Knowledge Transfer on Digital Transformation: An Analysis of the Olive Landscape in Andalusia, Spain

The global economy, and agriculture, in particular, faces significant challenges and transformation pressures. A major challenge, and opportunity, is the transformation towards digital agriculture or agriculture 4.0, where knowledge transfer (KT) has an important role to play not only in ensuring that digital innovations reach end-users, but also that these innovations contribute to development in rural landscapes. This paper analyses the role of KT in the framework of digital transformation (DT) in the Andalusian olive landscape. Thus, from the perspective of knowledge-generating agents, the main knowledge emitting and receiving actors in the DT are identified by using Social Network Analysis techniques (SNA). Subsequently, the performance of the Technological Innovation System (TIS) in KT is evaluated by using the multi-criteria Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) method. The results suggest that the knowledge-generating agents, the knowledge transfer actors, and the scientific and dissemination media actors are the main knowledge emitters and highlight their role as cohesive actors of the social network. The main knowledge receivers are olive growers, cooperatives and non-cooperative groups. The results also indicate that the global performance of the TIS in the KT function is medium/low. Furthermore, in the KT sub-functions where the TIS in DT performs best is the quality of the transfer processes of DT, and where it performs worst is the sufficiency of spaces for KT.

Affect, Belief, and the Arts

The cultural project is a therapeutic melding of emotion, symbols, and knowledge. In this paper, I describe how spiritual emotions engendered through encounters in imaginative culture enable fixation of metaphysical beliefs. Evolved affective systems are domesticated through the social practices of imaginative culture so as to adapt people to live in culturally defined cooperative groups. Conditioning, as well as tertiary-level cognitive capacities such as symbols and language are enlisted to bond groups through the imaginative formats of myth and participatory ritual. These cultural materializations can be shared by communities both synchronically and diachronically in works of art. Art is thus a form of self-knowledge that equips us with a motivated understanding of ourselves in the world. In the sacred state produced through the arts and in religious acts, the sense of meaning becomes noetically distinct because affect infuses the experience of immanence, and one's memory of it, with salience. The quality imbued thereby makes humans attentive to subtle signs and broad “truths.” Saturated by emotions and the experience of alterity in the immanent encounter of imaginative culture, information made salient in the sacred experience can become the basis for belief fixation. Using examples drawn from mimetic arts and arts of immanence, I put forward a theory about how sensible affective knowledge is mediated through affective systems, direct perception, and the imagination.

ENTERPRISE ASSESSMENT ACROSS CASSAVA WASTE (PEELS) VALUE CHAIN IN OGUN STATE

In this article, the Enterprise assessment across cassava peels value chain in Ogun State Nigeria is examined. Multistage sampling technique was used to select 180 cassava processors and marketers. Socio-economic data were obtained from respondents with the use of pre-tested questionnaires. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics, budgetary technique, Stochastic Frontier Analysis (SFA) and Student t-test. The study found that majority (84.3% and 52.8%) of processors of cassava peels and marketers were female. In addition, 60.2% of the processors and 51.4% of the marketers had secondary education. The value chain activities carried out by processors were transportation, drying and packaging while marketers transported, packaged and put the peels in storage for future sales. The SFA revealed that cost of labour (p<0.01) and quantity of fresh cassava peels (p<0.01) were the main determinants of output of dried cassava peels by the processors. The inefficiency model revealed that the efficiency of producing dried cassava peels increased with increase in age (p<0.01), credit access (p<0.01), household size (p<0.01) and membership of cooperative society (p<0.01). Furthermore, the cost function revealed that cost of sieving (p<0.05) and depreciation on capital item (p<0.01) increased the production cost of dried cassava peels. The mean technical, allocative and economic efficiency of producing dried cassava peels were estimated as 94%, 83% and 78% respectively. This study concluded that production of cassava peels is efficient and its trade is profitable. The study recommends that cassava processors and marketers should form cooperative groups to increase access to credit for higher output and trade of peels.

Why Do Agricultural Cooperative Mergers Not Cross the Finishing Line?

Mergers have played a relevant role in the business development of many agri-food cooperatives and have led to the consolidation of large cooperative groups which are leaders in their respective business sectors. However, many of the merger processes undertaken fail: some are aborted at the negotiation stage, and others are not approved by members. These failures entail financial and social costs due to frustrated expectations and the time invested in the negotiation process. The objective of this paper is to establish the economic, socio-cultural, organisational and process management factors that underlie this outcome. A survey was conducted among the directors and administrators of a sample of Spanish agri-food cooperatives that had participated in merger processes which were aborted at the negotiation stage or were not approved by their members. Factor and discriminant analyses established the aspects which had the greatest impact on the failure of the merger processes. Far from being economic factors, these analyses reveal that defensive localisms, a lack of commitment to the merger on the part of members and directors, and communication failures were more significant.

Emergent Prosocial Behavior During Dynamic Human Group Formation

For scientists, policy makers, and the general population, there is increasing interest in how humans form cooperative groups. However, how group-oriented behavior emerges during the dynamic process of group formation is still unknown. We hypothesize that humans will exhibit emergent prosocial behavior as their immediate group size increases. Using a network-embedded-dyad prisoner dilemma task, with periodic opportunities to retain or remove group members, we find subjects consistently follow a well-performing reciprocal base policy (tit-for-tat-like) across the experimental session. However, subjects’ strategies also became more forgiving and less exploitative as group size increased, with a default preference shift to cooperation. Thus, human cooperation may emerge from a desire to create and maintain larger and more cooperative groups, and multiscale strategy that considers both self-interest and group-interest.

Analysis on Evolution Characteristics of Industry University Research Innovation Network in Guizhou Province Based on Patent

Based on the industry-university-research cooperation patent data of Guizhou Province from 1986 to 2020, this paper constructs Guizhou industry-university-research innovation network, and empirically explores the overall structural characteristics of Guizhou industry-university-research innovation network, such as network scale and network density, as well as the time evolution dynamics of nodes and cooperation intensity. It is found that the scale of industry-university-research innovation network in Guizhou Province is gradually expanding, the nodes are gradually increasing, and more cooperative groups have been formed, but the overall network is low density; Guizhou University and other universities and scientific research institutions have always occupied the central position of the network. Although enterprises are not in the core position, the intensity of cooperation with institutions is gradually increasing.

Using Statistical Methodology: Analyzing Perception and Readiness of Pharmacists to form Cooperative Societies in Akwa Ibom, Nigeria

The pharmacists’ slogan reads “as men of honour we join hands.” This study was aimed at assessing the perception and readiness to forming/running cooperative societies from the perspectives of the pharmacists’ technical groups in Akwa-Ibom State, Nigeria. A descriptive survey method was adopted using a structured questionnaire was used to obtain data bordering on respondents’ socio-demographic status, perception of concept of cluster/cooperative groups alongside willingness to engage in such formation. A total of 156 respondents (male 61, 39 % and female 95, 61%) participated in the study. The distribution of technical group of respondents were community practice (CP) 65(42.0%), academia (AP) 20 (13.0%), industrial (IP) 25 (16.0%) and hospital practice (HP) 46(29.0%). Respondents who were currently part of a non-pharmacist-member group and pharmacist-member group were 31% and 2%, respectively. 99% of the Respondents agree that persons of same mind/interest should come together to achieve progress. A total of 35% of total respondents believe pharmacists have too many associations/groups already and it is burdensome adding more93% of total respondents were not aware of any pharmacists-only group around them while 75% of them believe forming such groups can empower pharmacists but 23% have a negative disposition to this notion. Respondents from CP had significantly favourable disposition to creating the cooperative group than IP (p=0.0.0001), AP (p=0.023), HP (p=0.019). Pharmacists in CP and AP are more ready to form cooperative society for common interest than their colleagues in other technical groups.

Social relationship strength modulates the similarity of brain-to-brain representations of group members

Within our societies, humans form cooperative groups with diverse levels of relationship quality among individual group members. In establishing relationships with others, we use attitudes and beliefs about group members and the group as a whole to establish relationships with particular members of our social networks. However, we have yet to understand how brain responses to group members facilitate relationship quality between pairs of individuals. We address this here using a round-robin interpersonal perception paradigm in which each participant was both a perceiver and target for every other member of their group, in a set of 20 unique groups of between 5 and 6 members in each (total N = 111). Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we show that measures of social relationship strength modulate the brain-to-brain multivoxel similarity patterns between pairs of participants’ responses when perceiving other members of their group in regions of the brain implicated in social cognition. These results provide evidence for a brain mechanism of social cognitive processes serving interpersonal relationship strength among group members.

Co-governance, Transregional Maritime Conventions, and Indigenous Customary Practices Among Subsistence Fishermen in Ende, Indonesia

This article presents a case study of a fishery in the port-town community of Ende, Flores, a former littoral hub located at the periphery of major commercial systems in the Indo-Pacific region. The article argues that more attention be paid to the role of transregional maritime networks, nautical conventions, and navigational practices embedded within local tenure systems to understand the apparent absence of formal control of marine and coastal resources. Through ethnographic and archival research, this study identifies the presence of indigenous institutions for fishing grounds regulation and documents the existence of broader transregional norms dictating proper fishing and navigation. Exploring the interactions between more pluralistic customary systems that exist in port-towns such as Ende and recent fishery development policies, the article discusses some of the obstacles to implementing sustainable co-management strategies. While the Indonesian central government is strongly promoting co-governance approaches for resource management, these institutional models are based on geographically narrow definitions of tradition and customary law which can lead to management failures, such as elite capture and local fishers’ disenfranchisement. In this case, policies emphasize the formation of cooperative groups without considering transregional beliefs about independence and pre-established systems of obligations. As a result, disputes among the fishermen, conflicts with local fishery officers, and the use of non-sustainable practices continue. For example, embodying predominant Southeast Asian beliefs, Endenese are known for their entrepreneurial nature and strong self-sufficiency ethos. Yet, these notions are ignored by local government agencies that view the fishermen as selfish and disorganized. In order to formulate true participatory solutions, a careful assessment of the role played by transregional perspectives that go beyond geographically localized understandings of customary practices is needed. The article concludes with a consideration of the role played by decentralization processes, subsidies, and aid programs in entrenching poverty and inequality among local communities.