20,220 research outputs found
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 farmersâ 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 farmersâ role in conserving or restoring wildlife; (2) a primary production frame which emphasized the farmersâ role in taking care of primary production assets; (3) a holistic frame focusing on farmersâ 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, 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 usersâ 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, , k
being the c.m. momentum, vanishes as either as . The constant is universal and .
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
and study its relation to our non-perturbative result. The
remarkable fact here is that in n-th order the perturbative amplitude diverges
like as , while the full amplitude vanishes as . We show how these two facts can be reconciled.Comment: 23 pages, Late
A multidisciplinary modeling approach to assess facies-dolomitization-porosity interdependence in a lower cretaceous platform (Northern spain)
An innovative methodology for diagenesis characterization and quantification is presented. It includes different geostatistical modeling workflows applied to a partially dolomitized carbonate platform. The case study consists of a Lower Cretaceous (upper Aptian) shallow-water carbonate platform from the Basque\u2013Cantabrian basin (northern Spain), in which a widespread burial dolomitization occurs. Previous studies at basin scale suggested that the flow of dolomitizing fluids through the carbonate succession was channeled by regional faults and that subsequently the dolomite distribution was partially controlled by depositional facies and their modifications after early meteoric diagenesis. Here, at reservoir scale, several carbonate facies were differentiated and grouped in five depositional environments. Two depositional sequences corresponding to transgressive\u2013regressive cycles and three stages of the platform evolution were distinguished. The statistical data treatment indicated that the dolomitization is mainly concentrated in the regressive part of the first sequence, corresponding to the second stage of the platform evolution. The most dolomitized environments are the inner platforms and the shoal. Facies from these shallower/proximal depositional environments were more exposed to early meteoric diagenesis, possibly controlling later dolomitization. The total macroscopic porosity is directly proportional to the degree of dolomitization: pores are most abundant in fully dolomitized portions of the succession, particularly in the rudist-bearing and grain-dominated facies. Abundant aragonitic shells (rudists, corals), easily leached or recrystallized during early meteoric diagenesis, could justify the higher moldic porosity in these facies. For geostatistical modeling purposes, several statistical rules were elaborated in order to associate to each depositional environment, in each of the three platform stages, different proportions of dolomitization and related pore abundance. A direct simulation of the distribution of depositional environments, degree of dolomitization, and pore abundance was achieved using a bi-plurigaussian simulation (PGS) algorithm. A nested-PGS algorithm was used to simulate the same parameters independently: dolomite and pore abundance were distributed within each depositional environment, based on the statistical rules previously defined. These simulations allowed three-dimensional (3D) visualization of the original depositional facies and textures affecting the distribution of dolomitization and pore abundance. Modeling using both bi-PGS and nested simulations accounted for the 3D dolomite body extension: the dolomitized succession is thicker in the north and thins toward the south, in agreement with evidence from mapping of the dolomite geobodies
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