The Age of the Soybean

The soybean is far more than just a versatile crop whose derivates serve the protein needs of a meatless diet. One of the world’s most important commodities, soy represents the embodiment of mechanised industrial agriculture and is one of the main actors behind the socioeconomic, political and ecological transformations of industrial farming in several world regions. Despite the crop’s potential as a cheap source of vegetal protein for human consumers, most industrial soybean production has fuelled the global meat industrial complex, as animal feed. Soybean is thus, paradoxically, still a relatively ‘invisible’ crop to the public at large, although its global yields continue to increase at stupendous rates, lining the pockets of agribusiness and to the detriment of traditional agriculture. The transnational socio-ecological and economic entanglements characterising this versatile legume’s global expansion have prompted scholarly attention as researchers around the world have begun to unveil the main historical drivers behind the rise of the soybean in the global food chain. This book aims to expand the analysis, offering the most significant effort so far at an environmental history of soybeans. Interrogating the socioeconomic and ecological transformations determined by (and determining) the rise of soy in international food chains during the Great Acceleration, the volume gathers contributions from an international cast of researchers, working in numerous geographical contexts, from Japan and China, to India, African nations, the Southern Cone of Latin America, Northern Europe and the United States. Soybean farming, breeding, processing and marketing have bound together the histories of these diverse regions and altered beyond recognition their ecological and socio-economic contexts

WILD ABANDON: POSTWAR LITERATURE BETWEEN ECOLOGY AND AUTHENTICITY

Wild Abandon traces a literary and cultural history of late twentieth-century appeals to dissolution, the moment at which a text seems to erase its subject’s sense of selfhood in natural environs. I argue that such appeals arose in response to a prominent yet overlooked interaction between discourses of ecology and authenticity following the rise and fall of the American New Left in the 1960s and 70s. This conjunction inspired certain intellectuals and activists to celebrate the ecological concept of interconnectivity as the most authentic basis of subjectivity in political, philosophical, spiritual, and literary writings. As I argue, dissolution represents a universalist and essentialist impulse to reject self-identity in favor of an identification with the ecosystem writ large, a claim to authenticity that flattens distinctions among individuals and communities. But even as the self appears to disintegrate, an “I” always remains to testify to its disintegration. For this reason, dissolution performs a primarily critical function by foregrounding an unsurpassable representational tension between sense of self and ecosystem. Each chapter explores a different perspective on this tension as it conflicts with matters of gender and race in works by Edward Abbey, Peter Matthiessen, Toni Morrison, Margaret Atwood, and Jon Krakauer. Assuming an anti-essentialist stance, all the texts I study acknowledge ecological interconnectivity as a universal condition but maintain the necessity of culturally mediated and individually constructed identity positions from which to recognize that condition

The Age of the Soybean

The soybean is far more than just a versatile crop whose derivates serve the protein needs of a meatless diet. One of the world’s most important commodities, soy represents the embodiment of mechanised industrial agriculture and is one of the main actors behind the socioeconomic, political and ecological transformations of industrial farming in several world regions. Despite the crop’s potential as a cheap source of vegetal protein for human consumers, most industrial soybean production has fuelled the global meat industrial complex, as animal feed. Soybean is thus, paradoxically, still a relatively ‘invisible’ crop to the public at large, although its global yields continue to increase at stupendous rates, lining the pockets of agribusiness and to the detriment of traditional agriculture. The transnational socio-ecological and economic entanglements characterising this versatile legume’s global expansion have prompted scholarly attention as researchers around the world have begun to unveil the main historical drivers behind the rise of the soybean in the global food chain. This book aims to expand the analysis, offering the most significant effort so far at an environmental history of soybeans. Interrogating the socioeconomic and ecological transformations determined by (and determining) the rise of soy in international food chains during the Great Acceleration, the volume gathers contributions from an international cast of researchers, working in numerous geographical contexts, from Japan and China, to India, African nations, the Southern Cone of Latin America, Northern Europe and the United States. Soybean farming, breeding, processing and marketing have bound together the histories of these diverse regions and altered beyond recognition their ecological and socio-economic contexts

Bastard or playmate? Adapting theatre, mutating media and the contemporary performing arts

Artistic media seem to be in a permanent condition of mutation and transformation. Contemporary artists often investigate the limits and possibilities of the media they use and experiment with the crossing, upgrading and mutilation of media. Others explicitly explore the unknown intermedial space between existing media, searching for the hybrid beings that occupy these in-betweens. This publication explores the theme of mutating and adapting media in its relation with theatre and performance

Bastard or Playmate?

Artistic media seem to be in a permanent condition of mutation and transformation. Contemporary artists often investigate the limits and possibilities of the media they use and experiment with their crossing, upgrading and mutilation. Others explicitly explore the unknown space between existing media, searching for the hybrid beings that occupy these in-betweens. This fascinating volume explores the theme of mutating and adapting media in its relation to theatre and performance. How did different aspects of theatre evolve in a digital era? How did historical traditions in theatre adapt to new cultural contexts? How are other media remediated in contemporary performances? Does this eventually lead to a contamination or even a disintegration of what we call theatre, or on the contrary, to a revaluation? Bringing together international scholars and artists, the editors offer a comprehensive overview of the subject sensitive to the cross-disciplinary use of key concepts such as remediation, digitization, interactivity, corporeality, liveness, surveillance, spectacle, performativity and theatricality. The book guides readers new to the area of intermediality, as well as experienced researchers into one of the most dynamic fields of scholarship.Artistieke media zijn onophoudelijk onderhevig aan mutatie en transformatie. Heel wat hedendaagse kunstenaars onderzoeken de mogelijkheden en limieten van hun medium en experimenteren met kruisbestuivingen, upgrades en mutilatie van verschillende media. Anderen verkennen expliciet de ongekende ruimtes tussen bestaande media en gaan op zoek naar de hybride bestaansvormen die deze intermediale tussenruimtes bevolken. Deze aflevering van Theater Topics thematiseert het muteren en adapteren van media in de relatie met de podiumkunsten. Hoe zijn verschillende aspecten van theater geëvolueerd in het digitale tijdperk? Hoe pasten historische tradities zich aan aan nieuwe culturele contexten? Wat zijn deze mutanten precies, en wat is hun toegevoegde waarde? Op welke manieren gebeurt de remediatie van andere media in hedendaagse performances? Leidt de resulterende onzuiverheid uiteindelijk tot een desintegratie van wat we verstaan onder ‘theater’, of net tot een herwaardering

Pedestrian velocity obstacles: pedestrian simulation through reasoning in velocity space

We live in a populous world. Furthermore, as social animals, we participate in activities which draw us together into shared spaces -- office buildings, city sidewalks, parks, events (e.g., religious, sporting, or political), etc. Models that can predict how crowds of humans behave in such settings would be valuable in allowing us to analyze the designs for novel environments and anticipate issues with space utility and safety. They would also better enable robots to safely work in a common environment with humans. Furthermore, credible simulation of crowds of humans would allow us to populate virtual worlds, helping to increase the immersive properties of virtual reality or entertainment applications. We propose a new model for pedestrian crowd simulation: Pedestrian Velocity Obstacles (PedVO). PedVO is based on Optimal Reciprocal Collision Avoidance (ORCA), a local navigation algorithm for computing optimal feasible velocities which simultaneously avoid collisions while still allowing the agents to progress toward their individual goals. PedVO extends ORCA by introducing new models of pedestrian behavior and relationships in conjunction with a modified geometric optimization planning technique to efficiently simulate agents with improved human-like behaviors. PedVO introduces asymmetric relationships between agents through two complementary techniques: Composite Agents and Right of Way. The former exploits the underlying collision avoidance mechanism to encode abstract factors and the latter modifies the optimization algorithm's constraint definition to enforce asymmetric coordination. PedVO further changes the optimization algorithm to more fully encode the agent's knowledge of its environment, allowing the agent to make more intelligent decisions, leading to a better utilization of space and improved flow. PedVO incorporates a new model, which works in conjunction with the local planning algorithm, to introduce a ubiquitous density-sensitive behavior observed in human crowds -- the so-called "fundamental diagram." We also provide a physically-plausible, interactive model for simulating walking motion to support the computed agent trajectories. We evaluate these techniques by simulating various scenarios, such as pedestrian experiments and a challenging real-world scenario: simulating the performance of the Tawaf, an aspect of the Muslim Hajj.Doctor of Philosoph

Business, state and environment: the political economy of environmental conflict and the investigation of business power: a thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at Lincoln University

Appendix I has been scanned as a separate file.This thesis investigates the ability, exercise and consequences of business power in environmental conflict in advanced capitalist society. Research into this subject has tended to fall into either of two camps; system-wide theoretical studies from within political economy or narrower empirical studies by neo-pluralist scholars. It is argued there is a need to reconcile these levels to see how the various mechanisms of influence coincide. The critical realist philosophy of science is used to clear the path for the project, detailing, among other things, an understanding of the nature of social being and of social scientific investigation. The various strands of literature on business power and the environment are reconciled in a two stage analytical framework. The first part of that framework deals with the dilemma of theorising about class in environmental conflict. The solution to that problem is found in value-form. This approach allows structural connections to be made between socioeconomic class and types of substantive value relations with the natural world. The second part of the framework deals with the issues of power and politics. It integrates the wider political economy approach and the narrower mechanisms of business power studied usefully by neo-pluralists. Two in-depth historical case studies of environmental conflict are carried out; the Black Head conflict over a quarry operation near Dunedin, and the much larger Whanganui River Minimum Rows dispute, both throughout the 1980s. At the end of each study the principles of the analytical framework are investigated in turn. It is ultimately concluded that the ability of business to dominate within this context is not absolute, yet it is real and pervasive. Such dominance poses a serious impediment to the achievement of sustainable relationships with the natural world, and the ability of people to participate in decision-making in respect to their environments

Soutenabilité et commerce international

We endeavour to explore the many ways by which international trade has an impact on sustainability.From a theoretical perspective, sustainability is the application of the utilitarian theory of value on capitaltheory, used to define the interactions between human-being and their environment. We show how sustainabilitycan be understood as sound and equitable management of the means of development, preserving consumptionand wealth over time while fostering intragenerational and intergenerational equity and controlling for moneyvaluesubstitutability. We use Adjusted Net Savings (ANS) to assess how opening economies to trade altersdevelopment paths. We then show how international trade should lead to additional savings, as gains fromtrade resulting from resources reallocation should be reinvested and not consumed. We explore how the natureof trade impacts development paths, showing how increasing returns to scale in the international division of theproduction processes changes factor prices. This should lead to more gains from trade saved and reinvested.We investigate how institutions and trade incentives interact in hindering sustainable management of naturalcapital in resource abundant countries. We show how inter-industry trade in natural resources intensive goodsmight be a sign for unsustainable development paths. To better understand interactions between institutionsand sustainability, we suggest the dislocation of the Soviet Union as a natural experiment. We show how theevolution of ANS in the Russian Federation is closely correlated with the neighbouring countries, regardless ofresources abundance. Counterfactual studies should be used to monitor sustainable development in the wakeof uncertainty and scarce data on comprehensive wealth depreciation. Those elements lead us to conclude onthe necessity to reconsider the rationale for economic integration on sustainability lines.Nous étudions les liens entre commerce international et soutenabilité. D’un point de vue théorique, la soutenabilitéest l’application de la théorie utilitariste à la théorie du capital. La soutenabilité se définit par unegestion équitable des moyens du développement. Il s’agit de préserver un certain niveau de consommation etde richesse tout en développant l’équité inter- et intragénérationnelle sous la contrainte du niveau socialementdéfini de substituabilité en valeur monétire des composants de la richesse. Les gains à l’échange issus du commerceinternational doivent être épargnés et réinvestis dans la mesure où ils sont le fruit d’une réallocationdes ressources au sein du pays considéré. La nature du commerce international a également un impact sur lessentiers de développement. La présence de rendements d’échelle croissants dans la division internationale desprocessus productifs a également un impact sur la soutenabilité. Nous montrons la façon dont les incitationsvenant du commerce international ont un impact joint sur la gestion des dotations dans les pays riches enressources naturelles. Un commerce inter-industries dans les secteurs des biens intensifs en ressources naturellesest un signe probable d’un sentier de développement insoutenable. Nous proposons d’étudier les pays issus del’Union Soviétique pour mieux comprendre les interactions entre institutions et soutenabilité. l’Epargne NetteAjustée (ENA) en Russie évolue de concert avec celle des pays voisins, sans lien avec celle d’autre pays ayantune même dotation en ressources naturelles. Nous préconisons d’utiliser des études contrefactuelles pour évaluerles trajectoires de développement dans un contexte d’uncertitude sur les niveaux réels de richesse globale.L’ensemble de ces éléments nous conduit à revisiter les logiques d’intégration économique dans une optique desoutenabilité

Landscape of Desire: Identity and Nature in Utah\u27s Canyon Country

Landscape of Desire powerfully documents and celebrates a place and the evolutions that occur when human beings are intimately connected to their surroundings. Greg Gordon accomplishes this with a tapestry of writing that interweaves land use history, natural history, experiential education, and personal reflection. He tracks the geomorphology of southern Utah as well as the creatures and plants his student group encounters, the history lessons (planned and unplanned), the trials and joys of gathering so many individuals into a cohesive will, and his own personal epiphanies, restraints, insights, and disillusionments.https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/usupress_pubs/1141/thumbnail.jp

Learning discrete word embeddings to achieve better interpretability and processing efficiency

L’omniprésente utilisation des plongements de mot dans le traitement des langues naturellesest la preuve de leur utilité et de leur capacité d’adaptation a une multitude de tâches. Ce-pendant, leur nature continue est une importante limite en terme de calculs, de stockage enmémoire et d’interprétation. Dans ce travail de recherche, nous proposons une méthode pourapprendre directement des plongements de mot discrets. Notre modèle est une adaptationd’une nouvelle méthode de recherche pour base de données avec des techniques dernier crien traitement des langues naturelles comme les Transformers et les LSTM. En plus d’obtenirdes plongements nécessitant une fraction des ressources informatiques nécéssaire à leur sto-ckage et leur traitement, nos expérimentations suggèrent fortement que nos représentationsapprennent des unités de bases pour le sens dans l’espace latent qui sont analogues à desmorphèmes. Nous appelons ces unités dessememes, qui, de l’anglaissemantic morphemes,veut dire morphèmes sémantiques. Nous montrons que notre modèle a un grand potentielde généralisation et qu’il produit des représentations latentes montrant de fortes relationssémantiques et conceptuelles entre les mots apparentés.The ubiquitous use of word embeddings in Natural Language Processing is proof of theirusefulness and adaptivity to a multitude of tasks. However, their continuous nature is pro-hibitive in terms of computation, storage and interpretation. In this work, we propose amethod of learning discrete word embeddings directly. The model is an adaptation of anovel database searching method using state of the art natural language processing tech-niques like Transformers and LSTM. On top of obtaining embeddings requiring a fractionof the resources to store and process, our experiments strongly suggest that our representa-tions learn basic units of meaning in latent space akin to lexical morphemes. We call theseunitssememes, i.e., semantic morphemes. We demonstrate that our model has a greatgeneralization potential and outputs representation showing strong semantic and conceptualrelations between related words