Food quality: A summary of research conducted under the German Federal Programme for Organic Agriculture and other forms of Sustainable Agriculture

Food quality has been a strong focus of the BÖL research programme since it started in 2001. Among other things, the policy on EU organic regulations was supported with research projects; for example regarding the discussion concerning the admission of meat curing agents (nitrite and nitrate) in 2006. In a project on this subject, consumer acceptance of cured meat products, not using these curing agents, has been described as surprisingly positive, and the practical use of alternative materials and technologies was evaluated. It was found that the implementation of new technologies to reduce the use of curing agents was mainly inhibited by their lacking acceptance in practice, technical adaptation needs and investment in product development as well as disputed legal issues. As part of another project, a guide for processors was created, within which the new methods and solutions were presented. To enhance knowledge transfer regarding the new EU hygiene standards for organic meat proces-sors in 2008, a number of general information and specific documents for the admission application as well as templates for the necessary internal controls were developed. The general use and suitability of new organic food additives were also examined. Different sub-stances, which could serve as binding agents or antioxidants, were tested. Locust bean gum, guar gum, xanthan and agar agar showed a sufficient bond-stabilising effect without affecting the sensory quality of the products. Substances such as ascorbic acid, citric acid, rosemary extract, ginger and lemon juice showed a satisfactory effect against oxidative browning reactions. Furthermore, the use of rye sprouts as an ingredient in wheat bread produced very positive results: a study found that the volume, crumb firmness and crumb elasticity could be improved. The use of ingredients from yam (Dioscorea batatas) was investigated regarding the potential sensory and health benefits for flour blends. In another project, the use of yeast extract in organic foods was reviewed. It was shown here that there is very little research about the components and nutritional effects of yeast extract; also a survey among experts could not come to a clear formulation of conclusions. Thus, it was recommended that each processor should decide for or against the use of yeast extract in each particular case. Since 2008, an additive list is now being published annually and a website has been created where the manufacturers of additives can register themselves and sign up their organically certified and non-certified commercial products for evaluation. The data from the National Nutrition Survey II (NVS II) in 2010 were analysed in detail, looking at organic buying habits in relation to socio-demographic characteristics, parameters of health and nutrition behaviour as well as food consumption. Over 13,000 participants, aged between 18 and 80 years, were included in this survey. The derived recommendations show considerable potential. It was found for example, that organic buyers compared with non-organic buyers are more likely to lead a healthier lifestyle. Altruistic buying motives, such as interest in fair trade, animal welfare and the renunciation of the use of genetic modification, have been identified as a central driver of organic buying behaviour. It was also recommended, in addition to ethical arguments, to integrate health benefits more directly into the marketing of organic food. Further results from the BÖLN research on food quality and processing are continuously published at www.bundesprogramm-oekolandbau.de

Using webcrawling of publicly available websites to assess E-commerce relationships

We investigate e-commerce success factors concerning their impact on the success of commerce transactions between businesses companies. In scientific literature, many e-commerce success factors are introduced. Most of them are focused on companies' website quality. They are evaluated concerning companies' success in the business-to- consumer (B2C) environment where consumers choose their preferred e-commerce websites based on these success factors e.g. website content quality, website interaction, and website customization. In contrast to previous work, this research focuses on the usage of existing e-commerce success factors for predicting successfulness of business-to-business (B2B) ecommerce. The introduced methodology is based on the identification of semantic textual patterns representing success factors from the websites of B2B companies. The successfulness of the identified success factors in B2B ecommerce is evaluated by regression modeling. As a result, it is shown that some B2C e-commerce success factors also enable the predicting of B2B e-commerce success while others do not. This contributes to the existing literature concerning ecommerce success factors. Further, these findings are valuable for B2B e-commerce websites creation

Innovative public governance through cloud computing: Information privacy, business models and performance measurement challenges

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to identify and analyze challenges and to discuss proposed solutions for innovative public governance through cloud computing. Innovative technologies, such as federation of services and cloud computing, can greatly contribute to the provision of e-government services, through scaleable and flexible systems. Furthermore, they can facilitate in reducing costs and overcoming public information segmentation. Nonetheless, when public agencies use these technologies, they encounter several associated organizational and technical changes, as well as significant challenges. Design/methodology/approach: We followed a multidisciplinary perspective (social, behavioral, business and technical) and conducted a conceptual analysis for analyzing the associated challenges. We conducted focus group interviews in two countries for evaluating the performance models that resulted from the conceptual analysis. Findings: This study identifies and analyzes several challenges that may emerge while adopting innovative technologies for public governance and e-government services. Furthermore, it presents suggested solutions deriving from the experience of designing a related platform for public governance, including issues of privacy requirements, proposed business models and key performance indicators for public services on cloud computing. Research limitations/implications: The challenges and solutions discussed are based on the experience gained by designing one platform. However, we rely on issues and challenges collected from four countries. Practical implications: The identification of challenges for innovative design of e-government services through a central portal in Europe and using service federation is expected to inform practitioners in different roles about significant changes across multiple levels that are implied and may accelerate the challenges' resolution. Originality/value: This is the first study that discusses from multiple perspectives and through empirical investigation the challenges to realize public governance through innovative technologies. The results emerge from an actual portal that will function at a European level. © Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Verification and Validation of Semantic Annotations

In this paper, we propose a framework to perform verification and validation of semantically annotated data. The annotations, extracted from websites, are verified against the schema.org vocabulary and Domain Specifications to ensure the syntactic correctness and completeness of the annotations. The Domain Specifications allow checking the compliance of annotations against corresponding domain-specific constraints. The validation mechanism will detect errors and inconsistencies between the content of the analyzed schema.org annotations and the content of the web pages where the annotations were found.Comment: Accepted for the A.P. Ershov Informatics Conference 2019(the PSI Conference Series, 12th edition) proceedin

Bridges Structural Health Monitoring and Deterioration Detection Synthesis of Knowledge and Technology

INE/AUTC 10.0

NEOREG : design and implementation of an online neonatal registration system to access, follow and analyse data of newborns with congenital cytomegalovirus infection

Today's registration of newborns with congenital cytomegalovirus (cCMV) infection is still performed on paper-based forms in Flanders, Belgium. This process has a large administrative impact. It is imortant that all screening tests are registered to have a complete idea of the impact of cCMV. Although these registrations are usable in computerised data analysis, these data are not available in a format to perform electronic processing. An online Neonatal Registry (NEOREG) System was designed and developed to access, follow and analyse the data of newborns remotely. It allows patients' diagnostic registration and treatment follow-up through a web interface and uses document forms in Portable Document Format (PDF), which incorporate all the elements from the existing forms. Forms are automatically processed to structured EHRs. Modules are included to perform statistical analysis. The design was driven by extendibility, security and usability requirements. The website load time, throughput and execution time of data analysis were evaluated in detail. The NEOREG system is able to replace the existing paper-based CMV records