Valorisation strategies and sustainable business opportunities for the sheep production in North Portugal

The paper discusses the importance of sheep farming in low-density Mediterranean rural areas, specifically in the northeast of Portugal, where the traditional extensive sheep production system is prevalent. The authors provide examples of valorisation strategies around sheep pyric herbivory practice, which may increase the benefits of sheep farming systems in Portugal. The study employed qualitative research methodology, mainly based on interviews and focus groups involving stakeholders in the sector. The findings target the commercial viability of local breeds' products by creating new food/wool products and developing tourism around the autochthonous breeds and their use, which may promote natural and cultural heritage, foster entrepreneurship and job creation, and reduce the risk of depopulation. The economic feasibility analysis shows that all the strategies under study are economically viable.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

"De sol a sol": dois estudos pastoris de prevenção de incêndios rurais

Os incêndios rurais estão em contínua recrudescência em Portugal. Eles resultam de uma dupla violência biofísica e sociocultural decorrente da reengenharia social promovida pelo Estado Novo através da florestação. Os incêndios, de hoje, são os efeitos diferidos dessa violência passada, eles são a materialização da "slow violence" cometida contra as populações serranas e suas paisagens. A falência das políticas repressivas de supressão do fogo levou sucessivos governos portugueses a considerar uma mudança de paradigma que responda à violência da florestação. O programa das cabras sapadoras nasce nesse contexto. O anúncio do programa teve muito eco na mídia e nos meios urbanos, mas sua implementação no terreno não mostrou a mesma vitalidade. O desenho do programa esbarra na realidade da atividade pastoril tradicional que diverge dos pressupostos urbanos subjacentes: a atividade pastoril seria um negócio capitalista em dicotomia com a natureza. Os dois estudos etnográficos revelaram que (i) a atividade pastoril tradicional é uma comunidade híbrida humano-animal de socialidade estendida ancorada no território e que (ii) o ofício do pastor é uma atividade camponesa norteada pela ética de subsistência. Pastores, no entanto, possuem uma agência ambiental, que decorre de sua práxis ocupacional, amparada por conhecimento local culturalmente acumulado por gerações de habitantes rurais. A urgência dos desafios do Antropoceno requer a mobilização dessa agência. Para isso, é necessário desenvolver narrativas adequadas às visões de mundo pastoris. Somente sob essa condição, as cabras sapadoras atenderiam ao duplo imperativo ambiental e de justiça para combater os incêndios rurais da "slow violence" da florestação.Wildfires are in continuous recrudescence in Portugal. They result from a double biophysical and sociocultural violence of the social reengineering promoted by the Estado Novo with the forestation policy. Today's fires are the deferred effects of this past violence, they are the materialization of a slow violence committed against rural communities and their landscapes. The failure of repressive fire suppression policies led successive Portuguese governments to consider a paradigm shift that would respond to the violence of the forestation. The Portuguese targeted grazing wildfire program was born in this context. Its announcement had a lot of echoes in the media and in urban areas, but its implementation did not show the same vitality. The design of the program collides with the reality of traditional pastoralism that diverges from its subjacent urban assumptions: pastoralism would be a business in dichotomy with nature. The two ethnographic studies revealed that (i) traditional pastoralism is a hybrid human-animal community with extended sociality grounded in the territory and that (ii) pastoralists are peasants guided by the subsistence ethic. Pastoralists, however, have an environmental agency, which stems from their occupational praxis, based on local knowledge culturally accumulated by generations of rural dwellers. The urgency of the challenges of the Anthropocene requires the mobilization of this agency. It is then necessary to develop narratives tailored to pastoralists’ worldviews. Only under this condition would the Portuguese targeted grazing program respond to the double imperative of environment and justice to face the wildfires of the slow violence of forestation

Sustentabilidade do Setor Ovino em Áreas de Montanha de Elevado Valor Ambiental: Factores Críticos e Desafios

Esta comunicação apresenta um estudo de caso da região de Trás-os-Montes sobre a sustentabilidade da atividade pastoril ovina. O estudo utilizou análise SWOT e incluiu uma pesquisa quantitativa e descritiva, bem como um estudo qualitativo baseado em entrevistas pessoais com vários atores da fileira produtiva e observação de campo. Os principais obstáculos identificados incluem canais de comercialização limitados, baixa rentabilidade da carne de borrego e falta de interesse econômico na lã, entre outros. Por outro lado, a qualidade intrínseca dos produtos com origem nas diversas raças autóctones locais foi considerada o principal ponto forte da atividade.Os autores agradecem à Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT, Portugal) pelo apoio financeiro ao CIMO (UIDB/00690/2020) através de fundos nacionais FCT/MCTES.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Ovinicultura em Territórios de Montanha de Elevado Valor Ambiental: Estratégias de Valorização e Oportunidades de Negócio Sustentáveis

Nesta comunicação é apresentado um estudo sobre a viabilidade econômica de estratégias singulares de valorização da pastorícia extensiva na região nordeste de Portugal, com o objetivo de garantir o uso sustentável das raças locais de ovinos na gestão da paisagem. O estudo adotou uma metodologia de pesquisa mista e analisou a criação de novos produtos alimentares/lã e o desenvolvimento do turismo em torno das raças autóctones como possíveis modelos de negócio sustentáveis. Os resultados indicam que as estratégias em estudo são economicamente viáveis e podem promover o patrimônio natural e cultural da região, fomentando o empreendedorismo e a criação de emprego, além de reduzir o risco de despovoamento.Os autores agradecem à Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT, Portugal) pelo apoio financeiro ao CIMO (UIDB/00690/2020) através de fundos nacionais FCT/MCTES.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Coherent Control of Quantum Dynamics with Sequences of Unitary Phase-Kick Pulses

Coherent optical control schemes exploit the coherence of laser pulses to change the phases of interfering dynamical pathways in order to manipulate dynamical processes. These active control methods are closely related to dynamical decoupling techniques, popularized in the field of Quantum Information. Inspired by Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, dynamical decoupling methods apply sequences of unitary operations to modify the interference phenomena responsible for the system dynamics thus also belonging to the general class of coherent control techniques. Here we review related developments in the fields of coherent optical control and dynamical decoupling, with emphasis on control of tunneling and decoherence in general model systems. Considering recent experimental breakthroughs in the demonstration of active control of a variety of systems, we anticipate that the reviewed coherent control scenarios and dynamical decoupling methods should raise significant experimental interest.Comment: 52 pages, 7 figure

Mission impossible? The paradoxes of stretch goal setting

© 2016, © The Author(s) 2016. Stretch goal setting is a process involving multiple and nested paradoxes. The paradoxical side of stretch is attractive because it holds great promise yet dangerous because it triggers processes that are hard to control. Paradoxes are not readily managed by assuming a linear relation between the here and now and the intended future perfect. Before adopting stretch goal setting, managers should thus be prepared for the tensions and contradictions created by nested or interwoven paradoxes. Achieving stretch goals can be as difficult for the managers seeking to direct the process as for designated delegates. While the increasing popularity of stretch goal setting is understandable, its unexpected consequences must be taken into account. The inadequate use of stretch goals can jeopardize the social sustainability of organizations as well as their societal support systems

Impact of a Citywide Sanitation Program in Northeast Brazil on Intestinal Parasites Infection in Young Children

BACKGROUND: Sanitation affects health, especially that of young children. Residents of Salvador, in Northeast Brazil, have had a high prevalence of intestinal parasites. A citywide sanitation intervention started in 1996 aimed to raise the level of sewer coverage from 26% to 80% of households. OBJECTIVES: We evaluated the impact of this intervention on the prevalence of Ascaris lumbricoides, Trichuris trichuria, and Giardia duodenalis infections in preschool children. METHODS: The evaluation was composed of two cross-sectional studies (1998 and 2003-2004), each of a sample of 681 and 976 children 1-4 years of age, respectively. Children were sampled from 24 sentinel areas chosen to represent the range of environmental conditions in the study site. Data were collected using an individual/household questionnaire, and an environmental survey was conducted in each area before and after the intervention to assess basic household and neighborhood sanitation conditions. Stool samples were examined for the presence of intestinal parasites. The effect of the intervention was estimated by hierarchical modeling, fitting a sequence of multivariate regression models. FINDINGS: The prevalence ofA. lumbricoides infection was reduced from 24.4% to 12.0%, T. trichuria from 18.0% to 5.0%, and G. duodenalis from 14.1% to 5.3%. Most of this reduction appeared to be explained by the increased coverage in each neighborhood by the sewage system constructed during the intervention. The key explanatory variable was thus an ecological measure of exposure and not household-based, suggesting that the parasite transmission prevented by the program was mainly in the public (vs. the domestic) domain. CONCLUSION: This study, using advanced statistical modeling to control for individual and ecological potential confounders, demonstrates the impact on intestinal parasites of sanitation improvements implemented at the scale of a large population

Pathogenic p62/SQSTM1 mutations impair energy metabolism through limitation of mitochondrial substrates

Abnormal mitochondrial function has been found in patients with frontotemporal dementia (FTD) and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Mutations in the p62 gene (also known as SQSTM1) which encodes the p62 protein have been reported in both disorders supporting the idea of an ALS/FTD continuum. In this work the role of p62 in energy metabolism was studied in fibroblasts from FTD patients carrying two independent pathogenic mutations in the p62 gene, and in a p62-knock-down (p62 KD) human dopaminergic neuroblastoma cell line (SH-SY5Y). We found that p62 deficiency is associated with inhibited complex I mitochondrial respiration due to lack of NADH for the electron transport chain. This deficiency was also associated with increased levels of NADPH reflecting a higher activation of pentose phosphate pathway as this is accompanied with higher cytosolic reduced glutathione (GSH) levels. Complex I inhibition resulted in lower mitochondrial membrane potential and higher cytosolic ROS production. Pharmacological activation of transcription factor Nrf2 increased mitochondrial NADH levels and restored mitochondrial membrane potential in p62-deficient cells. Our results suggest that the phenotype is caused by a loss-of-function effect, because similar alterations were found both in the mutant fibroblasts and the p62 KD model. These findings highlight the implication of energy metabolism in pathophysiological events associated with p62 deficiency

Developmental Stability: A Major Role for Cyclin G in Drosophila melanogaster

Morphological consistency in metazoans is remarkable given the pervasive occurrence of genetic variation, environmental effects, and developmental noise. Developmental stability, the ability to reduce developmental noise, is a fundamental property of multicellular organisms, yet its genetic bases remains elusive. Imperfect bilateral symmetry, or fluctuating asymmetry, is commonly used to estimate developmental stability. We observed that Drosophila melanogaster overexpressing Cyclin G (CycG) exhibit wing asymmetry clearly detectable by sight. Quantification of wing size and shape using geometric morphometrics reveals that this asymmetry is a genuine—but extreme—fluctuating asymmetry. Overexpression of CycG indeed leads to a 40-fold increase of wing fluctuating asymmetry, which is an unprecedented effect, for any organ and in any animal model, either in wild populations or mutants. This asymmetry effect is not restricted to wings, since femur length is affected as well. Inactivating CycG by RNAi also induces fluctuating asymmetry but to a lesser extent. Investigating the cellular bases of the phenotypic effects of CycG deregulation, we found that misregulation of cell size is predominant in asymmetric flies. In particular, the tight negative correlation between cell size and cell number observed in wild-type flies is impaired when CycG is upregulated. Our results highlight the role of CycG in the control of developmental stability in D. melanogaster. Furthermore, they show that wing developmental stability is normally ensured via compensatory processes between cell growth and cell proliferation. We discuss the possible role of CycG as a hub in a genetic network that controls developmental stability