Financial Perspective of EU Agro-Business

This paper intention is to identify descriptive financial patterns associated with the different sectors and countries, which could transition into a model to facilitate the financial analysis of the Agribusiness sector. Only two sectors are going to be considered, primary producers, like farmers, and secondary producers ike the agro-food industry.Which selection will be based on Eurostat NACE classification, focusing on the small and middle small enterprises

Non relativistic quantum field theory: Dynamics and irreversibility

studiamos aspectos de Teoría Cuántica de Campos a densidad finita usando técnicas y conceptos de información cuántica. Nos enfocamos en fermiones de Dirac masivos con potencial químico en 1+1 dimensiones espacio-temporales. Usando la entropía de entrelazamiento en un intervalo, construimos la función c entrópica que es finita. Esta función c no es monótona, e incorpora el entrelazamiento de largo alcance proveniente de la superficie de Fermi. Motivados por trabajos previos de modelos en la red, calculamos numéricamente las entropías de Renyi y encontramos oscilaciones de Friedel. Seguidamente, analizamos la información mutua como una medida de correlación entre diferentes regiones. Usando una expansión de distancia grande desarrollada por Cardy, argumentamos que la información mutua detecta las correlaciones inducidas por la superficie de Fermi todavía al orden dominante en la expansión. Finalmente, analizamos la entropía relativa y sus generalizaciones de Renyi para distinguir estados con diferente carga. Encontramos que estados en diferentes sectores de superselección dan origen a un comportamiento super-extensivo en la entropía relativa

Predictive value of apoptosis, proliferation, HER-2, and topoisomerase IIalpha for anthracycline chemotherapy in locally advanced breast cancer

Purpose. Laboratory evidence indicates that tumor growth depends on the balance between cell proliferation and cell death, and many anticancer agents may exert their therapeutic effect by decreasing proliferation and increasing apoptosis. Additionally, clinical observations indicate that overexpression of HER-2 or topoisomerase II alpha ( topo II alpha) may be predictors of better response to anthracyclines in breast cancer. The objective of this study was to determine if proliferation ( Ki-67), apoptosis ( TUNEL), and expression of HER-2 and topo II alpha are affected by anthracycline treatment, and if these molecular markers predict anthracycline responsiveness. Experimental design. Thirty-three women with primary breast tumors >= 3 cm received either doxorubicin ( 75 mg/ m(2)) or epirubicin ( 120 mg/ m(2)) for 4 cycles before surgery. Clinical response was evaluated after 4 cycles of treatment. Changes in molecular markers were assessed from core needle biopsy taken before treatment (D0), at 24 - 48 h (Dl) and on day 7 (D7) while on treatment, and from the surgical specimen excised on day 84 (D84) after the fourth cycle of chemotherapy. Results. The overall clinical response rate was 51% (17 of 33 patients), with a 12% complete clinical response rate ( 4 of 33 patients). There were trends for tumors with higher apoptosis and topo IIa at baseline ( D0) to be more responsive to anthracyclines, p = 0.1 and p = 0.08, respectively. Median apoptosis increased from D0 to Dl ( p = 0.06) while median Ki-67 decreased ( p = 0.07). Overall, expression of HER-2 remained stable throughout the chemotherapy administration. By Day 84, topo II alpha had significantly decreased from baseline in responders, while it increased in non-responders, p = 0.03. Conclusions. In human primary breast cancer, anthracycline treatment causes an early increase in apoptosis and a decrease in proliferation. In this pilot study, higher apoptosis and topo II alpha a levels in primary tumors were associated with greater responsiveness to anthracyclines, and topo II alpha levels declined in responsive tumors

DEIMOS: A beamline dedicated to dichroism measurements in the 350-2500 eV energy range:

The DEIMOS (Dichroism Experimental Installation for Magneto-Optical Spectroscopy) beamline was part of the second phase of the beamline development at French Synchrotron SOLEIL (Source Optimisee de Lumiere a Energie Intermediaire du LURE) and opened to users in March 2011. It delivers polarized soft x-rays to perform x-ray absorption spectroscopy, x-ray magnetic circular dichroism, and x-ray linear dichroism in the energy range 350-2500 eV. The beamline has been optimized for stability and reproducibility in terms of photon flux and photon energy. The main end-station consists in a cryo-magnet with 2 split coils providing a 7 T magnetic field along the beam or 2 T perpendicular to the beam with a controllable temperature on the sample from 370 K down to 1.5 K. (C) 2014 AIP Publishing LLC

Fertility and population change in the United Kingdom

As in most wealthy countries, the United Kingdom (UK) population is aging and is set to continue to age for the next several decades. Recent and projected rates of change in the share of the elderly population are slow, however, compared to most other European Union (EU)-27 countries. Although since 1998 net migration has played some role, the UK’s relatively benign demographic profile has much to do with its relatively high fertility rates. Population issues, low fertility in particular, are not considered to be a major policy concern or an appropriate target for government intervention. A combination of moderately high fertility and high female employment has (at least historically) been achieved without implementing the kinds of work-family reconciliation policies that are credited with sustaining fertility elsewhere in Europe. A laissez-faire approach to the economy and residual approach to welfare may well have sustained UK fertility levels by facilitating childbearing in more socio-economically disadvantaged families. Recent, path-deviant, work-family reconciliation policies have been adopted, but the wider institutional context has moderated their potential to reduce the costs of childbearing

Framework for Food Security Analysis at national Level

The purpose of this work is to face the fresh food security function in the developing nations. It is not an easy task; on the other, it is a very important feature on people's welfare, nations' development and social stability at a national level. The methodology applied will be the Porter's Diamond. The ensemble of resources, either physical infrastructures or capable companies or adequate regulations, to support the implementation of efficient and functional food security networks in many countries, frequently is provided without analysis of the population demand profile and resources available, normally importing other country model. Given the importance of food security to provide the correct amount of food to the different populations in a country, a framework for analyzing the competitive balance of the factors involved and the different models under consideration has been selected. Michael Porter described the Diamond in 1990 in his seminal work "The competitive advantage of Nations". It considers different national factors that interact to produce the competitive advantage, such as home demand conditions, related support industries, factor conditions, companies` strategy and rivalry and Government regulation. With the Diamond the profile of the different factors are analyzed according to priority and importance. The resulting model allows detecting weaknesses and strengths considering the principal actors that build a food security network. Also it is possible to represent graphically the points of analysis, which allows to explore together different models of food security networks. The food supply it is a vital factor in every country for the population survival. The fresh food production, mainly fruits and vegetables, meat and fish, needs a net work of markets, at wholesale and retail level in order to distribute that fresh food from the farms where is produced to the final consumer, mainly located in the big cities (farm-to-fork). The whole activities related to bring food and supply to the final consumers is denominated "food security". There is another concept associated to the food security which is called "food safety". In some extend both are related, but different. The food safety concept means that the food must be "safe" for human consumption (innocuous). This simple difference (security-safety) has created some confusion in some countries. Food security guarantees the quantity of food supplied to people. Food safety guarantees the quality of food from human health perspective. Food security it is much more important in the poor than in the affluent countries or its regions. In countries with less than 1000 US$ per capita, the amount of money expended on food it is around 40% of the average income. In that case, a change in agricultural costs or on food prices has tremendous influence in the whole society. Many countries have developed a National Plan for food security in order to create markets network. This network operates as a group of engines pumping food from origin to destination. Thanks to this organization has been possible to correct many deficiencies in the population's food supply. The wholesale markets either in food origin area or in destination are not easy to establish. They need many important aspects to be evaluated before start the wholesale market design. The influence area determination; the right dimension of the premises; the type of buildings and pavilions; the protection of the market; the wholesalers transference; the users' relationships; the working rules; tariffs; timetables; gathering and distribution of the daily commercial information; connections with other markets; and a very long etcetera. All that set of aspects varies from country to country. Not all the societies or human groups have the same choices and behaviors. The final design must be adapted to every particular country. The income level; consumption habits, feminine work outside home; industrial development; classification and grading; etc. must be taken into account in order to tailor the market to the society cultural values. The results will be agricultural promotion and development of food distribution efficiency; income distribution among farmers and rural population; better population nourishment; food industry development; commerce and services increasing; food exports boosted; and general improvement of the national welfare for any country undertaken this economical and global activities

Preliminary Analysis of Development Programs Performance

The regional development programs promoted by the national governments and international multilateral agencies, like the World Bank and the Inter American Development Bank, are oriented to public policies under which public goods, like public services and infrastructures, are supplied to underdeveloped regions, many in Latin America. More a more evidences are pointing to the fact that success of these programs depends in a good part of externalities, which are related to the changes in the form of networking and values among the stakeholders in the territory. These externalities are defined as the Social Capital. As externalities, they are not directly evaluated in the projects economic and social impact, but accepted to exist and the planners of the projects do acknowledge the importance of social networking, although never assessed. Several approaches have been proposed for the assessment of the Social Capital. For managing development projects, the Woolcock approach is considered one of the more interesting. The objective of the research project described in this paper is to measure up front the social capital of a given regional development project, from the project plans before implementation, and to compare the social capital results with those of the benefits according to the drafted project framework agreed upon the multilateral agencies and the region authorities. The regional program selected is the "Programa de Desenvolvimiento da Zona da Mata" (PROMATA) in the State of Pernanbuco Brazil, under the sponsor of the Inter American Development Bank. The project was designed to induce development in which community resources were to be mobilized, with the intention of getting the stakeholders involved as proponents and protagonists of social change in their territories. That social based bottom-up framework was a very interesting opportunity to observe the social capital component given the profile of the project. The research was carried out with the project just finished, which provided the background to compare the up-front analysis with the changes in the social network and values observed. The drafted project plans, including all programs and actions to be implemented, and the preliminar budget, are evaluated using a modified Regnier Abacus by a panel of experts in International Development Projects adapted to reflect the Social Capital model based on Woolcock attributes. The results were processed using Correspondence Analysis and Bayes Model to produce the indexes associated with Woolcock attributes reflected in the decision matrices used to represent the Social Capital status

The origins and essence of US social policy: on taxonomies, time and transfers

Our understanding of US social policy has not been advanced by the classification of welfare states that has dominated social policy analysis in recent years. But in biology and cosmology we can find useful examples of the way in which we can develop more theoretically informed and dynamic classifications. A common feature has been the incorporation of time and developmental paths into classification. The way in which social and political developments unfold over time is particularly important in social policy and, in the case of the USA, this has enabled us to understand that social policies can and have changed, with a rich mix of progressive and regressive policies evolving and receding over the decades. In view of the dominance of the USA in world affairs and the global transfer of resources, ideas and polices across regions, this more subtle analysis of the nature of US social policy is essential