Effects of a EU Investment Subsidization Scheme on the Hungarian Agri-Food Sector

The change of the political Hungarian regime in 1990 affected deeply the economy of the country. This change made effects in each national branch, thus in the agriculture, as well. A lot of new companies dealing with agricultural production and trading has also been established in these years. Since the early '90s a lot of EU support programmes were available targeting these enterprises and providing them to strengthen their competitiveness. One of these programmes was the PHARE IPP Project for the subsidisation of the agricultural investments (between 1996-1998). The University of Debrecen was involved in the implementation, monitoring and assessment process of this project. Based on the results and suggestions of the university, new supporting elements have been built into the subsidisation programme of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development in the recent years, further enhancing the position of Hungarian farms before joining to the EU.EU subsidisation, agriculture, investment, effectiveness, Hungary, food sector, Agricultural and Food Policy,

Strategic bidding in a primary reserve auction

Electricity grids are subject to a constant change of demand. If a power line is overloaded, the demand is rerouted to another line, which is then also likely to overload due to the sudden spike in voltage. Due to this cascading effect a grid-wide blackout is not at all improbable; one occurred in Italy in 2003. The costs of such a blackout are immense in today’s modern society. Transport and telecommunication systems have such a high power demand that a backup power generator system would come at a very high cost. To solve this, Germany requires the electricity grid operators to have Primary Reserve Capacity on standby..

Evaluation of consumers' honey purchase habits in Hungary

The objective of the study is to develop a strategy for Hungarian honey sales based on the consumers’ purchase habits. Altogether 902 people were asked randomly by questionnaire. Data collection was carried out personally in hypermarkets as well as fruit and vegetable markets (in Debrecen, Nyíregyháza, Szolnok). Altogether 821 questionnaires were evaluated. Cross tables were created according to sex, age, qualification and income. Data coherences were analysed through Pearson Chi2 statistical method. Main findings are as follows: · There are many different types of honey produced in Hungary, but people don’t know too much about them, they consume only a few of them. · Mainly the so-called traditional acacia and flower honey are consumed. · Analysing the variables we didn’t find significant differences in the different groups; most important criteria when purchasing honey are quality, price, type of honey and quality of packaging. · Older people take into consideration mainly the price, name of the producer and size of packaging. · Most of consumers purchase honey only a few times per year, or monthly and mainly in hypermarkets or directly from the producer.Healthy lifestyle, honey purchasing, nutrimarketing, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, Marketing,

Resonant backward scattering of light by a two-side-open subwavelength metallic slit

The backward scattering of TM-polarized light by a two-side-open subwavelength slit in a metal film is analyzed. We show that the reflection coefficient versus wavelength possesses a Fabry-Perot-like dependence that is similar to the anomalous behavior of transmission reported in the study [Y. Takakura, Phys. Rev. Lett. \textbf{86}, 5601 (2001)]. The open slit totally reflects the light at the near-to-resonance wavelengths. In addition, we show that the interference of incident and resonantly backward-scattered light produces in the near-field diffraction zone a spatially localized wave whose intensity is 10-10$^3$ times greater than the incident wave, but one order of magnitude smaller than the intra-cavity intensity. The amplitude and phase of the resonant wave at the slit entrance and exit are different from that of a Fabry-Perot cavity.Comment: 5 figure

Determining ‘Age at Death’ for Forensic Purposes using Human Bone by a Laboratory-based Analytical Method

Determination of age-at-death (AAD) is an important and frequent requirement in contemporary forensic science and in the reconstruction of past populations and societies from their remains. Its estimation is relatively straightforward and accurate (±3 years) for immature skeletons by using morphological features and reference tables within the context of forensic anthropology. However, after skeletal maturity (>35 yrs) estimates become inaccurate, particularly in the legal context. In line with the general migration of all the forensic sciences from reliance upon empirical criteria to those which are more evidence-based, AAD determination should rely more-and-more upon more quantitative methods. We explore here whether well-known changes in the biomechanical properties of bone and the properties of bone matrix, which have been seen to change with age even after skeletal maturity in a traceable manner, can be used to provide a reliable estimate of AAD. This method charts a combination of physical characteristics some of which are measured at a macroscopic level (wet & dry apparent density, porosity, organic/mineral/water fractions, collagen thermal degradation properties, ash content) and others at the microscopic level (Ca/P ratios, osteonal and matrix microhardness, image analysis of sections). This method produced successful age estimates on a cohort of 12 donors of age 53–85 yr (7 male, 5 female), where the age of the individual could be approximated within less than ±1 yr. This represents a vastly improved level of accuracy than currently extant age estimation techniques. It also presents: (1) a greater level of reliability and objectivity as the results are not dependent on the experience and expertise of the observer, as is so often the case in forensic skeletal age estimation methods; (2) it is purely laboratory-based analytical technique which can be carried out by someone with technical skills and not the specialised forensic anthropology experience; (3) it can be applied worldwide following stringent laboratory protocols. As such, this technique contributes significantly to improving age estimation and therefore identification methods for forensic and other purposes

Near-field diffraction of fs and sub-fs pulses: super-resolutions of NSOM in space and time

The near-field diffraction of fs and sub-fs light pulses by nm-size slit-type apertures and its implication for near-field scanning optical microscopy (NSOM) is analyzed. The amplitude distributions of the diffracted wave-packets having the central wavelengths in the visible spectral region are found by using the Neerhoff and Mur coupled integral equations, which are solved numerically for each Fourier's component of the wave-packet. In the case of fs pulses, the duration and transverse dimensions of the diffracted pulse remain practically the same as that of the input pulse. This demonstrates feasibility of the NSOM in which a fs pulse is used to provide the fs temporal resolution together with nm-scale spatial resolution. In the sub-fs domain, the Fourier spectrum of the transmitted pulse experiences a considerable narrowing that leads to the increase of the pulse duration in a few times. This imposes a limit on the simultaneous resolutions in time and space.Comment: 5 figure

A survey of assistive technologies and applications for blind users on mobile platforms: a review and foundation for research

This paper summarizes recent developments in audio and tactile feedback based assistive technologies targeting the blind community. Current technology allows applications to be efficiently distributed and run on mobile and handheld devices, even in cases where computational requirements are significant. As a result, electronic travel aids, navigational assistance modules, text-to-speech applications, as well as virtual audio displays which combine audio with haptic channels are becoming integrated into standard mobile devices. This trend, combined with the appearance of increasingly user- friendly interfaces and modes of interaction has opened a variety of new perspectives for the rehabilitation and training of users with visual impairments. The goal of this paper is to provide an overview of these developments based on recent advances in basic research and application development. Using this overview as a foundation, an agenda is outlined for future research in mobile interaction design with respect to users with special needs, as well as ultimately in relation to sensor-bridging applications in genera

Teknophagy and Tragicomedy: The Mythic Burlesques of Tereus and Thyestes

Teknophagy (τεκνοϕαγία), or child-eating, is an apt subject for tragedy. It introduces the theme of miasma, it escalates violence and epitomises the destructive family feuds that Aristotle prized as the most suitable stories for tragedy. Therefore, unsurprisingly, the teknophagies of Thyestes and Tereus were dramatised in three fifth-century tragedies, all of them preserved only in fragments: Euripides’ Thyestes, Sophokles’ Thyestes (Β) and Sophokles’ Tereus. What is surprising is the appearance of plays by the same titles in the comic tradition, including Tereus plays by Kantharos (C5 BC), Anaxandrides (C4 BC) and Philetairos (C4 BC) along with Diokles’ Thyestes (Β) (late C5 BC to early C4 BC). Therefore, this study will first consider how Tereus’ teknophagy was adapted to mythical burlesques, to then consider how comic adaptations of Thyestes’ teknophagy influenced Seneca's Thyestes

Registration and Analysis of Developmental Image Sequences

Mapping images into the same anatomical coordinate system via image registration is a fundamental step when studying physiological processes, such as brain development. Standard registration methods are applicable when biological structures are mapped to the same anatomy and their appearance remains constant across the images or changes spatially uniformly. However, image sequences of animal or human development often do not follow these assumptions, and thus standard registration methods are unsuited for their analysis. In response, this dissertation tackles the problems of i) registering developmental image sequences with spatially non-uniform appearance change and ii) reconstructing a coherent 3D volume from serially sectioned images with non-matching anatomies between the sections. There are three major contributions presented in this dissertation. First, I develop a similarity metric that incorporates a time-dependent appearance model into the registration framework. The proposed metric allows for longitudinal image registration in the presence of spatially non-uniform appearance change over time—a common medical imaging problem for longitudinal magnetic resonance images of the neonatal brain. Next, a method is introduced for registering longitudinal developmental datasets with missing time points using an appearance atlas built from a population. The proposed method is applied to a longitudinal study of young macaque monkeys with incomplete image sequences. The final contribution is a template-free registration method to reconstruct images of serially sectioned biological samples into a coherent 3D volume. The method is applied to confocal fluorescence microscopy images of serially sectioned embryonic mouse brains.Doctor of Philosoph