CHALLENGES FOR BRAZIL'S FOOD INDUSTRY IN THE CONTEXT OF GLOBALIZATION AND MERCOSUR CONSOLIDATION

This paper examines how the Brazilian food industry has been heavily affected by several recent institutional and economic changes. The food industry, including the processing and retail sectors, is part of a broader agribusiness system that conditions corporationsÂ’ strategies, performance, and adoption of adequate governance structures. The Brazilian agroindustrialization process that preceded the formation of the sub-regional free-trade area (Mercosur) and economic liberalization influenced subsequent development of the agribusiness and food system in the Mercosur countries and their investment and trade links to countries outside Mercosur. The article emphasizes business strategies for coping with challenges and opportunities that have arisen from Mercosur integration, from economic stabilization programs and, more importantly, from a broad range of institutional changes such as trade liberalization, deregulation, and the friendlier treatment of foreign capital. These changes have together fostered the globalization process in the region and have stimulated different responses from large and small firms, all threatened by the new, competitive environment.Agribusiness, International Relations/Trade,

A Horror of the Vacuum : An Overview of Old Age in Absurdist Literature

The relevance and lasting influence of artistic expressions of the philosophical concept of the absurd has been highlighted by many scholars, notably by Martin Esslin in his pioneering work The Theatre of the Absurd and by Neil Cornwell in The Absurd in Literature. Interestingly, a cursory glance at the works of the practitioners of the absurd deemed most significant by Esslin (Adamov, Beckett and Ionesco, but also Pinget, Pinter and Hildesheimer) and Cornwell (Daniil Kharms, O’Brien, Kafka and again Beckett) reveals an intriguing pattern: virtually all of them have at least one important work with older people as main characters. In this chapter, my main aim is to understand why old age is so prominent in absurdist literature. First, I will examine some of the most archetypal interactions between the aged protagonists and their absurd universes, refining my working definition of the absurd (wherein “resistance” is an operative word) in the process. Then, after assessing the congruity of outliers and the pertinence of alternative causal explanations for this correlation, I will demonstrate that the thematization of aging characters in absurdist works owes much to the fact that old age may be seen as the radicalization of the human condition.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

“Our Old Friend across the Hill Yonder” : Perceptions of the Enemy in the First World War

A British soldier named Harry was captured in the Third Battle of Ypres. In August 1917, now a prisoner of war in Germany, he wrote to his wife in a cheerful manner, narrating his latest misadventures. He ended the letter on a reassuring note: “Our friend the enemy have been very good to us up to now, quite like our own men are with the prisoners” (Imperial War Museum 1978). Paul Fussell’s notion of the “gross dichotomizing” between “the enemy” and “we” in the First World War (Fussell 1975: 75) certainly holds true for civilians and eager and yet inexperienced soldiers, but that is challenged by veterans’ remarks such as the one just mentioned and by large-scale events like the famous Christmas Truce. How did the soldier really regard those men on the other side whom it was his duty to kill? In this article, we will analyse a sample of texts which may be deemed representative of the different perceptions of the enemy during the Great War, with a particular focus on wartime poetry and on the veterans’ post-war prose.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Considering Old Age and the Absurd in Harold Pinter’s A Slight Ache

This article seeks to launch an inquiry into the interplay between the philosophical concept of the absurd and different theories of aging in Harold Pinter’s radio play A Slight Ache. Due to the privileged position it occupies in the interstice of the two, A Slight Ache will be read as a surprisingly complex nexus of reflections on aging, and some of the play’s nuances and half-meanings will thereby be brought more vividly to light. A close reading drawing on theories of aging will show that old age is a theme of paramount importance in A Slight Ache. Furthermore, this article will claim that the combination of the absurd with aging calls for a discussion on intersubjectivity, whose precariousness threatens to doom attempts at meaning-making to failure. Finally, it will briefly discuss resistance as a viable or at least ineluctable reaction to that state of affairs.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

Pernkopf's Atlas - A product of Nazi Atrocities Perpetrated in Austria during world war II

No Abstract

Applications of a radioimmunoassay technique to the study of luteinizing hormone secretion in the rat

A sensitive and reproducible double antibody radioimmunoassay technique, requiring 50ul of unknown serum or plasma per assay tube, is described for use with 125I and rabbit anti-rat LH serum. The assay system was applied to the study of LH secretion in rats under both normal and experimentally manipulated conditions. Particular attention was focussed upon comparison of circulating LH levels in conscious, unstressed animals with those in anaesthetized animals, with or without surgical stress. Thereafter, the effects of acoustic stimulation and of exogenous LRH administration were studied in conscious and anaesthetized animals. Urethane anaesthesia exerted a profound effect upon the LR-secretory response to exogenous LRH in male rats. Available evidence suggests that the blood sampling method, surgical stress and anaesthesia are each capable of significantly influencing LH secretion, thereby emphasizing the value of studies using conscious, unstressed animals. While a direct effect of urethane on the pituitary gland cannot be excluded, attention is drawn to the possible mediation of a urethane-sensitive inhibitory influence in the mechanism controlling LH secretion in the rat

‘Un beau petit mot’ : ‘Lorenzaccio’ and The Many Guises of Seduction

It is well known that Alfred de Musset’s Lorenzaccio (1834) – which revolves around Lorenzo de’ Medici’s assassination of his cousin, the Duke of Florence, in 1537 – owes its existence in large part to Musset’s then lover George Sand; having previously written a shorter play on the same topic, she essentially bequeathed it to him, and he was to do with its subject matter and raw material as he pleased. However, it is by no means irrelevant to point out that, «[i]n the early 1830s, Alfred de Musset was fascinated by the Don Juan legend and by the nature of the man himself», which prompted him to write, in 1832 and 1833, three poems that «refer directly either to the Don Juan legend or to Mozart’s opera». Was this influence decisive in Musset’s shaping of ‘Lorenzino’ into a silver-tonged seducer? Or does Benedetto Varchi’s account of the historical Lorenzo, his contemporary, already lend itself naturally to such a portrayal? Which aspects of seduction were emphasised in the different adaptations of this story? This paper will attempt to address this last question, the answer to which could be a first step towards a diachronic analysis of the intricate theme of seduction in the most significant efforts to render the enigmatic figure of Lorenzino de’ Medici.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Mid-twentieth century radio art : The ontological insecurity of the radio text

In this article, I set out to examine the ontological instability of mid-twentieth century artistic works written for the medium of radio that derives from the tension between transient sound and permanent text. I explore how the evanescence commonly associated with sound in general and radio in particular caused mid-twentieth century radio practitioners like Samuel Beckett, Harold Pinter, and Tom Stoppard to strive for both the simplicity of a superficially intelligible aural text and the complexity stemming from the thematisation of ambiguity and epistemological uncertainty.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio