1,720,978 research outputs found
Making the Mediterranean diet the preferred option? Possible contributions of the food environment
No full textClimate Change as a Threat Multiplier: Transboundary Natural Resources, Institutions, and Interstate Tensions in the Indus, Nile, and Arctic
No full textMaster of Arts in International Affairs -- John Cabot University, Fall 2025.Climate change is changing the foundations of the world's political environment. Climate Change will be a factor that affects both the quantity and strategic significance of the natural resource base, as well as the average temperature, precipitation, and rate of melting for glaciers and sea ice (IPCC, 2023). Climate Change does not generate conflict, but changes how countries analyze and evaluate the actions of other States and the effectiveness of the current system of governance. The strains produced by climate change may create distrust in regions with sensitive inter-state relationships, reduce opportunities for collaboration, and generate new sources of conflict. This dissertation examines how climate change affects the creation and escalation of disputes over natural resources. Unlike many previous studies that treat the environment as a separate variable in conflict, this study examines the mechanisms through which climate change interacts with political tensions, power differences, and institutional structures. Research has been conducted on the relationship between climate change and security, but most of this work has focused on intra-state conflicts or has made general assumptions about the political context without adequately addressing the role of the political context. Additionally, fewer studies have investigated the effects of climate change on state-to-state interactions, particularly on treaties, diplomatic processes, and managing shared resources. This dissertation fills this gap by investigating the institutional characteristics that either facilitate or mitigate the likelihood of climate-related stresses leading to conflict versus collaborative responses. Data used in this thesis were collected as a result of an investigation of three geographic regions (the Indus River Basin, the Nile River Basin, and the Arctic) due to their differing ways in which Climate Change changes the Strategic Value of Resources. For instance, the effects of climate change on both the Indus and Nile River Basins will decrease available water; thus, climate change may increase risk to the functioning (current or disputed) of present-day water sharing agreements. Conversely, in the Arctic, climate change is creating new opportunities for accessing resources and establishing new shipping lanes; as such, it increases the incentive for competing parties to establish rights to certain areas of the Arctic. The three case study areas were chosen to enable an examination of how different climate change impacts interact with their respective political and institutional environments. A major finding of this dissertation is that climate change acts as a threat multiplier by creating uncertainty, exposing vulnerabilities within governance systems, and increasing the risk associated with resource management (Homer-Dixon, 1999) when there is turmoil resulting from climatic stressors. However, it is not just the pressure created by climate stressors that causes the turmoil. Rather, it is also dependent upon the robustness of institutions, the presence of a commonly agreed-upon vision among stakeholders, and the overall strategic dynamics among those who are engaged. In addition, if institutions in a particular region adapt to new information (are "fact-based") then, the stress caused by climate change can be managed through collaborative efforts; conversely, if they are weak, divisive or nonexistent, climate change will likely exacerbate pre-existing levels of conflict. The dissertation examines three regions and analyzes the conditions in which climate change creates additional tensions; and policy options that help build resilience in areas in which cooperative efforts may be difficult to achieve
Do Conditional Cash Transfers Deliver? An Empirical Assessment of Argentina’s ‘Progresar’ Program
No full textMaster of Arts in International Affairs -- John Cabot University, Fall 2025.Conditional Cash Transfers (CCTs), particularly educational scholarships, are widely used by governments to promote school enrollment, retention, and completion among socioeconomically disadvantaged students, but their effectiveness depends on critically assessing their durability, scope, and contextual variation. This study evaluates whether students who received Argentina’s "Progresar" scholarship between 2018 and 2020 achieved higher school completion rates, using a Difference-in- Differences (DiD) model to measure the program’s impact. The analysis shows that, despite the program’s potential and supporting evidence in the literature,its measurable effect on educational outcomes lasted only one year, raising questions about the value of short-term evaluations and the heterogeneity of impacts across cities. By identifying the program’s limited duration of effectiveness, the study contributes evidence to inform the design of more robust and context-sensitive educational policies
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Constructing a food retail environment that encourages healthy diets in cities: the contribution of local-level policy makers and civil society
Full text linkFaced with growing rates of malnutrition, food environments play a key role in shaping eating habits and in helping transition towards healthy diets. Much of the attention on food environment policies has been directed at the national level. Less attention has been devoted to what happens at local level, at the measures being taken by local government policy makers and by other local-level actors to encourage healthier diets, especially in cities. The objective of this article is thus to give an overview of the contribution “from below” to the construction of healthier food environments, that is, to shed light on the specific contribution of local-level policies and initiatives in making nutritious food more available, affordable, and desirable and conversely in making unhealthy foods, such as fast foods and ultra-processed foods, less so. In doing so, it focuses on the retail food environment (RFE) as a specific contribution of cities. A critical review of evaluated local-level policies sheds light on the nature and effectiveness of different types of interventions and on the complementary actions of local government and civil society, where the latter contributes to communicating a different way of “knowing” food in line with a greater appreciation of healthier foods, and to advocating for an integration of sustainability aspects in the transition towards healthy diets. The article reflects upon areas where further efforts and adjustments are needed to make interventions more effective, and emphasizes the need to continue supporting local-level civil society RFE actions, and ensure coordination and coherence between different players and between different administrative levels
La Feria e le pratiche alimentari in Costa Rica: implicazioni per le politiche sugli ambienti alimentari
No full textThe changing face of malnutrition, that includes a global rise in levels of obesity, has brought to the fore the importance of re-shaping food retail environments in such a way as to make them more conducive to consuming healthy diets. Food retail environment metrics have centered around measuring the “external” food environment, i.e. the availability (and relative price) of healthy/unhealthy outlets in specific neighbourhoods measured in terms of proximity and density. Faced with inconclusive results on the correlation between the objective food environment data and dietary intake, more recent approaches have called for a greater attention to more “subjective” aspects of the food environment. In this context, this thesis introduces social practice theory – enriched with a spatial dimension - as a sociological framework that can better explain the underlying drivers of why people choose certain outlets rather than others. Given the dialectical relationship between food practices and the “external” food environment, it also helps to better understand the role of food outlets in shaping desirability and food practices. The thesis rests on three hypotheses: namely that people’s food practices, which include people’s movements in space in relation to food, influence their choices of food outlets; that by so doing they also influence their dietary patterns; and that food outlets in which people shop influence their food practices.
In order to address the above hypotheses, the research has used the case study of Farmers’ Markets in Costa Rica, and has employed a mixed-methods approach. Overall, 35 respondents were interviewed on their food practices – intended as being made up of the meaning, the competence and the material aspects linked to food – and on their dietary patterns. Data was also collected on their residential food environments and on the relative density of healthy/unhealthy outlets in select areas that respondents regularly visit.
Results show that the food practices people are engaged in help steer the way people interact with their external environment. In the case of people who visit the Feria, there is a dominant “colour” of meaning that emerges from people’s narratives, governed by a concern for health and wholeness, which includes conviviality, and a domestic repertoire of justification based on trust and tradition. This, and the related suite of tacit and embodied competences that they have learnt and strengthened in the Feria, is what has drawn them first and kept them subsequently within the Feria, with positive implications for their dietary patterns. Their movements in space, and the way they interact with their external environment, testifies to respondents’ commitment to a certain “healthy” way of “knowing” food. There are, however, certain “minimum” aspects of the external environment that need to be in place in order to attract and sustain healthy elements in people’s food practices, and the thesis concludes by sketching out the role of policymakers in making sure that these aspects are put in place in a way that takes existing food practices into consideration
Constructing a food retail environment that encourages healthy diets in cities: the contribution of local-level policy makers and civil society
Full text linkFaced with growing rates of malnutrition, food environments play a key role in shaping eating habits and in helping transition towards healthy diets. Much of the attention on food environment policies has been directed at the national level. Less attention has been devoted to what happens at local level, at the measures being taken by local government policy makers and by other local-level actors to encourage healthier diets, especially in cities. The objective of this article is thus to give an overview of the contribution “from below” to the construction of healthier food environments, that is, to shed light on the specific contribution of local-level policies and initiatives in making nutritious food more available, affordable, and desirable and conversely in making unhealthy foods, such as fast foods and ultra-processed foods, less so. In doing so, it focuses on the retail food environment (RFE) as a specific contribution of cities. A critical review of evaluated local-level policies sheds light on the nature and effectiveness of different types of interventions and on the complementary actions of local government and civil society, where the latter contributes to communicating a different way of “knowing” food in line with a greater appreciation of healthier foods, and to advocating for an integration of sustainability aspects in the transition towards healthy diets. The article reflects upon areas where further efforts and adjustments are needed to make interventions more effective, and emphasizes the need to continue supporting local-level civil society RFE actions, and ensure coordination and coherence between different players and between different administrative levels
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