5,579 research outputs found
Resilience and food security in a food systems context
This open access book compiles a series of chapters written by internationally recognized experts known for their in-depth but critical views on questions of resilience and food security. The book assesses rigorously and critically the contribution of the concept of resilience in advancing our understanding and ability to design and implement development interventions in relation to food security and humanitarian crises. For this, the book departs from the narrow beaten tracks of agriculture and trade, which have influenced the mainstream debate on food security for nearly 60 years, and adopts instead a wider, more holistic perspective, framed around food systems. The foundation for this new approach is the recognition that in the current post-globalization era, the food and nutritional security of the worldâs population no longer depends just on the performance of agriculture and policies on trade, but rather on the capacity of the entire (food) system to produce, process, transport and distribute safe, affordable and nutritious food for all, in ways that remain environmentally sustainable. In that context, adopting a food system perspective provides a more appropriate frame as it incites to broaden the conventional thinking and to acknowledge the systemic nature of the different processes and actors involved. This book is written for a large audience, from academics to policymakers, students to practitioners
Mathematical Problems in Rock Mechanics and Rock Engineering
With increasing requirements for energy, resources and space, rock engineering projects are being constructed more often and are operated in large-scale environments with complex geology. Meanwhile, rock failures and rock instabilities occur more frequently, and severely threaten the safety and stability of rock engineering projects. It is well-recognized that rock has multi-scale structures and involves multi-scale fracture processes. Meanwhile, rocks are commonly subjected simultaneously to complex static stress and strong dynamic disturbance, providing a hotbed for the occurrence of rock failures. In addition, there are many multi-physics coupling processes in a rock mass. It is still difficult to understand these rock mechanics and characterize rock behavior during complex stress conditions, multi-physics processes, and multi-scale changes. Therefore, our understanding of rock mechanics and the prevention and control of failure and instability in rock engineering needs to be furthered. The primary aim of this Special Issue âMathematical Problems in Rock Mechanics and Rock Engineeringâ is to bring together original research discussing innovative efforts regarding in situ observations, laboratory experiments and theoretical, numerical, and big-data-based methods to overcome the mathematical problems related to rock mechanics and rock engineering. It includes 12 manuscripts that illustrate the valuable efforts for addressing mathematical problems in rock mechanics and rock engineering
Comparing the Performance of Initial Coin Offerings to Crowdfunded Equity Ventures
Uncertainty in markets increases the likelihood of market failure due to volatility and suboptimal functioning. While initial coin offerings (ICOs) and crowdfunded equity (CFE) offerings may improve functioning in growing markets, there is a lack of knowledge and understanding pertaining to the relative efficiency and behavior of ICO markets compared to CFE markets, potentially perpetuating and thwarting the various communities they are intended to serve. The purpose of this correlational study was to compare a group of ICOs with a group of CFE offerings to identify predictive factors of funding outcomes related to both capital offering types. Efficient market hypothesis was the studyâs theoretical foundation, and analysis of variance was used to answer the research question, which examined whether capital offering type predicted the amount of funds raised while controlling for access to the offering companiesâ secondary control factors: historical financial data, pro forma financial projections, detailed product descriptions, video of product demonstrations, company website, company history, company leadership, and company investors. Relying on a random sample of 115 campaigns (84 ICOs and 31 CFE) from websites ICOdrops.com, localstake.com, fundable.com, and mainvest.com, results showed differences in mean funds raised between CFEs and ICOs (4,756,464, respectively). ANOVA results showed no single secondary control factors and only one two-factor interaction (company leadership and company investors) influenced mean funds raised. This study may contribute to positive social change by informing best practices among market participants including entrepreneurs, regulators, scholars, and investors
Science and Innovations for Food Systems Transformation
This Open Access book compiles the findings of the Scientific Group of the United Nations Food Systems Summit 2021 and its research partners. The Scientific Group was an independent group of 28 food systems scientists from all over the world with a mandate from the Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations. The chapters provide science- and research-based, state-of-the-art, solution-oriented knowledge and evidence to inform the transformation of contemporary food systems in order to achieve more sustainable, equitable and resilient systems
China-US Competition
This open access edited book brings together a closer examination of European and Asian responses to the escalating rivalry between the US and China. As the new Cold War has surfaced as a perceivable reality in the post-COVID era, the topic itself is of great importance to policymakers, academic researchers, and the interested public. Furthermore, this manuscript makes a valuable contribution to an under-studied and increasingly important phenomenon in international relations: the impact of the growing strategic competition between the United States and China on third parties, such as small and middle powers in the two arguably most affected regions of the world: Europe and East Asia. The European side has been under-studied and explicitly comparative work on Europe and East Asia is extremely rare. Given that the manuscript focuses heavily on recent developmentsâand because many of these developments have been quite dramaticâthere are very few publications that cover the same topics
Navigating expectations for sustainable product design: a discursive psychology analysis of designersâ accounts
Sustainable design is vital to achieving sustainable development. It is commonly argued that designers should ensure more sustainable design decisions are made, based on environmental values, and should take responsibility for the sustainability of product outcomes. In this thesis, I treat decision-making, personal values, and responsibility as psychological concepts, thus examining the setting of sustainable design through a psychological lens. I argue that the ways these concepts are talked about in design literature construct expectations regarding how designers should act. However, there is ambiguity in this literature regarding what the designerâs role is expected to be. There is a great deal of prescriptive literature providing tools to advise designers on how to make more sustainable design decisions. Yet there is debate regarding how decisions are or should be made, who makes design decisions related to sustainability, and who is responsible for how sustainable product outcomes are. How these concepts are theorised in design, and how practitioner guidance on decision-making in sustainable design is framed by campaign groups, is likely to influence how design is done in practice. There is therefore a need to find out how designers are navigating expectations that they should be doing more sustainable design. There is a key gap in empirical literature of gathering and analysing designersâ accounts of how decision-making, values, and responsibility come into their work from their own perspectives.
To start to fill this gap, I collected instances of interactional talk involving product designersâ verbal accounts in two different contexts in 2020. I carried out sixteen semi-structured interviews with an international sample of sustainability-focused product designers, asking questions about decision-making, values, and responsibility in specific recent design projects. I selected seven recordings of panel discussions at design conferences with a focus on sustainability from YouTube, based on their relevance to the concepts of decision-making, values, and responsibility. These two types of data allow the identification of similarities in ways of talking to others about the same topics in both private and public settings. I analysed extracts of the verbal data using discursive psychology, a method that has been specifically developed to analyse interactions, treating talk as action, and commonly seeking to respecify how psychological concepts are understood. In the thesis, I present my analysis of how decision-making, values, and responsibility related to sustainability are constructed and managed in the designersâ accounts. This enables insights into how designers navigate the expectations that they should be making more sustainable design decisions.
My analysis shows: 1) The designers manage the delicateness of decision-making, values, and responsibility in design in different ways. For example, participants either reject or orient to expectations regarding how design decision-making should be done, often contradicting themselves. Participants orient to the idea of values influencing their decisions but focus on explaining where values came from rather than how they influence. They negotiate expectations of responsibility by either deflecting or assuming it, depending on the framing of questions asked. 2) Participants take opportunities to portray their identities as sustainability-focused designers, depicting longstanding commitment. 3) When the designers portray a lack of agency to make sustainability-relevant design decisions, they then claim agency through focusing on their role in influencing and âpushingâ others. Thus, the complexity for designers of managing expectations, personal commitment, and limited agency related to making products more sustainable in professional settings is portrayed.
The practical and theoretical contributions of these findings are provided, outlining how authors and practitioners who seek to make design more sustainable should carefully consider the expectations built into the way they frame their arguments and advice. Overall, this thesis demonstrates the usefulness of interdisciplinary research for providing novel insights, through examining sustainable design using a contemporary, qualitative method from psychology
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Sonic heritage: listening to the past
History is so often told through objects, images and photographs, but the potential of sounds to reveal place and space is often neglected. Our research project âSonic Palimpsestâ1 explores the potential of sound to evoke impressions and new understandings of the past, to embrace the sonic as a tool to understand what was, in a way that can complement and add to our predominant visual understandings. Our work includes the expansion of the Oral History archives held at Chatham Dockyard to include womenâs voices and experiences, and the creation of sonic works to engage the public with their heritage. Our research highlights the social and cultural value of oral history and field recordings in the transmission of knowledge to both researchers and the public. Together these recordings document how buildings and spaces within the dockyard were used and experienced by those who worked there. We can begin to understand the social and cultural roles of these buildings within the community, both past and present
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Healthy Diet: A Definition for the United Nations Food Systems Summit 2021
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