Sun of Justice Rising: Tonatierra Community Development Institute

Salvador Reza, a longtime organizer for indigenous Mexican rights, helped lead a successful campaign to organize taco vendors in Phoenix. Faced with a local ordinance that would restrict the operation of mobile food stands, effectively banning them, Reza and his colleagues at Tonatierra mobilized the vendors to fight back. Their ultimate success recaptured the spirit of a community traumatized by 500 years of colonization and cultural destruction. Tonatierra's strategies included the following:Involve Vendors: Once vendors understood that the ordinance targeted them and threatened their livelihoods, they were able to establish a working group, representative of the community. They fashioned a way of regulating vendors that would ensure safe food and safe neighborhoods.Create a Team and a United Voice: The vendors negotiated among themselves until they could present their recommendations as a team.Rekindle Culture: According to Reza, "We are fighting back, but not with weapons of guns. Our weapons are culture and understanding and communication.

Economic valuation of the impacts of climate change in Agriculture in Europe

The objective of this study is to provide a European assessment of the potential effects of climate change on agricultural crop production computing monetary estimates of these impacts for the European agricultural sector. The future scenarios incorporate socio economic projections derived from several SRES scenarios and climate projections obtained from global climate models and regional climate models. The quantitative results are based simulations using the GTAP general equilibrium models system that includes all relevant economic activities. The estimated changes in the exports and imports of agricultural goods, value of GDP and crop prices under the climate and socio-economic scenarios show significant regional differences between northern and southern European countries. The patterns are positive effects except on Mediterranean countries. The most important increases seem to concern the continental region, where the productivity increases enlarge GDP more intensively due to the importance of agricultural sector in the region. The monetary estimates also show that in all cases uncertainty derived from socio-economic scenarios has a larger effect than the ones derived from climate scenarios

Are you Charlie or Ahmed? Cultural pluralism in Charlie Hebdo response on Twitter

We study the response to the Charlie Hebdo shootings of January 7, 2015 on Twitter across the globe. We ask whether the stances on the issue of freedom of speech can be modeled using established sociological theories, including Huntington's culturalist Clash of Civilizations, and those taking into consideration social context, including Density and Interdependence theories. We find support for Huntington's culturalist explanation, in that the established traditions and norms of one's "civilization" predetermine some of one's opinion. However, at an individual level, we also find social context to play a significant role, with non-Arabs living in Arab countries using #JeSuisAhmed ("I am Ahmed") five times more often when they are embedded in a mixed Arab/non-Arab (mention) network. Among Arabs living in the West, we find a great variety of responses, not altogether associated with the size of their expatriate community, suggesting other variables to be at play.Comment: International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media (ICWSM), 201

Strategies used by the teacher for to manage of their emotions

En el presente ensayo daremos a conocer la importancia de las estrategias para el manejo de las emociones, en los diferentes procesos de aprendizaje para el docente, para su bienestar y cómo se convierte así en modelo para sus estudiantes. Para alcanzarlo se ha acudido a varios documentos y autores, que abordan el asunto de la inteligencia emocional y manejo de emociones en este proceso, determinando que es fundamental implementar estas estrategias para manejar las emociones no sólo en el desempeño de la profesión, sino también en el ámbito personal del docente; debido a que la educación emocional corrobora una excelente integridad de buena formación moral y social en los resultados generados en el presente ensayo, se listaron una serie de estrategias para manejar las emociones; estas fueron obtenidas considerado los objetivos propuestos, en el ensayo actual podemos concluir que el manejo de las emociones genera de forma inmediata una diferencia significativa.In this essay we will present the importance of strategies for the management of emotions, in the different learning processes for the teacher, for their well-being and how it becomes a model for their students. To achieve this, several documents and authors have been approached, which address the issue of emotional intelligence and emotion management in this process, determining that it is fundamental to implement these strategies to handle emotions not only in the performance of the profession, but also in the personal scope of the teacher; because emotional education corroborates an excellent integrity of good moral and social formation in the results generated in this essay, a series of strategies to manage emotions were listed; these were obtained considering the objectives proposed for the present study, in this essay we can conclude that the management of emotions immediately generates a significant difference between the education of a time ago and the current, thus constituting new forms of education for the benefit of the interest of teachers and their students during the development of the learning process, generating as such a good educational well-being

Enhancing Quality Teaching Through Informal Community Learning In Knowledge Centres

Teaching and learning have always been at the heart of the missions of universities. The growing interest nowadays to pay attention to the quality of higher education teaching results in initiatives such as the establishment of Teaching and Learning Centres (TLCs). The Academy for Learning and Teaching (ALT) at Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) has recently been created, and it is still under construction, with the purpose of promoting quality of teaching through engaging staff in interaction and in learning lessons from evidence-based educational practices and innovation in engineering education. Furthermore, ALT supports the professional development of faculty teaching staff through Learning Communities (LCs) as informal learning mechanisms that stimulate knowledge sharing about engineering education experiences across departments (and universities). LCs facilitate interaction with peers, discussions on educational practices, working in teams, and exposing academic and education support staff to have access to stateof-the-art research and information on educational issues. LCs are organized by themes, such as Digitalization, that cover topics relevant to innovative practices, e.g., Learning Analytics, Artificial Intelligence in education or Digital Assessment. The purpose of this study is to present the ALT model as a knowledge centre in engineering education that stimulates the advancement of quality teaching. Specifically, we analyze successful factors to constitute Learning Communities, as well as, the motivation of the teaching staff to participate in the LC associated to the TU/e ALT. ALT may serve as an inspiring model for other engineering and technical higher education institutions and universities wishing to promote professional development of teachers

Crop yields response to water pressures in the Ebro basin in Spain: risk and water policy implications

he increasing pressure on water systems in the Mediterranean enhances existing water conflicts and threatens water supply for agriculture. In this context, one of the main priorities for agricultural research and public policy is the adaptation of crop yields to water pressures. This paper focuses on the evaluation of hydrological risk and water policy implications for food production. Our methodological approach includes four steps. For the first step, we estimate the impacts of rainfall and irrigation water on crop yields. However, this study is not limited to general crop production functions since it also considers the linkages between those economic and biophysical aspects which may have an important effect on crop productivity. We use statistical models of yield response to address how hydrological variables affect the yield of the main Mediterranean crops in the Ebro river basin. In the second step, this study takes into consideration the effects of those interactions and analyzes gross value added sensitivity to crop production changes. We then use Montecarlo simulations to characterize crop yield risk to water variability. Finally we evaluate some policy scenarios with irrigated area adjustments that could cope in a context of increased water scarcity. A substantial decrease in irrigated land, of up to 30% of total, results in only moderate losses of crop productivity. The response is crop and region specific and may serve to prioritise adaptation strategies

Increasing antibiotic resistance in preservative-tolerant bacterial strains isolated from cosmetic products

To ensure the microbiological quality, consumer safety and organoleptic properties of cosmetic products, manufacturers need to comply with defined standards using several preservatives and disinfectants. A drawback regarding the use of these preservatives is the possibility of generating cross-insusceptibility to other disinfectants or preservatives, as well as cross resistance to antibiotics. Therefore, the objective of this study was to understand the adaptive mechanisms of Enterobacter gergoviae, Pseudomonas putida and Burkholderia cepacia that are involved in recurrent contamination in cosmetic products containing preservatives. Diminished susceptibility to formaldehyde-donors was detected in isolates but not to other preservatives commonly used in the cosmetics industry, although increasing resistance to different antibiotics (β-lactams, quinolones, rifampicin, and tetracycline) was demonstrated in these strains when compared with the wild-type strain. The outer membrane protein modifications and efflux mechanism activities responsible for the resistance trait were evaluated. The development of antibiotic-resistant microorganisms due to the selective pressure from preservatives included in cosmetic products could be a risk for the emergence and spread of bacterial resistance in the environment. Nevertheless, the large contribution of disinfection and preservation cannot be denied in cosmetic products. [Int Microbiol 2015; 18(1):51-59]Keywords: Enterobacter · Pseudomonas · Burkholderia · cosmetic preservatives · antibiotics · cross-resistanc

La agricultura española y el cambio climático

Debido a las interacciones del sector agrícola con el medio natural, el cambio climático supondrá grandes cambios para la agricultura. Si bien muchos de estos cambios se darán por un aumento en los riesgos a los que expone la agricultura, también cabe destacar las oportunidades que se crearán debido a los impactos heterogéneos que acarreará el cambio climático. Frente a estos riesgos y oportunidades, la agricultura deberá colaborar en la mitigación de gases de efecto invernadero así como desarrollar estrategias de adaptación para asegurar la productividad en el futuro. Este artículo presenta un resumen de los impactos climáticos y de los riesgos y oportunidades que supondrá el cambio climático para la agricultura en España. Luego se discutirán las oportunidades de adaptación y de mitigación que existen para la agricultura

Risk of water scarcity and water policy implications for crop production in the Ebro basin in Spain

The increasing pressure on water systems in the Mediterranean enhances existing water conflicts and threatens water supply for agriculture. In this context, one of the main priorities for agricultural research and public policy is the adaptation of crop yields to water pressures. This paper focuses on the evaluation of hydrological risk and water policy implications for food production. Our methodological approach includes four steps. For the first step, we estimate the impacts of rainfall and irrigation water on crop yields. However, this study is not limited to general crop production functions since it also considers the linkages between those economic and biophysical aspects which may have an important effect on crop productivity. We use statistical models of yield response to address how hydrological variables affect the yield of the main Mediterranean crops in the Ebro River Basin. In the second step, this study takes into consideration the effects of those interactions and analyzes gross value added sensitivity to crop production changes. We then use Montecarlo simulations to characterize crop yield risk to water variability. Finally we evaluate some policy scenarios with irrigated area adjustments that could cope in a context of increased water scarcity. A substantial decrease in irrigated land, of up to 30% of total, results in only moderate losses of crop productivity. The response is crop and region specific and may serve to prioritise adaptation strategies