1,720,985 research outputs found
A Century of Soybeans: Scientific Research and Mixed Farming in Agricultural Southern Ontario, 1881-1983
Full text linkThis thesis is an investigation of the history of scientific field crop agriculture in Ontario from 1881 to 1983, with soybeans as the case study crop. Four chronological time periods, each with different economic, social, environmental and social challenges, are identified. In each period, the introduction and development of soybeans from an exotic curiosity to a commodity of major economic and agronomic importance coincided with significant changes in mixed farming. During the first period (1881 to 1925), scientists and educated farmers improved soybeans, and the first variety was registered and released in Canada. In the second period (1925 to the late 1930s), discourse and activity among plant breeders, educated farmers, processors and politicians failed to overcome economic and environmental challenges to replacing more familiar field crops with soybeans, and acreages remained small. The third period (late 1930s to the early 1950s) encompassed World War II, when a shortage of oilseeds stimulated the demand for soybeans. Producers responded by organizing the Ontario Soya-Bean Growers’ Marketing Board and joining the Ontario Crop Improvement Association. Specialized agricultural scientists applied plant physiology and molecular biology to weed control and breeding. During the fourth period (1950s to 1983), soybean acreages increased: in the 1960s, high-yielding varieties with disease resistance were widely planted in southwestern Ontario and the northern USA. By the 1970s, short-season varieties with tolerance to low temperatures spread through eastern Ontario. Research and experiment were part of a public and private sector network of co-operation and support between farmers and scientists, as both groups renegotiated the complex relationship between field crop agriculture and Ontario’s environment. Improvements were achieved by scientists at public institutions and freely communicated through extension programs. Farmers used recommendations as guidelines to increase efficiency on their own farms. With the post-war period, agribusiness became the context in which crop production occurred. This included private seed companies, which exploited public research to market improved seeds and supporting products as profitable business. In 1983, King Agro released a soybean variety, shifting the balance of research and production from public to private enterprise, and signalling the end of mixed farming in Ontario
"Reasonable Tact and Diplomacy": Disease Management and Bovine Tuberculosis in North America: 1890 - 1950
No full textThis dissertation is an investigation of bovine tuberculosis eradication in Canada and the United States from the beginning of formal intervention in the early 1890s to 1950. A zoonotic disease, capable of passing from animals to humans, Bovine tuberculosis emerged as a significant public health and livestock health issue in the late nineteenth century. Eradicating bovine tuberculosis, therefore, came on two fronts; suppressing and managing the disease in livestock, and preventing diseased livestock products from human consumption. Using the jurisdictions of Ontario and New York State, this study details bovine tuberculosis legislation over the roughly sixty years it took to successfully suppress and manage the disease. Particular attention is directed towards the formation, practice, and transformation of policy on both sides of the border, the public and livestock health implications of the disease, and the role of the state and veterinary medicine in disease intervention and management. This work complements and builds upon studies produced by scholars such as Olmstead and Rhode, Jones, and Jenkins, who have adopted various approaches to the history of bovine tuberculosis. In particular, by placing bovine tuberculosis intervention in New York State and Ontario alongside one another, key contrasts are observed in the structure of authority for disease control, competing ideas about the nature and implications of the disease, and the policies that resulted. Over time, distinct programs practiced on either side of the border grew into similar, widespread national testing programs with compensation for livestock owners. This study will explore the tremendous collaboration between Canada and the United States in terms of bovine tuberculosis thinking and practice that saw management efforts unfold, and shed light on an underexplored body of individuals who were critical to the suppression and management of not only bovine tuberculosis, but a host of other infectious diseases: veterinarians. Veterinarians such as John G. Rutherford of Canada and Veranus Moore of the United States were central to the formation, practice and transformation of bovine tuberculosis policy in the early twentieth century. It would be through these individuals that the power of the state would meet the disease on the ground. Bovine tuberculosis, despite the fanfare that surrounded the scientific understanding of it discovered in the nineteenth century, was not a disease suppressed and managed through a dramatic intervention of science, but a steady and dedicated intervention of the state. It was bureaucratic innovation, not necessarily scientific innovation that saw this disease successfully brought under control
Fear and the Unprepared: United States Bioterrorism Policy and the 2001 Anthrax Crisis
Full text linkThis thesis utilizes a combination of relevant newspaper articles, reports from United States government agencies, and policies to examine the history of biological warfare to bioterrorism within the United States. Through these sources, the relationship between public perception/values and political policy and law become more transparent. Over a century-long arc, this thesis explores the role of fear in determining bioterrorism policy from the creation of biological weapons through use as a domestic terrorism agent. The choice blindness to cultural problems within the societal system and their connections to domestic terrorism inhibits the justice system from functioning at a higher capacity. Through my examination of the 2001 anthrax attacks, it is revealed that this event, magnified by the 9/11 attack on the Twin Towers, had a significant impact on public perception of biological weapons and subsequently on bioterrorism policy and legal structures
Rooted in Coffee: Deregulation, Economic Crisis and Restructuring Power in the Brazilian Coffee Sector: How Small-Scale Coffee Producers Responded to the Coffee Crisis in Sul de Minas.
No full textAfter 1989, the elimination of the Brazilian Coffee Institute coincided with a global movement of coffee market deregulation, resulting in a long ‘coffee crisis’ that harmed the livelihoods of thousands of small-scale coffee producers in Brazil. In response, the Brazilian coffee landscape was restructured and large private cooperatives emerged as the primary institutions in the Sul de Minas region. However, after the initial retraction of state intervention, extremely low coffee prices contributed to the reestablishment of the Brazilian government in the coffee sector, but in a different fashion, as state institutions were redesigned to support actors and private institutions, not recreate the state as an intermediary in the market. Despite further commitment to coffee production, producers experienced greater economic vulnerability and suffered the brunt of the low coffee prices, but a strong culture of coffee production played an important role in shaping the choices of producers
Political polarization in Venezuela: urban positions on Mision Zamora - Political opportunities and challenges
No full textThis thesis investigates the character of political polarization in Venezuela and the opportunities for, and challenges to, land reform, in an urban-industrial context. This study examines 'Misio?n Zamora', the current Venezuelan land reform initiative, through an analysis of 56 semi-structures personal interviews conducted with a cross-section of the population of Caracas, Venezuela. This dissertation argues that the Venezuelan context is not as challenging as expected to 'Misio?n Zamora'. The context offers both political opportunities and obstacles. Opportunities are based on less extreme and less ideological polarization than expected, which includes a significant political middle ground; support for the need for land reform and 'Misio?n Zamora', based on fundamental policy purposes; opposition based on implementation, rather than ideological reasons; and common ground between supporters and opponents of the reform and the government. Obstacles are dominantly based on implementation and stem from challenges in translating common ground into dialogue and decreased public polarization
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
Paisagens vulneráveis do café: uma história global de agências humanas e não humanas: UNA HISTORIA GLOBAL DE AGENCIAS HUMANAS Y NON HUMANAS
No full textReview of: MCCOOK, Stuart. Coffee is Not Forever: A Global History of Coffee Leaf Rust. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2019. 306 p.Resenha de: MCCOOK, Stuart. Coffee is Not Forever: A Global History of Coffee Leaf Rust. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2019. 306 p
PAISAGENS VULNERÁVEIS DO CAFÉ: UMA HISTÓRIA GLOBAL DE AGÊNCIAS HUMANAS E NÃO HUMANAS
No full textReview of: MCCOOK, Stuart. Coffee is Not Forever: A Global History of Coffee Leaf Rust. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2019. 306 p.Resenha de: MCCOOK, Stuart. Coffee is Not Forever: A Global History of Coffee Leaf Rust. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2019. 306 p
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
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