Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'International Livestock Research Institute'

The International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) maintains a population of mutants based on IR64 one of the most popular varieties throughout Asia. The popularity of IR64 is due to its quality. IR64 is a low yielding relative to newer varieties, and its yield is further compromised by its susceptibility to many biotic stresses. Nevertheless, it has maintained its fame because the grain it produces is of very high quality, and it is difficult to capture this in higher-yielding backgrounds. IR64 produces long, slender, translucent grains, it has intermediate amylase and gelatinisation temperature, and it does not become firm on cooling. These are the traits that are valued by almost every consumer and trader of indica rice. The key to understanding the quality of IR64, and genetic factors of intermediate amylase and gelatinisation temperature will be to find the genes that confer that quality and develop ways to select for them. The mutant population provides an excellent resource to achieve this. Unravelling genetic processes defining the quality of IR64 is useful to rice improvement programs around the world, since all select for different metrics of the same traits of quality, and many select for intermediate amylase and gelatinisation temperature. The aims of this project are to (i) screen a subset of the collection of IR64 mutants to determine the structures of starch that associate with the quality of IR64; (ii) identify candidate genes that synthesise directly, or indirectly, the particular structures of starch; and (iii) search for allelic variation in the genes that could explain the phenotype of the mutation. One IR64 mutant was found with decreased amylase content and gelatinisation temperature, and other cooking properties were significantly different from the IR64 wildtype. The mutant was severely depleted in the long chains of amylase that leach out of the granule in hot water, and was depleted in the long chains of amylopectin that strengthen the molecule by spanning several clusters. Differences in amylase and amylopectin between the various phenotypes of the mutant studied and the wildtype suggest that this mutant carries a mutation in two genes. Candidates for each phenotype are granule bound starch synthase (GBSSI) and starch synthase Illa (SSIIIa). The conserved region of SSIIIa, and exon 2 of GBSSI, where transcription begins, did not carry any mutation, but other regions of each gene were not genotyped. Paradoxically, a high level of GBSSI protein accumulated in the mutant. The other starch synthases are post-translationally regulated by starch phosphorylase. Starch phosphorylase could also be involved in post-translational regulation of GBSSI and SSIIIa activity. In the mutant, starch phosphorylase was found in the soluble fraction, along with many other granule proteins, but it and the other proteins were absent from the soluble fraction of granule proteins, thus the mutation could reside in a gene encoding a protein that regulates the activity of these two starch synthases, both of which elongate relatively long chains on their respective molecules. This mutation changes eating quality enormously, and the structural studies here demonstrate the huge effect of long chains of amylase and long chains of amylopectin on the excellent quality of IR64.

Die heutige Welt der Menschen wird durch große Dynamik geprägt. Eine Vielzahl verschiedener Prozesse entfaltet sich parallel und teilweise auf unsichtbare Weise miteinander verbunden. Nimmt man z.B. den Prozess der Globalisierung: Hier erleben wir ein exponentielles Wachstum der internationalen Verknüpfungen von der Ebene einzelner Menschen und bis zur Ebene der Kulturen. Solche Verknüpfungen führen uns zum Begriff der Komplexität. Diese wird oft als Produkt der Anzahl der Elemente eines Systems mal Umfang der Verknüpfungen im System verstanden. In anderen Worten, die Welt wird zunehmend komplexer, denn die Verknüpfungen nehmen zu. Komplexität wiederum ist ein Begriff für etwas unverstandenes, unkontrollierbares, etwas unbestimmtes. Genau wie bei einem Menschen: Aus einer Zelle wächst ein Mensch, dessen Verhalten wir im Detail nur schwer vorhersagen können. Immerhin besitzt sein Gehirn 1011 Elemente (Zellen). Wenn also diese dynamischen sozialen Prozesse zu höherer Komplexität führen, müssen wir auch mehr Unbestimmtheit erwarten. Es bleibt zu Hoffen, dass die Unbestimmtheit nicht existenzielle Grundlagen betrifft. Was die Komplexität der Technik angeht, so versucht man hier im Gegensatz zu den gesellschaftlichen Unsicherheiten die Unsicherheiten zu erfassen und gezielt mit ihnen umzugehen. Das gilt für alle Bereiche, ob nun Naturgefahrenmanagement, beim Bau und Betrieb von Kernkraftwerken, im Bauwesen oder in der Schifffahrt. Und so verschieden diese Fachgebiete auch scheinen mögen, die an diesem Symposium teilnehmen: Sie haben erkannt, das verantwortungsvoller Umgang mit Technik einer Berücksichtigung der Unbestimmtheit bedarf. Soweit sind wir in gesellschaftlichen Prozessen noch nicht. Wünschenswert wäre, dass in einigen Jahren nicht nur Bauingenieure, Maschinenbauer, Mathematiker oder Schiffsbauer an einem solchen Probabilistik- Symposium teilnehmen, sondern auch Soziologen, Politiker oder Manager... (aus dem Vorwort) --- HINWEIS: Das Volltextdokument besteht aus einzelnen Beiträgen mit separater Seitenzählung.
PREFACE: The world today is shaped by high dynamics. Multitude of processes evolves parallel and partly connected invisible. For example, the globalisation is such a process. Here one can observe the exponential growing of connections form the level of single humans to the level of cultures. Such connections guide as to the term complexity. Complexity is often understood as product of the number of elements and the amount of connections in the system. In other words, the world is going more complex, if the connections increase. Complexity itself is a term for a system, which is not fully understood, which is partly uncontrollable and indeterminated: exactly as humans. Growing from a single cell, the humans will show latter a behaviour, which we can not predict in detail. After all, the human brain consists of 1011 elements (cells). If the social dynamical processes yield to more complexity, we have to accept more indetermination. Well, one has to hope, that such an indetermination does not affect the basic of human existence. If we look at the field of technology, we can detect, that here indetermination or uncertainty is often be dealt with explicitly. This is valid for natural risk management, for nuclear engineering, civil engineering or for the design of ships. And so different the fields are which contribute to this symposium for all is valid: People working in this field have realised, that a responsible usage of technology requires consideration of indetermination and uncertainty. This level is not yet reached in the social sciences. It is the wish of the organisers of this symposium, that not only civil engineers, mechanical engineers, mathematicians, ship builders take part in this symposium, but also sociologists, managers and even politicians. Therefore there is still a great opportunity to grow for this symposium. Indetermination does not have to be negative: it can also be seen as chance.

Although there are currently various programs aimed at increasing the interest of high school students in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), very few programs have explored the students’ perceptions of the effectiveness of extracurricular STEM programs to their school learning and post-school aspirations. This research aimed to investigate high school students’ perceptions of a STEM research placement program integrated into their school curriculum, and how it contributed to their self-efficacy, attitude towards science and motivation to pursue a career in that field. A standard operating procedure (SOP) was then developed to inform future STEM-centred high school programs.

This study discusses the strategies and lessons learned by the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in targeting rice research toward poor women.The strategies include socio-economic research on gender issues;technology development for women-specific tasks through participatory research; collaborative research with national agricultural research systems (NARS) and networks; research-oriented training on gender analysis; organization of conferences and workshops on gender issues; recognition of female rice scientists; gender audit of research projects and appointment of a social scientist to coordinate gender-related activities.A revised conceptual framework of farming systems research and gender analysis was used to better understand the complex interrelationship between the environment (physical, socio-economic, cultural), and intra-household dynamics, particularly men and women's roles and responsibilities in rice-based farming systems.Case studies were conducted in the Philippines and eastern India.Improved seed management and adoption of improved glutinous rice varieties showed potential for increasing yields and income.Women's narratives were interwoven within the quantitative analysis to make their voices heard in the story.The most important lesson learned from the author's experience is that targeting research toward poor rural women can be an effective strategy in providing them with choices, opportunities and abilities to enhance their role as food producers. This will hopefully help improve their social and economic status

The author examines how a North American commercial Web site developed by Environmental Systems Research Institute serves as a vehicle through which American hegemony and cultural imperialism are propagated to Latin America. The author argues that the content of the web site pages, which contain American cultural symbols and values, may serve to influence or change the values of its Latin American visitors.

UBC's research community recently received a significant boost in financial support for five research hubs that will join the Centre for Brain Health as newly appointed national Centres of Excellence for Commercialization and Research (CECR). Two UBC economics professors were recognized with separate Bank of Canada awards: the Research Fellowship 2008 and the Governor's Award. UBC's Brain Research Centre has recevied $25 million from the Province of BC to establish a new facility focused on translational brain research.

碩士
國立臺南大學
行政管理學系碩士在職專班
106
Organizational reform of the Executive Yuan came into about 9 years, but Department of Agriculture still not established. The Livestock Research institute(LRI) is an affiliation of the Council of Agriculture(COA), under the influence of organizational reform, the sections of LRI had simplification and consolidation. How to manage the interests of stakeholders in LRI, made the organizational reform of LRI successfully, was the focal points of this research. Through the document analysis to understand the the progress and interests of the organizational reform of LRI, and to identify important stakeholders in LRI.Using semi-structured in-depth interview with important stakeholders to find out the reason why stakeholders became the community of interests, to create the draft of LRI organizational law. After comparing the document analysis and the depth-interviews of stakeholders found six findings. First, LRI planed the draft of organizational law was conservative. Secondly, because of LRI is a livestock research professional institution, the work content plan was less restrictive. Third, the organizational law determined the division of the sections to improve efficiency. Fourth, the integrity of the position table and positions promotion increased support of reorganization. Fifth, internal unit integration changed with the time and space. Last, the subordinate institute of LRI merged with the branches, that were in charge of work planning and building a promotion team. After understanding the reorganization interests of LRI and stakeholders coordination ,we knew 2 key point.First,the employees participated the discussion of LRI organization design. Secondly, used the professional standing point of institution to convince outside stakeholders. Regarding reorganization experience of LRI, made four suggestions of organization transformation management strategy. First, since reorganization took for a long time, we should renew the work plans and organization design. Secondly, innovation and research center could start working earlier. Third, improved personnel training and increased individual task experience. Last but not the least, in order to respond the animal protection issues, improved economic animal welfare.

碩士
國立臺灣大學
臺大-復旦EMBA境外專班
107
This paper is to summarize a company’s journey transforming from small grew to manufacturing then to China and ventured into education service industry in Taiwan follow by later taking the key-turning transition to property development with community planning and building. Striving over forty years with countless challenges and constant adjustments, moving simultaneously with the global trend, maintaining stable and diversified growth among peers and competitors, being able to find transforming points from the highly regulated land policies by the central and local government, consolidated over ten hectors of agricultural land as the minimum requirement complying the guidelines and regulations to submit property development application, being able to prevail upon challenges and questions from experts and scholars, being environmental friendly, complying to government policies and successfully converted the property from agricultural zoning to commercial and residential zoning in addition with the international linkage to world class education entities. It’s all because this organization had over 20 years of experiences collaborating with institutions and universities overseas, also at the same time with construction companies, property development consultants, community planning teams and architectural designing teams. It’s the cross-industrial business model intrigued this study utilizing the empirical summary approach comparing the macro economic environment as background references which lead to study how the operation was transformed from the trading business to manufacturing to education then to property development projects and had complied all the governmental regulations even meeting the local expectations on the environmental and eco-sustainability issues. Most importantly to take the educated guess whether it will be a sustainable direction to maintain with the same business models for the next ten to twenty years base on property development to diversified projects to manage. Due to the lengthy processing time, it really makes sense to utilize the vacant lots to fully explore the possibilities of the potential value. And to further explore more effective methodology on investing and transforming the managing models which will be able to generate more returns. At the same time this study will provide this organization recommendations which will be more pragmatic meeting the market needs and synchronizing to the global trends to develop projects and operations which will allow this organization to become a sustainable development.

In spite of many years of quality agricultural research and overall agricultural and economic growth, there has been slow progress in the reduction of rural poverty in many developing countries. There is agreement that technology alone is unable to solve the problem of poverty. There are many other issues that need to be considered - some are agroecological and some are social-economic-cultural-institutional-infrastructural. There has recently been fruitful discussion on poverty-focused agricultural research within national and international agricultural research systems. But the actual application of these new ideas and discussions in research has been limited. Although all agree that there is a need to discover ways to achieve greater impact on poverty from research that has been conducted, there is as yet no clear evidence of achievement based on practical experiences. There is little or no real discussion in the literature that demonstrates whether the approach to research affects poverty status. This thesis revisits different interventions and identifies gaps in the literature in understanding approaches to agricultural research. It examines whether working directly with poor men and women farmers in partnership with organisations can contribute to poverty reduction. It also explores a range of values, asking whether they can make pro-poor research and development more effective and, more importantly, whether a value-based research management approach can significantly contribute to poverty elimination. The experience of a recently completed IRRI-managed and DFID-funded project, the Poverty Elimination Through Rice Research Assistance (PETRRA) project, which claimed to have used a value-based approach to agricultural research management, was used as a case study to learn about the effectiveness of such an approach. The project was implemented in Bangladesh for 5 years with more than 50 national and international partners and in close collaboration with the Bangladesh Rice Research Institute (BRRI). A qualitative research methodology was used to explore the effectiveness of the value-based research management approach utilised by the project. The values included working with the poor men and women farmers on their demands and priorities, conducting research that ensures participation of men and women farmers, working with partners who work with the poor farmers, and developing networks and linkages to sustain technologies and innovations and communicate results to a large number of poor farmers for impact. Under PETRRA, a competitive research commissioning approach was used in the selection of partners. The research method involved interviewing the research partners that led research and development subprojects 4 years on from the completion of the project. This group represents the intermediary group that made the link between two large groups: i) the national-international agricultural research and development system and ii) the users, the poor men and women farmers or the farmer groups. During the interviews, the partners of PETRRA evaluated their experience with the value-based approach that was adopted by PETRRA and analysed its effectiveness. The research revealed that the experience of engaging with values and the value-based management approach was mostly positive. The scientists from national and international research centres and development professionals from government, non-government, and private organizations were successful in linking agricultural research, values, and the need for a management approach to achieve the objective of poverty reduction. They were able to see the strengths of the values when they were used in combination to complement each other. They observed the superior effectiveness in poverty reduction of research outputs in the form of technologies and other innovations that were developed through a value-based approach. They also identified the need for and effectiveness of the contribution of continuous capacity-building efforts on the part of the project management unit in support of a value-based approach. There was clear evidence of capacity-building impact on individual partners and their respective organizations as many of these individuals and organizations sustained the learning after the project ended. Many technologies and innovations, networks, and tools that were developed in the respective subprojects were successfully used by poor farmers, some were replicated by other organizations, and some were mainstreamed and internalised within the organizations that developed them. Many partner organizations involved were substantially changed. Those who had no previous agricultural programme became champions in agriculture, and those who had never worked with resource-poor men-women farmers became leader organizations in conducting such programmes. Many individuals and organizations became advocates and became known nationally. All such evidence indicates the effectiveness of the value-based agricultural research management approach. The thesis concludes that pro-poor agricultural research and development is possible, even within a traditional setting. The challenge is to create a management approach around research and development activities that is value-based and that can facilitate a learning environment where all actors can contribute, play their due role, and get credit for it.
Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Adelaide, School of History and Politics, 2011