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Sustainable agriculture intensification is necessary to meet the food needs of the growing global population without further exacerbating water scarcity or contributing to climate change. This paper presents the Predictive Optimal Water and Energy Irrigation (POWEIr) controller, a precision irrigation controller for solar-powered drip irrigation (SPDI) systems. The POWEIr controller optimizes SPDI energy and water use, provides an optimal irrigation schedule to the user, and is shown to reduce the overall system cost. An economic analysis shows that modeling season-long operation and improving solar energy use efficiency can save 18%–74% in the solar pump lifetime cost while delivering irrigation 31%–66% more reliably than existing commercial SPDI systems. The POWEIr controller uses a small, inexpensive set of sensors and leverages physics-based models and machine learning to make energy and crop water demand predictions. The POWEIr theory was validated with an experimental prototype of the controller that was used to operate a small-scale SPDI system. The results demonstrate that the POWEIr controller can use a small battery to ensure irrigation reliability despite prediction uncertainty and weather variability. On large water demand days the POWEIr controller prototype had up to 46% higher solar irrigation reliability compared to simulated typical practices and used six times less battery storage to deliver the required irrigation. This means that the POWEIr controller could enable more reliable irrigation with a smaller, less expensive battery for energy storage. The POWEIr controller has the potential to increase the adoption of precision irrigation technology and sustainable irrigation methods among farmers in resource-constrained contexts, which in turn could advance sustainable agriculture intensification globally. • The POWEIr controller is affordable, precise, and optimizes energy and water use • Efficient operation saves >18% in solar pump lifetime cost with reliable irrigation • Custom schedules using physics-based models, machine learning, and minimal sensors • Prototype used six times less battery storage compared to simulated typical irrigation [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Smallholder farmers, who hold 84% of the approximately 570 million farms worldwide, are vital stakeholders in the process of sustainable agricultural intensification, but often lack the capital to invest in sustainable farming practices. Solar-powered drip irrigation has the potential to increase crop productivity for minimal water use, but these systems are prohibitively expensive for smallholders. Reducing the life cycle cost (LCC) of solar-powered drip irrigation systems could make this technology more accessible, enabling smallholders to increase their household incomes and contribute to greater global food security. This paper presents the Solar-Powered Drip Irrigation Optimal Performance model (SDrOP), which optimizes solar-powered drip irrigation system designs. Unlike existing commercial software, SDrOP models the behavior of the entire system and simulates seasonal performance to reduce LCC while maintaining operational reliability. SDrOP improves on previous design optimization frameworks by taking in all location-dependent parameters as inputs, which makes the model independent of case specifics and, therefore, broadly applicable. To demonstrate the model theory, the sensitivity of the optimal design to field area, the system reliability constraint, and varying weather conditions are explored for a Moroccan olive orchard case study. The results demonstrate opportunities for system cost reduction, including operational changes to reduce the system power requirement, irrigation pump opportunities for the smallholder market, and reductions in system reliability when it is shown to have minimal impact on crop yield. When benchmarked against a commercially available software, SDrOP was able to reduce system LCC by up to 56%. The simulated performance of an SDrOP optimal design was benchmarked against operational data from an existing field site, and was shown to be capable of operating 92% of the recorded irrigation events. These results indicate that SDrOP offers an advantage over existing software as it produces significantly reduced cost designs that can operate in real-world conditions. • SDrOP model holistically optimizes low-cost, solar-powered drip irrigation systems. • Decouples case-specific details from physics-based theory, making SDrOP generalizable. • Identifies innovations that could make drip economically accessible to smallholders. • SDrOP designs cost up to 56% less than systems from existing commercial softwares. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on social identity theory and social cognitive theory, this research was designed to investigate the role played by group identification, self-efficacy and outcome expectations in physical activity behavior. Healthy adult participants (N = 130) who identified strongly with an exercise referent group reported higher levels of physical activity, and this relationship was mediated by self-efficacy and outcome expectations. This study adds to the existing literature on the effects of social groups on health and is one of the first to examine the interplay of personal factors and group membership on physical activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Person-centred, safe and effective care is at the heart of the fundamentals of caring. However, there are many challenges to achieving this reliably and consistently. This article describes one nursing team's experience of implementing 'care and comfort' rounds, which has led to proactive rather than reactive nursing care delivery. The number of patient falls and the use of call buzzers have reduced, patient experience has been enhanced, a more controlled environment is provided for patients, and staff satisfaction in care delivery has improved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Person-centred, safe and effective care is at the heart of the fundamentals of caring. However, there are many challenges to achieving this reliably and consistently. This article describes one nursing team's experience of implementing 'care and comfort' rounds, which has led to proactive rather than reactive nursing care delivery. The number of patient falls and the use of call buzzers have reduced, patient experience has been enhanced, a more controlled environment is provided for patients, and staff satisfaction in care delivery has improved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Drawing on uncertainty-identity theory (Hogg, 2007) and referring to the concept of social identity complexity, we conducted two experiments to test the hypothesis that people would identify most strongly with their group if they felt both self-uncertain and that their group''s identity was prominent relative to other identities, either because it was distinct from other identities or because they had few other identities. Self-uncertainty was primed in both experiments after participants had been primed to consider their group''s attributes to overlap with or be distinct from the attributes of other identities of theirs (Experiment 1, N =90) or to consider few or multiple other identities they had (Experiment 2, N =87). As predicted, group identification was strongest under high uncertainty and when identity distinctiveness or few other identities had been primed. Implications of this research for how we conceptualize identity complexity are discussed. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

We examined the performance of a group of people with moderately severe Alzheimer's type dementia on a naming task. We found that functional information plays an important role in determining naming performance on both living and non-living things. Perceptual information may play some role in naming living things. We also found some evidence that the semantic category to which an item belongs may also have some effect on naming performance. We argue that both the sensory-functional and domain-specific knowledge hypotheses may be correct: the brain is to some organized on taxonomic grounds, while the semantic representations of living and non-living things depend differentially on perceptual and functional information. These representations can be differentially disrupted by damage to modality-specific stores. At a moderate level of severity, dementia causes global damage that has the effect of disrupting both the localized taxonomic and the modality-specific stores. We discuss the nature of functional information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Critical mutations in the membrane-spanning domains of proteins cause many human diseases. We report the expression in Escherichia coli of helix-loop-helix segments of the cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) chloride channel domain in milligram quantities. Analysis of gel migration patterns of these constructs, in conjunction with circular dichroism spectroscopy, demonstrate that a neutral-to-charged, CF-phenotypic point mutation of a hydrophobic residue (V232D) in the CFTR transmembrane (TM) helix 4 induces a hydrogen bond with neighboring wild type Gln 207 in TM helix 3. As an electrostatic crosslink within a hydrocarbon phase, such a hydrogen bond could alter the normal assembly and alignment of CFTR TM helices and/or impede their movement in response to substrate transport. Our results imply that membrane proteins may be vulnerable to loss of function through formation of membrane-buried interhelical hydrogen bonds by partnering of proximal polar side chains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Construction project teams require social capital. When present in appropriate forms, it creates the social cohesion through which individuals accept project goals as their own. It lets team members share knowledge when present and reveal when it is missing. In education, social learning helps students appreciate the need for social capital appropriate to team performance. In practice, social capital enables the project team learning that overcomes project-specific challenges. Despite this importance, little is known about how students perceive social capital or the compatibility of that understanding with construction project needs. To characterise this aspect of ‘graduateness,’ collective understanding of social capital was elicited from construction students in a Scottish university by free recall. Analysis was structured around four dimensions of social capital: cohesion, legitimacy & authenticity, sharing, and safety. Notions of friendship were found to dominate student understanding of their social capital even though this understanding derived from settings where the need for capital to support team performance is emphasized. The potential for misalignment between the capital that graduating students bring into practice with that required by project teams was apparent. The case for further investigation of this influence on early career development was established. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Many flowering plant species have a facultative or obligate dependence on insect pollination for reproductive success. Anthropogenic disturbance may alter these species interactions, but the extent to which structural changes to plant-pollinator networks affect plant species mating systems is not well understood., We used long-term livestock grazing of a birch wood ecosystem to test whether disturbance of this semi-natural habitat altered floral resources, the structure of plant-insect visitation networks and the mating system of a focal plant species, Cirsium palustre., Grazed habitat had a higher species richness of floral resources for pollinators. Visitation networks in grazed habitats were larger, more diverse, with an increase in the number of pollinators per plant species. Controlling for sampling effects, however, showed networks in grazed habitats were less nested and revealed a positive correlation between network connectance and floral species richness., Network connectance was negatively related to C. palustre outcrossing rate within grazed and ungrazed sites. However, on average, the effects of grazing, including greater mean connectance, produced higher overall outcrossing rates and more pollen donors compared with ungrazed habitat. The number of different pollen donors, spatial genetic structure and mating among close relatives were all correlated with greater extent of suitable C. palustre habitat in the landscape, consistent with the effects of increasing plant population size but limited seed dispersal., Pre-adaptation of C. palustre to disturbance coupled with a preponderance of highly dispersive flies attracted to the greater food resources in grazed habitat is a likely mechanism underpinning this increased pollen transport., Habitat modification by long-term mammalian grazing fundamentally shifted visitation network structure and the state of a plant mating system, indicating how ecosystem disturbance can cascade across levels of biological organization through altered interspecific interactions. Cirsium palustre retains flexibility to bias reproduction towards selfing where pollen donor diversity is limited; such reproductive flexibility may be an important mechanism structuring plant populations in human-modified landscapes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and aims: Acacia senegal, a leguminous dryland tree, is economically and ecologically important to sub-Saharan Africa. Water-use efficiency (WUE) and biological nitrogen fixation (BNF) are fundamental to plant productivity and survival. We quantify provenance differences in WUE, BNF, photosynthesis, biomass and gum arabic production from A. senegal assessing genetic improvement potential. Methods: Using stable isotope ratios, we determined WUE (δC) and BNF (δN) from provenances of mature A. senegal in field-trials (Senegal), sampling leaves at the beginning (wet) and end (dry) of the rainy season. Seedling provenance trials (UK) determined photosynthesis, and biomass and δC in relation to water table. Environmental data were characterised for all provenances at their sites of origin. Results: Provenances differed in both δC and δN. Gum yield declined with increasing WUE. Virtually no BNF was detected during the dry season and seedlings and mature trees may have different WUE strategies. Wind speed and soil characteristics at provenance origin were correlated with isotope composition and gum production. Conclusion: Provenance differences suggest that selection for desirable traits, e.g., increased gum production, may be possible. As ecological strategies relate to native locality, the environmental conditions at plantation site and provenance origin are important in assessing selection criteria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on the European Multidisciplinary Seafloor and water-column Observatory (EMSO), a large-scale European Research Distributed Infrastructure of the European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures roadmap with the objective of real-time, long-term monitoring of environmental processes. Topics include the implementation of the project, the participating countries, the EMSO design, and how the research data will be collected and used.