The Formation of „Eco-regions“ in Austria and the Role of the Structural Fund

The concept of “Eco-regions” (or “Bioregionen” in German) entered the discussion on rural development in Austria several years ago. Broadly, this expression means the combination of sustainable farming in particular organic farming practices, and the marketing of their produce with the aim of assisting regional development. As we shall see, this concept can take various forms of expression. It can be restricted to the agricultural sector or extended to a general regional strategy. The common feature is a territorial form of cohesion under the umbrella of organic farming. The very idea comes from two directions: the organic movement on one hand and regional development on the other

Eco-Regions: How to link organic farming with territorial development

Organic farming in Austria has seen a rapid development as all over Europe. In some alpine regions over 50% of the farms have converted to organic. Thus the idea of forming “Eco-Regions” (“Bioregionen” in German), transforming organic farming values from a farm level to a regional scale, emerged. The paper presents the results of an action research based project to develop a model for the formation of Eco-Regions and to monitor the success in cross-sectoral networking. Besides a number of prerequisites also bottlenecks for the formation become apparent. The paper describes the model and the implementation in two distinct regions

„Ökologische Modernisierung“ durch Biologischen Landbau in Österreich?

Organic farming is finding increasingly widespread acceptance. The paper tries to examine whether the growth of organic farming is also connected with a transformation of economy and society under the heading of “ecological modernisation”. We use the example of Austria which is the EU-country with the highest percentage of organic farm area. The results of a survey undertaken in the frame of the EU-Project „Further Development of Organic Farming Policy in Europe, with Particular Emphasis on EU Enlargement“, EU-CEE-OFP are interpreted along the grid of ecological modernisation (GIBBS, 2000). The analysis suggests that the impact of organic farming was so far moderate and only towards a weak form. However there is a certain future potential in the combination of organic with regional development

Bauer,Power, Bioregion: Das Potenzial des Biologischen Landbaues für die ländliche Regionalentwicklung in Österreich

Die Dissertation gliedert sich in drei Teile: - Der erste Teil beschäftigt sich mit dem theoretischen und methodischen Zugang zum Thema und seinem inhaltlichen Hintergrund. Die theoretischen Zugänge beinhalten sowohl die Theorie der Neoendogenen Entwicklung wie auch die Sozialkapitaltheorie und die Actor-Network Theorie. Methodisch wurde die Fallstudie mit den Instrumenten: Interview, Inhaltsanalyse schriftlicher Dokumente und teilnehmende Beobachtung gewählt. - Der zweite Teil widmet sich der Darstellung und Analyse der empirischen Erhebungen. Dabei erfolgte die Annäherung an die Fragestellung in drei Schritten: • Zunächst wurde versucht, die unterschiedlichen Ausprägungen und Verwendungen des Begriffes „Bioregion“ an Hand eines gesamtösterreichischen Surveys darzustellen und in einer Typologie zu klassifizieren. • Über vergleichende Fallstudien in drei verschiedenen Regionen wurden die Bedingungen zum Entstehen der Idee einer Bioregion und ihrer Ausbreitung beleuchtet. • Schließlich wurden der dabei tatsächlich ablaufende Prozess und seine Rückwirkung auf die beteiligten Bauern in zwei konkreten Bioregionsprojekten analysiert. - Der dritte Teil der Arbeit zieht die Schlussfolgerungen daraus. Neben den Antworten auf die gestellten Forschungsfragen sowie daraus abgeleitete Konsequenzen, standen dabei die Aspekte der Theoriebildung und handlungsorientierte Empfehlungen auf verschiedenen Ebenen im Mittelpunkt. Die Analyse zeigt, dass die Entstehung von Bioregionen wohl meist von ökonomischen Interessenslagen ausgeht, aber der Prozess nicht rein von ökonomischen Bedingungen determiniert ist. Wesentliche Determinanten liegen in den sozialen Werthaltungen, Prozessen und Strukturen. Dabei treffen die Werthaltungen des Biologischen Landbaues mit jenen der konventionellen Landwirtschaft zusammen. Die Biobewegung läuft dabei Gefahr, sich entweder den globalen Entwicklungen zu widersetzen und marginalisiert zu werden oder sich diesen Strömungen zu öffnen und instrumentalisiert zu werden. War ursprünglich die zentrale Frage der Untersuchung darauf ausgerichtet, ob das Konzept der Bioregion dem einzelnen Bauern ermöglicht sich wieder aktiver in die Entwicklung seiner Region einzubringen, so hat sich im Laufe der Arbeit gezeigt, dass es viel mehr um die Stellung der Biobewegung insgesamt geht. Die Entwicklung der Biobewegung zwischen Marginalisierung und Instrumentalisierung ähnelt der Irrfahrt des Odysseus zwischen dem Meerungeheuer Scylla und dem Strudel der Charybdis. Das Konzept der Bioregion hat ein wesentliches Potenzial eine Navigationshilfe zu geben, um zwischen den beiden Gefahren durchzusteuern. Gerade das Konzept der Bioregion, das auch nichtlandwirtschaftliche Interessen einzuschließen vermag, kann damit beitragen, dass die Landwirtschaft aus der Isolationsgefahr der „Subkultur“ herausfindet und eine engere Verbindung mit den Wertsystemen der Gesellschaft in der Region herstellt. Es können auch neue Allianzen mit nichtlandwirtschaftlichen Interessensgruppen gefunden werden. Damit besteht die Möglichkeit Verbündete gegen die Instrumentalisierung durch Institutionen und Marktstrukturen zu finden. Wenn es also der Biobewegung gelingt, ihre Werthaltungen aktiv über Bioregionen zu transportieren, dann kann sie innovativ für die gesamtgesellschaftliche Entwicklung sein und ihre Werthaltungen auf die gesamte regionale Landwirtschaft, ja darüber hinaus auf die regionale Kultur übertragen. Die daraus abgeleitete zentrale These lautet: Bioregionen haben ein Potenzial die zentralen Werte des Biologischen Landbaues, zu erhalten und auf einer territorialen Ebene umzusetzen, um sie für eine nachhaltige Entwicklung der gesamten Gesellschaft zu nützen

Development and validation of a model to predict the 10-year risk of general practitioner-recorded COPD

There is increasing interest in the earlier detection of, and intervention in, patients at highest risk of developing chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).status: publishe

The human keratins: biology and pathology

The keratins are the typical intermediate filament proteins of epithelia, showing an outstanding degree of molecular diversity. Heteropolymeric filaments are formed by pairing of type I and type II molecules. In humans 54 functional keratin genes exist. They are expressed in highly specific patterns related to the epithelial type and stage of cellular differentiation. About half of all keratins—including numerous keratins characterized only recently—are restricted to the various compartments of hair follicles. As part of the epithelial cytoskeleton, keratins are important for the mechanical stability and integrity of epithelial cells and tissues. Moreover, some keratins also have regulatory functions and are involved in intracellular signaling pathways, e.g. protection from stress, wound healing, and apoptosis. Applying the new consensus nomenclature, this article summarizes, for all human keratins, their cell type and tissue distribution and their functional significance in relation to transgenic mouse models and human hereditary keratin diseases. Furthermore, since keratins also exhibit characteristic expression patterns in human tumors, several of them (notably K5, K7, K8/K18, K19, and K20) have great importance in immunohistochemical tumor diagnosis of carcinomas, in particular of unclear metastases and in precise classification and subtyping. Future research might open further fields of clinical application for this remarkable protein family

Comparison of two related lines of tauGFP transgenic mice designed for lineage tracing

Abstract Background The tauGFP reporter fusion protein is produced nearly ubiquitously by the TgTP6.3 transgene in TP6.3 mice and its localisation to microtubules offers some advantages over soluble GFP as a lineage marker. However, TgTP6.3 Tg/Tg homozygotes are not viable and TgTP6.3 Tg/− hemizygotes are smaller than wild-type. TP6.4 mice carry the TgTP6.4 transgene, which was produced with the same construct used to generate TgTP6.3, so we investigated whether TgTP6.4 had any advantages over TgTP6.3. Results Although TgTP6.4 Tg/Tg homozygotes died before weaning, TgTP6.4 Tg/− hemizygotes were viable and fertile and only males were significantly lighter than wild-type. The TgTP6.4 transgene produced the tauGFP fusion protein by the 2-cell stage and it was widely expressed in adults but tauGFP fluorescence was weak or absent in several tissues, including some neural tissues. The TgTP6.4 transgene expression pattern changed over several years of breeding and mosaic transgene expression became increasingly common in all expressing tissues. This mosaicism was used to visualise clonal lineages in the adrenal cortex of TgTP6.4 Tg/− hemizygotes and these were qualitatively and quantitatively comparable to lineages reported previously for other mosaic transgenic mice, X-inactivation mosaics and chimaeras. Mosaicism occurred less frequently in TP6.3 than TP6.4 mice and was only observed in the corneal epithelium and adrenal cortex. Conclusions Mosaic expression makes the TgTP6.4 transgene unsuitable for use as a conventional cell lineage marker but such mosaicism provides a useful system for visualising clonal lineages that arise during development or maintenance of adult tissues. Differences in the occurrence of mosaicism between related transgenic lines, such as that described for lines TP6.3 and TP6.4, might provide a useful system for investigating the mechanism of transgene silencing

Ecophysiology and phylogeny of new terricolous and epiphytic chlorolichens in a fog oasis of the Atacama Desert

The Atacama Desert is one of the driest and probably oldest deserts on Earth where only a few extremophile organisms are able to survive. This study investigated two terricolous and two epiphytic lichens from the fog oasis “Las Lomitas” within the National Park Pan de Azúcar which represents a refugium for a few vascular desert plants and many lichens that can thrive on fog and dew alone. Ecophysiological measurements and climate records were combined with molecular data of the mycobiont, their green algal photobionts and lichenicolous fungi to gain information about the ecology of lichens within the fog oasis. Phylogenetic and morphological investigations led to the identification and description of the new lichen species Acarospora conafii sp. nov. as well as the lichenicolous fungi that accompanied them and revealed the trebouxioid character of all lichen photobionts. Their photosynthetic responses were compared during natural scenarios such as reactivation by high air humidity and in situ fog events to elucidate the activation strategies of this lichen community. Epiphytic lichens showed photosynthetic activity that was rapidly induced by fog and high relative air humidity whereas terricolous lichens were only activated by fog