Spatial and harvesting influence on growth, yield, quality and economic potential of Kalmegh (Andrographis paniculata Wall Ex. Nees)

Andrographis paniculata, commonly known as Kalmegh, is used both in Ayurvedic and Unani system of medicines because of its immunological, antibacterial and hepatoprotective properties. This study was carried out to investigate the influence of four harvesting times (120,135,150 days after planting and at seed maturity) and four planting distances (30×15, 30×10, 20×15 and 20×10 cm) on growth, dry herbage biomass, seed yield and quality traits of Andrographis paniculata at CCS Haryana Agricultural University, Hisar, India in the two years 2005 and 2006. The treatments were laid out in a split plot design with three replications. The maximum values for dry herbage biomass yield (5.14 t ha^(-1)), net returns (760.00 EUR ha^(-1)), B:C ratio (2.59), andrographolide content (2.63%) and total yield (135.00 kg ha^(-1)) were detected 135 days after planting with an optimum planting distance of 30×15 cm. However, the maximum iron content was estimated 120 days after planting. The highest dry herbage (4.58 t ha^(-1)) and maximum seed yield (19.7 kg ha^(-1)) were registered at plants that were lined out with a distance of 20×10 cm.

Understanding Recreational Services of Urban Riverfront Space for Planning Purposes

In the process of urbanization, natural and semi-natural landscapes are increasingly cherished as open space and recreational resource. Urban rivers are part of this kind of resource and thus play an important role in managing urban resilience and health. Employing the example of Tianjin, this doctoral dissertation research aims at learning to understand how to plan and design for the interface zones between urban water courses and for the land areas adjacent to such water courses. This research also aims at learning how to link waterfront space with other urban space in order to make a recreational space system for the benefit of people. Five questions of this dissertation are: 1) what is the role of rivers in spatial and open space planning? 2) What are the human needs regarding outdoor open space? 3) How do river and water front spatial structures affect people's recreational activities? 4) How to define the recreational service of urban river and waterfront open space? 5) How might answering these question change planning and design of urban open space? Quantitative and qualitative empirical approaches were combined in this study for which literature review and theoretical explorations provide the basis. Empirical investigations were conducted in the city of Tianjin. The quantitative approach includes conducting 267 quantitative interviews, and the qualitative approach includes carrying out field observations and mappings. GIS served to support analysis and visualization of empirical information that was generated through this study. By responding to the five research questions, findings and lessons include the following: 1) In the course of time rivers have gained importance in all levels and scales of spatial planning and decision making. Regarding the development of ecological networks, mainly at national scale, rivers are considered significant linear elements. Regarding regional and comprehensive development, river basins and watersheds are often considered as the structural link for strategic ecological, economic, social and recreational planning. For purposes of urban planning, particularly regarding recreational services in cities, the distribution of urban open spaces often follows the structure of river systems. 2) For the purpose of classifying human recreational needs that relate to outdoor open space Maslow's hierarchy of human needs serves as theoretical basis. The classes include geographical, safety, physiological, social and aesthetic need. These classes serve as references while analyzing river and waterfront open space and other kinds of open space. 3) Regarding the question how river and waterfront spatial structures might affect people's recreational activities, eight different landscape units were identified and compared in the case study area. Considering the thermal conditions of Tianjin, one of these landscape units was identified as affording the optimal spatial arrangement which mostly meets recreational needs. The size and the shape of open space, and the plants present in an open space have been observed as being most relevant regarding recreational activities. 4) Regarding the recreational service of urban river and waterfront open space the results of this research suggest that the recreational service is felt less intensively as the distances between water 183 front and open space user’s places of residence are increasing. As a method for estimating this ‘Service Distance Effect’ the following formula may be used: Y = a*ebx. In this equation Y means the ‘Service Distance’ between homes and open space, and X means the percentage of the people who live within this service distance. Coefficient "a" represents the distance of the residential area nearest to the water front. The coefficient "b" is a comprehensive capability index that refers to the size of the available and suitable recreational area. 5) Answers found to the questions above have implications for the planning and design of urban open space. The results from the quantitative study of recreational services of waterfront open space were applied to the assessment of river-based open space systems. It is recommended that such assessments might be done employing the network analysis function available with any GIS. In addition, several practical planning and designing suggestions are made that would help remedy any insufficient base for satisfying recreational needs. The understanding of recreational need is considered helpful for the proposing planning and designing ideas and for the changing of urban landscapes. In the course of time Tianjin's urban water system has shrunk considerably. At the same time rivers and water courses have shaped Tianjin's urban structure in noticeable ways. In the process of urbanization water has become increasingly important to the citizens and their everyday recreations. Much needs to be changed in order to improve recreational opportunities and to better provide for a livable city, most importantly when considering the increasing number of old people. Suggestions made that are based on results of this study, might be implemented in Tianjin. They are 1) to promote the quality of the waterfront open space and to make all linear waterfront area accessible recreational spaces. Then, 2), it is advisable to advocate the concept of green streets and to combine green streets with river open space in order to form an everyday recreational network. And 3) any sound urban everyday recreational service made cannot rely on only urban rivers; the whole urban structure needs to be improved, including adding small open space and optimize the form of urban communities, finally producing a multi-functional urban recreational network.

Assessing the users’ need for a spatial decision support system of smallholder farming in Kenya

Accurate data of the natural conditions and agricultural systems with a good spatial resolution are a key factor to tackle food insecurity in developing countries. A broad variety of approaches exists to achieve precise data and information about agriculture. One system, especially developed for smallholder agriculture in East Africa, is the Farm Management Handbook of Kenya. It was first published in 1982/83 and fully revised in 2012, now containing 7 volumes. The handbooks contain detailed information on climate, soils, suitable crops and soil care based on scientific research results of the last 30 years. The density of facts leads to time consuming extraction of all necessary information. In this study we analyse the user needs and necessary components of a system for decision support for smallholder farming in Kenya based on a geographical information system (GIS). Required data sources were identified, as well as essential functions of the system. We analysed the results of our survey conducted in 2012 and early 2013 among agricultural officers. The monitoring of user needs and the problem of non-adaptability of an agricultural information system on the level of extension officers in Kenya are the central objectives. The outcomes of the survey suggest the establishment of a decision support tool based on already available open source GIS components. The system should include functionalities to show general information for a specific location and should provide precise recommendations about suitable crops and management options to support agricultural guidance on farm level.

Finding Spaces for Urban Food Production – Matching Spatial and Stakeholder Analysis with Urban Agriculture Approaches in the Urban Renewal Area of Dortmund-Hörde, Germany

Using the case of an economically declined neighbourhood in the post-industrial German Ruhr Area (sometimes characterized as Germany’s “Rust Belt”), we analyse, describe and conclude how urban agriculture can be used as a catalyst to stimulate and support urban renewal and regeneration, especially from a socio-cultural perspective. Using the methodological framework of participatory action research, and linking bottom-up and top-down planning approaches, a project path was developed to include the population affected and foster individual responsibility for their district, as well as to strengthen inhabitants and stakeholder groups in a permanent collective stewardship for the individual forms of urban agriculture developed and implemented. On a more abstract level, the research carried out can be characterized as a form of action research with an intended transgression of the boundaries between research, planning, design, and implementation. We conclude that by synchronously combining those four domains with intense feedback loops, synergies for the academic knowledge on the potential performance of urban agriculture in terms of sustainable development, as well as the benefits for the case-study area and the interests of individual urban gardeners can be achieved.

Spatial Analysis of Cell Composition Data

A version of Matheron’s discrete Gaussian model is applied to cell composition data. The examples are for map patterns of felsic metavolcanics in two different areas. Q-Q plots of the model for cell values representing proportion of 10 km x 10 km cell area underlain by this rock type are approximately linear, and the line of best fit can be used to estimate the parameters of the model. It is also shown that felsic metavolcanics in the Abitibi area of the Canadian Shield can be modeled as a fractal

Quantifying rock fabrics: a test of autocorrelation of the spatial distribution of cristals

A novel test of spatial independence of the distribution of crystals or phases in rocks based on compositional statistics is introduced. It improves and generalizes the common joins-count statistics known from map analysis in geographic information systems. Assigning phases independently to objects in RD is modelled by a single-trial multinomial random function Z(x), where the probabilities of phases add to one and are explicitly modelled as compositions in the K-part simplex SK. Thus, apparent inconsistencies of the tests based on the conventional joins{count statistics and their possibly contradictory interpretations are avoided. In practical applications we assume that the probabilities of phases do not depend on the location but are identical everywhere in the domain of de nition. Thus, the model involves the sum of r independent identical multinomial distributed 1-trial random variables which is an r-trial multinomial distributed random variable. The probabilities of the distribution of the r counts can be considered as a composition in the Q-part simplex SQ. They span the so called Hardy-Weinberg manifold H that is proved to be a K-1-affine subspace of SQ. This is a generalisation of the well-known Hardy-Weinberg law of genetics. If the assignment of phases accounts for some kind of spatial dependence, then the r-trial probabilities do not remain on H. This suggests the use of the Aitchison distance between observed probabilities to H to test dependence. Moreover, when there is a spatial uctuation of the multinomial probabilities, the observed r-trial probabilities move on H. This shift can be used as to check for these uctuations. A practical procedure and an algorithm to perform the test have been developed. Some cases applied to simulated and real data are presented. Key words: Spatial distribution of crystals in rocks, spatial distribution of phases, joins-count statistics, multinomial distribution, Hardy-Weinberg law, Hardy-Weinberg manifold, Aitchison geometry

Application of compositional data analysis to geochemical data of marine sediments

In an earlier investigation (Burger et al., 2000) five sediment cores near the Rodrigues Triple Junction in the Indian Ocean were studied applying classical statistical methods (fuzzy c-means clustering, linear mixing model, principal component analysis) for the extraction of endmembers and evaluating the spatial and temporal variation of geochemical signals. Three main factors of sedimentation were expected by the marine geologists: a volcano-genetic, a hydro-hydrothermal and an ultra-basic factor. The display of fuzzy membership values and/or factor scores versus depth provided consistent results for two factors only; the ultra-basic component could not be identified. The reason for this may be that only traditional statistical methods were applied, i.e. the untransformed components were used and the cosine-theta coefficient as similarity measure. During the last decade considerable progress in compositional data analysis was made and many case studies were published using new tools for exploratory analysis of these data. Therefore it makes sense to check if the application of suitable data transformations, reduction of the D-part simplex to two or three factors and visual interpretation of the factor scores would lead to a revision of earlier results and to answers to open questions . In this paper we follow the lines of a paper of R. Tolosana- Delgado et al. (2005) starting with a problem-oriented interpretation of the biplot scattergram, extracting compositional factors, ilr-transformation of the components and visualization of the factor scores in a spatial context: The compositional factors will be plotted versus depth (time) of the core samples in order to facilitate the identification of the expected sources of the sedimentary process. Kew words: compositional data analysis, biplot, deep sea sediments

Sexual orientation and spatial memory

Resumen tomado de la publicaci??n

MapFish. A WebGIS 2.0 Framework: toolkit to build rich client WebGIS

MapFish is an open-source development framework for building webmapping applications. MapFish is based on the OpenLayers API and the Geo extension of Ext library, and extends the Pylons general-purpose web development framework with geo-specific functionnalities. This presentation first describes what the MapFish development framework provides and how it can help developers implement rich web-mapping applications. It then demonstrates through real web-mapping realizations what can be achieved using MapFish : Geo Business Intelligence applications, 2D/3D data visualization, on/off line data edition, advanced vectorial print functionnalities, advanced administration suite to build WebGIS applications from scratch, etc. In particular, the web-mapping application for the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and a Regional Spatial Data Infrastructure will be demonstrated

Un análisis comparativo del papel del bucle fonológico versus la agenda visoespacial en el cálculo en niños de 7-8 años = A comparative analysis of the phonological loop versus the visuo-spatial sketchpad in mental arithmetic tasks in 7-8 y.o. children

En esta investigación se ha estudiado la relación entre dos subsistemas de la memoria de trabajo (bucle fonológico y agenda viso-espacial) y el rendimiento en cálculo con una muestra de 94 niños españoles de 7-8 años. Hemos administrado dos pruebas de cálculo diseñadas para este estudio y seis medidas simples de memoria de trabajo (de contenido verbal, numérico y espacial) de la «Batería de Tests de Memoria de Treball» de Pickering, Baqués y Gathercole (1999), y dos pruebas visuales complementarias. Los resultados muestran una correlación importante entre las medidas de contenido verbal y numérico y el rendimiento en cálculo. En cambio, no hemos encontrado ninguna relación con las medidas espaciales. Se concluye, por lo tanto, que en escolares españoles existe una relación importante entre el bucle fonológico y el rendimiento en tareas de cálculo. En cambio, el rol de la agenda viso-espacial es nulo

How spatial attention and attentional resources influence the processing of emotional visual scenes

Resumen tomado de la publicaci??n

Spatial and Temporal Hypermedia

Overview of early work on Spatial and Temporal hypermeida

A sample visualization of contributions to http://eprints.soton.ac.uk

This is a sample visualization of contributions to eprints.soton.ac.uk. The visualization was created from data from the OAI endpoint using gource. The data is divided by dc:subject classification. The idea was taken from Martin Hawksey's blog post http://mashe.hawksey.info/2011/12/google-refining-jorum-ukoer/

The spatial scan statistic

Learning object 38 additional resource