Sustainability of Local Agri-food Products in the Border Area of Northern Portugal and Castilla-Léon

Even in relatively peripheral areas, such as the Portuguese-Spanish border regions, agriculture and food systems have changed greatly in the last decades. Traditional agricultural systems have been declining and some products are no longer appreciated, or even tend to become quantitatively insignificant. Not only are producers ageing but their knowledge and know-how along with the local genetic heritage and biodiversity associated with farming are at risk of disappearing. Local products and markets have been progressively integrated into the larger framework of the global food market. Distributors, restaurant owners and consumers in general rely more and more on exogenous food products, despite the undeniable quality of the existing products and the emerging new urban demand for these products at a larger scale. Recent studies show that there is still room for small-scale production and localized food systems, although a considerable effort needs to be made if they are to be strengthened or re-established. This paper presents a comparative study of both the potential and limitations of traditional local products in the border area of Northern Portugal and the Spanish Province of Salamanca, in Castilla-Léon. It analyzes the types of products, production processes, qualification strategies, as well as the markets and commercialization approaches. The study is based on official published documents and interviews with local producers. Results show that the Portuguese regions are better positioned in terms of number of producers of traditional products, especially the organic products. On the whole, the major difficulties seem to lie in adequately qualifying, promoting and commercializing the products. Besides, co-operation among local agri-food entrepreneurs (in each zone and across the border) is quite feeble and does pose a challenge for the future. In general, localized systems tend to be quite weak, due to the decrease in population and the poor co-ordination among actors and the organization of local supply chains.Local agri-food products, peripheral areas, Portugal, Spain., Agribusiness, Agricultural and Food Policy, Community/Rural/Urban Development, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, Labor and Human Capital,

Managing substitutive and complementary technologies in cultural institutions: Market/mission perspectives

Digitalization and artificial intelligence are changing modern business organizations. New technologies help to analyze business environment, track customers, control work performance and improve prod-ucts. The aforementioned phenomenon has received considerably little attention in current literature on culture management. Our goal is to find (1) what types of technologies are used by cultural institutions (CIs) and (2) for what reason. The hypothesis of the article is that CIs use various technologies and tools. Websites, leaflets and audiovisual materials of 139 CIs around the world (theaters, art galleries, opera houses, museums) were analyzed. It was found that CIs use both complementary (CT) as well as substitutive technologies (ST) for managerial and mission-oriented purposes. In our article, the matrix of technologies used by CIs is proposed. Our findings suggest that CIs adapt to changing technological environment by implementing tools that support them in the mission’s fulfillment and management. Moreover, new technologies are used by CIs as both employees’ reinforcement as well as their replace-ment

Graph Neural Networks Meet Neural-Symbolic Computing: A Survey and Perspective

Neural-symbolic computing has now become the subject of interest of both academic and industry research laboratories. Graph Neural Networks (GNN) have been widely used in relational and symbolic domains, with widespread application of GNNs in combinatorial optimization, constraint satisfaction, relational reasoning and other scientific domains. The need for improved explainability, interpretability and trust of AI systems in general demands principled methodologies, as suggested by neural-symbolic computing. In this paper, we review the state-of-the-art on the use of GNNs as a model of neural-symbolic computing. This includes the application of GNNs in several domains as well as its relationship to current developments in neural-symbolic computing.Comment: Updated version, draft of accepted IJCAI2020 Survey Pape

Ética ficcional-cartográfica: a procura humilde e a força frágil

Este artigo é um ensaio teórico-metodológico, no qual se problematiza a estratégia metodológica da cartografia-ficcional focando na questão ética de tal prática em sua invenção de mundos. Postura ética aqui operada na ficção-cartográfica pelos conceitos de procura humilde (Clarice Lispector) e de força frágil (Friedrich Nietzsche). A criação de uma personagem ficcional (Helena) delineia-se como ferramenta que possibilita o desvio heterotópico na construção do campo problemático e do corpo-pesquisa. Postura ética de experimentação e construção de problematizações que conduz a desvios e reinventares dos nossos regimes de dizibilidade e visibilidade. Cartografia e ficção agenciam-se em uma escrita heterotópica: possibilitando outramentos, desvios e deslocamentos em relação aos objetos dados.This article is a theoretical-methodological essay, in which the methodological strategy of cartography-fiction is problematized focusing in the ethical question of such practice in its invention of worlds. Ethical stance here operated in fiction-cartographic by the concepts of humble quest (Clarice Lispector) and fragile force (Friedrich Nietzsche). The creation of a fictional character (Helena) delineates as a tool that enables the heterotopic deviation in the construction of the problematic field and the body-research. Ethical posture of experimentation and construction of problematizations that leads to deviations and reinventing our regimes of readability and visibility. Cartography and fiction are organized in a heterotopic writing: making possible otherness, deviations and displacements in relation to the given objects.Este artigo é um ensaio teórico-metodológico, no qual se problematiza a estratégia metodológica da cartografia-ficcional focando na questão ética de tal prática em sua invenção de mundos. Postura ética aqui operada na ficção-cartográfica pelos conceitos de procura humilde (Clarice Lispector) e de força frágil (Friedrich Nietzsche). A criação de uma personagem ficcional (Helena) delineia-se como ferramenta que possibilita o desvio heterotópico na construção do campo problemático e do corpo-pesquisa. Postura ética de experimentação e construção de problematizações que conduz a desvios e reinventares dos nossos regimes de dizibilidade e visibilidade. Cartografia e ficção agenciam-se em uma escrita heterotópica: possibilitando outramentos, desvios e deslocamentos em relação aos objetos dados.Este artigo é um ensaio teórico-metodológico, no qual se problematiza a estratégia metodológica da cartografia-ficcional focando na questão ética de tal prática em sua invenção de mundos. Postura ética aqui operada na ficção-cartográfica pelos conceitos de procura humilde (Clarice Lispector) e de força frágil (Friedrich Nietzsche). A criação de uma personagem ficcional (Helena) delineia-se como ferramenta que possibilita o desvio heterotópico na construção do campo problemático e do corpo-pesquisa. Postura ética de experimentação e construção de problematizações que conduz a desvios e reinventares dos nossos regimes de dizibilidade e visibilidade. Cartografia e ficção agenciam-se em uma escrita heterotópica: possibilitando outramentos, desvios e deslocamentos em relação aos objetos dados

FISIDABO Project: bringing science to TIBIDABO amusement park

An amusement park is a giant physics laboratory where Newton laws come to live in a very intense way. Taking advantage of this fact we have developed an educative project in Barcelona¿s amusement park TIBIDABO to bring science in general, and specifically physics, to young students and to the general public. Under the generic name FISIDABO we have developed a series of activities that are targeted to different publics.Objectius de Desenvolupament Sostenible::4 - Educació de QualitatPostprint (published version

Continuous flow Aza-Michael reaction for preparing the fast-acting synthetic opioid drug Remifentanil

Remifentanil is a modern fentanyl analogue with ultrashort-action granted by an esterase-labile methyl propanoate chain. Here, we present the development of a continuous flow methodology for the key N-alkylation step of remifentanil preparation in a biphasic, “slug-flow” regime. We screened parameters under microwave-assisted reactions, translated conditions to flow settings, and obtained remifentanil under 15-min residence time in a 1-mL microreactor, with a space-time yield of 89 mg/mL·h and 94% yield

LIBEROPINION –A Web Platform for Public Participation

info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Estimating Trotter Approximation Errors to Optimize Hamiltonian Partitioning for Lower Eigenvalue Errors

One of the ways to encode many-body Hamiltonians on a quantum computer to obtain their eigen-energies through Quantum Phase Estimation is by means of the Trotter approximation. There were several ways proposed to assess the quality of this approximation based on estimating the norm of the difference between the exact and approximate evolution operators. Here, we would like to explore how these different error estimates are correlated with each other and whether they can be good predictors for the true Trotter approximation error in finding eigenvalues. For a set of small molecular systems we calculated the exact Trotter approximation errors of the first order Trotter formulas for the ground state electronic energies. Comparison of these errors with previously used upper bounds show almost no correlation over the systems and various Hamiltonian partitionings. On the other hand, building the Trotter approximation error estimation based on perturbation theory up to a second order in the time-step for eigenvalues provides estimates with very good correlations with the Trotter approximation errors. The developed perturbative estimates can be used for practical time-step and Hamiltonian partitioning selection protocols, which are paramount for an accurate assessment of resources needed for the estimation of energy eigenvalues under a target accuracy.Comment: 3 figure