10,663 research outputs found
Diagnostic study of the Volta Basin fisheries: Part 1 overview of the fisheries resources
No full textThe Basin Focal Project for the Volta (BFP-Volta) is a research project funded by the Challenge Programme on Water and Food (CPWF). Its aim is to provide an in-depth analysis of the basin through three main thematic issues: water-poverty, water availability/use and water productivity. The overall objective of the BFP-Volta is to contribute to the main goal of the CPWF, that is, to alleviate poverty through better management of water in order to enhance agricultural productivity and environment conservation. In this context, the WorldFish Center has been commissioned to produce a series of two complementary reports focusing more specifically on the fisheries resources and the link that may exist between poverty and fisheries in the Volta basin. The present report is the first of these two documents. It should be seen as a preliminary analysis presenting a background of the fisheries resources in the Volta Basin essentially from a biological perspective. Its specific objective is to conduct a diagnostic analysis of the status of the Volta basinÆs inland fisheries, with a particular focus on the biological productivity of the various water bodies existing in the basin. Whenever possible, the diagnostic will be proposed in relation to the current exploitation rate of the fisheries resources. The analysis will include the Volta Lake, but also the other hydropower reservoirs, rivers, floodplains, and the numerous small-scale seasonal or permanent ponds that are scattered throughout the basin. Particular attention will be paid, however, to Lake Volta, reflecting the large number of fishery-dependent communities that live on its shores. The report will also concentrate on two countries within the basin: Ghana and Burkina Faso as together they cover more than 83% of the total basin surface.Fishery resources, Inland fisheries, Dams, Ghana, Voltaian Basin, Ghana, Volta L., Africa,
Diagnostic study of the Volta Basin fisheries: Part 2 Livelihoods and poverty analysis, current trends and projections
No full textThe Basin Focal Project for the Volta (BFP-Volta) is a research project funded by the Challenge Programme on Water and Food (CPWF). Its aim is to provide an in-depth analysis of issues related to water in the Volta Basin through three main thematic issues: water-poverty, water availability/use and water productivity. The overall objective of the BFP-Volta is to contribute to the main goal of the CPWF, that is, to alleviate poverty through better management of water in order to enhance agricultural productivity and environment conservation. In this context, the WorldFish Center has been commissioned by the BFP-Volta to produce a report focusing more specifically on the fisheries resources and the link that may exist between poverty and those fisheries in the Volta basin. The present document is the second part of this report. Its main objective is to conduct a socioeconomic and poverty analysis of the fishing communities living in the Volta Basin, based on an assessment of the current situation and potential future changes.Fishery resources, Inland fisheries, Dams, Ghana, Voltaian Basin, Ghana, Volta L., Africa,
Does listening to action-related sentences modulate the activity of the motor system? Replication of a combined TMS and behavioral study
No full textThe neurophysiological and behavioral correlates of action-related language processing have been debated for long time. A precursor in this field was the study by Buccino et al. (2005) combining transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) and behavioral measures (reaction times, RTs) to study the effect of listening to hand- and foot-related sentences. In the TMS experiment, the authors showed a decrease of motor evoked potentials (MEPs) recorded from hand muscles when processing hand-related verbs as compared to foot-related verbs. Similarly, MEPs recorded from leg muscles decreased when participants processed foot-related as compared to hand-related verbs. In the behavioral experiment, using the same stimuli and a semantic decision task the authors found slower RTs when the participants used the body effector (hand or foot) involved in the actual execution of the action expressed by the presented verb to give their motor responses. These findings were interpreted as an interference effect due to a simultaneous involvement of the motor system in both a language and a motor task. Our replication aimed to enlarge the sample size and replicate the findings with higher statistical power. The TMS experiment showed a significant modulation of hand MEPs, but in the sense of a motor facilitation when processing hand-related verbs. On the contrary, the behavioral experiment did not show significant results. The results are discussed within the general debate on the time-course of the modulation of motor cortex during implicit and explicit language processing and in relation to the studies on action observation/understanding
Volta: Research and Showcase
No full textDeveloping software as a service is a new trend in the IT industry. Volta is a new technology that targets simplifying this type of software. It offers developers a toolkit that enables Web development in any .NET language. This is done by recompiling the CIL code to JavaScript for the client tier (browser) and a .NET application for the Web server. The decision of determining on which tier certain code should run is easily carried through by adding an attribute to a class. A showcase has been developed stretching the possibilities of the first Community Technology Preview (CTP) of Volta. A CTP is a pre-release version of software intended as a proof-of-concept for the community. The idea of the showcase was to provide users an impression of their carbon-footprint relative to others, accomplished by using Web services and information provided by users themselves. The experiences gained by building this showcase have been used in the research for Voltaâs value for Web application projects. The showcase was also submitted for Microsoftâs Imagine Cup software development competition, which imposed additional requirements on the showcase. Many issues were encountered during the development, which forced the project group to adjust the requirements while implementing. The end result offers users login functionality, the ability to enter its food, house and travel CO2-emission and provides an overview of the userâs past and present carbon-footprint. The project also focused on researching the possibilities of Volta. A number of research questions were posed and investigated in order to provide better information about the strengths and weaknesses of Volta. This led to the discovery of a number of problems from which the following suggestions for improvements were derived: 1. Provide more documentation 2. Equalize the behavior of Volta code in Debug and Release mode 3. Decrease the number of restrictions on classes 4. Increase cooperation with other technologies 5. Optimize performance 6. Increase security functionality Although a developer should still be aware of the traps of distributed computing, Volta can offer benefits for developing applications. Web applications can be built with all .NET languages. Developers do not have to worry about the communication code between tiers. The facilities of the Visual Studio IDE can be used for testing, debugging and cooperating with other technologies. The end-to-end profiler is a useful tool for analyzing and optimizing a tier-split application. The community technology preview of Volta looks promising. It is currently not fit for developing actual Web applications, but if the developers continue working on Volta and address the issues mentioned, Volta could prove to be a useful toolkit for Web development.Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Scienc
Improved fisheries productivity and management in tropical reservoirs
No full textThe objective of the project was to contribute to the current research on reservoirs enhancement fisheries in tropical countries through the implementation of a series of action-research activities implemented in two small reservoirs in the Indo-Gangetic basin in India, and two very large reservoirs in Africa, the Lake Nasser (Egypt), and the Volta Lake (Ghana). Socio-institutional analyses were also conducted in these reservoirs to improve our knowledge regarding some of the main social processes that influence reservoir productivity. Overall the results of the project stress that while the natural biophysical constraints of the reservoirs are important in defining the ecological production processes, it is the socio-economic settings characterizing the community/societies around the reservoirs that eventually shape the human production enhancement possibilities.Reservoir fisheries, Inland fisheries, Sociological aspects, Socioeconomic aspects, Africa, Nasser L., Ghana, Volta L.,
Psychological Health Conditions and COVID-19-Related Stressors Among University Students: A Repeated Cross-Sectional Survey
No full textThe Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has broadly impacted university students’ customary life, resulting in remarkable levels of stress and psychological suffering. Although the acute phase of the crisis has been overcome, it does not imply that perceived stress related to the risk of contagion and to the changes in the relational life experienced over more than 1 year of the pandemic will promptly and abruptly decrease. This study aims at comparing university students’ psychological health conditions before and during the COVID-19 pandemic, but also at providing information on how psychological health conditions evolved over the 1 year of the pandemic. We analyzed data from a repeated cross-sectional survey on different samples of university students before the pandemic in 2017 (n = 545) and during the pandemic (n = 671). During the pandemic, data were collected at three stages (Stage 1, April 2020 n = 197; Stage 2, November 2020 n = 274; and Stage 3, April 2021 n = 200). The COVID-19 Student Stress Questionnaire (CSSQ) and the Symptom-Checklist-90-Revised (SCL-90-R) were used to assess, respectively, COVID-19-related stressors (Relationships and Academic Life, Isolation, and Fear of Contagion) and the presence of psychological symptoms. Psychological health conditions were compared at baseline and during the pandemic, whereas both psychological health conditions and perceived levels of COVID-19-related stressors were compared over the three pandemic stages. In addition, Logistic Regression was used to explore the associations between COVID-19-related stressors and psychological symptoms. Findings revealed a significant increase in symptoms of Depression (DEP), Phobic-Anxiety (PHOB), Obsessive-Compulsive (O-C), and Psychoticism (PSY) from pre to during the pandemic. Perceived levels of COVID-19-related stress and specific psychological symptoms significantly increased as the pandemic was progressing. COVID-19-related stressors emerged as significantly associated with several psychopathological symptoms. Findings are discussed with the aim of providing tailored interventions to prevent mental disease and promote psychological adjustment in this specific stage of transition within this exceptional global emergency
No response to growth stimulating treatments in a child with hypercalciuria and short stature (Royer syndrome)
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