Uncover the Concealed Link: Gender & Ethnicity-Divided Local Knowledge on the Agro-Ecosystem of a Forest Margin

This research is a study about knowledge interface that aims to analyse knowledge discontinuities, the dynamic and emergent characters of struggles and interactions within gender system and ethnicity differences. The cacao boom phenomenon in Central Sulawesi is the main context for a changing of social relations of production, especially when the mode of production has shifted or is still underway from subsistence to petty commodity production. This agrarian change is not only about a change of relationship and practice, but, as my previous research has shown, also about the shift of knowledge domination, because knowledge construes social practice in a dialectical process. Agroecological knowledge is accumulated through interaction, practice and experience. At the same time the knowledge gained from new practices and experiences changes mode of interaction, so such processes provide the arena where an interface of knowledge is manifested. In the process of agro-ecological knowledge interface, gender and ethnic group interactions materialise in the decision-making of production and resource allocation at the household and community level. At this point, power/knowledge is interplayed to gain authority in decision-making. When authority dominates, power encounters resistance, whereas the dominant power and its resistance are aimed to ensure socio-economic security. Eventually, the process of struggle can be identified through the pattern of resource utilisation as a realisation of production decision-making. Such processes are varied from one community to another, and therefore, it shows uniqueness and commonalities, especially when it is placed in a context of shifting mode of production. The focus is placed on actors: men and women in their institutional and cultural setting, including the role of development agents. The inquiry is informed by 4 major questions: 1) How do women and men acquire, disseminate, and utilise their agro ecological knowledge, specifically in rice farming as a subsistence commodity, as well as in cacao farming as a petty commodity? How and why do such mechanisms construct different knowledge domains between two genders? How does the knowledge mechanism apply in different ethnics? What are the implications for gender and ethnicity based relation of production? ; 2) Using the concept of valued knowledge in a shifting mode of production context: is there any knowledge that dominates others? How does the process of domination occur and why? Is there any form of struggle, strategies, negotiation, and compromise over this domination? How do these processes take place at a household as well as community level? How does it relate to production decision-making? ; 3) Putting the previous questions in two communities with a different point of arrival on a path of agricultural commercialisation, how do the processes of struggle vary? What are the bases of the commonalities and peculiarities in both communities?; 4) How the decisions of production affect rice field - cacao plantation - forest utilisation in the two villages? How does that triangle of resource use reflect the constellation of local knowledge in those two communities? What is the implication of this knowledge constellation for the cacao-rice-forest agroecosystem in the forest margin area? Employing a qualitative approach as the main method of inquiry, indepth and dialogic interviews, participant observer role, and document review are used to gather information. A small survey and children’s writing competition are supplementary to this data collection method. The later two methods are aimed to give wider information on household decision making and perception toward the forest. It was found that local knowledge, particularly knowledge pertaining to rice-forest-cacao agroecology is divided according to gender and ethnicity. This constellation places a process of decision-making as ‘the arena of interface’ between feminine and masculine knowledge, as well as between dominant and less dominant ethnic groups. Transition from subsistence to a commercial mode of production is a context that frames a process where knowledge about cacao commodity is valued higher than rice. Market mechanism, as an external power, defines valued knowledge. Valued knowledge defines the dominant knowledge holder, and decision. Therefore, cacao cultivation becomes a dominant practice. Its existence sacrifices the presence of rice field and the forest. Knowledge about rice production and forest ecosystem exist, but is less valued. So it is unable to challenge the domination of cacao. Various forms of struggles - within gender an ethnicity context - to resist cacao domination are an expression of unequal knowledge possession. Knowledge inequality implies to unequal access to withdraw benefit from market valued crop. When unequal knowledge fails to construct a negotiated field or struggles fail to reveal ‘marginal’ decision, e.g. intensification instead of cacao expansion to the forest, interface only produces divergence. Gender and ethnicity divided knowledge is unabridged, since negotiation is unable to produce new knowledge that accommodates both interests. Rice is loaded by ecological interest to conserve the forest, while cacao is driven by economic interest to increase welfare status. The implication of this unmediated dominant knowledge of cacao production is the construction of access; access to the forest, mainly to withdraw its economic benefit by eliminating its ecological benefit. Then, access to cacao as the social relationship of production to acquire cacao knowledge; lastly, access to defend sustainable benefit from cacao by expansion. ‘Socio-economic Security’ is defined by Access. The convergence of rice and cacao knowledge, however, should be made possible across gender and ethnicity, not only for the sake of forest conservation as the insurance of ecological security, but also for community’s socio-economic security. The convergence might be found in a range of alternative ways to conduct cacao sustainable production, from agroforestry system to intensification.

Conceptual knowledge discovery with frequent concept lattices

Knowledge discovery support environments include beside classical data analysis tools also data mining tools. For supporting both kinds of tools, a unified knowledge representation is needed. We show that concept lattices which are used as knowledge representation in Conceptual Information Systems can also be used for structuring the results of mining association rules. Vice versa, we use ideas of association rules for reducing the complexity of the visualization of Conceptual Information Systems.

Acquiring expert knowledge for the design of conceptual information systems

Conceptual Information Systems unfold the conceptual structure of data stored in relational databases. In the design phase of the system, conceptual hierarchies have to be created which describe different aspects of the data. In this paper, we describe two principal ways of designing such conceptual hierarchies, data driven design and theory driven design and discuss advantages and drawbacks. The central part of the paper shows how Attribute Exploration, a knowledge acquisition tool developped by B. Ganter can be applied for narrowing the gap between both approaches.

Conceptual knowledge discovery and data analysis

In this paper, we discuss Conceptual Knowledge Discovery in Databases (CKDD) in its connection with Data Analysis. Our approach is based on Formal Concept Analysis, a mathematical theory which has been developed and proven useful during the last 20 years. Formal Concept Analysis has led to a theory of conceptual information systems which has been applied by using the management system TOSCANA in a wide range of domains. In this paper, we use such an application in database marketing to demonstrate how methods and procedures of CKDD can be applied in Data Analysis. In particular, we show the interplay and integration of data mining and data analysis techniques based on Formal Concept Analysis. The main concern of this paper is to explain how the transition from data to knowledge can be supported by a TOSCANA system. To clarify the transition steps we discuss their correspondence to the five levels of knowledge representation established by R. Brachman and to the steps of empirically grounded theory building proposed by A. Strauss and J. Corbin.

Conceptual knowledge processing with formal concept analysis and ontologies

Among many other knowledge representations formalisms, Ontologies and Formal Concept Analysis (FCA) aim at modeling ‘concepts’. We discuss how these two formalisms may complement another from an application point of view. In particular, we will see how FCA can be used to support Ontology Engineering, and how ontologies can be exploited in FCA applications. The interplay of FCA and ontologies is studied along the life cycle of an ontology: (i) FCA can support the building of the ontology as a learning technique. (ii) The established ontology can be analyzed and navigated by using techniques of FCA. (iii) Last but not least, the ontology may be used to improve an FCA application.

Content aggregation on knowledge bases using graph clustering

Recently, research projects such as PADLR and SWAP have developed tools like Edutella or Bibster, which are targeted at establishing peer-to-peer knowledge management (P2PKM) systems. In such a system, it is necessary to obtain provide brief semantic descriptions of peers, so that routing algorithms or matchmaking processes can make decisions about which communities peers should belong to, or to which peers a given query should be forwarded. This paper proposes the use of graph clustering techniques on knowledge bases for that purpose. Using this clustering, we can show that our strategy requires up to 58% fewer queries than the baselines to yield full recall in a bibliographic P2PKM scenario.

Perspectives of Urban Growth Management and Sustainable Development In West Bank, Hebron District as a case Study

The main objective of this PhD research study is to provide a perspective on the urban growth management and sustainable development in Palestine, and more specifically in Hebron district as a case study. Hebron is located 36 km south of Jerusalem, with an overall population size of around 600,000 people living in a total area around1246km2. Hebron is the biggest Palestinian district that has 16 municipalities and 154 localities. The research discusses and analyzes the urban planning system, economical and environmental policies and the solution required to manage and integrate the development elements to develop a sustainable development plan for Hebron. The research provides answers for fundamental questions such as what kind and definition of sustainable development are applicable to the Palestinian case?. What are the sustainability problems there and how the Israeli occupation and unstable political condition affect the sustainable development in Palestine? What are the urban growth management and sustainability policies and actions required from government, public and privets sector in Palestine? The fast urban growth in Palestine is facing many problems and challenges due to the increase in the population size and the resulting impact of this increase including, but not limited to, the demand of new houses, need for more infrastructure services, demands on new industrial, commercial, educational and health projects, which in turn reduces the area of agricultural lands and threatens the natural resources and environment. There are also other associated sustainability problems like the absence of effective plans or regulations that control urban expansion, the absence of sufficient sustainable development plans at the national levels for the district, new job requirements, Israeli restrictions and occupation for more than 60 years, existence of construction factories near residential areas, poor public awareness and poor governmental funds for service projects and development plans. The study consists of nine chapters. Chapter One includes an introduction, study objectives, problems and justifications, while Chapter Two has a theoretical background on sustainability topic and definitions of sustainability. The Palestinian urban planning laws and local government systems are discussed in Chapter Three and the methodology of research is detailed in Chapter Four. As for Chapter Five, it provides a general background on Hebron District including demographical and economical profiles, along with recommendations related to sustainable development for each profile Chapter Six addresses the urban environment, sustainability priorities and policies required. Chapter Seven discusses and analyzes infrastructure services including transportation, water and wastewater. As for Chapter Eight, it addresses the land use, housing and urban expansion beside the cultural heritage, natural heritage with relevant sustainable development polices and recommendations. Finally, Chapter Nine includes a conclusion and comprehensive recommendations integrating all of urban and sustainability event in one map. Hebron has a deep history including a rich cultural heritage aged by thousands of years, with 47% of Hebron district population under 14 years old. Being the biggest Palestinian district, Hebron has thousands of industrial and economical organizations beside a large agricultural sector at Palestine level. This gives Hebron a potential to play major roles in developing a national sustainability plan, as the current urban planning system in Palestine needs urgent reform and development to fulfill the sustainability requirement. The municipalities and ministers should find permanent financial aid for urban planning and development studies so as to face future challenges. The Palestinian government can benefit from available local human resources in development projects; hence Palestinian people have sufficient qualifications in most sectors. The Palestinian people also can invest in the privet sector in Palestine in case businessmen have been encouraged and clear investment laws and plans have been developed. The study provides recommendations associated to the sustainable development in Palestine in general and Hebron, as a case study, in specific. Recommendations include increasing the privet sector as well as the public involvement in urban growth management, and stopping unplanned urban expansion, subjecting granting building permits of new projects to the no-harm environmental impact assessment, increasing the coordination and cooperation between localities and central bodies, protection and renovation of old cites and green areas, increasing the quality and quantity of infrastructure services, establishing district urban planning department to coordinate and organize urban planning and sustainable development activities. Also, among recommendations come dividing Hebron into three planning and administrative areas (north, central and south), and dividing the sustainable development and implementation period (2010 to 2025) into three main phases. Finally, the study strongly recommends benefiting from the same urban development plans in similar districts at national and international levels, also to use new technologies and information systems in urban planning process.

Development and Integration of Biocontrol Products in Branched Broomrape (Phelipanche ramosa) management in Tomato

Parasitic weeds of the genera Striga, Orobanche, and Phelipanche pose a severe problem for agriculture because they are difficult to control and are highly destructive to several crops. The present work was carried out during the period October, 2009 to February, 2012 to evaluate the potential of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) to suppress P. ramosa on tomatoes and to investigate the effects of air-dried powder and aqueous extracts from Euphorbia hirta on germination and haustorium initiation in Phelipanche ramosa. The work was divided into three parts: a survey of the indigenous mycorrhizal flora in Sudan, second, laboratory and greenhouse experiments (conducted in Germany and Sudan) to construct a base for the third part, which was a field trial in Sudan. A survey was performed in 2009 in the White Nile state, Sudan to assess AMF spore densities and root colonization in nine fields planted with 13 different important agricultural crops. In addition, an attempt was made to study the relationship between soil physico-chemical properties and AMF spore density, colonization rate, species richness and other diversity indices. The mean percentage of AMF colonization was 34%, ranging from 19-50%. The spore densities (expressed as per 100 g dry soil) retrieved from the rhizosphere of different crops were relatively high, varying from 344 to 1222 with a mean of 798. There was no correlation between spore densities in soil and root colonization percentage. A total of 45 morphologically classifiable species representing ten genera of AMF were detected with no correlation between the number of species found in a soil sample and the spore density. The most abundant genus was Glomus (20 species). The AMF diversity expressed by the Shannon–Weaver index was highest in sorghum (H\= 2.27) and Jews mallow (H\= 2.13) and lowest in alfalfa (H\= 1.4). With respect to crop species, the genera Glomus and Entrophospora were encountered in almost all crops, except for Entrophospora in alfalfa. Kuklospora was found only in sugarcane and sorghum. The genus Ambispora was recovered only in mint and okra, while mint and onion were the only species on which no Acaulospora was found. The hierarchical cluster analysis based on the similarity among AMF communities with respect to crop species overall showed that species compositions were relatively similar with the highest dissimilarity of about 25% separating three of the mango samples and the four sorghum samples from all other samples. Laboratory experiments studied the influence of root and stem exudates of three tomato varieties infected by three different Glomus species on germination of P. ramosa. Root exudates were collected 21or 42 days after transplanting (DAT) and stem exudates 42 DAT and tested for their effects on germination of P. ramosa seeds in vitro. The tomato varieties studied did not have an effect on either mycorrhizal colonization or Phelipanche germination. Germination in response to exudates from 42 day old mycorrhizal plants was significantly reduced in comparison to non-mycorrhizal controls. Germination of P. ramosa in response to root exudates from 21 day old plants was consistently higher than for 42 day-old plants (F=121.6; P<.0001). Stem diffusates from non-mycorrhizal plants invariably elicited higher germination than diffusates from the corresponding mycorrhizal ones and differences were mostly statistically significant. A series of laboratory experiments was undertaken to investigate the effects of aqueous extracts from Euphorbia hirta on germination, radicle elongation, and haustorium initiation in P. ramosa. P. ramosa seeds conditioned in water and subsequently treated with diluted E. hirta extract (10-25% v/v) displayed considerable germination (47-62%). Increasing extract concentration to 50% or more reduced germination in response to the synthetic germination stimulants GR24 and Nijmegen-1 in a concentration dependent manner. P. ramosa germlings treated with diluted Euphorbia extract (10-75 % v/v) displayed haustorium initiation comparable to 2, 5-Dimethoxy-p-benzoquinon (DMBQ) at 20 µM. Euphorbia extract applied during conditioning reduced haustorium initiation in a concentration dependent manner. E. hirta extract or air-dried powder, applied to soil, induced considerable P. ramosa germination. Pot experiments were undertaken in a glasshouse at the University of Kassel, Germany, to investigate the effects of P. ramosa seed bank on tomato growth parameters. Different Phelipanche seed banks were established by mixing the parasite seeds (0 - 32 mg) with the potting medium in each pot. P. ramosa reduced all tomato growth parameters measured and the reduction progressively increased with seed bank. Root and total dry matter accumulation per tomato plant were most affected. P. ramosa emergence, number of tubercles, and tubercle dry weight increased with the seed bank and were, invariably, maximal with the highest seed bank. Another objective was to determine if different AM fungi differ in their effects on the colonization of tomatoes with P. ramosa and the performance of P. ramosa after colonization. Three AMF species viz. GIomus intraradices, Glomus mosseae and Glomus Sprint® were used in this study. For the infection, P. ramosa seeds (8 mg) were mixed with the top 5 cm soil in each pot. No mycorrhizal colonization was detected in un-inoculated control plants. P. ramosa infested, mycorrhiza inoculated tomato plants had significantly lower AMF colonization compared to plants not infested with P. ramosa. Inoculation with G. intraradices, G. mosseae and Glomus Sprint® reduced the number of emerged P. ramosa plants by 29.3, 45.3 and 62.7% and the number of tubercles by 22.2, 42 and 56.8%, respectively. Mycorrhizal root colonization was positively correlated with number of branches and total dry matter of tomatoes. Field experiments on tomato undertaken in 2010/12 were only partially successful because of insect infestations which resulted in the complete destruction of the second run of the experiment. The effects of the inoculation with AMF, the addition of 10 t ha-1 filter mud (FM), an organic residues from sugar processing and 36 or 72 kg N ha-1 on the infestation of tomatoes with P. ramosa were assessed. In un-inoculated control plants, AMF colonization ranged between 13.4 to 22.1% with no significant differences among FM and N treatments. Adding AMF or FM resulted in a significant increase of branching in the tomato plants with no additive effects. Dry weights were slightly increased through FM application when no N was applied and significantly at 36 kg N ha-1. There was no effect of FM on the time until the first Phelipanche emerged while AMF and N application interacted. Especially AMF inoculation resulted in a tendency to delayed P. ramosa emergence. The marketable yield was extremely low due to the strong fruit infestation with insects mainly whitefly Bemisia tabaci and tomato leaf miner (Tuta absoluta). Tomatoes inoculated with varied mycorrhiza species displayed different response to the insect infestation, as G. intraradices significantly reduced the infestation, while G. mosseae elicited higher insect infestation. The results of the present thesis indicate that there may be a potential of developing management strategies for P. ramosa targeting the pre-attachment stage namely germination and haustorial initiation using plant extracts. However, ways of practical use need to be developed. If such treatments can be combined with AMF inoculation also needs to be investigated. Overall, it will require a systematic approach to develop management tools that are easily applicable and affordable to Sudanese farmers. It is well-known that proper agronomical practices such as the design of an optimum crop rotation in cropping systems, reduced tillage, promotion of cover crops, the introduction of multi-microbial inoculants, and maintenance of proper phosphorus levels are advantageous if the mycorrhiza protection method is exploited against Phelipanche ramosa infestation. Without the knowledge about the biology of the parasitic weeds by the farmers and basic preventive measures such as hygiene and seed quality control no control strategy will be successful, however.