Motivations to adopt Agroecology in rural communities of the Northern Andes of Ecuador

Agroecology (AE) is a discipline of study that is consistently expanding in the scientific, sociopolitical, and environmental fields, both globally and regionally in Latin America. This study focuses on understanding the dynamics and diversity of motivations that farmers have when deciding whether to adopt AE or not in the Northern Andes of Ecuador. Using mixed methods, we described the historical evolution of the perceptions of agroecological practitioners and external agents regarding the motivations, incentives, compensations, and expectations they had. This study discusses the nature and dynamics of motivations using sustainability as a transversal axis to assess responses. We worked with a proportionally similar number of indigenous and mestizo farmers who declared to have an interest in the study and had access to a piece of land for agroecological production. This study reveals convergences and divergences of perceptions among stakeholders about the different strategies used by external agencies to address AE and rural extension. The types and levels of participation throughout the historical evolution of AE showed low participation of farmers in the early stages, associated with planning; however, there was a steady increase in farmer participation in the stages associated with hands-on activities. In general, there is very little motivation for agroecological food production among youth and men, whereas younger rural men and women feel more motivated to work on agribusiness export projects such as the cut-flower industry. Keywords: incentives, compensations, sustainable agriculture, behavioral drivers, stakeholder motivations, environmental perception. Resumen La agroecología es una disciplina que se encuentra en constante expansión en el ámbito científico, sociopolítico y ambiental, tanto a nivel mundial como regional en América Latina. Este estudio se centra en comprender la dinámica y diversidad de motivaciones que tienen los agricultores a la hora de decidir adoptar o no la agroecología (AE) en los Andes del Norte de Ecuador. Utilizando métodos mixtos, describimos la evolución histórica de las percepciones de los agricultores y de los agentes externos sobre las motivaciones, incentivos, compensaciones y expectativas que tenían. Este estudio analiza la naturaleza y la dinámica de las motivaciones utilizando la sostenibilidad como eje transversal para evaluar las respuestas. Se trabajó con un número proporcionalmente similar de agricultores indígenas y mestizos, quienes declararon tener interés en el presente estudio y que tenían acceso a un pedazo de tierra para la producción agroecológica. Este estudio revela convergencias y divergencias de percepciones entre los actores involucrados acerca de las diferentes estrategias utilizadas por los organismos externos para abordar la AE y la extensión rural. Los tipos y niveles de participación a lo largo de la evolución histórica de la AE mostraron una baja participación de los agricultores en las primeras etapas, asociadas a la planificación; sin embargo, se produjo un aumento constante de la participación de los agricultores en las etapas asociadas a actividades más bien prácticas. También se observó que los agricultores son de edad y en su mayoría son mujeres. En general, hay muy poca motivación para la producción de alimentos en los jóvenes y los hombres, puesto que los hombres rurales jóvenes y también las mujeres se sienten más motivados para trabajar en proyectos agroindustriales de exportación, como en la industria de las flores de corte. Palabras Clave: incentivos, compensaciones, agricultura sostenible, impulsores del comportamiento, motivaciones en actores clave, percepción ambiental

Boundary and expansion effects on two-pion correlation functions in relativistic heavy-ion collisions

We examine the effects that a confining boundary together with hydrodynamical expansion play on two-pion distributions in relativistic heavy-ion collisions. We show that the effects arise from the introduction of further correlations due both to collective motion and the system's finite size. As is well known, the former leads to a reduction in the apparent source radius with increasing average pair momentum K. However, for small K, the presence of the boundary leads to a decrease of the apparent source radius with decreasing K. These two competing effects produce a maximum for the effective source radius as a function of K.Comment: 6 pages, 5 Eps figures, uses RevTeX and epsfi

Middle School Leaders\u27 Perceptions of Self-Efficacy in an Urban School District Along the Texas-Mexico Border

The purpose of the case study was to comprehend the relationship between the accountability movement as characterized by the Texas A-F Accountability System and ESSA on a middle school principal’s sense of self-efficacy in an urban school district located at the southeastern-most point of the Rio Grande Valley along the Texas-Mexico border. The case study employed an explanatory sequential mixed methods research design and allowed for the collection and analysis of quantitative and qualitative data in two consecutive phases within one study to investigate the research questions in depth. The quantitative portion of this mixed methods case study relied on the use of the Principal Sense of Efficacy Scale (PSES) to capture middle school principals’ sense of efficacy and qualitative data was sourced via one-on-one, in-depth semi-structured interviews to provide a deeper examination of principal’s perceptions of their efficacious outlooks. There was a marginally significant difference, t(4.00) = 2.14, p \u3c 0.100, between middle school principals of school improvement and non-school improvement campuses for item 17 on the PSES. Question 17 on the PSES asked the sample population to rate the extent that they could cope with stress of the job and in this case study middle school principals of school improvement campuses believed that they could manage the rigors of the principalship better than school leaders of non-improvement campuses. In addition, there were statistically significant correlations between individual PSES questions and categorical variables. In describing how their self-efficacy beliefs were shaped all participants shared that their efficacious outlooks were influenced by enactive mastery experiences, vicarious experiences, emotional arousal, and verbal persuasion. In describing factors that influenced their level of self-efficacy beliefs, participants professed that an increase in student achievement, state test scores, and student growth positively influenced their efficacious outlooks and that stress, frustration, worry, and lack of control negatively influenced principals’ sense of efficacy. Furthermore, implications for practice and recommendations for future research are offered

Inverse magnetic catalysis from the properties of the QCD coupling in a magnetic field

We compute the vacuum one-loop quark-gluon vertex correction at zero temperature in the presence of a magnetic field. From the vertex function we extract the effective quark-gluon coupling and show that it grows with increasing magnetic field strength. The effect is due to a subtle competition between the color charge associated to gluons and the color charge associated to quarks, the former being larger than the latter. In contrast, at high temperature the effective thermo-magnetic coupling results exclusively from the contribution of the color charge associated to quarks. This produces a decrease of the coupling with increasing field strength. We interpret the results in terms of a geometrical effect whereby the magnetic field induces, on average, a closer distance between the (electrically charged) quarks and antiquarks. At high temperature, since the effective coupling is proportional only to the color charge associated to quarks, such proximity with increasing field strength makes the effective coupling decrease due to asymptotic freedom. In turn, this leads to a decreasing quark condensate. In contrast, at zero temperature both the effective strong coupling and the quark condensate increase with increasing magnetic field. This is due to the color charge associated to gluons dominating over that associated to quarks, with both having the opposite sign. Thus, the gluons induce a kind of screening of the quark color charge, in spite of the quark-antiquark proximity. The implications of these results for the inverse magnetic catalysis phenomenon are discussed.Comment: Expanded discussion, references added. Version to appear in Phys. Lett.

Chiral fermion mass and dispersion relations at finite temperature in the presence of hypermagnetic fields

We study the modifications to the real part of the thermal self-energy for chiral fermions in the presence of a constant external hypermagnetic field. We compute the dispersion relation for fermions occupying a given Landau level to first order in g'^2, g^2 and g_phi^2 and to all orders in g'B, where g' and g are the U(1)_Y and SU(2)_L couplings of the standard model, respectively, g_phi is the fermion Yukawa coupling, and B is the hypermagnetic field strength. We show that in the limit where the temperature is large compared to sqrt{g'B}, left- and right-handed modes acquire finite and different B-dependent masses due to the chiral nature of their coupling with the external field. Given the current bounds on the strength of primordial magnetic fields, we argue that the above is the relevant scenario to study the effects of magnetic fields on the propagation of fermions prior and during the electroweak phase transition.Comment: 11 pages 4 figures, published versio