Does land tenure insecurity discourage tree planting?: evolution of customary land tenure and agroforestry management in Sumatra

It is widely believed that land tenure insecurity under a customary tenure system leads to socially inefficient resource allocation. This article demonstrates that land tenure insecurity promotes tree planting, which is inefficient from the private point of view but could be relatively efficient from the viewpoint of the global environment. Regression analysis, based on primary data collected in Sumatra, indicates that tenure insecurity in fact leads to early tree planting. It is also found that customary land tenure institutions have been evolving towards greater tenure security responding to increasing scarcity of land.Land tenure., Sumatra., Tree planting.,

Reconstructing the history of a plantation community: Stanley Stein’s Vassouras

Publicado en 1957, Vassouras de Stanley Stein sigue siendo una obra esencial para la historia del Brasil y para los estudios sobre la plantación. En este artículo ofrecemos un análisis microhistórico de las diferentes fuentes intelectuales transdisciplinares que Stein movilizó para construir Vassouras en una época anterior a la existencia de la historia social. Es más, se enfatiza la forma en que hizo uso de los community studies para configurar una análisis que opera en múltiples escalas espaciales y temporales en un momento en que las aproximaciones microhistóricas no se habían desarrollado.Published in 1957, Stanley Stein’s Vassouras remains a class of Brazilian history and of plantation studies. This article offers a microhistorical analysis of the various transdisciplinary intellectual resources that Stein mobilized to construct Vassouras in a period before the existence of social history. Further, it emphasizes the way that utilized community studies to construct an analysis that operates on multiple spatial and temporal scale in a period when microhistorical approaches were not available

O Engenho de açúcar: André João Antonil y la anatomía de la plantación esclavista brasileña del siglo XVII

Jesuit João André Antonil’s Cultura e Opulência do Brasil is perhaps the first comprehensive treatise on slave plantation agriculture in the Americas. However, it is neither a manual nor an economic analysis. Rather, it is a moral and ethical guide for the administration of a sugar mill. This article examines the concepts, categories of thought, structures of meaning, and interpretive strategies through which Antonil comprehends the process of commodity production for the world market on the slave engenho. Antonil’s conceptual horizon was constrained by the Jesuit synthesis of Aristotelean thought and post-Tridentine Christian doctrine and the conception of the Last Judgement as the end of historical time. Consequently, he could not conceptualize the modernity of Atlantic slavery, the world market, and the plantation as a new temporality. Instead, he analyzes the engenho through the Aristotelean concept of oikos or household. The categories of thought and action through which Antonil comprehends the slave plantation and world market reveal the contradictory relation between slave production and the world market in the Iberian Atlantic.Cultura e Opulência do Brasil, del jesuita João André Antonil, es quizá el primer tratado exhaustivo sobre la agricultura de las plantaciones de esclavos en América. Sin embargo, no es ni un manual ni un análisis económico. Se trata más bien de una guía moral y ética para la administración de un ingenio azucarero. Este artículo examina los conceptos, las categorías de pensamiento, las estructuras de significado y las estrategias interpretativas a través de las cuales Antonil comprende el proceso de producción de mercancías para el mercado mundial en el engenho esclavo. El horizonte conceptual de Antonil estaba limitado por la síntesis jesuita del pensamiento aristotélico y la doctrina cristiana postridentina y la concepción del Juicio Final como fin del tiempo histórico. En consecuencia, no podía conceptualizar la modernidad de la esclavitud atlántica, el mercado mundial y la plantación como una nueva temporalidad. En su lugar, analiza el engenho a través del concepto aristotélico de oikos u hogar. Las categorías de pensamiento y acción a través de las cuales Antonil comprende la plantación de esclavos y el mercado mundial revelan la relación contradictoria entre la producción de esclavos y el mercado mundial en el Atlántico ibérico

Kindness in the Classroom

This study investigates the impact direct and explicit teaching has on a student’s level of empathy in a third grade classroom using the Kindness in the Classroom curriculum

The Effect of Filler Type and Level on Inframike and Moistron Moisture Measurement and Accuray Basis Weight Measurement

The following report is a study on the effects of filler type and level on the Inframike, Moistron and Accuray Basis Weight. Specifically, the effects of clay talc and Ti02 were investigated at 5%, 10·%, and 15% addition levels. The Inframike was affected linearly by all three filters. The Moistron was not affected by talc and clay, but it was affected in a non-uniform manner by Ti02. The Accuray was not affected by clay and it was affected linearly by talc and Ti02

An Acculturation Study of Japanese-American Buddhists in Northern Utah

The primary purpose of this study was to present a sociological analysis of American Buddhism in northern Utah. Specifically, the analysis covered the acculturation changes of American Buddhism in X __ , Utah, the functions of the acculturation changes, and the effects of secularization on the Buddhists. The findings were as follows: Buddhism in X___ is becoming American Buddhism just as Buddhism in Japan became Japanese Buddhism. Buddhism in X___ reinforces the norms and values of the X___ society but also puts a strain on social relationship by contributing to ethnocentrism and racial segregation. The Buddhist Society in X___ has become more secular and, as a consequence of the secularization process, could cease to exist in the future

Free energy analysis of conductivity and charge selectivity of M2GlyR-derived synthetic channels

Significant progresses have been made in the design, synthesis, modeling and in vitro testing of channel-forming peptides derived from the second transmembrane domain of the α-subunit of the glycine receptor (GlyR). The latest designs, including p22 (KKKKP ARVGL GITTV LTMTT QS), are highly soluble in water with minimal aggregation propensity and insert efficiently into cell membranes to form highly conductive ion channels. The last obstacle to a potential lead sequence for channel replacement treatment of CF patients is achieving adequate chloride selectivity. We have performed free energy simulation to analyze the conductance and charge selectivity of M2GlyR-derived synthetic channels. The results reveal that the pentameric p22 pore is non-selective. Moderate barriers for permeation of both K+ and Cl- are dominated by the desolvation cost. Despite previous evidence suggesting a potential role of threonine side chains in anion selectivity, the hydroxyl group is not a good surrogate of water for coordinating these ions. We have also tested initial ideas of introducing additional rings of positive changes to various positions along the pore to increase anion selectivity. The results support the feasibility of achieving anion selectivity by modifying the electrostatic properties of the pore, but at the same time suggest that the peptide assembly and pore topology may also be dramatically modified, which could abolish the effects of modified electrostatics on anion selectivity. This was confirmed by subsequent two-electrode voltage clamp measurements showing that none of the tested mono-, di- and tri-Dap substituted sequences was selective. The current study thus highlights the importance of controlling channel topology besides modifying pore electrostatics for achieving anion selectivity. Several strategies are now being explored in our continued efforts to design an anion selective peptide channel with suitable biophysical, physiological and pharmacological properties as a potential treatment modality for channel replacement therapy