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Agricultural cooperatives (ACs) are major players in European farming, where they account for 40–60% of agricultural trade, and are key actors in articulating rural realities. This paper offers a solidary critique of ACs beyond the dominant institutional economics lens, and aims to resume the debate on their de/repoliticisation. Evidence presented points towards a continuous process of co-optation of ACs by the dominant food regime as well as decreased adherence to cooperative principles, revealing theoretical parallelisms with the organic and fair trade movements. While acknowledging the important role ACs play in supporting farmers, many of who interviewed for this research reported they could not survive without them, this paper warns of the loss of their historical political roots, and introduces a new theoretical framework for a more integrated study of ACs in the context of wider food system forces. The framework is composed of three conceptual components: first, the coooperative triangle illustrates interwoven cooperative identitary dimensions; second, the cooperative hourglass depicts ongoing tensions between the cooperative economic and governance model, and the market economy they exist in; and third, the concept of cooperative sustainability brings together the previous two components to analyse ACs' ability and capacity to maintain the dimensions indicated in the cooperative triangle while also fostering environmental sustainability through their practices. • An integrated framework for the study of agricultural cooperatives is proposed. • Certain dimensions of agricultural cooperatives have become disjointed and co-opted. • The pressure farmers' cooperatives used to exert outwards has turned to members. • The cooperative triangle and cooperative double hourglass are presented. • Farming cooperatives must overcome epistemological biases and quantophrenic trends. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recent wave of occupations highlighted how closely space and social movements are related. While this revived scholarly interest in the role of space during protests, little attention so far has been paid to the role of space in protests' long-term internal effects. Bringing together the literatures on transformative effects and space in social movements, the paper examines the role of protests' spatiality in their transformative effects, drawing on a narrow approach to space. The analysis focuses in particular on effects on collective identity building in social movements. Based on interviews and focus groups with activists in 2011, the paper examines the long-term effects of an incisive protest event of the Global Justice Movement (GJM) in Europe, the protests against the G8 summit in Genoa in 2001. The paper shows that this event's spatiality plays a crucial role in building movement identity several years later: it provides activists with interpretational devices to delineate the GJM's internal and external boundaries. The paper thus underlines that research on transformative effects can considerably profit from considering spatiality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper examines the role of knowledge in the internationalization of the firm. The earlier internationalization process models are reviewed and challenges relating to their assumptions about knowledge are highlighted. This is discussed in relation to a relatively new phenomenon, the “Born Global” phenomenon. A synthesis of the research to date on this phenomenon is presented. In the context of a new world economy, a different perspective on the role of knowledge emerges. This view of knowledge is one in which knowledge intensity and internationalization knowledge accumulation influence the pace and pattern of firm internationalization. The paper calls for further research in this area. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Shortly after the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States, the Wall Street Journal published an article claiming that al Qaeda sympathizers were using an obscure gemstone commodity known as tanzanite to raise funds for terrorist activities. Despite subsequent disclaimers by the US State Department, this allegation effectively marked tanzanite as a “conflict gem,” and set in motion a complex set of political maneuvers designed to rehabilitate the tanzanite industry’s reputation. This paper analyzes the immediate fallout from the Wall Street Journal article and the subsequent effects of anti-terrorist rhetoric on the tanzanite industry. I explore the origins of the “conflict gem” discourse and the political movement that has taken shape over the past decade to reform gemstone mining. Drawing on theories developed by critics of the fair trade movement, I examine a series of steps taken by the main corporate miner active in the tanzanite industry to re-brand and certify tanzanite as “conflict-free.” I underscore the degree to which these efforts have been inflected by new security provisions embodied in the USA Patriot Act. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The main argument of this paper is that the Web is well suited for the role of a streetwise informant for protest events. Using special software, we plot the network of Web sites of organisations related to the meat and anti-globalization protests in Milau, France, in June of 2000, and compare our findings about the nature of the actors with the reports in the mass media. Not only do the findings deepen mass media accounts but they also point to a new web-sociological means to re-open the question of the real. Putting on display the institutional dimension of the protest, the Web network simultaneously undermines and enriches the mass media accounts of the protests. The Web may provide a reality check on existing accounts of the protest and document encounters between opposing definitions of reality. Our analysis also suggests the Web can be harnessed to complicate the definition of real social action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Physico-chemical modelling of coffee extraction. • Fluid flow in porous media. • Transport of solutes and particles in porous media. • In-silico coffee extraction. Brewing coffee is primarily considered an art rather than a business. Drinking coffee is a practice spread worldwide irrespective of race, age, and social extraction, making coffee the leading commodity in the fair trade movement. Its daily consumption has scientifically proven health benefits. Thus, such interesting features of coffee have stimulated a wide coffee-oriented scientific research addressing health, social and economical aspects. An important component of this research is an in-depth knowledge of the physico-chemical processes occurring in the coffee preparation. In this paper, we propose a mathematical model for describing the percolation processes occurring during the espresso coffee extraction by exploiting fluid-dynamics components. The validity of this water percolation model into porous media is demonstrated on an experimental basis, exploiting chemical laboratory analyses of espresso coffee samples extracted under different conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]