scholarly journals The need for contextual, place-based food policies: Lessons from Northwestern Ontario

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 266-272 ◽  
Author(s):  
Connie Nelson ◽  
Charles Z. Levkoe ◽  
Rachel Kakegamic
Keyword(s):  
Best Practices ◽  
Policy Development ◽  
Food Systems ◽  
Food Policy ◽  
Ecological Systems ◽  
Short Term ◽  
The Core ◽  
Northwestern Ontario ◽  
Food Policies

In recent years, several reports have highlighted the need for a national food policy that takes a comprehensive approach to addressing food systems (CAC, 2014; Levkoe & Sheedy, 2017; Martorell, 2017; UNGA, 2012). These findings suggest that, at the core, resilient food systems must be built on interconnected knowledge and experience that emerge from place-based interrelationships between human and ecological systems. Drawing on these important learnings, this commentary voices our hopes and concerns around the recent efforts of the Canadian Government to develop a food policy for Canada. While we commend the Government’s desire to “set a long-term vision for the health, environmental, social, and economic goals related to food, while identifying actions we can take in the short-term”, we caution any tendency to develop “best practices” that assume a universal, or “one-size fits all” approach to food policy development. We argue that Canada requires a set of contextual, place-based food policies that emerge from the grassroots, address local needs and desires, and build on the strengths and assets of communities.

scholarly journals Long-Term Development of Urban Agriculture: Resilience and Sustainability of Farmers Facing the Covid-19 Pandemic in Japan

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (8) ◽  
pp. 4316
Author(s):  
Shingo Yoshida ◽  
Hironori Yagi
Keyword(s):  
Urban Agriculture ◽  
Food Systems ◽  
Direct Marketing ◽  
Farming System ◽  
Long Term Effects ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Short Supply ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Urban People

The coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) pandemic has forced global food systems to face unprecedented uncertain shocks even in terms of human health. Urban agriculture is expected to be more resilient because of its short supply chain for urban people and diversified farming activities. However, the short-and long-term effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on urban farms remain unclear. This study aims to reveal the conditions for farm resilience to the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 and the relationship between short-term farm resilience and long-term farm development using data from a survey of 74 farms located in Tokyo. The results are as follows. First, more than half of the sample farms increased their farm sales during this period. This resilience can be called the “persistence” approach. Second, short-term farm resilience and other sustainable farm activities contributed to improving farmers’ intentions for long-term farm development and farmland preservation. Third, the most important resilience attributes were the direct marketing, entrepreneurship, and social networks of farmers. We discussed the necessity of building farmers’ transformative capabilities for a more resilient urban farming system. These results imply that support to enhance the short-term resilience of urban farms is worth more than the short-term profit of the farms.

A trajectories' guide to the state space - learning missing terms in bifurcating ecological systems

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rahel Vortmeyer-Kley ◽  
Pascal Nieters ◽  
Gordon Pipa
Keyword(s):  
Machine Learning ◽  
Differential Equations ◽  
Algal Blooms ◽  
Ecological Systems ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Specific System ◽  
Worst Case ◽  
System Components ◽  
Full Knowledge

<p>Ecological systems typically can exhibit various states ranging from extinction to coexistence of different species in oscillatory states. The switch from one state to another is called bifurcation. All these behaviours of a specific system are hidden in a set of describing differential equations (DE) depending on different parametrisations. To model such a system as DE requires full knowledge of all possible interactions of the system components. In practise, modellers can end up with terms in the DE that do not fully describe the interactions or in the worst case with missing terms.</p><p>The framework of universal differential equations (UDE) for scientific machine learning (SciML) [1] allows to reconstruct the incomplete or missing term from an idea of the DE and a short term timeseries of the system and make long term predictions of the system’s behaviour. However, the approach in [1] has difficulties to reconstruct the incomplete or missing term in systems with bifurcations. We developed a trajectory-based loss metric for UDE and SciML to tackle the problem and tested it successfully on a system mimicking algal blooms in the ocean.</p><p>[1] Rackauckas, Christopher, et al. "Universal differential equations for scientific machine learning." arXiv preprint arXiv:2001.04385 (2020).</p>

What money can’t buy: an argument against paying people to get vaccinated

2021 ◽  
pp. medethics-2021-107235
Author(s):  
Nancy S Jecker
Keyword(s):  
Best Practices ◽  
Economic Conditions ◽  
Vaccine Hesitancy ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Healthy Communities ◽  
Good Citizenship ◽  
Mutant Strains ◽  
The Cost ◽  
Better Than

This paper considers the proposal to pay people to get vaccinated against the SARS-CoV-2 virus. The first section introduces arguments against the proposal, including less intrusive alternatives, unequal effects on populations and economic conditions that render payment more difficult to refuse. The second section considers arguments favouring payment, including arguments appealing to health equity, consistency, being worth the cost, respect for autonomy, good citizenship, the ends justifying the means and the threat of mutant strains. The third section spotlights long-term and short-term best practices that can build trust and reduce ‘vaccine hesitancy’ better than payment. The paper concludes that people who, for a variety of reasons, are reluctant to vaccinate should be treated like adults, not children. Despite the urgency of getting shots into arms, we should set our sights on the long-term goals of strong relationships and healthy communities.

Treatments for Eating Disorders

2007 ◽  
pp. 579-610 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. Terence Wilson ◽  
Christopher G. Fairburn
Keyword(s):  
Eating Disorder ◽  
Binge Eating ◽  
Antidepressant Medication ◽  
Cognitive Behavioral ◽  
Short Term ◽  
The Core ◽  
Core Features

A very substantial number of well-designed studies (Type 1 and Type 2) have shown that manual-based cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) is currently the treatment of choice for bulimia nervosa (BN); roughly half of patients receiving CBT cease binge eating and purging. Well accepted by patients, CBT is the most effective means of eliminating the core features of the eating disorder and is often accompanied by improvement in psychological problems such as low self-esteem and depression; long-term maintenance of improvement is reasonably good. A large number of good to excellent outcome studies (Type 1 and Type 2) suggest that different classes of antidepressant drugs produce significantly greater reductions in the short term for binge eating and purging in BN patients than a placebo treatment; the long-term effects of antidepressant medication on BN remain untested. There is little evidence that combining CBT with antidepressant medication significantly enhances improvement in the core features of BN, although it may aid in treating comorbid anxiety and depression. The continuing paucity of controlled research on outcomes of treatment for anorexia nervosa (AN) contrasts sharply with the quantity and quality of research on outcomes of treatment for BN and binge-eating disorder (BED). Nevertheless, a specific form of family therapy, referred to as the Maudsley Model, has shown promising effects on AN in adolescent patients, although this remains to be shown to be a specific effect. Several different psychological treatments appear equally effective in reducing the frequency of binge eating in the short term in BED; these treatments include CBT, interpersonal therapy (IPT), behavioral weight loss programs, and guided self-help based on cognitive-behavioral principles. To date, only CBT and IPT have been shown to have significant longer term effects in eliminating binge eating. Evidence on the specific effects of antidepressant medication on BED is mixed. As yet, there has been no research on the treatment of the most common eating disorder diagnosis, “eating disorder not otherwise specified.”

Global Food Policies

2018 ◽  
pp. 612-630
Author(s):  
Hilal Elver
Keyword(s):  
Food Systems ◽  
Food Policy ◽  
Food Preferences ◽  
Interdisciplinary Approach ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Legal Principles ◽  
Food Policies ◽  
Current Impact ◽  
The Right ◽  
Global Food

In this chapter, global food policy is depicted as focusing on the elimination of hunger and improvement of food security for all persons while simultaneously satisfying their dietary needs and food preferences. This chapter provides a brief history ranging from late-nineteenth-century practices to the current impact of economic globalization on food systems. This is followed by a review of the current state of hunger and malnutrition, including the persistence of these despite major increases in global food production. Emphasis is placed on the need to develop food policies, including the right to food, using an interdisciplinary approach in the context of global studies. Such an approach calls attention to ethical and legal principles that affirm the right to sufficient and nutritious food. This understanding of political, economic, ecological, social, and cultural conditions will ensure the development of critical thinking with respect to the agenda of global food politics.

Robustness, institutions, and large-scale change in social-ecological systems: the Hohokam of the Phoenix Basin

2006 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 133-155 ◽  
Author(s):  
JOHN M. ANDERIES
Keyword(s):  
Formal Model ◽  
Irrigation System ◽  
Ecological Systems ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Social Ecological Systems ◽  
Social Ecological ◽  
Term Change ◽  
Phoenix Basin ◽  
The Phoenix

Societies frequently generate public infrastructure and institutional arrangements in order to mediate short-term environmental fluctuations. However, the social and ecological consequences of activities dealing with short-term disturbances may increase the vulnerability of the system to infrequent events or to long-term change in patterns of short-term variability. Exploring this possibility requires the study of long-term, transformational change. The archaeological record provides many examples of long-term change, such as the Hohokam who occupied the Phoenix Basin for over a thousand years and developed a complex irrigation society. In the eleventh and fourteenth centuries, the Hohokam society experienced reductions in complexity and scale possibly associated with regional climatic events. We apply a framework designed to explore robustness in coupled social-ecological systems to the Hohokam Cultural Sequence. Based on this analysis, a stylized formal model is developed to explore the possibility that the success of the Hohokam irrigation system and associated social structure may have increased their vulnerability to rare climactic shocks.

scholarly journals A Novel ICT Framework for Sustainable Development Goals

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (7) ◽  
pp. 1961 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olivera Kostoska ◽  
Ljupco Kocarev
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Sustainable Development Goals ◽  
Integrated Approach ◽  
Ecological Systems ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Social Ecological Systems ◽  
Social Ecological ◽  
The Social ◽  
Development Goals

Sustainable development is critical to ensure the future of humanity. Therefore, the assessment and governance of sustainability becomes a central challenge our society is facing. This paper provides a novel ICT framework for addressing sustainable development goals. It is characterized by both local and global considerations, in the context of economic, ecological, and social aspects of sustainable development. The framework consists of three modules: data module, sustainability module, and governance module. Data module integrates data from several sources, processes data, infers knowledge, and transforms data into understandable information and knowledge. The second module implements SDGs at the level of municipality/city, ensures ranking of locally transformed SDGs to arrange them in line with the values and needs of the local communities, and proposes an integrated approach in modeling the social-ecological systems. By implementing governance theories, the governance module permits an effective citizen engagement in governance of SDGs. The ICT framework addresses short-term and long-term SDGs and allows for the vertical and horizontal linkages among diverse stakeholders, as well as for their contributions to the nested rule structures employed at operational, collective, and constitutional levels. Thus, the framework we provide here ensures a paradigm shift in approaching SDGs for the advancement of our society.

II. Free Movement Of Goods

2003 ◽  
Vol 52 (4) ◽  
pp. 1021-1030
Author(s):  
Stephen Weatherill
Keyword(s):  
French Revolution ◽  
Internal Market ◽  
Reliable Data ◽  
Political Systems ◽  
Short Term ◽  
The Core ◽  
Free Movement Of Goods ◽  
Core Mission ◽  
The Impact

The Commission has spent time in 2003 celebrating the tenth anniversary of the establishment of the internal market. In this context the use of deadlines is misleading. The building of an internal market is more process than event. Many significant pieces of legislation entered into force at the end of 1992, but many pre-dated that moment and others again havebeen agreed subsequently. And the Court's interpretation of relevant provisions of the Treaty was not fossilised at the end 1992, but rather its dynamic evolution continues to exert influence over the process of market-building. The Commissionsperfectly well aware of this. It admits that the Internal Market will never be ‘completed’.1The core mission is to promote and sustain improved economic performance, not to hit crude targets. Nonetheless dissemination of propaganda possessesbase appeal in all political systems and the Commission has taken the trouble to emphasise the gainsthat have accrued from the process of integration, while also devoting attention both to remaining gaps and strategies forplugging them. In making its case the Commission is confronted by the unavoidable absence of reliable data on what would have occurred had the internal market not been pursued in the chosen manner. Sector by sector, it is difficult to demarcateadvantages accruing from the ‘1992’ initiative from those that would have occurred in any event or which are attributable to other factors such as global trade liberalisation. Moreover, the essence of the internal market programme is that benefits will be felt not only in the short term, but also in the long term, and accordingly, in line with Chairman Mao's reported refusal to assess the importance of the French Revolution on the basis that it was too soon to tell, measurement of the impact of the internal market project cannot yet be decisive. However, in its reportThe Internal Market—Ten Years without Frontiers the Commission insistedon demonstrably favourable macroeconomic consequences.2It highlighted price reductions and improved productivity. Its simulation results suggest that real Gross Domestic Product would have been 1.4 per cent lower in 2002 without the internal market programme. The level of employment would have been 0.86 per cent lower. Moreover further gains are expected of the former, though not the latter, type in future.

scholarly journals Short-term matters: the determinants of reforms of the core democratic rules

2015 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-93 ◽  
Author(s):  
Camille Bedock
Keyword(s):  
Institutional Change ◽  
Electoral Reform ◽  
Statistical Analyses ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Institutional Reforms ◽  
Large Sample ◽  
The Core ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Electoral Uncertainty

Current theories on institutional change tend to interpret it either as the result of long-term gradual trends, or of disrupting shocks following periods of punctuated equilibrium. Less is known about the moments in which change is more frequent. Focusing on the short-term determinants of reforms of core democratic rules in consolidated democracies, the article shows that proximate shifts in the electoral arena have a distinctive impact on the number of institutional reforms that are adopted in a legislature. Using the empirical and theoretical findings of the literature on electoral reform, the article develops a model tested in statistical analyses aggregating a large sample of institutional reforms in Western European democracies between 1990 and 2010. The results show that rising electoral uncertainty measured by volatility, and the change of preferences of the actors in power measured by the advent of new forces in government lead to the adoption of more institutional reforms. These results appear consistent when some categories of reform are added or subtracted, giving confidence that this model can be applied to a wide range of institutional reforms.

scholarly journals Nutrition and sustainability: an emerging food policy discourse

2012 ◽  
Vol 72 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tim Lang ◽  
David Barling
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Impact ◽  
Policy Development ◽  
Food Systems ◽  
Food Policy ◽  
Life Sciences ◽  
Policy Discourse ◽  
Policy Responses ◽  
Nutrition Science ◽  
Sustainable Diet ◽  
Policy Engagement

It is well known that food has a considerable environmental impact. Less attention has been given to mapping and analysing the emergence of policy responses. This paper contributes to that process. It summarises emerging policy development on nutrition and sustainability, and explores difficulties in their integration. The paper describes some policy thinking at national, European and international levels of governance. It points to the existence of particular policy hotspots such as meat and dairy, sustainable diets and waste. Understanding the environmental impact of food systems challenges nutrition science to draw upon traditions of thinking which have recently been fragmented. These perspectives (life sciences, social and environmental) are all required if policy engagement and clarification is to occur. Sustainability issues offer opportunities for nutrition science and scientists to play a more central role in the policy analysis of future food systems. The task of revising current nutrition policy advice to become sustainable diet advice needs to begin at national and international levels.

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