The different dimensions of livelihood impacts of Payments for Environmentals Services (PES) schemes: A systematic review

Through a systematic review of peer-reviewed and grey literature, this paper analyzes evidence of the livelihood impacts of Payments for Environmental Services (PES). Forty-six studies assessed PES livelihood impacts. The assessments presented more positive livelihood impacts than negative ones, focusing on financial benefits. Non-monetary and non-material impacts of PES were largely understudied. Most reviews focused on ES providers, hindering the understanding of broader societal impacts. The review yielded examples where participants lost from their participation or where improvements in one livelihood dimension paralleled deterioration in another. Consequently, we identified key research gaps in: i) understanding the social and cultural impacts of PES, ii) evaluating environmental and economic additionality from improving other ES at the expense of cultural ones, iii) and assessing PES impacts in terms of trade-offs between multiple livelihood dimensions. Moreover, increased knowledge is needed on the impact of PES on changes in household expenditure and choice, and on trade-offs between household income and inequality in ES provider communities. Finally, if PES schemes are implemented to sustainably improve livelihoods, targeting disaggregated populations, understanding equity and social power relations within and between ES providers and users, and better monitoring and evaluation systems that consider locally relevant livelihood dimensions are needed

LAGOVirtual: A Collaborative Environment for the Large Aperture GRB Observatory

We present the LAGOVirtual Project: an ongoing project to develop platform to collaborate in the Large Aperture GRB Observatory (LAGO). This continental-wide observatory is devised to detect high energy (around 100 GeV) component of Gamma Ray Bursts, by using the single particle technique in arrays of Water Cherenkov Detectors (WCD) at high mountain sites (Chacaltaya, Bolivia, 5300 m a.s.l., Pico Espejo, Venezuela, 4750 m a.s.l., Sierra Negra, Mexico, 4650 m a.s.l). This platform will allow LAGO collaboration to share data, and computer resources through its different sites. This environment has the possibility to generate synthetic data by simulating the showers through AIRES application and to store/preserve distributed data files collected by the WCD at the LAGO sites. The present article concerns the implementation of a prototype of LAGO-DR adapting DSpace, with a hierarchical structure (i.e. country, institution, followed by collections that contain the metadata and data files), for the captured/simulated data. This structure was generated by using the community, sub-community, collection, item model; available at the DSpace software. Each member institution-country of the project has the appropriate permissions on the system to publish information (descriptive metadata and associated data files). The platform can also associate multiple files to each item of data (data from the instruments, graphics, postprocessed-data, etc.).Comment: Second EELA-2 Conference Choroni, Venezuela, November 25th to 27th 200

Thermal diffusion of supersonic solitons in an anharmonic chain of atoms

We study the non-equilibrium diffusion dynamics of supersonic lattice solitons in a classical chain of atoms with nearest-neighbor interactions coupled to a heat bath. As a specific example we choose an interaction with cubic anharmonicity. The coupling between the system and a thermal bath with a given temperature is made by adding noise, delta-correlated in time and space, and damping to the set of discrete equations of motion. Working in the continuum limit and changing to the sound velocity frame we derive a Korteweg-de Vries equation with noise and damping. We apply a collective coordinate approach which yields two stochastic ODEs which are solved approximately by a perturbation analysis. This finally yields analytical expressions for the variances of the soliton position and velocity. We perform Langevin dynamics simulations for the original discrete system which fully confirm the predictions of our analytical calculations, namely noise-induced superdiffusive behavior which scales with the temperature and depends strongly on the initial soliton velocity. A normal diffusion behavior is observed for very low-energy solitons where the noise-induced phonons also make a significant contribution to the soliton diffusion.Comment: Submitted to PRE. Changes made: New simulations with a different method of soliton detection. The results and conclusions are not different from previous version. New appendixes containing information about the system energy and soliton profile

An Instanton Picture O.P.E. <A^2> Condensate?

Gluon two- and three-point Green Functions computed in Landau gauge from the lattice show the existence of power corrections to the purely perturbative expressions, that can be explained through an Operator Product Expansion as the influence of a non gauge invariant mass dimension two condensate. The relationship of this condensate with topological properties of QCD, namely instantons, will be studied, giving a first estimate of the contribution of instantons to this condensate based in the direct lattice measure, after a cooling process, of the instanton liquid properties.Comment: Lattice2002(topology) contribution, 3 pages, 2 figure

Cement-Based Piezoelectricity Application: A Theoretical Approach

The linear theory of piezoelectricity has widely been used to evaluate the material constants of single crystals and ceramics, but what happens with amorphous structures that exhibit piezoelectric properties such as cement-based? In this chapter, we correlate the theoretical and experimental piezoelectric parameters for small deformations after compressive stress–strain, open circuit potential, and impedance spectroscopy on cement-based. Here, in detail, we introduce the theory of piezoelectricity for large deformations without including a functional for the energy; also, we show two generating equations in terms of a free energy’s function for later it will be reduced to constitutional equations of piezoelectricity for infinitesimal deformations. Finally, here is shown piezoelectric and electrical parameters of gold nanoparticles mixed to cement paste: the axial elasticity parameter Y=323.5±75.3kN/m2, the electroelastic parameter γ=−20.5±6.9mV/kN, and dielectric constant ε=939.6±82.9ε0F/m, which have an interpretation as linear theory parameters sijklD, gkij and εikT discussed in the chapter

O.P.E. and Power Corrections to the QCD coupling constant

Lattice data seems to show that power corrections should be convoked to describe appropriately the transition of the QCD coupling constant running from U.V. to I.R. domains. Those power corrections for the Landau-gauge MOM coupling constant in a pure Yang-Mills theory (N_f=0) are analysed in terms of Operator Product Expansion (O.P.E.) of two- and three-point Green functions, the gluon condensate emerging from this study. The semi-classical picture given by instantons can be also used to look for into the nature of the power corrections and gluon condensate.Comment: 5 pages, talk given at XXX International Meeting on Fundamental Physics, Jaca 200

The Large Aperture GRB Observatory

The Large Aperture GRB Observatory (LAGO) is aiming at the detection of the high energy (around 100 GeV) component of Gamma Ray Bursts, using the single particle technique in arrays of Water Cherenkov Detectors (WCD) in high mountain sites (Chacaltaya, Bolivia, 5300 m a.s.l., Pico Espejo, Venezuela, 4750 m a.s.l., Sierra Negra, Mexico, 4650 m a.s.l). WCD at high altitude offer a unique possibility of detecting low gamma fluxes in the 10 GeV - 1 TeV range. The status of the Observatory and data collected from 2007 to date will be presented.Comment: 4 pages, proceeding of 31st ICRC 200