An equitable alternative to conventional agriculture? Discourses of whiteness and color-blind racism in local foods systems

There has been an increasing volume of scholarship and activism that positions local foods systems as a more equitable alternative to the globalized agrifood system. One of the key assumptions that informs local foods activism and scholarship is that localism addresses the injustices associated with the placeless globalized industrial agrifood system. As a result, a discourse has emerged that assumes the local to be a site of social, economic, and environmental justice. Though many local food movement participants presume local food systems to be more economically, socially, and environmentally just than the conventional globalized agricultural system, narratives of whiteness and color-blind racism within the local foods movement permeate the movement’s collective discourse. This research examines movement discourses evoked by active, engaged participants across the local food systems movement, and how discourses evoked demonstrate hegemonic whiteness and color-blind racism. Further, examples of subversion, struggle, and rejection of whitened discourses are provided. Data analyzed in this paper includes utterances data from practitioners, researchers, farmers, advocates, activists, and more from in-depth semi-structured interviews. I argue that a critique of white privilege within our local foods movements and a disruption of “local means equitable” is necessary to build sustainable agrifood movements that dismantle injustices typically associated with the globalized agrifood system

A discrete element method representation of an anisotropic elastic continuum

A method for modeling cubically anisotropic elasticity within the discrete element method is presented. The discrete element method (DEM) is an approach originally intended for modeling granular materials (sand, soil, and powders); however, recent developments have usefully extended it to model stochastic mechanical processes in monolithic solids which, to date, have been assumed to be elastically isotropic. The method presented here for efficiently capturing cubic elasticity in DEM is an important prerequisite for further extending DEM to capture the influence of elastic anisotropy on the mechanical response of polycrystals, composites, etc. The system demonstrated here uses a directionally assigned stiffness in the bonds between adjacent elements and includes separate schemes for achieving anisotropy with Zener ratios greater and smaller than one. The model framework is presented along with an analysis of the accessible space of elastic properties that can be modeled and an artificial neural network interpolation scheme for mapping input parameters to model elastic behavior

Funding Opportunities in Local Foods

This study presents information about 31 federal, state and private grant programs that are available as funding sources for development of local food systems. The summary includes name of the program, general eligibility and deadlines, and website links for further details

Discerning nuclear pairing properties from magnetic dipole excitation

Pairing correlation of Cooper pair is a fundamental property of multi-fermion interacting systems. For nucleons, two modes of the Cooper-pair coupling may exist, namely of $S_{12}=0$ with $L_{12}=0$ (spin-singlet s-wave) and $S_{12}=1$ with $L_{12}=1$ (spin-triplet p-wave). In nuclear physics, it has been an open question whether the spin-singlet or spin-triplet coupling is dominant, as well as how to measure their role. We investigate a relation between the magnetic-dipole (M1) excitation of nuclei and the pairing modes within the framework of relativistic nuclear energy-density functional (RNEDF). The pairing correlations are taken into account by the relativistic Hartree-Bogoliubov (RHB) model in the ground state, and the relativistic quasi-particle random-phase approximation (RQRPA) is employed to describe M1 transitions. We have shown that M1 excitation properties display a sensitivity on the pairing model involved in the calculations. The systematic evaluation of M1 transitions together with the accurate experimental data enables us to discern the pairing properties in finite nuclei.Comment: 5 pages, 6 figure

Supporting Local Food System Development in Your Community

Supporting Local Food System Development in Your Community provides local government officials, community activists, and others with seven steps to help organize and promote the development of a local food system in your community.https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/extension_pubs/1010/thumbnail.jp

A critical dislocation velocity for serration mechanism transition in a nickel-chromium solid solution alloy

The influence of strain rate across three orders of magnitude (1.70 × 10−5/s to 1.43 × 10−2/s) along with the effect of the plastic strain accumulation (up to 10%) on the serrated plastic flow were investigated in the nickel-chromium (Ni-Cr) solid solution alloy Nimonic 75 by performing constant-strain-rate tension testing at 600 °C. As the strain rate decreased, the critical strain for the onset of serrations transitioned from normal behavior to inverse behavior. The serrated flow was characterized as Type A+B serration at high strain rate (1.43 × 10−2/s). In the intermediate strain-rate regime (1.43 × 10−3/s and 1.45 × 10−4/s), Type B serrations were observed and followed by a transformation to Type C+B serrations. At the low strain rate (1.70 × 10−5/s), the plastic flow immediately displayed Type C serrations, which later evolved into Type C+B serrations. Regardless of the strain rate, plastic strain, or dislocation density, a critical dislocation velocity falling in the range of 1.2 × 10−6 – 2.2 × 10−6 m/s was identified to signify the onset of Type C serration, whereby the mobile dislocations break free from the solute cloud for short bursts of deformation. Finally, a novel model by solute rearrangement across dislocation cores was used to understand how the critical dislocation velocity is quantitatively determined by the rate at which solute atoms are able to hop across the glide plane as a partial dislocation core moves through the lattice

Nuclear Rocket Facility Decommissioning Project: Controlled Explosive Demolition of Neutron Activated Shield Wall

Located in Area 25 of the Nevada Test Site (NTS), the Test Cell A (TCA) Facility was used in the early to mid-1960s for the testing of nuclear rocket engines, as part of the Nuclear Rocket Development Program, to further space travel. Nuclear rocket testing resulted in the activation of materials around the reactors and the release of fission products and fuel particles in the immediate area. Identified as Corrective Action Unit 115, the TCA facility was decontaminated and decommissioned (D&D) from December 2004 to July 2005 using the Streamlined Approach for Environmental Restoration (SAFER) process, under the ''Federal Facility Agreement and Consent Order''. The SAFER process allows environmental remediation and facility closure activities (i.e., decommissioning) to occur simultaneously provided technical decisions are made by an experienced decision maker within the site conceptual site model, identified in the Data Quality Objective process. Facility closure involved a seven-step decommissioning strategy. Key lessons learned from the project included: (1) Targeted preliminary investigation activities provided a more solid technical approach, reduced surprises and scope creep, and made the working environment safer for the D&D worker. (2) Early identification of risks and uncertainties provided opportunities for risk management and mitigation planning to address challenges and unanticipated conditions. (3) Team reviews provided an excellent mechanism to consider all aspects of the task, integrated safety into activity performance, increase team unity and ''buy-in'' and promoted innovative and time saving ideas. (4) Development of CED protocols ensured safety and control. (5) The same proven D&D strategy is now being employed on the larger ''sister'' facility, Test Cell C