Organic farming systems benefit biodiversity and natural pest regulation in white cabbage

Natural regulation of cabbage root flies works well in experimental organic cropping systems of white cabbage. Low input and complex organic systems benefit functional biodiversity by providing good living conditions to several groups of natural enemies. Intercropped green manure benefits large predators while small predatory beetles favour low input organic systems with bare soil between crop rows

Delimiting Deviance: Visual and Verbal Representations of Scandal on British TV News

When moral boundaries are defined, TV news storytelling plays an important role. This paper explores the visual and verbal markers that construct the categories of right and wrong, normal and deviant, us and them. By stressing the bonds between ‘the media’ and ‘the public’, TV storytellers assume the legitimacy to frame and represent social reality. Traditionally, the media have pointed out deviance among the lower strata of the population, but powerful individuals and institutions are increasingly identified as wrongdoers. Using the Mid Staffs hospital scandal as a case study, this article examines how TV news employ scandal to describe deviance in the higher echelons of society and the exposure of the wrongdoings to ‘us’, the public. This process takes place on several levels, from visual and verbal storytelling to shifting cultural and social structures. How these moral tales and social shifts influence each other is a central part of the discussion here. The boundary between normal and deviant behaviour is changing, influencing both the way people think about themselves and the societies they live in

Some operators that preserve the locality of a pseudovariety of semigroups

It is shown that if V is a local monoidal pseudovariety of semigroups, then K(m)V, D(m)V and LI(m)V are local. Other operators of the form Z(m)(_) are considered. In the process, results about the interplay between operators Z(m)(_) and (_)*D_k are obtained.Comment: To appear in International Journal of Algebra and Computatio

Experiencing local news online: audience practices and perceptions

This article explores how audiences experience local news online. It discusses the findings of an empirical study that examined why audiences consumed local news online, what sources they were most likely to access, how important distributing platforms were in local news use, and what users understood by local news. The research had a qualitative design applying diaries as its main method collecting data in the South-East of England in 2016 and 2017. The findings suggest that there is no shared understanding among audience members about what local news is in the digital environment. The study identified three predominant ways in which participants understood local news: as personally relevant or interesting information, as content produced by legacy local media brands, and as community engagement. The study also found that each of the different understandings of local news was linked to particular online news consumption and engagement patterns. The paper argues that audience perceptions of news should be studied alongside motivations for and practices of news engagement and consumption in order to gain a comprehensive understanding of audiences and news in the digital age

Økologisk dyrkning af hvidkål fremmer biodiversitet og naturlig regulering af skadedyr

Naturlig regulering af kålfluer er effektiv i økologisk dyrkede hvidkålsparceller. Økologiske dyrkningssystemer med lavt input og høj strukturel kompleksitet skaber gode livsbetingelser for en række nyttedyr. Mellemafgrøder af foregående sæsons grøngødning gavner de store arter, mens små løbe- og rovbiller bliver tilgodeset i et økologisk system med bar jord mellem afgrøderækkerne

On groups and counter automata

We study finitely generated groups whose word problems are accepted by counter automata. We show that a group has word problem accepted by a blind n-counter automaton in the sense of Greibach if and only if it is virtually free abelian of rank n; this result, which answers a question of Gilman, is in a very precise sense an abelian analogue of the Muller-Schupp theorem. More generally, if G is a virtually abelian group then every group with word problem recognised by a G-automaton is virtually abelian with growth class bounded above by the growth class of G. We consider also other types of counter automata.Comment: 18 page

Categorical Foundation of Quantum Mechanics and String Theory

The unification of Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity remains the primary goal of Theoretical Physics, with string theory appearing as the only plausible unifying scheme. In the present work, in a search of the conceptual foundations of string theory, we analyze the relational logic developed by C. S. Peirce in the late nineteenth century. The Peircean logic has the mathematical structure of a category with the relation $R_{ij}$ among two individual terms $S_i$ and $S_j$, serving as an arrow (or morphism). We introduce a realization of the corresponding categorical algebra of compositions, which naturally gives rise to the fundamental quantum laws, thus indicating category theory as the foundation of Quantum Mechanics. The same relational algebra generates a number of group structures, among them $W_{\infty}$. The group $W_{\infty}$ is embodied and realized by the matrix models, themselves closely linked with string theory. It is suggested that relational logic and in general category theory may provide a new paradigm, within which to develop modern physical theories.Comment: To appear in International Journal of Modern Physics

Effective Theories for Circuits and Automata

Abstracting an effective theory from a complicated process is central to the study of complexity. Even when the underlying mechanisms are understood, or at least measurable, the presence of dissipation and irreversibility in biological, computational and social systems makes the problem harder. Here we demonstrate the construction of effective theories in the presence of both irreversibility and noise, in a dynamical model with underlying feedback. We use the Krohn-Rhodes theorem to show how the composition of underlying mechanisms can lead to innovations in the emergent effective theory. We show how dissipation and irreversibility fundamentally limit the lifetimes of these emergent structures, even though, on short timescales, the group properties may be enriched compared to their noiseless counterparts.Comment: 11 pages, 9 figure

Scandalising the NHS- the construction of healthcare and deviance in the BBC and ITV coverage of the Mid Staffordshire hospital scandal

In this study, I examine how the BBC and ITV News at Ten covered the Mid Staffordshire hospital scandal between 17 March 2009 and 17 March 2014. The analysis focuses on the construction of healthcare and deviance in TV health news storytelling, and the institutional and individual social actors involved in the process. The failings themselves included the mistreatment and sometimes death of hundreds of patients at a local hospital in Stafford. These events led to an institutional scandal, where not only the local institution but the entire NHS, its culture and its leadership were identified as deviant folk devils. Drawing on approaches from sociology, criminology, journalism and media studies, I analyse the case study from a social constructivist perspective. The theoretical and conceptual framework includes storytelling, discourse, encoding and scandal, whilst the methodology combines analyses of TV news content with interviews with BBC and ITV news workers. Thereby, I engage with the reports themselves, the process of encoding them, and the power relations involved. The production of TV health news was negotiated between health and political specialists, who used different narrative strategies, such as interviews, to make the storytelling engaging. As for the TV coverage of the Mid Staffordshire hospital scandal, it went through four different phases: activations, reactions, amplification and justice. Each phase had its characteristics in terms of social actors and scandal processes, which served to drive the storytelling forward until the narrative became fixed by 2014. As such, I found that the process of scandalising the NHS reflects deeper and ongoing social changes regarding the media’s construction of powerful institutions and individuals as well as the wider issue of trust in authorities