The Single Market Project as a Response to Globalisation:The Role of the Round Table of European Industrialists and other non-state Actors in launching the European Union's Internal Market (1983-1992)

When globalization hit Europe from the early 1980s onwards, it first and foremost took the shape of sharply increased East-Asian and American competition. The two sectors to be hit hardest were the automobile industry and consumer electronics. Pehr G. Gyllenhammar of Swedish car maker Volvo and Wisse Dekker of the Dutch electronics giant Philips, joined forces for the sake of a rescue operation for their beleaguered companies. By founding the Round Table of European Industrialists (RTE), they launched the first pan-European non-governmental driving force for the sake of overcoming the continent’s economic fragmentation. True, since the Summer of 1968, the economies of the member-states of the European Economic Community (EEC) were formally united in the EEC’s Customs Union. A plethora of Non-Tariff Barriers to trade (NTBs), however, had made free cross border trade in Europe a farce. The success of RTE’s campaign for the establishment of the EU internal market was the result of its effective cooperation with other NGOs, notably the Action Committee for Europe (ACE), comprising senior men of state, and with the Kangaroo group, uniting members of the European Parliament, as well as the ascendance of a new European Commission under the presidency of Jacques Delors. By establishing a pro-Single Market network of networks, RTE and its coalition allies managed to set the agenda, in convincingly proposing policy options for overcoming market fragmentation and promoting arguments for institutional change in a way that would steer Europe’s national preferences formation and intergovernmental discourse towards making the Single Market its first and foremost priority. <br/

Dutch Dairies Reward Grazing

Changing societal drivers and consumer demands require systems that provide desired human foods produced through sustainable production systems. The aim was to show effects of grazing system on milk fatty acid (FA) composition in Dutch farming practice and to analyse current developments in grassland utilization and dairy payments. Milk conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) concentration was a function of hours cows spent at pasture, both at a regional and at a farm scale. Despite beneficial effects of fresh herbage in the dairy production chain on unsaturated FA in milk, the trend in The Netherlands is that cows are more indoors and consume less fresh grass. Action groups have triggered the public debate, mainly from the viewpoint of animal welfare. This has provoked much discussion and raised concern in the public opinion and in politics. Sentiments and marketing rather than scientific evidence dictated the political agenda. In 2011, retailers replaced their private label dairy products with certified products based on milk from farms where cows have access to pasture. The major Dutch dairy company changed its policy in favour of promoting grazing, mainly to preserve the natural image and for providing dairy farmers a societal license to produce. Farmers who graze cows get a premium of €0.50/100 kg milk since 2012

Evaluation Of Balanced Mix Design Gyrations (Ndesign) For North Dakota\u27s Lower Class HMA Pavement

The number of Superpave mix design of gyrations (Ndesign) has been adopted by North Dakota Department of Transportation (NDDOT) to produce mixes of same density representing the field conditions for a specified amount of traffic. As Superpave mix design was developed for high volume roads, various research suggests that there is a need to develop a new mix design criterion for medium and low volume traffic. For low volume roads durability performance is generally affected by the environment and not the traffic volume. Some researchers notice that the Ndesign of 75 gyrations for a 20-year traffic loading (in millions of ESALs) between that 0.3 and 3 are too high and needs to be reduced. High Ndesign numbers tend to lower the asphalt binder, thus lower the durability of asphalt mix. In contrast, if Ndesign is reduced it tends to increase the asphalt binder, thus increase the durability of asphalt mix. The main objective of this study is to determine the effect of varying number of design gyrations on hot mix asphalt (HMA) performances in terms of low-temperature cracking (LTC), fatigue cracking (FC), and rutting distresses. Project mixes that were chosen were constructed based on Ndesign values of 75, 65, and 55 or 50 gyrations. Test results showed that the higher number of gyrations with less asphalt the lower fatigue cracking and lower low-temperature cracking resistance. In contrast, the mixes with lower number of gyrations with higher asphalt contents showed higher resistance to cracking. Also, results showed that PG 58H-28 had slightly better fracture energies than PG 58H-34. Lastly, lab mixes had better fracture energies as compared to field mixes