Read the whole thing: Journalism, weblogs and the re-mediation of the war in Iraq

This paper examines a particular form of online activity-weblogging, and how it has allowed for specific new forms of popular political communication in the context of the Second Gulf War. After describing the basics of weblogging, the paper discusses Western media coverage of the war and then shows how 'warbloggers' positioned themselves vis-à-vis media coverage and propaganda, creating commentaries that frequently combined media and political criticism. While bloggers of every political hue offered a range of perspectives and personal styles, some general tendencies are evident in warblogging discourse. The piece ends by questioning the significance of warblogging in terms of its potential contribution to democratic communication.

International drivers of Brazilian agricultural cooperation in Africa in the post-2008 economic crisis

This text focuses on the major drivers of Brazilian agricultural cooperation in Africa as conceived and pursued from 2004 to 2014, with emphasis on the impacts of political and economic international changes that took place in that period, and particularly the impacts of the 2008 economic crisis, in framing Brazil's foreign policy and development assistance initiatives. It addresses current international forces and developments at the systemic level, but also analyses recent economic domestic developments, in particular those directly related to Brazilian agriculture and those related to the policy framework of its evolving internationalization. Special attention is paid to the dual dimensions of Brazilian agricultural policy and to its projection in agricultural cooperation as pursed in Africa.

Agricultural development and arthropod-borne diseases: a review

A review is presented of the interrelationships between arthropod vectors, the diseases they transmit and agricultural development. Particular attention is given to the effects of deforestation, livestock development and irrigation on the abundance of vectors and changing patterns of diseases such as malaria, trypanosomiases, leishmaniasis, Chagas' and some arboviral infections. The question as whether keeping livestock diverts biting away from people and reduces diseases such as malaria - that is zooprophylaxis, or whether the presence of cattle actually increases biting populations is discussed.

Efficiency Measures in the Agricultural Sector: The Beginning

Copyright © 2013 Springer Netherlands.

Efficiency Measures in the Agricultural Sector: With Applications

Copyright 2013 Springer Netherlands.

Management of agricultural waste on a sample of farms on the island of São Miguel (Açores)

Dissertação de Mestrado em Ambiente, Saúde e Segurança.

Sorption of phenanthrene on agricultural soils

Polyaromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) sorption to soil is a key process deciding the transport and fate of PAH, and potential toxic impacts in the soil and groundwater ecosystems, for example in connection with atmospheric PAH deposition on soils. There are numerous studies on PAH sorption in relatively low organic porous media such as urban soils and groundwater sediments, but less attention has been given to cultivated soils. In this study, the phenanthrene partition coefficient, KD (liter per kilogram), was measured on 143 cultivated Danish soils (115 topsoils, 0–0.25-m soil depth and 28 subsoils, 0.25–1-m depth) by the single-point adsorption method. The organic carbon partition coefficient, KOC (liter per kilogram) for topsoils was found generally to fall between the KOC values estimated by the two most frequently used models for PAH partitioning, the Abdul et al. (Hazardous Waste & Hazardous Materials 4(3):211– 222, 1987) model and Karickhoff et al. (Water Research 13:241–248, 1979) model. A less-recognized model by Karickhoff (Chemosphere 10:833–846, 1981), yielding a KOC of 14,918 Lkg−1, closely corresponded to the average measured KOC value for the topsoils, and this model is therefore recommended for prediction of phenanthrene mobility in cultivated topsoils. For lower subsoils (0.25–1-m depth), the KOC values were closer to and mostly below the estimate by the Abdul et al. (Hazardous Waste & Hazardous Materials 4(3):211–222, 1987) model. This implies a different organic matter composition and higher PAH sorption strength in cultivated topsoils, likely due to management effects including more rapid carbon turnover. Finally, we applied the recent Dexter et al. (Geoderma 144:620–627, 2008) theorem, and calculated the complexed organic carbon and non-complexed organic carbon fractions (COC and NCOC, grams per gram). Multiple regression analyses showed that the NCOC-based phenanthrene partition coefficient (KNCOC) could be markedly higher than the COCbased partition coefficient (KCOC) for soils with a clay/OC ratio <10. This possibly higher PAH sorption affinity to the NCOC fraction needs further investigations to develop more realistic and accurate models for PAH mobility and effects in the environment, also with regard to colloid-facilitated PAH transport.

Social network analysis applied to knowledge creation and transfer in the portuguese agricultural R&D field: an exploratory study

Paper presented at the 9th European Conference on Knowledge Management, Southampton Solent University, Southampton, UK, 4-5 Sep. 2008. URL: http://academic-conferences.org/eckm/eckm2008/eckm08-home.htm

Assessment of groundwater contamination in an agricultural peri-urban area (NW Portugal): an integrated approach

The excessive use of pesticides and fertilisers in agriculture has generated a decrease in groundwater and surface water quality in many regions of the EU, constituting a hazard for human health and the environment. Besides, on-site sewage disposal is an important source of groundwater contamination in urban and peri-urban areas. The assessment of groundwater vulnerability to contamination is an important tool to fulfil the demands of EU Directives. The purpose of this study is to assess the groundwater vulnerability to contamination related mainly to agricultural activities in a peri-urban area (Vila do Conde, NW Portugal). The hydrogeological framework is characterised mainly by fissured granitic basement and sedimentary cover. Water samples were collected and analysed for temperature, pH, electrical conductivity, chloride, phosphate, nitrate and nitrite. An evaluation of groundwater vulnerability to contamination was applied (GOD-S, Pesticide DRASTIC-Fm, SINTACS and SI) and the potential nitrate contamination risk was assessed, both on a hydrogeological GIS-based mapping. A principal component analysis was performed to characterised patterns of relationship among groundwater contamination, vulnerability, and the hydrogeological setting assessed. Levels of nitrate above legislation limits were detected in 75 % of the samples analysed. Alluvia units showed the highest nitrate concentrations and also the highest vulnerability and risk. Nitrate contamination is a serious problem affecting groundwater, particularly shallow aquifers, especially due to agriculture activities, livestock and cesspools. GIS-based cartography provided an accurate way to improve knowledge on water circulation models and global functioning of local aquifer systems. Finally, this study highlights the adequacy of an integrated approach, combining hydrogeochemical data, vulnerability assessments and multivariate analysis, to understand groundwater processes in peri-urban areas.

New Opportunities for Development Journalism: Enlarging the Public Sphere with ICTs

The present study examines new opportunities offered by the introduction of information and communication technologies (ICTs) to enhance the development journalism practice, in order to enlarge the public sphere and empower ordinary people to participate more actively in public debate on issues affecting their development. The analysis of the achievements and challenges faced by 32 radio stations under the UNESCO project “Empowering Local Radios with ICTs” offers an overview of the introduction of ICTs in different contexts, within and among seven countries in Sub- Saharan Africa. Even though the lack of ICTs access and knowledge is still a concern in the developing world, especially in rural areas, these new tools can be adapted to each context and foster a more pluralistic and participative media in order to address people’s needs and promote social change.

Cultural journalism in a digital environment : new models, practices and possibilities

Both culture coverage and digital journalism are contemporary phenomena that have undergone several transformations within a short period of time. Whenever the media enters a period of uncertainty such as the present one, there is an attempt to innovate in order to seek sustainability, skip the crisis or find a new public. This indicates that there are new trends to be understood and explored, i.e., how are media innovating in a digital environment? Not only does the professional debate about the future of journalism justify the need to explore the issue, but so do the academic approaches to cultural journalism. However, none of the studies so far have considered innovation as a motto or driver and tried to explain how the media are covering culture, achieving sustainability and engaging with the readers in a digital environment. This research examines how European media which specialize in culture or have an important cultural section are innovating in a digital environment. Specifically, we see how these innovation strategies are being taken in relation to the approach to culture and dominant cultural areas, editorial models, the use of digital tools for telling stories, overall brand positioning and extensions, engagement with the public and business models. We conducted a mixed methods study combining case studies of four media projects, which integrates qualitative web features and content analysis, with quantitative web content analysis. Two major general-interest journalistic brands which started as physical newspapers – The Guardian (London, UK) and Público (Lisbon, Portugal) – a magazine specialized in international affairs, culture and design – Monocle (London, UK) – and a native digital media project that was launched by a cultural organization – Notodo, by La Fábrica – were the four case studies chosen. Findings suggest, on one hand, that we are witnessing a paradigm shift in culture coverage in a digital environment, challenging traditional boundaries related to cultural themes and scope, angles, genres, content format and delivery, engagement and business models. Innovation in the four case studies lies especially along the product dimensions (format and content), brand positioning and process (business model and ways to engage with users). On the other hand, there are still perennial values that are crucial to innovation and sustainability, such as commitment to journalism, consistency (to the reader, to brand extensions and to the advertiser), intelligent differentiation and the capability of knowing what innovation means and how it can be applied, since this thesis also confirms that one formula doesn´t suit all. Changing minds, exceeding cultural inertia and optimizing the memory of the websites, looking at them as living, organic bodies, which continuously interact with the readers in many different ways, and not as a closed collection of articles, are still the main challenges for some media.

Combining analytical methodologies for the identification of Aspergillus section Flavi strains isolated from Brazilian agricultural commodities

The use of chemical analysis of microbial components, including proteins, became an important achievement in the 80’s of the last century to the microbial identification. This led a more objective microbial identification scheme, called chemotaxonomy, and the analytical tools used in the field are mainly 1D/2D gel electrophoresis, spectrophotometry, high-performance liquid chromatography, gas chromatography, and combined gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. The Edman degradation reaction was also applied to peptides sequence giving important insights to the microbial identification. The rapid development of these techniques, in association with knowledge generated by DNA sequencing and phylogeny based on rRNA gene and housekeeping genes sequences, boosted the microbial identification to an unparalleled scale. The recent results of mass spectrometry (MS), like Matrix-Assisted Laser Desorption/Ionisation Time-of-Flight (MALDI-TOF), for rapid and reliable microbial identification showed considerable promise. In addition, the technique is rapid, reliable and inexpensive in terms of labour and consumables when compared with other biological techniques. At present, MALDI-TOF MS adds an additional step for polyphasic identification which is essential when there is a paucity of characters or high DNA homologies for delimiting very close related species. The full impact of this approach is now being appreciated when more diverse species are studied in detail and successfully identified. However, even with the best polyphasic system, identification of some taxa remains time-consuming and determining what represents a species remains subjective. The possibilities opened with new and even more robust mass spectrometers combined with sound and reliable databases allow not only the microbial identification based on the proteome fingerprinting but also include de novo specific proteins sequencing as additional step. These approaches are pushing the boundaries in the microbial identification field.