Who owns it? Three arguments for land claims in Latin America

Indigenous and non-indigenous communities in Latin America make land claims and support them with a variety of arguments. Some, such as Zapatistas and the Mapuche, have appealed to the “ancestral” or “historical” connections between specific communities and the land. Other groups, such as MST in Brazil, have appealed to the extremely unequal distribution of the land and the effects of this on the poor; the land in this case is seen mainly as a means for securing a decent standard of living for members of disadvantaged groups. Although there is a large literature on the history as well as the social and political dimensions of land contestations and conflicts in Latin America, the question of whether the land claims put forward by disadvantaged groups can be morally justified has not been adequately examined. In this essay, we investigate the scope and limits of appeals to what we shall call assistance-based, contribution-based, and benefitting-based moral reasons with respect to land claims made by these disadvantaged groups

Reducing energy subsidies in China, India and Russia : dilemmas for decision makers

This article examines and compares efforts to reduce energy subsidies in China, India and Russia. Despite dissimilarities in forms of governance, these three states have followed surprisingly similar patterns in reducing energy subsidies, characterised by two steps forward, one step back. Non-democratic governments and energy importers might be expected to be more likely to halt subsidies. In fact, the degree of democracy and status as net energy exporters or importers does not seem to significantly affect these countries’ capacity to reduce subsidies, as far as can be judged from the data in this article. Politicians in all three fear that taking unpopular decisions may provoke social unrest.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Effects of gradual adaptation to separation for calves on growth, feed intake and rumination in cow-calf contact system

As animal welfare concerns are increasing, so is the interest in cow-calf contact (CCC). In CCC, the cow and calf go together for an extended period in dairy production. Compared to normal practice were the calf are separated from the cow within a few hours after birth. Producers practicing CCC have seen lower milk yields but also higher calf growth. In this study, two separation strategies for adaptation to the separation of cow and calf were explored in a cow-driven system. Both strategies had four phases at different intervals: 24 hours of accessibility (phase 1), 12 hours (phase 2), 6 hours (phase 3), and 0 hours (phase 4) at the age of 8 weeks, but fence line contact, at the age of 9 weeks they were totally weaned. The long adaptation started at the age of 4 weeks and comprised of 28 days and the short starts at the age of 6.5 weeks and comprised of 10 days. The adaptation happened in a specially designed area that was divided into three different areas: cow area, calf creep, and meeting area. In the calf creep the calves had access to concentrate, water, and roughage, and after phase 2 started also a milk feeder. The calves were weighed two times a week after the move into the special designed area. Roughage intake were measured two times a week over a 24 h interval, while the intake of concentrate and milk form the feeder were measured each time the calves visited the feeder. Rumination was measured by a Nedap neck collar device that were placed on the calf neck as they were dehorned. In this study, there was no significant difference between the adaptation strategies, even though there is a potential. The daily growth was 1.2 kg/d which is higher than current recommendations and the calves weighed on average 100 kg at 9 weeks of age. Intake of roughage, concentrate and water, as well as rumination were not significantly different between the strategies. Ad libitum access to milk did influence the intake of solid feeds, which were lower than for calves fed restricted.M-H

A Deep Reinforcement Learning - based Hyperheuristic for the Flexible Traveling Repairman Problem with Drones

Masteroppgave i informatikkINF399MAMN-PROGMAMN-IN

Individual responsibility for carbon emissions: Is there anything wrong with overdetermining harm?

Climate change and other harmful large-scale processes challenge our understandings of individual responsibility. People throughout the world suffer harms—severe shortfalls in health, civic status, or standard of living relative to the vital needs of human beings—as a result of physical processes to which many people appear to contribute. Climate change, polluted air and water, and the erosion of grasslands, for example, occur because a great many people emit carbon and pollutants, build excessively, enable their flocks to overgraze, or otherwise stress the environment. If a much smaller number of people engaged in these types of conduct, the harms in question would not occur, or would be substantially lessened. However, the conduct of any particular person (and, in the case of climate change, of even quite large numbers of people) could make no apparent difference to their occurrence. My carbon emissions (and quite possibly the carbon emissions of much larger groups of people dispersed throughout the world) may not make a difference to what happens to anyone. When the conduct of some agent does not make any apparent difference to the occurrence of harm, but this conduct is of a type that brings about harm because many people engage in it, we can call this agent an overdeterminer of that harm, and their conduct overdetermining conduct. In this essay we explore the moral status of overdetermining harm

Konstruksjon og dimensjonering av trapp-/heistårn med plattform og landgang

Oppgåva tar for seg konstruksjon og dimensjonering av eit trapp-/heistårn med plattform og landgang. Tårnet skal fungere som bindeledd mellom land og flyterigger som kjem inn til bedrifta Westcon for reparasjon/vedlikehald. Ulike norske standardar er brukt som dimensjoneringsgrunnlag. Berekningsprogrammet STAAD.pro er brukt til å utføre berekningane. Konstruksjonen er blitt sett på som tredelt. Tårn, plattform og landgang. For kvar del er det blitt sett på ulike utformingar og løysingar. Til slutt er det sett på heile konstruksjonen under eitt, og ei løysing er anbefalt

Ecological Momentary Assessment in Internet-Delivered Psychological Treatments using Wearable Technology

The growing prevalence of mental health problems is a global concern. Current psychological treatments are effective for a wide range of mental health problems. Yet, treatments today fall short with regards to scalability and struggle to meet the demand for help. To treat patients in a more cost-effective, accessible, and scalable manner, InternetDelivered Psychological Treatment (IDPT) has posed as a promising solution. Although, IDPT has shown encouraging results, the technology falls short in some regards. One such shortcoming is low user adherence. Adaptive IDPT that allow for personalizing treatment to patient needs may help solve the issue of high drop-out rates in IDPT as they are thought to aid in increasing user adherence. Yet, to adapt and personalize treatment there is a need of meaningful data about patients. In this thesis, we have created an artifact for the use of wearable data in IDPT. More specifically, our artifact can be split in two parts: (1) an extension of an IDPT framework that serves as a general component and allows for the utilization of wearable data to support Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) and (2) a demonstrative component that provides an example of how wearable data may be utilized in interventions to support adaptation. We have created an artifact, comprised of these two components, according to the design science research methodology. Through semi-structured interviews with domain experts of electrical engineering and psychology our artifact has been evaluated. As a result of this evaluation, we have learned that our artifact can serve as a basis for future research.Masteroppgave i Programutvikling samarbeid med HVLPROG399MAMN-PRO

Guidelines for Morphological and Syntactic Annotation of Old Norwegian Texts

publishedVersio

The Importance of School Leadership Support when Working with Students with Smith-Magenis Syndrome–A Q Methodology Study

Smith-Magenis syndrome (SMS) is a rare genetic syndrome. Students with SMS have a neurobehavioural phenotype which has been characterised as challenging for both parents and teachers. Challenging behaviour often has a negative impact on the person’s learning ability and is a hindrance in the learning environment. Challenging behaviour also impacts on teachers in terms of stress and burnout. The aim of this study was to explore what type of support the school staff needs in order to handle the challenging behaviour and academic development of students with SMS using Q methodology. Fourteen staff members working with students with SMS in Norway participated in the study by sorting 40 statements according to the Q methodology. The sorting was analysed based on the by-person factor analysis. Four viewpoints were identified as follows: 1) In control, 2) struggling, 3) Strugglers relying on parents, and 4) Support dependent. Several consensus statements were associated with the academic work of the students with SMS. The consensus statements regarding academic work showed that this is not a priority for these students. Support from the school’s leadership and colleagues is imperative, in addition to cooperation from parents, to provide safe and productive school environments for children with SMS.publishedVersio

Kalkingsforsøk med eggeskall - en utprøving i CYCLE-prosjektet

Skallet av et egg veier ca. 8 gram, og inneholder verdifulle næringsstoffer. På Norturas fabrikk for foredling av egg, i Revetal i Vestfold, produseres det ca. 800 tonn med eggeskall hvert år. Noe av dette materialet ble knust og sammenliknet med vanlig jordbrukskalk i vekstsesongen 2014. Kalken i eggeskall hadde like god effekt som vanlig kalk til å øke pH i jorda, men ser ut til å være mye mer lett-tilgjengelig for næringsopptak i planter