bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Ethical Lessons from Yesteryear: A History of Black Buffalo’s Struggle for Food and Equity
Authors: Griffin Domonique , Hall Gabriella , Wright Alexander J. 
Published: March 2024

AbstractHistorically, Black Buffalonians have adopted formal and informal means of eliminating disparities in the food system. While some of these efforts concentrate solely on improving food access, or people’s ability to procure healthy and affordable food, there have also been efforts to use food as a means of transforming the economic reality of Black communities. This chapter builds on the existing body of black studies and food justice literature to examine the intersections between local food politics and ethics. Utilizing Buffalo, New York, as a case study, this chapter will explore the efforts and ethics of Black residents who envisioned food as a means to transform the sociopolitical landscape of the city. In doing so, we uncover how different groups were driven by the ethics of process and results, and embodied principles of ethical engagement outlined by Howe and Kaufman even before their time. The historical underpinnings of black food work in Buffalo, N.Y. offer valuable lessons about the accomplishments, challenges, and potential next steps toward creating community-oriented food systems.
Municipal Planning Response to Urban Agriculture: Equity is Not Quite on the Table
Authors: Raja Samina , Raj Subhashni , Ramos-Gerena Carol E. 
Published: March 2024

AbstractPublic policy is the decision to act, or not to act, by a government entity in response to a societal issue. Nearly 40,000 local, regional, and metropolitan governments across the United States routinely develop and implement policies in a variety of domains, ranging from ensuring public safety to the provision of physical infrastructure. Since the early 2000s, community advocates and scholars, in part urged by Jerome Kaufman and colleagues, called on local governments to develop, support, and/or implement policies that strengthen, rather than hinder, urban agriculture and food systems. This chapter, an overview of a section on municipal policy for a book that honors Jerome Kaufman’s legacy, describes the extent to which local and regional governments engage in urban agriculture policy using an equity-centered, ethically grounded approach. The chapter summarizes a collection of perspectives on municipal policy co-authored by scholars and policy practitioners from around the United States. Since Jerry’s call to action for planners, urban agriculture is increasingly recognized as a space for local government engagement. That said, the authors conclude that municipal governments continue to struggle to center questions of equity and ethics in their policymaking even as they claim to have a progressive approach toward urban agriculture.
Urban Agriculture Embedded in a Food Systems Approach: The Baltimore Story
Authors: Buzogany Sarah , Cocke Abby , Freishtat Holly , Mui Yeeli , Strauss Mariya , Kelly Sylvia 
Published: March 2024

AbstractThe City of Baltimore has made great progress in developing its urban agriculture policies over the last decade, as part of an overall food systems approach to sustainability. This work has been the result of intensive investment in planning efforts, mapping, inter-agency partnerships, and community engagement. Specific areas of policy development include zoning and permitting, land leasing, healthy soil regulations, and incentives for growers. There have been challenges along the way, specifically around staffing and funding, appropriately including resident voices, and differing city agency priorities, particularly on the issue of land access.Examining Baltimore’s trajectory yields insights and lessons for other cities seeking to develop their own policies around urban agriculture, particularly in regards to establishing food and farming as city priorities, using food environment mapping as a powerful tool to show areas of need and opportunity, and properly framing the issues at play for decision-makers and community members. The greatest takeaway from Baltimore’s experience is the importance of mainstreaming food policy into urban planning, not as a sidebar but as a consistent bedrock priority. A key community partner, the Farm Alliance of Baltimore, is highlighted at the end of the chapter.
Theories and Foundations: Ethics, Urban Agriculture, and Planning
Authors: Born Branden 
Published: March 2024

AbstractEarly work in planning for food systems emphasized practice and approaches based on common planning methods over a robust theoretical framework. This may have been a strategic choice, but it is worth re-examining. In this section of five chapters, we develop rationales for why and examples of how theory might be applied to make practice better. The section draws out implied theoretical connections in the first wave of food systems scholarship in planning and begins to outline current food systems planning thought that is explicitly theoretical and pushes scholarship in new directions. One challenge to scholars in food systems planning is to be more critical about how and where their work is situated and the implications of different types of action; we do not want food systems planning to recreate past planning errors. How can such scholarship directly consider justice, empowerment, control, and epistemologies that drive action? And, how might ethical considerations be related to food systems scholarship? This section seeks to demonstrate that theory and ethics can be motivators for advancing the field intellectually and practically.
On Collaboration in Teaching a Food Planning Course
Authors: Kaufman Jerome L. , Caton Campbell Marcia 
Published: March 2024

AbstractThis article fills a gap in knowledge related to the preparation of future food systems professionals and scholars. Specifically, the article explores challenges and opportunities encountered by educators who teach food systems courses in university settings. The topic of food systems has recently experienced a boost in acceptance as an area of academic inquiry and legitimate professional practice. The article presents seven first-hand accounts by university educators who reflect back on their early experiences teaching courses on food systems in the discipline of urban planning. Set within a specific global region — North America — the findings are relevant to other professions and academic disciplines grappling with the topic of food systems. The analysis points to tensions and opportunities related to the professionalization of this emergent field of research and practice.
The Art of the Town-Gown Dance: Healing Legacies of Harm in our Food System through Equitable Pedagogy
Authors: Denckla Cobb Tanya , Bingham Shantell 
Published: March 2024

AbstractAs legacies of harm are surfacing in the 21st century, universities have new opportunities for addressing past traumas and transforming historically tense town-gown relationships. Food systems planning and urban agriculture faculty are perfectly positioned to help bridge the university-community divide because their work so often centers on community and equity. Urban ag and food systems faculty can use academy resources as a force for good, to advance equity and system change in the neighboring community. But this goal is challenged by the constraints of the one-semester classroom, along with the lack of adequate guidelines for faculty and students in how to navigate the complex world of community engagement that seeks systemic change to advance equity. Using the University of Virginia experience with Charlottesville, authors provide examples of why university classroom engagement with the community is fraught with landmines that can perpetuate inequities and legacies of harm. This dynamic can further erode relationships and lead neighboring communities to view universities as “extractive industries.” Coining the term “equitable pedagogy,” the authors draw on three different sets of values and best practices to propose a new framework for how university classes might engage with community. Equitable pedagogy distinguishes between engagement that aims to support grasstops and that which aims to support long-term systemic change through the grassroots. A decision tree and core values help faculty navigate these complexities, to avoid perpetuating privilege and systemic inequities and, instead, foster a relationship with community that is mutually beneficial and synergistic.
Toward City- and People-Centered Food Policy
Authors: Roberts Wayne 
Published: March 2024

AbstractAlthough writing about the importance of food systems for urban planners, Jerome Kaufman influenced the thinking of policy leaders and practitioners across the world including Dr. Wayne Roberts, the author of this chapter. A remarkable food policy leader in his own right, Dr. Wayne Roberts authored this chapter shortly before his passing, reflecting on Kaufman’s influence on the field and his own work. Roberts wrote that “the lack of imagination [in city government] resulting from professional over-specialization is a major barrier to more interactive conversation, learning, and partnership among city planners and Good Food advocates.” Roberts critiques the narrow ‘supply chain’ or ‘nutritionism’ approaches to understanding urban food systems. Rather, he argues that a broader view where “food’s many contributions to personal, psychological, cultural, spiritual, social, environmental and economic development of people, and the mooring of people in their time and place” ought to drive how cities view food. Roberts’ policy leadership in Toronto and Kaufman’s scholarship represent the best of what is possible in municipal policy through open-minded thinking and strategic action. This chapter, Dr. Roberts’ last piece of formal writing, leaves readers with rich ideas for developing people-centered municipal food policy. To learn more about food policy in Toronto, please contact the corresponding author.
The Intersection of Planning, Urban Agriculture, and Food Justice: A Review of the Literature
Authors: Horst Megan , McClintock Nathan , Hoey Lesli 
Published: March 2024

AbstractProblem, research strategy, and findings: We draw on a multidisciplinary body of research to consider how planning for urban agriculture can foster food justice by benefitting socioeconomically disadvantaged residents. The potential social benefits of urban agriculture include increased access to food, positive health impacts, skill building, community development, and connections to broader social change efforts.The literature suggests, however, caution in automatically conflating urban agriculture’s social benefits with the goals of food justice. Urban agriculture may reinforce and deepen societal inequities by benefitting better resourced organizations and the propertied class and contributing to the displacement of lower-income households. The precarious- ness of land access for urban agriculture is another limitation, particularly for disadvantaged communities. Planners have recently begun to pay increased attention to urban agriculture but should more explicitly sup- port the goals of food justice in their urban agriculture policies and programs.Takeaway for practice: We suggest several key strategies for planners to more explicitly orient their urban agriculture efforts to support food justice, including prioritizing urban agriculture in long-term planning efforts, developing mutually respectful relationships with food justice organizations and urban agriculture participants from diverse backgrounds, targeting city investments in urban agriculture to benefit historically disadvantaged communities, increasing the amount of land permanently available for urban agriculture, and confronting the threats of gentrification and displacement from urban agriculture. We demonstrate how the city of Seattle (WA) used an equity lens in all of its programs to shift its urban agriculture planning to more explicitly foster food justice, providing clear examples for other cities.
Reading Humanitarianism Critically
Authors: Kemedjio Cilas , Lynch Cecelia 
Published: March 2024

AbstractThis chapter sets the tone of the volume’s challenge to the humanitarian imaginary by articulating why reversing the conventional narrative, of Africa as dependent upon external aid, is imperative. We ask what the impact on humanitarianism would be if the humanitarian industry were to take seriously Ngũgı̃’s argument that we need to understand Africa’s centuries-long role as “giver” to the west instead of “recipient” of charity from it. Using insights from Franz Fanon and African feminists as well as Ngũgı̃, we call for a postcolonial audit of historical encounters between Africa and the west, emphasizing the need to examine critically the practices and assumptions of humanitarians from the colonial era to the present. We outline how the various chapters in the volume contribute to the task of reframing, in order to transform and decolonize humanitarianism in ways that equalize power relationships, and center and celebrate African agency.
Social Accountability in Review: From Conceptual Models to Grounded Practices of Civic Innovation
Authors: Vloeberghs Ward , Bergh Sylvia I. 
Published: March 2024

AbstractThis chapter offers a working definition of social accountability as any citizen-led action beyond elections that aims to enhance the accountability of state actors. We view social accountability as a broad array of predominantly bottom-up initiatives, aimed at improving the quality of governance (especially oversight and responsiveness) through active citizen participation. We also trace the evolution of SA as a concept in the literature over the past decades and, then, discuss some influential theoretic approaches to SAIs, pointing out strengths and weaknesses of each model. Finally, we suggest organising Arab SAIs into one of three categories: (1) transparency; (2) advocacy; or (3) participatory governance and we review each of these existing action formats by discussing their main strengths and flaws.
Social Accountability in Tunisia: Processes of Learning in Civic Innovation Between 2011 and 2021
Authors: Kherigi Intissar , Chirchi Tasnim 
Published: March 2024

AbstractThis chapter explores the different conceptions of social accountability held by Tunisian civil society actors and public officials in the context of the country’s transition from authoritarian rule between 2011 and 2021. It analyses the strategies and methods used by civil society actors to engage citizens in demanding accountability, to exact accountability from public officials and to enforce commitments. The chapter draws on qualitative research methods, namely semi-structured interviews, one focus group discussion and three in-depth case studies conducted between April and September 2021. We find that four main factors were important to the success of SA initiatives: first, the need for civil society to build credibility with both citizens and officials over time; second, the importance of tackling both ends of the accountability equation by working with citizens and officials to strengthen the commitment of both to accountability; third, the need to build coalitions of CSOs and local–national civil society linkages; and fourth, utilising cooperative as well as confrontational strategies towards officials that involve multiple methods, such as media campaigns, community mobilisation and training for officials. When these factors were present, SA initiatives were seen to advance downward accountability and reshape state–society relations.
Cooperative Processing and Learning Methods for High-Resolution Environmental Perception
Authors: Barbieri Luca 
Published: March 2024

AbstractCooperative positioning approaches enable interconnected agents to share information across the network, thereby improving accuracy, reliability, and safety compared to conventional single-agent localization methods. This chapter presents novel cooperative localization and learning strategies to provide precise positioning in harsh propagating environments as well as reliable environmental mapping for highly-dynamic scenarios. At first, positioning and environmental perception tasks are addressed separately. More specifically, augmentation strategies are proposed to improve positioning accuracy in complex environments by exploiting prior information on the tracking environment. Next, decentralized Federated Learning (FL) policies are developed to obtain accurate environmental sensing at the agents in a privacy-preserving and communication-efficient manner. Then, the localization and environmental perception problems are solved via a unified solution by designing a data-driven cooperative strategy where agents collaborate to enhance their environmental awareness and their positioning capabilities concurrently. Finally, Bayesian FL tools are developed so that the agents are able to incorporate uncertainty in their decisions and consequently provide trustworthy environmental perception. The achieved results show how the proposed techniques can enable accurate, communication-efficient, and trustworthy localization and sensing.
Synthesis of Filters and Filtering Antennas for Micro and Millimeter Waves Applications
Authors: Caicedo Mejillones Steven , Oldoni Matteo , D’Amico Michele 
Published: March 2024

AbstractFilters and antennas are the closest building blocks to the air interface in modern wireless communications systems. Filters allow the transmission of signals in a target frequency range and attenuate those that operate in the unwanted range. Antennas help radiate signals within their operating range. This article is a summary of the author’s doctoral thesis and focuses on the development of new synthesis-based methods for the design of these two building blocks and the integration between them, in other words, filtennas. The main advantage of the synthesis-based design is that the expected frequency response of the final prototype is approximated in advance. Therefore, the selection of the best solution that satisfies the given requirements can be done through fast but accurate circuit simulations. When the best solution is found, then the actual prototype is designed according to the synthesized circuit.
Innovative Cross-Layer Optimization Techniques for the Design of Optical Networks
Authors: Ibrahimi Mëmëdhe 
Published: March 2024

AbstractOptical networks have become indispensable in the era of 5G-and-beyond communications, supporting applications that require unprecedented capacity, reliability, and high Quality-of-Transmission (QoT) of lightpaths. To meet these requirements, network operators strive to provide innovative solutions while managing network costs effectively. This work summarizes the main findings of my Ph.D. thesis Innovative Cross-Layer Optimization Techniques for the Design of Filterless and Wavelength-Switched Optical Networks, that has been conducted in partnership with an industrial partner, SM-Optics. The main objective of the Ph.D. thesis is to investigate solutions to reduce network costs while enabling network expandability through novel network architectures. To ensure cost savings and scalability, (1) we optimize the deployment of Optical Amplifiers (OA) while accurately modeling physical layer impairments in filterless networks, (2) we propose a modular node architecture relying on pluggable devices and a scalable add/drop section at the node level for traffic grooming and capacity increase, and (3) we investigate the application of Machine Learning (ML)—regression approaches to estimate lightpaths’ QoT as they allow to make informed decisions about how conservative or aggressive a network operator can be when taking network planning choices, i.e., deploying a new lightpath. Numerical evaluations show that our proposed approaches achieve significant cost savings compared to benchmark approaches: (1) $${\sim }50\%$$

∼
50
%

savings in OA cost, (2) $${\sim }50\%$$

∼
50
%

savings in node architecture equipment cost, (3) $${\sim }70\%$$

∼
70
%

in penalty costs for deploying wrong lightpath configurations.
FPGA-Based Design and Implementation of a Code-Based Post-quantum KEM
Authors: Galimberti Andrea 
Published: March 2024

AbstractPost-quantum cryptography aims to design cryptosystems that can be deployed on traditional computers and resist attacks from quantum computers, which are widely expected to break the currently deployed public-key cryptography solutions in the upcoming decades. Providing effective hardware support is crucial to ensuring a wide adoption of post-quantum cryptography solutions, and it is one of the requirements set by the USA’s National Institute of Standards and Technology within its ongoing standardization process. This research delivers a configurable FPGA-based hardware architecture to support BIKE, a post-quantum QC-MDPC code-based key encapsulation mechanism. The proposed architecture is configurable through a set of architectural and code parameters, which make it efficient, providing good performance while using the resources available on FPGAs effectively, flexible, allowing to support different large QC-MDPC codes defined by the designers of the cryptosystem, and scalable, targeting the whole Xilinx Artix-7 FPGA family. Two separate modules target the cryptographic functionality of the client and server nodes of the quantum-resistant key exchange, respectively, and a complexity-based heuristic that leverages the knowledge of the time and space complexity of the configurable hardware components steers the design space exploration to identify their best parameterization. The proposed architecture outperforms the state-of-the-art reference software that exploits the Intel AVX2 extension and runs on a desktop-class CPU by 1.77 and 1.98 times, respectively, for AES-128- and AES-192-equivalent security instances of BIKE, and it provides a speedup of more than six times compared to the fastest reference state-of-the-art hardware architecture, which targets the same FPGA family.
Model-Driven Development of Formally Verified Human-Robot Interactions
Authors: Lestingi Livia 
Published: March 2024

AbstractIntroducing service robots into everyday settings entails a significant technological shift for the robotics community. Service settings are characterized by critical sources of uncertainty (mainly due to human behavior) that current software engineering techniques do not handle. This chapter introduces a model-driven framework for developing interactive service robotic scenarios, relying on formal verification to guarantee robustness with respect to unexpected runtime contingencies. Target users specify the characteristics of the scenario under analysis through a custom textual Domain-Specific Language, which is then automatically converted into a network of Stochastic Hybrid Automata. The formal model captures non-traditional physiological (e.g., physical fatigue) and behavioral aspects of the human subjects. Through Statistical Model Checking, it is possible to estimate several quality metrics: if these meet the set dependability requirements, the scenario can be deployed. Specifically, the framework allows for deployment on the field or simulation. Field-collected data are fed to a novel active automata learning algorithm, called $$\textsf{L}^*_\textrm{SHA}$$

L
SHA
∗

, to learn an updated model of human behavior. The formal analysis can then be iterated to update the scenario’s design. The overall approach has been assessed in terms of effectiveness and accuracy through realistic scenarios from the healthcare setting.