Search

This publication is with permission of the rights owner (Sage) freely accessible., This study investigates the impacts of the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic on smallholder farmers and their coping strategies in three contrasting Low- and Middle-Income Countries. The case studies include Brazil (South region), Madagascar (Atsimo Atsinanana region), and Tanzania (Morogoro/Eastern Tanzania). These countries were chosen because i) the economies are strongly influenced by the agricultural sector; ii) their national food security is strongly affected by smallholder production, and, iii) they represent a set of contrasting government responses to COVID-19 including the denial of the pandemic. Data were collected through semi-structured household interviews in all three countries in rural areas. COVID-19 induced effects were found in all three countries, including in Brazil and Tanzania where both national governments initially neglected the existence of COVID-19 and introduced few containment measures only. Here, mobility and trade restrictions of other countries impact also on agricultural trade and production in countries in which governments took less action to COVID-19 and also people remained home and practiced social distancing even if no official government policy was issued. The findings in all three countries suggest that the COVID-19 crisis had negatively affected smallholders’ agricultural production, leading to a vicious cycle of low production, low incomes, and higher food insecurity. Results of this study raise the thorny issue of how best to balance containment of pandemic and future shocks against the well-being of the vulnerable rural population in lower- and middle-income countries; especially considering also the degree of global interconnected and the potential of polices to effect people beyond the national scale.

Este ensayo articula realizaciones teóricas sobre los conceptos de narrativa, obsolescencia y hegemonía, como recurso para ensamblar un análisis específico sobre la memoria colectiva. El objetivo es mostrar cómo el conjunto de estas articulaciones teóricas puede aportar los lineamientos generales dentro de un marco fértil para el estudio de narrativas situadas territorialmente, concernientes a asuntos de índole política y a los desafíos para la paz en sus diferentes contextos sociales y culturales. Aunque la revisión bibliográfica que nutre este ensayo no es ni mucho menos exhaustiva -debido a la amplitud del campo de surgimiento de cada uno de los conceptos en juego- se espera que promueva una curiosidad útil que oriente indagaciones bien localizadas.

National and international cooperation and development projects (CDP) are fundamental for peacebuilding. However, unforeseen global crises, like COVID-19, can endanger such projects, requiring rapid adaption. In Colombia, the coronavirus outbreak threatens to slow the implementation of peace-related projects, while simultaneously violence over control and ownership of land increases. Although the mid- to long-term consequences for peacebuilding are unknown, exploring risk-adapted strategies of national and international CDP can help identify crucial aspects for future processes and implementations. This study explores the key challenges and coping strategies of implementing agencies and stakeholders to COVID-19, thus helping to derive and improve risk-adapted strategies. After reviewing academic and grey literature, and implementing a semi-structured survey, peacebuilding risked-adapted strategies to COVID-19 are explored with respect to conflict-affected and vulnerable areas of Colombia. Findings show that increasing complexity rooted in top down governmental measures, the rise of new local power relations (e.g. armed groups, illicit activities), and social alienation are negatively affecting peacebuilding in Colombia. Future CDP risk adapted strategies should build on local interests and needs through public-private and environmental cooperation.

espanolResumen: En este trabajo se explora la densidad metaforica de la nocion de "isla" y su utilidad para la conceptualizacion del territorio. Esto se realiza con base en algunas anotaciones inspiradas por el estudio de la novela La invencion de Morel del escritor argentino Adolfo Bioy Casares, publicada en 1940. Se argumenta en favor de la pertinencia de la obra literaria en general y sus interpretaciones como fuentes de conocimiento academicamente valido, en particular, porque se presenta La invencion de Morel como una pieza significativa de la intertextualidad necesaria en la produccion de conceptos alusivos al territorio, sobre todo cuando contemplan la obsolescencia como una cualidad importante en la comprension de las territorialidades y las formas de territorializacion. EnglishAbstract: This paper explores the metaphorical density of "island" notion and it's functionality to conceptualize territory. This is made by linking some notes inspired on the study of the novel La invencion de Morel, written by renowned Argentinian author Adolfo Bioy Casares (1940). The paper argues for the appropriateness of literary references in general and it's several interpretations as a valuable source for academic knowledge. In particular because this paper presents La invencion de Morel as a meaningful part of the required intertextuality for producing concepts about territory, especially when obsolescence is taken into account as an important quality to comprehend territorialities and ways of territorialisation.

Hematopoietic progenitor cell (HPC) transplantation is a treatment option for malignant and nonmalignant diseases. Umbilical cord blood (UCB) is an important HPC source, mainly for pediatric patients. It has been demonstrated that human leukocyte antigen (HLA) matching and cell dose are the most important features impacting clinical outcomes. However, UCB matching is performed using low resolution HLA typing and it has been demonstrated that the unnoticed mismatches negatively impact the transplant. Since we found differences in CD34+ viability after thawing of UCB units matched for two different patients (p = 0.05), we presumed a possible association between CD34+ cell viability and HLA. We performed a multivariate linear model (n = 67), comprising pre-cryopreservation variables and high resolution HLA genotypes separately. We found that pre-cryopreservation red blood cells (RBC), granulocytes, and viable CD34+ cell count significantly impacted CD34+ viability after thawing, along with HLA-B or -C (R2 = 0.95, p = 0.01; R2 = 0.56, p = 0.007, respectively). Although HLA-B*40:02 may have a negative impact on CD34+ cell viability, RBC depletion significantly improves it.

This article seeks to identify the core dimensions of and the challenges to innovative school food reforms. Aiming to frame the discussion, the article examines three school feeding strategies: the World Food Programme’s Purchase for Progress (P4P) programme, the Brazilian School Feeding Program, and the European Public Food Procurement system. The first part conceptually defines what is meant by innovative forms of school food procurement, especially regarding its underlying values. It shows that school food reforms go beyond improving access to food, enhancing educational outputs and supporting economic development goals. School feeding holds a transformative potential, insofar as institutional purchases become organized and develop in line with the goals of sustainable development, well-being and social justice. In the second part, we present contemporary examples of good school feeding practices, whose elements might, or might not, be pertinent in particular cases. There are two main lessons emerging from our research. First, policy reform and governmental will are not enough, if the institutional and legal frameworks for operationalizing new school feeding programs are not adjusted to local conditions. Second, we argue that procurement policies or city food strategies can open spaces of manoeuvre within fiscal, material and governance constraints, although the role of social actors is essential and constructive for the success of nesting policy innovations

The current study presents mathematical models of an aircraft, which has been considered as a mass subjected to different forces, performed in classical physics. The main objective is to design algorithms, used to simulate the flight of an aircraft and to create an interactive simulator based on mathematical models. For this purpose, the different forces that the mass of the aircraft has been subjected to in the air have been analyzed and interpreted numerically, in order to generate a mathematical model that makes it possible to reproduce the flight of an airplane within a simulation software developed with Unity. Finally, the performance of the algorithms within Unity’s game engine has been evaluated, before and after using threads in order to be able to conduct communication and evaluate the data transmission analysis.

En este informe se podra evidenciar el aprendizaje de las empresas en tiempos de crisis y su crecimiento organizacional, tomando como ejemplo la empresa Super Bol, compania que fue visitada durante el periplo internacional realizado en la ciudad de Buenos Aires, Argentina, el 12 de noviembre de 2018. Durante esta investigacion se tomaron diferentes conceptos de crecimiento organizacional, mediante teorias y posturas de varios autores, en los cuales se explican temas como: concepto de crecimiento, crecimiento empresarial de pequenas, medianas y grandes empresas, creatividad, innovacion y publicidad. Obtenida esta informacion, se procedio a organizar y aclarar cada uno de los conceptos, con el fin de tener informacion relevante al momento de realizar la visita y asi poder generar preguntas pertinentes que ayuden con el tema de investigacion. En la empresa, se realizo una presentacion a cargo del senor Federico Fernandez Gerente de Desarrollo y Control de Gestion, donde hablo de la trayectoria de la compania y como ha podido mantenerse a lo largo de los anos enfrentando cada una de las crisis economicas del pais, cambios tecnologicos y tendencias a nivel mundial. Se procedio luego a realizar un recorrido por la planta, donde fue explicado cada uno de los procesos de produccion y logisticos de la compania, finalizando con una serie de preguntas para poder aclarar algunos temas.

In the last decade, the unfolding of a “new food equation” has raised the need to address food security more structurally and systemically. This paper aims to progress this debate through a focus on Brazil, where food security policies are embedded into a “reflexive governance” framework that facilitates learning, adaptation and collaboration between actors at different scales and stages of the food system. Based on key legislation and policy documents, the analysis of school feeding as an example of food security intervention context provides two insights. First, it highlights the importance of broadening participation in the governance system to actors who have been neglected by discourses on food security, with their narrow focus on the two ends of the food system. Second, it emphasizes the need to foster social learning not just across governance scales (vertically) but also between communities (horizontally) to ensure that alternative practices coalesce into a more coherent platform that can address an increasingly uneven geography of food security.

Hematopoietic progenitor cell (HPC) transplantation is a treatment option for malignant and nonmalignant diseases. Umbilical cord blood (UCB) is an important HPC source, mainly for pediatric patients. It has been demonstrated that human leukocyte antigen (HLA) matching and cell dose are the most important features impacting clinical outcomes. However, UCB matching is performed using low resolution HLA typing and it has been demonstrated that the unnoticed mismatches negatively impact the transplant. Since we found differences in CD34+ viability after thawing of UCB units matched for two different patients (p = 0.05), we presumed a possible association between CD34+ cell viability and HLA. We performed a multivariate linear model (n = 67), comprising pre-cryopreservation variables and high resolution HLA genotypes separately. We found that pre-cryopreservation red blood cells (RBC), granulocytes, and viable CD34+ cell count significantly impacted CD34+ viability after thawing, along with HLA-B or -C (R2 = 0.95, p = 0.01, R2 = 0.56, p = 0.007, respectively). Although HLA-B*40:02 may have a negative impact on CD34+ cell viability, RBC depletion significantly improves it.