Academic literature on the topic 'Negative life generation'

Abstract This cross-cultural study compared attitudes towards age and generational groups across the life span in China, Germany, and the US including N = 1302 participants between 18 and 86 years of age. We asked younger, middle-aged, and older respondents to rate either age (e.g., adolescents, young adults, middle-aged adults, and older, adults) or generational groups (e.g., Millennials, Generation X, Baby Boomer, and Silent Generation) on various characteristics. Results demonstrate that across all three cultures older age groups were perceived consistently less positive and more negative, whereas older generations were perceived as significantly more positive and less negative. Our results suggest that generations in contrast to age groups represent a source of high social status in later life providing a sense of respect, value, and admiration. Thus, social status can be derived from multiple sources and older adults can draw upon alternative social status domains (their generation) when confronted with loss.

This research aims to explore the signs that represent the millennial generation cross culture in the film My Generation (2017) by Upi Avianto. This film, shows the dynamics of life for generations of millennials in the era of technological development. Unlike teen films in general, this film dares to portray the reality of a teenager's life from the results of two years of director research through social media. So that the film portrays the cross-culture of the millennial generation with what is positive and negative. With Roland Barthes's semiotic analysis method and qualitative descriptive approach and constructivist paradigm. The theory used by researchers is the Representation theory of Stuart Hall. From this research shows the millennial cross culture is represented by various scenes that describe habits and characters that are different from the previous generation. Millennial generation's cross culture is shown in differences in social norms which do not care about politeness values, millennial generation stereotypes, differences in life perspectives that tend to be free or liberal, broader, open and courageous to show differences, and a strong and optimistic mindset.

The study sought to know the perception of employees about generational stereotyping from different generations in a BPO company. The study used qualitative research to investigate participants’ perceptions through their real-life experiences. The data was obtained through guided questions and interviews consisting of employees from each generation: Baby Boomer, Generation X, Millennials, and Generation Z. Some of the participants said that they are uncomfortable and felt awkward interacting with other generations because they share different views on life. The study’s results indicate that the word “stereotyping” refers to the behavior in which a person takes a negative perception and acts on it, whether the person does this on purpose or by accident. According to the results of this study, most of the participants had various understandings of generation stereotypes. The researchers concluded that; (1) stereotypes often occur in older generations. (2) the younger generation tends to avoid asking for help due to the belief that they already know everything. (3) give and take; where seniors shared their experiences while the younger generation shared their technical knowledge. Studies show different perceptions that deal with every generation. As a result, the company performs activities that help employees boost their confidence. Employees of different generations can have better interactions with their co-workers.

Stress generation has potential to account for recurrent suicidal behavior. The current study represents a first step toward evaluating this possibility in a sample of adolescent psychiatric inpatients ( n = 99; 79.80% female) followed over 6 months. At index admission, participants completed baseline measures of depressive symptom severity, suicidal ideation, lifetime history of suicide attempts, and negative life events using a contextual threat life stress interview. Negative life events since baseline were assessed at the follow-up assessment. Consistent with the stress generation hypothesis, lifetime number of suicide attempts prospectively predicted higher rates of dependent but not independent stress. Bayesian analyses also yielded substantial support for an association with overall dependent stress but provided more modest support for specificity to this form of life stress relative to independent stress. Implications of these findings and directions for future research further clarifying the role of stress generation in suicidal behavior are discussed.

Currently, the significance of digital technologies is growing; they are becoming a normal part of human life. Their importance grows mainly in the context of other generations entering schools or the labour market. They are members of Generation Y and mainly Generation Z, whose life is already fully linked to virtual reality, social networks and information technology. E-Learning and its various modifications are one of the applied forms of education. This paper aims to describe the potential, but also the limits of education in the form of e-learning in the context of the development of the society, technological and content requirements on the educational activities as perceived by generation Y and generation Z. Content analysis of scientific resources and researches was the starting point for our work. The paper describes e-learning, its positive and negative aspects and contrasts them with the characteristics of the generations Y and Z. It can be concluded that e-learning has its application in school, extra‑curricular as well as lifelong learning.

Generation z is also known as the gadget generation. This generation lives side by side with the development of gadgets and social media. In this digital age, the use of social media is a way of life. Social media is unavoidable and is expected to have an effect on its users, the general picture of the current literature is missing. Therefore, the aim of this systematic is to summarize research on the impact of social media on fear of being out of date among Generation Z. Our systematic search on the Science and Scopus webs yielded 30 eligible articles. Gen z or generation z born between 1997 and 2003 (what), indicates that they will be between 18 and 24 in 2021. The use of social media and FOMO by generation z can be a negative and positive influence depending on their position and capacity. A negative example is that generation z is always desirable. They are shown that Generation Z is a tech-savvy generation. Based on these systematic results, it shows that the habit of using one of the social media has an impact on the fear of being left behind in generation z. The use of social media cannot be separated from the life of Generation Z. So FOMO is one of the characteristics of generation z that distinguishes it from other generations. Fomo is commonly used in marketing, industry, and lifestyle, where generation z is the main subject.

ABSTRACTDrawing upon evidence from Britain, this paper advances the proposition that new generations of older people are experiencing a healthier, materially better off and more satisfying old age. It is argued that both popular and scientific images of later life are out-dated and unduly negative. In advancing this analysis, attention is given to key areas of personal experience and social life: education, leisure and holidays, retirement, voluntary activity, spirituality, economic status, health and political involvement. A re-construction of the societal position of older people is indicated.

This paper provides to the explanation of Russian peculiarities of excess mortality among young adults. Social and economic crises of the 1990s exerted a negative effect on the demographic processes in Russia of that time. The greatest increase in mortality was observed among young adults. The long-term effects of economic and social changes have also influenced the dynamics of mortality in post-crisis generations. The fact has conditioned the Russian peculiarities of mortality among young adults. The paper presents the results of the study which explains the phenomenon of excess mortality in young adults and shows the Russian peculiarities of mortality. The author identifies the changes in age limits of excess mortality among young adults, connected with the negative dynamics of mortality within the generation of the 1970s compared with neighbouring generations. To confirm the hypothesis that the dynamics of mortality in the generation of the 1970s will be a long-term one the author resorts to APC (Age, Period, Cohort) analysis. The study confirms the high importance of the cohort effect on mortality among the generation of the 1970s. This generation is most vulnerable to mortality and shows lower rates of decline in mortality in recent years as compared to other generations. If the trend of mortality continues, the aging generation of the 1970s will increase the negative impact on further rise in anticipated life expectancy.

Becoming aware of the impact of global warming, all countries of the European Union have agreed to produce 20% of their electricity from renewable energy by 2020. Hence, a new market emerged to develop more efficient technologies of sustainable power production. Cranfield University has been involved since 2006 in wave and tidal energy design projects through various government agencies funded partnerships with the emerging industry of marine renewable energy. This thesis is based on one of these projects called “DeltaStream” which was developed by Tidal Energy Ltd (TEL). The tidal stream turbine is one of the most efficient concepts in marine renewable energy, because of the high predictability of tidal streams compared to wave and wind energy. Many devices are currently being developed in the UK. Most of them are moored to the seabed using traditional methods used in the offshore oil industry, which means drilling the sea floor. The goal of this work is to avoid drilling the seabed by adding hydrofoils on the structure. Indeed, by setting a hydrofoil in the tidal stream, the goal is to prove that a downward lift force is created and is efficient enough to maintain the structure at its location, avoiding mooring costs and ecological issues relative to drilling the sea floor. Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) models have been performed, studying the sensitivity of mesh size compared to results quality, and testing then different hydrofoils to get the best downward lift force in local conditions. The main characteristics of the simulation are unsteady and one phase. The chosen geometry is a “quasi-2D” domain in order to minimize computational requirements. A validation case has been first performed on a well-known geometry of a circular cylinder, to compare analytical results and CFD data. Small variations between results validated the model to enable us to use the model on a less-known simulation such as a hydrofoil. Different parameters influencing the efficiency of the hydrofoil in terms of lift production and drag reduction have been tested. These results have been compared with tank tests undertaken by the OENA Group in June-July 2009 in IFREMER (France). And complementary studies have been performed to compare these results and CFD results.

This thesis provides a detailed account of an experimental investigation into the effects of leading edge sinusoidal protrusions (tubercles) on the performance of airfoils. The leading edge geometry was inspired by the morphology of the Humpback whale flipper, which is a highly acrobatic species. The aim of this study is to investigate the potential advantages and disadvantages of incorporating tubercles into the leading edge of an airfoil. Specific parameters have been varied to identify an optimum tubercle configuration in terms of improved lift performance with minimal drag penalties. The investigation has shown that for all tubercle arrangements investigated, increased lift performance in the post-stall regime comes at the expense of degraded lift performance in the pre-stall regime. However, it has also been noted that through optimizing the amplitude and wavelength of the tubercles, pre-stall lift performance approaches the values attained by the unmodified airfoil and post-stall performance is much improved. In general, the configuration which demonstrates the best performance in terms of maximum lift coefficient, maximum stall angle and minimum drag has the smallest amplitude and wavelength tubercles. A new alternative modification has also been explored, whereby sinusoidal surface waviness is incorporated into the airfoil, giving a spanwise variation in local attack angle. Results indicate that optimisation of this configuration leads to similar performance advantages as the best-performing tubercle configuration. It is believed that the flow mechanism responsible for performance variation is similar to tubercles. The deterioration in pre-stall performance for airfoils with tubercles in the current study has been explained in terms of Reynolds number effects and also the relatively weak spanwise flow in the boundary layer. In swept and tapered wings such as the Humpback whale flipper, spanwise flow occurs along the entire span, so the effect of tubercles can be expected to be much larger. Surface pressure measurements have indicated that the region of separation and reattachment for airfoils with tubercles is restricted to the trough between the tubercles rather than extending across the entire span. Hence, leading-edge separation is initiated at the troughs but occurs at a higher angle of attack for other locations, leading to a delayed overall stall for airfoils with tubercles. In addition, integration of the surface pressures along the airfoil chord has indicated that lift, and hence circulation, varies with spanwise position, providing suitable conditions for the formation of streamwise vorticity. A spanwise variation in circulation is also predicted for the wavy airfoil since the relative angle of attack varies along the span. Counter-rotating streamwise vortices have been identified in the troughs between tubercles using particle image velocimetry in a series of cross-streamwise, crosschordwise planes which have not been investigated previously using this technique. The associated peak primary vorticity and circulation have been found to increase with angle of attack for a given measurement plane. This provides an explanation for the effectiveness of tubercles post-stall since an increased primary vortex strength leads to a greater boundary layer momentum exchange. The results show that the magnitude of the circulation generally increases in the streamwise direction, except when there exist secondary vortex structures of opposite sign on the flow side of the primary vortices. A proposed mechanism for this increasing circulation of the primary vortices is the entrainment of secondary vorticity which is generated between the adjacent primary vortex and the airfoil surface. It is postulated that this process of entrainment alternates between the primary vortices in an unsteady fashion. Leading edge tubercles have also been found to mitigate tonal noise associated with the NACA 0021 and the NACA 65-021 at all angles of attack in a novel investigation. Elimination of the tonal noise occurred for the majority of modified airfoils and in many cases the broadband noise level was also reduced for certain frequency ranges. It is believed that tonal noise elimination is facilitated by the presence of the streamwise vortices and that the spanwise variation in separation location is also an important factor. Both characteristics modify the stability characteristics of the boundary layer, altering the frequency of velocity fluctuations in the shear layer near the trailing edge. This affects the coherence of the vortex generation downstream of the trailing edge, hence leading to a decrease in trailing edge noise generation.
Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Adelaide, School of Mechanical Engineering, 2012

Yes
In this review paper, a comprehensive study on the concept, theory, and applications of composite right/left-handed transmission lines (CRLH-TLs) by considering their use in antenna system designs have been provided. It is shown that CRLH-TLs with negative permittivity (ε <; 0) and negative permeability (μ <; 0) have unique properties that do not occur naturally. Therefore, they are referred to as artificial structures called “metamaterials”. These artificial structures include series left-handed (LH) capacitances (C L ), shunt LH inductances (L L ), series right-handed (RH) inductances (LR), and shunt RH capacitances (CR) that are realized by slots or interdigital capacitors, stubs or via-holes, unwanted current flowing on the surface, and gap distance between the surface and ground-plane, respectively. In the most cases, it is also shown that structures based on CRLH metamaterial-TLs are superior than their conventional alternatives, since they have smaller dimensions, lower-profile, wider bandwidth, better radiation patterns, higher gain and efficiency, which make them easier and more cost-effective to manufacture and mass produce. Hence, a broad range of metamaterial-based design possibilities are introduced to highlight the improvement of the performance parameters that are rare and not often discussed in available literature. Therefore, this survey provides a wide overview of key early-stage concepts of metematerial-based designs as a thorough reference for specialist antennas and microwave circuits designers. To analyze the critical features of metamaterial theory and concept, several examples are used. Comparisons on the basis of physical size, bandwidth, materials, gain, efficiency, and radiation patterns are made for all the examples that are based on CRLH metamaterialTLs. As revealed in all the metematerial design examples, foot-print area decrement is an important issue of study that have a strong impact for the enlargement of the next generation wireless communication systems.
This work was supported in part by the Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades, Gobierno de España (MCIU/AEI/FEDER, UE) under Grant RTI2018-095499-B-C31, in part by the Innovation Programme under Grant H2020-MSCA-ITN-2016 SECRET-722424, and in part by the financial support from the U.K. Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) under Grant EP/E022936/1.

The main purpose of the textbook is to identify dangerous and harmful production factors during the operation of electrical equipment of the main step-down substations and transformer substations. Specific measures are proposed to reduce their negative impact on service personnel. Meets the requirements of the federal state educational standards of higher education of the latest generation. For bachelors and masters of full-time and part-time education in the areas of training 13.03.02 and 13.04.02 "Electric power and electrical engineering". It can be used by teachers, engineers and specialists in the operation of industrial equipment and the safe organization of work in production, as well as by a wide range of readers interested in the problems of human life safety.

In Life-Destroying Diagrams, Eugenie Brinkema brings the insights of her radical formalism to bear on supremely risky terrain: the ethical extremes of horror and love. Through close readings of works of film, literature, and philosophy, she explores how diagrams, grids, charts, lists, abecedaria, toroids, tempos, patterns, colors, negative space, lengths, increments, and thresholds attest to formal logics of torture and cruelty, violence and finitude, friendship and eros, debt and care. Beginning with a wholesale rethinking of the affect of horror, orienting it away from entrenched models of feeling toward impersonal schemes and structures, Brinkema moves outward to consider the relation between objects and affects, humiliation and metaphysics, genre and the general, bodily destruction and aesthetic generation, geometry and scenography, hatred and value, love and measurement, and, ultimately, the tensions, hazards, and speculative promise of formalism itself. Replete with etymological meditations, performative typography, and lyrical digressions, Life-Destroying Diagrams is at once a model of reading without guarantee and a series of generative experiments in the writing of aesthetic theory.

Generation Disaster: Coming of Age Post-9/11 is an in-depth examination of the multiple stressors that shaped the developmental environment for today’s emerging adults in their youth and as they now take on adult responsibilities in an unprecedentedly complex world. Those stressors include all of the societal changes that occurred in the United States after the attacks of September 11, 2001, as well as other threats like the increase in school shootings and other human-caused disasters, worsening natural disasters and concerns about the future due to climate change, and the global pandemic. The omnipresence of social media amplifies these issues and heightens political divisiveness, while the difficult job market, growing wealth gap between rich and poor, and burden of student debt make many emerging adults doubt they’ll ever find a satisfying career, be able to start a family, or buy a home. As a result, many are stressed out and pessimistic about their futures, yet others are flourishing despite all of the challenges they face. Generation Disaster provides a detailed look into the many forces that are shaping this cohort of emerging adults, drawing on quantitative and qualitative research and including extensive quotations that allow its members to speak for themselves to counter the negative stereotypes older people often perpetuate about them.

This chapter focuses on Fannie Barrier Williams' early life. Fannie Barrier was born on February 12, 1855, to mixed-race parents, in Brockport, an overwhelmingly white community in New York. Brockport was north of slavery, and according to census records, no resident of the town had ever owned enslaved people. The village was a secure and supportive place for Barrier, with no racially divided public spaces. This chapter first provides a background on Brockport and Fannie's parents, Harriet Prince Barrier and Anthony J. Barrier, as well as her early education, including her enrollment at the Brockport Collegiate Institute. It considers how the school provided Fannie with the necessary skills to pursue the personal, public, and professional life that was not available to her mother's generation. It also examines how the northern location of Brockport and the convergence of several social, political, and economic factors sheltered Fannie and her siblings and greatly restricted the negative impact of racism and discrimination on their lives.

As evidenced by 15 years of research, hopeful older adults reject negative stereotypes of aging; envision themselves as aging successfully; plan for later life; cope with stressors; apply wisdom; and perceive good physical, mental, and social well-being. Hopeful older adults even live longer than less hopeful older adults. Preliminary research indicates that older adults participating in individual- and small-group interventions can learn and apply strategies to improve hope, goal pursuits, and distress. The larger social and physical environments create barriers to pursuing goals in later life, including ageism and physical barriers. Thus broader social and environmental interventions may provide additional pathways to foster older adults’ hope and goal pursuits, as well as to help younger generations develop more positive views of aging and prepare for successful aging.

Carbamazepine is a first-generation antiepileptic drug characterized by a good range of antiepileptic indications, with acceptable risk of interactions in polytherapy. Carbamazepine has a very good behavioural tolerability profile and is in widespread psychiatric use (indication for bipolar disorder—acute mania). Oxcarbazepine and eslicarbazepine are carbamazepine derivatives. Oxcarbazepine is a second-generation antiepileptic drug characterized by a good range of antiepileptic indications, with acceptable risk of interactions in polytherapy. Like carbamazepine, oxcarbazepine has a very good behavioural tolerability profile and potential for widespread psychiatric use. Eslicarbazepine is a third-generation antiepileptic drug for which clinical experience is still limited. Little is known about its positive and negative psychotropic properties and their implications for the management of behavioural symptoms in patients with epilepsy.

At STIAS, the ‘Health in Transition’ theme includes a programme to address the epidemic rise in the incidence of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) such as Type 2 diabetes, hypertension, obesity, coronary heart disease and stroke in Africa. The aim is to advance awareness, research capacity and knowledge translation of science related to the Developmental Origins of Health and Disease (DOHaD) as a means of preventing NCDs in future generations. Application of DOHaD science is a promising avenue for prevention, as this field is identifying how health and nutrition from conception through the first 1 000 days of life can dramatically impact a developing individual’s future life course, and specifically predicate whether or not they are programmed in infancy to develop NCDs in later life. Prevention of NCDs is an essential strategy as, if unchecked, the burden of caring for a growing and ageing population with these diseases threatens to consume entire health budgets, as well as negatively impact the quality of life of millions. Africa in particular needs specific, focussed endeavors to realize the maximal preventive potential of DOHaD science, and a means of generating governmental and public awareness about the links between health in infancy and disease in adult life. This volume summarizes the expertise and experience of a leading group of international scientists led by Abdallah Daar brought together at STIAS as part of the ‘Health in Transition’ programme.

'Earth Emotions' is an invitation to the reader to participate in the emergent global drama between the emotionally charged forces of creation and destruction. Both sets of emotions are needed for the survival and the flourishing of the species, however, we live in an epoch where the forces of destruction are overwhelming positive or creative emotions. The name for this period of human dominance is the 'Anthropocene'. The book promotes an antidote to the Anthropocene in the form of the 'Symbiocene', a future era where positive earth emotions will flourish. Through these two master concepts, both types of emotions are systematically examined in the context of nature and life. Starting with a recently defined negative earth emotion, 'solastalgia', the reader is taken on a psycho-terratic (psyche-earth) journey through all of the earth emotions and feelings in use in the public and academic literature. The book culminates in the affirmation of positive emotional relationships to the Earth for current and future generations. As a relentlessly optimistic manifesto for living in the future, this book addresses the emotional, cultural, ethical, political, spiritual and practical aspects of positive earth emotions and the defeat of those that are destructive of people and the planet.

Over roughly the last decade, there has been a notable rise in new research on historical German syntax in a generative perspective. This volume presents a state-of-the-art survey of this thriving new line of research by leading scholars in the field, combining it with new insights into the syntax of historical German. It is the first comprehensive and concise generative historical syntax of German covering numerous central aspects of clause structure and word order, tracing them throughout various historical stages. Each chapter combines a solid empirical basis and valid descriptive generalizations with reference also to the more traditional topological model of the German clause with a detailed discussion of theoretical analyses couched in the generative framework. The volume is divided into three parts according to the main parts of the clause: the left periphery dealing with verbal placement and the filling of the prefield (verb second, verb first, verb third orders) as well as adverbial connectives; the middle field including discussion of pronominal syntax, order of full NPs and the history of negation; and the right periphery with chapters on basic word order (OV/VO), prosodic and information-structural factors, and the verbal complex including the development of periphrastic verb forms and the phenomena of IPP (infinitivus pro participio) and ACI (accusativus cum infinitivo). This book thus provides a convenient overview of current research on the major issues concerning historical German clause structure both for scholars interested in more traditional description and for those interested in formal accounts of diachronic syntax.

Discovered at the very end of the 20th century, the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) is a mode of natural climate variability that arises out of coupled ocean–atmosphere interaction in the Indian Ocean. It is associated with some of the largest changes of ocean–atmosphere state over the equatorial Indian Ocean on interannual time scales. IOD variability is prominent during the boreal summer and fall seasons, with its maximum intensity developing at the end of the boreal-fall season. Between the peaks of its negative and positive phases, IOD manifests a markedly zonal see-saw in anomalous sea surface temperature (SST) and rainfall—leading, in its positive phase, to a pronounced cooling of the eastern equatorial Indian Ocean, and a moderate warming of the western and central equatorial Indian Ocean; this is accompanied by deficit rainfall over the eastern Indian Ocean and surplus rainfall over the western Indian Ocean. Changes in midtropospheric heating accompanying the rainfall anomalies drive wind anomalies that anomalously lift the thermocline in the equatorial eastern Indian Ocean and anomalously deepen them in the central Indian Ocean. The thermocline anomalies further modulate coastal and open-ocean upwelling, thereby influencing biological productivity and fish catches across the Indian Ocean. The hydrometeorological anomalies that accompany IOD exacerbate forest fires in Indonesia and Australia and bring floods and infectious diseases to equatorial East Africa. The coupled ocean–atmosphere instability that is responsible for generating and sustaining IOD develops on a mean state that is strongly modulated by the seasonal cycle of the Austral-Asian monsoon; this setting gives the IOD its unique character and dynamics, including a strong phase-lock to the seasonal cycle. While IOD operates independently of the El Niño and Southern Oscillation (ENSO), the proximity between the Indian and Pacific Oceans, and the existence of oceanic and atmospheric pathways, facilitate mutual interactions between these tropical climate modes.

AbstractFollowing the collapse of the Communist system in the early 1990s, past decades have witnessed the re-institution of the Russian Orthodox Church in Russia and the Polish Catholic Church in Poland. As a crucial part of these developments, both churches have significantly increased their presence throughout several areas of public life and established ever-closer relations to their respective states and political establishments. This paper applies Jose Casanova’s conception of public religion to frame how these tendencies are perceived and experienced by the present young adult generation in Poland and Russia. The analysis of the Russian and Polish young adults’ views on the present-day role of religion in the wider society and public life reveal several concerns about the current church-state relations in both countries. Without necessarily taking a negative stance towards religion or religious traditions as such, respondents mostly expressed their views on the public role of religion in society through three interrelated main discourses: a discourse of differentiation, a discourse of diversity and plurality, and a discourse of tradition and modernity. In general, narratives are built upon the prevalent discursive formations on individual rights and freedoms as the natural and taken-for-granted states of affairs in modern democratic societies.

This chapter aims to stimulate further research on placebo-like effects outside the healing setting, thus involving the area of social psychology. Halo effects can be considered, at least in part, similar to placebo effects because the context plays a crucial role in both. Whereas placebo effects have to do with the evaluation of symptoms, halo effects have to do with judgements of a person’s quality and personality. The approach to placebo and halo effects is somehow related to expectations. If one expects pain reduction, he may experience a real analgesic effect. Likewise, if one expects either positive or negative qualities in a person, he may be misled to give either positive or negative judgements, respectively. Another example in everyday life is represented by the role of expectations and mindset in the generation of hunger and satiety.

This chapter is about residents' perceptions of the social impacts caused by tourism. The objective of the study is to analyze how the impacts of tourism influence the quality of life of residents of tourist destinations. The proposed methodology is based on a quali-quantitative approach with field research through the application of a questionnaire with residents of three coastal areas of Fortaleza: Grande Pirambu, Beira Mar, and Praia do Futuro (Northeast of Ceará-Brazil). The results show that tourism impacts positively on the quality of life, especially for residents of Beira-Mar and Praia do Futuro; however, residents of Grande Pirambu pointed to job generation as the greatest of the positive impacts in the area. About the negative impacts, the highest percentage was identified in Beira Mar, corroborating the need to plan tourism to expand benefits and minimize costs of tourism. It concludes that the impacts of tourism on the quality of life of residents in the studied areas are diverse, and that the most affected dimensions were related to economic aspects and citizenship.

This chapter uses the COVID-19 pandemic and social justice movements of 2020 to demonstrate how feedback loops within and across minds generate cultural stability and cultural change. Minds and cultures compose each other: Parents and leaders pass on shared knowledge from previous generations to children, then each person’s mind makes further meaning of their experiences over a lifetime. We share some of these meanings with others. Meanings shared widely form a culture, which is again passed on to the next generation. This is a feedback loop that generally keeps a culture stable but not stale. In flexible cultures, a few shared meanings are new to a group—they are creative and can change culture. Some individuals intentionally aim to create new meanings, dedicating their lives to introducing variability, difference, and novelty into their culture. The mechanisms for such purposeful creativity involve the interaction of positive feedback loops that amplify a new meaning and negative feedback loops that counteract and then incorporate a new meaning. Cultural stability or change occurs depending on individuals engaging each feedback loop in relation to the other loop through reflection and proflection. Past-focused reflections, involving “how and why” of already culturally accepted meanings, interact with future-oriented proflections, involving the “what-if” and “what-next” in new meaning’s possibilities. Together, they show how our image of the future and what-could-be can influence our current meaning-making and behavior.

Simply estimating pesticide effects on natural enemies of pests by measuring only lethal effects, or sublethal effects on the only treated natural enemies, may underestimate the total negative effects on them. So sublethal effects on subsequent generations should be assessed to estimate the total effects of their applications. Sublethal effects of commonly used acaricides on population growth parameters, life table parameters, and predation of the predatory mites of the family phytoseiidae were investigated. For this reason, offspring of treated females were used. Gross reproductive rate (GRR), the intrinsic rate of birth (b), the intrinsic rate of death (d), mean generation time (T), survivorship (Lx), life expectancy (ex), and prey consumption were affected in comparison with control. It could be concluded that sublethal concentrations of most applied pesticides can significantly reduce population growth and life table parameters, and this should be considered in integrated pest management (IPM) programs.

By affecting age-specific survival and fecundity, human-induced disturbances affect life history. This has potential to affect r _max with negative consequences for species viability and persistence. Several types of assessments are used to classify vulnerability to extinction, exploitation, and climate change. When information on r _max is unavailable, vulnerability assessments often rely on life-history correlates of r _max. These have included generation time, age at maturity, maximum size, longevity, fecundity, natural mortality, and individual growth rate. Empirical research indicates that links with r _max are strong for some traits, such as age at maturity and body size, but weak for others, such as fecundity. In addition to assessments of declining species, efforts have been made to identify life-history correlates of the rate and uncertainty in species recovery. Persistence and stability can be strengthened by the magnitude of life-history variation. The greater the variability in life history within and among, the greater the resistance and resilience of populations and species.

The first generation of Polish migrants in Germany in the 1980s and 1990s sought to improve the economic situation of their families and tried to blend in with German society. Only their descendants managed to do so. They experienced the upward mobility that their parents expected of them. However, they were not prepared for the generational change related to it. The change involved the transformation of the cultural capital in the migrant family. The article presents an analysis of the intergenerational transmissions in Polish families in Germany, based on autobiographical interviews with the second generation of migrants. The article explains why the eff orts of the first generation to build a life in Germany did not translate into a happy family life. Neither did it bring enough economic resources for the first generation to pass economic capital to descendants. Social capital turned out to be a strong feature of Polish families. The supportive role of grandmothers and other family members has often proved to be of a huge value. Paradoxically, the absence of their parents gave their children a lot of freedom and free time to build their own networks of friends. The article also draws attention to the negative dimension of social capital in Polish families. It manifests itself in limiting expectations and pressure exerted by the family on the second generation.

Much of the development of children, young people, and young adults is determined by opportunities for play and “real life” experience in their early years. This is not, as some believe, an optional or frivolous luxury, but an essential life experience for development of character, skills, self-awareness, and competence. Yet in recent years, evidence shows that opportunities for this at all ages have diminished in both quality and quantity in many countries. The reasons for this are multiple and complex, but one factor has been a drive to create a low risk or even risk-free society via the application of newly developed techniques of risk assessment and science-based methods of risk control. However, the health benefits of these public safety initiatives might have much less effect than people might believe and could, overall, be harmful through their prohibitions. We conclude that more research into the nature of risky play and risk exposure through teenage years and into adulthood is necessary, but tentatively propose that we need to also consider the possible effects of irrational overprotection. In addition to the conventional play setting, the current spread of trigger warning and safety rooms will be considered as an illustrative case affecting young adults. Rather than avoidance and consolidation of negative metacognitions about lack of control and vulnerability one needs to convey how science suggests that exposure or interventions to change perceptions of vulnerability may be more beneficial.

This chapter offers an interpretation of the idea of human dignity that explains how it can play certain valuable roles in human rights discourse. The idea contributes to the articulation of a distinctive set of norms that are universalist and humanist, the justification of specific human rights, the grounding of the great normative force of these rights, the combined generation of both negative and positive duties correlative to them, the explanation of the significance of political struggles against their violation, and the illumination of the arc of humanist justice running from basic requirements mandating people’s access to a decent life to maximal requirements to support people’s access to a flourishing life. The idea of human dignity is articulated through a conceptual network that includes an organic set of more specific ideas. These ideas include status-dignity, condition-dignity, dignitarian norms, the basis of dignity, the circumstances of dignity, and dignitarian virtue.

The scientific work is devoted to the prospect of using frost-resistant solar modules with extended service life of various designs for energy supply of infrastructure facilities of the Arctic zone of Russia. The general characteristic of the region under consideration is given, and its energy specifics, directions of energy development based on renewable energy sources are considered. In the work, frost-resistant planar photovoltaic modules and solar roofing panels with an extended service life for power supply of objects are proposed. For simultaneous heat and electrical generation, frost-resistant planar photovoltaic thermal roofing panels and concentrator solar installation with high-voltage matrix solar modules with a voltage of 1000 V and an electrical efficiency of up to 28% are proposed. The considered solar modules have an extended rated power period due to the use of the technology of sealing solar cells with a two-component polysiloxane compound and are able to work effectively at large negative ambient temperatures and large ranges of its fluctuations.

A review of regenerative gas turbines operating at natural gas pipeline compressor stations across the Russia has been performed. Main performance characteristics, first of all, the power and efficiency of the recuperated gas turbines, many of those have been used up a design service life, can be recovered. Since a large negative effect on the performances is contributed by defective plate-type regenerators, their change seems to be essential when updating gas-pumping units. A tubular regenerator is developed and incorporated into the gas turbines for driving natural gas blowers. The regenerator being installed in place of the plate-type heat exchanger joints a rather simple fabrication process and high durability. Its design features are presented and discussed. Ways to enhance efficiency and decrease the weight of the regenerator are considered.

Power devices are used in inverters in a variety of electrical equipment, for instance, hybrid-power cars, electric vehicles, and generators. These types of equipment are used to decrease the negative impact on the environment, and thus, the power devices need to function effectively as electric power converters for the long-term stability of the equipment. In short, the long-term reliability, i.e., the life, of the power device is important, and a high level of reliability is required. In the development process of power devices, it is necessary to conduct thermal fatigue tests to evaluate the reliability. However, such tests are extended over a long period of time, which makes it difficult to shorten the development period. Therefore, a simulation technique needs to be developed to forecast the life of a thermal fatigue test in order to reduce the development period. During the thermal fatigue test, thermal stress is caused by differences in the line expansion coefficient between solder joint materials. Thermal stress causes crack generation and propagation in solder. The thermal resistance of a device increases steadily as the cracks grow. This raises the temperature of the device and increases thermal stress. As a result, crack propagation is accelerated. However, conventional crack propagation analysis does not take this phenomenon into account. We developed a method of crack propagation analysis that takes into account the changes in thermal and electrical boundary conditions resulting from the crack propagation. The method is a combination of electrical conduction analysis, heat transfer analysis, and crack propagation analysis. The boundary condition of the heat transfer analysis is determined from the results of the electrical conduction analysis. The boundary condition of the crack propagation analysis is determined from the results of the heat transfer analysis. The crack propagation behavior in solder is calculated by repeating these analyses. This method reproduces the drastic increase in thermal resistance in the latter part of the thermal fatigue test, and the results agree well with the experimental results. We confirmed that the temperature distribution of the device changes as the crack propagates and that thermal and electrical coupled analysis has a major effect on the prediction of fatigue life of power device products. We also revealed that the thermal fatigue life is affected by the position of the heat source and cracks.

The described research is a light weight, inexpensive portable and collapsible wind turbine, small enough to be carried in a backpack, ruck sack or within the storage compartment of a vehicle, which can be used to recharge batteries and provide off-site, emergency, or campsite power. As a means to extend the battery life of electronic equipment while moving away from the power grid and extra battery storage, a power generating unit is needed. Current approaches are to carry the anticipated number of spare batteries, to use solar cells or any number of small generating thermionic devices. While each of these have a place in the market, they also have negative cost, size, and weight drawbacks. The objective of this research is to create a power generating/storage wind turbine device for recreational, emergency, and military use that can easily be collapsed and transported as needed. The device is a lightweight, collapsible wind turbine constructed of rugged materials to be used on camp sites, remote locations etc. and carried within a pack for travel. It is of a size and weight to be part of an emergency or survival pack. The wind turbine, in its preferred embodiment, is a self-starting/sustaining device that starts at low wind speeds so no monitoring or priming of the device is necessary. In addition to the novelty of it being collapsible, the wind turbine device employs advanced features to increase its wind energy capture efficiency and its energy storage and delivery system, along with unique design features that make it rugged, lightweight and easily assembled.

The negative impact on the environment caused by the current production of over 23,000 million pairs of shoes each year, either due to the consumption of huge quantities of raw materials or due to the thousands of tons of waste generated, is a sufficient reason to conceive a new type of shoe making process. The predominant manufacturing methods and the many components that the shoe contains make it impossible to recycle, due to the high complexity involved in separating materials. Once they reach the end of their life cycle, they inevitably end up in a landfill, generating a large amount of waste. REWEART is a footwear manufacturing project that is capable of producing sustainable goods based on a circular economy, co-financed by the European Commission through the LIFE program. REWEART aims to make vegan shoes with accessories made from recycled and organic materials, with 90% less energy and almost zero waste. REWEART wants to provide a tool to avoid the generation of waste in footwear consumption and to offer the footwear industry an alternative model of circular production to reduce energy consumption and to stop the destructive and unsustainable production of footwear.

Abstract During the grinding of advanced materials, several problems such as the generation of high temperatures, more energy consumption, excessive utilization of cutting fluids, and emissions of various harmful gases have been encountered, resulting in negative impacts on the environment. In order to mitigate such problems, this study focuses on the sustainability of the grinding process amalgamated with the introduction of ultrasonic vibration. The effect of ultrasonic vibration has been incorporated in grinding along with optimal machining parameters. Ionic Liquid (ILs) with vegetable oil has been used as a cutting fluid, which is categorized as a green solvent. Ionic Liquids (ILs) have been proved as a favourable sustainable alternative additive in the base oil to obtain the desired cutting fluid performance. A comparative study has been conducted for various grinding strategies to assess their environmental impacts using Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). Initially, Conventional Grinding (CG) and Ultrasonic Assisted Grinding (UAG) have been attempted. In the subsequent attempt, ultrasonically atomized fluid has been used for the CG and UAG processes. The SimaPro LCA software has been used to quantify the environmental impacts associated with these processes. The inputs for the LCA inventory are consisted of material consumption, energy consumption, and cutting fluid consumption. In this study, the ReCiPe 2016 V 1.04 midpoint and endpoint module has been used for carrying out the impact assessment. The results of the LCA impact assessment showed that the ultrasonic-assisted grinding performed using ultrasonically atomized cutting fluid exhibited the least adverse effects on the environment as compared to other mentioned counterparts. The cutting fluid and power consumption has been found significant contributor for the environment. The results obtained from LCA analysis can be utilized as a basis for sustainability assessment framework in the grinding of advanced materials.

The history of students’ deviant behavior problem and studying different aspects of this phenomenon is defined by ambiguous understanding of the phenomenon occurrence nature. Widespread digitalization of educational environment and social life introduces new factors determining the behavior of modern adolescents. A promising approach to solving a number of research and practical problems in preventing deviant behavior among adolescents may consider the possibility of identifying a personal resource as a factor of preventing violations in adolescent behavior. The study involved 402 students from Moscow school. It revealed negative connotations in self-confidence and obsession with computer games, browsing social networks (Spearman’s correlation coefficient — .583), as well as with volitional control of emotional reactions — .598. A significant correlation was also found between teenagers’ dissatisfaction with significant adults’ attitude and obsession with computer games, browsing social networks: problems with teachers — Spearman’s correlation coefficient .458 and, accordingly, dissatisfaction with family relationship .431. All correlations are significant at the level of 0.01. Generally, the analysis results allow us to state that the questionnaire being developed can be useful both to identify the adolescent’s personal resource that enforce normative behavior and to identify deviant behavior risk predictors for students in grades 7–11. It can also be used as a tool for targeted planning in psychological and pedagogical support aimed at leveling various behavior violations and intrapersonal destructive states of adolescents.

Seaports are important factors in global economies since most of the global trade is operated through maritime sector. Economic importance of seaports can be observed from various positive effects they produce for the area where they are located. At the same time, seaport activities create negative effects on the environment such as marine, air and soil pollution, waste production and noise generation that affect the health and quality of life of people. This paper analyses the possibility of achieving sustainable development of seaports through the development and implementation of innovations. The implementation of innovations in seaports affect the success of their operations, reduces business costs and creates conditions for maintaining a competitive position on the market; thereby affecting the economy as a whole. Moreover, innovations reduce negative effects on the environment thus affecting the ecological aspect and improve the quality of life of citizens, thus affecting the social aspect. The results of the research indicate that innovations in the maritime sector are mostly focused on the existing markets and include a discounted process of small improvements in the areas of vessel design and construction, fuel technology and port infrastructure. However, the development possibilities of seaports can also include innovations that are more focused on information and communication technologies (ICT). Innovations can address economic, social and environmental concerns and can give alternative guidelines for achieving sustainable development of seaports.

This paper presents a revolutionary approach of using a fluid-lubricated bearing for both traditional functions (load support, damping, and heat removal) and to actively control the rotor dynamics of rotating machinery. We will discuss how its use in the design of next generation turbomachinery can yield dramatic benefits. This includes an increase in efficiency, operational life, fault diagnostic, and reductions in machine size, weight, and cost. With the use of hydrostatic instead of hydrodynamic lubrication, traditional lubricants can be replaced by fluids more friendly to the process and environment. In this paper a comparison between the new hydrostatic bearing (Bently ServoFluid™ Control Bearing) and active magnetic bearings (AMB) will be presented. The Bently ServoFluid™ Control Bearing is an active controlled externally pressurized (a hybrid hydrostatic) bearing using fluid restoring force to compensate for rotor-related forces. It has the positive features of rolling element, fluid film and magnetic bearings with fewer negative attributes. The fluid restoring forces provide static and dynamic motion control similar to magnetic bearings, but with significantly larger compensation forces and with higher stiffness control. This revolutionary approach enables machinery owners to identify, understand and compensate for rotor system forces, an improvement over simply using vibration (motion) information for machinery diagnostics. This allows more complete diagnostics and prognostics of machine health. The bearing can be used to apply known perturbation forces to the rotor. Perturbation forces enable the determination of rotor system stiffness, and subsequent changes, thus improving machinery diagnostics. It can also provide information, such as the mechanical parameters governing the motion, system linearity, and stability margins for more accurate modeling of machines. Test results will be included to show experimentally determined transfer functions of each of the control loop elements, and predicted rotor forces. A typical root locus plot will be shown demonstrating how the characteristics change with bearing stiffness. Prototype machines, with both low viscosity fluid (water) and typical viscous fluid (T-10 turbine oil), have been built, tested, and successfully operated.

Capacity measures a system’s ability to survive stress. For example, structures are engineered in part to have the capacity to survive the worst wind loads expected over the life of the structure. Likewise wind electric power systems should have the capacity to reliably survive the worst combination of high load and low wind. A superior approach for quantifying wind’s contribution to system capacity is well known. It is to view wind as a negative load and use the Effective Load Carrying Capacity (ELCC) methodology for a given year. A frequent mistake is to average these annual ELCC estimates. A main contribution of this paper is to explain why the system design criteria should take the worst of the annual ELCC estimates over a number of years and not an average of annual ELCC estimates. Based on extreme events, wind generation contributes little to system capacity (<6.6% of wind nameplate). The empirical evidence shows that wind generation is an energy source, not a capacity resource.

Empowered by, and tethered to, ubiquitous technologies, the current generation of youth yearns for opportunities to engage in self-expression and information sharing online with personal disclosure no longer governed by concepts of propriety and privacy. This raises issues about the unsafe activities of teens and young adults. The following paper presents the findings of a study examining the social networking activities of undergraduate students and also highlights a program to increase awareness of the dangers of, and safe practices using, social media. According to the survey results, young adults practice risky social networking site (SNS) behaviors with most having experienced at least one negative consequence. Further, females were more likely than males to engage in oversharing as well as to have experienced negative consequences. Finally, results of a post-treatment survey found that a targeted program that includes flyers, posters, YouTube videos, handouts, and in-class information sessions conducted at a Mid-Atlantic HBCU increased student awareness of the dangers of social media as well as positively influenced students to practice more prudent online behaviors. A revised version of this paper was published in Interdisciplinary Journal of e-Skills and Life Long Learning Volume 11, 2015 as "Communicating and Sharing in the Semantic Web: An Examination of Social Media Risks, Consequences, and Attitudinal Awareness"

Although coal has powered the nation for generations and today offers well-paying jobs—often the best opportunities in more rural areas—coal negatively affects human health and the environment at every point in its life cycle: when it is mined, processed, transported, burned, and discarded (Freese, Clemmer, and Nogee 2008). Local communities— often low-income communities and/or communities of color—have for decades borne the brunt of these negative impacts, including air pollution, water pollution, and work- place injuries, illnesses, and fatalities.

Although coal has powered the nation for generations and today offers well-paying jobs—often the best opportunities in more rural areas—coal negatively affects human health and the environment at every point in its life cycle: when it is mined, processed, transported, burned, and discarded (Freese, Clemmer, and Nogee 2008). Local communities— often low-income communities and/or communities of color—have for decades borne the brunt of these negative impacts, including air pollution, water pollution, and work- place injuries, illnesses, and fatalities.

The plant virus family Polyviridae is the largest and most destructive of all plant viruses. Despite the continuous effort to develop resistant plant varieties, there is a desperate need for novel approaches conferring wide-range potyvirus resistance. Based on experiments with the tobacco etch potyvirus (TEV)-derived gene expression vector, we suggested approach for screening of the candidate resistance genes. This approach relies on insertion of the genes into a virus vector and evaluation of the phenotypes of the resulting recombinant viruses. The genes which suppress infection by the recombinant virus are selected as candidates for engineering transgenic resistance. Our analysis of the TEV variants expressing proteins of the beet yellows closterovirus (BYV) revealed that one of those, the leader proteinase (L-Pro), strongly and specifically interfered with the hybrid TEV infection. Since closterovirus L-Pro is evolutionary related to potyviral helper component-proteinase (HC-Pro), we suggested that the L-Pro interfered with HC-Pro function via a trans-dominant inhibitory effect. Based on these findings, we proposed to test two major hypotheses. First, we suggested that L-Pro-mediated suppression of potyvirus infection is a general phenomenon effective against a range of potyviruses. The second hypothesis stated that the suppression effect can be reproduced in transgenic plants expressing L-Pro, and can be utilized for generation of resistance to potyviruses. In accord with these hypotheses, we developed two original objectives of our proposal: A) to determine the range of the closterovirus-derived suppression of potyviral infection, and B) to try and utilize the L-Pro-mediated suppression for the development of transgenic resistance to potyviruses. In the first phase of the project, we have developed all major tools and technologies required for successful completion of the proposed research. These included TEV and ZYMV vectors engineered to express several closteroviral L-Pro variants, and generation of the large collection of transgenic plants. To our satisfaction, characterization of the infection phenotypes exhibited by chimeric TEV and ZYMV variants confirmed our first hypothesis. For instance, similar to TEV-L- Pro(BYV) chimera, ZYMV-L-Pro(LIYV) chimera was debilitated in its systemic spread. In contrast, ZYMV-GUS chimera (positive control) was competent in establishing vigorous systemic infection. These and other results with chimeric viruses indicated that several closteroviral proteinases inhibit long-distance movement of the potyviruses upon co-expression in infected plants. In order to complete the second objective, we have generated ~90 tobacco lines transformed with closteroviral L-Pro variants, as well as ~100 lines transformed with BYV Hsp70-homolog (Hsp70h; a negative control). The presence and expression of the trans gene in each line was initially confirmed using RT-PCR and RNA preparations isolated from plants. However, since detection of the trans gene-specific RNA can not guarantee production of the corresponding protein, we have also generated L-Pro- and Hsp70h-specific antisera using corresponding synthetic peptides. These antisera allowed us to confirm that the transgenic plant lines produced detectable, although highly variable levels of the closterovirus antigens. In a final phase of the project, we tested susceptibility of the transgenic lines to TEV infection. To this end, we determined that the minimal dilution of the TEV inoculum that is still capable of infecting 100% of nontransgenic plants was 1:20, and used 10 plants per line (in total, ~2,000 plants). Unfortunately, none of the lines exhibited statistically significant reduction in susceptibility. Although discouraging, this outcome prompted us to expand our experimental plan and conduct additional experiments. Our aim was to test if closteroviral proteinases are capable of functioning in trans. We have developed agroinfection protocol for BYV, and tested if co- expression of the L-Pro is capable of rescuing corresponding null-mutant. The clear-cut, negative results of these experiments demonstrated that L-Pro acts only in cis, thus explaining the lack of resistance in our transgenic plants. We have also characterized a collection of the L-Pro alanine- scanning mutants and found direct genetic evidence of the requirement for L-Pro in virus systemic spread. To conclude, our research supported by BARD confirmed one but not another of our original hypotheses. Moreover, it provided an important insight into functional specialization of the viral proteinases and generated set of tools and data with which we will be able to address the molecular mechanisms by which these proteins provide a variety of critical functions during virus life cycle.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) currently operates and maintains approximately 193 commercially active lock sites with 239 locks and dams spanning nearly 12,000 miles. These networks of water channels are used to transport 600 million tons of domestic cargo, generating $405 billion in revenue annually. Nearly 60% of these structures in operation are over 50 years old and have reached design life. A failure of the miter gates could result in a major negative impact on the economy and on the ability to maintain flood control. Administrators need recommendations to better prioritize maintenance and repair of the USACE miter gates. This work investigated the influence of miter gate’s quoin block degradation on load transfer to the pintle and/or pintle connections. Results of finite element analysis are reported for the quoin block degradation simulated levels of 0%, 25%, 50%, and 75%. The parametric study shows the overstressed regions are the pintle neck and bolt-hole regions. To improve pintle designs so they may better mitigate detrimental environmental based deterioration effects, this work recommends (1) increasing the thickness of the bolt-hole connection region and (2) adding ribbing reinforcement around the neck area of the pintle.

ABSTRACT Postharvest losses of fresh produce are estimated globally to be around 30%. Reducing these losses is considered a major solution to ensure global food security. Storage at low temperatures is an efficient practice to prolong postharvest performance of crops with minimal negative impact on produce quality or human health and the environment. However, many fresh produce commodities are susceptible to chilling temperatures, and the application of cold storage is limited as it would cause physiological chilling injury (CI) leading to reduced produce quality. Further, the primary CI becomes a preferred site for pathogens leading to decay and massive produce losses. Thus, chilling sensitive crops should be stored at higher minimal temperatures, which curtails their marketing life and in some cases necessitates the use of other storage strategies. Development of new knowledge about the biological basis for chilling tolerance in fruits and vegetables should allow development of both new varieties more tolerant to cold, and more efficient postharvest storage treatments and storage conditions. In order to improve the agricultural performance of modern crop varieties, including tomato, there is great potential in introgression of marker-defined genomic regions from wild species onto the background of elite breeding lines. To exploit this potential for improving tomato fruit chilling tolerance during postharvest storage, we have used in this research a recombinant inbred line (RIL) population derived from a cross between the red-fruited tomato wild species SolanumpimpinellifoliumL. accession LA2093 and an advanced Solanum lycopersicumL. tomato breeding line NCEBR-1, developed in the laboratory of the US co-PI. The original specific objectives were: 1) Screening of RIL population resulting from the cross NCEBR1 X LA2093 for fruit chilling response during postharvest storage and estimation of its heritability; 2) Perform a transcriptopmic and bioinformatics analysis for the two parental lines following exposure to chilling storage. During the course of the project, we learned that we could measure greater differences in chilling responses among specific RILs compared to that observed between the two parental lines, and thus we decided not to perform transcriptomic analysis and instead invest our efforts more on characterization of the RILs. Performing the transcriptomic analysis for several RILs, which significantly differ in their chilling tolerance/sensitivity, at a later stage could result with more significant insights. The RIL population, (172 lines), was used in field experiment in which fruits were examined for chilling sensitivity by determining CI severity. Following the field experiments, including 4 harvest days and CI measurements, two extreme tails of the response distribution, each consisting of 11 RILs exhibiting either high sensitivity or tolerance to chilling stress, were identified and were further examined for chilling response in greenhouse experiments. Across the RILs, we found significant (P < 0.01) correlation between field and greenhouse grown plants in fruit CI. Two groups of 5 RILs, whose fruits exhibited reproducible chilling tolerant/sensitive phenotypes in both field and greenhouse experiments, were selected for further analyses. Numerous genetic, physiological, biochemical and molecular variations were investigated in response to postharvest chilling stress in the selected RILs. We confirmed the differential response of the parental lines of the RIL population to chilling stress, and examined the extent of variation in the RIL population in response to chilling treatment. We determined parameters which would be useful for further characterization of chilling response in the RIL population. These included chlorophyll fluorescence Fv/Fm, water loss, total non-enzymatic potential of antioxidant activity, ascorbate and proline content, and expression of LeCBF1 gene, known to be associated with cold acclimation. These parameters could be used in continuation studies for the identification and genetic mapping of loci contributing to chilling tolerance in this population, and identifying genetic markers associated with chilling tolerance in tomato. Once genetic markers associated with chilling tolerance are identified, the trait could be transferred to different genetic background via marker-assisted selection (MAS) and breeding. The collaborative research established in this program has resulted in new information and insights in this area of research and the collaboration will be continued to obtain further insights into the genetic, molecular biology and physiology of postharvest chilling tolerance in tomato fruit. The US Co-PI, developed the RIL population that was used for screening and measurement of the relevant chilling stress responses and conducted statistical analyses of the data. Because we were not able to grow the RIL population under field conditions in two successive generations, we could not estimate heritability of response to chilling temperatures. However, we plan to continue the research, grow the RIL progeny in the field again, and determine heritability of chilling tolerance in a near future. The IS and US investigators interacted regularly and plan to continue and expand on this study, since combing the expertise of the Co-PI in genetics and breeding with that of the PI in postharvest physiology and molecular biology will have great impact on this line of research, given the significant findings of this one-year feasibility project.

1.1 Macroeconomic summary Economic recovery has consistently outperformed the technical staff’s expectations following a steep decline in activity in the second quarter of 2020. At the same time, total and core inflation rates have fallen and remain at low levels, suggesting that a significant element of the reactivation of Colombia’s economy has been related to recovery in potential GDP. This would support the technical staff’s diagnosis of weak aggregate demand and ample excess capacity. The most recently available data on 2020 growth suggests a contraction in economic activity of 6.8%, lower than estimates from January’s Monetary Policy Report (-7.2%). High-frequency indicators suggest that economic performance was significantly more dynamic than expected in January, despite mobility restrictions and quarantine measures. This has also come amid declines in total and core inflation, the latter of which was below January projections if controlling for certain relative price changes. This suggests that the unexpected strength of recent growth contains elements of demand, and that excess capacity, while significant, could be lower than previously estimated. Nevertheless, uncertainty over the measurement of excess capacity continues to be unusually high and marked both by variations in the way different economic sectors and spending components have been affected by the pandemic, and by uneven price behavior. The size of excess capacity, and in particular the evolution of the pandemic in forthcoming quarters, constitute substantial risks to the macroeconomic forecast presented in this report. Despite the unexpected strength of the recovery, the technical staff continues to project ample excess capacity that is expected to remain on the forecast horizon, alongside core inflation that will likely remain below the target. Domestic demand remains below 2019 levels amid unusually significant uncertainty over the size of excess capacity in the economy. High national unemployment (14.6% for February 2021) reflects a loose labor market, while observed total and core inflation continue to be below 2%. Inflationary pressures from the exchange rate are expected to continue to be low, with relatively little pass-through on inflation. This would be compatible with a negative output gap. Excess productive capacity and the expectation of core inflation below the 3% target on the forecast horizon provide a basis for an expansive monetary policy posture. The technical staff’s assessment of certain shocks and their expected effects on the economy, as well as the presence of several sources of uncertainty and related assumptions about their potential macroeconomic impacts, remain a feature of this report. The coronavirus pandemic, in particular, continues to affect the public health environment, and the reopening of Colombia’s economy remains incomplete. The technical staff’s assessment is that the COVID-19 shock has affected both aggregate demand and supply, but that the impact on demand has been deeper and more persistent. Given this persistence, the central forecast accounts for a gradual tightening of the output gap in the absence of new waves of contagion, and as vaccination campaigns progress. The central forecast continues to include an expected increase of total and core inflation rates in the second quarter of 2021, alongside the lapse of the temporary price relief measures put in place in 2020. Additional COVID-19 outbreaks (of uncertain duration and intensity) represent a significant risk factor that could affect these projections. Additionally, the forecast continues to include an upward trend in sovereign risk premiums, reflected by higher levels of public debt that in the wake of the pandemic are likely to persist on the forecast horizon, even in the context of a fiscal adjustment. At the same time, the projection accounts for the shortterm effects on private domestic demand from a fiscal adjustment along the lines of the one currently being proposed by the national government. This would be compatible with a gradual recovery of private domestic demand in 2022. The size and characteristics of the fiscal adjustment that is ultimately implemented, as well as the corresponding market response, represent another source of forecast uncertainty. Newly available information offers evidence of the potential for significant changes to the macroeconomic scenario, though without altering the general diagnosis described above. The most recent data on inflation, growth, fiscal policy, and international financial conditions suggests a more dynamic economy than previously expected. However, a third wave of the pandemic has delayed the re-opening of Colombia’s economy and brought with it a deceleration in economic activity. Detailed descriptions of these considerations and subsequent changes to the macroeconomic forecast are presented below. The expected annual decline in GDP (-0.3%) in the first quarter of 2021 appears to have been less pronounced than projected in January (-4.8%). Partial closures in January to address a second wave of COVID-19 appear to have had a less significant negative impact on the economy than previously estimated. This is reflected in figures related to mobility, energy demand, industry and retail sales, foreign trade, commercial transactions from selected banks, and the national statistics agency’s (DANE) economic tracking indicator (ISE). Output is now expected to have declined annually in the first quarter by 0.3%. Private consumption likely continued to recover, registering levels somewhat above those from the previous year, while public consumption likely increased significantly. While a recovery in investment in both housing and in other buildings and structures is expected, overall investment levels in this case likely continued to be low, and gross fixed capital formation is expected to continue to show significant annual declines. Imports likely recovered to again outpace exports, though both are expected to register significant annual declines. Economic activity that outpaced projections, an increase in oil prices and other export products, and an expected increase in public spending this year account for the upward revision to the 2021 growth forecast (from 4.6% with a range between 2% and 6% in January, to 6.0% with a range between 3% and 7% in April). As a result, the output gap is expected to be smaller and to tighten more rapidly than projected in the previous report, though it is still expected to remain in negative territory on the forecast horizon. Wide forecast intervals reflect the fact that the future evolution of the COVID-19 pandemic remains a significant source of uncertainty on these projections. The delay in the recovery of economic activity as a result of the resurgence of COVID-19 in the first quarter appears to have been less significant than projected in the January report. The central forecast scenario expects this improved performance to continue in 2021 alongside increased consumer and business confidence. Low real interest rates and an active credit supply would also support this dynamic, and the overall conditions would be expected to spur a recovery in consumption and investment. Increased growth in public spending and public works based on the national government’s spending plan (Plan Financiero del Gobierno) are other factors to consider. Additionally, an expected recovery in global demand and higher projected prices for oil and coffee would further contribute to improved external revenues and would favor investment, in particular in the oil sector. Given the above, the technical staff’s 2021 growth forecast has been revised upward from 4.6% in January (range from 2% to 6%) to 6.0% in April (range from 3% to 7%). These projections account for the potential for the third wave of COVID-19 to have a larger and more persistent effect on the economy than the previous wave, while also supposing that there will not be any additional significant waves of the pandemic and that mobility restrictions will be relaxed as a result. Economic growth in 2022 is expected to be 3%, with a range between 1% and 5%. This figure would be lower than projected in the January report (3.6% with a range between 2% and 6%), due to a higher base of comparison given the upward revision to expected GDP in 2021. This forecast also takes into account the likely effects on private demand of a fiscal adjustment of the size currently being proposed by the national government, and which would come into effect in 2022. Excess in productive capacity is now expected to be lower than estimated in January but continues to be significant and affected by high levels of uncertainty, as reflected in the wide forecast intervals. The possibility of new waves of the virus (of uncertain intensity and duration) represents a significant downward risk to projected GDP growth, and is signaled by the lower limits of the ranges provided in this report. Inflation (1.51%) and inflation excluding food and regulated items (0.94%) declined in March compared to December, continuing below the 3% target. The decline in inflation in this period was below projections, explained in large part by unanticipated increases in the costs of certain foods (3.92%) and regulated items (1.52%). An increase in international food and shipping prices, increased foreign demand for beef, and specific upward pressures on perishable food supplies appear to explain a lower-than-expected deceleration in the consumer price index (CPI) for foods. An unexpected increase in regulated items prices came amid unanticipated increases in international fuel prices, on some utilities rates, and for regulated education prices. The decline in annual inflation excluding food and regulated items between December and March was in line with projections from January, though this included downward pressure from a significant reduction in telecommunications rates due to the imminent entry of a new operator. When controlling for the effects of this relative price change, inflation excluding food and regulated items exceeds levels forecast in the previous report. Within this indicator of core inflation, the CPI for goods (1.05%) accelerated due to a reversion of the effects of the VAT-free day in November, which was largely accounted for in February, and possibly by the transmission of a recent depreciation of the peso on domestic prices for certain items (electric and household appliances). For their part, services prices decelerated and showed the lowest rate of annual growth (0.89%) among the large consumer baskets in the CPI. Within the services basket, the annual change in rental prices continued to decline, while those services that continue to experience the most significant restrictions on returning to normal operations (tourism, cinemas, nightlife, etc.) continued to register significant price declines. As previously mentioned, telephone rates also fell significantly due to increased competition in the market. Total inflation is expected to continue to be affected by ample excesses in productive capacity for the remainder of 2021 and 2022, though less so than projected in January. As a result, convergence to the inflation target is now expected to be somewhat faster than estimated in the previous report, assuming the absence of significant additional outbreaks of COVID-19. The technical staff’s year-end inflation projections for 2021 and 2022 have increased, suggesting figures around 3% due largely to variation in food and regulated items prices. The projection for inflation excluding food and regulated items also increased, but remains below 3%. Price relief measures on indirect taxes implemented in 2020 are expected to lapse in the second quarter of 2021, generating a one-off effect on prices and temporarily affecting inflation excluding food and regulated items. However, indexation to low levels of past inflation, weak demand, and ample excess productive capacity are expected to keep core inflation below the target, near 2.3% at the end of 2021 (previously 2.1%). The reversion in 2021 of the effects of some price relief measures on utility rates from 2020 should lead to an increase in the CPI for regulated items in the second half of this year. Annual price changes are now expected to be higher than estimated in the January report due to an increased expected path for fuel prices and unanticipated increases in regulated education prices. The projection for the CPI for foods has increased compared to the previous report, taking into account certain factors that were not anticipated in January (a less favorable agricultural cycle, increased pressure from international prices, and transport costs). Given the above, year-end annual inflation for 2021 and 2022 is now expected to be 3% and 2.8%, respectively, which would be above projections from January (2.3% and 2,7%). For its part, expected inflation based on analyst surveys suggests year-end inflation in 2021 and 2022 of 2.8% and 3.1%, respectively. There remains significant uncertainty surrounding the inflation forecasts included in this report due to several factors: 1) the evolution of the pandemic; 2) the difficulty in evaluating the size and persistence of excess productive capacity; 3) the timing and manner in which price relief measures will lapse; and 4) the future behavior of food prices. Projected 2021 growth in foreign demand (4.4% to 5.2%) and the supposed average oil price (USD 53 to USD 61 per Brent benchmark barrel) were both revised upward. An increase in long-term international interest rates has been reflected in a depreciation of the peso and could result in relatively tighter external financial conditions for emerging market economies, including Colombia. Average growth among Colombia’s trade partners was greater than expected in the fourth quarter of 2020. This, together with a sizable fiscal stimulus approved in the United States and the onset of a massive global vaccination campaign, largely explains the projected increase in foreign demand growth in 2021. The resilience of the goods market in the face of global crisis and an expected normalization in international trade are additional factors. These considerations and the expected continuation of a gradual reduction of mobility restrictions abroad suggest that Colombia’s trade partners could grow on average by 5.2% in 2021 and around 3.4% in 2022. The improved prospects for global economic growth have led to an increase in current and expected oil prices. Production interruptions due to a heavy winter, reduced inventories, and increased supply restrictions instituted by producing countries have also contributed to the increase. Meanwhile, market forecasts and recent Federal Reserve pronouncements suggest that the benchmark interest rate in the U.S. will remain stable for the next two years. Nevertheless, a significant increase in public spending in the country has fostered expectations for greater growth and inflation, as well as increased uncertainty over the moment in which a normalization of monetary policy might begin. This has been reflected in an increase in long-term interest rates. In this context, emerging market economies in the region, including Colombia, have registered increases in sovereign risk premiums and long-term domestic interest rates, and a depreciation of local currencies against the dollar. Recent outbreaks of COVID-19 in several of these economies; limits on vaccine supply and the slow pace of immunization campaigns in some countries; a significant increase in public debt; and tensions between the United States and China, among other factors, all add to a high level of uncertainty surrounding interest rate spreads, external financing conditions, and the future performance of risk premiums. The impact that this environment could have on the exchange rate and on domestic financing conditions represent risks to the macroeconomic and monetary policy forecasts. Domestic financial conditions continue to favor recovery in economic activity. The transmission of reductions to the policy interest rate on credit rates has been significant. The banking portfolio continues to recover amid circumstances that have affected both the supply and demand for loans, and in which some credit risks have materialized. Preferential and ordinary commercial interest rates have fallen to a similar degree as the benchmark interest rate. As is generally the case, this transmission has come at a slower pace for consumer credit rates, and has been further delayed in the case of mortgage rates. Commercial credit levels stabilized above pre-pandemic levels in March, following an increase resulting from significant liquidity requirements for businesses in the second quarter of 2020. The consumer credit portfolio continued to recover and has now surpassed February 2020 levels, though overall growth in the portfolio remains low. At the same time, portfolio projections and default indicators have increased, and credit establishment earnings have come down. Despite this, credit disbursements continue to recover and solvency indicators remain well above regulatory minimums. 1.2 Monetary policy decision In its meetings in March and April the BDBR left the benchmark interest rate unchanged at 1.75%.