The Role and Problems of Small Business

Jordens befolkning ökar i snabb takt och stadsodlingar kan vara ett sätt att förse den ökande populationen med mat. Hur byggnadsintegrerade stadsodlingar, med fokus på tak, kan kopplas till hållbarhet undersöks i denna rapport. Den nuvarande situationen i Afrika och Nordamerika undersöks och frågeställningen som besvaras är: Hur skiljer sig prioriteringen av olika dimensioner av hållbarhet vid olika förutsättningar för urbana byggnadsintegrerade odlingar i Afrika och Nordamerika? Vilka aspekter av hållbarhet som kopplas till byggnadsintegrerade stadsodlingar bestäms till ekologiska, sociala och ekonomiska. Stadsodlingar kan också delas in i fyra olika verksamhetsplaner, av vilka institutionella odlingar, kommersiella odlingar och community farms analyseras. Resultatet visar att Afrika och Nordamerika har olika förutsättningar för att stadsodling ska vara en hållbar lösning. Afrika består idag av 1.1 miljarder människor vilket beräknas stiga till 2.4 miljarder år 2050. Klimatet är torrt på de flesta platser och en stor del av befolkningen lever i fattigdom och svält. Nordamerika har ett tempererat klimat med fyra årstider, och befolkningen kommer att ligga på en stabil nivå fram till år 2050. Nordamerika räknas som ett mer utvecklat land, vilket innebär att de ekonomiska förutsättningarna här är större än de är i Afrika. Det finns en större andel stora odlingar i Nordamerika jämfört med Afrika, där odlingarna är mindre till ytan. Det finns också fler exempel på byggnadsintegrerad stadsodling i Nordamerika än i Afrika. Slutsatserna blir att byggnadsintegrerade stadsodlingar har bättre potential att utvecklas i Nordamerika då de kräver en stor investeringskostnad vid anläggning. För att byggnadsintegrerade stadsodlingar ska bli en mer hållbar och utbredd lösning både i Afrika och Nordamerika krävs att anläggningskostnaderna sänks med hjälp av nya tekniker. Community farms och institutionella odlingar prioriterar social hållbarhet medan kommersiella odlingar främst satsar på ekologisk och ekonomisk hållbarhet. Stadsodlingar är och har möjlighet att bli en allt viktigare del i matförsörjningen i städer. Då städerna förtätas minskar tillgänglig odlingsyta och andra lösningar måste användas. Byggnadsintegrerad stadsodling är en hållbar lösning både ekologiskt och socialt, och kan även kostnaderna för en byggnadsintegrerad odling minska kan dessa odlingar vara till stor hjälp för att minska svält och fattigdom. The world population is increasing at a rapid pace and city farms may be a way to provide food to the growing population. How building integrated urban farms, with a focus on roofs, can be linked to sustainability, is examined in this report. The current situation in Africa and North America are examined and the question to be answered is: How does the priority of the dimensions of sustainability vary at different conditions for urban building integrated farms in Africa and North America? The aspects of sustainability linked to building integrated urban farms are determined to be ecological, social and economic. Urban farms can also be divided into four different business types, of which institutional farms, commercial farms and community farms are analyzed. The results show that Africa and North America differ in possibilities for urban farming to be sustainable. Africa currently consists of 1.1 billion people, and this is expected to rise to 2.4 billion in 2050. Climate is dry in most places and a large part of the population lives in poverty and starvation. North America has a colder climate with four seasons, and the population will remain stable until 2050. North America is classified as a more developed area, which means that the economics in this area also are more developed than they are in Africa. There are more large-sized farms in North America than in Africa, and there are also more examples in North America. The conclusions are that building integrated urban cultures have a better potential to develop in North America since they require a large investment expense. For building integrated urban farms to be a more sustainable solution both in Africa and North America requirements are that construction costs need to be lowered. Community farms and institutional cultures prioritize social sustainability while commercial plantations mainly focus on ecological and economic sustainability. Urban farming is and may become an increasingly important part of the food supply in cities. When the cities densify it reduces available spaces for cultivation and other solutions must be used. These types of farms are sustainable solution both economic and social. If the cost of a building integrated farm can reduce these farms may help to reduce hunger and poverty.

Geographical analysis of diapause inducibility in European Drosophila melanogaster populations

Seasonal overwintering in insects represents an adaptation to stressful environments and in European Drosophila melanogaster females, low temperatures and short photoperiods can induce an ovarian diapause. Diapause may represent a recent (<15 Ky) adaptation to the colonisation of temperate Europe by D. melanogaster from tropical sub-Saharan Africa, because African D. melanogaster and the sibling species D. simulans, have been reported to fail to undergo diapause. Over the past few centuries, D. melanogaster have also invaded North America and Australia, and eastern populations on both continents show a predictable latitudinal cline in diapause induction. In Europe however, a new diapause-enhancing timeless allele, ls-tim, is observed at high levels in southern Italy (∼80%), where it appears to have arisen and has spread throughout the continent with a frequency of ∼20% in Scandinavia. Given the phenotype of ls-tim and its geographical distribution, we might predict that it would work against any latitudinal cline in diapause induction within Europe. Indeed we reveal that any latitudinal cline for diapause in Europe is very weak, as predicted by ls-tim frequencies. In contrast, we determine ls-tim frequencies in North America and observe that they would be expected to strengthen the latitudinal pattern of diapause. Our results reveal how a newly arisen mutation, can, via the stochastic nature of where it initially arose, blur an otherwise adaptive geographical pattern

The VMC Survey - VI. Quasars behind the Magellanic system

The number and spatial distribution of confirmed quasi-stellar objects (QSOs) behind the Magellanic system is limited. This undermines their use as astrometric reference objects for different types of studies. We have searched for criteria to identify candidate QSOs using observations from the VISTA survey of the Magellanic Clouds system (VMC) that provides photometry in the YJKs bands and 12 epochs in the Ks band. The (Y-J) versus (J-Ks) diagram has been used to distinguish QSO candidates from Milky Way stars and stars of the Magellanic Clouds. Then, the slope of variation in the Ks band has been used to identify a sample of high confidence candidates. These criteria were developed based on the properties of 117 known QSOs presently observed by the VMC survey. VMC YJKs magnitudes and Ks light-curves of known QSOs behind the Magellanic system are presented. About 75% of them show a slope of variation in Ks>10^-4 mag/day and the shape of the light-curve is in general irregular and without any clear periodicity. The number of QSO candidates found in tiles including the South Ecliptic Pole and the 30 Doradus regions is 22 and 26, respectively, with a ~20% contamination by young stellar objects, planetary nebulae, stars and normal galaxies. By extrapolating the number of QSO candidates to the entire VMC survey area we expect to find about 1200 QSOs behind the LMC, 400 behind the SMC, 200 behind the Bridge and 30 behind the Stream areas, but not all will be suitable for astrometry. Further, the Ks band light-curves can help support investigations of the mechanism responsible for the variations.Comment: 17 pages, 15 figures, replaced with accepted version by Astronomy & Astrophysic

Topological Defects in Nematic Droplets of Hard Spherocylinders

Using computer simulations we investigate the microscopic structure of the singular director field within a nematic droplet. As a theoretical model for nematic liquid crystals we take hard spherocylinders. To induce an overall topological charge, the particles are either confined to a two-dimensional circular cavity with homeotropic boundary or to the surface of a three-dimensional sphere. Both systems exhibit half-integer topological point defects. The isotropic defect core has a radius of the order of one particle length and is surrounded by free-standing density oscillations. The effective interaction between two defects is investigated. All results should be experimentally observable in thin sheets of colloidal liquid crystals.Comment: 13 pages, 16 figures, Phys. Rev.