The effect of artisanal preservation methods on nutritional security of “Mukene” Rastrineobola argentea caught from Lakes Victoria and Kyoga in Uganda

The artisanal fish preservation methods in Uganda are characterized by extreme operating conditions. Consequently, vital nutritional components diminish in value and quantity which renders fish consumer nutritionally insecure. To establish the magnitude of nutritional loss, duplicate samples of Mukene Rastrineobola argentea were collected from Kiyindi landing site on L. Victoria and Moone landing site on L. Kyoga. Each set of duplicate samples was divided into five portions and kept on ice. For each preservation method a portion was processed into respective products at Food Bioscience and Agri-Business Laboratories aside from the control (fresh) sample. Both preserved and control samples were analysed for nutrient loss at Department of Chemistry, Makerere University using AOAC methods. The composition of fatty acids was determined by methanolysis gas chromatography and Mass spectrophotometry of the resultant methyl esters. The results indicate that nutrients of all preserved samples did not vary significantly from the control except for some fatty acids. The Eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) in fresh samples declined from 6.72% to 1.08% in deep-fried samples constituting 83.93% nutrient loss. The sum ratio w3:w6 as well as EPA: DHA (Docosahexaenoic) ratio in fried samples also varied significantly (p<0.5) lower than 0.668 and 0.20 for the average of either preservation methods and experts recommended ratio respectively. Further research has been recommended to ascertain the causative factor, since Mukene frying is being promoted in the Great lakes region as alternative method to sun-drying. In conclusion, regular consumers of fried Mukene do not benefit much from the nutritional and health attributes of Omega 3 and 6.

Report of the baseline survey undertaken on the Chinese cage site in Napoleon Gulf, Northern Lake Victoria, 12 March 2012

The government of the People's Republic of China through a 2007 agreement with the Government of the Republic of Uganda, has establishment of an Agricultural Technology Demonstration Center (ATDC). The first phase covering the building of aquaculture infrastructure at Kajjansi ARDC is complete and the second operation phase has started in which facilities for cage culture have been set up in the Napoleon gulf, northern Lake Victoria near Jinja. The cage facility is aimed at boosting fish farming within the lake as a diversification to the traditional pond fish culture technology. NaFIRRI scientists as well as Chinese experts undertook a baseline survey in the chosen cage site on 12 March 2012. The survey covered determination of water depth, water transparency, measurement of selected physical-chemical parameters (temperature,dissolved oxygen, conductivity and pH; determination of the nutrient status and study of algae, invertebrate and fish communities at the site. Materials and methodologies used in the survey were based on the Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) of NaFIRRI. The study area was divided into three study sites. Site 1 (upstream) was at 8.9 metre depth while site 2 (proposed cage site) and site 3 (downstream) were 6 and 4.3 metres deep respectively. Water transparency was lowest at site 1 (1.58 m) and highest at site 3 (1.64 m). Dissolved oxygen at the three sites ranged from 6.0 to 8 mg/I. Water temperature profiles fluctuated within narrow limits between 26.5 and 27.5 DC. Measurements of pH were between 7 (neutral) and 8 (alkaline) while electrical conductivity was between 98 and 101 uS/em. These observed physical-chemical parameters at the study site were considered suitable for cage fish rearing purposes. Nitrite-nitrogen levels varied within narrow limits from 0.043 to 0.0453 mgtl. Similarly, Ammonia-nitrogen varied between 0.015 and 0.0185 mg/1. Soluble reactive phosphorus (SRP) level was highest at site 3 (O.012mgll) compared to that at sites 1 and 2 (0.009mgll). Total suspended solids (TSS) were higher at site 1 (83.3mgll), thereafter decreasing to lower levels at sites 2 (24.8mgtl) and 3 (19.8mgl) respectively. The nutrient level results observed here all fall below the maximum permissible limits by NEMA and therefore the site is recommended for cage culture The algal community was constituted by four major groups: Blue greens,Greens, Cryptophytes, and Diatoms with blue greens as the common and dominant group. High algal biomass (19944961 ugtL) of the dominant blue green algae was observed at site 1 compared site 2 and 3 (58655.2 & 27487. 7 ugtL) respectively. Occurrence of toxicin producing algae: microsytis and cylindrospermopsis in the proposed cage area was considered to be of not much significance as their concentrations were below harmful levels. However, monitoring their presence, biomass and seasonality will be critical in order to follow when and where they occur and at what time of the year for ease of management of the cages

Report on Uganda Census of Agriculture vol. 1

The Census has been undertaken by the Department of Agriculture in conjunction with the Statistics Division of the Ministry of Planning and Community Development with technical assistance, in the form of experts and equipment, from the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations.

System-of-system Approaches and Challenges for Multi-Site Manufacturing

In the multi-site manufacturing domain, systems-of-systems (SoS) are rarely called so. However, there exist a number of collaborative manufacturing paradigms which closely relate to system-of-system principles. These include distributed manufacturing, dispersed network manufacturing, virtual enterprises and cloud manufacturing/manufacturing-as-a-service. This paper provides an overview of these terms and paradigms, exploring their characteristics, overlaps and differences. These manufacturing paradigms are then considered in relation to five key system-of-systems characteristics: autonomy, belonging, connectivity, diversity and emergence. Data collected from two surveys of academic and industry experts is presented and discussed, with key challenges and barriers to multi-site manufacturing SoS identified.

Grand Challenges for Data Sensing and Analysis

A diverse group of experts proposed the 9 grand challenges outlined in this booklet. This expert task force was assembled by the ASCE TCCIT Data Sensing and Analysis (DSA) Committee and endorsed by the TRB AFH10(1) Construction IT joint subcommittee at the request of their membership. The task force did not rank the challenges selected, nor did it endorse particular approaches to meeting them. Rather than attempt to include every important goal for data sensing and analysis, the panel chose opportunities that were both achievable and sustainable to help people and the planet thrive. The panel’s conclusions were reviewed by several subject-matter experts. The DSA is offering an opportunity to comment on the challenges by contacting the task force chair via email at becerik@usc.edu.

Reusing steel and aluminum components at end of product life.

Reusing steel and aluminum components would reduce the need for new production, possibly creating significant savings in carbon emissions. Currently, there is no clearly defined set of strategies or barriers to enable assessment of appropriate component reuse; neither is it possible to predict future levels of reuse. This work presents a global assessment of the potential for reusing steel and aluminum components. A combination of top-down and bottom-up analyses is used to allocate the final destinations of current global steel and aluminum production to product types. A substantial catalogue has been compiled for these products characterizing key features of steel and aluminum components including design specifications, requirements in use, and current reuse patterns. To estimate the fraction of end-of-life metal components that could be reused for each product, the catalogue formed the basis of a set of semistructured interviews with industrial experts. The results suggest that approximately 30% of steel and aluminum used in current products could be reused. Barriers against reuse are examined, prompting recommendations for redesign that would facilitate future reuse.

The flow of steel into the construction sector

Half of the world's annual production of steel is used in constructing buildings and infrastructure. Producing this steel causes significant amounts of carbon dioxide to be released into the atmosphere. Climate change experts recommend this amount be halved by 2050; however steel demand is predicted to have doubled by this date. As process efficiency improvements will not reach the required 75% reduction in emissions per unit steel output, new methods must be examined to deliver service using less steel production. To apply such methods successfully to construction, it must first be known where steel is used currently within the industry. This information is not available so a methodology is proposed to estimate it from known data. Results are presented for steel flows by product for ten construction sectors for both the UK and the world in 2006. An estimate for steel use within a 'typical' building is also published for the first time. Industrial buildings and utility infrastructure are identified as the largest end-uses of steel, while superstructure is confirmed as the main use of steel in a building. The results highlight discrepancies in previous steel estimates and life-cycle assessments, and will inform future research on lowering demand for steel, hence reducing carbon emissions. © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Ageing, Adaption and Accessibility: Time for the Inclusive Revolution!

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is becoming increasingly central to many people’s lives, making it possible to be connected in any place at any time, be unceasingly and instantly informed, and benefit from greater economic and educational opportunities. With all the benefits afforded by these new-found capabilities, however, come potential drawbacks. A plethora of new PCs, laptops, tablets, smartphones, Bluetooth, the internet, Wi-Fi (the list goes on) expect us to know or be able to guess, what, where and when to connect, click, double-click, tap, flick, scroll, in order to realise these benefits, and to have the physical and cognitive capability to do all these things. One of the groups most affected by this increase in high-demand technology is older people. They do not understand and use technology in the same way that younger generations do, because they grew up in the simpler electro-mechanical era and embedded that particular model of the world in their minds. Any consequential difficulty in familiarising themselves with modern ICT and effectively applying it to their needs can also be exacerbated by age-related changes in vision, motor control and cognitive functioning. Such challenges lead to digital exclusion. Much has been written about this topic over the years, usually by academics from the area of inclusive product design. The issue is complex and it is fair to say that no one researcher has the whole picture. It is difficult to understand and adequately address the issue of digital exclusion among the older generation without looking across disciplines and at industry’s and government’s understanding, motivation and efforts toward resolving this important problem. To do otherwise is to risk misunderstanding the true impact that ICT has and could have on people’s lives across all generations. In this European year of Active Ageing and Solidarity between Generations and as the British government is moving forward with its Digital by Default initiative as part of a wider objective to make ICT accessible to as many people as possible by 2015, the Engineering Design Centre (EDC) at the University of Cambridge collaborated with BT to produce a book of thought pieces to address, and where appropriate redress, these important and long-standing issues. “Ageing, Adaption and Accessibility: Time for the Inclusive Revolution!” brings together opinions and insights from twenty one prominent thought leaders from government, industry and academia regarding the problems, opportunities and strategies for combating digital exclusion among senior citizens. The contributing experts were selected as individuals, rather than representatives of organisations, to provide the broadest possible range of perspectives. They are renowned in their respective fields and their opinions are formed not only from their own work, but also from the contributions of others in their area. Their views were elicited through conversations conducted by the editors of this book who then drafted the thought pieces to be edited and approved by the experts. We hope that this unique collection of thought pieces will give you a broader perspective on ageing, people’s adaption to the ever changing world of technology and insights into better ways of designing digital devices and services for the older population.

A policy dimension required for technology roadmapping: Learning from the emergence of Chinese wind turbine industry

Innovation policies play an important role throughout the development process of emerging industries in China. Existing policy and industry studies view the emergence process as a black-box, and fail to understand the impacts of policy to the process along which it varies. This paper aims to develop a multi-dimensional roadmapping tool to better analyse the dynamics between policy and industrial growth for new industries in China. Through reviewing the emergence process of Chinese wind turbine industry, this paper elaborates how policy and other factors influence the emergence of this industry along this path. Further, this paper generalises some Chinese specifics for the policy-industry dynamics. As a practical output, this study proposes a roadmapping framework that generalises some patterns of policy-industry interactions for the emergence process of new industries in China. This paper will be of interest to policy makers, strategists, investors and industrial experts. Copyright © 2013 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.

Ten Chapters in Turbulence

Leading experts summarize our current understanding of the fundamental nature of turbulence, covering a wide range of topics.

Articulating current service development practices: a qualitative analysis of eleven mental health projects.

BACKGROUND: The utilisation of good design practices in the development of complex health services is essential to improving quality. Healthcare organisations, however, are often seriously out of step with modern design thinking and practice. As a starting point to encourage the uptake of good design practices, it is important to understand the context of their intended use. This study aims to do that by articulating current health service development practices. METHODS: Eleven service development projects carried out in a large mental health service were investigated through in-depth interviews with six operation managers. The critical decision method in conjunction with diagrammatic elicitation was used to capture descriptions of these projects. Stage-gate design models were then formed to visually articulate, classify and characterise different service development practices. RESULTS: Projects were grouped into three categories according to design process patterns: new service introduction and service integration; service improvement; service closure. Three common design stages: problem exploration, idea generation and solution evaluation - were then compared across the design process patterns. Consistent across projects were a top-down, policy-driven approach to exploration, underexploited idea generation and implementation-based evaluation. CONCLUSIONS: This study provides insight into where and how good design practices can contribute to the improvement of current service development practices. Specifically, the following suggestions for future service development practices are made: genuine user needs analysis for exploration; divergent thinking and innovative culture for idea generation; and fail-safe evaluation prior to implementation. Better training for managers through partnership working with design experts and researchers could be beneficial.

Integrating design attributes, knowledge and uncertainty in aerospace sector

The delivery of integrated product and service solutions is growing in the aerospace industry, driven by the potential of increasing profits. Such solutions require a life cycle view at the design phase in order to support the delivery of the equipment. The influence of uncertainty associated with design for services is increasingly a challenge due to information and knowledge constraints. There is a lack of frameworks that aim to define and quantify relationship between information and knowledge with uncertainty. Driven by this gap, the paper presents a framework to illustrate the link between uncertainty and knowledge within the design context for services in the aerospace industry. The paper combines industrial interaction and literature review to initially define the design attributes, the associated knowledge requirements and the uncertainties experienced. The framework is then applied in three cases through development of causal loop models (CLMs), which are validated by industrial and academic experts. The concepts and inter-linkages are developed with the intention of developing a software prototype. Future recommendations are also included. © 2014 CIRP.

System Dynamics and Scenario Planning: Implementation Challenges

In this paper we discuss key implementation challenges of a systems approach that combines System Dynamics, Scenario Planning and Qualitative Data Analysis methods in tackling a complex problem. We present the methods and the underlying framework. We then detail the main difficulties encountered in designing and planning the Scenario Planning workshop and how they were overcome, such as finding and involving the stakeholders and customising the process to fit within timing constraints. After presenting the results from this application, we argue that the consultants or system analysts need to engage with the stakeholders as process facilitators and not as system experts in order to gain commitment, trust and to improve information sharing. They also need be ready to adapt their tools and processes as well as their own thinking for more effective complex problem solving.

An algorithm of analysis tools on points distribution in high dimension space: The distance of a point and an infinite sub-space

This paper discusses the algorithm on the distance from a point and an infinite sub-space in high dimensional space With the development of Information Geometry([1]), the analysis tools of points distribution in high dimension space, as a measure of calculability, draw more attention of experts of pattern recognition. By the assistance of these tools, Geometrical properties of sets of samples in high-dimensional structures are studied, under guidance of the established properties and theorems in high-dimensional geometry.

小麦抗旱生态分类中适合性聚类方法的研究

探索了适合于小麦品种抗旱生态分类的聚类方法 .选用 2 1个农艺性状和 15个冬小麦品种 (系 ) ,在聚类分析的各环节上 ,通过采用不同的策略 ,大规模进行了各种分类结果的比较 .结果表明 ,在与专家经验分类接近程度上 ,数据转换方法中 ,原始数据法依次大于普通相关阵基础上的方差极大正交旋转法、Promax斜交旋转法、主成份法 ;相似性度量上 ,欧氏距离大于马氏距离 ;聚类方式上 ,对应分析法和模糊聚类法大于最短距离法、最长距离法、类平均法 ;所有可组合的方法中 ,以对应分析法和直接用原始数据的模糊聚类法的分类结果最接近专家经验分类 .结合各方法理论上优缺点的分析与检验 ,认为这两种方法也是较理想的方法 .