A adoção de práticas sustentáveis desde à produção de alimentos até o consumo final tem sido mais frequente nos últimos anos. Essas práticas sustentáveis estão embasadas na promoção do desenvolvimento sustentável, sem prejudicar as gerações futuras da humanidade. Nesse contexto, os proprietários das agroindústrias familiares se deparam com diversos desafios quando se trata da diminuição de impactos ambientais e, em consequência, da promoção do desenvolvimento rural sustentável. A adoção de práticas sustentáveis é resultado da compreensão da consciência ambiental e dos valores humanos, os quais desencadeiam as atitudes pró-ambientais e, assim, resulta em um comportamento ecológico. Neste sentido, objetivou-se analisar a influência da consciência ambiental e dos valores humanos sobre as atitudes pró-ambientais dos proprietários das agroindústrias familiares vinculadas ao PEAF/RS. Os dados foram coletados por meio da aplicação de questionário, com quatro grupos de questões (perfil das agroindústrias familiares e atitudes pró-ambientais, Escala NEP, perfil socioeconômico, Escala Schwartz). A amostra corresponde aos 105 proprietários de agroindústrias familiares do Rio Grande do Sul. Os dados foram analisados utilizando estatística descritiva, analise fatorial e correlação. Os resultados apresentam que mais da metade da amostra é composta por adultos, com grau de escolaridade elevado e com formação em cursos voltados para a gestão da agroindústria Além disso, 37% das agroindústrias familiares têm um tempo de existência entre um a cinco anos, com mão de obra familiar e com atividades predominantes em olericultura, bebidas e panificados, nas cidades de Caxias do Sul, Santa Maria e Lajeado. A aplicação das escalas, demonstrou que os proprietários das agroindústrias familiares possuem um nível elevado de consciência ambiental, com predominância nos valores humanos de ordem superior “conservação” e “autotranscendência”. Tais resultados revelam uma tendência de possuir um comportamento ecocêntrico e altruísta, conforme a Escala NEP e Schwartz, respectivamente. Além disso, observou-se que as agroindústrias familiares têm atitudes pró-ambientais, as quais são implantadas e praticadas pela agroindústria. De modo geral, 40% dos proprietários das agroindústrias acreditam que o empreendimento tem mais de 80% de atividades pró-ambientais, tais como, o uso de embalagens recicláveis, a prática de conscientização ambiental, a economia de energia, o uso correto do descarte dos resíduos sólidos. Porém não foi encontrado correlação entre as escalas e as atitudes pró-ambientais. Portanto, entende-se que esses resultados auxiliam as esferas federativas na formulação de uma política de benefícios, motivando-os aqueles que possuem mais adequação à preservação ambiental e incentivando outros proprietários a praticarem mais ações ambientais. / The adoption of sustainable practices from food production to final consumption has been more frequent in recent years. These sustainable practices are based on the promotion of sustainable development, without harming future generations of humanity. In this context, the owners of family agroindustries face several challenges when it comes to reducing environmental impacts and, as a consequence, promoting sustainable rural development. The adoption of sustainable practices is the result of an understanding of environmental awareness and human values, which triggers pro-environmental attitudes and thus results in ecological behavior. In this sense, the objective was to analyze the influence of environmental awareness and human values on the pro-environmental attitudes of the owners of family agroindustries linked to PEAF/RS. Data were collected through the application of a questionnaire, with four groups of questions (profile of family agroindustries and pro-environmental attitudes, NEP Scale, socioeconomic profile, Schwartz Scale). The sample corresponds to the 105 owners of family agroindustries in Rio Grande do Sul. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, factorial analysis and correlation. The results show that more than half of the sample is composed of adults, with a high level of education and training in courses aimed at the management of agribusiness. In addition, 37% of family agroindustries have a life span of between one and five years, with family labor and predominant activities in olericultura, beverages and baked goods, in the cities of Caxias do Sul, Santa Maria and Lajeado The application of the scales, showed that the owners of the family agroindustries have a high level of environmental awareness, with a predominance of human values of higher order "conservation" and "self-transcendence". These results reveal a tendency to have an ecocentric and altruistic behavior, according to the NEP and Schwartz Scales, respectively. In addition, it was observed that family agroindustries have pro-environmental attitudes, which are implemented and practiced by the agroindustry. In general, 40% of the owners of agroindustries believe that the enterprise has more than 80% of pro-environmental activities, such as the use of recyclable packaging, the practice of environmental awareness, energy saving, the correct use of waste of solid waste. However, no correlation was found between the scales and the pro-environmental attitudes. Therefore, it is understood that these results help federative spheres in the formulation of a benefits policy, motivating those that are more adequate to environmental preservation and encouraging other owners to practice more environmental actions.

Thesis (B.S.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, 1982. / MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND ENGINEERING / Bibliography: leaf 88. / by Cheryl A. Gira. / B.S.

Thesis (M.S.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, 1982. / MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND ENGINEERING / Includes bibliographical references. / by Kevin Paul Tyra. / M.S.

A sepse é sempre acompanhada de mudanças na temperatura corporal, seja esta febre ou hipotermia. O presente trabalho tem como objetivos principais (1) caracterizar o curso temporal de hipotermia em um grupo raro de pacientes sépticos; (2) desenvolver um modelo experimental bem controlado de sepse grave monobacteriana e; (3) estudar mecanicamente como o pulmão é preservado na sepse frente à virada de febre para hipotermia. Nossos resultados mostraram, pela primeira vez, que a hipotermia em pacientes sépticos é um fenômeno transitório, não terminal. Ainda desenvolvemos um modelo experimental de sepse grave, no qual observamos que a hipotermia provoca a reprogramação das principais células envolvidas na resposta inflamatória. Essas mudanças favorecem o hospedeiro, pois induzem diminuição do infiltrado inflamatório e manteve a infecção controlada. Logo, podemos concluir que a hipotermia é um fenômeno transitório, auto-limitante e não terminal, diferente da resposta desregulada e progressiva que se acreditava existir. / Sepsis is always accompanied by changes in body temperature, whether it is fever or hypothermia. The present study has as main objectives (1) to characterize the temporal course of hypothermia in a rare group of septic patients; (2) to develop a well-controlled experimental model of severe monobacterial sepsis and; (3) to mechanically study how the lung is preserved in the sepsis in the face of the onset of fever for hypothermia. Our results showed, for the first time, that hypothermia in septic patients is a transitory, non-terminal phenomenon. We have also developed an experimental model of severe sepsis, in which we observed that hypothermia causes reprogramming of the main cells involved in the inflammatory response. These changes favor the host, as they induce a decrease in the inflammatory infiltrate and kept the infection under control. Therefore, we can conclude that hypothermia is a transitory phenomenon, self-limiting and not terminal, different from the deregulated and progressive response that was believed to exist.

Unilateral deficits resulting from stroke manifest as reduced velocity, decreased cadence and asymmetries in temporal, spatial and force parameters during ambulation. Gait asymmetries and compensatory strategies employed during gait result in a higher mechanical energy cost that limits activity and community participation. Despite conventional rehabilitation efforts, individuals often remain with chronic gait deficits after stroke. Robotic-based therapies have been developed as an alternative to conventional rehabilitation. These therapies offer the means to provide task-specific training at an intensity greater than that of conventional approaches; however, to date outcomes have been similar to that of conventional training. One factor potentially contributing to the limited efficacy of robotic training is the active-assist control strategy that is often employed. This type of training strategy reduces the users’ engagement in the learning process and limits skilled learning. The tethered pelvic assist device (TPAD) is a robotic device that employs actuated tethers at the pelvis to guide the user along a pre-set movement trajectory. While other robotic devices restrict movement to a fixed trajectory, the TPAD promotes shifting weight onto the paretic limb, but permits users to freely move the limb to navigate spatiotemporal aspects of training independently. This allows individuals to participate in the problem-solving process required for motor learning to occur, facilitating a more active role in the motor task itself, and thus promoting learning. Earlier work utilized the TPAD to reduce gait asymmetry in a population of individuals in the chronic phase after stroke in a single training session (Bishop et al., 2015; Vashista, 2015). Results demonstrated an increase in propulsive forces of the affected limb as a result of the intervention, but these gains did not transfer to overground gait. A follow up study explored the feasibility and efficacy of two different training strategies using the TPAD (Bishop et al., 2017). Both training strategies proved feasible and similarly efficacious. The current work examines the feasibility and preliminary efficacy of a five-day intervention using the TPAD with faded visual feedback and a short bout of task-specific overground training to reduce gait asymmetry in a population of individuals at least six months after stroke. Participants underwent a series of three Pre Test assessments within a one-week interval prior to initiating the intervention. Training occurred over five consecutive days, with a Post Test assessment administered on conclusion of Day 5 of training. A one-week Follow Up assessment was also recorded. Results demonstrated this intervention coupling TPAD training with additional tenets of motor learning including visual feedback and salient task-specific overground training was feasible in terms of safety, tolerance and adherence. Further, while participant’s load asymmetry was not significantly reduced on the treadmill from Baseline to Post Training (p >0.05), there was a significant improvement in stance symmetry during overground gait (F = 8.498, p = 0.002). These results suggest that the integration of motor learning tenets with robotic TPAD training was useful in facilitating gains to overground walking. Implications to the broader scope of robotic training suggest that creating an environment in which the user plays a more active role is useful at maximizing effects of robotic training. Future work should include comparison groups (TPAD treadmill training, overground training, and combined TPAD and overground training) with a more robust sample size for a longer duration of training to parse out contributing factors to overground gains. Future work should also consider a longer training and follow up interval in an effort to determine whether individuals are able to maintain improvements longer than the immediate post training period.

No description available.

On October 8th 2005 the villages surrounding Chinati bazaar in Bagh district of Pakistani-administered Kashmir (PaK) were hit by an earthquake measuring 7.6 on the Richter scale that affected the lives of more than 3.5 million people in PaK and Khyber Pukhtunkhwa. In this thesis I attempt to understand, through the stories and narratives of the people of Chinati bazaar, how they lived through, made sense of, and dealt with the earthquake and its aftermath. I use participant observation and conversations to tell the stories of those affected by the earthquake in their own voices as much as possible. The storytellers of the bazaar lived through two types of events: the earthquake itself and the post-earthquake rehabilitation and reconstruction process. The latter brought with it both positive and negative impacts: if, on the one hand, it brought progress and a new hope that life could be ‘Built Back Better', on the other hand, it brought a different type of suffering – one that led to a loss of honour and dignity, resulted in social upheavals, and led to the exclusion and marginalization of certain groups. In this thesis I focus on both these ‘events'. Through these stories I build an argument about post-disaster discourses of change. I argue that while the narratives of the storytellers of Chinati bazaar posit the earthquake as a point of rupture in their confabulated stories, from which the collective memory of the bazaar dates its movement towards becoming modern and global, these changes have their origins instead in ‘bigger' stories of modernisation and globalisation that predate the earthquake and that highlight and emphasise more continuous processes of change that have been occurring over a longer period of time. In this thesis I analyse how these two competing discourses of rupture and dramatic change on the one hand, and slow, continuous change on the other, play out in the lives of the storytellers of Chinati Bazaar.

This study responds to the need for more research around (im)mobility decision-making to better support people facing environmental shocks and climatic changes. The concept of Trapped Populations, first appeared with the release of the 2011 Foresight report yielding repeated use in environmental migration studies and to a more limited extent policy. Although a seemingly straightforward concept, referring to people's inability to move away from environmental high-risk areas despite a desire to do so, the underlying reasons for someone's immobility can be profoundly complex. The empirical literature body referring to ‘trapped' populations has similarly taken a fairly simple and narrow economic explanatory approach. A more comprehensive understanding around how immobility is narrated in academia, and how people's cultural, social and psychological background in Bangladesh influences their (im)mobility, can provide crucial research insights. To better protect and support people living with environmental shocks and changes worldwide we need to build robust and well-informed policy frameworks To achieve this, a set of discourse analyses were carried out. Firstly, a textual Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) reviewed how ‘trapped' has been framed within academia. Secondly, a Foucauldian inspired discourse analysis was performed on field data to explore how power, knowledge and and binary opposites shape and determine people's social norms in terms of their (im)mobility decision-making. These key concepts critically showcased how meaning, values and power can constrain the mobility of a social group. The analysis was carried out on a large set of field data gathered between 2014 and 2016 in Bangladesh. The data on urban immobility and rural non-evacuation behaviour was gathered through a mixed-method quant-qualitative approach that included Q-methodology, storytelling group sessions, in-depth interviews and a survey questionnaire. Other key concepts used to frame the analysis included those of subjectivity, gender, place and space. The textual discourse analysis highlighted the dangers of framing mobility or resettlement as a potential climate adaptation. Assisted migration, could for example end up disguising other hidden political and economic agendas. The research identified how the empirical notions of ‘trapped' move beyond economic immobility. People in Bangladesh described being socially, psychologically and emotionally ‘trapped'. These empirical notions are useful within the area of climate policy, as they raise questions around whether mobility in fact is the solution.

This thesis develops a conceptual and methodological approach to understanding how future climate change is likely to affect migration, and then applies this approach to explore the likely effects of climate change on different migration flows in and from Mexico. Scientific and policy interest in the climate change-migration nexus has been growing over the last decade, yet empirical results remain inconclusive. Existing approaches are often conceptually and methodologically unconvincing as they assume a linear relationship between climate change and migration, or try to separate climate stressors from other factors involved in migration decisions. Furthermore, most current research into the climate-migration nexus has focused on a relatively simple framing of localised environmental pressures forcing people to migrate. In contrast, this thesis acknowledges the complexity of migration and suggests that climate change is likely to affect factors involved in migration decisions at the local and the global level. It develops a more realistic understanding of the potential effect of climate change on migration by examining the impact of the local and global consequences of climate change on livelihood stressors and other factors involved in migration decisions. This thesis adopts a qualitative and comparative approach to illustrate this concept, based on fieldwork in Zacatecas and Veracruz, two Mexican states with different migration profiles and different local climate stressors. It analyses the factors involved in migration decisions, which include livelihood stressors but also networks, recruiters and individual agency. A risk matrix is then developed to explore the climate sensitivity of the various factors that influence internal and international migration flows. It analyses the extent to which each factor is likely to be affected by climate change in combination with the relevance of this factor for the migration decision-making process. This approach allows identifying those factors that, affected by future climate change, have the highest potential to impact on existing migration patterns. It also allows a comparison between different migration flows. Results suggest that climate change is likely to have moderate effects on migration, mainly on internal rural flows. Alarmist predictions of large numbers of 'climate change refugees' are thus inappropriate and policies should instead focus on the factors projected to impact most on migration under scenarios of future climate change. Policies should also aim at mitigating the negative effects of climate change on people's livelihoods and at protecting migrants and non-migrants.

The overwhelming focus on causal linkages between environmental stressors and the migration decision making, disagreement among stakeholders regarding the positioning of migration within CCA discourse, and the lack of empirical evidence surrounding the role of migration as adaptation have been major impediments to mainstreaming migration in adaptation policies. There is a growing consensus among migration scholars regarding the potential contribution of migration to the lives and livelihoods of the migrants and their families left behind. However, the extent to which migration can contribute to climate change adaptation (CCA) in migrant-sending households, origin communities, or origin countries is a complex issue and requires further exploration. This thesis attempts to fill some of this knowledge gap by developing a conceptual approach to understand the effects of migration in the context of adaptation to extreme events such as drought and floods. As such, it is not concerned as to why someone migrates, but purely on its effects. This thesis shifts the focus to consequences of migration outcomes. The discourse on migration and adaptation has witnessed the same contestations of structuralism, neo-classical, and pluralist viewpoints with reference to effects of migration on development of migrant-sending households and origin communities. These lessons are pertinent for migration and adaptation discourse, and I use these lessons to build the conceptual framework of this thesis. It attempts to understand how the choices on remittance usage already made by households affects the CCA to extreme events. This thesis adopts a mixed-methods and comparative approach to validate the conceptual framework, based on case studies from Baoshan County of Yunnan Province in China and Upper Assam in India. A key component of CCA is the reduction of vulnerability of a system to climate change and variability. The vulnerability concept provides a framework to unpack the constituents of vulnerability. A reduction in vulnerability to an extreme event requires a reduction in sensitivity and enhancement of capacity to adapt. This thesis analyses the vulnerability of the remittance-recipient households compared to households that do not have access to remittances. It also characterises sensitivity and adaptive capacity of the remittance-recipient households in context of duration for which a household has received remittances and distance to destination. Results suggest that remittances affect certain sub-dimensions and attributes of vulnerability and these affects vary in different contexts. The mobility patterns and its consequences within a country are shaped by a wide range of policies and institutions. The creation of an enabling condition for adaptation remains a critical function for the governments, thus migration could not be a substitute for public investment in development and adaptation in origin communities. The availability of an enabling environment and reduction in structural constrains would reduce the risks from migration and help remittance-recipient households to leverage remittances for CCA.