Foodshed Foundations: Law\u27s Role in Shaping our Food System\u27s Future

[. . .] This symposium Article analyzes how we can rethink the architecture of law based on a foodshed model to provide a greater role for local, state, and regional government in the American food system. In turn, greater roles for different levels of government may help America achieve greater efficiencies in domestic food safety, nutrition and related public health issues, sustainability, and international trade. Americans need a greater voice in the food system. The foodshed model is a powerful vehicle that allows us to conceptualize change, allowing greater citizen participation and a more nuanced approach to food policy. The model also allows for greater nuance because it forces us to examine what is happening within the foodshed, whether we view that globally, regionally, or locally. A foodshed model requires us to examine our expectations of local agriculture and food production, as well as global trade. Obviously, these are sweeping topics, but the goal of this Article is much more modest: to frame food system reform within a foodshed model that considers the role of local, regional, national, and global government in food production and consumption. This Article contains three sections. First, it provides an overview of the foodshed model\u27s utility to food system reform. Second, it analyzes the various governmental structures that affect the food system, including the example of how the Food Safety Modernization Act illustrates those structures in the American food system. Finally, it presents a foodshed model that integrates local and state, regional, and national food system governance. The Article concludes by suggesting a feasibility study of this model, or similar ones, in the next Farm Bill

An advanced On-line Wind Resource Prediction system for the optimal management of wind park

International audienceThe paper presents an advanced wind forecasting system that uses on-line SCADA measurements, as well as numerical weather predictions as input to predict the power production of wind parks 48 hours ahead. The prediction tool integrates models based on adaptive fuzzy-neural networks configured either for short-term or long-term forecasting. In each case, the model architecture is selected through non-linear optimization techniques. The forecasting system is integrated within the MORE-CARE EMS software developed in the frame of a European research project. Within this on-line platform, the forecasting module provides forecasts and confidence intervals for the wind farms in a power system, which can be directly used by economic dispatch and unit commitment functions. The platform can run also as a stand-alone application destined only for wind forecasting. Detailed results are presented on the performance of the developed models on a real wind farm using HIRLAM numerical weather predictions as input

Finding a third archetypal technical system in architectural phenomenology

Within the scope of phenomenology and in order to understand architecture, the role of the technical system is as important as those of the purpose of the building or its form. Mass construction and skeletal construction relate to the architectural theory concepts stereotomy and tectonics respectively, which are suitable for describing the fundamental structural and constructive form of architecture. These two systems became established as man built his first shelters and, so far, represented opposite sides of the building industry’s possibilities. The development of new construction techniques and the relationship between research and technology have a great impact on architecture, although new processing methods and materials may not necessarily cause genuine tectonic changes. The technical dimension of architecture is analysed in this work describing how technical elements are built from materials, and then organised in systems. First, the paper examines the division of technical systems in two categories (massive systems and skeletal systems); then it studies timber’s modern production technologies and subsequently the paper critically analyses how these influence the architectural form. The paper concludes that a third archetypal technical system can be perceived with the assembly of surface elements, joining both the multifunctional aspect of the massive systems and the flexibility of the skeletal systems, this third category being fundamental in phenomenological terms

Lessons from Japan: a look at Century Housing System

Japanese traditional wooden houses are a good example of system architecture. Originating from Chinese temple construction, the housing is based on the distance between column centres known as a ken. Both the widths and depths of all spaces were multiples of this standard unit and formed the frame of reference for the remaining components – timber structure, tatami mats, doors, and even furniture. Modern housing moved away from this type of construction in an effort towards mass production. In the mid-70s, when the number of houses surpassed the number of households, a shift occurred from focusing on quantity to quality, and the emphasize returned to a more systemic approach in the context of the industrialized era inspired by a systems approach to schools in the UK (CLASP) and the US (SCSD). [Continues.