Toward partial reorientation of land management for sustainability in view of material circulation: biophysical and historical analysis

This paper explores two major issues, from biophysical and historical viewpoints. We examine land management, which we define as the long-term fertility maintenance of land in relation to agriculture, fishery and forestry. We also explore humans’ positive role as agents aiming to reinforce harmonious materials circulation within the land. Liebig’s view on nature, agriculture and land, emphasizes the maintenance of long-term land fertility based on his agronomical thought that the circulation of matter in agricultural fields must be maintained with manure as much as possible. The thoughts of several classical economists, on nature, agriculture and land are reassessed from Liebig’s view point. Then, the land management problem is discussed at a much more fundamental level, to understand the necessary conditions for life in relation to land management. This point is analyzed in terms of two mechanisms: entropy disposal on the earth, and material circulation against gravitational field. Finally from the historical example of the metropolis of Edo, it is shown that there is yet another necessary condition for the sustainable management of land based on the creation of harmonious material cycles among cities, farm land, forests and surrounding sea areas in which humans play a vital role as agent.

Textural classification of land cover using support vector machines: an empirical comparison with parametric, non parametric and hybrid classifiers in the Bolivian Amazon

Land cover classification is a key research field in remote sensing and land change science as thematic maps derived from remotely sensed data have become the basis for analyzing many socio-ecological issues. However, land cover classification remains a difficult task and it is especially challenging in heterogeneous tropical landscapes where nonetheless such maps are of great importance. The present study aims to establish an efficient classification approach to accurately map all broad land cover classes in a large, heterogeneous tropical area of Bolivia, as a basis for further studies (e.g., land cover-land use change). Specifically, we compare the performance of parametric (maximum likelihood), non-parametric (k-nearest neighbour and four different support vector machines - SVM), and hybrid classifiers, using both hard and soft (fuzzy) accuracy assessments. In addition, we test whether the inclusion of a textural index (homogeneity) in the classifications improves their performance. We classified Landsat imagery for two dates corresponding to dry and wet seasons and found that non-parametric, and particularly SVM classifiers, outperformed both parametric and hybrid classifiers. We also found that the use of the homogeneity index along with reflectance bands significantly increased the overall accuracy of all the classifications, but particularly of SVM algorithms. We observed that improvements in producer’s and user’s accuracies through the inclusion of the homogeneity index were different depending on land cover classes. Earlygrowth/degraded forests, pastures, grasslands and savanna were the classes most improved, especially with the SVM radial basis function and SVM sigmoid classifiers, though with both classifiers all land cover classes were mapped with producer’s and user’s accuracies of around 90%. Our approach seems very well suited to accurately map land cover in tropical regions, thus having the potential to contribute to conservation initiatives, climate change mitigation schemes such as REDD+, and rural development policies.

Two-sided learning in new keynesian models: dynamics, (lack of) convergence and the value of information

This paper investigates the role of learning by private agents and the central bank (two-sided learning) in a New Keynesian framework in which both sides of the economy have asymmetric and imperfect knowledge about the true data generating process. We assume that all agents employ the data that they observe (which may be distinct for different sets of agents) to form beliefs about unknown aspects of the true model of the economy, use their beliefs to decide on actions, and revise these beliefs through a statistical learning algorithm as new information becomes available. We study the short-run dynamics of our model and derive its policy recommendations, particularly with respect to central bank communications. We demonstrate that two-sided learning can generate substantial increases in volatility and persistence, and alter the behavior of the variables in the model in a signifficant way. Our simulations do not converge to a symmetric rational expectations equilibrium and we highlight one source that invalidates the convergence results of Marcet and Sargent (1989). Finally, we identify a novel aspect of central bank communication in models of learning: communication can be harmful if the central bank's model is substantially mis-specified

Lack of CB1 receptor activity impairs serotonergic negative feedback

Serotonergic and endocannabinoid systems are important substrates for the control of emotional behavior and growing evidence show an involvement in the pathophysiology of mood disorders. In the present study, the absence of the activity of the CB1 cannabinoid receptor impaired serotonergic negative feedback in mice. Thus, in vivo microdialysis experiments revealed increased basal 5-HT extracellular levels and attenuated fluoxetine-induced increase of 5-HT extracellular levels in the prefrontal cortex of CB1 knockout compared to wild-type mice. These observations could be related to the significant reduction in the 5-HT transporter binding site density detected in frontal cortex and hippocampus of CB1 knockout mice. The lack of CB1 receptor also altered some 5-HT receptors related to the 5-HT feedback. Extracellular recordings in the dorsal raphe nucleus revealed that the genetic and pharmacological blockade of CB1 receptor induced a 5-HT1A autoreceptor functional desensitization. In situ hybridization studies showed a reduction in the expression of the 5-HT2C receptor within several brain areas related to the control of the emotional responses, such as the dorsal raphe nucleus, the nucleus accumbens and the paraventricular nucleus of the hypothalamus, whereas an overexpression was observed in the CA3 area of the ventral hippocampus. These results reveal that the lack of CB1 receptor induces a facilitation of the activity of serotonergic neurons in the dorsal raphe nucleus by altering different components of the 5-HT feedback as well as an increase in 5-HT extracellular levels in the prefrontal cortex in mice.

Two-sided learning in New Keynesian models: Dynamics, (lack of) convergence and the value of information

This paper investigates the role of learning by private agents and the central bank(two-sided learning) in a New Keynesian framework in which both sides of the economyhave asymmetric and imperfect knowledge about the true data generating process. Weassume that all agents employ the data that they observe (which may be distinct fordifferent sets of agents) to form beliefs about unknown aspects of the true model ofthe economy, use their beliefs to decide on actions, and revise these beliefs througha statistical learning algorithm as new information becomes available. We study theshort-run dynamics of our model and derive its policy recommendations, particularlywith respect to central bank communications. We demonstrate that two-sided learningcan generate substantial increases in volatility and persistence, and alter the behaviorof the variables in the model in a significant way. Our simulations do not convergeto a symmetric rational expectations equilibrium and we highlight one source thatinvalidates the convergence results of Marcet and Sargent (1989). Finally, we identifya novel aspect of central bank communication in models of learning: communicationcan be harmful if the central bank's model is substantially mis-specified.

Is confidence in decisions related to feedback? Evidence-and lack of evidence-from random samples of real-world managerial behavior?

Confidence in decision making is an important dimension of managerialbehavior. However, what is the relation between confidence, on the onehand, and the fact of receiving or expecting to receive feedback ondecisions taken, on the other hand? To explore this and related issuesin the context of everyday decision making, use was made of the ESM(Experience Sampling Method) to sample decisions taken by undergraduatesand business executives. For several days, participants received 4 or 5SMS messages daily (on their mobile telephones) at random moments at whichpoint they completed brief questionnaires about their current decisionmaking activities. Issues considered here include differences between thetypes of decisions faced by the two groups, their structure, feedback(received and expected), and confidence in decisions taken as well as inthe validity of feedback. No relation was found between confidence indecisions and whether participants received or expected to receivefeedback on those decisions. In addition, although participants areclearly aware that feedback can provide both confirming and disconfirming evidence, their ability to specify appropriatefeedback is imperfect. Finally, difficulties experienced inusing the ESM are discussed as are possibilities for further researchusing this methodology.

New mechanisms for lack of equipartition of energy

We describe several mechanisms that prevent equipartition of energy in mechanical systems. In certain regimes, we present a quantitative prediction of the relative abundance of orbits exhibiting these mechanisms. This quantitative prediction is confirmed in numerical experiments.

Does land titling matter? The role of land property rights in the war on illicit crops in Colombia

This paper analyzes the role of formalization of land property rights in the war against illicit crops in Colombia. We argue that as a consequence of the increase of state presence and visibility during the period of 2000 and 2009, municipalities with a higher level of formalization of their land property rights saw a greater reduction in the area allocated to illicit crops. We hypothesize that this is due to the increased cost of growing illicit crops on formal land compared to informal, and due to the possibility of obtaining more benets in the newly in- stalled institutional environment when land is formalized. We exploit the variation in the level of formalization of land property rights in a set of municipalities that had their rst cadastral census collected in the period of 1994-2000; this selection procedure guarantees reliable data and an unbiased source of variation. Using fixed effects estimators, we found a signicant negative relationship between the level of formalization of land property rights and the number of hectares allocated to coca crops per municipality. These results remain robust through a number of sensitivity analyses. Our ndings contribute to the growing body of evidence on the positive effects of formal land property rights, and e ective policies in the war on drugs in Colombia.

Lack of support for the association between facial shape and aggression: a reappraisal based on a worldwide population genetics perspective

Antisocial and criminal behaviors are multifactorial traits whose interpretation relies on multiple disciplines. Since these interpretations may have social, moral and legal implications, a constant review of the evidence is necessary before any scientific claim is considered as truth. A recent study proposed that men with wider faces relative to facial height (fWHR) are more likely to develop unethical behaviour mediated by a psychological sense of power. This research was based on reports suggesting that sexual dimorphism and selection would be responsible for a correlation between fWHR and aggression. Here we show that 4,960 individuals from 94 modern human populations belonging to a vast array of genetic and cultural contexts do not display significant amounts of fWHR sexual dimorphism. Further analyses using populations with associated ethnographical records as well as samples of male prisoners of the Mexico City Federal Penitentiary condemned by crimes of variable level of inter-personal aggression (homicide, robbery, and minor faults) did not show significant evidence, suggesting that populations/individuals with higher levels of bellicosity, aggressive behaviour, or power-mediated behaviour display greater fWHR. Finally, a regression analysis of fWHR on individual"s fitness showed no significant correlation between this facial trait and reproductive success. Overall, our results suggest that facial attributes are poor predictors of aggressive behaviour, or at least, that sexual selection was weak enough to leave a signal on patterns of between- and within-sex and population facial variation.

From room for books to room for users: an old infantry barrack as an answer to the lack of space

At the beginning of the 21st century, some Catalan university libraries detected a need stemming from the lack of space and the reconversion of physical libraries within the new European educational panorama. With the same cooperative spirit that characterized previous CBUC (Consortium of Academic Libraries of Catalonia) programs and services, the Consortium set in motion a project to address this need. An initial study was commissioned in 2002, and in 2003 a suitable building (old infantry barracks) was found in Lleida. The official opening took place in 2008. GEPA (Guaranteed Space for the Preservation of Access) facility is a cooperative repository, whose objectives are to store and preserve low use documents, ensuring their future access when needed, to convert room for books into room for library users, and doing it saving both space and money. The paper presents a brief historical introduction about the physical management of collections in libraries, and a short overview about high density library repositories all over the world, as an answer to the pressing problem of lack of spaces. The main goals of the communication are to comment the architectural project and its librarian issues, and to show how the GEPA facility allowed to change the spaces in university libraries in Catalonia. On the one hand, the paper deals with the selection of an old building to be renovated, the determination of the librarian needs, the compact shelving system chosen to store the documents in the building, the relation between physical space and information management, and the logistics involved in the load of low use documents from the libraries into the facility. On the other hand, we will show some examples of physical changes in Catalan libraries after large loads of documents to GEPA.

Land, technical progress and the falling rate of profit

The paper sets out a one sector growth model with a neoclassical production function in land and a capital-labour aggregate. Capital accumulates through capitalist saving, the labour supply is infinitely elastic at a subsistence wage and all factors may experience factor augmenting technical progress. The main result is that, if the elasticity of substitution between land and the capital-labour aggregate is less than one and if the rate of caital augmenting technical progress is strictly positive, then the rate of profit will fall to zero. The surprise is that this result holds regardless of the rate of land augmenting technical progress; that is, no amount of technical advance in agriculture can stop the fall in the rate of profit. The paper also discusses the relation of this result to the classical and Marxist literature and sets out the path of the relative price of land.

Elections in 2009? Progress and obstacles in the construction of peace in the Ivory Coast

In 2002 in the Ivory Coast three months of armed conflict ended with the division of the country. Two regions were separated by an interposition line controlled by the French Forces Licorne. This significant peace process was maintained over time, but characterized for lack of mutual confidence and political immobility, which led to an impasse and the continuation of Laurent Gbagbo in the presidency. Moreover, the peace building process was less successful because the different political agreements failed to address some of the main national problems, such as land property and identity issues. The following paper aims first to analyze the main facts and causes that instigated the conflict since the coup d’état in 2002. Secondly, the paper will analyze the peace process and point out the key elements of the Ouagadougou Peace Agreement (2007): the creation of a new and unique armed forces structure, as well as the identification of the population and implementation of an electoral process. The main goal is to provide the International Catalan Institute for Peace (ICIP) a working tool in order to send an electoral observation mission to this African country by November 2009.

Safety in vicinity of industrials plants: risk assessment and land use planning

The aim of this book is to survey on different Land Use Planning and safety approaches in vicinity of industrial plants. As this research is associated with three broad fields of Land Use Planning, safety and security, the set principle is to avoid unnecessary and over detailed information, but including the useful ones to provide a comprehensive resource which can be applicable for several purposes. Besides, the proposed method, which is explained in Chapter 7, can initiate a new field for future of Land Use Planning in vicinity of industrial plants.

Comparison between land suitability and actual crop distribution in an irrigation district of the Ebro valley (Spain)

El objetivo de la presente investigación fue analizar la correspondencia entre los resultados de una evaluación de tierras con la distribución real de los cultivos. Para ello la aptitud biofísica de las tierras se comparó con diferentes tipologías de frecuencia de ocurrencia de los cultivos y rotaciones derivadas de mapas de cultivos multitemporales. La investigación fue llevada a cabo en el distrito de riego de Flumen (33.000 ha), localizado en el valle del Ebro (NE España). La evaluación de tierras se basó en una cartografía de suelos 1:100.000, según el esquema FAO, para los principales cultivos presentes en el área de estudio (alfalfa, cereales de invierno, maíz, arroz y girasol). Se utilizaron tres mapas de frecuencia de cultivos y un mapa de rotaciones, derivado de una serie temporal de imágenes Landsat TM y ETM+ del periodo 1993-2000, y se compararon con los mapas de aptitud de tierras para los diferentes cultivos. Se analizó estadísticamente (Pearson χ2, Cramer V, Gamma y Somers D) la relación entre los dos tipos de variables. Los resultados muestran la existencia de una relación significativa (P=0,001) entre la localización de los cultivos y la idoneidad de las tierras, excepto de cultivos oportunistas como el girasol, muy influenciado por las subvenciones en el periodo estudiado. Las rotaciones basadas en la alfalfa muestran los mayores porcentajes (52%) de ocupación en las tierras más aptas para la agricultura en el área de estudio. El presente enfoque multitemporal de análisis de la información ofrece una visión más real que la comparación entre un mapa de evaluación de tierras y un mapa de cultivos de una fecha determinada, cuando se valora el grado de acuerdo entre las recomendaciones sobre la aptitud de las tierras y los cultivos realmente cultivados por los agricultores.

Soil quality assessment through a multi-approach analysis in soils of abandoned terraced land in NE Spain

The abandonment of agricultural land in mountainous areas has been an outstanding problem along the last century and has captured the attention of scientists, technicians and administrations, for the dramatic consequences sometimes occurred due to soil instability, steep slopes, rainfall regimes and wildfires. Hidromorfological and pedological alterations causing exceptional floods and accelerated erosion processes has therefore been studied, identifying the cause in the loss of landscape heterogeneity. Through the disappearance of agricultural works and drainage maintenance, slope stability has resulted severely affected. The mechanization of agriculture has caused the displacement of vines, olives and corks trees cultivation in terraced areas along the Mediterranean catchment towards more economically suitable areas. On the one hand, land use and management changes have implicated sociological changes as well, transforming areas inhabited by agricultural communities into deserted areas where the colonization of disorganized spontaneous vegetation has buried a valuable rural patrimony. On the other hand, lacking of planning and management of the abandoned areas has produced badlands and infertile soils due to wildfire and high erosion rates strongly degrading the whole ecosystems. In other cases, after land abandonment a process of soil regeneration has been recorded. Investigations have been conducted in a part of NE Spain where extended areas of terraced soils previously cultivated have been abandoned in the last century. The selected environments were semi-abandoned vineyards, semi-abandoned olive groves, abandoned stands of cork trees, abandoned stands of pine trees, scrubland of Cistaceaea, scrubland of Ericaceaea, and pasture. The research work was focused on the study of most relevant physical, chemical and biological soil properties, as well as runoff and erosion under soils with different plant cover to establish the abandonment effect on soil quality, due to the peculiarity and vulnerability of these soils with a much reduced depth. The period of observation was carried out from autumn 2009 to autumn 2010. The sediment concentration of soil erosion under vines was recorded as 34.52 g/l while under pasture it was 4.66 g/l. In addition, the soil under vines showed the least amount of organic matter, which was 12 times lower than all other soil environments. The carbon dioxide (CO2) and total glomalin (TG) ratio to soil organic carbon (SOC) in this soil was 0.11 and 0.31 respectively. However, the soil under pasture contained a higher amount of organic matter and showed that the CO2 and TG ratio to SOC was 0.02 and 0.11 respectively indicating that the soil under pasture better preserves the soil carbon pool. A similar trend was found in the intermediate soils in the sequence of land use change and abandonment. Soil structural stability increased in the two soil fractions investigated (0.25-2.00 mm, 2.0-5.6 mm) especially in those soils that did not undergo periodical perturbations like wildfires. Soil quality indexes were obtained by using relevant physical and chemical soil parameters. Factor analysis carried out to study the relationship between all soil parameters allowed to related variables and environments and identify those areas that better contribute to soil quality towards others that may need more attention to avoid further degradation processes