. It is imperative to start educating university students about diabetes prevention and other health complications that can result from being overweight or obese. With 34% of university students overweight or obese, health educators should create educational materials (tailored to university-aged students) to encourage making healthy dietary choices and engaging in frequent physical activity.
Hans-Peter de Ruiter
Date of Degree
Master of Science (MS)
Allied Health and Nursing
Shodunke, Ajibike R., "Sampled University Students' Perceived Risk of Diabetes & Self-reported Diabetes Risk Factors" (2014). All Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects. 316.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License


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The government is always practicing industrial policy, whether it acknowledges it or not. In a moment of anxiety around supply chains, this series explains how the government can directly shape markets to better serve Americans. Exploring what an expanded industrial policy toolkit might look like, this series spotlights some of the specific instruments the US has successfully deployed in the past but which are not well-known outside of academia. These tools include:
price and profit controls,
government management of the production process,
international pooling and decommodification of natural and industrial resources, and more.
A Distinctly American Industrial Policy: An Introduction


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A journal i s also called d a book of original entity. The process of recording entries in the journal is called journalizing'. The record of each transaction in the journal is called the journal.Under double-entry bookkeeping the written record which is made of the debit and credit elements of a transaction is called the "entry'' for the transaction. The sum of the debit values of each entity is, of course, especial to the sum of the credit values.
Although these debit and credit values could be placed directly in the accounts of a ledger, it is customary practice
1. to record all transactions, first, in a preliminary record called in journal;
2. to transfer each of the debit and credit values in the journal to the accounts of the general ledger.
Each journal entry should contain the following information:
1. '^idie date of the transaction
2. The account to be debited and the amount
3. The account to be credited and the amount
4. An adequate explanation of the entry if the meaning of the journal entry is not clear from the formal debits and credits themselves
A journal entry which embraces more than two accounts is called a compound journal entity.
An entry in the journal of a business may be looked upon as the official record of, as well as an authorization for, a change in the balances of designated ledger accounts. No debit or credit value, therefore, should ever be placed in a ledger account unless a complete entry for the transaction in (question has just been recorded in the journal.
The following points should be noted in the construction of this journal.
The year is written in small figures just above the recording of the first month-date. The year-date is written just once to a page if all entries on the page come within the year-date recorded at the head of the page.
2. The name of the account to be debited is written close to the date column. The amount is placed in the first, or debit, column.
3. The name of the account to be credited is written directly below the debit account but indented one-half inch or more to the right. This is done in order to distinguish the credit account from the debit account. The amount is placed in the second, or credit, money column.
4. The explanation for an entry is written directly below the last credit account.
5. One line should be left blank between journal entries in order to clearly separate transactions from each other.
6. The small column immediately to the left of the two money columns is a "ledger folio column. The use of this column is explained below.
The debit and credit values of all transactions recorded in the journal must sooner or later be transferred to the proper accounts in the general ledger. This "transferring^^ process is called "posting." The detailed procedure of posting is as follows:
1. The debit member of a journal entry is posted first.
2. Turn to the ledger account to be debited. On the debit side of this account enter the following:
a) The date — year, month, day. For succeeding entries in an account, the year and month should be recorded only if a change has occurred in the year-date or the month-date.
b) The journal page from which the debit was taken, Jl, J2, J3, etc. The recording of the journal page should be made in the "reference" or "folio" column.


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Tapping into Latin American food culture
Did you know that while volunteering in Latin America you can sample appetising and nutritious meals based on the food traditions of ancient civilizations?
The Maya, Inca, and Aztec people built prominent civilizations throughout Mexico, and Central and South America. These civilizations form the basis of today's culinary and cultural traditions in the region. This valuable culinary heritage was based mainly on food they cultivated themselves.
The food traditions of the Aztec and Mayan people were closely related due to their proximity. They were located where Mexico, Guatemala, Belize and northern El Salvador are now. The Incas, on the other hand, emerged in South America.
Latin American food traditions
These communities lived mainly in farming villages. Corn was the basis of their food, along with beans and other vegetables such as squash, and many varieties of peppers. Although conditions were often harsh, these farmers were entirely self-sufficient.
The Inca people also grew potatoes and a small grain called quinoa. The Aztec and the Maya people focused on the production of avocados, tomatoes and a great variety of fruit.
However, for pre-Columbian civilisations, large-scale agricultural production was rather challenging due to the environmental and geographical conditions they faced.
Reduced amounts of rainfall, shallow soil deposits, poor soil quality or, in some cases, lack of land, were some of the obstacles they had to overcome.
Despite inhabiting these rather harsh environments, they adapted and developed the proper agricultural skills that were necessary to sustain their own food culture.
While the Mayan people were jungle inhabitants, the Aztecs lived in many areas surrounded by lakes and water. The Inca populated the mountainous Andes.
These ancient Latin American civilizations became skilful at developing effective techniques like crop rotation for cultivating in large fields or terraces, and steps on the mountainside. In some cases, barges were built around lakes or water surfaces to create more arable land.
Latin American food traditions in medicine and religion
To Maya, Aztec and Inca people, food was significant for more than just eating. In some cases, it was considered medicinal.
Herbal remedies were commonly used for rituals, and as medicine. They were either ingested, smoked or rubbed on the skin depending on the specific case. Fresh vegetation was sometimes applied directly on the skin for curing illnesses.
Mayan people also made various kinds of drinks by mixing cacao extract with ground corn and a touch of pepper. They drank this during special celebrations and festivals as part of their food tradition.
How have ancient traditions influenced Central American cuisine?
Mesoamerican people used corn as a main ingredient in their meals. In fact, tortillas (a sort of thin and savoury corn pancake) is a basic traditional ingredient in almost every meal.
The importance tortillas have on a typical Mexican meal cannot be underestimated. Prepared and enjoyed in many different ways since early times, they are a must at every table.
A side of corn tortillas
When prepared as a side dish, tortillas can be served along any main course such as fajitas (a spicy, grilled meat, complete with peppers and onions).
Depending on personal preference, they can also be served along with chillies in nogado, a meat-stuffed pepper bathed with a walnut cream and garnished with pomegranate seeds and cilantro. Frijoles refritos, or refried black beans, is another traditional accompaniment to tortillas.
Alternatively, corn tortillas can be prepared as part of a main dish. When preparing Enchiladas, corn tortillas are wrapped around different kinds of ingredients, ranging from seasoned potatoes, to cheese, beans, various meats and other vegetables.
Last but not least, this luscious meal is covered with a spicy homemade tomato sauce, chopped lettuce, and fresh cream. These rich ingredients can be topped off with a soft guacamole.
Tacos are fairly similar to Enchiladas as they are usually folded around a filling. As one of the most popular Mexican dishes, Tacos consist of a corn tortilla rolled around a tasty and warm filling of meat, vegetables or cheese.
They can be topped with a chilli sauce, or even eaten plain as you walk down Av Rojo Gomez in Puerto Morelos and buy one.
Since the tortilla is the cornerstone of the Maya and Aztec food traditions, you should also try the supreme tortilla soup. Made up of healthy ingredients and fresh herbs, this dish is flavoursome, aromatic and full of character.
The essence of the dish comes from the chillies, beans, cilantro and chicken, which simmer together for a while. Later, avocado, tortilla bits, chopped onions and cheese, are added to the bowl. The result is a real banquet of flavours!
Where do Peruvian delicacies come from?
The Inca Empire arose in the Andean highlands of Peru, establishing their capital in the city of Cusco (where GVI is based). Because of this, the Latin American food culture of the Incas differed from that of Aztecs and Mayans.
Even though all three civilizations regarded corn as an important food, it was only possible for Aztec and Mayan people to cultivate this vegetable in such enormous quantities due to their geographical conditions.
Due to their higher altitude, Inca crops needed to resist low temperatures. That's why root vegetables became central in their diets.
The Inca people also included various grains in their diet, such as corn and amaranth. Different tubers and potato varieties were also common in their rather healthy dishes.
One variety of potato, the Oca, was particularly popular. Oca is high in protein and has good nutritional value. It was usually boiled in soups, and stews, but was sometimes roasted.
Oca was also used as a sweetener. This ochre tuber is sometimes called "the lost crop of the Incas" as, with time, it became the second most popular tuber after the potato.
According to the strict hierarchy of early Incan society, food was more plentiful and varied for the upper classes than for the lower classes. Along with many plants and vegetables, the Incas raised llamas and alpacas as a source of meat and milk. Being close to the Pacific coastline, which is one of the richest fisheries in the world, they also caught fish and used them as a primary food source.
As a fusion of all these ingredients is Ceviche: a popular Peruvian dish. Ceviche is a typical seafood dish made from fresh raw fish. The fish is cured in citrus juice, preferably lime, and spiced with different chili peppers, chopped onions and cilantro. It can also be garnished with diced tomatoes, avocado and popped or roasted corn.
Ceviche contains the perfect blend of textures and flavour: soft from the citrus, with added zest from the cilantro!
The Inca people also had their own kind of drink called Chicha. Chicha is made from grains, corn or fruit. It can contain alcohol, and is prepared in many ways according to region. Chicha morada, which is made with purple corn, is a very popular refreshment in Bolivia and Peru.
What are you waiting for? Dive into a spicy and cultural experience of local cuisine while you volunteer in Latin America.
- Cape Coast
- Cape Town
- Chiang Mai
- Community Development
- Fiji Islands
- Gap Year
- GVI Live
- Kampong Cham
- Luang Prabang
- Mahe and Curieuse
- Marine Conservation
- Personal Development
- Phang Nga
- Responsible Travel
- Service Learning
- Study Abroad
- Under 18
- Wildlife Conservation
- Women's Empowerment


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You undoubtedly have many questions if you're facing a charge for driving while intoxicated on federal lands in Texas. How is this different from a state DWI? Is it more serious? In many states, federal DWI or DUI law is stricter than state law. That's not necessarily true in Texas, where strict DWI laws exist. But even if you're facing a DWI on federal lands, an expert in Texas DWI can help.
Texas DWI Law
Under Texas law, you can face DWI charges even when your blood alcohol content is below.o8%, which is the legal limit. That's because Texas defines someone as "intoxicated" if they:
- Not having the normal use of mental or physical faculties by reason of the introduction of alcohol, a controlled substance, a drug, a dangerous drug, a combination of two or more of those substances, or any other substance into the body; or having an alcohol concentration of 0.08 or more.
Tex. Penal Code § 49.01 (2001). So, you can face DWI charges if you were operating a motor vehicle in public, and you have a BAC over.08%, or you don't have the normal use of your mental or physical faculties.
What is a Federal DWI?
Federal charges for driving while intoxicated typically follow federal law. However, in some situations, you could still face charges under Texas DWI law for a DWI charge on federal land.
Typically, if the police arrest you for a DWI in Texas, you'll face Texas state charges. But if the police arrest you for driving under the influence on federal land, you can face federal DWI or DUI charges. Federal land in Texas can include any land owned by the federal government, such as:
- National parks,
- National monuments,
- Government compounds or military bases,
- Parking lots on federal land,
- Post offices,
- Some airports,
- Federal courthouses, and
- Any property owned by a federal agency or the federal government.
Federal property near the Houston area where you could face federal DUI charges can include:
- Joint Reserve Base Ellington,
- Joint Forces Reserve Center Houston,
- Big Thicket National Reserve,
- Waco Mammoth National Monument,
- San Antonio Missions National Historic Park,
- Padre Island National Seashore,
- Big Bend National Park,
- Lyndon B. Johnson National Historic Park, and
- Palo Alto Battlefield National Historic Park.
Federal DWI Laws
Federal DWI law is similar to Texas state law, prohibiting someone from operating a vehicle with a BAC of.08% or higher or if you are impaired to the point that it impacts your ability to drive safely. Zero tolerance laws for minors also apply on federal land, meaning anyone under 21 with a BAC of.01% or higher can face DWI charges.
The law concerning driving while intoxicated in national parks is covered by the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR). A person is guilty of DWI in a national park if they are operating or in physical control of a vehicle and:
- Under the influence of alcohol or drugs to the point that renders them incapable of safe operation, or
- Have a BAC of.08% or higher.
36 CFR § 4.23 (2018).
Like under Texas law, you can face a charge for DWI on national park land even if your BAC is below.08% if you are too drunk or impaired to operate your vehicle safely. You could also face charges if you are in "physical control" of your vehicle, even if you aren't driving. So, if you've pulled over to sleep on the side of the road, you could still face a charge for DWI.
Uniform Code of Military Justice
For military service members or reservists on active duty, an arrest on base or other federal lands for DWI can result in charges and punishment under Article 113 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ). See 10 USC § 913 (2019). Article 113 prohibits service members from operating or physically controlling "any vehicle, aircraft, or vessel in a reckless or wanton manner or while impaired" or with a BAC over the state limit or.08%, whichever is lower. In Texas, the legal BAC limit is.08% or.04% if you hold a commercial driver's license.
Punishments under the UCMJ can include:
- A letter of reprimand,
- A court-martial,
- Forfeiture of pay,
- Loss of rank or grade,
- Corrective training,
- Extra duties,
- Dishonorable discharge,
- A bar to reenlistment,
- Confinement to base,
- Loss of privileges or passes,
- Participation in a substance abuse or alcohol abuse treatment program, and
- Up to 18 months in jail.
Federal Assimilative Crimes Act
Under the Federal Assimilative Crimes Act, state law will apply if someone violates state law on federal land and there is no federal law covering the crime. So, Texas DWI law will apply if you're arrested for DWI on federal land where federal law is silent. This could happen if you're stopped for a suspected DWI on federal land that the federal government doesn't manage. In that case, you will likely face Texas DWI charges.
You Need an Expert in DWI Law
If you're facing a DWI on federal land in Teas, you shouldn't try to navigate the legal process alone. You need an expert in DWI defense with experience handling federal charges to get the best possible outcome in your case. Attorney Doug Murphy is an expert in DWI Defense and Criminal Defense Law, holding Board Certifications in DWI defense from the National College for DUI Defense and accredited by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization and the American Bar Association, and Criminal Defense Law from the Texas Board of Legal Specialization. U.S. News and World Report recently named Doug as a Best Lawyers in America for 2023 Houston DWI defense.
Doug and his skilled team at the Doug Murphy Law Firm have been successfully defending complex DWI cases and federal criminal charges for years. Find out how they can help you too. Contact the Doug Murphy Law Firm online or give them a call at _PHONE_ to schedule your consultation.


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The printed version of this publication includes illustrations.
Diana G. Helsel and Zane R. Helsel
Department of Agronomy
Missouri's growing season is characterized by excessive moisture in the spring followed by inadequate moisture during the middle of the growing season. Because of the lack of moisture during the crops' peak demand, some producers have invested in irrigation systems. The cost of maintaining and using these systems is high, so it is imperative to manage moisture in the most efficient way possible. The following discussion should help Missouri soybean producers understand the crop's need, the soil's ability to hold and supply water, and the agronomic practices that can result in maximum economic yields under irrigation.
Irrigation usually improves soybean yields on drought-prone soils and in exceptionally dry seasons. The amount of increased yield (and cost) fluctuates, depending on variety, geographic location, soil type and fertility. An eight-year study of irrigated vs. nonirrigated soybean yields in southeast Missouri indicates yield increases are greater for short-season varieties under irrigation (Table 1). Full-season varieties show almost no yield response, and medium-season varieties show an intermediate response to irrigation.
Responses of soybeans to irrigation in southeast Missouri, _PHONE_
|Maturity||Average of three sites|
|Early||27.1 bushels per acre||33.8 bushels per acre||6.7 bushels per acre|
|Medium||32.0 bushels per acre||35.7 bushels per acre||3.7 bushels per acre|
|Late||32.9 bushels per acre||33.7 bushels per acre||0.8 bushels per acre|
Adapted from Shannon and Duclos.
In central Missouri, a survey indicates that over a 10-year period, soybean growers obtained an average increase of 13 from irrigating full-season soybeans. In research sponsored by the grower check-off program, yields of 10 varieties grown in southwest Missouri during the dry years of 1983 and 1984 averaged 29 and 13 bushels more per acre respectively under irrigation. In 1985, when plentiful rains occurred during the seed-fill period, yields increased by only about 1 bushel per acre.
The economics of achieving these yield increases are of paramount importance. The type of irrigation system and the water source greatly affect cost. Flood or furrow irrigation with a cheap water source may cost as little as $25 per acre per year, while a center pivot system with a deep well could cost as much as $100. Prospective irrigators should weigh potential costs against returns they can expect from the increased yields and reduced risks created by irrigation.
In addition to influencing yields, irrigation may alter other characteristics of importance to soybean growers, such as maturity and lodging. Irrigation delays the maturity of shortor midseason varieties only a few days. Full-season varieties usually show no difference in maturity unless extended drought or charcoal rot infection occurs. Plant height normally increases under irrigation, which increases the chance of lodging. However, proper variety selection may reduce this problem.
Missouri rainfall patterns are characterized by sufficient winter and early spring rainfall that maintains the soil at or near saturation capacity until almost the first of June. During late June, July and August, the crop's need for moisture usually exceeds that available from either the soil or rainfall. Water requirements are a function of the plant's metabolic needs, the quantity needed for transpiration (to cool the plant), and the quantity lost by evaporation from the soil. This combined demand is called "evapotranspiration."
The peak water use period for soybeans occurs during reproductive growth, when they may need as much as 2.5 inches of water per week. The average rainfall during this period is less than 0.6 inches per week. Available soil moisture is depleted by the time reproductive growth begins, so unless you provide supplemental irrigation, the plant will be subjected to moisture stress.
Short-season varieties complete flowering and pod filling during the period of greatest evapotranspiration. This results in decreased yields if you don't irrigate. Full-season varieties normally reach their critical growth period after the period of the highest evapotranspiration passes.
Soybeans are most sensitive to moisture deficits during the late pod development/early bean filling periods. Figure 1 depicts the yield response of northern soybeans relative to the time at which moisture stress develops. Lack of water during flowering and podding causes flower and pod abortion. Stress during pod development and early seed fill reduces the number of seeds per pod. Drought conditions during seed fill reduce seed size and thus final yield. The critical period of water need for indeterminate varieties occurs from late flowering through mid pod fill. For determinate varieties, such as those grown in the Bootheel, the period of greatest water need begins earlier in flowering. The new determinate semi-dwarf (short-statured) varieties often show critical water needs through most stages of growth.
The effect of a moisture stress on soybean yield at various growth stages. From Shaw and Laing, 1966. Iowa State University
Specific soil types have varying abilities to hold moisture. The available soil moisture, in terms of inches of water held per foot depth of a soil, is described in Table 2. Sandy soils retain the least amount of water, while silt loam and clay loam soils hold the most. Note that clay soils have less available water than do clay loam soils. Clay soils hold more water, but less of that water is available for plant growth because water adheres strongly to the clay particles.
Potential available water storage capacity for various soil types
|Soil type||Available soil moisture per foot of depth|
|Loamy sands||1.0 inch|
|Sandy loam, clay loam||1.5 inches|
|Loams, silty clay loam||1.8 inches|
|Silt loams||2.5 inches|
Adapted from Kiniry, Scrivner, and Keener, 1983.
You must also consider the rooting depth of the crop in a particular soil. The effective rooting depth of soybeans ranges from a few inches after emergence to 2 to 3 feet during the early reproductive stages. However, some Missouri soils are compacted and some acid sublayers restrict the effective rooting depth to that depth of topsoil above the compacted layer. In these soils, it is wasteful to supply more water than is necessary to wet the upper zone.
You can measure or estimate soil moisture by a variety of methods. Each has its advantages and limitations. Irrigators who use soil moisture measurements for scheduling purposes usually establish an allowable soil moisture depletion level. For soybeans, the limit is about 70 percent depletion in the vegetative stages and 50 percent for reproductive stages. You should irrigate if you reach these levels. To maintain the soil moisture content above the allowable depletion level, you should start irrigating sooner on sandy soil, which has a lower moisture storage capacity.
One of the quickest and most popular methods of determining soil moisture is based on feel and appearance of the soil. Charts to aid inexperienced irrigators are available. The method is not quantitative and requires individual judgment. Thus, it lacks the precision of other methods.
Electrical resistance instruments, commonly called moisture blocks, measure the moisture content of the soil indirectly. They sense a change in electrical properties of the blocks which correlates with block moisture content and, in turn, the soil moisture. These devices consist of two electrodes mounted in blocks made of plaster-of-paris, fiberglass, gypsum or other materials. Wires from the electrodes attach to a meter that measures electrical conductivity, a function of the water content of the soil.
To install moisture blocks, dig a hole with a soil auger and place the block in it. Pack soil around the block to ensure good capillary action between the sensor and the soil. Calibrate blocks in each field to ensure accurate prediction.
Moisture blocks are not recommended for sandy soils.
Tensiometers are well adapted to sandier soils. Tensiometers measure the soil moisture tension — how tightly the soil particles hold the water. This is directly related to the tension required for plant roots to extract water from the soil.
Tensiometers consist of a tube with a porous ceramic cup at one end and a gauge at the other. To install, place in the soil to the depth of plant rooting. Fill with water. The water will move from the cup into the soil until the water content reaches equilibrium (equal proportions of water in the soil and in the cup). As the soil dries, the tension increases, indicating water is more difficult to extract from the soil.
Although tensiometers indicate when you should begin to irrigate, they do not indicate how much water you should apply.
MU Extension centers can provide irrigation scheduling charts for soybeans and other crops. A computer develops a customized chart (example in Figure 2) for each field depending on crop, soil type, planting date, variety (maturity), location in the state, and any moisture deficit at planting time.
Use this chart to develop an irrigation schedule
The chart projects the cumulative minimum and maximum amounts of water you should provide (as the season progresses) to optimize crop yield, assuming average weather conditions for the site. You use the scheduling chart to maintain the total water added (rainfall + irrigation) during the season between the minimum and maximum water needs.
Usually, a 1- to 2-inch range exists between the minimum and maximum cumulative totals of needed water application, depending on the available water holding capacity of the soil. Thus the chart is well suited for sprinkler irrigation because sprinklers usually apply less than 2 inches of water per application.
A planned linear depletion of two-thirds of the total soil moisture storage by crop


seals of yeovil borough
Common seals of Yeovil
Examples of Portreeve's Seal 1815 and Borough Seal 1877
Yeovil was officially designated as a Borough in 1854 and at left is an example of the Seal of the Borough of Yeovil used by the Corporation. It is from a document in my collection dated 1877 and is based on the original fourteenth century town seal used by the town's Lord and his Portreeve.
The main shield depicts Saint John the Baptist, standing beneath an arch with trees either side. He is holding a shield with a representation of the Agnus Dei, the Lamb of God.
The seal is a device for making an impression in wax, or other medium, and is also the impression thus made. The purpose was to authenticate the document.
The sealing process is essentially that of a mould, with the final image represented on the device for making the impression by a mirror-image design, incised in sunken relief, or intaglio. The seal-making device is also referred to as the seal matrix or die; the imprint it creates as the seal impression.
The seal impression in this photograph measures three inches (75mm) across and is reproduced here almost actual size (depending on your screen resolution). Impressed into red candle wax, it was placed on a bright green silk square attached to the vellum (calfskin) document.
The Portreeve's Seal photographed below, is from a document of 1815.
From my collection


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Optimise concepts to perfectly meet the needs of a moment
There's often a chasm between a good idea and a successful product: SuperClinic, our concept refinement tool, is designed to help you cross it.
Conducted over two days, SuperClinic uses sequential recycling to explore and optimise concepts by incorporating real-time consumer feedback.
We promise to transform concepts that have shown potential into sharpened concepts that meet consumer needs in key moments of opportunity.
Questions that SuperClinic can answer:
- How can I improve rough concepts?
- How can I improve concepts that have been tested and have some potential but do not yet meet action standards?
- Are my concepts relevant to my target audience?


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The painting style Hopper worked out in the early 1920s was not fundamentally different from that of Rene Magritte (who, incidentally, initially made his living as an illustrator and commercial artist). Nothing could be more foreign to this type of idiom than bravura brushwork. Like Magritte, Hopper strove above all to achieve an internal consistency of composition and homogeneity of pictorial form. Only in his landscapes did Hopper continue, into the 1930s, to permit himself the freedom of pulling forms together into expansive units, and of letting the brushstroke stand as an autonomous pictorial element in certain passages.
It is interesting to compare Rene Magritte's Empire of Light, 1950 - one of seventeen versions of the subject he painted - with Hopper's House at Dusk, 1935. Apart from the fact that Hopper's picture seems more eerie, because more real, than Rene Magritte's heightened reality, the comparison shows that the effect of such motifs depends largely on a painting technique oriented towards photographic precision. Yet despite a renunciation of sumptuous brushwork, the technique can still evince great finesse in paint handling, as Hopper's painting indicates even more than Magritte's.


. A DP measure $G = \sum _k \pi _k \delta _{\theta _k}$ is used to model a set of two-dimensional data. After the posterior inference, three mixtures/points (i.e., three ecllipes in the figure) are chosen to represent/model such data.
Some important properties of the above stochastic processes are summarised in Table 1, including the stick-breaking construction methods and the power-law extensions. Note that these stochastic processes are only a very small portion of all stochastic processes. In addition to the above processes, there are a large number of stochastic processes with special properties existing in the current statistic literature, many of which may be valuable for modelling different data structures or resolving different learning tasks. We believe these processes are a huge undiscovered treasure that deserves more attention from the machine-learning community.
Table 1. Properties of Stochastic Processes
Stochastic Process Stick-breaking CRM NRM Power-law
Poisson Process $\surd$
Dirichlet Process $\surd$ [162] $\surd$ $\surd$ [167]
Beta Process $\surd$ [13] $\surd$
Bernoulli Process $\surd$
Gamma Process $\surd$ [145] $\surd$
Negative-binomial Process $\surd$ $\surd$ $\surd$ [14]
Hierarchical Dirichlet Process $\surd$ [176] $\surd$ $\surd$ [12]
Indian Buffet Process $\surd$ [164]
"Stick-breaking" denotes whether the process has a stick-breaking constructive representation; "CRM" denotes whether the process is a completely random measure; "NRM" denotes whether the process is a normalised random measure; "Power-law" denotes whether there is a version with power-law (cluster number to data number) phenomenon.
3.2 Construction
Recall that the definition of a process only states its respective properties but does not provide a way to construct its realisations. Discovering a way to construct the realisation of a stochastic process (also known as a representation) is crucial in posterior analysis. The above subsection only gives the definitions of different processes from which we can judge whether a measure is from a specific stochastic process. To obtain an instance/sample from a process and perform the model inference, an explicit construction method is needed. Based on the properties of Beta distribution, stick-breaking is commonly accepted as an efficient construction methodology. Several sticking-breaking methods have been proposed for different processes. These are summarised below.
Sticking-breaking for Dirichlet Process [152]. Sticking-breaking continuously breaks a stick with a unit length, and constructs the weights using these breaks. For DP, the procedure is as follows:
\begin{equation*} \begin{aligned} G = \sum _k^{\infty } \pi _k \delta _{\theta _k} \hspace{28.45274pt} \pi _k = \nu _k \prod _{j=1}^{k-1} (1-\nu _j) \hspace{28.45274pt} \nu _k \sim \text{Beta}(1, \alpha) \hspace{28.45274pt} \theta _k \sim H, \end{aligned} \end{equation*}
where $\text{Beta}()$ denotes a Beta distribution and $\nu _k$ is the $k$th random break in a unit stick with a Beta distribution parameterised by 1 and $\alpha$. We can see that the weights $\pi _k$ of $G$ can be explicitly constructed/represented and that this $G$ has already been proven to be a sample of DP.
Sticking-breaking for Hierarchal Dirichlet Process [167, 176]. There are two versions of stick-breaking for HDP: Teh's version [167] and Sethuraman's version [176]. The Sethuraman's verion is
\begin{equation*} \begin{aligned} G_0 &= \sum _k^{\infty } \pi _{0,k} \delta _{\theta _k} \hspace{28.45274pt}& \pi _{0,k}&=\nu _{0,k} \prod _{j=1}^{k-1} (1-\nu _{0,j}) \hspace{28.45274pt}& \nu _{0,k} &\sim \text{Beta}(1, \alpha _0) \\ G_d &= \sum _t^{\infty } \pi _{d,t} \delta _{\theta _{d,t}} & \pi _{d,t}&=\nu _{d,t} \prod _{j=1}^{t-1} (1-\nu _{d,j}) & \nu _{d,t} &\sim \text{Beta}(1, \alpha _d) \\ \theta _k &\sim H & \theta _{d,t} &= \theta _{z_{d,t}} & z_{d,t} &\sim \pi _0, \end{aligned} \end{equation*}
where $z_{d,t}$ denotes an index to one of $\lbrace \theta _k\rbrace _{k=1}^{\infty }$. Compared to Teh's version, Sethuraman's version has the advantage in that the stick weights in different layers are decoupled, which makes the posterior inference easier. From this constructive representation, we can see the factor sharing property of HDP. $G_d$ in the lower layer shares the factors $\lbrace \theta _k\rbrace _{k=1}^{\infty }$ of $G_0$ in higher layers. Another interesting point is that the constructions of $\pi _{0}$ and $\lbrace \pi _d\rbrace$ are independent, and the only connections between $G_0$ and $\lbrace G_d\rbrace$ are the relationships between $\theta _{k}$ and $\lbrace \theta _{d}\rbrace$.
Sticking-breaking for Indian Buffet Process [164]. To obtain $Z \sim \text{IBP}(\alpha)$, the stick-breaking procedure is
\begin{equation*} \begin{aligned} z_{i,k} \sim \text{Bernoulli}(b_k) \hspace{28.45274pt} b_{k} = \nu _{k} b_{k-1} = \prod _{l=1}^k \nu _{l} \hspace{28.45274pt} \nu _{k} \sim \text{Beta}(\alpha, 1), \end{aligned} \end{equation*}
where $b_{1} \gt b_{2} \gt \cdots \gt b_{K}$. It has been proven that $\lbrace z_{i,k}\rbrace$ from such a procedure satisfies IBP. As illustrated in Figure 4, there is an interesting connection between the above procedure and stick-breaking for DP: Suppose we fix $\nu \sim \text{Beta}(1, \alpha)$. Initially, the stick weight for DP is $\nu _1$ and $1-\nu _1$ for IBP. The stick weight for DP in the $k$ step is $\nu _k \prod _{i=0}^{k-1} (1-\nu _i)$ and $(1-\nu _k) \prod _{i=0}^{k-1} (1-\nu _i)$ for IBP. Hence, we can see that at each breaking step, the weight for DP is the length of discarded stick while the weight for IBP is the length of the remainder of the stick.
Fig. 4.
Fig. 4. Illustrations of the connection between the stick-breaking procedures for DP and IBP.
Sticking-breaking for Beta Process [13]. The stick-breaking construction procedure for $B \sim \text{BP}(c, B_0)$ is different from IBP, in that there are more than one unit sticks. The procedure is
\begin{equation*} \begin{aligned} B = \sum _{i=1}^\infty \sum _{j=1}^{C_i} \nu _{i,j}^{(i)}\prod _{l=1}^{i-1} \big(1-\nu _{i,j}^{(l)}\big) \delta _{\theta _{i,j}} \hspace{17.07182pt} \nu _{i,j}^{(l)} \sim \text{Beta}(1, c) \hspace{17.07182pt} C_i \sim \text{Poisson}(B_0(\Omega)) \hspace{17.07182pt} \theta _{i,j} \sim B_0, \end{aligned} \end{equation*}
where each atom has two subscripts $(i,j)$. The stick weight is equal to the $i$th break in the atom-specific stick, and the atom number follows a Poisson distribution.
The aim of the BNL is to use the above stochastic processes to model the data and then resolve the specific tasks. However, the modelling ability of any single stochastic process is limited. Therefore, in more complicated situations, two or more stochastic processes may need to be manipulated in different ways. A summary of the state-of-the-art designs of the manipulation follows, and their relationships to the most popular stochastic processes used in BNL are illustrated in Figure 5.
Fig. 5.
Fig. 5. Visualisation of relations


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Authorities in eastern China have said they will release 20 million algae-eating fish into one of the nation's most scenic lakes that has been ravaged by pollution.
Taihu Lake, which straddles Zhejiang and Jiangsu provinces, has been severely polluted by sewage as well as industrial and agricultural waste, triggering a blue-green algae plague.
Authorities started using fish to try to clean up the lake in February last year when they released 10 million mostly green and silver carp into the water, after the algae tainted the drinking supply of millions of residents.
Over the next few days, around 20 million more algae-eating fish will be released into the water, the Taihu Lake Fisheries Management Committee said in a statement Monday.
The campaign, funded by the government and public donations, cost a total of 8.6 million yuan (1.3 million dollars), according to the statement.
A silver carp can consume 50 kilogrammes (110 pounds) of algae and other plankton in its lifetime while gaining only one kilogramme in weight, authorities have said.
Millions of algae-eating fish have been used in the past to clean up Taihu and other lakes, with previous efforts hailed as a boon for the local fishing industry despite concerns over consumption of fish that have feasted on toxins.
Algae blooms, which are common on freshwater lakes in China, are chiefly caused by the presence of untreated sewage containing high concentrations of nitrogen, a main ingredient in detergents and fertilisers.
China's environment has suffered severely amid the nation's breakneck economic growth over the past three decades.
Explore further: EU bans three pesticides harmful to bees


Performance Problems - Not Where You'd Expect
The new rendering system in Woopsi is coming along nicely. In most areas it increases rendering speed and reduces flicker. In one area, though, it hasn't been an improvement at all. Scrolling has become a problem.
In the old system, scrolling regions were extremely quick, mainly because most of the scrolling is done by just using the DMA to copy the existing pixels to a new location. In the new system, however, scrolling is sluggish and annoying. It seems to take more than one frame to perform a single scroll operation, which results in the display lagging behind the stylus and the system appearing to be, well, a bit rubbish.
I've already made one major optimisation. Instead of asking every gadget to draw every damaged rectangle until there are no rectangles left (which results in dozens of pointless, complex clipping operations), Woopsi uses the hierarchy of the gadgets to its advantage. If a parent gadget does not intersect a damaged rectangle, there is no way for its children to intersect it either. In avoiding trying to draw those children we save a lot of time.
However, this did not solve the scrolling problem. So what could it be? More to the point, how can it have happened, as the scrolling code hasn't actually changed?
I had a few guesses. Perhaps the scrolling operation was running more than once. Putting break points into the Xcode version of Woopsi quickly killed that idea. Perhaps I need to cache the contents of ScrollingPanels in some sort of off-screen bitmap - maybe it's all the redrawing that is a problem. But it couldn't be that - there weren't any problems before. Perhaps the list of newly-revealed rectangles that need to be redrawn that is returned by the scrolling routine is inaccurate. Testing it overturned that idea.
So I turn to Xcode's "Instruments", something that I wish Visual Studio would copy. Running Woopsi through the CPU Sampler suggests that the only thing Woopsi is doing is creating Rect objects. Creating rectangles is making Woopsi's scrolling rubbish? That makes no sense.
Except, perhaps it does.
All of the new rendering functions create WoopsiArrays of Rect objects. As the inital size of a WoopsiArray is 100, and as they store objects, not pointers to objects, that means that each function call to one of these methods creates hundreds of Rect objects. Worse, these functions are recursive. There are probably tens of thousands of Rect objects being created every time the screen redraws.
I tried switching to arrays of pointers-to-rect objects, but quickly got bogged down in recursive memory allocation hell. Instead, I altered the WoopsiArray class so that it accepts an initial reserved size parameter. In most cases, none of the methods needs more than 4 rects in a list, so I've gone with that as the initial size. I've also changed the way that the array class resizes itself; it now doubles in size every time it needs to allocate more space instead of increasing by 100 elements. I believe this is the behaviour of the STL's vector class.
Surprisingly enough, these very minor changes fixed the scrolling problems and boosted the speed of Woopsi everywhere else. I'm not sure I can remember it being this quick.
It's a very old programmer's cliche, but it's true. Performance problems aren't always where you'd expect.
Happy Belated Birthday, and More Event Stuff
It was the blog's birthday on April 11th. I'd intended to put up a birthday post like I did last year, and maybe a celebratory Woopsi app, but exam work got in the way. Ah well.
Anyhoo, I made some more Woopsi changes nearly a month ago that I haven't been able to post about yet, so here's some info on those.
One of the lingering problems with the Gadget class has been the way it overloads the draw() method. There are two draw() methods, one without parameters, and one with a single parameter (a Gadget::Rect). The first method works out which parts of the gadget are visible, whilst the second actually draws those visible parts. Sounds good, but in practice it causes problems.
There is a bug in GCC (or a weird C++ behaviour; let's assume it's a bug in the compiler and not a design flaw in the language) that prevents this arrangement from working. If we create a subclass of gadget (let's call it "SubGadget"), we want to override the draw(Rect) method so the gadget can define how to draw each visible region. However, we don't want to override the draw() method, as this is identical for all gadgets. Unfortunately, we can't override one without also overriding the other. The compiler complains. As a workaround for this I have been overriding draw() with a method that just calls the base method, but this is clunky.
As a proper fix, the draw() method is now called "redraw()". This change will probably break your code if you have created your own gadgets.
There are a few more changes in the event system. Previously, whenever a selection was made in the context menu, the gadget that "owned" the menu raised an event indicating the selection. It was then the programmer's responsibility to check the context menu gadget itself to determine which value had been chosen. This is no longer the case - the handleContextMenuSelectionEvent() method now receives a reference to a "ContextMenuEventArgs" object that contains a pointer to the menu item that was selected. Much simpler to work with.
In other changes, the WoopsiArray and LinkedList classes no longer contain the "begin()" methods. This was left over from when Woopsi switched from the STL vector class to the WoopsiArray, a change in which I'd purposely made the WoopsiArray a drop-in replacement for the vector. The "begin()" was just a stub method, though - the WoopsiArray does not implement the STL iterator code, and begin() simply returned a zero. The WoopsiArray uses indexes internally, not pointer arithmetic, to navigate its contents.


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Democratic Reps Propose Air Quality Reforms
LANSING —State Reps. Abdullah Hammoud (D-Dearborn), David LaGrand (D-Grand Rapids), Vanessa Guerra (D-Saginaw), Tenisha Yancey (D-Harper Woods), Cara Clemente (D-Lincoln Park), and Sylvia Santana (D-Detroit) have introduced an air quality bill package with proposals to protect public health through enhancing air quality standards and strengthening the permitting process.
"We need to hold corporations accountable, especially those that request to emit additional pollutants in areas that already have questionable air quality," Rep. Hammoud said. "This is discrimination by pollution, and it has to stop. Neighborhoods in Dearborn border the epicenter of the asthma burden, an area where asthma rates that are up to two to four times higher than the state average. Under current law, the DEQ is not permitted to consider the total amount of pollutants being emitted by all corporations within a neighborhood. My bill would require the DEQ to take into account the entirety of the pollution within a neighborhood, by all the corporations, when considering any additional permits."
These proposals focus on environmental justice, transparency, accountability, local control, and expanding permit criteria. The bills are as follows:
- HB 6139 (Rep. LaGrand): Requires all state departments and agencies to consider air quality when making decisions, and to establish air quality criteria.
- HB 6140 (Rep. Guerra): Requires the Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) to notify legislators in the district where a permit is requested to increase emissions.
- HB 6141 (Rep. Yancey): Requires the entity requesting the permit to increase emissions to have a representative present at the public hearing, and to address questions and concerns from the public.
- HB 6142 (Rep. Clemente): Requires the DEQ to consider certain socioeconomic variables when reviewing a permit request.
- HB 6143 (Rep. Hammoud): Requires the DEQ to take into consideration the cumulative air quality impact when considering permits.
- HB 6144 (Rep. Santana): Creates a process in which a local government could veto a permit to increase air emissions through their passage of a resolution.
"We need to increase accountability for the corporations requesting to increase air pollution. At present, there is no legal requirement for the requester of a permit to address public questions, or even attend the hearing," Rep. Yancey said. "My bill fixes this unfortunate situation by increasing transparency and accountability. At a minimum, Michiganders deserves to know the specifics on projects that could potentially be exposing their children to air pollution, and then have an opportunity to question the corporations directly."
"Local control is important, and is severely lacking in the permitting process. Local governments should have the ability to determine what happens in their communities, and if they want additional pollutants to be added to the air that their children breathe," Rep. Santana said. "This bill creates a process for local governments to be involved in the process by granting them the ability to pass a resolution to block a permit that increases pollutants."


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A Villager David has a plot of land of the shape of a quadrilateral. The Village head decided to take over some portion of his plot from one of the corners toconstruct a health center. Suzie Agrees to the above proposal with the condition that he should be given equal amount of land in lieu of his land adjoining his plot so as to form a triangular plot. Explain how this plan can be implemented.
Please solve this


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Abstract With unique orbital and physical characteristics, Triton is a very important target because it may contain information of the origin and evolution of the solar system. Besides space explorations, ground-based observations over long time also play a key role on research of Triton. High-precision positions of Triton obtained from ground telescopes are of great significance for studying its orbital evolution and the physical properties of Neptune. As a long-term observational target, Triton has been observed by the 1.56 m telescope of Shanghai Astronomical Observatory since 1996. In this paper, based on our AAPPDI software and with Gaia DR2 as the reference catalog, 604 positions of Triton during 2010–2014 are calculated, with standard errors of 19–88 mas. A comparison between our results and the ephemeris (DE431+nep096) is also given.
Keywords planets and satellites: general – techniques: image processing – methods: data analysis
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It accepts original submissions from all over the world and is internationally published and distributed by IOP


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Towards Sustainability through Development: A Regional Dialogue in the 3rd International Symposium on Disaster Resilience and Sustainable Development (DRSD 2023)
Experts, practitioners, policymakers, and students from multi sectoral and multidisciplinary backgrounds gathered to engage in a regional dialogue and academic exhibition regarding disaster resilience and sustainable development in Asia Pacific and beyond. Their participation was part of the 3rd International Symposium on Disaster Resilience and Sustainable Development (DRSD 2023), a biannual event organized by Asian Institute of Technology with great support from institutional partners.
The 2-day Symposium took place on 7th and 8th December 2023 in AIT Conference Center, Pathumthani, Thailand. Over 220 participants from 25 countries attended the Symposium. The diverse participants represented different sectors, such as academic institutions, national and international nongovernmental organizations, national and subnational government agencies, multilateral banks, and the private sector.
The Symposium achieved its aims of diverse academic exhibitions and established discourse on key issues related to DRR and sustainable development.
The Symposium was formally opened on 7 December 2023 by AIT President, Prof. Kazuo Yamamoto and the Chair of the DRSD 2023 Organizing Committee, Dr. Indrajit Pal. Prof. Yamamoto stressed the important correlation between disaster resilience and sustainable development goals. AIT's work in promoting SDGs has been recognized widely and this Symposium was key to sustaining that work further.
Dr. Pal, who is also Chair and Assoc. Prof of Disaster Preparedness, Mitigation and Management (DPMM) Program, highlighted the positive response from the DRR community in Asia Pacific and beyond; and further encouraged the importance of collaborating together to achieve sustainability through development.
After the opening session, opening keynote speeches were delivered by two renowned personalities Dr. Sanjay Srivastava from UN-ESCAP and Dr. Bhichit Rattakul from Thai Network for Disaster Resilience (TNDR). Throughout the two days, five international experts delivered keynote speeches on the topics of The Living Deltas Hub, sponge city and urban flood resilience, building international scientific collaboration for disaster management, and infrastructure resilience from climate hazards.
The Symposium facilitated in-depth, multi-sectoral dialogue through four panel discussion sessions on the topics of water supply and sanitation resilience during emergencies; strengthening critical infrastructure resilience to disasters and climate change; disaster and climate resilience in deltaic and coastal systems; and enhancing regional collaboration among Global South countries to promote research into risk and resilience. Participants witnessed and benefited from the experiences and insights shared by the panel members and ensuing Q&A.
Over 150 participants representing over 70 institutions and 25 countries conducted technical presentations in the form of oral and poster presentations to reflect state-of-the-art interdisciplinary knowledge on DRR in Asia Pacific and beyond. In total, there were 126 oral presentations and 24 poster presentations presented in the Thematic Sessions under distinct themes:
1. Climate Change, Risk Reduction, and Adaptation;
2. Remote Sensing and ICT Applications for Disaster Resilience;
3. Risk Reduction, Governance and Development,
4. Resilience of Urban, Built Environment, and Infrastructure,
5. Disaster and Climate Resilience in Coastal, Marine, and Deltaic Systems, and
6. Strengthening Ecological and Natural Systems for Disaster Resilience.
The Symposium was officially closed on 8 December 2023 by Dr. Roger Levermore, Dean of AIT School of Management and Vice President for Development, and Dr. Indrajit Pal. Dr. Roger extended his appreciation to all participants and partners for their support and highlighted the need to further strengthen collaborations. The DRSD 2023 Symposium concluded with remarks from Dr. Indrajit Pal on the regional multi-stakeholder collaboration, especially higher education institutes towards the sustainable and disaster resilient community.


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Hosts, Reporters and Producers
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Tue March 13, 2012
Saving Nelson Mandela
When law professor Kenneth Broun began learning about the 1963 trial of Nelson Mandela, he was startled to discover the South African leader was expected to be put to death. Mandela spent 27 years in prison, but he eventually got out and became president.
Still, Broun wondered what would have happened if the celebrated leader had been killed. He set about researching the trial that led to Mandela's imprisonment. Host Frank Stasio talks to Kenneth Broun, professor at the University of Chapel Hill, about his new book, "Saving Nelson Mandela: The Rivonia Trial and the Fate of South Africa" (Oxford University Press/2012).


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The Creative Approach of Problems in Social Pedagogy: Limits and Opportunities
Having its epistemological roots in German pedagogy and sociology of the XIXth century, social pedagogy is an expanding school of thought, a research and a professionalization domain. The diversity of socio-cultural contexts and the heterogeneousness of ideological options connected to social pedagogy hinder the ambitious attempt to define the field in a unitary manner. Beyond semantic hardship, social pedagogy seeks efficient educational solutions for individuals and groups at risk, regardless characteristics such as age and types of difficulties. The theme is increasingly visible and lacks coherent management within the current Romanian social context; the approach is rather fragmented (with contributions from the field of social work) or centred on certain disadvantaged groups (for example, individuals with special education needs), and needs a unitary vision, as well as an educational perspective oriented towards preventing and solving difficult situations. The study aims to argue on premises for the development of social pedagogy in Romania as an academic field able to substantiate complex and innovative approaches of social vulnerabilities, based on current discourses and socio-educational projects. Activities of socio-cultural animation, the flexible and rather atypical use of socio-educational intervention techniques inspired by arts, sports, society games and outdoor education illustrate the methodological diversity of social pedagogy and the creative manner in which individuals are encouraged to participate in the process of problem solving.
social pedagogy, socio-cultural and socio-educational interventions, creative approaches
– NICOLETA-LAURA POPA – Associate Professor, PhD, "Alexandru Ioan Cuza" University of Iași, Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, Department of Education. E-mail: _EMAIL_
– MAGDA-ELENA SAMOILĂ – Teaching Assistant, PhD, "Alexandru Ioan Cuza University" of Iași, Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, Department of Education. E-mail: _EMAIL_
– MARIANA MOMANU – Associate Professor, PhD, "Alexandru Ioan Cuza" University of Iași, Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, Department of Education. E-mail: _EMAIL_