scholarly journals Role of digital platforms in maintaining the value chains of vegetable, root and tuber crops functional in the face of Covid-19. Research Report

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Value Chains ◽  
Research Report ◽  
Digital Platforms ◽  
The Face ◽  
Tuber Crops

scholarly journals Transnational Contract Law

2021 ◽  
pp. 512-530
Author(s):  
Klaas Hendrik Eller
Keyword(s):  
Political Institutions ◽  
Contract Theory ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
Global Value Chains ◽  
Contract Law ◽  
Legal Order ◽  
Value Chains ◽  
Discursive Space ◽  
Digital Platforms

Contract is a central trope of transnational ordering. In the shadow of the various attempts to harmonize contract law at the transnational level (such as through UNIDROIT), the very institution of contract already forms the backbone of transnational interaction. Yet, as this chapter outlines, contract theory is for the most part ill-prepared to capture the constitutive role of contracts in the regulation and critique of transnational social institutions, such as global value chains or digital platforms. In such scenarios, beyond being geared toward efficiency between parties, contracts embody a plurality of rationalities and interests and form a discursive space. Albeit often in a fragile way, contracts emerge as equivalents of political institutions inasmuch as the state legal order no longer provides substantial background justice. The chapter surveys how realist and critical traditions in contract theory, in both their US and European variants, are presently being recalibrated to properly reconstruct transnational social conflicts.

Enhancing Africa's Agri-Value Chains Through Digital Platforms

2021 ◽  
pp. 91-120
Author(s):  
Immanuel Ovemeso Umukoro
Keyword(s):  
Food Security ◽  
Literature Review ◽  
Business Models ◽  
Value Chains ◽  
Digital Platforms ◽  
Stakeholder Approach ◽  
Technology Deployment ◽  
Food Market ◽  
The Right

Africa's food security may be at risk if food production does not increase, especially given that by 2023, African food market will more than triple in demand by moving from $300 billion to $1 trillion. However, country-specific interventions have not provided the desired impact towards guaranteeing food security. Across different agricultural value chains, wastages due to lack of access to markets, poor storage, lack of logistics, transport and power infrastructure, among several others. There is, however, the possibility of strengthening these value chains with the right technology deployment. This requires significant investment, which is most effective using collaborative stakeholder approach. The private sector has shown signs of resilience in investing in agriculture by finding the right business models such as digital platforms which are in themselves scalable businesses. Through an interrogative literature review and analysis of case studies, this chapter explores the role of digital platforms in enhancing diverse agricultural value chains across Africa.

scholarly journals Coordinated populism: a reconstruction of M5S Directorate’s communication from 2013 to 2019

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Federico Pilati ◽  
Flavio Piccoli
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Digital Platforms ◽  
Electoral Campaign ◽  
The Face ◽  
Five Star Movement ◽  
European Election ◽  
Algorithmic Logic ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Communicative Strategy

In the last decade, the rapid rise of the Five Star Movement has been the focus of many studies investigating populism and its characteristics. While the communicative role of the founder Beppe Grillo has been widely discussed in the literature, to date little attention has been paid to the relevance of the Directorate in shaping the political assets attributed to M5S. By analysing all the tweets posted by Di Battista, Di Maio and Fico from the Italian electoral campaign of 2013 until the European election of 2019, we will show how instead the peculiar political proposal of M5S has been built over time also thanks to the communicative coordination capacity of the Directorate and their strategic exploitation of digital platforms’ affordances. Indeed, the presence of a shared communicative leadership has laid the ground for the construction of a political proposal capable of intercepting and shaping the different souls of the Movement, without, however, affecting the rhetoric of opposition between people and elite on which populist movements rely. The algorithmic logic of customization that governs social media has instead accentuated the possibility for users to choose the «face» they like among the various and contradictory positions of the Directorate. In these terms, M5S communicative strategy highlights the elective affinity between social media and populist rhetoric, showing how the Directorate presence on Twitter has been an exemplary case of populist ability in using the algorithmic governance of digital platforms to one’s advantage. In this view, the avoidance of overlapping between the components of the Directorate is extremely relevant: the coordinated communication between different leaders ensures that no contradictions emerge within the discourses of the individual but also that the broad political proposal can generate a chameleonic and catch-all dimension inside the party.

Questions on the role of biofilms for the adaptation of microorganisms to unfavorable environmental factors by the example of P. aeruginosa

2020 ◽  
Vol 99 (4) ◽  
pp. 379-383
Author(s):  
Vasily N. Afonyushkin ◽  
N. A. Donchenko ◽  
Ju. N. Kozlova ◽  
N. A. Davidova ◽  
V. Yu. Koptev ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Antibiotic Resistance ◽  
Environmental Factors ◽  
Barrier Function ◽  
Infectious Agent ◽  
Antagonistic Activity ◽  
The Body ◽  
Main Function ◽  
Pathogenic Potential ◽  
The Face

Pseudomonas aeruginosa is a widely represented species of bacteria possessing of a pathogenic potential. This infectious agent is causing wound infections, fibrotic cystitis, fibrosing pneumonia, bacterial sepsis, etc. The microorganism is highly resistant to antiseptics, disinfectants, immune system responses of the body. The responses of a quorum sense of this kind of bacteria ensure the inclusion of many pathogenicity factors. The analysis of the scientific literature made it possible to formulate four questions concerning the role of biofilms for the adaptation of P. aeruginosa to adverse environmental factors: Is another person appears to be predominantly of a source an etiological agent or the source of P. aeruginosa infection in the environment? Does the formation of biofilms influence on the antibiotic resistance? How the antagonistic activity of microorganisms is realized in biofilm form? What is the main function of biofilms in the functioning of bacteria? A hypothesis has been put forward the effect of biofilms on the increase of antibiotic resistance of bacteria and, in particular, P. aeruginosa to be secondary in charcter. It is more likely a biofilmboth to fulfill the function of storing nutrients and provide topical competition in the face of food scarcity. In connection with the incompatibility of the molecular radii of most antibiotics and pores in biofilm, biofilm is doubtful to be capable of performing a barrier function for protecting against antibiotics. However, with respect to antibodies and immunocompetent cells, the barrier function is beyond doubt. The biofilm is more likely to fulfill the function of storing nutrients and providing topical competition in conditions of scarcity of food resources.

The Modern Aristotle: Michael Polanyi’s Search for Truth against Nihilism

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ronald Hoinski ◽  
Ronald Polansky
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Science ◽  
Modern Science ◽  
Michael Polanyi ◽  
Contemporary Philosophy ◽  
The Face ◽  
Human Desire ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Theoretical Science

David Hoinski and Ronald Polansky’s “The Modern Aristotle: Michael Polanyi’s Search for Truth against Nihilism” shows how the general tendencies of contemporary philosophy of science disclose a return to the Aristotelian emphasis on both the formation of dispositions to know and the role of the mind in theoretical science. Focusing on a comparison of Michael Polanyi and Aristotle, Hoinski and Polansky investigate to what degree Aristotelian thought retains its purchase on reality in the face of the changes wrought by modern science. Polanyi’s approach relies on several Aristotelian assumptions, including the naturalness of the human desire to know, the institutional and personal basis for the accumulation of knowledge, and the endorsement of realism against objectivism. Hoinski and Polansky emphasize the promise of Polanyi’s neo-Aristotelian framework, which argues that science is won through reflection on reality.

Expansion of borders in the Kurdistan region and local and regional positions

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (11) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Harith Qahtan Abdullah ◽  
Abbas Fadel Atwan
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Central Government ◽  
Kurdistan Region ◽  
War On Terrorism ◽  
National State ◽  
The Face ◽  
In The Beginning

The borders of Kurdistan represent an important point in Kurdish thought. They represent the hope of establishing their national state. The circumstances of the war on terrorism in Iraq and Syria have led to the emergence of what is known as a "propaganda" and the formation of a global front in its struggle. And with the signs of the collapse of the Syrian state and the weakness of the Iraqi state in the face of the "dashing" in the beginning. These circumstances led to the emergence of the role of the Kurdistan region in the confrontation "ISIS" and maintain the administrative border in the three provinces of Kurdistan in addition to the province of Kirkuk. That the circumstances of the war on terrorism created new international conditions on the Middle East arena, which will generate many problems between the Kurdistan region and the central government of Baghdad, as well as other problems between the region, Syria, Turkey and Iran. The war on terrorism has made countries free to fight the opposition groups under the name Terrorism by their classification. The Turkish side is fighting the PKK within the borders of the Kurdistan region, and this war can develop in a post-"warlike" phase. The war in Syria is also contradictory to vision and not resolved to a specific side and Iran's position on developments is encouraging.

FAITH–BASED COMMUNITIES AND POLITICS IN DULLSTROOM-EMNOTWENI: LOCAL STORIES OF IDENTITY

2016 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-57 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christina Landman
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Service Delivery ◽  
Special Focus ◽  
Traditional Role ◽  
Cultural Conflicts ◽  
Local Identities ◽  
Political Interests ◽  
Local Municipality ◽  
The Face

A majority of the black community of Dullstroom-Emnotweni in the Mpumalanga highveld in the east of South Africa trace their descent back to the southern Ndebele of the so-called ‘Mapoch Gronden’, who lost their land in the 1880s to become farm workers on their own land. A hundred years later, in 1980, descendants of the ‘Mapoggers’ settled in the newly built ‘township’ of Dullstroom, called Sakhelwe, finding jobs on the railways or as domestic workers. Oral interviews with the inhabitants of Sakhelwe – a name eventually abandoned in favour of Dullstroom- Emnotweni – testify to histories of transition from landowner to farmworker to unskilled labourer. The stories also highlight cultural conflicts between people of Ndebele, Pedi and Swazi descent and the influence of decades of subordination on local identities. Research projects conducted in this and the wider area of the eMakhazeni Local Municipality reveal the struggle to maintain religious, gender and youth identities in the face of competing political interests. Service delivery, higher education, space for women and the role of faith-based organisations in particular seem to be sites of contestation. Churches and their role in development and transformation, where they compete with political parties and state institutions, are the special focus of this study. They attempt to remain free from party politics, but are nevertheless co-opted into contra-culturing the lack of service delivery, poor standards of higher education and inadequate space for women, which are outside their traditional role of sustaining an oppressed community.

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