ECONOMIC IMPACTS OF MANDATED GRADING AND TESTING TO AVOID A NEGATIVE FOOD SAFETY EVENT: EX ANTE ANALYSIS OF THE FEDERAL MARKETING ORDER FOR PISTACHIOS

The California pistachio industry led an initiative to establish a federal marketing order, which mandates quality standards and an inspection program to assure food safety and consistency in the quality of California pistachios. We develop a stochastic dynamic simulation model of the pistachio market to investigate quantitatively the likely effects of such collective action enforced by government mandates. Simulation results indicate that, across the full range of parameters used in the analysis, the benefit-cost analysis was always favorable to the proposed policy. The measured benefits to producers, the nation, or the world always well exceeded the corresponding measure of costs, typically by many times.Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety,

Industry-mandated testing to improve food safety: the new US marketing order for pistachios

Food safety shocks can threaten the health of consumers, create havoc within an industry and result in severe losses to producers. Governments often attempt to aid food safety by mandating standards and inspection of food products to supplement the efforts by private firms and industries. This article assesses a form of collective action that falls between typical government mandates and purely private action. The California pistachio industry recently established a U.S. federal marketing order, which sets quality standards and inspection to reduce the likelihood of dangerous or poor quality pistachios. Simulation results indicate that, across the full range of parameters used in the analysis, the benefit-cost analysis was always favorable to the new policy. In the case of California pistachios, collective action is likely to be a helpful tool to ensure a safe product and increase benefits to producers and consumers.food safety, food scare, collective action, marketing orders, pistachios, public good, food regulations, cost-benefit analysis, Agribusiness, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety,

Demand Enhancement through Food-Safety Regulation: Benefit-Cost Analysis of Collective Action in the California Pistachio Industry

Food safety shocks can threaten the health of consumers, create havoc within an industry and result in severe losses to producers. Governments often attempt to enhance food safety by mandating standards and inspection of food products to supplement the voluntary efforts by private firms. This paper assesses a form of collective action that falls between typical government mandates and purely private action. The California pistachio industry recently established a U.S. federal marketing order. This order sets quality standards and requires inspection and certification, aiming to reduce the likelihood of dangerous or poor quality pistachios being sold to consumers and to provide some quality assurance to consumers. Simulation results indicate that, across the full range of parameters used in the analysis, the benefit-cost analysis was always favorable to the new policy. Continuing work is extending the analysis to account for some particular features of the pistachio industry, to consider alternative policies, and to draw inferences for the application of similar policies to other California specialty crops.Food Safety, Collective Action, Specialty Crops, Government Regulation, Marketing Orders, Pistachios, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, Q18, Q13, I18, H4,

Economic Consequences of Mandated Grading and Food Safety Assurance: Ex Ante Analysis of the Federal Marketing Order for California Pistachios

Crop Production/Industries, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, Marketing,

222Rn calibrated mercury fluxes from terrestrial surfaces of southern Africa derived from observations at Cape Point, South Africa

Gaseous elemental mercury (GEM) and 222Rn, a radioactive gas of primarily terrestrial origin with a half-life of 3.8 days, have been measured simultaneously at Cape Point, South Africa, since March 2007. Between March 2007 and December 2009 altogether 59 events with high 222Rn concentrations were identified. GEM correlated with 222Rn in 41 of the events and was constant during the remaining events without significant correlation. The average GEM/222Rn emission ratio of all events was -0.0047 ± 0.0054 pg mBq-1, with ± 0.0054 being the standard error of the average. With an emission rate of 1.1 222Rn atoms cm-2 s-1 and a correction for the transport duration, this emission ratio corresponds to a radon calibrated flux of about -0.53 ± 0.62 ng m-2 h-1 which is statistically not distinguishable from zero. With wet deposition, which is not included in this estimate, the terrestrial surface of southern Africa appears to be a net mercury sink. © Owned by the authors, published by EDP Sciences, 201

222Rn-calibrated mercury fluxes from terrestrial surface of southern Africa

Gaseous elemental mercury (GEM) and 222Rn, a radioactive gas of primarily terrestrial origin with a half-life of 3.8 days, have been measured simultaneously at Cape Point, South Africa, since March 2007. Between March 2007 and December 2011, altogether 191 events with high 222Rn concentrations were identified. GEM correlated with 222Rn in 94 of the events and was constant during almost all the remaining events without significant correlation. The average GEM / 222Rn flux ratio of all events including the non-significant ones was −0.0001 with a standard error of ±0.0030 pg mBq−1. Weighted with the event duration, the average GEM / 222Rn flux ratio was −0.0048 ± 0.0011 pg mBq−1. With an emission rate of 1.1 222Rn atoms cm−2 s−1 and a correction for the transport time, this flux ratio corresponds to a radon-calibrated flux of about −0.54 ng GEM m−2 h−1 with a standard error of ±0.13 ng GEM m−2 h−1 (n = 191). With wet deposition, which is not included in this estimate, the terrestrial surface of southern Africa seems to be a net mercury sink of about −1.55 ng m−2 h−1. The additional contribution of an unknown but presumably significant deposition of reactive gaseous mercury would further increase this sink.© 2013, European Geosciences Unio

Continuous measurements of greenhouse gases and atmospheric oxygen at the Namib Desert atmospheric observatory

A new coastal background site has been established for observations of greenhouse gases (GHGs) in the central Namib Desert at Gobabeb, Namibia. The location of the site was chosen to provide observations for a data-poor region in the global sampling network for GHGs. Semi-automated continuous measurements of carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, carbon monoxide, atmospheric oxygen, and basic meteorology are made at a height of 21 m a.g.l., 50 km from the coast at the northern border of the Namib Sand Sea. Atmospheric oxygen is measured with a differential fuel cell analyzer (DFCA). Carbon dioxide and methane are measured with an early-model cavity ring-down spectrometer (CRDS); nitrous oxide and carbon monoxide are measured with an off-axis integrated cavity output spectrometer (OA-ICOS). Instrument-specific water corrections are employed for both the CRDS and OA-ICOS instruments in lieu of drying. The performance and measurement uncertainties are discussed in detail. As the station is located in a remote desert environment, there are some particular challenges, namely fine dust, high diurnal temperature variability, and minimal infrastructure. The gas handling system and calibration scheme were tailored to best fit the conditions of the site. The CRDS and DFCA provide data of acceptable quality when base requirements for operation are met, specifically adequate temperature control in the laboratory and regular supply of electricity. In the case of the OA-ICOS instrument, performance is significantly improved through the implementation of a drift correction through frequent measurements of a reference cylinder

The Hyphal-Associated Adhesin and Invasin Als3 of Candida albicans Mediates Iron Acquisition from Host Ferritin

Iron sequestration by host iron-binding proteins is an important mechanism of resistance to microbial infections. Inside oral epithelial cells, iron is stored within ferritin, and is therefore not usually accessible to pathogenic microbes. We observed that the ferritin concentration within oral epithelial cells was directly related to their susceptibility to damage by the human pathogenic fungus, Candida albicans. Thus, we hypothesized that host ferritin is used as an iron source by this organism. We found that C. albicans was able to grow on agar at physiological pH with ferritin as the sole source of iron, while the baker's yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae could not. A screen of C. albicans mutants lacking components of each of the three known iron acquisition systems revealed that only the reductive pathway is involved in iron utilization from ferritin by this fungus. Additionally, C. albicans hyphae, but not yeast cells, bound ferritin, and this binding was crucial for iron acquisition from ferritin. Transcriptional profiling of wild-type and hyphal-defective C. albicans strains suggested that the C. albicans invasin-like protein Als3 is required for ferritin binding. Hyphae of an Δals3 null mutant had a strongly reduced ability to bind ferritin and these mutant cells grew poorly on agar plates with ferritin as the sole source of iron. Heterologous expression of Als3, but not Als1 or Als5, two closely related members of the Als protein family, allowed S. cerevisiae to bind ferritin. Immunocytochemical localization of ferritin in epithelial cells infected with C. albicans showed ferritin surrounding invading hyphae of the wild-type, but not the Δals3 mutant strain. This mutant was also unable to damage epithelial cells in vitro. Therefore, C. albicans can exploit iron from ferritin via morphology dependent binding through Als3, suggesting that this single protein has multiple virulence attributes

Aircraft-based observations of air-sea fluxes over Denmark Strait and the Irminger sea during high wind speed conditions

The impact of targeted sonde observations on the 1-3 day forecasts for northern Europe is evaluated using the Met Office four-dimensional variational data assimilation scheme and a 24 km gridlength limited-area version of the Unified Model (MetUM). The targeted observations were carried out during February and March 2007 as part of the Greenland Flow Distortion Experiment, using a research aircraft based in Iceland. Sensitive area predictions using either total energy singular vectors or an ensemble transform Kalman filter were used to predict where additional observations should be made to reduce errors in the initial conditions of forecasts for northern Europe. Targeted sonde data was assimilated operationally into the MetUM. Hindcasts show that the impact of the sondes was mixed. Only two out of the five cases showed clear forecast improvement; the maximum forecast improvement seen over the verifying region was approximately 5% of the forecast error 24 hours into the forecast. These two cases are presented in more detail: in the first the improvement propagates into the verification region with a developing polar low; and in the second the improvement is associated with an upper-level trough. The impact of cycling targeted data in the background of the forecast (including the memory of previous targeted observations) is investigated. This is shown to cause a greater forecast impact, but does not necessarily lead to a greater forecast improvement. Finally, the robustness of the results is assessed using a small ensemble of forecasts