The political ecology of soybean farming systems in Mato Grosso, Brazil: a cross-scale analysis of farming styles in Querência-MT

Over the past two decades the expansion of soybean production in Brazil has been assessed and used as an example of the success or failure of large-scale, mechanized agricultural production. Indeed, the economic, social and environmental implications of this agricultural expansion are highly contested. Nevertheless, the complexity behind this process is rarely depicted. Instead simplistic and monolithic notions of agronegocio (agribusiness), and linear interpretations of soybean expansion are offered. These general accounts reduce agrarian dynamics, diversity of farming styles and differences in livelihoods to a homogenous phenomenon in all soybean production regions in Brazil. This limits the scope to understand processes of socio-technical, socio-economic and socio-environmental transformations and the existence of diverse pathways related to the soybean agri-food systems. This study therefore rejects the simple narratives, and argues for a more nuanced understanding of the diverse processes and dynamics between soybean farming styles and its actors' interactions as part of fast‐changing agri‐food systems. This is done through a case study approach in the municipality of Querência in the state Mato Grosso, Brazil. An examination of narratives (the ways different people talk about and construct farming and its objectives) and practices (the different farming styles and livelihood strategies) informs this analysis. In particular, the research explores how a heterogeneity of soybean farming styles – contrasting large-scale, medium-scale and smallholder soybean farmers – is constructed in a particular place, offering in turn a more nuanced account of the standard, highly polarised assessment of farming styles and their implications. It then contributes to an understanding of how policies and practices related to diverse soybean agri-food systems in Mato Grosso state are played out. This sheds light on how notions of rural development are constructed and how pathways to sustainable development are seen

Angels and monsters: An empirical investigation of potential test effectiveness and efficiency improvement from strongly subsuming higher order mutation

We study the simultaneous test effectiveness and efficiency improvement achievable by Strongly Subsuming Higher Order Mutants (SSHOMs), constructed from 15,792 first order mutants in four Java programs. Using SSHOMs in place of the first order mutants they subsume yielded a 35%-45% reduction in the number of mutants required, while simultaneously improving test efficiency by 15% and effectiveness by between 5.6% and 12%. Trivial first order faults often combine to form exceptionally non-trivial higher order faults; apparently innocuous angels can combine to breed monsters. Nevertheless, these same monsters can be recruited to improve automated test effectiveness and efficiency

MIGUEL MATEO DALLO Y LANA, MEXICAN BAROQUE COMPOSER: A FORGOTTEN TREASURE OF PUEBLA

Title from PDF of the title page, viewed on March 9, 2015Dissertation advisor: Robert BodeVitaDissertation (D.M.A)--Conservatory of Music and Dance. University of Missouri--Kansas City, 2011Includes bibliographical references (pages 158-159)As research into the Mexican Baroque continues to expand, forgotten composers and their works are garnering deserved attention. Miguel Mateo Dallo y Lana (c. 1650-1705), who served as maestro de capilla [chapel master] at the Puebla Cathedral from 1686 to 1705, belongs to the tradition of polychoral composition inherited from musicians of the Spanish Renaissance. His liturgical settings, specifically Domine ad adjubandum me festina/Dixit Dominus and Beatus Vir, contain traits indicative of the Baroque period as well. These works reveal the Dallo y Lana's compositional techniques, which include homophonic declamation of text intermingled with polyphonic episodic material, layered above basso continuo. He worked in a time just before Mexican composers fully embraced Italian models, placing him at the end of the mostly autonomous Mexican tradition.Abstract -- Acknowledgments - Introduction -- Life of Miguel Matel Dallo y Lana -- Dallo y Lana and his contemporaries -- Dallo y Lana and his compositional techniques -- Conclusion -- Appendix: Performance edition of Domine ad adjubandum me festina/dixit dominus -- Performance edition of Beatus vir -- Performance edition of Beatus vir (transposed down) -- Bibliograph

Collective decision-making on triadic graphs

Many real-world networks exhibit community structures and non-trivial clustering associated with the occurrence of a considerable number of triangular subgraphs known as triadic motifs. Triads are a set of distinct triangles that do not share an edge with any other triangle in the network. Network motifs are subgraphs that occur significantly more often compared to random topologies. Two prominent examples, the feedforward loop and the feedback loop, occur in various real-world networks such as gene-regulatory networks, food webs or neuronal networks. However, as triangular connections are also prevalent in communication topologies of complex collective systems, it is worthwhile investigating the influence of triadic motifs on the collective decision-making dynamics. To this end, we generate networks called Triadic Graphs (TGs) exclusively from distinct triadic motifs. We then apply TGs as underlying topologies of systems with collective dynamics inspired from locust marching bands. We demonstrate that the motif type constituting the networks can have a paramount influence on group decision-making that cannot be explained solely in terms of the degree distribution. We find that, in contrast to the feedback loop, when the feedforward loop is the dominant subgraph, the resulting network is hierarchical and inhibits coherent behavior

Effects of exoplanetary gravity on human locomotor ability

At some point in the future, if mankind hopes to settle planets outside the Solar System, it will be crucial to determine the range of planetary conditions under which human beings could survive and function. In this article, we apply physical considerations to future exoplanetary biology to determine the limitations which gravity imposes on several systems governing the human body. Initially, we examine the ultimate limits at which the human skeleton breaks and muscles become unable to lift the body from the ground. We also produce a new model for the energetic expenditure of walking, by modelling the leg as an inverted pendulum. Both approaches conclude that, with rigorous training, humans could perform normal locomotion at gravity no higher than 4 $g_{\textrm{Earth}}$.Comment: 12 pages, 4 figures, to be published in The Physics Teache

Legislación sobre Matrimonio y Familia en la República Popular de China (RPC)

El presente Trabajo Fin de Máster hace una presentación de las leyes sobre Familia en la República Popular China, con especial énfasis en el valor del Registro como conclusión del proceso matrimonial, en el régimen de propiedad y división de bienes en caso de divorcio, en la política de planificación familiar y la puesta en práctica de las medidas de hijo único, en la ley de adopción y su impacto en la adopción de niñas chinas en España y por último en la Ley de Sucesiones. Las leyes sobre familia son un aspecto más de la intensa y rápida modernización de China, proceso que se hace no exento de contradicciones y paradoja