The marriage of João de Alarcão and Margarida Soares and the creation of a transnational Portuguese-Spanish nobility

The main aim of this chapter is to analyze the social and political effects of dynastic marriages between the Portuguese and Castilian-Aragonese crowns on the configuration of transnational, aristocratic families during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. To illustrate these questions we have chosen to follow the Soares de Alarcão family (known in Spain as Suárez de Alarcón) and the paths it took between the royal houses of Portugal and Castile for seven generations. The working hypothesis of the chapter is that the identity of the Iberian nobility during this era was characterized by a shared noble culture rather than by any particular features derived from the family’s land of origin. That assumption allows us to discuss whether the use of a particular language or culture indicates ties or political loyalties based on criteria of nationality, or, at the very least, place of birth. Therefore, this essay discusses the miscegenation of Iberian nobilities derived from dynastic marriages. It articulates the structural characteristics of this group and its political impact with the individual trajectories and historical contexts in which they developed. While these topics can be of interest for the comprehension of Portuguese early modern history, they can also help us to reflect more broadly on processes of identity construction.

Vihara architecture: defining the existential foothold of VIII century Buddhist monastery "Somapura Mahavihara" of ancien Bengal

Lost in history, the ruin of ‘Somapura Mahavihara’ was not recognized separated from its birthplace, i.e. nature, for more than 700 years. Yet, within its silent presence, the monument dominated the name of the region: ‘Paharpur’ (land of hillock), according to its appearance surrounds by its flat land topo¬graphy. Discovered in 1919, the single largest Buddhist Vihara (monas¬tery) of ancient Bengal came into light, pronouncing the flou¬rishing minute of Buddhist architecture, once dominant religious force of the subcontinent. The earliest historical monumental architecture of greater Asia, had long been deriving itself from the Buddhist monastic architecture as early as VI century BC. In line of history, the discovery of ‘Somapura Mahavihara’ contributed attesting the sensitivities of a highly sophisticated architectonic typology of Vihara Architecture in the land of ancient Bengal. The recovery of ‘Somapura Mahavihara’ was not only from its cradle of nature, but also from its remarkable existence imprinted in the reign of Pala dynasty (750 - 1155 AD) announcing the existential foothold of man in his nature. The existential foothold of ‘Somapura Mahavihara’ comprises the factors, responsible in shaping the anchorage of the mo¬nument since the birth of Vihara architecture, as early as 530 BC. These factors not only denote the building technology in response to its environment but also the amalgamation of be¬lief, upon which the dwellers transformed the site as a place announcing their existence on earth. This research paper aims at exploring the existential foothold of ‘Somapura Mahavihara’, in terms of its territorial, functional, structural, social, cultural, religious sym¬bolic hierarchies of human achievement while clarifying the architectonic typology that shaped ‘Somapura Mahavihara’ through evolution process of ‘Vihara Architecture’. This understanding intends to combine the archaeological knowledge with comparative architectural analysis of contem¬porary Viharas of ancient Bengal, to define the singularity of ‘Somapura Mahavihara’. In consequence, the glorious past of ‘Somapura Mahavihara’ is intended to portray through iden¬tifying the relation of religious and functional rationalism with the connotation of art, architecture and belief moulded within natural forces, as one complete entity; RESUMO: Vihara Arquitetura: Definindo a posição existencial do século VIII Budista mosteiro “Somapura Mahavihara” de Bengala antiga. Perdidas na História, as ruínas de ‘Somapura Mahavihara’ foram confundidas com uma montanha durante mais de setecentos anos. Contudo, no seu silêncio presente, o monumento marcou a toponímia da região; ‘Paharpur’ significa ‘a terra do outeiro’, evidenciando a singularidade deste monumento numa região dominada por uma extensa planície. Em 1919, foi descoberto o maior mosteiro budista da antiga região de Bengal, demonstrando a prosperidade da arquitectura budista. Tem¬poralmente, a descoberta de ‘Somapura Mahavihara’ contribuiu para atestar a evolução e a sofisticação da tipologia arquitectónica denominada ‘Arquitectura Vihara’, existente na antiga região de Bengal. A noção de pegada existencial de ‘Somapura Mahavihara’ compreende os factores responsáveis por moldar a ancoragem do monumento ao lugar em que se insere desde o início da arquitectura Vihara, que remonta a 530 a.C. Estes factores evidenciam a tecnologia construtiva empregue para responder ao ambiente envolvente mas também a evolução da religião, factores estes que os monges construtores consideraram ao transformar o lugar e anunciar a sua existência na Terra. Esta investigação tem por objectivo explorar a noção de pegada existencial de ‘Somapura Mahavihara’, nas suas dimensões territoriais, funcionais, estruturais, sociais, culturais e nas hierarquias simbólicas das realizações humanas para clarificar a tipologia arquitectónica que deu forma a ‘Somapura Mahavihara’ durante a evolução da arquitectura Vihara. Este entendimento pretende combinar/cruzar o conhecimen¬to arqueológico com estudos arquitectónicos comparativos de Viharas na antiga região de Bengal, com o objectivo de definir a singularidade de ‘Somapura Mahavihara’. Neste estudo estudar-se-á também o confronto entre a dimensão religiosa e a artística (divino vs. humano), integrados na arquitectura de ‘Somapura Mahavihara’ em perfeita harmonia.

Mobilizing Greater Crop and Land Potentials Sustainably

The supply side of the food security engine is the way we farm. The current engine of conventional tillage farming is faltering and needs to be replaced. This presentation will address supply side issues of agriculture to meet future agricultural demands for food and industry using the alternate no-till Conservation Agriculture (CA) paradigm (involving no-till farming with mulch soil cover and diversified cropping) that is able to raise productivity sustainably and efficiently, reduce inputs, regenerate degraded land, minimise soil erosion, and harness the flow of ecosystem services. CA is an ecosystems approach to farming capable of enhancing not only the economic and environmental performance of crop production and land management, but also promotes a mindset change for producing ‘more from less’, the key attitude towards sustainable production intensification. CA is now spreading globally in all continents at an annual rate of 10 Mha and covers some 157 Mha of cropland. Today global agriculture produces enough food to feed three times the current population of 7.21 billion. In 1976, when the world population was 4.15 billion, world food production far exceeded the amount necessary to feed that population. However, our urban and industrialised lifestyle leads to wastage of food of some 30%-40%, as well as waste of enormous amount of energy and protein while transforming crop-based food into animal-derived food; we have a higher proportion of people than ever before who are obese; we continue to degrade our ecosystems including much of our agricultural land of which some 400 Mha is reported to be abandoned due to severe soil and land degradation; and yields of staple cereals appear to have stagnated. These are signs of unsustainability at the structural level in the society, and it is at the structural level, for both supply side and demand side, that we need transformed mind sets about production, consumption and distribution. CA not only provides the possibility of increased crop yields for the low input smallholder farmer, it also provides a pro-poor rural and agricultural development model to support agricultural intensification in an affordable manner. For the high output farmer, it offers greater efficiency (productivity) and profit, resilience and stewardship. For farming anywhere, it addresses the root causes of agricultural land degradation, sub-optimal ecological crop and land potentials or yield ceilings, and poor crop phenotypic expressions or yield gaps. As national economies expand and diversify, more people become integrated into the economy and are able to access food. However, for those whose livelihoods continue to depend on agriculture to feed themselves and the rest of the world population, the challenge is for agriculture to produce the needed food and raw material for industry with minimum harm to the environment and the society, and to produce it with maximum efficiency and resilience against abiotic and biotic stresses, including those arising from climate change. There is growing empirical and scientific evidence worldwide that the future global supplies of food and agricultural raw materials can be assured sustainably at much lower environmental and economic cost by shifting away from conventional tillage-based food and agriculture systems to no-till CA-based food and agriculture systems. To achieve this goal will require effective national and global policy and institutional support (including research and education).

Os sistemas integrados de gestão na Administração Pública : Estratégias de desenvolvimento e reorientação organizacional. Estudo de um caso

Os Organismos públicos encontram-se, actualmente, a desenvolver estudos a nível dos Sistemas Integrados de Gestão, motivados pela necessidade que existe em adoptar novas técnicas de Gestão capazes de responder às novas exigências de informação. Em termos gerais, os Organismos públicos encontram-se numa fase de viragem na sua actuação, em que surge a necessidade de dispor de novos sistemas de informação capazes de dar resposta às exigências da Nova Gestão Pública. É certo que a Nova Gestão Pública conduz a uma maior motivação, proporcionando uma melhoria na obtenção dos resultados e modernizando a relação entre o controlo das despesas públicas e a prestação de contas a nível dos órgãos do Estado, e onde a uniformização de critérios se apresenta como um dos principais requisitos para criar condições de implementação de uma contabilidade pública que funcione como instrumento de apoio aos utilizadores da informação e, em particular, aos Órgãos de Chefia e Direcção. Este trabalho analisa o caso do Exército Português, como exemplo de um Organismo público que aproveitou a obrigatoriedade de adesão ao novo Regime de Administração Financeira do Estado, para promover a implementação de um Sistema Integrado de Gestão capaz de responder às novas exigências de informação. Analisam-se também as estratégias de actuação e reorientação organizacional utilizadas pelo Exército Português, de modo a permitir o desenvolvimento e implementação do sistema baseado na uniformização de critérios que garanta os requisitos e as técnicas de Gestão capazes de criar condições para desenvolver uma contabilidade pública que funcione como instrumento de apoio à decisão. ABSTRACT; At present, government entities are developing studies at an Integrated Management System level, impelled by the actual need of adopting new Management techniques capable of responding to the new demands regarding Information. ln global terms, government entities are reaching a turning point in its way of acting, due to the arising need of settling new information systems which provide an answer to the demands of the New Public Management. It is assured that the New Public Management leads to a higher motivation, providing an improvement in accomplishing results and modernizing the link between the control of public expenditure and presenting accounts of State Organs. It also presents the criteria standards as one of the main requirements to create implementation conditions of a public accounting which operates as a support mean to the information users and, more specifically, to the Command and Boarding Bodies. This study analyses the Portuguese Army, an example of government entity which seized the obligation of joining the New Public Financial Management Regime to promote the implementation of an Integrated Management System capable of responding to the new information demands. The performing strategies and organizational refocus used by the Portuguese Army are also analyzed in order to allow the development and implementation of the system. It is based in the standard criteria that secure the requirements and Management techniques which enable the progress of a public accounting acting as a support resource in decision-making.