Winners and Losers from World Agricultural Trade Liberalisation

This paper aims at showing the role of agriculture in determining many of the controversies and problems of the current phase of globalisation. This first entails presenting key statistics indicating the main developments in world agricultural trade, illustrating how there has been a relative deterioration of the export performance of developing countries. The Doha Development Agenda of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) is then analysed, indicating the positions of the main actors involved as this illustrates the perceived vulnerabilities and opportunities arising from agricultural trade liberalisation. The final part of the article provides a survey of the main estimates of the impact of agricultural trade liberalisation, and tackles the issue of those countries, sectors and households that might be adversely affected by the process. In particular, the paper will attempt to illustrate how the possible negative consequences of the failure of the Doha Round could be overcome.world agricultural trade; agricultural trade liberalisation; The CAP and WTO; Doha Development Agenda

Rover: Architectural Support for Exposing and Using Context

Technology has advanced to the point where many people feel it has created a world with an insurmountable amount of information. Information includes messages people send to each other, logged data from their activities, and the services available to them. This problem has been exaggerated in modern societies by high availability of Internet connectivity. All types of information contains context, whether they have been stated explicitly or understood implicitly. Understanding, handling, and using context represents one of the most critical steps towards coping with the amount of information available today. In this dissertation, we examine two topics: context and the design of a context-aware platform. We describe fundamental types of context associated with every piece of information and discuss issues which may occur when implementing a system which utilizes context. We present a context-aware platform called Rover. The Rover architecture provides a conceptual framework geared towards understanding how application developers can utilize a variety of aspects of context to assist the development of modern applications. To aid developers in figuring out what context may be useful in their application, we describe the concept of a Rover ecosystem: a logical organization analogous to how similar groups of people interact with each other. We also discuss how information and context can be shared between ecosystems. To examine the feasibility of the Rover architecture's conceptual framework, we have implemented a reference implementation of the core unit of a Rover ecosystem: the Rover server. We discuss the details of the Rover server and describe the implementation of an emergency response application which demonstrates the utility of the conceptual framework

Size does not matter: a molecular insight into the biological activity of chemical fragments utilizing computational approaches.

Masters Degree. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban.Insight into the functional and physiological state of a drug target is of essential importance in the drug discovery process, with the lack of emerging (3D) drug targets we propose the integration of homology modeling which may aid in the accurate yet efficient construction of 3D protein structures. In this study we present the applications of homology modeling in drug discovery, a conclusive route map and detailed technical guideline that can be utilised to obtain the most accurate model. Even with the presence of available drug targets and substantial advancements being made in the field of drug discovery, the prevalence of incurable diseases still remains at an all-time high. In this study we explore the biological activity of chemically derived fragments from natural products utilising a range of computational approaches and implement its use in a new route towards innovative drug discovery. A potential avenue referred to as the reduce to maximum concept recently proposed by organic chemists, entails reducing the size of a chemical compound to obtain a structural analogs with retained or enhanced biological activity, better synthetic approachability and reduced toxicity. Displaying that size may not in fact matter. Molecular dynamic simulations along with toxicity profiling were comparatively performed, on natural compound Anguinomycin D and its derived analog SB 640 each in complex with the CRM1 protein which plays an avid role in cancer pathogenesis. Each system was post-dynamically studied to comprehend structural dynamics adopted by the parent compound to that exhibited by the analog. Although being reduced by 60% the analog SB 640 displayed an overall exhibition of attractive pharmacophore properties which include minimal reduction in binding affinity, enhanced synthetic approachability and reduced toxicity in comparison to the parent compound. Potent inhibitor of CRM1, Leptomycin B (LMB) displayed substantial inhibition of the CRM1 export protein by binding to four of the PKIαNES residues (ϕ0, ϕ1, ϕ2, ϕ3, and ϕ4) present within the hydrophobic binding groove of CRM1. Although being drastically reduced in size and lacking the presence of the polyketide chain present in the parent compound Anguinomycin D and LMB the analog SB 640 displaced three of these essential NES residues. The potential therapeutic activity of the structural analog remains undeniable, however the application of this approach in drug design still remains ambiguous as to which chemical fragments must be retained or truncated to ensure retention or enhanced pharmacophore properties. In this study we aimed to the use of thermodynamic calculations, which was accomplished by incorporating a MM/GBSA per-residue energy contribution footprint from molecular dynamics simulation. The proposed approach was generated for each system. Anguinomycin D and analog SB 640 each in complex with CRM1 protein, each system formed interactions with the conserved active site residues Leu 536, Thr 575, Val 576 and Lys 579. These residues were highlighted as the most energetically favourable amino acid residues contributing substantially to the total binding free energy. Thus implying a conserved selectivity and binding mode adopted by both compounds despite the omission of the prominent polyketide chain in the analog SB 640, present in the parent compound. A strategic computational approach presented in this study could serve as a beneficial tool to enhance novel drug discovery. This entire work provides an invaluable contribution to the understanding of the phenomena underlying the reduction in the size of a chemical compound to obtain the most beneficial pharmacokinetic properties and could largely contribute to the design of potent analog inhibitors for a range of drug targets implicated in the orchestration of diseases

United States: Shadow WTO Agricultural Domestic Support Notifications

"This paper examines past and proposed U.S. domestic support in light of current and potential World Trade Organization (WTO) constraints. It provides a brief review of U.S. farm policies since the Uruguay Round WTO agreements went into effect, including a synopsis of the new Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008. It examines the United States' notifications to the WTO of domestic support from 1995 to 2005 and provides a preliminary notification estimate for 2006. Green-box (non trade-distorting) expenditures for domestic nutrition programs dominate the total dollar values notified by the United States. The main notified components of the U.S. support policies for agricultural producers include fixed direct payments, disaster assistance, and environmental payments in the green box; market price supports for dairy and sugar and substantial price-linked, loan-rate-related subsidy expenditures in the product-specific aggregate measure of support (AMS) category; and non product-specific support notified as de minimis, including crop market loss assistance payments, countercyclical payments, and crop and revenue insurance subsidies. The United States' notification of total AMS has not exceeded the Uruguay Round commitment of $19.1 billion. It would have exceeded this amount in some years if the fixed direct payments were included in the AMS, an issue arising in challenges to the U.S. notifications. This paper discusses other subsidies that may be underreported, misclassified, or omitted, including the blender tax credits and mandates related to ethanol production that have been largely outside the disciplines of the Uruguay Round Agreement on Agriculture. It also provides an assessment of projected U.S. support through 2014. Under the Uruguay Round rules, there is essentially no constraint on U.S. policies if high prices projected in mid 2008 are realized. The WTO constraints are tighter if the proposed Doha Development Agenda disciplines of July 2008 are agreed upon. In that case, under the projected prices, the United States would still have some leeway to increase expenditures under its commitments. Thus, if the economic environment that is foreseen in the projections proves correct, the United States would be able to adapt to the proposed Doha Round domestic support modalities by making only modest adjustments in its policies, although product-specific support for sugar, cotton, or other products could face constraints. Large payments under a new revenue guarantee program in the 2008 farm bill could violate the U.S. commitments, even if prices remain high enough not to trigger traditional countercyclical or loan-rate payments." from authors' abstractU.S. agricultural support, WTO Doha Round, WTO compliance, Food, Conservation and Energy Act of 2008, Notification of domestic support, trade,

Bioinformatics

This book is divided into different research areas relevant in Bioinformatics such as biological networks, next generation sequencing, high performance computing, molecular modeling, structural bioinformatics, molecular modeling and intelligent data analysis. Each book section introduces the basic concepts and then explains its application to problems of great relevance, so both novice and expert readers can benefit from the information and research works presented here

In the mood: online mood profiling, mood response clusters, and mood-performance relationships in high-risk vocations

The relationship between mood and performance has long attracted the attention of researchers. Typically, research on the mood construct has had a strong focus on psychometric tests that assess transient emotions (e.g., Profile of Mood States [POMS]; McNair, Lorr, & Dropplemann, 1971, 1992; Terry, Lane, Lane, & Keohane, 1999). Commonly referred to as mood profiling, many inventories have originated using limited normative data (Terry et al., 1999), and cannot be generalised beyond the original population of interest. With brevity being an important factor when assessing mood, Terry et al. (1999) developed a 24-item version of the POMS, now known as the Brunel Mood Scale (BRUMS). Including six subscales (i.e., tension, depression, anger, vigour, fatigue, and confusion), the BRUMS has undergone rigorous validity testing (Terry, Lane, & Fogarty, 2003) making it an appropriate measure in several performance environments. Mood profiling is used extensively for diverse purposes around the world, although Internet-delivered interventions have only recently been made available, being in conjunction with the proliferation of the World Wide Web. Developed by Lim and Terry in 2011, the In The Mood website (http://www.moodprofiling.com) is a web-based mood profiling measure based on the BRUMS and guided by the mood-performance conceptual framework of Lane and Terry (2000). The focus of the website is to facilitate a prompt calculation and interpretation of individual responses to a brief mood scale, and link idiosyncratic feeling states to specific mood regulation strategies with the aim of facilitating improved performance. Although mood profiling has been a popular clinical technique since the 1970s, currently there are no published investigations of whether distinct mood profiles can be identified among the general population. Given this, the underlying aim of the present research was to investigate clusters of mood profiles. The mood responses (N = 2,364) from the In The Mood website were analysed using agglomerative, hierarchical cluster analysis which distinguished six distinct and theoretically meaningful profiles. K-means clustering with a prescribed six-cluster solution was used to further refine the final parameter solution. The mood profiles identified were termed the iceberg, inverse iceberg, inverse Everest, shark fin, surface, and submerged profiles. A multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) showed significant differences between clusters on each dimension of mood, and a series of chi-square tests of goodness-of-fit indicated that gender, age, and education were unequally distributed. Further, a simultaneous multiple discriminant function analysis (DFA) showed that cluster membership could be correctly classified with a high degree of accuracy. Following this, a second (N = 2,303) and third (N = 1,865) sample each replicated the results. Given that certain vocations are by nature riskier than others (Khanzode, Maiti, & Ray, 2011) highlighting the importance of performance in the workplace, the present research aimed to further generalise the BRUMS to high-risk industries using a web-based delivery method. Participants from the construction and mining industries were targeted, and the relationship between mood and performance in the context of safety was investigated, together with associated moderating variables (i.e., gender, age, education, occupation, roster, ethnicity, and location)

The Use of Human Behaviour in Fire to Inform Canadian Wildland Urban Interface Evacuations

Wildland urban interface (WUI) communities are generally the most at risk of being impacted by wildfires. In order to assess the vulnerability of these communities, it is important to understand the impact that human behaviour in fire (HBiF) can have on wildfire evacuations, specifically in Canada where such data is lacking. To lay the groundwork for a comprehensive vulnerability assessment of a Canadian case study community, a conceptual model of protective action decision-making during WUI fires was created. This was used to develop a survey to understand the WUI fire awareness and experience as well as the anticipated protective actions of the case study community residents. The microsimulation software PTV VISSIM was used to model 10 evacuation scenarios to identify key evacuation modelling considerations and potential evacuation challenges faced by the community. In doing so, a framework for using HBiF to inform WUI vulnerability assessments and evacuations was developed

Business process implications of e-commerce in construction organisations

The need for construction to change its traditional working practices has been repeatedly expressed in government, industry, and academic publications. The Internet has been a major catalyst for change in most industry sectors, including the construction sector. The implementation of Internet-based technologies, such as ecommerce for achieving business targets, bring about changes in an organisation, its current practices, systems, processes and workflows. It is therefore important to evaluate the business process implications of adopting e-commerce in construction organisations. This was the focus of this study. The early stages of the research established the possible benefits, barriers, and drivers for the adoption of e-commerce technologies within construction. This was done by conducting an industry-wide survey that explored attitudes, current usage, barriers and enablers of IT and e-commerce within the UK construction sector. Survey results indicated that the exact benefits of using e-commerce within the construction industry were not known and more needed to be done to establish the effects of incorporating e-commerce applications into construction business processes and to demonstrate the opportunities of e-commerce for construction. To address this need a typical business process model that used the principles of business process re-engineering and demonstrated opportunities for e-commerce, was developed. Using this model it was possible to illustrate how, with the use of ecommerce applications, different members of the construction supply chain could derive business benefits and overcome traditional process inefficiencies. In order to effectively adopt e-commerce technologies in construction, companies may have to reengineer their current working methods, which could lead to a step change in current work practices. To facilitate such a step change it was essential to study and document the impact of specific e-commerce applications on their current end-user business processes. Case studies were conducted for this purpose. The case study findings showed that the end-user companies had accrued several business benefits from using e-commerce tools. Issues related to management buy-in and organisational culture were the main barriers to the wider use of e-commerce within the construction industry. The case studies and earlier findings indicated that e-commerce is ‘here to stay’ and it will not be long before it becomes an industry norm. Taking this into account, construction companies who are currently using, and those who have yet to use, e-commerce tools need to take measures to successfully adopt and benefit from these tools. It is important for companies that seek to adopt ecommerce to assess their ‘e-readiness’ for adopting e-commerce tools to ensure a productive and beneficial implementation of these tools. To address this need an ereadiness model for construction organisations and a prototype application, VERDICT, that assess e-readiness were developed and implemented. The model is based on the premise that for any company to be e-ready, its management, people, process and technology have to be e-ready in order to derive maximum business benefits. The research findings indicate that the use of e-commerce is still in its infancy within the construction industry. The current use of e-commerce has resulted in process automation, however, there is no evidence of process re-engineering. Such practices, although beneficial in the short-term, can have long-term implications in that the end-users are not necessarily making full use of the technology and hence not deriving full benefits from it. The model and e-readiness assessment prototype developed as part of this study will enable construction organisations to successfully adopt e-commerce and exploit its potential