Cooperativismo urbano para la soberanía alimentaria

Veinte fue el número de personas que iniciaron el proyecto Árbore que ahora mismo aglutina a 330 unidades de consumo. Esas veinte personas pretendían consumir de otra forma, hacer del consumo necesario para la vida un acto político en la cotidianidad. Así es como nace la primera Cooperativa de consumo consciente de Galicia (que no el primer grupo de consumo), con sede en la ciudad de Vigo. Los primeros pasos se dieron en el año 2000 consiguiendo un local, en el que todavía transita la cooperativa, que sirvió para recepcionar los productos. Las diferencias entre estos productos y los que se podían encontrar en otros comercios eran varias: se producían de forma ecológica, respetaban los derechos de los animales y se buscaban proyectos cercanos. A través de estos productos se buscaba establecer relaciones entre las personas y los proyectos productivos. Todas estas características siguen vigentes casi 13 años después

Quasi-monolithic tunable optical resonator

An optical resonator has a piezoelectric element attached to a quasi-monolithic structure. The quasi-monolithic structure defines an optical path. Mirrors attached to the structure deflect light along the optical path. The piezoelectric element controllably strains the quasi-monolithic structure to change a length of the optical path by about 1 micron. A first feedback loop coupled to the piezoelectric element provides fine control over the cavity length. The resonator may include a thermally actuated spacer attached to the cavity and a mirror attached to the spacer. The thermally actuated spacer adjusts the cavity length by up to about 20 microns. A second feedback loop coupled to the sensor and heater provides a coarse control over the cavity length. An alternative embodiment provides a quasi-monolithic optical parametric oscillator (OPO). This embodiment includes a non-linear optical element within the resonator cavity along the optical path. Such an OPO configuration is broadly tunable and capable of mode-hop free operation for periods of 24 hours or more

Review of \u3ci\u3eKilling the White Man\u27s Indian: Reinventing Native Americans at the End of the Twentieth Century\u3c/i\u3e By Fergus M. Bordewich

Fergus M. Bordewich\u27s foray into Native American politics and identity is disturbing on a number of different levels. It is, on the one hand, a remarkably accurate look at Native American political dilemmas, frustrations, and achievements. On the other, it is a flawed survey of what it means to be Native American in the United States. It lacks a clear critical framework and races willy-nilly from one group to another, judging achievements on the basis of economic success or how the tribes fit into the hierarchical apparatus that runs the nation. Bordewich is at his finest when dealing with the American obsession with race. He writes elegantly about race, the invention of the Indian as the anathema of western culture, and how European invaders and Americans used imagery to justify genocide. Race was, and is, simply a social construction used to deny human rights. The color of one\u27s skin and the texture of one\u27s hair are simply false and useless indicators of intelligence, cultural worth, or political reliability. Unfortunately Bordewich fails to convince after he gets to his main theme. The book is essentially an argument for dropping any special rights that Indians have managed to hang on to over the last five centuries. Bordewich writes that Indians are no longer Indians anymore and should, therefore, be treated as other Americans. In a revival of the modernization theory of colonialism, Bordewich argues that: (1) Indians are out-marrying at rates which will eventually destroy any kind of racial or tribal identity; (2) many Indian groups are neither racially nor culturally homogenous; (3) most Indians have more or less adopted the general economic views, political attitudes, and social constructions of the American majority; (4) Indian tribal governments, with few exceptions, are corrupt, do not have the democratic safeguards of institutional checks and balances, and have not provided sufficiently for the basic civil rights of tribal members that are enjoyed by other Americans; (5) Indians are frightening other Americans by dredging up certain dubious rights, such as tribal sovereignty, to deny these Americans, mostly whites, their rights of property and political representation; (6) Indian traditionalists are not really environmentalists as they are often portrayed, but the dupes of the tree-hugging, no-growth radicals standing in the path of scientific knowledge and progress; and (7) most Indians, just like other Americans, are immigrants and conquerors themselves. Given all of these factors, he contends, Indian assimilation has been accomplished and the attempt to maintain separate governments and tribal sovereignty is an exercise in futility. In short, modernization is an absolute fact, as immutable, to Bordewich, as the rhythm of the ocean tides

Ecological genetics of the benthic feeding habits of "Daphnia"

The environment of most organisms varies over different scales of space and time. Examples of evolutionary responses to environmental heterogeneity are well investigated in cladoceran crustaceans of the genus Daphnia. While, traditionally, studies of Daphnia have largely focused on its planktonic lifestyle, few authors have highlighted an important role of the benthic environment for the ecology of some species and for the evolutionary history of the genus. In this perspective, my thesis investigated the behavioural and morphological feeding adaptation of Daphnia to benthic environments mostly using the traditional model Daphnia magna which, despite being primarily pelagic, often dwells in benthic habitats. In the first part of my thesis, I presented my work on a poorly studied feeding behaviour of D. magna, termed sediment browsing. I demonstrated genetic variation and high heritability for the behaviour among D. magna genotypes and began to investigate the ecological determinants of such variation. While local pelagic predation in the original habitats of the clones did not appear to influence browsing behaviour, clones from big lakes and ponds were shown to differ in browsing levels, suggesting how the proximity of the benthic environment might influence the evolution of benthic feeding preferences. Next, I described the genetic architecture of the behaviour by QTL analyses and identified three genomic regions associated with its variation. In another study, I analysed how genetic variation in browsing behaviour influences the establishment of microbial associations in D. magna. This study showed how genetic variation in behaviour might play a role in determining the genotype specific microbiota observed in a particular environment. In the second part of my thesis, I focused on morphological variation in a previously poorly studied limb of Daphnia, trunk limb II, which has been proposed to serve to collect food by scraping. This study was conducted at different levels: plastic responses to food treatments within D. magna genotypes, genetic variation between D. magna clones spanning the geographical and habitat range of the species and morphological comparisons between species of the genus. The analyses did not detect a plastic response in setal morphology to the feeding treatments applied. However, I found high heritability for trunk limb II setal morphology and that variation is partially explained by geographic genetic lineage differences between clones. Finally, a preliminary comparison of trunk limb II among eleven Daphnia species found a phylogenetic distribution suggestive of convergent evolution of setal morphology in some species with similar ecologies. Together, my work on Daphnia benthic feeding functional morphology and on the ecological genetics and functional aspects of sediment browsing behaviour highlighted the interactions with the benthic environment as an important, yet often overlooked, aspect of the ecology of Daphnia. Recently, this line of research has gained momentum in the light of a novel focus of ecological studies considering the coupling of benthic and pelagic lentic habitats. In this perspective, the work presented in my thesis might contribute to a better integration of the benthic habitats into Daphnia eco-evolutionary models

Mechanisms and Functions of Molecular Interactions during Plasmid Rolling Circle Replication

The system under investigation in this project is the replication of plasmid DNA belonging to the pT181 family from the Gram-positive Staphylococcus aureus. This plasmid replicates through an asymmetric rolling circle mechanism, initiated by a plasmid-encoded protein that nicks the supercoiled plasmid allowing unidirectional unwinding by the helicase and elongation by a polymerase. The proteins involved in this process are the replication initiator protein, Staphylococcus aureus RepD, the ATP-driven 3’ to 5’ helicase, Bacillus Stearothermophilus PcrA, and the S. aureus DNA polymerase III. The project is mainly focused on three different aspects of plasmid replication including the formation of the initiation complex, the involvement of DNA polymerase III during plasmid elongation and the analysis of plasmid replication dynamics using AFM imaging. The kinetic mechanism of RepD initiation is examined here. Plasmid nicking occurs at a rate > 25 s-1 (30 °C). Without RepD, PcrA is a poor helicase as it is unable to unwind as short as 20 bp DNA junctions. The function of nicking is also investigated as requirement of PcrA processivity and Rep-PcrA translocation complex. The inclusion of DNA polymerase in these in vitro experiments generates a full in vitro plasmid replication system. The kinetics of PcrA-mediated unwinding has been studied previously, but the involvement of polymerase is little understood. PcrA is able to unwind plasmid DNA at a rate of ~30 bp s-1 (30 °C), however the inclusion of polymerase increased the unwinding rate to ~71 bp s-1 (30 °C). Using a fluorescence-based kinetic approach combined with rapid-mix techniques and AFM imaging, a variety of processes are investigated during RepD, PcrA and PolC mediated DNA replication. These in vitro data would provide an understanding of kinetics and dynamics of several complex processes during plasmid replication

The Role of Signaling Identity in the Adoption of Personal Technologies

We explore symbolic determinants of technology acceptance to complement more functional frameworks and better predict decisions to adopt information appliances. Previous research has investigated such variables as “need for uniqueness” and “status gains” to capture relevant aspects of technology acceptance. However, the more we move toward personal and ubiquitous technologies, the more we need to broaden and deepen our understanding of the symbolic aspects of adoption. This study reinterprets the symbolic dimension of adoption by broadening its scope to include the self-concept. Results support a prominent role for self-identity in predicting intentions to adopt mobile TVs. Self-identity is shown to complement the effects of “need for uniqueness” and “status gains” in this regard

Quand le genre s'en mêle : stratégies de requêtes dans les dessins animés

A la suite de nombreux travaux sur le genre en sociolinguistique, cette étude quantitative propose d’étudier le genre en s’intéressant à la formulation des requêtes des personnages dans les dessins animés des années 2000-2010. En effet, on retrouve bon nombre de recherches explicitant l’influence des dessins animés dans la socialisation des enfants à qui on demande d’acquérir les codes de leur société et d’apprendre à vivre avec les autres. Ainsi, les dessins animés sont en mesure de leur présenter des modèles de socialisation différents de ceux présents dans leur vie quotidienne. C’est pourquoi la réflexion de ce mémoire s’intéressera particulièrement aux stratégies de requête entre les personnages et tentera de faire le lien entre le genre des personnages-locuteurs mais aussi avec le rôle implicite de chaque locuteur au sein du groupe. La dynamique de groupe est un critère très important dans le choix du corpus de cette étude puisque nous essaierons de comprendre comment les personnages s’organisent entre eux au sein d’une dynamique sociale qui leur est propre à travers leurs différentes stratégies de requête. En s’intéressant à des dessins animés qui présentent justement des dynamiques sociales variées (groupe majoritairement féminin, majoritairement masculin et mixte), nous avons pour but de mettre en lumière les dynamiques propres à ces groupes respectifs, afin d’illustrer leurs différences et leurs similitudes. Pour ce faire, nous proposons d’élaborer une analyse synchronique et diachronique de ces dessins animés diffusés approximativement sur une même période, afin de mettre notre recherche en parallèle avec une évolution progressive de notre société.Following many works about gender in sociolinguistics, this quantitative study proposes to study gender by focusing on the formulation of by male and female characters requests in cartoons from 2000-2010. Indeed, there is a good deal of research explaining the influence of cartoons in the socialization of children who are asked to acquire the codes of their society and learn to live with others. Thus, cartoons are able to present them socialization patterns, from those present in their daily life. This is why this dissertation will be particularly interested in query strategies between characters and will attempt to establish a link between the gender of the speaker characters but also with the implicit role of each speaker within the group. Group dynamics is a very important criterion in choosing the corpus for this study since we will try to understand how the characters organize themselves within their own social dynamics through their different query strategies. By focusing on cartoons that present varied social dynamics (predominantly female group, predominantly male and mixed), our goal is to highlight the dynamics specific to these respective groups, in order to illustrate their differences and their similarities. To do this, we propose to develop a synchronic and diachronic analysis of these cartoons broadcast over approximately the same period, in order to put our research in parallel with a progressive evolution of our society

Engineering of spatial solitons in two-period QPM structures

We report on a scheme which might make it practically possible to engineer the effective competing nonlinearities that on average govern the light propagation in quasi-phase-matching (QPM) gratings. Modulation of the QPM period with a second longer period, introduces an extra degree of freedom, which can be used to engineer the effective quadratic and induced cubic nonlinearity. However, in contrast to former work here we use a simple phase-reversal grating for the modulation, which is practically realizable and has already been fabricated. Furthermore, we develop the theory for arbitrary relative lengths of the two periods and we consider the effect on solitons and the bandwidth for their generation. We derive an expression for the bandwidth of multicolor soliton generation in two-period QPM samples and we predict and confirm numerically that the bandwidth is broader in the two-period QPM sample than in homogeneous structures.Comment: V1: 15 pages, 8 figures. V2: Accepted for publication in Optics Communications.16 pages, 10 figures. New soliton content figures, confirming the theoretically predicted peak splitting in 2-period QPM, have been include