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In the second half of the eighteenth century, Dutch bankers channeled investors' funds to sugar and coffee plantations in the Caribbean, Surinam in particular. Agency problems between plantation owners, bankers, and investors led to an arrangement called negotiaties. Bankers oversaw plantations' cash flows and placed mortgage debt with investors. We demonstrate how this securitization arrangement worked using market-wide data and detailed records from banker F. W. Hudig. During the boom, debt contracts and their securitization were an effective solution for planters, bankers, and investors. However, the market crashed after an oversupply of credit. This led to inefficient restructuring due to debt overhang. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Cuban sugar industry has experience in the use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) since 2001, with the limitation of using proprietary tools and without accessible centralized databases. As a higher step, a Spatial Data Infrastructure (IDE-Azcuba) has been developed by Geocuba for the management of the sugarcane areas of Villa Clara. The IDE-Azcuba manages geospatial images from satellites (Sentinel-2) which allows the calculation of various indices of agricultural importance. For its deployment, this application consumes a large amount of data and is relatively highly complex, which makes it inaccessible to sugar companies and producers. As a solution, a Geoportal is proposed as a light version of the IDE-Azcuba, accessible from cell phones, within the reach of sugar producers and companies. The information on sugarcane variables obtained from INICA's technical scientific services has been integrated into the Geoportal. Such as: Territorial Planning, Varieties and Seeds, Integral Weeds, Fertilizers and Amendments; and Phytosanitary. Having a built-in cache version that allows you to work offline with the most important information, directly in the plantations and productive units, where there are major connectivity problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Towards the end of the nineteenth century, British colonists in Jamaica became increasingly exasperated by the damage caused to their sugar plantations by rats. In 1872, a British planter attempted to solve this problem by introducing the small Indian mongoose (Urva auropunctata). The animals, however, turned on Jamaica's insectivorous birds and reptiles, leading to an explosion in the tick population. This paper situates the mongoose catastrophe as a closing chapter in the history of the nineteenth-century acclimatization movement. While foreign observers saw the introduction of the mongoose as a cautionary tale, caricaturing British Jamaica as overrun by a plague of weasels and ticks, British colonists, administrators and naturalists – identifying a gradual decline of both populations – argued that the 'balance of nature' would eventually reassert itself. As this paper argues, through this dubious claim they were attempting to retrospectively rationalize or justify the introductions and their disastrous aftermath. This strategy enabled them to gloss over the lasting ecological damage caused by the mongoose, and allowed its adherents to continue their uncritical support of both the Jamaican plantation economy and animal introductions in the British Empire. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Intersecoes: Revista de Estudios Interdisciplinares is the property of Editora da Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (EdUERJ) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Background: In this article, I utilize the concept of the Plantationocene as an analytical framework to generate a holistic and historical understanding of the present-day struggles of a mostly Haitian migrant workforce on sugar plantations in the Dominican Republic. Methods: Inspired by Paul Farmer's methodology, I combine political economy, history, and ethnography approaches to interpret the experiences of sugarcane cutters across historical and contemporary iterations of colonial, post-colonial, and neo-colonial practices over the course of five centuries. Results: My findings elucidate the enduring power of capitalism, implicating corporate and state elites, as the structural scaffolding for acts of racialized violence that condition the life-and-death circumstances of Black laborers on Caribbean plantations to this day. Although today's sugarcane cutters may suffer differently than their enslaved or wage labor ancestors on the plantation, I argue that an unfettered racialized pattern of lethal exploitation is sustained through the structural violence of neoliberalism that links present conditions with the colonial past. Conclusions: Ultimately, this paper contributes understandings of the plantationocene's enduring effects in the global south by demonstrating how imperialist arrangements of capitalism are not a distant memory from the colonial past but instead are present yet hidden and obscured while relocated and reanimated overseas to countries like the Dominican Republic, where American capitalists still exploit Black bodies for profit and power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The production of fuels and other industrial products from renewable sources has intensified the search for new substrates or for the expansion of the use of substrates already in use, as well as the search for microorganisms with different metabolic capacities. In the present work, we isolated and tested a yeast from the soil of sugarcane irrigated with vinasse, that is, with high mineral content and acidic pH. The strain of Meyerozyma caribbica URM 8365 was able to ferment glucose, but the use of xylose occurred when some oxygenation was provided. However, some fermentation of xylose to ethanol in oxygen limitation also occurs if glucose was present. This strain was able to produce ethanol from molasses substrate with 76% efficiency, showing its tolerance to possible inhibitors. High ethanol production efficiencies were also observed in acidic hydrolysates of each bagasse, sorghum, and cactus pear biomass. Mixtures of these substrates were tested and the best composition was found for the use of excess plant biomass in supplementation of primary substrates. It was also possible to verify the production of xylitol from xylose when the acetic acid concentration is reduced. Finally, the proposed metabolic model allowed calculating how much of the xylose carbon can be directed to the production of ethanol and/or xylitol in the presence of glucose. With this, it is possible to design an industrial plant that combines the production of ethanol and/or xylitol using combinations of primary substrates with hydrolysates of their biomass. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article titled "The Treasure of Tlapanalá Cave, or the Heroes Who Tremble on the Threshold of Hell" is a review of the book written by Xochiquetzalli Cruz Martínez, Marcela Viañez Reyes, and José Manuel Pedrosa. The book focuses on the narratives of treasure hunters hidden in the Sierra de Puebla and is based on the analytical proposals of anthropologist George M. Foster. The author also establishes parallels between these stories and other tales of lost and recovered treasures, such as Beowulf and the works of William Faulkner. However, it is criticized that not enough research has been done on the history and material conditions of the Tlapanalá area. Historian Jesús Joel Peña Espinosa reports that many indigenous people from Tepapayeca, Tlapanalá, Cuexpala, Huaquechula, and nearby settlements were taken by Pedro de Alvarado as soldiers to conquer Guatemala. Tlapanalá has been an important place throughout history, as it was traversed by the Tlaxcaltecan army organized by Cortés, sugarcane was transported from the mills of Jorge de Alvarado, and Pedro Pinto del Águila deprived the original inhabitants of their lands in 1754. During the 16th and 17th centuries, the sugarcane harvest was carried out by African slaves and indigenous people, and in the 18th century, slavery became the dominant social production relationship. The area is also known for legends of lost treasures, such as the Devil's Chapel, and for the expropriation of sugar plantations by Emiliano Zapata in 1911. In conclusion, Tlapanalá has a rich and diverse history that has left traces in its geography and in popular narratives. [Extracted from the article]

Focusing on the construction of London's West India Docks in 1802, I argue that this project established a feedback loop with conditions of production in the Caribbean. Through an analysis of committee minutes, letters, parliamentary papers and visual art, I move beyond economic accounts of slavery's impact to demonstrate how geographies of security and surveillance—first developed on the sugar plantation—were imported into the design and function of London's port. As such, I argue that London's docks produced a geography of segregation which offers a unique insight into the workings of racial capitalism and its exploitation of group‐differentiated vulnerabilities. Positioning my discussion alongside London's contemporary landscape, I excavate Britain's repressed memories of slavery to illustrate how they still scar the urban environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista Caatinga is the property of Revista Caatinga and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article analyzes the values of older enslaved women on cotton and sugar plantations in the antebellum lower Mississippi Valley. Planters derived efficiency value from aged enslaved women's medical knowledge, domestic skills, and care-taking skills, believing that these qualities could be used to create maximally productive workforces. This meaning that planters and overseers placed on some older women was a perversion of value these women often held within enslaved communities. Enslaved people valued medical knowledge and a specific kind of social tact known as 'Mother Wit' because they were crucial tools for surviving slavery and resisting its degrading effects. The article utilizes plantation business records, agricultural trade publications, interviews with formerly enslaved people, and a composite and speculative methodology akin to Marisa J. Fuentes' approach to 'archival fragments'. It builds on the work of historians of enslaved aging as well as scholarship in the history of plantation medicine and the history of capitalism and slavery. Ultimately, this research demonstrates that there were complex understandings of aging on the plantation to both enslavers and the enslaved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Phytosanitary control of crops requires the rapid mapping of diseases to enable management attention. This study aimed to evaluate the potential of vegetation indices for the detection of sugarcane mosaic disease. Spectral indices were applied to hyperspectral images collected by an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) to find the areas affected by the mosaic virus in sugarcane. Identifying indices capable of detecting diseased plants in agricultural crops supports data processing and the development of efficient tools. A new index was designed based on spectral regions, which presents higher differences between healthy and mosaic virus-infected leaves to enhance hyperspectral image pixels representing diseased plants. Based on the data generated, we propose the anthocyanin red edge index (AREI) for mosaic virus detection in sugarcane plantations. An index that can adequately identify sugarcane infected by the mosaic virus may incorporate wavelengths associated with variations in leaf pigment concentrations as well as changes in leaf structure. The indices that assessed to detect plants infected with the sugarcane mosaic virus were the normalised difference vegetation index (NDVI), normalised difference vegetation index red edge (NDVI705), new vegetation index (NVI), ARI2 and AREI. The results showed that AREI presented the best performance for the detection of mosaic in sugarcane from UAV images, giving an overall accuracy of 0.94, a kappa coefficient of 0.87, and omission and inclusion errors of 2.86% and 10.52%, respectively. The results show the importance of wavelengths associated with the concentration of chlorophyll and anthocyanin and the position of the red edge for the detection of diseases in sugarcane. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Brazilian colonial context led the Tupiniquim, an Indigenous group, and the Portuguese, a colonizing group, from the São Vicente area to connect with two places in Rio de Janeiro. In this scenario emerges the genealogy of two Tupiniquim women of the 16th century from São Vicente, which allowed us to trace six generations of women who formed kinship relationships with Portuguese men. They moved to Rio de Janeiro to create the Cara de Cão fortification and Camorim sugar plantation. They were members of the communities that appropriated and transformed Portuguese coarse ware ceramics into what is now termed Paulistaware. This article shows a new understanding of the social role of Indigenous women and the entry of European men into symmetrical gender relations based on the logic of Tupiniquim social collaboration. Tupiniquim women initially produced Paulistaware before 1550. After 1600 these ceramics were also made and consumed by people from the African diaspora and others from outside, adding decorative elements found in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. The intensive analysis of archival data breaks the traditional model of homogenization and Europeanization of historical processes and events, highlighting the itinerancy of practices and mobility of people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is reorienting global development. Few scholars, however, query relationships between green silk road discourse, BRI infrastructure, partner state development goals, and environmental governance. This article details the roots of green silk road discourse in efforts to environmentally engineer China's desert landscapes. Much like large-scale nature-based infrastructure projects in China, BRI infrastructure projects abroad precipitate a range of socioeconomic and environmental outcomes. Through juxtaposing terrestrial infrastructure development in Ethiopia with maritime infrastructure development in Djibouti, the article demonstrates how different types of BRI infrastructure projects shape environmental governance and advance the development agendas of partner countries. Sugar plantations, roads, railways, and energy infrastructure in Ethiopia further Ethiopian state development plans while transforming Indigenous people's relations to their land and livelihoods. In Djibouti, port infrastructure and military bases figure centrally in strategic rentiership for the Djiboutian state with ancillary effects on fisheries and international trade. The article illustrates how relative articulations between East African central government development interests, environmental governance, and infrastructure are mediated by varieties of Chinese capital. The comparative analysis disrupts simplistic narratives of "win-win" partnerships and "China as threat" to partner state autonomy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Soil compaction can occur due to the intensity of tractor traffic in the tillage process. The objective of this study was to determine the changes in physical, mechanical properties of the soil and plant growth that occurred due to tractor traffic and how it would affect if the addition of organic matter (compost) was added to the soil. Methods: The experimental work was conducted at the Sugarcane Plantation of PTPN II Klumpang at an initial soil moisture content of 24.69% and a bulk density of 1.08 gr/cm3 with compost and no compost then the land is traversed by the tractor with 2,4 and 6 passes. Result: The results of indicate that the tractor trajectory and the addition of compost have a significant effect on soil compaction. The highest values for water content, bulk density, particle density and penetration resistance were obtained at 6 times tractor traffic with soil without compost sowing respectively 35.36%, 1.31 gr/cm3, 1.87 gr/cm3, 9.61 kgf/cm2, while in soil with compost, the values obtained were 33.62%, 1.23 gr/cm3, 1.82 gr/cm3, 9.04 kgf/cm2, respectively. These findings indicated that the application of compost can reduce the level of soil density so that plant growth becomes better and more even rate of plant growth is obtained than without compost. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Agricultural burning is a common practice in sugarcane plantations in Mexico that exerts positive and negative effects on the soil. However, there is no consensus on the soil changes caused by the burning, thus highlighting the need to study this phenomenon through low-cost and quick-toanalyze indicators. Magnetic and color techniques can be indirect, fast, and cheap methods that can help to understand the chemical changes that agricultural burning causes to soils. We aim to evaluate the color and magnetic susceptibility of the soil as indicators of changes caused by agricultural burning. The study was carried out on a Vertisol grown with sugarcane in Tabasco, Mexico. Soil samples were taken at ten sites within the plot, at each site soil samples were collected every two centimeters up to 20 cm of soil depth, before and after agricultural burning. In total, 200 soil samples were analyzed. Temperatures were recorded during agricultural burning at 0, 2, and 5 cm depths. The parameters and color indices were analyzed in the CIE-L*a*b* system in the soil samples, and the high and low-frequency magnetic susceptibility were measured with Bartington MS2 equipment. After agricultural burning, the soils showed increased dark tones at four centimeters depth. Also, magnetic parameters showed changes in soil for the 4 cm in depth after the agricultural burning. The results show that color and magnetic susceptibility are efficient soil properties for identifying soil modifications caused by agricultural burning. In this case study, the effect of agricultural burning on sugarcane crops was short-term and shallow in the soil. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Price hike of petroleum and the non-coverage of national electricity supply in plantation sites are some shortcomings against implementing lift irrigation projects in highland sugarcane plantations. Solar energy can be used as an alternative energy source for diesel or national electricity dependent water pumping technology. The present paper demonstrates the potential of using solar-powered water pumping technology for irrigating sugarcane in Sevanagala, Pelwatta, Hingurana, Kantale, and Kilinochchi, in Sri Lanka. Research Method: The study was conducted in Sevanagala, Pelwatta, Hingurana, Kantale, and Kilinochchi, sugarcane growing areas. Technical and economical evaluation was carried out to characterize the usability of solar powered water pumping technology respective to conventional furrow irrigation and drip irrigation under different water sources i.e., tube-wells, agro-wells, small water tanks, and runoff water harvesters. Solar irradiance (W.m ²) and cloud cover (%) in each location were used to estimate the solar energy variations. NASA-MERRA-2 data set (GMAO, 2015) was used to derive solar irradiance for the period of 10 years from 2010 - 2019. Findings: The solar irradiance and insolation in the sugarcane plantation sites are sufficient to operate solar-powered water pumping systems. The solar irradiance and insolation in study area ranged from 218.2 kW.m ² to 225.4 kW.m ² and 5.34 kW.h.m ² to 5.48 kW.h.m ² respectively. The solar technology will greatly reduce the operating costs of irrigation, despite the high initial costs. Kilinochchi and Kantale area showed the highest and lowest profitability in using solar powered irrigation respectively. Nevertheless, Sevanagala, Pelwatta and Hingurana show medium potential for implementing solar powered water pumping systems for irrigations. Research Limitation: Limited availability of data on temporal changers of cost incurred on the irrigation practices and the fluctuation of market price of the solar powered water pumping systems were significant constraints experienced during the study period. Originality/Value: The results of this study are highly useful for decision makers in both plantation and national level in implementation of productivity improving programs in sugarcane plantation areas in Sri Lanka. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper situates Morocco's invasion of the West African Songhai Empire in 1591 within the global histories of race, slavery, and capitalism. Morocco's invasion, which took place during the height of the Sàdi dynasty (1554–1659), provided Morocco with an influx of capital through Black West African slave labour on Morocco's sugar plantations and its newfound control over the lucrative gold and salt mines of West Africa. Such wealth and power bolstered Morocco's regional and global position in the vital node where Africa, Europe, the Mediterranean, and Atlantic all converge. This paper will address the following questions: how did Morocco's shift from enslaving non-Muslims to enslaving Muslim West Africans from the Songhai based on their race lay down the foundations for centuries of anti-Black violence in North Africa? (2) how did Black slave labour from the Songhai allow Morocco to become England's primary source of sugar imports prior to the rise of sugar plantations in the Americas and the Caribbean? (3) how can we move beyond normative taxonomies that view North and West Africa as separate spaces instead of as regions whose conditions were shaped by one another? Ultimately, my paper will demonstrate how the Sàdi dynasty was an active player in the rise of racialized forms of slavery that eventually dominated the Atlantic for centuries and whose afterlives continue to endure on both sides of the Atlantic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 2009, the Chinese state‐owned corporation SINLANX has been managing the Anjava Sugar Plantation, previously managed by French, Malagasy, and Mauritian companies, in northern Madagascar. Built upon the infrastructure constructed by the French colonial regime and operating based on a collaboration agreement between SINLANX and the Malagasy state‐owned sugar company, Anjava presents a telling story of spatialized acts of survival and racialized conflicts over land and water in the interstitial spaces between capitalist production and subsistence economy. Malagasy villagers' access to resources is often squeezed by multiple enclosures: a water‐delivery system and a land‐distribution system that prioritize sugar production and a bureaucratic system that punishes those who transgress the enclosures. Although Anjava villagers take advantage of the rhythm of sugar harvests and the nature of fire to sabotage sugar production or to make water claims for their livelihood, the agrarian and infrastructural arrangements at Anjava have perpetuated conditions of chronic precarity and profound marginalization of a landless population. The struggles at Anjava must be contextualized in the complex and ambiguous spaces between capital and labor, livelihood and resistance, dominance and adaptation, and ethnic collaboration and hostility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Set in the sugar cane plantations of Valle del Cauca, Colombia, the film Land and Shade (2015) is a drama about personal loss and ecological crisis. After seventeen years of abandoning his family, Alfonso returns to his old farm to take care of his ailing son, who suffers from an acute respiratory disease. While workers struggle against unfair labor practices in the plantations, the protagonist witnesses the environmental degradation caused by air pollution and soil erosion. Acevedo's debut film epitomizes what María Ospina has called the rural turn in contemporary Colombian cinema-- a set of films that dismantle an extractive gaze of the landscape by unearthing its social and cultural memory. However, while critics have analyzed how the film's plot connects to current debates about structural violence and land distribution in a transitional context, this essay pays attention to the film's botanic imaginary. By focusing on its haptic visuality and its representation of plants, I argue that Land and Shade displays new scenarios of ethical interdependence and cohabitation with the non-human: an urgent task in a present marked by the rapid decline of biodiversity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We hypothesize that biocultural landscapes configured by indigenous, peasant, and afro traditional agricultural systems, significantly contribute to the ecological functionality of the metropolitan region of Cali (Colombia). Current landscapes reflect an ongoing local transition from organic-based agriculture to an industrial one that began in the first half of the 20th century. This transition has happened within a complex sociopolitical and cultural context in which the rural livelihoods are at a crossroads with regional agroindustry development. We propose an integrated landscape-metabolism assessment based on georeferenced farm system typologies (local scale) and the region's land cover data (landscape scale). The results expose the rupture between society (sociometabolic flows) and nature (ecological processes) in this metropolitan region driven by land-use intensification. Our findings support the hypothesis of the contribution of biocultural landscapes to the region's ecological functioning, and that show that agroforestry mosaics can offer promising contributions to biodiversity conservation and ecosystem services provision in metropolitan regions.This landscape-metabolism assessment offers an opportunity to enrich intersectoral land policy formulation for highly biological and culturally diverse regions where agriculture constitutes a fundamental pillar to its economy, the local culture, and rural livelihoods. Given the confluence of the Colombian post-conflict implementation agenda, the global (un)sustainability crisis, and the UN development goals, there is a need to bring biocultural landscapes into a broader interdisciplinary dialog and evaluate the sustainability, political feasibility, and social desirability of current agricultural development • An integrated landscape-metabolism assessment of tropical Andes is proposed. • The transition from organic-based agriculture to an industrial one has occurred. • There is a displacement of small farm parcels into large-scale sugarcane plantations. • Traditional agroforestry mosaics contribute to landscape ecological functionality. • Biocultural landscapes are essential for the sustainable development of tropical Andes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Between 1838 and 1917, a British system of indentured servitude replaced the enslavement of African peoples with Indian labor in the Americas and the Caribbean. Almost a quarter of a million indentured Indian laborers came to British Guiana and would form the foundation of the majority of the Indian population in present-day Guyana. These men and women would spend nearly eight decades toiling on sugar plantations and rice fields before the brutal system of labor was abolished. This curatorial essay explores the work of three key contemporary artists of Guyanese heritage—Maya Mackrandilal, Michael Lam, and Suchitra Mattai—who underscore St. Vincent-born poet Derek Walcott's seminal words "the sea is history" with an exploration of the sea as a weapon of rupture. Collectively, their artworks return us to a British past to offer a visceral reminder of the perilous kālā pānī crossing [Hindi for "black waters"], marking the sea the place where ancestral histories, trauma, and survival all share space. Grounding us in the present and pointing us to a future, I illustrate how these artworks also function as contemporary tools of remembrance and repair. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

White grubs are root feeding larvae of beetles (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae) that are sporadic pests in agriculture and can lead to economic damage. The grubs feed on the roots of plants, while the adult beetle can bore into underground stems, as well as cause defoliation of plants. Sporadic incidence of larvae with symptoms of nematode infections were detected in wattle and sugarcane plantations in the KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa. The larvae with infection symptoms were isolated, washed, and put on water traps to collect infective juveniles of possible nematode infections. Three species of entomopathogenic nematodes (EPNs) were isolated from the white grub larvae. These included Steinernema bertusi isolated from Maladera sp. 4., Oscheius myriophila from Maladera sp. 4 and Schizonchya affinis, and Steinernema fabii isolated from Maladera sp. 4., Pegylis sommeri, and S. affinis. Of these S. fabii was the most common species in the sample (87%). This is the first report of such a high diversity of locally occurring EPNs found naturally associated with white grub species in this region of South Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the main objectives of sugarcane plantations is to increase their longevity without decreasing agricultural productivity. In the present study, we analyzed the proteome of the axillary buds of 'RB966928' to investigate possible changes in the number of proteins at different cutting stages. Using tryptic digestion followed by ultra-performance liquid chromatography coupled with high-resolution timeof-flight mass spectrometry, 122 proteins were identified from the proteome of the axillary buds of 'RB966928'. Of the 122, respectively 97 and 95 proteins were detected at the first and fifth cutting stages, of which 27 and 25 proteins were unique to the respective stage. Proteins that prevent the misfolding of polypeptides generated under stress were exclusively detected at the first cutting stage. Meanwhile, proteins associated with stress responses and disease resistance were exclusively detected at the fifth cutting stage. The present proteomic analysis in the regrowth cycles and axillary bud development of 'RB966928' significantly advanced our understanding of the biological processes linked to the reduction of agricultural productivity of sugarcane with the advancement of cutting age. Absence of proteins to tolerate adverse growth conditions at the fifth cutting stage may be related to reduced agricultural productivity, in addition to environmental stress, soil compaction, nutrient availability, cultural practices, and pests or pathogen attacks at different phenological stages of crops. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Contemporary Journal of African Studies is the property of Institute of African Studies and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

1. Understand environmental racism as a contributor to existential suffering at the end of life. 2. Use principles of trauma-informed care to engage in conversation with patients about their experiences with environmental racism. Environmental racism or injustice refers to the inequitable distribution of environmental harm in patterns that disproportionately impact racially marginalized groups. Palliative Care clinicians must be able to use principles of trauma-informed care to engage in conversations about the ways environmental racism is implicated in how patients narrate and conceptualize their care at the end of life. In southern Louisiana, a heavily polluted industrial corridor is nationally referred to as "Cancer Alley" due to the excess cancer risk imposed by air toxin levels far exceeding EPA maximum standards. The Palliative Medicine service at a tertiary care center near Cancer Alley sees a number of patients with multiple concurrent cancers, who attribute some of their physical and existential suffering to this ongoing toxic exposure. The challenges these patients face offer lessons for Palliative Care clinicians practicing near "hot spots" of environmental toxins across the country. Environmental racism refers to the inequitable distribution of environmental harm in patterns that disproportionately impact racially marginalized groups. The oil refineries and plastics facilities of Cancer Alley are built on former sugarcane plantations, and many Black residents trace their ancestry to enslaved populations there. A recent model using EPA data from 2014 to 2018 showed excess lifetime cancer risk in parts of the Louisiana petrochemical corridor to be as high as 1 in 210, or 47 times the acceptable risk per EPA standards. Residents of Cancer Alley have long observed the high cancer rates amongst their families and neighbors, observations only recently supported by published data. These patients' existential suffering is compounded by the concrete history of racism and structural disparities that has contributed to their illness, as well as by the fight for recognition of environmental injustices. When facing illness and end of life, these patients also know that their family and community members continue to suffer from the same toxic exposures. Facing environmental racism is a form of trauma, and Palliative Care clinicians must be able to approach it using principles of trauma-informed care. We discuss three cases to illustrate the ways in which environmental racism is implicated in patients' narration and conceptualization of their care at the end of life. Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Belonging, JusticeManaging Suffering and Distress [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the subdistricts located downstream of the Belawan Watershed is Hamparan Perak. The population in the Deli Serdang Regency is increasing every year. It causes increasing of land needs to be expanded in to any forms. Currently, there is no available data and information related to land-use changes, impacts and responses carried out in Hamparan Perak that can be used to support planning data in managing this area. Hamparan Perak is included in Deli Serdang Regency, North Sumatra Province, Indonesia. This study analyses land-use changes in Hamparan Perak over five- and ten-year periods. A ground check is carried out on several types of land-use to ensure the results of image interpretation that have been carried out. A change-detection analysis is made available in the geographic information system to find out changes in land-use. Trigger factors, pressures and impacts of land-use changes and the responses carried out were analysed using the DPSIR approach (driving force, pressure, state, impact, response). Based on the study results, the types of land-use that experienced an increase in area were industrial, oil palm plantations, rubber plantations, settlements, shrubs and sugarcane plantations. The types of land-use that decreased were mangrove forests, mixed gardens, open land, paddy fields and ponds. Changes in land-use impact reduced biodiversity, damaged mangroves and decreased rice production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research investigates how an organisational unit organises workaround-centric data activities (WCDA) to cope with data availability issues (in the context of their centralised and decentralised systems landscape). To unpack these often-invisible WCDA patterns of action, we present a field study of a Quality Assurance (QA) unit of an Indonesian sugar plantation company. We use open coding and a narrative network (NN) approach to complete our analysis. Our findings reveal that data availability issues produce three patterns of action: dual inspection, prudent control, and mindful handling. An organisation can build plausible pictures for governing data by better understanding these visualised patterns. Lastly, we discuss the pros and cons of these patterns of action in the context of data governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In scientific journals, it is increasingly common to find articles presenting methods for solving problems not based on idealistic mathematical models containing perfectly accurate coefficient values that cannot be obtained in practice, but on models in which coefficient values are affected by uncertainty and are expressed in the form of intervals, fuzzy numbers, etc. However, solving tasks with interval coefficients is not fully mastered, and a number of such problems cannot be solved by currently known methods. There is undeniably a research gap here. The article presents a method for solving problems governed by the quadratic interval equation and shows how to find the tolerant optimal control value of such a system. This makes it possible to solve problems that could not be solved before. The paper introduces a new concept of the degree of robustness of the control to the set of all possible multidimensional states of the system resulting from its uncertainties. The method presented in the article was applied to an example of determining the optimal value of nitrogen fertilization of a sugar beet plantation, the vegetation of which is under uncertainty. It would be unrealistic to assume precise knowledge of crop characteristics here. The proposed method allows to determine the value of fertilization, which gives a chance to obtain the desired yield for the maximum number of field conditions that can occur during the growing season. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main purpose of the study is to apply symmetry principles to general mathematical modelling based on multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) approach for use in development in conjunction with geographic weighted regression (GWR) model and optimize the artificial neural network-cellular automaton (ANN-CA) model for forecasting the sugarcane plot burning area of Northeast Thailand. First, to calculate the service area boundaries of sugarcane transport that caused the burning of sugarcane with a fire radiative power (FRP) values using spatial correlation analysis approach. Second, the analysis of the spatial factors influencing sugarcane burning. The study uses the approach of symmetry in the design of algorithm for finding the optimal service boundary distance (called as cut-off) in the analysis of hot-spot clustering and uses calculations with the geographic information system (GIS) approach, and the final stage is the use of screened independent variable factors to predict the plots of burned sugarcane in 2031. The results showed that the positively related factors for the percentage of cane plot sintering in the sub-area units of each sugar plant's service were the distance to transport sugarcane plots index and percentage of sugarcane plantations in service areas, while the negative coefficients were FRP differences and density of sugarcane yield factors, according to the analysis with a total of seven spatial variables. The best GWR models display local R2 values at levels of 0.902 to 0.961 in the service zones of Khonburi and Saikaw. An influential set of independent variables can increase the accuracy of the ANN-CA model in forecasting with kappa statistical estimates in the range of 0.81 to 0.85 The results of the study can be applied to other regions of Thailand, including countries with similar sugarcane harvesting industries, to formulate policies to reduce the exposure of sugarcane harvested by burning methods and to support the transportation of sugarcane within the appropriate scope of service so that particulate matter less than 2.5 microns ( PM 2.5 ) can be reduced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

South African jazz historiography has tended to regard Cape Town and Johannesburg as the principal axes of musical practice within the country's borders. This discourse tends to marginalize such practice in Durban as the most obviously "British colonial" of South Africa's big cities. While Durban's history has shaped its unique population, its unique demographic makeup has in turn influenced local musicking practices. This essay examines notions of diaspora under three broad headings: diasporic currents within the country, diasporic flows from "outside" (indentured labor from India for Natal's sugar plantations), and phenomenological reflections on the interwovenness of place and culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to the loss of wetlands, land‐use change, and confrontations with humans, the common hippopotamus (Hippopotamus amphibius) is one of the largest land mammals currently threatened and classified as vulnerable by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). The common hippo is found in protected and unprotected habitats, marshes, and inland major rivers of Ethiopia. However, little is known about the population status of hippos in the country. Hence, this study aimed to reveal the current population size of hippos and its conflicts with sugarcane plantation in Arjo‐Dhidhessa Sugar Factory. Data on population size, diet composition, and potential hippo conflicts was also collected from August 2020 to February 2021. The complete on‐foot count method was used to estimate the hippo population during the wet and dry seasons. The backtracking approach was used to determine the hippo's diet, which involved identifying and quantifying foraged species using quadrats. The total sugarcane stalk damage was counted in the sampled fields to determine sugarcane damage. Direct observation and interviews with sugarcane guards were used to identify mitigation methods employed to prevent hippo attacks. During the wet and dry seasons, a total of 96 and 182 hippos were documented in the upper Dhidhessa River, respectively. Hippos ate 23 plant species from 11 different families. The Poaceae family made up 51.32% of the hippo's diet. During the wet and dry seasons, a total of 662 (36.5%) and 1156 (63.5%) sugarcane stalks/ha were damaged, respectively. The best mitigation techniques against hippo assaults in the area were guarding, fencing, trenching, and burning fire. A sound conservation action plan for hippos along the Dhidhessa River and associated banks must be developed. Furthermore, while hippos are encircled by the Arjo‐Dhidhessa sugarcane irrigation scheme, modern mitigation measures and corridors for hippos should be implemented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In South Africa, with highly variable and intense land-use practices, coupled with limited soil fertility and water resources, there has been a long history of encroachment of arable lands (sugarcane and timber plantations) into surrounding wetlands. Although wetland delineation within the timber and sugar sectors is well-defined in policy, and existing and proposed legislation, there are significant areas of non-compliance. The spatiallyexplicit Soil Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) was adopted to investigate the interactions of climate, landuse and soil on the water-use of natural and encroached wetlands. This paper documents the calibration, validation and application of the SWAT model on Quaternary Catchment (QC) U20G, which is a 498 km2 catchment that forms part of the uMngeni River basin. The SWAT-CUP parameter sensitivity and optimization model was tested with daily observed streamflow data for this catchment. Parameters were modified using the sequential uncertainty fitting (SUFI-2) analysis routine to calibrate the model. The simulated flow had a close fit to the observed flow with a regression coefficient (r2) of 0.87 and a Nash-Sutcliffe (NS) coefficient of 0.8. Through the buffer scenario analysis, the model showed that if the wetland and a 20-m buffer were to be returned to a natural state, there could be a 16% increase in the annual streamflow contribution, with an upper limit of a 60% increase in some hydrologic response units (HRUs). Thus there would be a hydrological gain if wetlands and sensitive buffer areas were to be cleared of commercial timber species and sugarcane. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Obtaining soil water content and soil workability data using remote sensing technology with passive sensors has some limitations due to cloud cover, cloud shadow, haze and smoke. This study proposes a method for computing soil water content and soil workability over large areas, faster and in near real-time based on Sentinel-1A (SAR) data. Sample data collected from sugarcane plantations in the Kediri and Sidoarjo districts in East Java, Indonesia, were used to develop a mathematical model of the proposed method using multi-polynomial regression. The performance indicators of the model (RMSE, MAPE and accuracy) were calculated with the results of RMSE = 0.213 and 0.250, MAPE = 16.39% and 18.79%, and accuracy = 83.6% and 81.2% for the training and testing models, respectively. The distribution of soil water content and soil workability can be computed and visualized using a spatial map. The future contribution of this work is to develop a decision support system for the selection of appropriate machinery for sugarcane field operations based on the principles of precision agriculture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After Hurricane Maria had passed, Puerto Rico found itself in the eye of a media whirlwind due to governmental scandal and earthquakes; still, bomberas (women bomba practitioners) would continue organizing. This article examines how in the wake of catastrophe, and since its inception on sugar plantations in Puerto Rico, bombeando (practicing bomba) offers individual healing and prompts the mobilization of Afro–Puerto Ricans on the island and in the States. Bomba is thus a system of mutual relief, which offers a model of structural repair. I examine how bombera pedagogy is more than something to be applied to a genre of music and dance but a lifestyle and practice that acknowledges, repurposes, and releases wreckage of the embodied experience of colonial trauma. Drawing on practices of care in the Black feminist tradition, I deploy ethnography to render how bomba allows scholars to collectively reimagine and address interpersonal and infrastructural violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on German participation in the transatlantic slave trade existed, can meanwhile no more than in a larger one measure controversial apply and role of German merchants in slave trade of the colonial powers. It mentions Central European sugar processing and general trade in colonial goods in the 18th and 19th centuries to a very considerable extent enslavement-based plantation economy. It also mentions large part of the voyages.

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