613 research outputs found
Scaling Up Local Development Initiatives: Brazil's Food Acquisition Programme
__Abstract__
Global poverty largely remains a rural phenomenon. Close to 70 per cent of the developing
world’s 1.4 billion people living in extreme poverty inhabit rural areas (IFAD, 2011).
Further, agriculture is found to be a source of livelihood for over 80 per cent of rural people,
highlighting the importance of supporting this activity as a means to fight poverty (World
Bank, 2007; IFAD, 2011). This is darkly ironic: rural areas are where most of the world’s food is
produced and also where the majority of the world’s extreme poor and malnourished reside.
Poverty in rural areas stems from a diverse set of shortcomings such as: lack of adequate public
investments in infrastructure, storage and market facilities coupled with disadvantages rooted
in historical inequities, agricultural, land tenure and credit policies and economic factors that
have a bearing on the distribution of assets, productive resources and access to credit and
markets. Rural livelihoods are also based on a wide range of activities ranging from agricultural
production to off-farm wage labour, and these vary across agro-climatic zones, land tenure
arrangements, regions and cultures. The growing frequency of extreme weather events and
recent increases in global financial and commodity price volatility—with sharp price rises
particularly since 2006 (FAO et. al., 2011: 8)—have heightened the obstacles that rural
producers, particularly poor, already face in many regions and have also contributed
to severe localised food insecurity
The 'State' of Food Sovereignty in Latin America: Political Projects and Alternative Pathways in Venezuela, Ecuador, and Bolivia
__abstract__
The concept of food sovereignty has been enshrined in a number of countries’ Constitutions
around the world without any clear consensus around what state-sponsored ‘food sovereignty’
initiatives might entail given the complexity and interconnectedness of the global food system.
In the vanguard of this movement at the national level has been the so-called ‘pink tide’ of Latin
America – namely Venezuela, Ecuador, and Bolivia. As a constitutional right, food sovereignty
presents a significant opening to promote a citizen’s revolution of the food system, but is such a
proposal possible or desirable as a top-down initiative? The concept itself is inherently peopleled
as it implies constructing (or deconstructing) a food system that is defined, led, controlled,
and accessed in a culturally appropriate and ecologically sustainable way by local people in a
given territory. At the same time, state intervention is a necessary function to confront the
global food system, dismantle unequal agrarian structures, and recognize the autonomy of
people and communities in defining and controlling their food and agricultural systems. In
different geographies and societies of food sovereignty, it is necessary to evaluate how state
and social actors interact in the pursuit of a national food sovereignty strategy, with particular
attention to the relations of control and access to decision-making and physical resources
The Iliad’s big swoon: a case of innovation within the epic tradition
In book 5 of the Iliad Sarpedon suffers so greatly from a wound that his ‘‘ψυχή leaves him’. Rather than dying, however, Sarpedon lives to fight another day. This paper investigates the phrase τὸν δὲ λίπε ψυχή in extant archaic Greek poetry to gain a sense of its traditional referentiality and better assess the meaning of Sarpedon’s swoon. Finding that all other instances of the ψυχή leaving the body signify death, it suggests that the Iliad exploits a traditional unit of utterance to flag up the importance of Sarpedon to this version of the Troy story
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A technique for monitoring fast tuner piezoactuator preload forces for superconducting rf cavities
The technology for mechanically compensating Lorentz Force detuning in superconducting RF cavities has already been developed at DESY. One technique is based on commercial piezoelectric actuators and was successfully demonstrated on TESLA cavities [1]. Piezo actuators for fast tuners can operate in a frequency range up to several kHz; however, it is very important to maintain a constant static force (preload) on the piezo actuator in the range of 10 to 50% of its specified blocking force. Determining the preload force during cool-down, warm-up, or re-tuning of the cavity is difficult without instrumentation, and exceeding the specified range can permanently damage the piezo stack. A technique based on strain gauge technology for superconducting magnets has been applied to fast tuners for monitoring the preload on the piezoelectric assembly. The design and testing of piezo actuator preload sensor technology is discussed. Results from measurements of preload sensors installed on the tuner of the Capture Cavity II (CCII)[2] tested at FNAL are presented. These results include measurements during cool-down, warmup, and cavity tuning along with dynamic Lorentz force compensation
A High Statistics Measurement of the Lambdac+ Lifetime
A high statistics measurement of the Lambdac+ lifetime from the Fermilab
fixed-target FOCUS photoproduction experiment is presented. We describe the
analysis technique with particular attention to the determination of the
systematic uncertainty. The measured value of 204.6 +/- 3.4 (stat.) +/- 2.5
(syst.) fs from 8034 +/- 122 Lambdac -> pKpi decays represents a significant
improvement over the present world average.Comment: Submitted to Physical Review Letter
A measurement of branching ratios of and hadronic decays to four-body final states containing a
We have studied hadronic four-body decays of and mesons with a
in the final state using data recorded during the 1996-1997 fixed-target
run at Fermilab high energy photoproduction experiment FOCUS. We report a new
branching ratio measurement of . We make the first observation
of three new decay modes with branching ratios ,
\Gamma(D^+\to\K_S K^+ K^-\pi^+)/\Gamma(D^+\to K_S
\pi^+\pi^+\pi^-)=0.0077\pm0.0015\pm0.0009, and , where
in each case the first error is statistical and the second error is systematic.Comment: 4 pages, 1 table, 2 figures, submitted to Physical Review Letter
New FOCUS results on charm mixing and CP violation
We present a summary of recent results on CP violation and mixing in the
charm quark sector based on a high statistics sample collected by
photoproduction experiment FOCUS (E831 at Fermilab). We have measured the
difference in lifetimes for the decays: and . This translates into a measurement of the mixing parameter in
the \d0d0 system, under the assumptions that is an equal mixture of
CP odd and CP even eigenstates, and CP violation is negligible in the neutral
charm meson system. We verified the latter assumption by searching for a CP
violating asymmetry in the Cabibbo suppressed decay modes , and . We show preliminary
results on a measurement of the branching ratio .Comment: 9 pages, 6 figures, requires espcrc2.sty. Presented by S.Bianco at
CPConf2000, September 2000, Ferrara (Italy). In this revision, fixed several
stylistic flaws, add two significant references, fixed a typo in Tab.
A Measurement of the Ds+ Lifetime
A high statistics measurement of the Ds+ lifetime from the Fermilab
fixed-target FOCUS photoproduction experiment is presented. We describe the
analysis of the two decay modes, Ds+ -> phi(1020)pi+ and Ds+ ->
\bar{K}*(892)0K+, used for the measurement. The measured lifetime is 507.4 +/-
5.5 (stat.) +/- 5.1 (syst.) fs using 8961 +/- 105 Ds+ -> phi(1020)pi+ and 4680
+/- 90 Ds+ -> \bar{K}*(892)0K+ decays. This is a significant improvement over
the present world average.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, 2 tables, submitted to PR
Search for CP Violation in the decays D+ -> K_S pi+ and D+ -> K_S K+
A high statistics sample of photo-produced charm from the FOCUS(E831)
experiment at Fermilab has been used to search for direct CP violation in the
decays D+->K_S pi+ and D+ -> K_S K+. We have measured the following asymmetry
parameters relative to D+->K-pi+pi+: A_CP(K_S pi+) = (-1.6 +/- 1.5 +/- 0.9)%,
A_CP(K_S K+) = (+6.9 +/- 6.0 +/- 1.5)% and A_CP(K_S K+) = (+7.1 +/- 6.1 +/-
1.2)% relative to D+->K_S pi+. The first errors quoted are statistical and the
second are systematic. We also measure the relative branching ratios:
\Gamma(D+->\bar{K0}pi+)/\Gamma(D+->K-pi+pi+) = (30.60 +/- 0.46 +/- 0.32)%,
\Gamma(D+->\bar{K0}K+)/\Gamma(D+->K-pi+pi+) = (6.04 +/- 0.35 +/- 0.30)% and
\Gamma(D+->\bar{K0}K+)/\Gamma(D+->\bar{K0}pi+) = (19.96 +/- 1.19 +/- 0.96)%.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure
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