Sustainable Utilization of Indigenous Goats in Southern Africa

Goats have a key role in ensuring food security and economic livelihood to smallholder farmers in rural areas. Women play a vital role in goat rearing, promoting economic autonomy within households. Indigenous goats dominate and are of high significance due to their adaptive traits that are relevant for climate change and low maintenance. However, lack of emphasis on farmer-centered technology development and proper breed characterization remains a hitch to sustainable utilization and breed development of indigenous goats. This can be over come through proper linkage between market and production, workable regional and national agricultural policies, community breeding programs, collaborative research work within the region, and consistent government support.

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The Influence of Farmers’ Socio-Economic Characteristics on Their Choice of Opinion Leaders: Social Knowledge Systems

Systems ◽

10.3390/systems10010008 ◽

2022 ◽

Vol 10 (1) ◽

pp. 8

Author(s):

Nthabeleng Tamako ◽

Joyce Chitja ◽

Maxwell Mudhara

Keyword(s):

Rural Areas ◽

Smallholder Farmers ◽

Multinomial Logistic Regression ◽

Statistical Significance ◽

Social Systems ◽

Opinion Leader ◽

Vital Role ◽

Knowledge Systems ◽

Opinion Leaders ◽

Social Knowledge

Smallholder farmers’ social knowledge systems are evolving in connecting key actors within and outside their knowledge systems. These key actors play a vital role in navigating the complexity and the dynamics of organisations, and effectively influence the community. This study identified the opinion leaders of smallholder farmers and measured the extent of their influence on the quality of these farmers’ knowledge of agriculture. Furthermore, the study explored the reasons why farmers choose their opinion leaders. A structured questionnaire was administered to 219 purposively selected smallholder farmers in the rural areas in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Data were captured and analysed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 26 and STATA to run multinomial logistic regression model (MNL). The results showed that farmers participated in field visits and attended farmers’ group meetings to communicate with agricultural advisors and group leaders. In addition, the findings showed that interactions could be a crucial element of knowledge and learning for farmers. This showed that the farmers required a consistent flow of material resources and knowledge. The time and energy spent by farmers building social relationships with these opinion leaders reflected the accumulation of information and resources gathered. Issues related to accessibility, availability and, quick feedback regarding farmers’ problems emerged, which seemed to influence the farmers’ choice of an opinion leader. The language and accessibility to sources of knowledge and feedback were crucial to the smallholder farmers included in the study. Furthermore, the results revealed that farmers’ educational level, farmers who engaged in agriculture for household consumption, and opinion agricultural skills have statistical significance on farmers’ choice of opinion leaders. Considering the findings, it is suggested that efforts to improve farmers’ active knowledge systems and access to the opinion leaders within these active knowledge systems should take into consideration the socio-economic factors that influence farmers’ choices and participation in social systems and social interactions. These findings may help agents develop a better understanding of the dynamics of local communities and the social complexity that shapes farmers’ environments and decisions. To be a progressive and effective opinion leader, constant, continuous assessment is needed to increase leadership skills. In addition, the enhancement of programmes, which will recognise the active opinion leaders within the communities, are needed to strengthen the efforts and impact for more resilient outcomes.

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A Computer-based Clinical Information System

Methods of Information in Medicine ◽

10.1055/s-0038-1635501 ◽

1987 ◽

Vol 26 (04) ◽

pp. 189-194

Author(s):

S. S. El-Gamal

Keyword(s):

Information System ◽

Hospital Information System ◽

Clinical Information System ◽

Research Work ◽

Clinical Information ◽

Hospital Staff ◽

Vital Role ◽

Daily Routine ◽

Specialized Hospital ◽

Computer Based

SummaryModern information technology offers new opportunities for the storage and manipulation of hospital information. A computer-based hospital information system, dedicated to urology and nephrology, was designed and developed in our center. It involves in principle the employment of a program that allows the analysis of non-restricted, non-codified texts for the retrieval and processing of clinical data and its operation by non-computer-specialized hospital staff.This Hospital Information System now plays a vital role in the efficient provision of a good quality service and is used in daily routine and research work in this hospital. This paper describes this specialized Hospital Information System.

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Machine Learning Verdict of EEG Signals in Brain Computer Interface

International Journal of Scientific Research in Computer Science Engineering and Information Technology ◽

10.32628/cseit1838114 ◽

2018 ◽

pp. 429-441

Author(s):

M. Jeyanthi ◽

C. Velayutham

Keyword(s):

Nearest Neighbor ◽

Technology Development ◽

Vital Role ◽

Svm Classifier ◽

K Nearest Neighbor ◽

Data Mining Technique ◽

Data Set ◽

Eeg Data ◽

Irrelevant Attributes

In Science and Technology Development BCI plays a vital role in the field of Research. Classification is a data mining technique used to predict group membership for data instances. Analyses of BCI data are challenging because feature extraction and classification of these data are more difficult as compared with those applied to raw data. In this paper, We extracted features using statistical Haralick features from the raw EEG data . Then the features are Normalized, Binning is used to improve the accuracy of the predictive models by reducing noise and eliminate some irrelevant attributes and then the classification is performed using different classification techniques such as Naïve Bayes, k-nearest neighbor classifier, SVM classifier using BCI dataset. Finally we propose the SVM classification algorithm for the BCI data set.

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Segmentation In Medical Resonance images to extract the cancerous nodule for early diagnosis on cancer

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF COMPUTERS & TECHNOLOGY ◽

10.24297/ijct.v3i2a.2816 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 3 (2) ◽

pp. 253-255

Author(s):

Raman Brar

Keyword(s):

Human Lung ◽

Research Work ◽

Vital Role ◽

Watershed Algorithm ◽

Segmentation Method ◽

Resonance Imaging ◽

Segmentation Methods ◽

Segmentation Accuracy ◽

Background Segmentation ◽

Lung Mri

Image segmentation plays a vital role in several medical imaging programs by assisting the delineation of physiological structures along with other parts. The objective of this research work is to segmentize human lung MRI (Medical resonance Imaging) images for early detection of cancer.Watershed Transform Technique is implemented as the Segmentation method in this work. Some comparative experiments using both directly applied watershed algorithm and after marking foreground and computed background segmentation methods show the improved lung segmentation accuracy in some image cases.

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Asistensi Pendirian Badan Usaha Milik Desa Cibogo, Kecamatan Cisauk, Kabupaten Tangerang

Proceeding of Community Development ◽

10.30874/comdev.2017.41 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 1 ◽

pp. 350

Author(s):

Taufik Raharjo ◽

Ambang Aries Yudanto ◽

I Gede Agus Ariutama

Keyword(s):

Rural Development ◽

Rural Areas ◽

Group Discussion ◽

National Development ◽

Qualitative Approach ◽

Government Support ◽

Outer Ring ◽

Indonesian Government ◽

The Village

As the Indonesian government has been committed, that the national development should be puting more focus from the outer-ring or rural areas. One of the instrument to boost the rural development is Village Fund. This decentralization transfer purposively targets to improve the village society’s welfare and alleviate social gap existed among societies. Village-owned enterprise (Badan Usaha Milik Desa or BUMDes) is provided as one of the strategic mechanism to create the welfare by proactively engage the community itsefl. In fact, BUMDes may incorporate Village Fund as capital alternative to support their establishment. This paper highlights the crucial factors in order to establish a village-owned enterprise (BUMDes) in case of Cibogo Village, Cisauk Sub-regency, Tangerang Regency. The study deploys a qualitative approach. To collect the data, we are scouting, interviewing and establishing Focused-Group Discussion that involving the possible parties which may contributes in creating BUMDes. The result has not yet concluded as the process of the research still going on. We predicts that the communities engagement, empowerment and also government support should be taken into account in the early process of establishing BUMDes. Eventually, proactive society’s control and participatory would be decent factors to support the operations of BUMDes itself.

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Exploring Smallholder Farmers’ Preferences for Climate-Smart Seed Innovations: Empirical Evidence from Southern Ethiopia

Sustainability ◽

10.3390/su13052786 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 13 (5) ◽

pp. 2786

Author(s):

Shimelis Araya Geda ◽

Rainer Kühl

Keyword(s):

Smallholder Farmers ◽

Preference Heterogeneity ◽

Southern Ethiopia ◽

Significant Preference ◽

Experiment Data ◽

Breeding Programs ◽

Drought Tolerant ◽

The Face ◽

Mnl Model ◽

Participatory Research Methods

Rapid plant breeding is essential to overcome low productivity problems in the face of climatic challenges. Despite considerable efforts to improve breeding practices in Ethiopia, increasing varietal release does not necessarily imply that farmers have access to innovative varietal choices. Prior research did not adequately address whether varietal attributes are compatible with farmers’ preferences in harsh environmental conditions. With an agricultural policy mainly aiming to achieve productivity maximization, existing breeding programs prioritize varietal development based on yield superiority. Against this background, we estimated a multinomial logit (MNL) model based on choice-experiment data from 167 bean growers in southern Ethiopia to explore whether farmers’ attribute preferences significantly diverge from those of breeders’ priorities. Four important bean attributes identified through participatory research methods were used. The results demonstrate that farmers have a higher propensity toward drought-tolerant capability than any of the attributes considered. The model estimates further show the existence of significant preference heterogeneity across farmers. These findings provide important insight to design breeding profiles compatible with specific producer segments. We suggest demand-driven breeding innovations and dissemination strategies in order to accelerate the adoption of climate-smart and higher-yielding bean innovations that contribute to achieve the national and global sustainability goals in Ethiopia.

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Evaluating the Impacts of Smallholder Farmer’s Participation in Modern Agricultural Value Chain Tactics for Facilitating Poverty Alleviation—A Case Study of Kiwifruit Industry in Shaanxi, China

Agriculture ◽

10.3390/agriculture11050462 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 11 (5) ◽

pp. 462

Author(s):

Hongyu Wang ◽

Xiaolei Wang ◽

Apurbo Sarkar ◽

Lu Qian

Keyword(s):

Value Chain ◽

Rural Areas ◽

Poverty Alleviation ◽

Poverty Reduction ◽

Smallholder Farmers ◽

Multidimensional Poverty ◽

Well Being ◽

Reduction Degree ◽

Poverty Level ◽

Storage Technology

Market-based initiatives like agriculture value chain (AVC) are becoming progressively pervasive to support smallholder rural farmers and assist them in entering larger market interventions and providing a pathway of enhancing their socioeconomic well-being. Moreover, it may also foster staggering effects towards the post-era poverty alleviation in rural areas and possessed a significant theoretical and practical influence for modern agricultural development. The prime objective of the study is to explore the effects of smallholder farmers’ participation in the agricultural value chain for availing rural development and poverty alleviation. Specifically, we have crafted the assessment employing pre-production (improved fertilizers usage), in-production (modern preservation technology), and post-production (supply chain) participation and interventions of smallholder farmers. The empirical data has been collected from a micro survey dataset of 623 kiwifruit farmers from July to September in Shaanxi, China. We have employed propensity score matching (PSM), probit, and OLS models to explore the multidimensional poverty reduction impact and heterogeneity of farmers’ participation in the agricultural value chain. The results show that the total number of poor farmers who have experienced one-dimensional and two-dimensional poverty is relatively high (66.3%). We also find that farmers’ participation in agricultural value chain activities has a significant poverty reduction effect. The multidimensional poverty level of farmers using improved fertilizer, organizational acquisition, and using storage technology (compared with non-participating farmers) decreased by 30.1%, 46.5%, and 25.0%, respectively. The multidimensional poverty reduction degree of male farmers using improved fertilizer and participating in the organizational acquisition is greater than that of women. The multidimensional poverty reduction degree of female farmers using storage and fresh-keeping technology has a greater impact than the males using storage and improved storage technology. Government should widely promote the value chain in the form of pre-harvest, production, and post-harvest technology. The public–private partnership should also be strengthened for availing innovative technologies and infrastructure development.

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The Effectiveness of Energy Cooperatives Operating on the Capacity Market

Energies ◽

10.3390/en14113226 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 14 (11) ◽

pp. 3226

Author(s):

Jakub Jasiński ◽

Mariusz Kozakiewicz ◽

Maciej Sołtysik

Keyword(s):

Energy Storage ◽

Rural Areas ◽

Agricultural Sector ◽

Renewable Energy Sources ◽

Research Work ◽

Biodiversity Loss ◽

Mixed Integer ◽

Coal Consumption ◽

Pollution Levels ◽

Capacity Market

The European Green Deal aims to make Europe the world’s first climate-neutral continent by 2050 by shifting to a clean circular economy, combating biodiversity loss and reducing pollution levels. In Poland, whose economy invariably remains one of the most dependent on coal consumption in Europe, institutional responses to the above EU objectives have taken the shape of energy cooperatives aimed at filling the gaps in the development of the civic dimension of energy on a local scale and the use of potential renewable energy sources in rural areas, including in relation to the agricultural sector. This article is a continuation of the authors’ previous research work, which has so far focused on the analysis of the development of profitability of Polish institutions that fit into the European idea of a “local energy community”, which includes energy cooperatives. In this research paper, they present the results of subsequent research work and analyses performed on the basis of it which, on the one hand, complement the previously developed optimization model with variables concerning actual energy storage and, on the other hand, analyze the profitability of the operation of energy cooperatives in the conditions of the “capacity market”. The latter was actually introduced in Poland at the beginning of 2021. The research took account of the characteristics of energy producers and consumers in rural areas of Poland, the legally defined rules for the operation of the capacity market and the institutional conditions for the operation of energy cooperatives that can use the potential of energy storage. A dedicated mathematical model in mixed integer programming technology was used, enriched with respect to previous research, making it possible to optimize the operation of energy cooperative with the use of actual energy storage (batteries). Conclusions from the research and simulation show that the installation of energy storage only partially minimizes the volume of energy drawn from the grid in periods when fees related to the capacity market are in force (which should be avoided due to higher costs for consumers). The analysis also indicates that a key challenge is the proper parameterization of energy storage.

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Sustainable Utilization of Financial and Institutional Resources in Reducing Income Inequality and Poverty

Sustainability ◽

10.3390/su13031038 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 13 (3) ◽

pp. 1038

Author(s):

Atta Ullah ◽

Zhao Kui ◽

Saif Ullah ◽

Chen Pinglu ◽

Saba Khan

Keyword(s):

Economic Growth ◽

Income Inequality ◽

Financial Development ◽

Institutional Quality ◽

Vital Role ◽

Electronic Government ◽

Sustainable Utilization ◽

One Belt One Road ◽

Institutional Resources ◽

Belt And Road

This study aims to determine the role of globalization, electronic government, financial development, concerning the moderation of institutional quality in reducing income inequality and poverty in One Belt One Road countries. The electronic government and regional integration of the economies of the One Belt One Road countries has increased globalization and can play a vital role in reducing income inequality and poverty. However, this globalization and digital transformation of government systems can only be beneficial in the presence of good institutional quality. The sample includes 64 One Belt One Road countries from 2003 to 2018. We employed a two-step system generalized method of moment (Sys-GMM) and a robustness check through Driscoll–Kraay standard errors regression. Our findings show that globalization, economic growth, e-government development, government expenditure, and inflation have a statistically significant and negative impact on income inequality and are key to eradicating income inequality and poverty. On the other hand, financial development, gross capital formation, and population size positively influence income inequality, which causes an increase in poverty and income inequality as financial development and population levels increase. Moderating variable institutional quality also positively impacts income inequality, which means that institutional quality in Belt and Road Countries is weak, as they are mostly developing countries that need to improve their systems. Moreover, the marginal effect also revealed that institutional quality has a corrective effect on the factors’ relationship with income inequality. Our findings endorse and conclude that globalization and e-government development improve economic growth and eradicate poverty and income inequality by boosting digitalization, investments, job creation, and wage increases for semi-skilled and unskilled human capital in Belt and Road countries. The sustainable utilization of financial and institutional resources plays a vital role in reducing income inequality and poverty in Belt and Road countries.

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Smallholders’ perceptions of policies for preserving the traditional Ongole cattle breed of Indonesia

Outlook on Agriculture ◽

10.1177/0030727020983588 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 003072702098358

Author(s):

Eko Nugroho ◽

Simon J Oosting ◽

Rico Ihle ◽

Wim JM Heijman

Keyword(s):

Smallholder Farmers ◽

Cattle Breed ◽

Target Group ◽

Agricultural Policies ◽

Beef Production ◽

Policy Success ◽

Policy Awareness ◽

Selection Programme ◽

Genetic Potential ◽

Participation Level

Agricultural policies can only be effective if intended beneficiaries are sufficiently aware of them. This basic condition for policy success is substantially challenged by smallholder farmers’ lack of awareness of existing support schemes. We studied the perceptions of 600 farmers of preservation policies for the traditional Indonesian Ongole cattle breed. We measured farmers’ knowledge of existing policies, their perceived ease of participation, their participation level and their satisfaction with the benefits obtained. We found that the target group has little awareness of existing policies. Policy awareness increases with education, the less remote the farm is, and with increasing specialization in cattle farming. We recommend therefore that policymakers should simplify and redesign existing policy schemes to create one coordinated policy. The various support schemes currently implemented should be combined in this policy and it should be presented in such a way that is easily understood by farmers. Incentives for Ongole breeders should be tailored, the establishment of farmers groups facilitated, and a breeding and selection programme initiated to improve the genetic potential of Ongole for domestic beef production.

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