Land Management Decisions and Agricultural Productivity in the Hillsides of Honduras

Increasing land degradation and concomitant low agricultural productivity are important determinants of rural poverty in the hillside areas of Honduras. Using data at the levels of the farm household, parcel and plot, we develop an econometric modeling framework to analyze land management decisions and their impact on crop productivity. Our econometric model allows for endogenous household decisions regarding livelihood strategy choice, use of labor and external inputs, and participation in organizations. We found support for the inverse farm size-land productivity relationship which suggests that improved land access could increase total crop production. Land tenure has no impact on crop productivity, but adoption of soil conservation practices is higher on owner-operated than leased plots. Ownership of machinery and equipment and livestock ownership both positively influence crop productivity. Education positively affects perennial crop productivity. The gender of the household head has no significant effect on crop productivity, but does influence some land management and input use decisions. Even though household participation in training programs and organizations has only limited effects on crop productivity, agricultural extension plays a key role in promoting adoption of soil conservation practices. Location assets have limited impacts on crop productivity but do influence land management decisions. Road density and better market access have a positive effect on perennial crop productivity. Population density has limited direct impact on crop productivity, though it may have indirect effects by affecting farm size and livelihood strategies.agricultural productivity, hillsides, Honduras, land management, soil conservation, Land Economics/Use, Productivity Analysis,

Políticas de desarrollo rural y uso sostenible de la tierra en las zonas de ladera de Honduras: Un enfoque cuantitativo de los medios de vida

Land use, Land management, Sustainable development, Rural development, Government policy, Hill farming,

Recommendations for the use of sapropterin in phenylketonuria

Phenylketonuria (PKU) is an inherited disorder of phenylalanine (Phe) metabolism. Until recently, the only treatment for PKU was a Phe-restricted diet. Increasing evidence of suboptimal outcomes in diet-treated individuals, inconsistent PKU management practices, and the recent availability of tetrahydrobiopterin (BH(4)) therapy have fueled the need for new management and treatment recommendations for this metabolic disorder. BH(4), now available as sapropterin dihydrochloride (sapropterin), may offer the potential for improved metabolic control as well as enhanced dietary Phe tolerance in some PKU patients. A group of metabolic dietitians from North America convened in June 2011 to draft recommendations for the use of sapropterin therapy in PKU. Physicians with extensive experience in PKU management were invited at a later date to contribute to the development of these recommendations. Based on extensive clinical experience and current evidence, the present recommendations provide guidance from patient selection and determination of sapropterin response to the long-term management of patients on sapropterin therapy. Target Phe levels, nutritional adequacy, neurocognitive screening and adherence to treatment are addressed to optimize patient outcomes

Flatland

Flatland is a project of VCDE233 TYPOGRAPHY II and VCDI223 DESIGN AND PRE-PRESS PRODUCTION, both courses in the Design Studies diploma program at MacEwan University. Students were asked to translate an assigned section of the Victorian novella, Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions by Edwin A. Abbott (1884), into a two-page layout that treats the text in a way that is visually appealing, readable, and appropriate to the content. They were encouraged to challenge conventions by exploring alternative grids, objective and expressive type, and text and image relationships. VCDE233 Typography II (Constanza Pacher) and VCDI223 Design and Pre-Press Production (Jess Dupuis

Assessing Perceived Risk and STI Prevention Behavior: A National Population-Based Study with Special Reference to HPV

Aim: This thesis aims to provide a multidimensional assessment of infection risks and to evaluate strategies for HPV prevention including vaccination with quadrivalent HPVvaccines, dose-level vaccine effectiveness and condom use in high STI risk situations. Methods: Multiple population-based registers and questionnaire responses provided data for this thesis. Various multivariable and univariate regression models were fit. Findings: Overall, quadrivalent HPV-vaccination was highly effective against genital warts (GW) also referred to as condyloma, which is the first HPV disease endpoint possible to measure. However, effectiveness was contingent upon young age-at-first vaccination, with effectiveness declining steadily the older the age-at-first vaccination. Among women above 20 years of age there was low to immeasurable effectiveness and suggestive evidence vaccinations in this age group tended to reach women at high GW risk. There were marked socioeconomic disparities in the opportunistic (on-demand with co-pay) vaccination strategy evaluated, with women and girls who have parents with the highest education level compared to the lowest having a 15 times greater likelihood to be vaccinated (Study III). Once vaccination was initiated, however, high parental education level was unrelated to vaccination completion. Maximum protection against GW was found among girls vaccinated under the age of 17 who had received three doses of the vaccine. No differences in effectiveness were found for girls who received twodoses between ages 10-16 with that of those who received three-doses between ages 17- 19 (Study IV). GW affects more men than women in Sweden as of 2010 with 453 per 100 000 men and 365 per 100 000 women treated. A decline between 25-30% was seen between 2006 and 2010 among women in the age groups with the highest vaccination coverage. No decline was found amongst men and their GW incidence has steadily increased between 2006 and 2010 (Study II). Reported condom use in high risk situations was low among both men and women, with 41% of men and 34% of women reporting always/almost always condom use with temporary partners. STI risk perception was also low, with approximately 10% of sexually active respondents considering themselves at large risk of contracting an STI. There was no association between men’s condom use and their STI risk perception but there was an association for women (Study I). Conclusions: Results suggest that males bear a substantial burden of HPV-related condyloma where incidence has dropped among women. When planning HPVvaccination among females, efforts should target girls under age 14 for maximum effectiveness. Quadrivalent HPV-vaccination offers most protection against condyloma at three doses. Gross social inequity was found with opportunistic HPV-vaccination. There were large gender differences in factors associated with condom use in high risk situations and STI risk perceptions

John Harbison's “Simple Daylight”: A Textual and Musical Analysis

John Harbison's choice of literary material for his vocal repertoire has been diverse, ranging from classic poets such as Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Emily Dickinson, and Thomas Hardy to modern and even ancient writers, such as Elizabeth Bishop, William Carlos Williams, Czeslaw Milosz, and translations of the fifteenth-century Hindu poet Mirabai. At the same time, Harbison has been drawn to certain poets several times, including Eugenio Montale, Emily Dickinson, William Carlos Williams, and the art historian Michael Fried. Despite the fact that Fried is a lesser-known poet, Harbison has been drawn to set his verse repeatedly. Simple Daylight, however, is the only vocal work of Harbison that relies solely on Fried's texts. This thesis explores the reasons why Harbison was inspired to set Fried's poems so many times. In the program note for Simple Daylight, Harbison wrote that his ordering of Fried's poems made "a sequence closer in tone to a Bach cantata text than to a nineteenth-century song cycle" and evoked "a sub-cutaneous narrative very favorable for musical purposes, but no doubt unintended by the poet." This statement begs the question of how the ordering of the texts made the piece more akin to a Bach cantata than a nineteenth-century song cycle. At first glance, Simple Daylight seems to fit the definition of a song cycle. Harbison himself asserted that the ordering of the poems suggested a "sub-cutaneous narrative"—a thread that drew the pieces into a whole. Might Harbison have employed other cyclic devices as well, such as common musical motives or a reprise of music within the work? In order to answer these questions, I analyzed Simple Daylight to discover why Harbison believed that the piece was textually more akin to a Bach cantata than a song cycle. This analysis involved researching the primary characteristics of Bach's cantata texts and comparing these to the texts of Simple Daylight. Then I examined the musical treatment of the poetry, and, through the use of set theory, I identified musical and structural devices that unify the piece. These analyses ultimately revealed whether the piece is a true song cycle or merely a set of songs with texts by the same poet that are organized in a cantata-like fashion

Perpetration, Victimhood, and Blame: Australian Newspaper Representations of Domestic Violence, 2000–2020

Newspaper media plays a significant role in forming a public understanding of domestic violence. This article analyses 554 articles from 24 newspapers across Australian states and territories published between 2000 and 2020 that describe specific instances of domestic violence. It examines whether such violence is framed as a systemic issue or as a collection of individual events, as well as how such representations of perpetrators and victims displace both “blame” and “victimhood.” Although positive aspects of reporting can be observed, the tendency within newspaper articles to blur distinctions between perpetrators and victims distorts the true scale of domestic violence in Australia

DETERMINANTES DE ESTRATEGIAS COMUNITARIAS DE SUBSISTENCIA Y EL USO DE PRACTICAS CONSERVACIONISTAS DE PRODUCCION AGRICOLA EN LAS ZONAS DE LADERA EN HONDURAS

In this paper we discuss the principal results of participatory surveys that were conducted between June 2001 and May 2002 in 95 communities (villages) in the rural hillside areas in Honduras. The principal objectives of the study were to determine the main income earning strategies at the community level; identify the most important determinants of these strategies; and analyze the principal factors that determine the use of conservation technologies and investments. A total of eight different income-earning strategies were identified that largely reflect differences in comparative advantages between different communities. We used a multinominal logit model to explain the choice of income earning strategy as determined by biophysical factors (elevation, rainfall); socioeconomic variables(population density, market access); social factors (land tenure, education) and institutional factors (community-based and external organizations). For example, communities located at relatively high altitudes and with good market access are more likely to specialize in coffee production or vegetable growing. Ownership of the land encourages working on the own farm while discouraging off-farm work. In addition, a probit model was used to establish that the adoption of conservation technologies and investments is determined not only by the type of income earning strategy but also by population density land tenure, and presence and type of organizations. Even though no specific information was collected regarding the costs and benefits of specific conservation practices, in many communities people expressed that the low profitability of many of these practices seriously hampers their wider diffusion. The results of this study have some important policy implication. First, since communities that grow cash crops can be expected to have earn higher incomes than communities that grow basic grains only, significant investments in extending and improving the road network are needed in order to achieve a better integration of many rural hillside communities into the market economy as a vehicle towards reducing transaction costs, thus contributing to a reduction in poverty. Second, even though the potential of profitable conservation technologies and investments depend on the type of income earning strategy pursued, other factors such as population density and assistance from local and external organizations play a crucial role as well. The positive impact of population on the adoption of agricultural intensification, but becomes only effective at relatively high levels of population density and most communities in the rural hillsides of Honduras have not reached that stage yet. Finally and despite the fact that the available information did not permit a quantitative analysis of the relationship between income earning strategies and income levels, the qualitative analysis suggests that in order to overcome the tremendous poverty in which the majority of the inhabitants of the rural hillside areas of Honduras live and to improve their access to basic public services, massive public investments are needed in the areas of public health, education, electricity and communication facilities

Rural development policies and sustainable land use in the hillside areas of Honduras: a quantitative livelihoods approach

Promising ways of promoting sustainable development in less-favored areas have long been a focus of the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). Hillside areas are an important facet of less-favored areas because they often have limited biophysical potential and attract limited public investment. As a result, poverty, low agricultural productivity, and natural resource degradation tend to be interrelated problems in such areas. In Honduras, poverty is deep and widespread, and this is especially the case in the hillside areas— home to one-third of the country’s population. The majority of these people earn their living through agriculture, as either smallholders or farm laborers. Rural poverty in the hillsides results primarily from unequal asset distribution, low factor productivity, insufficient public investments in infrastructure and services, and vulnerability to natural and economic shocks. In this research report, authors Hans Jansen, John Pender, Amy Damon, and Rob Schipper generate important information for use by decision-makers in assessing policy and public investment options targeted toward increasing agricultural productivity and household income in hillside areas, at the same time stimulating natural resource conservation. Based on detailed household- and plot-level survey data, they develop a quantitative livelihood approach and use it to assess the determinants and effects of household livelihood strategies and land management decisions in an integrated econometric framework. The authors also demonstrate how this framework can be used as a policy targeting tool, thus integrating the livelihood strategies literature with the policy targeting literature. Even though the results indicate that solutions to poverty in the rural hillside areas of Honduras are neither easy nor straightforward, the study confirms that agriculture should form an integral component of rural development strategies in these areas, where the assets held by many households are limited to unskilled labor and small tracts of owned or rented land. The results indicate that, in order to raise household incomes, public investment and policy programs addressing the hillside areas should focus on improved road infrastructure, broader land access, policies to reduce household size and dependency ratios, and the adoption of land management technologies—for example, through agricultural extension programs and land redistribution—to restore soil fertility. While investments in physical assets should be directed toward households that incorporate off-farm employment or coffee production into their livelihood strategies, agricultural training programs should target livestock producers