Die Entwicklungspotenziale der Ökologischen Schafhaltung in Deutschland

Ziel dieses Forschungsvorhabens ist die Identifikation von Entwicklungspotenzialen der Milch- und Fleischschafhaltung nach der EU-Öko-Verordnung (Verordnung (EWG) Nr. 2092/91) in Deutschland. Dazu wurde die aktuelle Situation der ökologischen Schafhaltung erfasst und bewertet. Mittelpunkt des Projektes bildeten deutschlandweite Befragungen von Erzeugern und Konsumenten. Die Datenerhebung auf schafhaltenden Öko-Betrieben brachte umfassende Erkenntnisse über die „Ist-Situation“ hinsichtlich praxisrelevanter Betriebsorganisationen, Produktionsverfahren und Vermarktungskonzepte, die auch eine produktionstechnische und betriebswirtschaftliche Bewertung ermöglichte. Die Befragung von Konsumenten lieferte Informationen zu Verbraucheransprüchen an Produkte aus der ökologischen Schafhaltung. Möglichkeiten einer weiteren Ausdehnung der Schafhaltung im ökologischen Landbau in Deutschland sind in drei Bereichen zu sehen: 1. Die Optimierung bereits bestehende Schafhaltungen im ökologischen Landbau 2. Die Umstellung konventioneller Schafhaltung auf ökologische Wirtschaftsweise 3. Die Aufnahme der Schafhaltung in bereits bestehende Öko-Betriebe Schwachstellen in der Erzeugung und Vermarktung von Lammfleisch und Schafmilchprodukten stehen einer weiteren Ausdehnung der ökologischen Schafhaltung im Wege. Probleme in der Erzeugung sind vorrangig im Bereich der Fütterung, der Lämmeraufzucht sowie dem Gesundheitsmanagement zu sehen. Zur Verbesserung der Situation auf den bestehenden Öko-Schafbetrieben sind weitere Forschungsarbeiten in den genannten Bereichen notwendig. Darüber hinaus ist eine nachhaltige Ausdehnung der ökologischen Schafhaltung nur möglich, wenn die Mängel in der Vermarktungsstruktur abgebaut sind. Die Umstellung konventioneller Schafhaltung auf ökologische Wirtschaftsweise wird erst interessant wenn die genannten Probleme des Sektors behoben sind. Erst dann greift der Anreiz durch die Förderprogramme bei der Entscheidung für die ökologische Wirtschaftsweise. Die Aufnahme der Schafhaltung in bereits bestehende Öko-Betriebe ist durch die vielseitigen Nutzungs- und Haltungsmöglichkeiten von Schafen relativ leicht realisierbar und hängt im Wesentlichen von der persönlichen Einstellung des Betriebsleiters ab

O discurso publicitário da felicidade: conexões com o consumo e o desenvolvimento

A felicidade se transformou em um ideal da cultura ocidental e se tornou quase um desejo obrigatório. O capitalismo construiu uma cultura da felicidade que por meio da publicidade estimula o hiperconsumo e leva à alienação, ao individualismo, e à infelicidade patológica. Partindo desse cenário, o objetivo deste trabalho é discutir nexos entre a questão da felicidade, o consumo e os atuais padrões de desenvolvimento. Tal revisão indica que a sociedade contemporânea é guiada por um imperativo felicista nutrido pela economia capitalista, da qual a publicidade é um elemento estratégico, que incentiva a demanda crescente pelo consumo.

The Electroweak Chiral Lagrangian for the Standard Model with a Heavy Higgs

The most general chiral Lagrangian for electroweak interactions with the complete set of $SU(2)_L\times U(1)_Y$ invariant operators up to dimension four is considered. The two-point and three-point functions with external gauge fields are derived from this effective chiral Lagrangian to one-loop order in a generic $R_\xi$-gauge. The same set of Green's functions are paralelly studied in the renormalizable standard model to one-loop order, in a $R_\xi$-gauge and in the large Higgs mass limit. An appropriate set of matching conditions connecting the Green's functions of the two theories allows us to derive, systematically, the values of the chiral Lagrangian coefficients corresponding to the large Higgs mass limit of the standard model. These chiral parameters represent the non-decoupling effects of a heavy Higgs particle and incorporate both the leading logarithmic dependence on \mh and the next to leading constant contributions. Some phenomenological implications are also discussed.Comment: pg.23, LaTeX, 3 figures (not included), FTUAM-93/2

b-Initiated processes at the LHC: a reappraisal

Several key processes at the LHC in the standard model and beyond that involve $b$ quarks, such as single-top, Higgs, and weak vector boson associated production, can be described in QCD either in a 4-flavor or 5-flavor scheme. In the former, $b$ quarks appear only in the final state and are typically considered massive. In 5-flavor schemes, calculations include $b$ quarks in the initial state, are simpler and allow the resummation of possibly large initial state logarithms of the type $\log \frac{{\cal Q}^2}{m_b^2}$ into the $b$ parton distribution function (PDF), ${\cal Q}$ being the typical scale of the hard process. In this work we critically reconsider the rationale for using 5-flavor improved schemes at the LHC. Our motivation stems from the observation that the effects of initial state logs are rarely very large in hadron collisions: 4-flavor computations are pertubatively well behaved and a substantial agreement between predictions in the two schemes is found. We identify two distinct reasons that explain this behaviour, i.e., the resummation of the initial state logarithms into the $b$-PDF is relevant only at large Bjorken $x$ and the possibly large ratios ${\cal Q}^2/m_b^2$'s are always accompanied by universal phase space suppression factors. Our study paves the way to using both schemes for the same process so to exploit their complementary advantages for different observables, such as employing a 5-flavor scheme to accurately predict the total cross section at NNLO and the corresponding 4-flavor computation at NLO for fully exclusive studies.Comment: Fixed typo in Eq. (A.10) and few typos in Eq. (C.2) and (C.3

A genome-wide association study identifies protein quantitative trait loci (pQTLs)

There is considerable evidence that human genetic variation influences gene expression. Genome-wide studies have revealed that mRNA levels are associated with genetic variation in or close to the gene coding for those mRNA transcripts - cis effects, and elsewhere in the genome - trans effects. The role of genetic variation in determining protein levels has not been systematically assessed. Using a genome-wide association approach we show that common genetic variation influences levels of clinically relevant proteins in human serum and plasma. We evaluated the role of 496,032 polymorphisms on levels of 42 proteins measured in 1200 fasting individuals from the population based InCHIANTI study. Proteins included insulin, several interleukins, adipokines, chemokines, and liver function markers that are implicated in many common diseases including metabolic, inflammatory, and infectious conditions. We identified eight Cis effects, including variants in or near the IL6R (p = 1.8×10 -57), CCL4L1 (p = 3.9×10-21), IL18 (p = 6.8×10-13), LPA (p = 4.4×10-10), GGT1 (p = 1.5×10-7), SHBG (p = 3.1×10-7), CRP (p = 6.4×10-6) and IL1RN (p = 7.3×10-6) genes, all associated with their respective protein products with effect sizes ranging from 0.19 to 0.69 standard deviations per allele. Mechanisms implicated include altered rates of cleavage of bound to unbound soluble receptor (IL6R), altered secretion rates of different sized proteins (LPA), variation in gene copy number (CCL4L1) and altered transcription (GGT1). We identified one novel trans effect that was an association between ABO blood group and tumour necrosis factor alpha (TNF-alpha) levels (p = 6.8×10-40), but this finding was not present when TNF-alpha was measured using a different assay , or in a second study, suggesting an assay-specific association. Our results show that protein levels share some of the features of the genetics of gene expression. These include the presence of strong genetic effects in cis locations. The identification of protein quantitative trait loci (pQTLs) may be a powerful complementary method of improving our understanding of disease pathways. © 2008 Melzer et al