The diversity of gendered adaptation strategies to climate change of Indian farmers: a feminist intersectional approach

This paper examines climate change adaptation and gender issues through an application of a feminist intersectional approach. This approach permits the identification of diverse adaptation responses arising from the existence of multiple and fragmented dimensions of identity (including gender) that intersect with power relations to shape situation-specific interactions between farmers and ecosystems. Based on results from contrasting research cases in Bihar and Uttarakhand, India, this paper demonstrates, inter alia, that there are geographically determined gendered preferences and adoption strategies regarding adaptation options and that these are influenced by the socio-ecological context and institutional dynamics. Intersecting identities, such as caste, wealth, age and gender, influence decisions and reveal power dynamics and negotiation within the household and the community, as well as barriers to adaptation among groups. Overall, the findings suggest that a feminist intersectional approach does appear to be useful and worth further exploration in the context of climate change adaptation. In particular, future research could benefit from more emphasis on a nuanced analysis of the intra-gender differences that shape adaptive capacity to climate change

The farmer as a landscape steward: Comparing local understandings of landscape stewardship, landscape values, and land management actions

We develop a landscape stewardship classification which distinguishes between farmers’ understanding of landscape stewardship, their landscape values, and land management actions. Forty semi-structured interviews were conducted with smallholder (5 acres), medium-holders (5-100 acres), and large- holders (100 acres) in South-West Devon, UK. Thematic analysis revealed four types of stewardship understandings: (1) an environmental frame which emphasized the farmers’ role in conserving or restoring wildlife; (2) a primary production frame which emphasized the farmers’ role in taking care of primary production assets; (3) a holistic frame focusing on farmers’ role as a conservationist, primary producer, and manager of a range of landscape values, and; (4) an instrumental frame focusing on the financial benefits associated with compliance with agri-environmental schemes. We compare the landscape values and land management actions that emerged across stewardship types, and discuss the global implications of the landscape stewardship classification for the engagement of farmers in landscape management

The envelope of IRC+10216 reflecting the galactic light: UBV surface brightness photometry and interpretation

We present and analyse new optical images of the dust envelope surrounding the high mass-loss carbon star IRC+10216. This envelope is seen due to external illumination by galactic light. Intensity profiles and colors of the nebula were obtained in the UBV bandpasses. The data are compared with the results of a radiative transfer model calculating multiple scattering of interstellar field photons by dust grains with a single radius. The data show that the observed radial shape of the nebula, especially its half maximum radius, does not depend on wavelength (within experimental errors), suggesting that grains scatter in the grey regime, etc, etc (this abstract has been shortened)Comment: accepted by A

String and string-inspired phenomenology

In these lectures I review the progress made over the last few years in the subject of string and string-inspired phenomenology. I take a practical approach, thereby concentrating more on explicit examples rather than on formal developments. Topics covered include: introduction to string theory, the free-fermionic formulation and its general features, generic conformal field theory properties, $SU(5)\times U(1)$ GUT and string model-building, supersymmetry breaking, the bottom-up approach to string-inspired models, radiative electroweak symmetry breaking, the determination of the allowed parameter space of supergravity models and the experimental constraints on this class of models, and prospects for direct and indirect tests of string-inspired models. (Lectures delivered at the XXII ITEP International Winter School of Physics, Moscow, Russia, February 22 -- March 2, 1994)Comment: CTP-TAMU-17/94, 39 pages (latex), 27 figures (not included). Figures are available via anonymous ftp from hplaa02.cern.ch (/pub/lopez) as one uuencoded file (MoscowFigs.uu, 1.31MB

PEPPER: Patient Empowerment Through Predictive Personalised Decision Support

PEPPER is a newly-launched three-year research project, funded by the EU Horizon 2020 Framework. It will create a portable personalised decision support system to empower individuals on insulin therapy to self-manage their condition. PEPPER employs Case- Based Reasoning to advise about insulin bolus doses, drawing on various sources of physiological, lifestyle, environmental and social data. It also uses a Model-Based Reasoning approach to maximise users’ safety. The system will be integrated with an unobtrusive insulin patch pump and has a patient-centric development approach in order to improve patient self-efficacy and adherence to treatment

Monitoring degradation mechanisms in PTB7:PC71BM photovoltaic cells by means of impedance spectroscopy

© 2016. This version is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/We have used impedance spectroscopy technique to monitor degradation mechanisms in organic solar cells based on a blend of PTB7:PC71BM. We have measured the impedance of the cell on a periodical basis for almost four months, and experimental data have been modeled using three different circuits. The evolution of the circuital parameters gives information about the device dynamical mechanisms. We have observed at high voltages a low frequency feature that is more pronounced along days of measurement. This low frequency arc has been associated to charge accumulation that is related to a worsening of charge extraction through the contacts. The simultaneous increase of recombination and low frequency resistances at high voltages (around V-oc) results in a decrease of the fill factor and therefore of the efficiency.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Universality of low-energy scattering in (2+1) dimensions

We prove that, in (2+1) dimensions, the S-wave phase shift, $\delta_0(k)$, k being the c.m. momentum, vanishes as either $\delta_0 \to {c\over \ln (k/m)} or \delta_0 \to O(k^2)$ as $k\to 0$. The constant $c$ is universal and $c=\pi/2$. This result is established first in the framework of the Schr\"odinger equation for a large class of potentials, second for a massive field theory from proved analyticity and unitarity, and, finally, we look at perturbation theory in $\phi_3^4$ and study its relation to our non-perturbative result. The remarkable fact here is that in n-th order the perturbative amplitude diverges like $(\ln k)^n$ as $k\to 0$, while the full amplitude vanishes as $(\ln k)^{-1}$. We show how these two facts can be reconciled.Comment: 23 pages, Late

Ambient-pressure molecular superconductor with a superlattice containing layers of tris(oxalato)rhodate enantiomers and 18-crown-6

We report a novel multilayered organic-inorganic hybrid material, β”-(BEDT-TTF)2[(H2O)(NH4)2Rh(C2O4)3].18-crown-6. This is the first molecular superconductor to have a superlattice with layers of both BEDT-TTF and 18-crown-6, and also the first with the anion tris(oxalato)rhodate. This is the 2D superconductor with the widest gap between conducting layers where only a single donor packing motif is observed (β”). The strong 2D nature of this system strong-ly suggests that the superconducting transition is a KT transition. A superconducting Tc of 2.7 K at ambient pressure was found by transport and 2.5 K by magnetic susceptibility measurements