Talking past each other in the cultural war area: Testing the efficacy of the moral attitude dynamic model to achieve accurate disagreement

Betel leaf is one of the important cash crops that gaining popularity in recent time in Bangladesh. This study was conducted to identify the present and future production pattern of betel leaf in Bangladesh as well as its prospects and challenges. Secondary data of 29 years from 1991 to 2019 have been used to specify the production pattern and forecasting of betel leaf at national level by using deterministic, stochastic and dynamic time series model. While the primary data were collected from three sub-districts of the Rajshahi district namely Bagmara, Durgapur and Mohanpur to identify the prospects and challenges through SWOT analysis. This study found significant relationship among betel leaf production, price and annual average temperature of Bangladesh. A total of six growth models of different types were used for forecasting production, cultivation area, and price of betel leaf. Based on the model selection criteria cubic model, quadratic model, and growth model were chosen for initial forecasting of betel leaves production, cultivation area, and price respectively. Among the stochastic model auto regressive integrated moving average ARIMA (0, 1, 0) was fitted well to forecast the production. Finally, a dynamic regression model of ARIMA (1, 1, 0) with dynamic regressors has been used to forecast the production of betel leaf from 2020 to 2023. Forecast values range minimum 202770.41 tons to 296217.14 tons with 95% confidence interval. All the best-fitted models revealed that the production of betel leaf has an upward trend in the future. At the end SWOT analysis was implemented to identify the strengths, weakness, opportunities and threats involved in betel leaf farming which will be helpful for making future national level policy options. Diseases control at the betel leaf garden and access to credit for initial investments were identified as the major challenges for this enterprise.
 Res. Agric., Livest. Fish.7(2): 209-223, August 2020

In this paper, a nonlinear discrete‐time dynamic model is developed to describe the operation of a single‐purpose reservoir during the irrigation season. The impact on crop yield due to water deficit and the effect of soil moisture dynamics on crop water requirements are taken into account by an integrated soil water balance model. The objective function of the model maximizes the total farm income, which is based on crop‐water production functions, production cost and crop prices. The constraints include the state equation of the reservoir, reservoir storage, irrigation requirements of a crop and reservoir release, yield and cultivation area. The decision variables are the optimal allocation of cultivation areas for any number of irrigated crops and the optimal irrigation schedule, which specifies the amount of irrigation to be applied to each crop during its irrigation season. The optimization is performed in two stages. During the first stage the simulated annealing (SA) global optimization stochastic search algorithm is used. In the course of the second stage the solution reached by the SA is refined by a stochastic gradient descent algorithm. The optimization computes the optimal distribution of areas and crops, the water releases to satisfy irrigation requirements and the total farm income. The model can be used as a decision support tool for cropping patterns of an irrigated area and irrigation scheduling. The outputs of this model were compared with the results obtained from a simple model in which the only decision variables are the optimal allocation of cultivation areas. The model was applied on data from a planned reservoir on the Havrias river in northern Greece. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

This paper develops a dynamic programming optimisation model that considers the competition of crops in a season, both for irrigation water and cultivated area. Decision variables are the cultivated area and water allocated to each crop. The objective function of the model is based on crop‐water production functions, production costs and crop prices. The model is solved using the CSUDP generalised dynamic programming package for conditions existing in northern Tunisia where a large fraction of the irrigation water is stored in a reservoir mainly during the winter period. The model gives the optimal distribution of area and water to each crop and the profit. Sensitivity analysis of the optimal solution to costs, area and changes in crop prices is carried out. The analysis results show that changes in prices and costs have a large impact on profits. Results indicate that the model can be a valuable tool for regional agencies or irrigation authorities in determining seasonal cropping pattern for a region at the beginning of the season. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The irrational use of irrigation water resources is a major constraint to agricultural development in the watersheds of Morocco, including the Tadla sub-basin. It is essential for these areas to have effective instruments for managing and organizing the control and distribution of water resources and to ensure their protection and conservation. Within this context, this study focused on the Tadla sub-basin, where there has been a marked decrease in the supply of irrigation water. Using a dynamic agro-economic model called ‘TADMOD’ (for TADla Basin MODel), which classifies agricultural units according to their different sources of irrigation water, the study’s main purpose was to analyse the interannual variations in selected irrigation water management indicators. One of the most important indicators studied here was irrigation water shadow price between 2011 and 2020. The results of the analysis revealed important differences in this indicator value among the observed agricultural units. Its average value, calculated by TADMOD, was about 1.33 MAD4 (Moroccan Dirham) per cubic metre of water. The model showed that, over the ten simulated years, reduced water supplies in the Tadla sub-basin would lead to an increase of 33.2%, on average, in the irrigation water shadow price and to a decline in the cultivated area and total consumption of irrigation water. The reduction in the cultivated area would lead to a slight fall in valueadded, estimated at 3,180.78 million MAD per year in 2010-11, the first year of simulation.

The subject of this research was to determine the status of moral values among participants in the area of physical culture, as well as, in a wider sense, the desirability of introducing an ethical dimension into their education. Some of the fundamental ethical theories have been put into the function of experimental verification of their reception and application on a sample of students from the University of Belgrade’s Faculty of Sport and Physical Education. The goal of this research was to determine the students’ moral attitudes. To that purpose a questionnaire has been constructed and a research has been conducted on a total sample of 516 respondents. Research results have shown that there are certain differences between the consideration shown towards the moral aspects of physical culture between male and female students.

Optimal resources allocation strategies for a canal command in the semiarid region of Indian Punjab are developed in a stochastic regime, considering the competition of the crops in a season, both for irrigation water and area of cultivation. The proposed strategies are divided into two modules using a multilevel approach. The first module determines the optimal seasonal allocation of water as well as optimal cropping pattern. This module is subdivided into two stages. The first stage is a single crop intraseasonal model that employs a stochastic dynamic programming algorithm. The stochastic variables are weekly canal releases and evapotranspiration of the crop that are fitted to different probability distribution functions to determine the expected values at various risk levels. The second stage is a deterministic dynamic programming model that takes into account the multicrop situation. An exponential seasonal crop-water production function is used in this stage. The second module is a single crop stochastic dynamic programming intraseasonal model that takes the output of the first module and gives the optimal weekly irrigation allocations for each crop by considering the stress sensitivity factors of crops.

IntroductionClimate change has profoundly reshaped the spatiotemporal distribution patterns of plants. A. victorialis, a wild vegetable with significant edible and medicinal value, is highly favored by residents in the upper reaches of the Dadu River - Minjiang River, leading to its extensive collection and utilization.MethodsThis study simulated the potential distribution of A. victorialis in the upper reaches of the Dadu River-Minjiang River using an ensemble model, predicting the impacts of future climate change on its distribution, the migration patterns of the centroid of suitable habitats, and its ecological niche. Additionally, a production dynamic model integrating ecological suitability and nutritional components of A. victorialis was constructed to delineate its current and future potential cultivation areas.Results and discussionThe results demonstrated that the annual temperature range, precipitation in the warmest quarter, and temperature seasonality coefficient are the main factors restricting the potential distribution of A. victorialis Multivariate environmental similarity and the most dissimilar variable analysis revealed significant climate anomalies in the study area, indicating that future climate change will have a substantial impact on A. victorialis. In the current period, the suitable habitats and high-yield cultivation areas of A. victorialis are concentrated in low-altitude river valleys in the upper reaches of the Dadu River - Minjiang River. Under future scenarios, highly suitable habitats and first-class cultivation areas will face shrinkage, with the ecological niche and distribution centroid migrating northeastward. By 2090, under the SSP5-8.5 scenario, the changes will be most drastic: first-class cultivation areas will disappear entirely, and highly suitable habitats will be nearly lost. This study will facilitate the development of suitable management strategies for A. victorialis in the upper reaches of the Dadu River-Minjiang River, providing a scientific reference for the sustainable utilization of mountain plant resources under climate change.

Argentina anserina (Rosaceae), a perennial herb, forms enlarged tuberous roots (commonly referred to as "ginseng fruit") exclusively in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, making it a unique medicinal and edible plant resource in this region. The upper reaches of the Dadu River and Minjiang River are one of its primary production areas in China. This study employs an ensemble model to simulate the potential distribution of A. anserina in this region, predicting the impacts of future climate change on its distribution, ecological niche, and centroid migration patterns. Additionally, a cultivation productivity evaluation model integrating ecological suitability and nutritional components was developed to delineate potential cultivation areas. Results indicate that high-suitability habitats span 0.37 × 104 km2 (7.39% of the total suitable area), exhibiting a patchy and fragmented distribution in Aba County, Rangtang County, Jiuzhi County, and Banma County. Core cultivation areas cover 3.78 × 104 km2, distributed across Aba County, Rangtang County, Jiuzhi County, Seda County, Banma County, Hongyuan County, and Markam City. Under future climate scenarios, the suitable distribution area of A. anserina will gradually decline with rising temperatures, migrating to higher-latitude northern regions, accompanied by increased niche migration. By the 2090s under the SSP5-8.5 scenario, the centroid demonstrates the largest migration amplitude, with high-suitability habitats showing a "collapsing" polarization pattern and near-complete niche separation from the previous period, indicating significant changes. Collectively, these results provide a theoretical basis for the sustainable utilization of A. anserina in the upper Dadu River and Minjiang River basin.

Widespread soil degradation processes (erosion, dehumidification, loss of nutrients, and acidification) have been observed in the Central Russian Plain. An environmental and economic analysis of land degradation was carried out in three regions of the Central Russian Plain (Belgorod, Tula and Lipetsk) assessing the effects of action and inaction, and analysing the soil nutrient balance. The results show that all three regions experienced an increase in ecosystem values during the 2001–2009 period in respect of the growth of forest area. At the same time, the area under cropland decreased, which was followed by growth in crop yields. This increase in productivity has not been adequately compensated for by fertilisation, which could lead to high costs for combating land degradation in the future, especially in the Tula region. Therefore, an additional analysis correlating the factors of land degradation and the soil nutrient balance was carried out for Tula. Spatial and dynamic models in Tula showed that the increase in the cultivated area was directly correlated with the increase in the area of degraded land. This could be due to the depletion of soil fertility as a result of an insufficient use of mineral and organic fertilisers. The negative balance of nutrients found in the soils of the Tula region in the 1995–2014 period was due to inappropriate management of agriculture in the region studied. In all the regions studied, from 2001 to 2009, the abandonment of a significant proportion of unprofitable arable land was identified, followed by overgrowing with woody vegetation. The increase in forested areas in these regions has increased the value of ecosystem services. Statistical modelling showed that the cost of inaction in the surveyed regions was higher than the cost of action against land degradation (6- and 30-year perspectives). Thus, the application of the action/inaction assessment method has shown that the restoration of land productivity and the maintenance of ecosystem services are economically viable.KeywordsLand degradationSoil fertilityCrop productionIntensificationMineral and Organic fertilisersEcosystem services

The theory outlined here has been developed within the Laboratori di Progettazione Architettonica e Urbana, held by the writer of this chapter at the Facolta di Architettura di Firenze. The theory is born from the ‘architectural thought’ of Saverio Muratori and it is aimed at understanding the processes of transformation of the anthropic space. The dialectical relationship between man and nature (mind/reality, subject/object) is progressively developed in time and space, resulting in increasingly complex and extensive structural changes, mainly due to the relationship between building type and architectural organism. In this relationship, the building type, the collective idea of the building to be realized, constitutes the design matrix of the realized architectural organism, which in turn can create, in the mind of those operating in the same cultural area, a new building type improving the previous one. The serial multiplication of similar buildings, coupled with the production dynamics associated with food needs, imposes some scalar ‘jumps’ to human societies, called to manage aggregative forms more extensive and consistent. To the focus of the idea of city, the main human invention, now so widespread throughout the planet, which would seem to be destined to become a single large city in the future. The drawings included in this chapter are dynamic models that represent the theory, the general sense of which can ultimately be summarized in the formula Reading—Projecting—Building—Dwelling: the four phases of the hypothetical law of cyclic—scalar development, with which presumably man in his history has transformed the world to his own use and consumption.

Water resources are very important to agricultural production. In recent years, the change rate of agricultural cultivated land area in China has been very low, so it is not easy to increase its area and improve production capacity. To measure the impact of China’s water resources on agricultural efficiency from 2012 to 2016, this research applies the dynamic SBM model, conceives agricultural water as an external input, and uses the cultivated land area as an immutable intertemporal variable. The empirical results show that (1) the agricultural efficiency of Beijing, Heilongjiang, Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Fujian, Shandong, Sichuan, Qinghai, and Xinjiang are not affected by agricultural water. (2) The average value of China’s overall agricultural efficiency increased from 0.834 to 0.910, indicating that agricultural water is a positive efficiency factor. (3) Jilin, Chongqing, Inner Mongolia, Shaanxi, and Hubei are the five administrative regions with the most improvement in agricultural efficiency. (4) Insufficient agricultural productivity is the main factor affecting agricultural efficiency.

Comprehending the change characteristics and controlling factors of regional cultivated land resources is one of the important preconditions for their healthy development. The main objective of this study is to analyze the spatial–temporal variation characteristics of cultivated land and controlling factors in the Yangtze River Delta region. Thus, the mathematical–statistical, land use dynamic degree model, principal component analysis, and geographically weighted regression model were used to analyze the change in cultivated land area and social–economic factors in the Yangtze River Delta region from 2009 to 2018. The results showed that the cultivated land area and per capita cultivated land area had a decreasing trend from 2009 to 2018, decreasing by 8.5 × 104 ha and 0.0039 ha, respectively. From the perspective of spatial patterns, the rapidly decreasing areas of cultivated land were mainly distributed in the southeast, while the slowly decreasing areas of cultivated land were becoming concentrated in the northwest, and the slowly increasing areas presented as scattered distribution, which was also the same spatial distribution for the per capita cultivated land area in the Yangtze River Delta region. Among these factors, population (POP) and the total power of agricultural mechanization (TPAM) had a positive spatial correlation with cultivated land. The gross domestic product (GDP) had a negative spatial correlation with cultivated land, which revealed that cultivated land was intensely affected by human activities. Moreover, the spatial distribution and influence degree of the controlling factors differed in regions. Our research is expected to reveal the relationship between economic development and cultivated land protection for providing references for strengthening regional cultivated land management, maintaining the healthy development of regional resources, and rational utilization of cultivated land.

Reviewed by: Mythic Images and Shamanism: A Perspective on Kalevala Poetry Thomas A. DuBois Mythic Images and Shamanism: A Perspective on Kalevala Poetry. By Anna-Leena Siikala. (FF Communications 280. Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, 2002. Pp. 423, forward, citations, bibliography, 43 line drawings and photographs, person index, general index.) From its initial volume in 1911, the series Folklore Fellows Communications (FFC) has been recognized for both its complex and detailed monographs on folkloristic topics and its often ground-breaking theoretical and methodological contributions. With her Mythic Images and Shamanism, Professor Anna-Leena Siikala of the University of Helsinki takes up this forum to revisit the issue of shamanic elements in Finnish folklore. The study is informative about the Finnish tradition and valuable as a methodological foray into the vexing question of how to reconstruct a past—indeed, an ancient—cultural phenomenon on the basis of an oral tradition collected relatively recently. Siikala's study is a translation and partial expansion of her earlier work Suomalainen samanismi, from 1992. In it, she applies perspectives drawn from her own extensive research on North Eurasian shamanism, looking for and finding striking parallels in the folklore of Finns and Karelians. Following the lead of earlier Finnish scholars, Siikala bases her analysis on three closely associated sources of evidence: epic songs collected in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in Karelia, Ingria, and adjacent areas of Finland; incantations collected over roughly the same period (but with a wider distribution); and court, historical, and ethnographic records of tietäjät, folk healers, ranging from the seventeenth through the twentieth centuries. On the basis of these materials, Siikala reconstructs a healer/magic practitioner tradition possessed of specific healing techniques (e.g., baths, ointments, sauna), along with magic procedures and a cosmos reflected in the exhortations and narrative portions of the incantations and epic songs. Comparative material from other parts of Europe, particularly medieval Scandinavia, helps Siikala explore and explain this intriguing religious tradition. In presenting this unified image of a "tietäjä institution," Siikala is also clear to point out the differing cultural sources from which it drew, reviewing the historical-geographic findings of earlier Finnish scholars with great precision and insight. Some elements of the tradition may derive from the ancient Finno-Ugric past, whereas others may reflect the influences of the Catholic Middle Ages or other more recent intercultural contacts. The final section of Siikala's work presents a diachronic overview of the tradition that accounts for its historical transformation from an Iron-Age paganism into a [End Page 242] form of Christian folk healing. What is most important for Siikala is not the various sources of such elements, but the way in which all of them became assimilated into a preexisting worldview, an "ethnic religion" that rendered the foreign familiar and useful in maintaining an age-old relation with the cosmos. Siikala accounts for the tremendous continuity her study implies—a religious continuum that stretches over millennia—through reference to the French history of mentalities school, in which cultural phenomena are examined over long duration with an eye to the ways in which cultures meet with and assimilate new influences. Indeed, such a model of cultural dynamics works very well for a region with a high degree of population stability and continuity and limited pathways of cultural influence, such as one finds in Finland and Estonia. In fact, the model may work better here than for France or other parts of Central Europe. And, naturally, such a framework would be far more difficult to apply to an ethnographic situation like that of the United States or other immigrant, diasporic, or displaced communities. Such seems a major point of realization for the field of folkloristics today: the fact that cultures may act in different ways in different areas because of essentially different historical, economic, social, and political factors. Siikala offers less a model for how to go about the work of reconstructing past religions or mythologies than a valuable case study of one cultural area in which the reconstruction can proceed with relative ease. And such is a fascinating rejoinder to the universalizing tendencies of past folkloristics and theories familiar from earlier issues of FFC. Thomas A...

Estimates suggest that over 4 gigatons per year of carbon dioxide (Gt-CO2 year−1) be removed from the atmosphere by 2050 to meet international climate goals. One strategy for carbon dioxide removal is seaweed farming; however its global potential remains highly uncertain. Here, we apply a dynamic seaweed growth model that includes growth-limiting mechanisms, such as nitrate supply, to estimate the global potential yield of four types of seaweed. We estimate that harvesting 1 Gt year−1 of seaweed carbon would require farming over 1 million km2 of the most productive exclusive economic zones, located in the equatorial Pacific; the cultivation area would need to be tripled to attain an additional 1 Gt year−1 of harvested carbon, indicating dramatic reductions in carbon harvest efficiency beyond the most productive waters. Improving the accuracy of annual harvest yield estimates requires better understanding of biophysical constraints such as seaweed loss rates (e.g., infestation, disease, grazing, wave erosion).

Sugarcane industry's socioeconomic impact in São Paulo, Brazil: A spatial dynamic panel approach