Food sovereignty in Latin America

English: Hunger and undernourishment have been widely acknowledged as central problems of human rights in various forums and conferences. In spite of this recognition, hunger has kept increasing in a wo rld where food is produced in abundance. FAO figures released in 2009 show that by 2008 there were around 1.020 million human beings suffering from hunger on a daily basis. The problems of undernourishment and hunger are somehow stressed in developing regi ons where infrastructure and production resources are restricted. One such region is that of Latin American Countries, which faces staggering levels of poverty and food supply constraints. This work attempts to develop an Index on advancement on hunger bas ed on the five pillars proposed for Foreign Sovereignty (FSv) principles that some countries of the Latin American region (and other regions) have adopted. The resulting Index, named Foreign Sovereignty Index (FSvI) was then used to produce a relative posi tion (ranking) for the set of countries that integrate the region of Latin America, and analyze whether there exist diverse results as a consequence of the Latin American countries which have included policies aiming at reaching FSv in their countries. We did not find support for this proposition; however, the adoption of the FSv legal framework is relatively recent (Bolivia in 2007, Ecuador in 2010 and Venezuela in 2008; Fernández Such and Rivera Ferre, 2011), therefore it is still too soon to observe prog ress in those countries; we, thus, remain confident that further research on this topic will provide more optimistic results.*The first version of Food Sovereignty Index (FSvI) is the result of the joint collaboration with two other colleagues:Mohammed Mahmoud and Nesat Çomak. This work has been led by Marta G. Rivera Ferre, advisor of this work.Castellà: La hambruna y la malnutrición han sido ampliamente reconocidas como problemas fundamentales de derechos humanos en diversos foros y conferencias. A pesar de este hecho, la hambruna ha seguido creciendo en un mundo donde la producción de alimentos es abundante. Datos de la FAO publicados en 2009 muestran que hacia 2008 existían alrededor de 1.020 millones de seres humanos sufriendo de hambruna diariamente. Estos problemas aparecen de manera más cruda en regiones donde la infraestructura y la producción de recursos es limitada. Una de estas regiones es Latinoamérica, cuyos países enfrentan asombrosos niveles de pobreza y restricciones en la provisión de alimentos. Este trabajo intenta desarrollar un Índice relativo a los avances en temas de hambruna, basado en los cinco pilares propuestos para los principios del marco de Soberanía Alimentaria (FSv, por sus siglas en ingles) que han sido adoptados por algunos países de la región de Latinoamérica (y por otras regiones). El Índice resultante, llamado Índice de Soberanía Alimentaria (FSvI, por sus siglas en ingles) fue posteriormente utilizado para producir un listado de posiciones relativas (ranking) para el conjunto de países que integran la región Latinoamericana y analizar si existen resultados diversos como consecuencia de la adopción del marco legal de Soberanía Alimentaria de algunos países de esa región. No encontramos soporte para esta proposición, sin embargo, la adopción de este marco legal se ha llevado a cabo recientemente (Bolivia en 2007, Ecuador en 2010 y Venezuela en 2008; Fernández Such and Rivera Ferre, 2011), por lo tanto aún es temprano para observar progreso en estos países. A la vista de estos hechos nos mantenemos confiados de que futuras investigaciones en esta materia arrojarán resultados más optimistas. * La primera versión del Índice Internacional de Soberanía Alimentaria (IISA) se realizó en colaboración con un grupo de trabajo liderado por Marta G. Rivera Ferre, tutora de este trabajo, y formado por Mahmud Mohammed, Nesat Çomak y Adriana Ruiz Almeida.Català: La fam i la malnutrició han estat àmpliament reconegudes com a problemes fonamentals de drets humans en diversos fòrums i conferències. Malgrat aquest fet, la fam ha seguit creixent en un món on la producció d'ali ments és abundant. Dades de la FAO publicats en 2009 mostren que cap a 2008 existien al voltant d'1.020 milions d'éssers humans sofrint de fam diàriament. Aquests problemes apareixen de manera més crua en regions on la infraestructura i la producció de rec ursos és limitada. Una d'aquestes regions és Llatinoamèrica , els països de les quals enfronten sorprenents nivells de pobresa i restriccions en la provisió d'aliments. Aquest treball intenta desenvolupar un Índex relatiu als avanços en temes de fam, basat en els cinc pilars proposats per als principis del marc de Sobirania Alimentària (FSv, per les seves sigles en engonals) que han estat adoptats per alguns països de la regió de Llatinoamèrica (i per altres regions). L'Índex resultant, anomenat Índex de Sob irania Alimentària (FSvI, per les seves sigles en engonals) va ser posteriorment utilitzat per produir un llistat de posicions relatives (rànquing) per al conjunt de països que integren la regió Llatinoamericana i analitzar si existeixen resultats diversos com a conseqüència de l'adopció del marc legal de Sobirania Alimentària d'alguns països d'aquesta regió. No trobem suport per a aquesta proposició, no obstant això, l'adopció d'aquest marc legal s'ha dut a terme recentment (Bolívia en 2007, Equador en 201 0 i Ven eçuela en 2008; Fernández Such i Rivera Ferre, 2011), per tant encara és primerenc per observar progrés en aquests països. A la vista d'aquests fets ens mantenim confiats que futures investigacions en aquesta matèria llançaran resultats més optimistes. * La primera versió de l'Índex Internacional de Sobirania Alimentària (IISA) es va realitzar en col.laboració amb un grup de treball liderat per Marta G. Rivera Ferre, tutora d'aquest treball,i format per Mahmud Mohammed, Nesat Çomak i Adriana Ruiz Almeida

Female computer science and engineering undergraduates: reflections on participation in the academic landscape

Women continue to be underrepresented in computer science and technology related fields despite their significant contributions. The lack of diversity in technology related fields is problematic as it can result in the perpetuation of negative stereotypes and closed-minded, unchecked biases. As technology tools become integral to our daily lives it is essential that a diverse group of people contribute to the sociocultural environments where we participate and live. This dissertation is a phenomenological, interview-based, study designed to investigate the lived experience of women in undergraduate computer science and engineering programs. The purpose of this study was to better understand the factors that might encourage or discourage the participation women in the major and in the field. In order to grow the number of women in technical fields it is important to first understand what attracts them to the field and what supports they find helpful or not helpful. This study illuminated some recommendations that might guide the work of practitioners in secondary schools as well as higher education. Among other things, participants appreciated being challenged by the content and assignments, feeling support from faculty and peers, feeling a connection to the culture, effective encouragement to persist, and engaging interactions. All of the participants described having gone into their field to make a positive impact on society and they also all described the importance having at least one supportive female mentor. Participants described the importance of having spaces where they felt included and appreciated their professors and peers who pushed back against the historical CS-world stereotypes. While the experience of each participant was unique, and there were some very negative experiences, all six participants reported having mostly positive experience in their undergraduate programs

Is Low-Level Laser Therapy an Effective Treatment for Patients with Primary Raynaud’s Phenomenon?

OBJECTIVE: The objective of this selective EBM review is to determine whether or not low-level laser therapy is an effective treatment for patients with primary Raynaud’s Phenomenon. STUDY DESIGN: Review of three randomized, double blind, placebo controlled trials, published between 2002-2004. DATA SOURCES: Randomized, double blind clinical trials comparing low-level laser therapy with a placebo treatment were found using the Cochrane databases, and PubMed. OUTCOME MEASURED: Reduction in frequency and severity of Raynaud’s attacks. Outcomes were measured and recorded with daily diaries of attacks before and after the intervention, and thermographic studies. RESULTS: Three RCTs were included in this review. The RCT by Hirschl et al. 2002, showed a decrease in frequency of attacks from 0.86 to 0.67 with the laser therapy, which was more than with the sham treatment, but not statistically significant. It was, however, significant in lowering the intensity of attacks. The RCT by Hirschl et al. 2004 showed that both the number of attacks and their intensity were significantly reduced during the period of laser therapy compared to the sham treatment. Intensity of attacks was reduced 82% with laser therapy. The RCT by Al-Awami et al. 2004, also showed a statistically significant improvement in both frequency and intensity of attacks. CONCLUSIONS: All three RCTs showed that low level laser therapy decreased the frequency or intensity of Raynaud’s attacks more effectively than when exposed to a sham treatment, and it seems to be an option for treating these attacks. Further studies should be conducted to understand the pathogenetic mechanism of LLLT on Raynaud’s phenomenon and it’s place in treatment

The Asymptotic Behavior of the Composition of Firmly Nonexpansive Mappings

In this paper we provide a unified treatment of some convex minimization problems, which allows for a better understanding and, in some cases, improvement of results in this direction proved recently in spaces of curvature bounded above. For this purpose, we analyze the asymptotic behavior of compositions of finitely many firmly nonexpansive mappings in the setting of $p$-uniformly convex geodesic spaces focusing on asymptotic regularity and convergence results

Traffic forecasts under uncertainty and capacity constraints

Traffic forecasts provide essential input for the appraisal of transport investment projects. However, according to recent empirical evidence, long-term predictions are subject to high levels of uncertainty. This paper quantifies uncertainty in traffic forecasts for the tolled motorway network in Spain. Uncertainty is quantified in the form of a confidence interval for the traffic forecast that includes both model uncertainty and input uncertainty. We apply a stochastic simulation process based on bootstrapping techniques. Furthermore, the paper proposes a new methodology to account for capacity constraints in long-term traffic forecasts. Specifically, we suggest a dynamic model in which the speed of adjustment is related to the ratio between the actual traffic flow and the maximum capacity of the motorway. This methodology is applied to a specific public policy that consists of suppressing the toll on a certain motorway section before the concession expires.

Visual processing speed in the aging brain

Either reading a text in the office or looking for an apple in the supermarket, we are continuously flooded with visual stimuli. But how does the human brain support the efficient processing of those stimuli? And, if pathological changes occur in the brain, how do these changes lead to reductions in such efficient processing? In the present dissertation, aging is used as a model to address these two questions. First, individual differences in visual processing speed are examined in association with the coherence of the brain’s spontaneous activity and how this coherence is affected by normal aging. Second, individual differences in visual processing speed are studied in association with behavior in tasks that measure complex visual object perception in patients at risk of Alzheimer’s dementia and healthy aging adults. Based on these two approaches, evidence will be presented for an association of a slowed visual processing with (a) decreased coherent activity of a frontoinsular network in healthy aging and (b) simultaneous object perception deficits in patients at risk of Alzheimer’s dementia. This evidence provides critical insights into the particular link between visual processing speed and the coherence of the brain’s spontaneous activity and reveals perceptual deficits in patients whose clinically most apparent impairments lie in memory

Cinética e isotermas de bioadsorción de Hg(II) usando materiales residuales tratados con ácido cítrico

(Eng) In this paper was studied the adsorption of Hg(II) by using lignocellulosic residual biomass from bagasse palm and yam peels, which were chemically treated with citric acid. The concentrations of Hg(II) ions in the supernatant were analyzed by the formation of the Hg(CNS)4- 2 complex, which was measured through the absorption in the ultraviolet region (281nm). It was determined that the hydroxyl and carboxyl groups present in the chemically modified biomaterials have a huge contribution in the adsorption process. We estimated a maximum capacity of adsorption about 385,80 and 356,86mg/g for citric acid treated yam peels and bagasse palm, respectively. It was also determined that the Elovich kinetic model and the Freundlich isotherm model were the best to describe the adsorption process of Hg(II) onto both biomaterials.(Spa) En este trabajo se estudió la adsorción de Hg(II) a partir de biomasas residuales de bagazo de palma y cáscaras de ñame tratadas químicamente con ácido cítrico. La determinación del metal en solución fue llevada a cabo mediante la formación del complejo Hg(CNS)4- 2 que fue medido a través de absorción en la región ultravioleta (281nm). Se encontró que los grupos hidroxilo y carboxilo presentes en los biomateriales modificados químicamente son los que tienen una mayor contribución al proceso de remoción, determinándose una máxima capacidad de adsorción de 385,80 y 356,86mg/g para las cáscaras de ñame y el bagazo de palma tratadas con ácido cítrico, respectivamente. Para este sistema se encontró que el modelo cinético de Elovich y el modelo isotermal de Freundlich son los que mejor describen el comportamiento de adsorción de Hg(II) en ambos biomateriales

Low level direct interpolation for parametric curves

This article presents an algorithm for the direct interpolation of parametric planar curves C(u) with a CNC machine. It expresses parametric planar curves as sequences of machine tool axes discrete movements of BLU size. Therefore, the curve C(u) is directly approximated by the pulse trains, hence eliminating one source of the machining errors

Global and local expansion of magnetic clouds in the inner heliosphere

Observations of magnetic clouds (MCs) are consistent with the presence of flux ropes detected in the solar wind (SW) a few days after their expulsion from the Sun as coronal mass ejections (CMEs). Both the \textit{in situ} observations of plasma velocity profiles and the increase of their size with solar distance show that MCs are typically expanding structures. The aim of this work is to derive the expansion properties of MCs in the inner heliosphere from 0.3 to 1 AU.We analyze MCs observed by the two Helios spacecraft using \textit{in situ} magnetic field and velocity measurements. We split the sample in two subsets: those MCs with a velocity profile that is significantly perturbed from the expected linear profile and those that are not. From the slope of the \textit{in situ} measured bulk velocity along the Sun-Earth direction, we compute an expansion speed with respect to the cloud center for each of the analyzed MCs. We analyze how the expansion speed depends on the MC size, the translation velocity, and the heliocentric distance, finding that all MCs in the subset of non-perturbed MCs expand with almost the same non-dimensional expansion rate ($\zeta$). We find departures from this general rule for $\zeta$ only for perturbed MCs, and we interpret the departures as the consequence of a local and strong SW perturbation by SW fast streams, affecting the MC even inside its interior, in addition to the direct interaction region between the SW and the MC. We also compute the dependence of the mean total SW pressure on the solar distance and we confirm that the decrease of the total SW pressure with distance is the main origin of the observed MC expansion rate. We found that $\zeta$ was $0.91\pm 0.23$ for non-perturbed MCs while $\zeta$ was $0.48\pm 0.79$ for perturbed MCs, the larger spread in the last ones being due to the influence of the environment conditions on the expansion