2,967 research outputs found

    Non-Market Food Practices Do Things Markets Cannot: Why Vermonters Produce and Distribute Food That\u27s Not For Sale

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    Researchers tend to portray food self-provisioning in high-income societies as a coping mechanism for the poor or a hobby for the well-off. They describe food charity as a regrettable band-aid. Vegetable gardens and neighborly sharing are considered remnants of precapitalist tradition. These are non-market food practices: producing food that is not for sale and distributing food in ways other than selling it. Recent scholarship challenges those standard understandings by showing (i) that non-market food practices remain prevalent in high-income countries, (ii) that people in diverse social groups engage in these practices, and (iii) that they articulate diverse reasons for doing so. In this dissertation, I investigate the persistent pervasiveness of non-market food practices in Vermont. To go beyond explanations that rely on individual motivation, I examine the roles these practices play in society. First, I investigate the prevalence of non-market food practices. Several surveys with large, representative samples reveal that more than half of Vermont households grow, hunt, fish, or gather some of their own food. Respondents estimate that they acquire 14% of the food they consume through non-market means, on average. For reference, commercial local food makes up about the same portion of total consumption. Then, drawing on the words of 94 non-market food practitioners I interviewed, I demonstrate that these practices serve functions that markets cannot. Interviewees attested that non-market distribution is special because it feeds the hungry, strengthens relationships, builds resilience, puts edible-but-unsellable food to use, and aligns with a desired future in which food is not for sale. Hunters, fishers, foragers, scavengers, and homesteaders said that these activities contribute to their long-run food security as a skills-based safety net. Self-provisioning allows them to eat from the landscape despite disruptions to their ability to access market food such as job loss, supply chain problems, or a global pandemic. Additional evidence from vegetable growers suggests that non-market settings liberate production from financial discipline, making space for work that is meaningful, playful, educational, and therapeutic. Non-market food practices mend holes in the social fabric torn by the commodification of everyday life. Finally, I synthesize scholarly critiques of markets as institutions for organizing the production and distribution of food. Markets send food toward money rather than hunger. Producing for market compels farmers to prioritize financial viability over other values such as stewardship. Historically, people rarely if ever sell each other food until external authorities coerce them to do so through taxation, indebtedness, cutting off access to the means of subsistence, or extinguishing non-market institutions. Today, more humans than ever suffer from chronic undernourishment even as the scale of commercial agriculture pushes environmental pressures past critical thresholds of planetary sustainability. This research substantiates that alternatives to markets exist and have the potential to address their shortcomings

    Climate Change and Critical Agrarian Studies

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    Climate change is perhaps the greatest threat to humanity today and plays out as a cruel engine of myriad forms of injustice, violence and destruction. The effects of climate change from human-made emissions of greenhouse gases are devastating and accelerating; yet are uncertain and uneven both in terms of geography and socio-economic impacts. Emerging from the dynamics of capitalism since the industrial revolution — as well as industrialisation under state-led socialism — the consequences of climate change are especially profound for the countryside and its inhabitants. The book interrogates the narratives and strategies that frame climate change and examines the institutionalised responses in agrarian settings, highlighting what exclusions and inclusions result. It explores how different people — in relation to class and other co-constituted axes of social difference such as gender, race, ethnicity, age and occupation — are affected by climate change, as well as the climate adaptation and mitigation responses being implemented in rural areas. The book in turn explores how climate change – and the responses to it - affect processes of social differentiation, trajectories of accumulation and in turn agrarian politics. Finally, the book examines what strategies are required to confront climate change, and the underlying political-economic dynamics that cause it, reflecting on what this means for agrarian struggles across the world. The 26 chapters in this volume explore how the relationship between capitalism and climate change plays out in the rural world and, in particular, the way agrarian struggles connect with the huge challenge of climate change. Through a huge variety of case studies alongside more conceptual chapters, the book makes the often-missing connection between climate change and critical agrarian studies. The book argues that making the connection between climate and agrarian justice is crucial

    Modern computing: Vision and challenges

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    Over the past six decades, the computing systems field has experienced significant transformations, profoundly impacting society with transformational developments, such as the Internet and the commodification of computing. Underpinned by technological advancements, computer systems, far from being static, have been continuously evolving and adapting to cover multifaceted societal niches. This has led to new paradigms such as cloud, fog, edge computing, and the Internet of Things (IoT), which offer fresh economic and creative opportunities. Nevertheless, this rapid change poses complex research challenges, especially in maximizing potential and enhancing functionality. As such, to maintain an economical level of performance that meets ever-tighter requirements, one must understand the drivers of new model emergence and expansion, and how contemporary challenges differ from past ones. To that end, this article investigates and assesses the factors influencing the evolution of computing systems, covering established systems and architectures as well as newer developments, such as serverless computing, quantum computing, and on-device AI on edge devices. Trends emerge when one traces technological trajectory, which includes the rapid obsolescence of frameworks due to business and technical constraints, a move towards specialized systems and models, and varying approaches to centralized and decentralized control. This comprehensive review of modern computing systems looks ahead to the future of research in the field, highlighting key challenges and emerging trends, and underscoring their importance in cost-effectively driving technological progress

    LIPIcs, Volume 251, ITCS 2023, Complete Volume

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    LIPIcs, Volume 251, ITCS 2023, Complete Volum

    Mapping the Focal Points of WordPress: A Software and Critical Code Analysis

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    Programming languages or code can be examined through numerous analytical lenses. This project is a critical analysis of WordPress, a prevalent web content management system, applying four modes of inquiry. The project draws on theoretical perspectives and areas of study in media, software, platforms, code, language, and power structures. The applied research is based on Critical Code Studies, an interdisciplinary field of study that holds the potential as a theoretical lens and methodological toolkit to understand computational code beyond its function. The project begins with a critical code analysis of WordPress, examining its origins and source code and mapping selected vulnerabilities. An examination of the influence of digital and computational thinking follows this. The work also explores the intersection of code patching and vulnerability management and how code shapes our sense of control, trust, and empathy, ultimately arguing that a rhetorical-cultural lens can be used to better understand code\u27s controlling influence. Recurring themes throughout these analyses and observations are the connections to power and vulnerability in WordPress\u27 code and how cultural, processual, rhetorical, and ethical implications can be expressed through its code, creating a particular worldview. Code\u27s emergent properties help illustrate how human values and practices (e.g., empathy, aesthetics, language, and trust) become encoded in software design and how people perceive the software through its worldview. These connected analyses reveal cultural, processual, and vulnerability focal points and the influence these entanglements have concerning WordPress as code, software, and platform. WordPress is a complex sociotechnical platform worthy of further study, as is the interdisciplinary merging of theoretical perspectives and disciplines to critically examine code. Ultimately, this project helps further enrich the field by introducing focal points in code, examining sociocultural phenomena within the code, and offering techniques to apply critical code methods

    Understanding the Relationship Between Working Memory and Long-Term Memory

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    How lasting memories are created is a question that has driven much research into human cognition. An area of renewed research interest concerns the relationship between working memory and long-term memory. Recent research has investigated how the processing that occurs while information is held in working memory influences successful long-term memory creation. Both working memory consolidation and maintenance have been identified as critical in long-term retention, but the mechanisms underlying the working memory/long-term memory relationship remain unclear. The present dissertation examined different working memory mechanisms and their impact on long-term memory in a broader context by addressing two questions: 1) What factors influence immediate post-encoding working memory processes such as maintenance and consolidation and their effect on long-term memory?, and 2) How does one’s current state influence the relationship between immediate post-encoding processing and long-term memory? The first set of experiments explored how trait and state creativity influenced the efficacy of working memory consolidation on subsequent long-term memory. The motivating hypothesis for this was that working memory consolidation may facilitate the formation of novel associations between items during learning, leading to improved memory search at delayed retrieval. We found that while trait creativity, but not state creativity, corresponded with general performance on memory tasks, this effect was not related to working memory consolidation. The results of these two experiments suggest that creativity is not related to the mechanism underlying the effect of working memory consolidation on delayed recognition. The second set of experiments investigated the effects of mind-wandering and multitasking during working memory tasks in remote and in-person environments. While overall remote participants reported significantly more mind-wandering and poorer secondary task performance than the in-person participants, this pattern was not reflected in their working memory accuracy and both groups exhibited similar multitasking effects on memory performance. Additional analyses found that for remote participants the level of engagement with the task was a better predictor of working memory performance than either multitasking difficulty or mind-wandering rates. A follow-up experiment extended this finding to delayed recognition to investigate if active working memory maintenance is critical for robust long-term memory. In this experiment, we tested if repeatedly retrieving memory items into the focus of attention improved performance on a delayed recognition test. We found that how much a participant engaged with the secondary task (i.e., the opportunities for repeated retrieval) during the working memory task corresponded with delayed memory performance. Together, these results demonstrate the importance of considering multiple metrics when assessing performance and that repeated retrieval is a key mechanism in the relationship between working memory processing and long-term retention. The final set of experiments explored how working memory consolidation and long-term memory creation are impacted by stress. Previous research has shown that pre-encoding stress modulates long-term memory and working memory performance, but they have not yet been considered together. We found that stress has small, if any, beneficial effects on both working memory and long-term memory and no evidence that stress impaired either type of memory. We also found evidence that the benefits of working memory consolidation on long-term retention may be limited to non-visual memory. Taken together, the results of these experiments provide evidence that the processing that occurs while information is held in working memory influences the subsequent retrieval of that information after a delay, though there are boundaries to this relationship. The experiments in this dissertation also demonstrate the importance of individual variability that underlies performance across cognitive tasks and contexts

    Business intelligence-centered software as the main driver to migrate from spreadsheet-based analytics

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    Internship Report presented as the partial requirement for obtaining a Master's degree in Information Management, specialization in Knowledge Management and Business IntelligenceNowadays, companies are handling and managing data in a way that they weren’t ten years ago. The data deluge is, as a mere consequence of that, the constant day-to-day challenge for them - having to create agile and scalable data solutions to tackle this reality. The main trigger of this project was to support the decision-making process of a customer-centered marketing team (called Customer Voice) in the Company X by developing a complete, holistic Business Intelligence solution that goes all the way from ETL processes to data visualizations based on that team’s business needs. Having this context into consideration, the focus of the internship was to make use of BI, ETL techniques to migrate their data stored in spreadsheets — where they performed data analysis — and shift the way they see the data into a more dynamic, sophisticated, and suitable way in order to help them make data-driven strategic decisions. To ensure that there was credibility throughout the development of this project and its subsequent solution, it was necessary to make an exhaustive literature review to help me frame this project in a more realistic and logical way. That being said, this report made use of scientific literature that explained the evolution of the ETL workflows, tools, and limitations across different time periods and generations, how it was transformed from manual to real-time data tasks together with data warehouses, the importance of data quality and, finally, the relevance of ETL processes optimization and new ways of approaching data integrations by using modern, cloud architectures

    Adaptation pathways to reconcile hydropower generation and aquatic ecosystems restoration

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    The growing demands for water, food and energy, in addition to the need to protect ecosystems, pose significant challenges to water management and the operation of water systems. In hydropower-dominated basins, where reservoirs capture flow variability for energy generation, the modification of the natural flow regime disrupts the natural equilibrium of aquatic ecosystems. Migratory fish species and the associated ecosystem services are particularly vulnerable as the migration and recruitment success relies on the synchronization between the hydrologic flow regime and the reproductive cycle. While there is a consensus on the importance of restoring impacted ecosystems in balance with multiple uses, the current water governance framework lacks a comprehensive understanding of the tradeoffs involved and mechanisms for ensuring the equitable distribution of the adaptation costs among users. The present study brings a contribution to the field by proposing solutions to improve the water governance of river basins, combining the (1) identification of flow-ecological relationships by measuring the response of multiple options of flow regime restoration with a clear ecosystem indicator, (2) incorporation of the flow-ecological relationships and hydroclimatic conditions into the operation decisions of hydropower systems to create dynamic environmental flow solutions (termed Dynamic Adaptive Environmental flows – DAE-flows) with better long-term performance, (3) calculation of the reoperation trade-offs between alternative levels of environmental flow regime restoration and (4) development of mechanisms to share the adaptation costs among stakeholders. The electricity market is proposed as an institutional arrangement and financing mechanism to support the restoration of flow regimes in environmentally sensitive areas. The Upper Paraná River Basin, in Brazil, where consecutive hydropower impoundments have reduced the original floodplain along the last decades, is a recurrent example where reservoirs’ operation need to be reconciled with ecosystem functionality, which makes the basin an important study area. The findings of this dissertation indicate that it is possible to enhance the capacity of water systems to incorporate historically suppressed environmental water demands without imposing a hard constraint to economic uses. The consideration of the long-term effects of operation when designing operating strategies for multiple users leads to improved performance in both hydropower generation and meeting ecosystem demands. So, during severe droughts the water can still be reallocated to hydropower (as it is currently done) but at a lesser cost to the environment.As demandas crescentes por água, alimentos e energia, além da necessidade de proteger os ecossistemas, tornam a gestão dos recursos hídricos, bem como a operação de sistemas hídricos, uma tarefa desafiadora. Em bacias com aproveitamento hidrelétrico, a modificação do regime de vazões decorrente da operação dos reservatórios altera o equilíbrio natural dos ecossistemas aquáticos. Espécies migratórias de peixes e serviços ecossistêmicos associados ficam particularmente vulneráveis, uma vez que o sucesso da migração e recrutamento depende da sincronização entre o regime de vazão e o ciclo reprodutivo. Embora haja consenso sobre a importância de restaurar as demandas ecossistêmicas suprimidas e alcançar um equilíbrio que permita múltiplos usos, o atual quadro de governança carece de uma compreensão abrangente dos trade-offs envolvidos e dos mecanismos para garantir a distribuição equitativa dos custos de adaptação entre os usuários. O presente estudo contribui para o campo, propondo soluções para aprimorar a governança de bacias antropizadas, combinando (1) a identificação das relações vazão-ecológicas por meio da quantificação da resposta de múltiplas opções de restauração do regime de vazão por meio de um indicador de desempenho do ecossistema, (2) a incorporação dessas relações vazão-ecológicas juntamente com condições hidroclimáticas nas decisões operacionais de sistemas hidrelétricos (denominadas Vazões Ambientais Dinâmicas e Adaptativas - DAE-flows) para criar soluções dinâmicas de operação de reservatórios, (3) o cálculo dos trade-offs de reoperação de múltiplos níveis de restauração de regime de vazão ambiental e (4) o desenvolvimento de mecanismos para compartilhar os custos relacionados entre as partes interessadas. Nesse sentido, o mercado de eletricidade é proposto como arranjo institucional e mecanismo de financiamento para apoiar a restauração de regimes de vazão em áreas ambientalmente sensíveis. A Bacia Hidrográfica do Alto Paraná, Brasil, caracterizada como uma das mais represadas da América do Sul, com 65 usinas hidrelétricas integradas ao Sistema Integrado Nacional, é um exemplo recorrente da necessidade de reconciliação entre a geração de energia e a conservação de serviços ecossistêmicos, sendo utilizada como área de estudo. Os resultados indicam que podemos aumentar a capacidade dos sistemas hídricos para incorporar demandas ambientais historicamente suprimidas sem impor uma restrição rígida aos usos econômicos. Ao considerar os efeitos de longo prazo da operação ao projetar estratégias de operação para múltiplos usuários, obtemos um desempenho aprimorado tanto na geração de energia hidrelétrica quanto no atendimento às demandas do ecossistema. Assim, durante períodos de seca severa, a água ainda pode ser realocada para a produção de energia hidrelétrica (como é feito atualmente), porém com menor impacto ambiental

    Integrated Approaches to Digital-enabled Design for Manufacture and Assembly: A Modularity Perspective and Case Study of Huoshenshan Hospital in Wuhan, China

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    Countries are trying to expand their healthcare capacity through advanced construction, modular innovation, digital technologies and integrated design approaches such as Design for Manufacture and Assembly (DfMA). Within the context of China, there is a need for stronger implementation of digital technologies and DfMA, as well as a knowledge gap regarding how digital-enabled DfMA is implemented. More critically, an integrated approach is needed in addition to DfMA guidelines and digital-enabled approaches. For this research, a mixed method was used. Questionnaires defined the context of Huoshenshan Hospital, namely the healthcare construction in China. Then, Huoshenshan Hospital provided a case study of the first emergency hospital which addressed the uncertainty of COVID-19. This extreme project, a 1,000-bed hospital built in 10 days, implemented DfMA in healthcare construction and provides an opportunity to examine the use of modularity. A workshop with a design institution provided basic facts and insight into past practice and was followed by interviews with 18 designers, from various design disciplines, who were involved in the project. Finally, multiple archival materials were used as secondary data sources. It was found that complexity hinders building systems integration, while reinforcement relationships between multiple dimensions of modularity (across organisation-process-product-supply chain dimensions) are the underlying mechanism that allows for the reduction of complexity and the integration of building systems. Promoting integrated approaches to DfMA relies on adjusting and coupling multi-dimensional modular reinforcement relationships (namely, relationships of modular alignment, modular complement, and modular incentive). Thus, the building systems integrator can use these three approaches to increase the success of digital-enabled DfMA
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