WATER PROBLEMS IN THE INDUS FOOD MACHINE1

ABSTRACT: Examples are drawn from the Indus Basin to explain why on-farm water management problems restrict the output of agricultural products in many LDC's. Data is presented to illustrate the low level of water management knowledge of both the farmers and the current extension agents. Examples of the level of corruption and its effect on the operating system are illustrated. Several requirements that must be met before a large-scale irrigation scheme will actually increase the welfare of LDC's farmers are presented.     

Effective environmental management through life cycle assessment

Unplanned and unsustainable development (particularly rapid industrialisation) has placed great pressure in every dimension of the environment (air, water, soil, health, etc.). The resulting disturbance in the natural ecological balance is a serious concern. Sustainable development is the need of the hour; it can only be achieved through effective environmental management. Environmental management will become indispensable in the future as regulatory restrictions tighten and public expectations of environmental performance increase. The day is not far away when a customer will prefer to buy products produced by an environmentally committed organisation. In short, the environmental commitment of an organisation will become a market strategy.

Environmental management is a set of actions based on a structured methodology to ensure that an organisation is committed to the environment and that the production process has minimal/no adverse affect on it. This article emphasises environmental management in the real engineering sense of the term, and discusses how to develop an effective environmental management system through life cycle assessment. It further demonstrates through a real life case study how an industry has achieved landmark success in managing its environment, production, as well as winning the good faith of society.     

超限结构无缝法施工在污水处理工程中的应用

介绍了一种在超限混凝土结构中取消伸缩缝或增大伸缩缝最大间距的新型施工方法——超限混凝土结构无缝法施工。论述无缝法施工的原理及膨胀加强带的设置,探讨UEA膨胀混凝土的配制,在实践的基础上总结了无缝法施工的方法、注意事项及优点。     

可拓优度评价法在城市区域消防安全评价中的应用

为了解决城市区域消防安全评价的复杂性和不确定性,本文运用可拓优度评价法,根据相关文件并结合城市区域消防的实际情况,从火灾危险程度、城市区域特征、消防实力水平和社会管理状态4个方面选取17个指标,建立了城市区域消防安全评价指标体系并划分了消防安全等级,以洛阳市西工区为例对城市区域消防安全评价的可拓优度方法进行了验证。结果表明,可拓优度方法可以准确反映出该区域消防安全水平。     

生态环境质量物元可拓评价及实例分析

生态环境质量评价属于环境质量评价的重要方面。为了探索建立生态环境质量评价的方法，尝试运用物元可拓的方法来建立生态环境质量评价模型，并且通过用该方法对土壤生态环境质量评价实例验证物元可拓方法的可行性，得到该土壤生态环境质量评价等级值为3．73。从而为尚处在探索发展阶段的生态环境质量评价方法提供一种新思路。     

Scenarios of major terrestrial ecosystems in China

The spatial pattern and mean-center shift of major terrestrial ecosystems, termed Holdridge Life Zones (HLZ), during the periods from 1961 to 1990 (T1), from 2010 to 2039 (T2), from 2040 to 2069 (T3) and from 2070 to 2099 (T4) were analyzed by combining the zonal patterns of climatic change in China and the climatic change scenarios of HadCM2 and HadCM3. The results showed that nival area would decrease rapidly with temperature increase in the future. HadCM2 and HadCM3 predicted that the nival areas might disappear in 552 years and 204 years, respectively. Using both HadCM2 and HadCM3, the five HLZ types with the largest areal extent are nival zone, cool temperate moist forest, warm temperate moist forest, subtropical moist forest and boreal wet forest, which collectively account for more than 50% of China's land mass. Among these five HLZ types, nival zone, warm temperate moist forest and boreal wet forest would decrease continuously, whereas subtropical moist forest and cool temperate forest would increase continuously during the four periods. HLZ diversity and patch connectivity would increase continuously in the 21st century. The shift distances of mean centers of HLZ types simulated using HadCM3 were markedly greater than those simulated using HadCM2, in general. The results from both HadCM2 and HadCM3 showed that boreal wet forest, subtropical moist forest, tropical dry forest, warm temperate moist forest and subtropical wet forest had bigger shift ranges, indicating that these HLZ types are more sensitive to the climatic change scenarios of HadCM2 and HadCM3.     

Benefits and costs of earwig (Forficula auricularia) family life

The evolution of parental care and family group formation critically depends on offspring survival benefits and parental fecundity costs of care under given ecological conditions. Investigations of the functional significance of care in insect species that exhibit facultative parental care have been relatively rare but may be of particular interest for better understanding of benefit and cost schedules at an early evolutionary stage. In this study, aspects of benefits and costs of care were addressed in the sub-social European earwig (Forficula auricularia; Dermaptera: Forficulidae) by manipulating the presence of tending mothers and brood size in a fully crossed experimental design. Larvae growing in broods tended by their mother or of reduced size showed a higher survival probability than larvae growing in untended or large broods, as predicted if maternal care is beneficial and shaped by a trade-off between number and quality of offspring. Analysis of patterns of food consumption and developmental time further suggested that the benefit of maternal attendance is mediated by the maternal provisioning of food, while the quality–quantity trade-off seemed to be driven by sibling rivalry. Further, tending mothers delayed the production of a second clutch, indicating a potential cost of care in terms of lifetime fecundity. This study experimentally shows benefits and potential costs of maternal care and family group formation in the European earwig. More detailed behavioural experiments will be required to fully understand how behavioural interactions among family members mediate these reproductive outcomes.     

Food or sex—males and females in a sex role reversed pipefish have different interests

In a sex role reversed pipefish, Syngnathus typhle, we found that basic life history allocations were directly influenced by sexual selection. We investigated time allocation to foraging and mating, respectively, in a choice experiment, giving males and females, of small or large body size, a choice between food and a potential partner. We found that males were more interested in foraging than mating, i.e., were more frequently observed in front of the food than in front of the partner, whereas females were more interested in the potential partner. This reflects sexual selection operating differently on the two sexes, as males and females are relatively similar in other life history traits, such as growth, mortality, age of maturity, dispersal, and parental expenditure. Moreover, large individuals allocated more time to mating activities, small to feeding. Individuals more interested in mating compared to food were subsequently more critical when given a choice between a large (high-quality) and a small (low-quality) partner, whereas individuals more interested in food were not selective. These findings are consistent with our predictions: sex-role reversed males can be relatively sure of achieving one or more matings, and should allocate more time to feeding and, hence, to parental investment, growth and/or future reproduction. Females, on the other hand, have more uncertain mating prospects and should allocate time to imminent reproductive activities, thereby foregoing other life history traits such as growth and future egg production. By this, they also sacrifice future fecundity and attractiveness.     

Propagation of olfactory information within the honeybee hive

Transfer of information about food source characteristics within insect societies is essential to colony-foraging success. The food odor communicated within honeybee hives has been shown to be important for food source exploitation. When successful foragers return to the nest and transfer the collected nectar to hive mates through mouth-to-mouth contacts (trophallaxis), potential recruits receiving these samples learn the food odor by associative learning. The food then becomes rapidly distributed among colony members, which is mainly a consequence of the numerous trophallaxes between hive-mates of all ages during food processing. We tested whether the distribution of food among hive mates causes a propagation of olfactory information within the hive. Using the proboscis extension response paradigm, we show that large proportions of bees of the age groups representing the main worker castes, 4 to 9-day-old bees (nurse-aged bees), 12 to 16-day-old bees (food processor-aged bees), and actual foragers (about 17+ day old bees) associatively learn the food odor in the course of processing food that has been collected by only a few foragers. Results further suggest that the information is shared more or less equally between bees of the three age groups. This shows that olfactory information about the flower species exploited by foragers is distributed within the entire colony and is acquired by bees of all age groups, which may influence many behaviors inside and outside the hive.