Competing sovereignties, contested processes

This study provides a preliminary theoretical and empirical exploration into how ‘competing sovereignties’ are shaping the political construction of food sovereignty—broadly defined as ‘the right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and their right to define their own food and agriculture systems.’ This study was motivated by a lack of clarity on the ‘sovereignty’ of food sovereignty that had been noted by numerous scholars. Earlier on, questions focused on who was the sovereign of food sovereignty—was it the state? Was it communities? More recently, as there is a growing consensus that there are in fact ‘multiple sovereignties’ of food sovereignty that cut across jurisdictions and scales, the question has become how these ‘multiple sovereignties’ are competing with each other in the attempted construction of food sovereignty. This question is becoming all the more relevant as food sovereignty is increasingly getting adopted into state policy at various levels, calling for state and societal actors to redefine their terms of engagement. This study has attempted to explore questions of competing sovereignties, first by developing an analytical framework using the lenses of scale, geography, and institutions, then by applying that framework to Venezuela, where for the past fifteen years a food sovereignty experiment has been underway in the context of a dynamic, complex, and contested shift in state-society relations

Constructing and Contesting Food Sovereignty: Food Lines, Fault Lines and Seeds of Transformation in Venezuela

An alternative proposal for social and ecological transformation in the face of a converging set of global crises, food sovereignty serves as a galvanizing concept for a growing number of movements across the globe. As scholars grapple with the concept, however, certain issues, such as questions of the role of the state in food sovereignty construction, have surfaced as recur-ring sticking points, or areas of seeming irreconcilable tension. It is argued here that key to theorizing about food sovereignty is drawing lessons from its attempted construction on the ground, as movements and other actors are forced to confront its contradictions, inconsistencies and many gray areas head-on. Toward such ends, this study advances a historical, relational and interactive (HRI) framework that approaches food sovereignty construc-tion as a historically embedded, continually evolving set of processes that are interactively shaped by state and societal forces, reflecting competing paradigms and approaches. The HRI framework is applied to the case of Venezuela, home to one of the longest-running national-level experiments in food sovereignty con-struction since the start of its political process known as the Bolivarian Revolution in 1999. While this experiment has seen some important gains over the years, including in the areas of agrarian reform, nutrition and agroecology, today, ongoing shortages of key food items expose cracks in Venezuela’s food system and highlight both the enormity and urgency of the task of food sovereignty construction, as well as the limitations of ef-forts to date. Examination of the challenges at present gives rise to the question of whether a push for alternatives in efforts to construct food sovereignty may have taken precedence over attempts at dismantling or otherwise transforming Venezuela’s dominant agrifood system. This under-scores that part of what gives food sovereignty its transformative potential is its dual focus on dismantling the structures fostering injustice in the food system while at the same time striving to build viable alternatives. Arguably one cannot come before the other, or without the other, as the persistence of dominant structures will serve as an impediment to the full operationali-zation and scaling of alternatives, at the same time that if these structures are to be dismantled, something must be there to replace them. These dual processes are inherently relational, each shaping and shaped by the other in attempts to construct food sovereignty. From this standpoint, an additional framework of the dialectics of building and dismantling in food sovereignty con-struction is put forward as a springboard into further inquiry. Additionally, this study has sought to advance forms of co-generation of transformation-al knowledge bridging the traditional divide of scholarship and activism, while pointing to the need for further and deeper work in this area

Stochastic resonance in periodic potentials: realization in a dissipative optical lattice

We have observed the phenomenon of stochastic resonance on the Brillouin propagation modes of a dissipative optical lattice. Such a mode has been excited by applying a moving potential modulation with phase velocity equal to the velocity of the mode. Its amplitude has been characterized by the center-of-mass (CM) velocity of the atomic cloud. At Brillouin resonance, we studied the CM-velocity as a function of the optical pumping rate at a given depth of the potential wells. We have observed a resonant dependence of the CM velocity on the optical pumping rate, corresponding to the noise strength. This corresponds to the experimental observation of stochastic resonance in a periodic potential in the low-damping regime

Guidelines for a common port noise impact assessment: the ANCHOR LIFE project

The paper reports the main contents of the guidelines developed in the framework of the project ANCHOR, acronym of Advanced Noise Control strategies in HarbOuR, which is a European Project funded as part of the announcement Life 2017. The guidelines represent an updated version of those elaborated in the NoMEPorts project named 'Good Practice Guide on Port Area Noise Mapping and Management'; the aim is to define a common approach in port noise monitoring and assessment, considering the outcomes of previous EU funded projects and the algorithms defined by the European Directive 2015/996, in order to produce Port Noise Impact Assessments to be included in ports Environmental Management Systems (EMS). The procedures described in the guidelines will guide professionals in organizing and managing geographical data, in characterizing noise sources and defining, for each of them, the correct noise emission power level, in evaluating noise propagation and people exposure to noise and, finally, in selecting the most efficient mitigation action by means of a cost benefit analysis. Moreover, the paper reports the results of a comparison between noise mapping outcomes obtained using the new noise mapping algorithms defined by the 2015/996 Directive and the old 2002/49/EC Annex II ones; especially at long distances from the source the differences between the two methodologies are not negligible

Airborne Sound Power Levels and Spectra of Noise Sources in Port Areas

Airborne port noise has historically suffered from a lack of regulatory assessment compared to other transport infrastructures. This has led to several complaints from citizens living in the urban areas surrounding ports, which is a very common situation, especially in countries facing the Mediterranean sea. Only in relatively recent years has an effort been made to improve this situation, which has resulted in a call for and financing of numerous international cooperation research projects, within the framework of programs such as EU FP7, H2020, ENPI-CBC MED, LIFE, and INTERREG. These projects dealt with issues and aspects of port noise, which is an intrinsically tangled problem, since several authorities and companies operate within the borders of ports, and several different noise sources are present at the same time. In addition, ship classification societies have recently recognized the problem and nowadays are developing procedures and voluntary notations to assess the airborne noise emission from marine vessels. The present work summarizes the recent results of research regarding port noise sources in order to provide a comprehensive database of sources that can be easily used, for example, as an input to the noise mapping phase, and can subsequently prevent citizens' exposure to noise

ICSBP Is Essential for the Development of Mouse Type I Interferon-producing Cells and for the Generation and Activation of CD8α+ Dendritic Cells

Interferon (IFN) consensus sequence-binding protein (ICSBP) is a transcription factor playing a critical role in the regulation of lineage commitment, especially in myeloid cell differentiation. In this study, we have characterized the phenotype and activation pattern of subsets of dendritic cells (DCs) in ICSBP−/− mice. Remarkably, the recently identified mouse IFN-producing cells (mIPCs) were absent in all lymphoid organs from ICSBP−/− mice, as revealed by lack of CD11clowB220+Ly6C+CD11b− cells. In parallel, CD11c+ cells isolated from ICSBP−/− spleens were unable to produce type I IFNs in response to viral stimulation. ICSBP−/− mice also displayed a marked reduction of the DC subset expressing the CD8α marker (CD8α+ DCs) in spleen, lymph nodes, and thymus. Moreover, ICSBP−/− CD8α+ DCs exhibited a markedly impaired phenotype when compared with WT DCs. They expressed very low levels of costimulatory molecules (intercellular adhesion molecule [ICAM]-1, CD40, CD80, CD86) and of the T cell area-homing chemokine receptor CCR7, whereas they showed higher levels of CCR2 and CCR6, as revealed by reverse transcription PCR. In addition, these cells were unable to undergo full phenotypic activation upon in vitro culture in presence of maturation stimuli such as lipopolysaccharide or poly (I:C), which paralleled with lack of Toll-like receptor (TLR)3 mRNA expression. Finally, cytokine expression pattern was also altered in ICSBP−/− DCs, as they did not express interleukin (IL)-12p40 or IL-15, but they displayed detectable IL-4 mRNA levels. On the whole, these results indicate that ICSBP is a crucial factor in the regulation of two possibly linked processes: (a) the development and activity of mIPCs, whose lack in ICSBP−/− mice may explain their high susceptibility to virus infections; (b) the generation and activation of CD8α+ DCs, whose impairment in ICSBP−/− mice can be responsible for the defective generation of a Th1 type of immune response

Synchronization of Hamiltonian motion and dissipative effects in optical lattices: Evidence for a stochastic resonance

We theoretically study the influence of the noise strength on the excitation of the Brillouin propagation modes in a dissipative optical lattice. We show that the excitation has a resonant behavior for a specific amount of noise corresponding to the precise synchronization of the Hamiltonian motion on the optical potential surfaces and the dissipative effects associated with optical pumping in the lattice. This corresponds to the phenomenon of stochastic resonance. Our results are obtained by numerical simulations and correspond to the analysis of microscopic quantities (atomic spatial distributions) as well as macroscopic quantities (enhancement of spatial diffusion and pump-probe spectra). We also present a simple analytical model in excellent agreement with the simulations

Capping agent effect on Pd-supported nanoparticles in the hydrogenation of furfural

The catalytic performance of a series of 1 wt % Pd/C catalysts prepared by the sol-immobilization method has been studied in the liquid-phase hydrogenation of furfural. The temperature range studied was 25\u201375 \ub0C, keeping the H2 pressure constant at 5 bar. The effect of the catalyst preparation using different capping agents containing oxygen or nitrogen groups was assessed. Polyvinyl alcohol (PVA), polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP), and poly (diallyldimethylammonium chloride) (PDDA) were chosen. The catalysts were characterized by ultraviolet-visible spectroscopy (UV-Vis), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The characterization data suggest that the different capping agents affected the initial activity of the catalysts by adjusting the available Pd surface sites, without producing a significant change in the Pd particle size. The different activity of the three catalysts followed the trend: PdPVA/C > PdPDDA/C > PdPVP/C. In terms of selectivity to furfuryl alcohol, the opposite trend has been observed: PdPVP/C > PdPDDA/C > PdPVA/C. The different reactivity has been ascribed to the different shielding effect of the three ligands used; they influence the adsorption of the reactant on Pd active sites