3,599 research outputs found
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 urbanÃstica y arquitectónica. En el presente artÃculo 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
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