Sustainability Assessment of Banana (Musa spp.) Yield Gap Reduction through Value Chain Development Interventions in Smallholder Farming Systems in Manicaland, Zimbabwe

This study evaluated the effectiveness of donor supported agricultural value chain development projects in sustainably narrowing yield gaps for banana smallholder farmer producers in Manicaland, Zimbabwe. The study used a mixed methods research design that relied on farmers records for the quantitative analysis and focus group discussion and in-depth interviews for key experts for the qualitative aspects. A mix of regression analysis, t-tests, Pearsons’s correlation and analysis of variance statistical methods were used for the quantitative analysis while thematic response analysis was used for the qualitative engagements. The findings showed that by the end of the activity, the project had successfully narrowed the banana yield gaps to 18.66 tons per hectare working with a potential yield base of 40 tons. However, 5 years after the project closure the yield gap had fallen to 24.7 tons indicating a lack of sustainability of yield gap reduction. However, the yield gap slump does not override the fact that farmers on average were still able to sell approximately 5 tons per every 6 months after 5 years from the project closure which is beyond any poverty threshold. This suggests genuine upward economic mobility. Additionally, in analyzing what factors had the greatest influence on yield gap reduction, the access to fertilizer ranked highest where genetics, irrigation and improved agronomy followed in that respective order. The study further showed that farmers who receive value chain development support whilst at an already commercialized state tend to maintain productivity thresholds higher in comparison to those who are at a pre commercial state. This is evidenced by the fact that the pre commercial farmers had a yield reduction of 30.83 percent after 5 years of the project closure whereas the former realized a productivity growth of 7.84%. In conclusion, whilst the intervention was successful in transitioning farmers out of poverty, more investment should be made towards transitioning smallholder farmers to integrated soil fertility management practices and improvement of agronomic efficiency through stronger on field collaboration between research institutions, the government and development institutions.

Pension replacement rate related to the scope and specific estimates

Pension replacement rate in respect of almost everyone＇s retirement, about the sustainability of the whole pension system, stable relations of society as a whole. For the pension replacement rate study, researchers conducted a more in-depth exploration, according to their different research needs to develop a different pension replacement rate concept. Based on previous studies scholars, for the relevant category of pension replacement rate to sort out, and for different categories of calculation method of the sort, in order to provide a reference for further study of the pension replacement rate.

Mechanical and Frost-resistance Properties of Rural Area Building Waste Hollow Bricks

Serving as recycled coarse aggregate,the pretreated rural building waste was added into the concrete hollow bricks in the varying replacement of 0,20%,40%,60%,80% and 100%.By testing its compressive strength,flexural strength,mass and strength loss after freeze-thaw cycles,the impact of the different replacement on mechanical and frost-resistance properties of concrete hollow bricks was presented through SEM analysis.The experimental results show that,with the increase in recycled coarse aggregate replacement rate,the mechanical and frost-resistance properties show a downward trend;when the replacement rate is 40%,28 d compressive strength and flexural strength of concrete hollow brick demonstrate the good peak value which meet the requirement of the national standard for ordinary small concrete hollow bricks;the interfacial structures of the pretreated recycled concrete is more complicated than those of concrete made of natural aggregate,but the former enjoys better interface bonding and tight structure.

Basic Mechanical Properties and Microstructural Analysis of Recycled Concrete

The regeneration aggregate, natural aggregate, POO42.5 R Portland cement, coal fly ash, and slag powders S95 graining blast furnace, homemade P（AA-co-MA）/PEG carboxylic acid water reducing agent, were used together with recycled concrete aggregate in different regeneration rates to prepare recycled concrete （RC）. The influences of different renewable aggregate ratios on the basic RC replacement mechanical properties, uniaxial compression stress and strain curve, and the elastic modulus and rebound value were investigated.The results show that RC mechanical properties decreases with renewable aggregate replacement rate increasing. The prolongation can reduce the reduced span.

Community Based Seed Production-A Sustainable Seed Production Model for Subsistence of Bhutanese Maize Farmers

Bhutanese maize farmers grow different open-pollinated traditional varieties and improved high yielding varieties recommended by the national maize program. All most every maize farmer uses the recycled seeds from their farms for planting in the next season. Farmers traditional or informal seed system was found to be poorly organized and unscientific that has resulted in the deterioration and contamination of seed quality. Bhutanese maize farmers living in remote areas are highly constrained by the inconsistent supply and poor access to good quality maize seed. The formal public seed sectors lack adequate resources to produce and supply good quality seeds. This called for an urgency to identify and adapt an innovative and a sustainable seed production approach to service the subsistence needs of Bhutanese farmers in a cross-pollinated crop, like maize. The community based seed production （CBSP） approach was introduced and evaluated under the Bhutanese maize production system as an alternative farmer based seed production model. A total of seven farmers CBSP groups were formed and promoted as a smallholder seed enterprise. The technical skills of these CBSP group members on maize seed production were improved through practical demonstrations and trainings. The CBSP groups were supplied with high quality source seed of new maize varieties by the national maize program. For long term, the sustainability of CBSP groups were linked to the formal seed sector in the country for marketing the seeds. The CBSP approach has proven to be a successful small scale maize seed production model under highland maize production ecosystem that has improved the production and supply of good quality maize seeds. The Bhutanese experiences with CBSP in maize, its merits for small holder Bhutanese maize farmers and lessons learnt from the CBSP model are discussed in this paper.

Long term performance of recycled concrete beams with different water-cement ratio and recycled aggregate replacement rate

The purpose of this study is to reveal the service performance of recycled aggregate concrete(RAC)components for different values of water-cement ratio and replacement rate of recycled coarse aggregate(RCA).Generally,the concrete strength decreases with the increase of the replacement rate of RCA,in order to meet the strength requirements when changing the replacement rate of RCA,it is necessary to change the water-cement ratio at the same time.Therefore,the axial compressive strengths of prism with 25 mix proportions,the short-term mechanical properties and long-term deformation properties of reinforced concrete beams were tested respectively by changing water-cement ratio and RCA replacement rate.The bearing capacity and the strain nephogram of samples under different loads were obtained using the Digital Image Correlation(DIC)method,and a self-made gravity loading experimental device was used for long-term deformation investigation.Results showed that the damage pattern of RAC was the same as that of natural aggregate concrete(NAC),but the brittleness was more pronounced.The brittleness of concrete before failure can be reduced more effectively by adjusting the replacement rate of RCA than by adjusting the water-cement ratio.The water-cement ratio has an evident influence on the axial compressive strength and early creep of concrete,while the replacement rate of RCA has a remarkable effect on the long-term deformation of the concrete beams.

Design of in-network caching scheme in CCN based on grey relational analysis

In-network caching is one of the most important issues in content centric networking （CCN）, which may extremely influence the performance of the caching system. Although much work has been done for in-network caching scheme design in CCN, most of them have not addressed the multiple network attribute parameters jointly during caching algorithm design. Hence, to fill this gap, a new in-network caching based on grey relational analysis （GRA） is proposed. The authors firstly define two newly metric parameters named request influence degree （RID） and cache replacement rate, respectively. The RID indicates the importance of one node along the content delivery path from the view of the interest packets arriving The cache replacement rate is used to denote the caching load of the node. Then combining hops a request traveling from the users and the node traffic, four network attribute parameters are considered during the in-network caching algorithm design. Based on these four network parameters, a GRA based in-network caching algorithm is proposed, which can significantly improve the performance of CCN. Finally, extensive simulation based on ndnSIM is demonstrated that the GRA-based caching scheme can achieve the lower load in the source server and the less average hops than the existing the betweeness （Betw） scheme and the ALWAYS scheme.