Throughout the history of mankind, energy security has been always seen as a means of protection from disruptions of essential energy systems. The idea of protection from disorders emerged from the process of securing political and military control over energy resources to set up policies and measures on managing risks that affect all elements of energy systems. The various systems placed in a place to achieve energy security are the driving force towards the energy innovations or emerging trends (...) in the energy sector. Our paper discusses energy security status and innovations in the energy sector in European Union (EU). We analyze the recent up-to-date developments of the energy policy and exploitation of energy sources, as well as scrutinize the channels of energy streaming to the EU countries and the risks associated with this energy import. Moreover, we argue that the shift to the low-carbon production of energy and the massive deployment of renewable energy sources (RES) might become the key issue in ensuring the energy security and independency of the EU from its external energy supplies. Both RES, distributed energy resources (DER) and “green energy” that will be based on the energy efficiency and the shift to the alternative energy supply might change the energy security status quo for the EU. (shrink)

In a recent study by Cai et al. about water shortages in Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei urban areas, virtual water has become the central concept of the groundwater security strategy by suggesting increasing imports of water-intensive agricultural products instead of utilizing the depleted groundwater resources for production. However, despite reviewing the content, we could not see how the authors discussed the households’ economic and financial issues from both production and consumption perspectives.

The resources and resource potential of the innovative component of nanoeconomics are analyzed. The factors of production – classical types of resources such as land, labor, capital and technology – are described. Ways of influencing the security resources of nanoeconomics within the innovation paradigm are evaluated. The purpose of the study is to identify the factor of nanoeconomics in the formation of resource security potential in the innovation paradigm. To achieve this goal, the following tasks were set: (...) to characterize the importance of the land resource as a factor in the potential of economic nanosystems; to highlight the importance of capital as a factor of nanoproduction and an indicator of the innovation paradigm; to determine the labor resource in the development of innovative nanosystems; to analyze the intellectual potential of nanoeconomic development of the innovation paradigm; to identify clusters of innovative nanopotential in the regions of countries with transition economies. Each resource is examined separately with the first analysis of a resource security assessment such as land. The other resource under consideration is labor. Demographic factors become decisive in describing the development of labor resources. The capital factor allows the formation of independent economic systems, when the state budget affects the possibility of developing science, education and health care. A number of methods were applied during the study: methods of induction and deduction (to assess the importance of the innovation paradigm for the development of nanoeconomics); system analysis and structural approach (to determine the aggregate state of production factors); method of comparing the quality of production factors in market economies and in developed countries; an observation method (for assessing the state of resources in different countries); method of cluster analysis (to determine the existence of innovation-territorial regions in countries with economies in transition). The analysis is carried out to identify the conditions of the impact of production factors on the innovative paradigm of nanoeconomics. It reveals theoretical approaches to the formation of nanoeconomics and its active development. As a result of the study of intellectual and resource potential of security, a cluster analysis was carried out to assess the conditions for the formation of innovation-territorial regions. This study allows to understand the role of production security factors in the formation of the innovation paradigm and the efficiency of the development of nanoeconomics. The way of providing the basis for the development of nanoeconomics in the form of efficient use of production factors is considered as a perspective. (shrink)

Food security is becoming an increasingly relevant topic in the Global North, especially in urban areas. Because such areas do not always have good access to nutritionally adequate food, the question of how to supply them is an urgent priority in order to maintain a healthy population. Urban and peri-urban agriculture, as sources of local fresh food, could play an important role. Whereas some scholars do not differentiate between peri-urban and urban agriculture, seeing them as a single entity, our (...) hypothesis is that they are distinct, and that this has important consequences for food security and other issues. This has knock-on effects for food system planning and has not yet been appropriately analysed. The objectives of this study are to provide a systematic understanding of urban and peri-urban agriculture in the Global North, showing their similarities and differences, and to analyse their impact on urban food security. To this end, an extensive literature review was conducted, resulting in the identification and comparison of their spatial, ecological and socio-economic characteristics. The findings are discussed in terms of their impact on food security in relation to the four levels of the food system: food production, processing, distribution and consumption. The results show that urban and peri-urban agriculture in the Global North indeed differ in most of their characteristics and consequently also in their ability to meet the food needs of urban inhabitants. While urban agriculture still meets food needs mainly at the household level, peri-urban agriculture can provide larger quantities and has broader distribution pathways, giving it a separate status in terms of food security. Nevertheless, both possess (unused) potential, making them valuable for urban food planning, and both face similar threats regarding urbanisation pressures, necessitating adequate planning measures. (shrink)

Germany is considered to be a pioneer of social security systems; nonetheless, globalization and demographic changes have put enormous pressure on them. A solution is not yet in sight as the debate on the future of the German social security systems still lacks consensus. We argue that ideas matter and that the debate can benefit from a deeper reflection on the concept of social security. This objective is pursued along two lines. First, we take a historical perspective (...) and reconstruct the development of Germany's social security systems. Second, we scrutinize from a theoretical perspective how social security is conceptualized in public and theoretical debates. Behind the various positions, we identify four basic ideal types. We then analyze how these ideal types account for the benefits of social security systems and what role they assign to corporations in providing social security. While two ultimately reinforce potential conflicts between different groups in society, the other two ideal types reveal possible benefits for all. The last ideal type actually conceptualizes social security systems as insurance that fosters risky but overall productive investments in human and other forms of capital. Therefore, it can be shown that social security systems are not necessarily threatened by globalization and that incentives exist for corporations to invest in the provision of social security. (shrink)

Food security is one of the major concerns in the Philippines. Although livestock and poultry production accounts for a significant proportion of the country’s agricultural output, smallholder households are still vulnerable to food insecurity. The current study aims to examine how livestock production and selling difficulties affect smallholder households’ food-insecure conditions. For this objective, Bayesian Mindsponge Framework (BMF) analytics was employed on a dataset of the Food and Agriculture Organization’s Data in Emergencies Monitoring (DIEM) system. We found (...) that production and selling difficulties significantly adversely affect food insecurity in the Philippines. However, their effects vary according to the severity of food insecurity. In particular, production and selling difficulties affect the households’ likelihood of eating less healthy and nutritious food equally. However, the production difficulties have more negligible impacts on the possibility of skipping meals and even ambiguous impacts on the likelihood of not eating for a whole day compared to the effects of selling difficulties. Moreover, we also found that the market plays a crucial role in facilitating not only livestock trading but also livestock production (e.g., purchase of feed and medicines). Based on these findings, we suggest that the livestock market needs to be expanded and regulated to maintain the balancing prices between livestock products and products and services used for livestock production, and facilitate the product-exchanging mechanism. (shrink)

Although agriculture in Australia is very productive, the current food supply systems in Australia fail to deliver healthy diets to all Australians and fail to protect the natural resources on which they depend. The operation of the food systems creates ‘collateral damage’ to the natural environment including biodiversity loss. In coming decades, Australia’s food supply systems will be increasingly challenged by resource price inflation and climate change. Australia exports more than half of its current agricultural production. Government and business (...) are aiming to substantially increase production to bolster exports. This will increase pressure on agricultural resources and exacerbate ‘collateral’ damage to the environment. The Australian public have a deep and ongoing interest in a very wide range of issues associated with the food systems including the environment, health and sustainability. Food is something we require in order to live and a good diet is something we have to have to be healthy. For health over a life-time we need food security. However, we also require a range of other material goods and social arrangements in order to develop and flourish as human beings. And we need these other things to be secure over a life-time. Food is therefore one security among a range of other securities we need in order to flourish. The paper outlines a number of approaches, as examples, that help to identify what these other goods and arrangements might be. The approaches mentioned in this paper include human rights, national securities, human needs, authentic happiness, capabilities, sustainability and environmental ethics. The different approaches provide a way of evaluating the current situation and indicating a direction for change within the food systems that will address the problems. However, changing large systems such as those involved in food supply is difficult because inertias and vested interests make the current food supply systems resilient to change. The paper suggests that one of the first and ongoing tasks is to develop an understanding of the situation from a comprehensive social–ecological systems perspective. The paper also suggests that a practical leverage point for system change is restructuring the flow of information on the health, natural resources and biodiversity loss issues related to the food supply systems. (shrink)

Both biofuels and BECCS serve the purpose of reducing the concentration of carbon in the atmosphere, biofuels by reducing the quantity of CO2 newly added and BECCS by removing the CO2 already emitted. Both rely on the large-scale growth of biomass and hence compete with food production for arable land. Consequently, the implementation of both at large scales potentially endangers food security. Given this conflict and the need for climate action, this paper discusses whether there are differences between (...) the ethical implications of mitigation by biofuels and geoengineering with BECCS. We apply a principlist approach, specifying and weighting four key principles of climate ethics: the polluter-pays principle, the ability-to-pay principle, the equal-per-capita principle, and the procedural involvement principle. Because the ethical and practical implications of BECCS and biofuels have many parallels, applying these four principles identifies relevant moral differences to decide between these two technologies. (shrink)

Food security is a fundamental element of community health. Informal house-lot food growing, by providing convenient access to diverse varieties of affordable and nutritious produce, can provide an important support for community food security. In this exploratory assessment of the contribution home food gardening makes to community food security, in-depth interviews were conducted with gardeners in two contrasting neighborhoods in Toronto, Canada. A typology of food gardeners was developed, and this qualitative understanding of residential food production (...) was then assessed from a community food security perspective. It was found that growing food contributes to food security at all income levels by encouraging a more nutritious diet. The sustainability of household food sourcing and gardeners’ overall health and well-being also increased with food production. Secure access to suitable land to grow food and gardening skills were the most significant barriers found to residential food production. (shrink)

Feminists have argued that the association made between teenage childbearing and long-term lower socioeconomic status hides a multitude of socially constructed inequalities. I extend this position by analyzing how the association is linked in the South African literature on teenage pregnancy to economic security. I utilize Foucault's conceptualization of the method of security. Security refers to institutions and practices that defend and maintain a national population as well as secure the economic, demographic, and social processes of that (...) population. I analyze how the traits of the method of security are deployed with regard to teenage pregnancy; how reproductive adolescents are viewed as disrupting the production of the economic self and fracturing population control, thereby threatening economic security; and how the invocation of economic security allows for the legitimation of various regulatory practices. (shrink)

The UN's Sustainable Development Goals saw the global community agree to end hunger and malnutrition in all its forms by 2030. However, the number of chronically undernourished people is increasing continuously. Ongoing climate change and the action needed to adapt to it are very likely to aggravate this situation by limiting agricultural land and water resources and changing environmental conditions for food production. Climate change and the actions it requires raise questions of justice, especially regarding food security. 0These (...) key concerns of ethics and justice for food security due to climate change challenges are the focus of this book, which brings together work by scholars from a wide range of disciplines and a multitude of perspectives. These experts discuss the challenges to food security posed by mitigation, geoengineering, and adaptation measures that tackle the impacts of climate change. Others address the consequences of a changing climate for agriculture and food production and how the Covid-19 pandemic has affected food security and animal welfare.0. (shrink)

Critical Security Studies proceeds from the premise that words are world-making, that is that the ways we think about security are constitutive of the worlds of security we analyse. Turned to conventional security studies and the practices of global politics, this critical insight has revealed the ways in which the exclusions that are the focus of this conference have been produced. Perhaps most notable in this regard has been David Campbell's work, showing how the theory and (...) practice of security are an identity discourse producing both insides and outsides, but the production of excluded others is a theme that runs through the critical scholarship on security in the past decade or more. This article turns the critical security studies gaze on itself, to explore the field's own complicity in the production of exclusions. The article reads three important instances of critical security studies for the inclusions and exclusions they produce: Ken Booth's Theory of World Securitv , the epilogue to David Campbell's Writing Security , and the CASE Collective Manifesto. The article concludes by asking about the nature of the inclusions and exclusions these divisions produce and the politics which those exclusions, in turn, (re)produce. (shrink)

This paper argues that existing food security and food sovereignty approaches are inadequate to fully understand contradictory human development, nutrition, and productivity trends in Nepalese small-scale agriculture. In an attempt to bridge this gap, we developed a new food wellbeing approach that combines insights from food security, food sovereignty, and social wellbeing perspectives. We used the approach to frame 65 semi-structured interviews in a cluster of villages in Kaski district in the mid-hills of Nepal on various aspects of (...) food security, agriculture, off-farm livelihood opportunities, and women’s wellbeing. Our results indicate that context-specific subjective and social relational factors highlighted by the food wellbeing approach are key to understanding a paradox of increased food security, yet decreasing sustainability of small-scale agriculture. Increased levels of male out-migration and opportunities for local off-farm work have increased local capacity to purchase food. The positive consequences for food security are indicated by evidence that households with non-farm income sources had better food sufficiency, absorption capacity, nutritional quality, and stability of food supply. These off-farm employment opportunities have also led to the greater involvement of low caste groups and women in small-scale agriculture. This has been empowering for both groups and led to an increase in wellbeing, particularly for those women who have become de facto heads of household. Yet, small landholdings, persistent patterns of unequal and absentee land ownership, sharecropping, women’s overwork, and the aspirations of low caste farmers and women away from agriculture are simultaneously driving the erosion of local small-scale agricultural productivity and ecological sustainability. (shrink)

The discussion of the Anthropocene makes it clear that contemporary social thought can no longer take nature, or an external ‘environment’, for granted in political discussion. Humanity is remaking its own context very rapidly, not only in the processes of urbanization but also in the larger context of global biophysical transformations that provide various forms of insecurity. Disasters such as the Fukushima nuclear meltdowns and potentially disastrous plans to geoengineer the climate in coming decades highlight that the human environment is (...) being remade in the Anthropocene. Humanity is now a geological actor, not just a biological one, and that insight, captured in the term Anthropocene, changes understandings of both security and environment in social thought, requiring a focus on production of environments rather than their protection. Disasters help clarify this key point and its significance for considering geosocial formations. (shrink)

The American food system has produced both abundance and food insecurity, with production and consumption dealt with as separate issues. The new approach of community food security (CFS) seeks to re-link production and consumption, with the goal of ensuring both an adequate and accessible food supply in the present and the future. In its focus on consumption, CFS has prioritized the needs of low-income people; in its focus on production, it emphasizes local and regional food systems. (...) These objectives are not necessarily compatible and may even be contradictory. This article describes the approach of community food security and raises some questions about how the movement can meet its goals of simultaneously meeting the food needs of low-income people and developing local food systems. It explores the conceptual and political promise and pitfalls of local, community-based approaches to food security and examines alternative economic strategies such as urban agriculture and community-supported agriculture. It concludes that community food security efforts are important additions to, but not subsitutes for, a nonretractable governmental safety net that protects against food insecurity. (shrink)

Poultry production makes a substantial contribution to global food security, providing energy, protein, and essential micro-nutrients to humans. Modern intensive poultry farming systems are challenged by the evolution of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza strains. The presence of avian influenza in poultry flocks poses a significant risk of an avian origin influenza that is easily transmittable between human beings evolving. By reducing contact between humans and fowl, the use of automation in poultry production has the potential to improve (...) biosecurity and thus reduce the risk of pandemic influenza. Many poultry facilities are already highly automated. The rapid rate of progress in robotics and AI suggests that “lights out”—fully automated—poultry production systems may soon be possible. In this paper we consider the ethical and policy issues that would be raised by lights-out poultry production. There is a strong animal and human welfare case for reducing the risk of pandemic influenza via increased use of automation. However, lights-out farming looks to be the ultimate endpoint of dynamics already present in industrial agriculture, which led to the dangers of zoonotic infection from animal agriculture in the first place. Whether nations should respond to that risk by doubling down on industrial models of animal production and embracing fully automated farms or by reconsidering the current model of animal agriculture altogether is, we suggest, both the most important, and the most difficult, question posed by the prospect of lights out farms. (shrink)

From ‘connecting the dots’ and finding ‘the needle in the haystack’ to predictive policing and data mining for counterinsurgency, security professionals have increasingly adopted the language and methods of computing for the purposes of prediction. Digital devices and big data appear to offer answers to a wide array of problems of (in)security by promising insights into unknown futures. This article investigates the transformation of prediction today by placing it within governmental apparatuses of discipline, biopower and big data. Unlike (...) disciplinary and biopolitical governmentality, we argue that prediction with big data is underpinned by the production of a different time/space of ‘between-ness’. The digital mode of prediction with big data reconfigures how we are governed today, which we illustrate through an analysis of how predictive policing actualizes between-ness as hotspots and near-real-time decisions. (shrink)

Over 60% of all epidemics have a zoonotic origin, that is, they result from the transmission of infectious diseases from animals to humans. The spill-over of diseases often happens because humans exploit and use animals. In this article, I outline the four most common interfaces that favour the emergence and spread of zoonotic infectious diseases: wildlife hunting, small-scale farming, industrialised farming practices and live animal markets. I analyse which practices serve human food security – and thus have a non-trivial (...) purpose – and which predominantly have an economic purpose or serve as a symbol of wealth. I conclude that many practices that increase the risk for zoonotic infectious disease outbreaks actually do not contribute to the survival and food security of humans. I make two arguments in turn. First, I argue that in cases where the consumption and use of animal products does not contribute to the food security of a population, then this population has a duty to abstain from them, since they impose a grave and avoidable risk to themselves as well as to innocent third-parties. However, some communities must sometimes rely on practices that increase the risk of emergence and transmission of zoonotic infectious diseases, because they have no healthy alternatives. That is, the food security of the local population depends on the consumption and use of risky animal products. The second argument I advance is that, in such scenarios, the international community has a duty to provide the communities concerned with alternative food options, as well as economic and educational opportunities and technologies, in order to reduce the spill-over risk of infectious diseases. Given that abstention from such practices contributes signifcantly to the public good and benefits the international community, the latter has a corresponding duty to provide local communities which abandon such practices with alternatives. (shrink)

In recent years, network security has become a major concern. Using the Internet to store and analyze data has become an integral aspect of the production and operation of many new and traditional enterprises. However, many enterprises lack the necessary resources to secure information security, and selecting the best network security service provider has become a real issue for many enterprises. This research introduces a novel decision-making method utilizing the 2-tuple linguistic complex q-rung orthopair fuzzy numbers (...) to tackle this issue. We propose the 2TLCq-ROF concept by combining the complex q-rung orthopair fuzzy set with 2-tuple linguistic terms, including the fundamental definition, operational rules, scoring, and accuracy functions. Aggregation operators are the fundamental mathematical approach used to combine various inputs into a single output. Taking into account the interaction between the attributes, we develop the 2TLCq-ROF Hamacher operators by using the innovative operational rules. These operators include the 2TLCq-ROFH weighted average, 2TLCq-ROFH ordered weighted average, 2TLCq-ROFH hybrid average, 2TLCq-ROFH weighted geometric, 2TLCq-ROFH ordered weighted geometric, and 2TLCq-ROFH hybrid geometric operators. In addition, we talk about the properties of 2TLCq-ROFH operators such as idempotency, commutativity, monotonicity, and boundedness and also examine their spatial cases. To tackle the problems of the 2TLCq-ROF multiattribute group decision-making environment, we develop a novel approach according to the COPRAS model. Finally, to validate the feasibility of the given strategy, we employ a quantitative example related to select the best network security service provider. In comparison with existing approaches, the developed decision-making algorithm is most extensively used and reduces the loss of information. (shrink)

Artificial Intelligence is becoming widespread and as we continue ask ‘can we implement this’ we neglect to ask ‘should we implement this’. There are various frameworks and conceptual journeys one should take to ensure a robust AI product; context is one of the vital parts of this. AI is now expected to make decisions, from deciding who gets a credit card to cancer diagnosis. These decisions affect most, if not all, of society. As developers if we do not understand or (...) use fundamental modelling principles then we can cause real harm to society. Recently more serious effects of AI have been observed. Dehumanisation is the human reaction to overused anthropomorphism and lack of social contact caused by excessive interaction with, or addiction to, technology. This can cause humans to devalue technology and to devalue other humans. This is a contradiction of the use of ‘social robots’ and ‘chatbots’, indicating that the negative effects of this technology would outweigh any perceived positive effects. Also, within cyberspace, anthropomorphism and similar techniques based on deep philosophical principles can, and are, being used to alter the behaviour of humans. These techniques are used to manipulate human behaviours at a basic level in the human mind. As these types of techniques are becoming more widespread, it is clear that we are entering unchartered territory that holds a vast array of consequences for society. (shrink)

This paper addresses the issue of food security in developing countries and how agriculture plays an important role in achieving not only food security, but also in reducing poverty and promoting sustainable development. The promotion of trade liberalization by the World Trade Organization (WTO) through the Agreement on Agriculture (AoA) has undermined the productive capacity of developing countries and their comparative advantage in the agricultural sector, marginalizing small-scale farmers and benefitting the big corporations. The paper looks at the (...) issue of intellectual property rights that big corporations have for seeds and their effects on small-scale farmers, and how corporate social responsibility (CSR) is insufficient to regulate the dominance of big corporations in the food and agricultural market. The paper is divided into seven sections: trade liberalization and food security, the WTO and the AoA, the effects of the AoA on developing countries, the role of transnational corporations (TNCs) on food security, CSR and TNCs, policy recommendations, and conclusions. (shrink)

The dominant discourse in 20th century UK food and agricultural policies of a liberal, free trade agenda was modified at the turn of the 21st to embrace ecological sustainability and “food security.” The latter term has a long international history; the relationship between issues of technical production and equality of distributional access are also much debated. The paper examines shifts in UK policy discourse in the context of international research, policy, and initiatives to promote food security, and (...) highlights the implications for social justice in and through the food system. (shrink)

Drawing on insights from scholarship on contentious action frames, this article examines the framing of demands for social justice for migrant farmworkers in Spain, Italy and Canada during the COVID-19 pandemic. We focus particularly on how activists in each country aligned their action frames with prevalent public discourses on the essential contribution migrants make to agricultural production, the need to guarantee “health for all,” and “increased vulnerability” of migrants’ lives during the global health crisis. Using these diagnostic frames, activists (...) in the three countries called for secure legal status for all migrants. Drawing on the literature on contentious action frames, we then analyze if action frames advanced by activists during the COVID-19 pandemic “resonated” with the understanding of these issues by policymakers. We challenge an approach to understanding resonance in binary terms as either present or absent. Instead, we introduce the notion of “ambivalent resonance” to draw attention to the fact that some frames are accepted only partially or only by some policymakers but not the others, as was the case in the three countries under study. We then situate this ambivalent resonance in the context of immigration priorities and recent trends in immigration policy development in these three countries and suggest that activists can build on ambivalences to advance migrant rights to status. (shrink)

Community food security and environmental justice are parallel social movements interested in equity and justice and system-wide factors. They share a concern for issues of daily life and the need to establish community empowerment strategies. Both movements have also begun to reshape the discourse of sustainable agriculture, environmentalism and social welfare advocacy. However, community food security and environmental justice remain separate movements, indicating an incomplete process in reshaping agendas and discourse. Joining these movements through a common language of (...) empowerment and systems analysis would strongly enhance the development of a more powerful, integrated approach. That opportunity can be located in the efforts to incorporate community food security and environmental justice approaches in current Farm Bill legislation; in particular, provisions addressing community food production, direct marketing, community development, and community food planning. (shrink)

Climate change increasingly impacts the resilience of ecosystems and agricultural production. On the one hand, changing weather patterns negatively affect crop yields and thus global food security. Indeed, we live in an age where more than one billion people are going hungry, and this number is expected to rise as climate-induced change continues to displace communities and thus separate them from their means of food production (Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre 2015). In this context, if one accepts a (...) humancentric ethic, then the focus would be on addressing impacts to agricultural production, and thus food security (Borlaug 1997; Navin 2012). On the other hand, ecological resilience is also being impacted by climate change, as species go extinct or migrate due to fluctuating temperatures and shifting weather patterns. This reduction of resilience negatively impacts ecosystem services and the ability of the natural world to support life (Palmer and Larson 2014; Urban 2015). From an environmental holist perspective, then, one could argue that the ethical path would be to focus on reducing negative impacts to species and/or local ecosystems rather than increasing crop yields. Thus, there appears to be a tension between the prioritization of crop yields and the mitigation of ecosystem impacts. While this tension is well established in the agricultural literature (Kirschenmann 2010; Noll 2018), climatezas lochange exacerbates the situation, as agricultural lands are stressed and climate-induced migrations increase already high demands for foodstuffs, thus bringing the conflict to the forefront (Macdonald et al. 2015; Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations 2017a). (shrink)

This paper reports the results of an economic lab experiment designed to test the impact of Basic Income (BI) on wages and productivity. The experimental design is based on the classic gift exchange game. Participants assigned the role of employer were tasked with making wage offers, and those assigned as employees chose how hard they would work in return. In addition to a control without any social security net, BI was compared to unemployment benefits, and both types of cash (...) transfers were tested at two levels. The results are that wage offers were increased in both the BI and unemployment benefit treatments compared to the control. The higher-level BI treatment also significantly increased effort. Further experimentation could shed more light on how the potential extra value created in the labor market through increased productivity would be divided between employers and employees. (shrink)

The main economic activity of the people of Eritrea is agriculture: crop production and livestock herding. Agriculture mainly comprises mixed farming and some commercial concessions. Most agriculture is rain-fed. The main rain-fed crops are sorghum, millet and sesame, and the main irrigated crops are all horticultural crops like bananas, onions and tomatoes and cotton. The major livestock production constraints are disease, water and feed shortages and agricultural expansion especially in the river frontages. The agricultural sector employs eighty percent (...) of the working population, but its production has not managed to cover internal food demand and is forced to cover nearly 50 per cent of its annual cereal requirements through imports-commercial and food assistance. Like most African countries, Eritrea is also a victim of the problem of food insecurity. In good years the country produces only about 60 per cent of its total food needs and in poor years, it produces no more than 25 per cent. On average, once in 10 years, the country is threatened with famines. Annual crop production depends on rainfall that is variable and unevenly distributed from year to year. Therefore, the primary goal of Eritrea is to guarantee food security by introducing modern technology, irrigation, terracing, soil and water conservation, with less dependence on rainwater. Thus the Government has articulated its food policy, which stresses national ownership of grant food assistance and to achieve food security in the coming five years. The policy indeed encompasses all sectoral policies and represents the Government's engagements with regard to food security. Despite the general trends of improvement in the economy of Eritrea, it has not yet fully recovered, and thus will still continue to require variable degrees of food assistance for the coming few more years. Based on this historical and recurrent food insecurity in Eritrea, an attempt is made in this paper to assess the agriculture development and food policy in the country. Furthermore, the paper captures the available food security policy proposals of Eritrea and eventually draws conclusions. (shrink)

Adaptationist accounts of morality attempt to explain the evolution of morality in terms of the selective advantage that judging in moral terms secured for our ancestors (e.g. Ruse 1998; Joyce 2006; Street 2006). So-called by-product explanations of morality have been presented as an alternative to adaptationist accounts (e.g. Prinz 2009; Ayala 2010; cf. Darwin 2004/1871). In assessing the relationship between adaptationist and by-product accounts, care must be taken to distinguish several related but importantly different notions: innateness, adaptation, exaptation, spandrel, and (...) by-product. (shrink)

Originating in a 1983 Mexican Government Program, the term ‘food sovereignty’ was coined in 1996 by La Via Campesina—a global peasant network—to address concerns within the civil society for food security. Rather than to accept the neoliberal framework of mainstream food security definition and governance, the food sovereignty movement seeks to view food security as the right of peoples to define their own food and agriculture systems with limited corporation intervention. As a result, food production should (...) be geared toward the domestic and local markets and not toward international trade that only benefits corporations. This food sovereignty movement was inducted into China in 2013 just as China’s agricultural systems were shifting toward a more corporate-centric structure that increasingly exploits the small-scale farmers. A question was hence raised: How have the global civil society networks influenced the Chinese civil society and promoted China’s local food sovereignty movement? Through the world society theory, the author has identified social forums, such as international conferences and social media channels, as an expedient means for interactions. However, as the Chinese government continues to develop a corporate-centric food security governance system and tighten its civil society space, the impacts of China’s food sovereignty movement remain unclear. (shrink)

Blockchain technology applied to cryptocurrencies is the dominant factor in maintaining the security of cryptocurrencies. This article reviews the technological implementation of cryptocurrency and the security and stability of cryptocurrency and analyzes the security support from blockchain technology and its platforms based on empirical case studies. Our results show that the security support from blockchain technology platforms is significantly insufficient and immature. In addition, we further Zyskind and Nathan and Choi and find that the top ten (...) platforms play critical roles in security support and have significant advantages in terms of funds, duration, and human resources. Moreover, these platforms provide computational resources and benefits to the consensus algorithm selection for blockchain practitioners. Second, encryption ensures the security of cryptocurrencies. On the one hand, the digital signatures identify the identity of the signatory and the transaction. However, the principle of the hash algorithm confirms ownership. Meanwhile, SHA256 is infeasible to compute in the reverse direction and is difficult to attack. Furthermore, the records in the blockchain can be queried by every participant, making the system information transparent and open reliable. Third, compared to the study of Fu and Fang 2016, we find that the blockchain structure is composed of security components and basic components of six layers that are independent and cannot be extended completely and have a certain coupling among them. Fourth, the underlying ledger structures of Bitcoin and DAG are highly correlated to their security. Specifically, we follow Sompolinsky et al. and detect that the structure of SPECTRE ensures network security and robustness from its block production, conflict resolution, and generated trusted transaction sets. Meanwhile, the voting algorithm of SPECTRE makes resolving conflicting transactions by calculating votes and ensuring the transaction information that is virtually unable to be tampered with possible. In particular, the security calculation power of SPECTRE can reach 51% and resist “double-spend attacks” and “censorship attacks” effectively. In addition, the RDL framework of SPECTRE achieves security confirmation of transferring funds. Moreover, PHANTOM identifies evil blocks by employing block connectivity analysis and ensures its security. Eventually, we also expand the studies of and compare the basic characteristics of the protocols of Bitcoin, SPECTRE, and PHANTOM and find that protocols play imperative roles throughout the implementation process of cryptocurrency. In addition, the underlying ledger structure and consensus mechanism make up a blockchain while the confirmation time, throughput limit, and ordering are prerequisites for smart contracts. (shrink)

Next SectionBiodefence, broadly understood as efforts to prevent or mitigate the damage of a bioterrorist attack, raises a number of ethical issues, from the allocation of scarce biomedical research and public health funds, to the use of coercion in quarantine and other containment measures in the event of an outbreak. In response to the US bioterrorist attacks following September 11, significant US policy decisions were made to spur scientific enquiry in the name of biodefence. These decisions led to a number (...) of critical institutional changes within the US federal government agencies governing scientific research. Subsequent science policy discussions have focused largely on ‘the dual use problem’: how to preserve the openness of scientific research while preventing research undertaken for the prevention or mitigation of biological threats from third parties. We join others in shifting the ethical debate over biodefence away from a simple framing of the problem as one of dual use, by demonstrating how a dual use framing distorts the debate about bioterrorism and truncates discussion of the moral issues. We offer an alternative framing rooted in social epistemology and institutional design theory, arguing that the ethical and policy debates regarding ‘dual use’ biomedical research ought to be reframed as a larger optimisation problem across a plurality of values including, among others: (1) the production of scientific knowledge; (2) the protection of human and animal subjects; (3) the promotion and protection of public health (national and global); (4) freedom of scientific enquiry; and (5) the constraint of government power. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought hunger to millions of people around the world. Social distancing measures coupled with national lockdowns have reduced work opportunities and the overall household incomes. Moreover, the disruption in agricultural production and supply routes is expected to continue into 2021, which may leave millions without access to food. Coincidentally, those who suffer the most are poor people. As such, food security and tourism poverty alleviation are interlinked when discussing social problems and development. While the (...) corporate interest in tourism poverty alleviation is as old as the industrial revolution, little research has been conducted to show how social innovation can be leveraged to reinforce food security and alleviate poverty. Thus, this case study examines the food industry in rural China to establish how it conducts social innovation in food production and distribution to facilitate social development and mitigate poverty. (shrink)

Assess to quality diets is a basic human right. Geographical challenges and cultural traditions have contributed to the widespread malnutrition present among ethnic minorities of mountainous areas in Northwest Vietnam. Home gardens can play a role in increased diet diversity and micronutrient intakes. However, low production yields and plant diversity in ethnic home gardens have limited their contributions to household food security and nutrition. The pilot study tested a home garden intervention in weekly vegetable harvests and increasing household (...) production and consumption of diverse vegetables year-round. Food ethics issues encountered included limited access to quality food by resource-poor groups, conflicts arising from low preference and value given to some nutritious foods, limited access to information and technology for food production and consumption, each of which were addressed in the study design. The intervention includes: (1) nutrition-focused home garden training and (2) locally-adapted home garden packages consisting of garden planning, technical assistance, and high-yielding seed varieties. Twenty households from two ethnic villages in Son La province participated in the study and were randomly assigned into two groups (intervention and non-intervention). The total vegetable supply from weekly harvests of home garden produce was significantly higher in the intervention households (226 kg) compared to the non-intervention households (39 kg). The intervention group yielded 5.8 and 1.7 times more vegetables by weight and weight per area than those without the intervention. The vegetables were mainly consumed at home for both groups, but the intervention households gave more vegetables as gifts to neighbors. The intervention group cultivated a higher diversity of vegetables with a total of 42 different vegetables compared to 24 in the non-intervention group, which is reflected in an overall higher nutritional yield of vitamin A, iron, other micronutrients and phytochemicals. The home garden training significantly improved the amount, diversity and continuity of household food and nutrient supply. The home garden model is effective and could be scaled up to improve household vegetable supply and consumption, particularly in Northwest Vietnam. (shrink)

North Sumatra and West Java in Indonesia, the Andes of Bolivia and Peru, Western Province, the Coast and Machakos in Kenya, were Small Ruminant Collaborative Research Support Program (SR-CRSP) sites in which the role of small ruminants was studied and where technological interventions were designed. In all cases the target groups were poor rural households that could maintain sheep, goats, or South American camelids. The objective was to increase the welfare of families through the use of small ruminant technologies. Access (...) to and control of resources, and intrahousehold dynamics were analyzed to understand if, how, and when, technological interventions help achieve this objective. The way in which the studied villages integrate into the market, the specific role that livestock and other productive enterprises play in the household economy, the risks faced by families in rural areas condition the role of livestock and other resource management technologies. As an asset, small and large stock are gendered, but this is qualified by the alternatives that household members have. Small ruminants under the domain of women, either through production or marketing, are shown to contribute to in-kind consumption or, as liquid assets, to household welfare purchases, in the case of Andean agropastoral households and households in Kenya. Women are also managers of the grazing areas, which are often fallow fields. The research experiences show the relationship between gender, resource management, and the ability to build livestock assets and security, in different houehold production systems. (shrink)

Future global food insecurity due to growing population as well as changing consumption demands and population growth is sometimes suggested to be met by increase in aquaculture production. This raises a range of ethical issues, seldom discussed together: fish welfare, food security, human health, climate change and environment, and public concern and legislation, which could preferably be seen as pieces in a puzzle, accepting their interdependency. A balanced decision in favour of or against aquaculture needs to take at (...) least these issues into consideration. It is further argued that in the parallel discussion on increased livestock production animal welfare is an inevitable element both in relation to current legislation in many countries but also in relation to our perception of moral, whereas awareness of fish welfare is low. Both EU legislation and labelling concerning fish is mainly limited to environmental aspects. It is argued that EU shows a split perception of fish, on the one hand acknowledging scientific evidence of fish capacities but on the other excludes fish from detailed legislation. Combining the claim of the Treaty of Lisbon to pay full regard to animal welfare and scientific evidence fish are sentient it is concluded that fish welfare need to be considered in any farming practice and any ethical consideration of increased aquaculture. This might be facilitated taking a basis in our own vulnerability and interdependence, combined with moral responsibility to show sentient beings a ‘loving kindness’—an extension of Cora Diamond’s argument regarding mammals. (shrink)

I argue for an account of the vulnerability of trust, as a product of our need for secure social attachments to individuals and to a group. This account seeks to explain why it is true that, when we trust or distrust someone, we are susceptible to being betrayed by them, rather than merely disappointed or frustrated in our goals. What we are concerned about in matters of trust is, at the basic level, whether we matter, in a non-instrumental way, to (...) that individual, or to the group of which they are a member. We have this concern as a result of a drive to form secure social attachments. This makes us vulnerable in the characteristic way of being susceptible to betrayal, because how the other acts in such matters can demonstrate our lack of worth to them, or to the group, thereby threatening the security of our attachment, and eliciting the reactive attitudes characteristic of betrayal. (shrink)

The relevance of the study of the socio-psychological phenomenon of personal security in the era of post-modernism is due to the real problems of today's society, which at the present stage of state development are characterized by acute interrelationships between the requirements of social security as a factor of socio-political and national security and the real state of mental existence. associated with indicators of social well-being of the individual. The aim of the article is to prove that (...) the concept of anxiety is a characteristic of social society in the era of postmodernism, preceding the need for security; to give a generalized concept of security in the era of postmodernism as a set of attributes; to identify indicators of psychological security as a complex polyfunctional phenomenon in the era of postmodernism. The article indicates that the choice of specific aspects of human security and the perspective of their consideration depend on the system in which man is included, such as the system "man - nature", "man - production", "man - technology", as well as social systems “man - man "," man - society "," man - state ". Three factors that determine human safety are specified: the human factor, the environmental factor and the security factor; and physical and psychological means of protection against dangerous situations. (shrink)

Originating in a 1983 Mexican Government Program, the term ‘food sovereignty’ was coined in 1996 by La Via Campesina—a global peasant network—to address concerns within the civil society for food security. Rather than to accept the neoliberal framework of mainstream food security definition and governance, the food sovereignty movement seeks to view food security as the right of peoples to define their own food and agriculture systems with limited corporation intervention. As a result, food production should (...) be geared toward the domestic and local markets and not toward international trade that only benefits corporations. This food sovereignty movement was inducted into China in 2013 just as China’s agricultural systems were shifting toward a more corporate-centric structure that increasingly exploits the small-scale farmers. A question was hence raised: How have the global civil society networks influenced the Chinese civil society and promoted China’s local food sovereignty movement? Through the world society theory, the author has identified social forums, such as international conferences and social media channels, as an expedient means for interactions. However, as the Chinese government continues to develop a corporate-centric food security governance system and tighten its civil society space, the impacts of China’s food sovereignty movement remain unclear. (shrink)

The accelerated rates of scientific and technological progress and the intellectualization of the main factors of production play a leading role in ensuring the economic recovery of national economies, in particular in the conditions of the existence of today's post-pandemic consequences. The technological development of the leading countries of economic development poses difficult tasks for other participants in the world economic space to avoid a significant lag, especially in today's post-pandemic society. For the countries of Eastern Europe, this task (...) is complicated not only by political and social tensions, but also by the lack of effective government regulation instruments that could provide support for the high-tech sector as a locomotive for the modernization of the national economy. Moreover, enterprises of the high-tech sector of the economy, being deprived of state support, must independently ensure their functioning by creating a system of economic security. Ensuring safety in a post-pandemic society of such enterprises is characterized by significant differences, which are most related to the need to create safe conditions for the activities of workers - the most valuable resource. The development of enterprises in the high-tech sector of the economy is impossible without taking into account the safety aspects, it requires the intensification of scientific research in this area. The purpose of the article is to form information support for managing the economic security of enterprises in the high-tech sector of the economy in the context of post-pandemic modernization. (shrink)

Development scholars and practitioners are promoting food security, food sovereignty, and the localization of food systems to prepare for the projected negative impacts of climate change. The implementation of biodiverse homegardens is often seen as a way not only to localize food production but also as a strategy in alignment with a food sovereignty agenda. While much scholarship has characterized and critiqued food security and sovereignty conceptualizations, relatively little research has examined people’s lived experiences in order to (...) test how such theoretical visions play out on the ground in farming communities. Based on a case study of four coffee cooperatives in northern Nicaragua, we examine a non-governmental organization (NGO)-supported project promoting food security and sovereignty through development of homegardens. We ask: To what extent are homegardens an effective strategy to reach food sovereignty? And, why may farmers be resistant to changing their food production and consumption strategies to embrace biodiverse homegardens when they improve food security? We discuss characteristics of agroecological homegardens, the distinctions between food security, food sovereignty and dominant discourses of development, the history of food sovereignty in Nicaragua, and farmer perspectives on homegarden implementation. Despite historic critiques, NGOs are poised to facilitate the transformation of food and agricultural development by employing counter development strategies, a necessary step if homegardens are to be successful in the long term. To conclude, we propose some strategies NGOs and communities might pursue to move forward with homegardens as a food sovereignty strategy. This research suggests that a food sovereignty approach still rooted in mainstream development models faces significant obstacles to moving beyond food security and into a farmer-led food sovereignty agenda. (shrink)

Technologies and services provided to resource-poor farmers need to be relevant and compatible with the context in which they operate. This paper examines the contribution of extension services to the food security of resource-poor farmers in a rural village in South Africa. It considers these in terms of the local context and the production of African vegetables in household food plots. A mixture of participatory, qualitative and quantitative research tools, including a household survey, is used to argue that (...) local production practices contribute more to food security requirements than the extension services. This is because of the ability of African vegetables to grow relatively well in semi-arid areas where other exotic plants do not, their ability to provide at least two foodstuffs during their life cycle, and the ability of either the fruit or the leaves, or both, to be dried and stored for consumption in the winter months. These crops can make a significant contribution in terms of household food security, but a number of social and agroecological factors are constraining their production and placing their availability under threat. Despite this, the extension services remain focused on certain activities within vegetable garden projects, even when these are not meeting their proposed purpose—food security by means of cash-crop production. The paper concludes that social and agroecological constraints could be improved if the extension services were changed. This could include the use of context specific and low-cost technologies to ensure that these crops are able to increase their contribution to household food security for resource-poor farmers in semi-arid areas. (shrink)

The paper discusses the problems in the detection of security information in legal and other administrative data. The authors analyse the prospects of the use of datamining in the solution of two key problems: abundance and indirectness of these data. Security research uses two kinds of data. The first one is scientific data, designed and gathered specially for the verification of certain security theories. They are the data of criminological, sociological, psychological surveys, experimental data, etc. The second (...) kind is data that are not designed for security research. Most of the data are the by-products of the national legal system, especially its criminal justice, of national and local institutions responsible for the maintenance of public order, and of other public agencies. All the data provide huge amounts of information destined to control and direct the activities of these institutions. There are two kinds of problems in the use of this information in security study. First, this information has to be ‘decoded’ from data describing the activities of related institutions. Second, data on security are lost in huge amounts of other public data. Thus, they have to be ‘mined’. The paper discusses the prospects of the modern information proceeding method—data-mining in the solution of both problems. A new concept of data mining as a meta-procedure is proposed. The object of this meta-procedure is supposed to be the integration of multiple current theories (for example, criminal security) and related statistical procedures. A general algorithm of such data-mining is proposed. (shrink)

Building and expanding on George Bataille’s analysis of the restricted economy, the paper theorises violence as a plastic and productive force. Challenging accounts that, in different ways, define political violence solely as a negative and dis-integrating power (i.e. destructive of preexisting – actual or potential – “things”), the essay concentrates on the force that is unleashed to produce “unity” and “integrity”, be it at the individual or at the collective level. This perspective, I suggest, might contribute to gauging the limits (...) of the (potentially unbounded) violence needed by contemporary political and economic regimes to construe and secure their integrity. (shrink)

Food security and food self-sufficiency are important regional goals for the Southern African Development Coordination Conference (SADCC). In the long run, success in these areas would reduce the incidence of drought-related mass starvation and the epidemic of malnutrition and undernutrition that exists among some tribal groups. For food production to improve, the governments must commit themselves to increasing the access of peasant farmers to critical agricultural inputs. If they do not take proper action in this area of development (...) planning, domestic food production is likely to stagnate or decline. This study is a broad examination of the relationship between government expenditures on imported inputs and the performance of the domestic food subsector. Because much data on government spending and agricultural production in Africa are unavailable, and those in published form are of suspect validity, the study is undertaken largely as a conceptual overview. The empirical analyses are conducted, therefore, largely to provide a staging ground for the conceptual arguments. (shrink)

Problems of fuel ethanol production have been the subject of numerous reports, including this analysis. The conclusions are that ethanol: does not improve U.S. energy security; is uneconomical; is not a renewable energy source; and increases environmental degradation. Ethanol production is wasteful of energy resources and does not increase energy security. Considerably more energy, much of it high- grade fossil fuels, is required to produce ethanol than is available in the energy output. About 72% more energy (...) is used to produce a gallon of ethanol than the energy in a gallon of ethanol. Ethanol production from corn is not renewable energy. Its production uses more non- renewable fossil energy resources in growing the corn and in the fermentation/distillation process than is produced as ethanol energy. Ethanol produced from corn and other food crops is also an unreliable and therefore a non-secure source of energy, because of the likelihood of uncontrollable climatic fluctuations, particularly droughts which reduce crop yields. The expected priority for corn and other food crops would be for food and feed. Increasing ethanol production would increase degradation of agricultural land and water and pollute the environment. In U.S. corn production, soil erodes some 18- times faster than soil is reformed, and, where irrigated, corn production mines water faster than recharge of aquifers. Increasing the cost of food and diverting human food resources to the costly and inefficient production of ethanol fuel raise major ethical questions. These occur at a time when more food is needed to meet the basic needs of a rapidly growing world population. (shrink)