EU Foreign Subsidies Regulation Update: Risks And Responsibilities For Foreign Firms In EU Public Procurement Markets

The European Union’s Foreign Subsidies Regulation (FSR) (Regulation (EU) 2022/2560 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 14 December 2022 on foreign subsidies distorting the internal market) has now entered into force, along with an implementing regulation (Regulation (EU) 2023/1441 of 10 July 2023), which provide important clarifications for foreign firms competing for major awards in EU procurement markets. The FSR is the EU’s effort to address distortive foreign government subsidies in the EU internal market, including in public procurement. The EU restricts Member States’ power to subsidize domestic firms under the EU’s “State aid” doctrine; the FSR is an effort to level the playing field by constraining foreign subsidies to foreign vendors as well. Companies competing in EU markets must now give special notice—“notifications”—if they have received foreign government financial contributions and if the transactions at issue (procurements and other transactions, such as mergers and acquisitions) exceed certain monetary thresholds. Although the FSR exempts most EU defense procurement, the Commission retains authority to launch “ex officio” inquiries into perceived subsidies in the defense sector. The regulation is likely to trigger considerable additional administrative burdens for U.S. companies (and firms from other nations) competing for major EU public procurement awards. This article focuses on new developments relevant for firms (especially government contractors) that are potentially subject to the notification and declaration obligations of the FSR, including obligations under the FSR’s implementing regulation

Induced Polyakov supergravity on Riemann surfaces of higher genus

An effective action is obtained for the $N=1$, $2D-$induced supergravity on a compact super Riemann surface (without boundary) $\hat\Sigma$ of genus $g>1$, as the general solution of the corresponding superconformal Ward identity. This is accomplished by defining a new super integration theory on $\hat\Sigma$ which includes a new formulation of the super Stokes theorem and residue calculus in the superfield formalism. Another crucial ingredient is the notion of polydromic fields. The resulting action is shown to be well-defined and free of singularities on \sig. As a by-product, we point out a morphism between the diffeomorphism symmetry and holomorphic properties.Comment: LPTB 93-10, Latex file 20 page

Piloting a commercial broiler production model for smallholders in Rwanda

Increasing food security is premised on improving economic empowerment as well as nutrition across the household. As such, developmentprojects across Africa are integrating nutrition objectives into pro-poor value chain development interventions toincrease dietary diversity and incomes. To meet the micronutrient demands of a growingpopulation, Rwanda seeks to increase the production of and access to meat-basedproteins, including chicken production. Despite Rwanda’s recent rapid economic growth,there is a limited supply of and access to animal-sourced protein nationally. A hybridbroiler model, which integrates elements of smallholder and larger intensive poultrymodels, could be a sustainable approach. A model piloted in Musanze District, Rwanda.Tworore Inkoko, Twunguke (TI) (Let’s raise chickens for profit!) uses an intensive, 100-bird model with the aim of training and supporting 750 smallholder farmers through aninnovative private-sector-based train-the-trainer approach. This study examines the initial evidence from TI production data to determine (a) the performance of improved broiler breeds in a Rwandan smallholder context, (b) farmer profitability, and (c) household consumption of broilers. With 18 months of flock data, average livability of flocks was 89%, similar to large-scale, modern broiler sector averages globally. Tworore Inkoko smallholders have been profitable, with average profit increasing as they gain experience and grow-out new flocks (profit ranging between 28 and 89 USD per flock). Birds set aside for consumption by farmers ranged from an average of 0.31 to 4.00 birds per flock, settling at closer to three per flock by the end of the first 18 months. Smallholder farmers in Rwanda have the potential to be successful through this model. Lessons learned from the rollout of this pilot project will be used to inform potential scale-up of this hybrid model across Rwanda, as well as other pro-poor value chains looking to increase food security by generating incomes and increasing access to highly nutritious and balanced diets.&nbsp

The Polyakov action on the supertorus

A consistent method for obtaining a well-defined Polyakov action on the supertorus is presented. This method uses the covariantization of derivative operators and enables us to construct a Polyakov action which is globally defined.Comment: 15 pages LaTe

Improving Soil Health of Commercial Vegetable Home Gardens through Conservation Agriculture in Cambodia

Tillage systems are components of broad agricultural practices that affect soil properties and soil health. These changes include soil respiration, density, moisture, and pH. Conservation agriculture practices have the potential to improve soil health by reducing tillage. In agricultural production, there can be numerous approaches to achieving consistently high yields annually; however, this study specifically looked at conventional tillage and conservation agriculture systems. This study aimed to determine soil fauna biodiversity and soil health under conservation agriculture (CA) and conventional tillage (CT) management practices of vegetable production in Cambodia. Five CA and five CT plots were selected and included in this study. Fifty soil samples were collected from CA and CT plots for soil fauna measurement, and in-situ tests were made using Biofunctool© for soil health assessment. The results showed that the abundance of soil fauna and aggregation stability were greater in CA than in CT. Soil fauna biodiversity enhancement may provide better soil health for soil improvement by adapting farming management practices

d=2, N=2 Superconformal Symmetries and Models

We discuss the following aspects of two-dimensional N=2 supersymmetric theories defined on compact super Riemann surfaces: parametrization of (2,0) and (2,2) superconformal structures in terms of Beltrami coefficients and formulation of superconformal models on such surfaces (invariant actions, anomalies and compensating actions, Ward identities).Comment: 43 pages, late

Supersymmetric structure of the induced W gravities

We derive the supersymmetric structure present in W-gravities which has been already observed in various contexts as Yang-Mills theory, topological field theories, bosonic string and chiral W_{3}-gravity. This derivation which is made in the geometrical framework of Zucchini, necessitates the introduction of an appropriate new basis of variables which replace the canonical fields and their derivatives. This construction is used, in the W_{2}-case, to deduce from the Chern-Simons action the Wess-Zumino-Polyakov action.Comment: 17 pages, Latex. To appear in Class. Quantum. Gravit