Farmer cooperatives in Mexico : case studies in Jalisco : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master in AgriCommerce at Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand

Farmer cooperatives are businesses owned and controlled by (and for) their members in order to create welfare and satisfaction beyond simple profitability. In developing countries, farmer cooperatives have been formed in rural areas in an effort to improve social integration, social equity, market and information transfer. Additionally, cooperatives have reduced the negative economic impact of market power and uncertainty through lower transaction costs, higher incomes and collective bargaining power. However in Mexico, cooperatives have faced an increasingly competitive and dynamic environment and have not adhered to the principles and values, such as solidarity, self-help and mutual aid, established by cooperative legislation. There is a lack of education, training and culture in relation to cooperatives. In addition, there is limited government support for financing, no stimulation for their creation and development and no public technical assistance. Despite this situation, in the state of Jalisco, there are successful consumer farmer cooperatives, whose main objective is to supply feed input (concentrates) to their members at the lowest possible cost. They have been able to achieve this by leveraging the collective bargaining power of members via the cooperative union. In order to identify factors for success in relation to the farmer cooperatives in Jalisco, a mixed methodology study was undertaken, using three case studies and a survey. Three farmer cooperatives in Los Altos, Jalisco were selected for the research: Pedro Ezqueda, Nutrimentos and Prolea. The results from the study showed that the following factors influence the success of farmer cooperatives in Jalisco: leadership; member knowledge and continuity; effective communication; member satisfaction; training; and government support. Additionally, challenges faced by these cooperatives include: poor understanding of cooperative principles among members; low enthusiasm for attending training; individualistic members with limited trust between them; lack of member commitment and participation in their cooperative; lack of young people joining the agriculture industry (including cooperatives); and no clear public policies regulating the agricultural sector. Despite these issues, farmer cooperatives have been successful within the challenging and dynamic environment in Mexico. Keyword: Jalisco, Mexico, farmer cooperatives, factors for succes

Gravitomagnetic currents in the inflationary universe from WIMT

Using the Weitzenb\"ock representation of a Riemann-flat 5D spacetime, we study the possible existence of primordial gravito-magnetic currents from Gravito-electromagnetic Inflation (GEMI). We found that these currents decrease exponentially in the Weitzenb\"ock representation, but they are null in a Levi-Civita representation because we are dealing with a 5D Riemann-flat spacetime without structure or torsion.Comment: Version to be published in European Phys. J.

Quantized gravitomagnetic charges from WIMT: cosmological consequences

Using the formalism of Weitzenb\"ock induced matter theory (WIMT) we calculate the gravito-magnetic charge on a topological string which is induced through a foliation on a five-dimensional (5D) gravito-electromagnetic vacuum defined on a 5D Ricci-flat metric, which produces a symmetry breaking on an axis. We obtain the resonant result that the quantized charges are induced on the effective four-dimensional hypersurface. This quantization describes the behavior of a test gravito-electric charge in the vicinity of a point gravito-magnetic monopole, both geometrically induced from a 5D vacuum. We demonstrate how gravito-magnetic monopoles would decrease exponentially during the inflationary expansion of the universe.Comment: Final version to be published in Can. J. Phy

A derivation of the optimal answer-copying index and some applications

Multiple-choice exams are frequently used as an efficient and objective method to assess learning but they are more vulnerable to answer-copying than tests based on open questions. Several statistical tests (known as indices in the literature) have been proposed to detect cheating; however, to the best of our knowledge they all lack mathematical support that guarantees optimality in any sense. We partially fill this void by deriving the uniform most powerful (UMP) under the assumption that the response distribution is known. In practice, however, we must estimate a behavioral model that yields a response distribution for each question. We calculate the empirical type-I and type-II error rates for several indices that assume different behavioral models using simulations based on real data from twelve nationwide multiple-choice exams taken by 5th and 9th graders in Colombia. We find that the index with the highest power among those studied, subject to the restriction of preserving the type-I error, is one based on the work of Wollack (1997) and Linden and Sotaridona (2006) and is superior to the indices studied and developed by Wesolowsky (2000) and Frary, Tideman, and Watts (1977). We compare the results of applying this index to all 12 exams and find that examination rooms with stricter proctoring have a lower level of copying. Finally, a Bonferroni correction to control for the false positive rate is proposed to detect massive cheating

Gravitational waves from a Weyl-Integrable manifold: a new formalism

We study the variational principle over an Hilbert-Einstein like action for an extended geometry taking into account torsion and non-metricity. By extending the semi-Riemannian geometry, we obtain an effective energy-momentum tensor which can be interpreted as physical sources. As an application we develop a new manner to obtain the gravitational wave equations on a Weyl-integrable manifold taking into account the non-metricity and non-trivial boundary conditions on the minimization of the action, which can be identified as possible sources for the cosmological constant and provides two different equations for gravitational waves. We examine gravitational waves in a pre-inflationary cosmological model.Comment: Accepted in Physics of the Dark Univers

Ciudad en explosión: transformaciones territoriales en la región metropolitana de la Sabana de Bogotá

El trabajo tiene como objeto de estudio la morfogénesis de un sector de la Bogotá metropolitana compuesta por el sector norte de Bogotá y cuatro municipios próximos del norte del Distrito Capital. Describe e interpreta las transformaciones y cambios del espacio construido desde una aproximación morfológica, en su dimensión urbanística y arquitectónica. En el presente artículo se analizan los procesos de la morfogénesis desde mitad del siglo XX hasta el presente y se busca con ello explicar la forma de la urbanización del presente. El trabajo describe, analiza y clasifica el crecimiento metropolitano, su materialización y temporalidad.This work studies the morphogenesis of the northern sector of the Capital District of Bogotá, and four municipalities close to this sector. It describes and interprets the transformations and changes the built-up space from a morphological approach, in its urbanistic and architectonical dimension. The article analyzes the morphogenetic processes from the middle 20th century to the present, and thus pretends to explain the way in which the area has been urbanized. The work describes, analyses and classifies Bogotá’s metropolitan growth, its materialization and temporality