Incorporation of conventional animal welfare assessment techniques into organic certification and farming

Providing assurances to consumers on the adherence to certain animal welfare-related standards is an important element of organic and farm assurance schemes. This project has ensured that preliminary welfare assessment protocols developed in a conventional farm assurance system (RSPCA Freedom Food scheme) are available for incorporation into organic (& conventional) certification schemes. The final system (available at www.vetschool.bris.ac.uk/animalwelfare) is an assessment tool that can provide credible (repeatable, valid & feasible) evidence for assessment of compliance with welfare standards in organic and conventional farming systems. For issues identified as causing potential concern the assessor is encouraged to conduct further investigations. This promotes a consistent thorough assessment of relevant resource standards, and where appropriate, management requirements concerning appropriate preventive and corrective action that should be contained within written health plans. Furthermore the assessment tool should enable certification bodies and relevant third parties to monitor the ability of schemes to deliver good welfare outcomes, which is useful for policymakers and consumers wishing to assess the welfare assurance associated with membership of a scheme. Finally it should provide a mechanism for assessing the farm’s own management of health and welfare parameters with their health planning systems which is now a requirement or recommendation of many welfare standards. This should enable farms to both identify their own strengths and weaknesses with respect to welfare and then to monitor any improvements resulting from husbandry changes. This is important as many of the welfare observations also have a significant influence on a farm’s profitability

Have US-Funded CARSI Programs Reduced Crime and Violence in Central America? An Examination of LAPOP'S Impact Assessment of US Violence Prevention Programs in Central America

In October 2014, the Latin American Public Opinion Project (LAPOP) at Vanderbilt University published an impact assessment study of community-based violence prevention programs that have been implemented under the umbrella of the US State Department's Central American Regional Security Initiative (CARSI). The study looked at survey data measuring public perceptions of crime in 127 treatment and control neighborhoods in municipalities in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Panama where the violence prevention programs have been implemented. The study's authors stated that the data shows that "in several key respects the programs have been a success" and note, for instance, that 51 percent fewer residents of "treated" communities reported being aware of murders and extortion incidents during the previous 12 months, and 19 percent fewer residents reported having heard about robberies having occurred.As the LAPOP study is, to date, the only publicly accessible impact assessment of programs carried out under CARSI -- a notoriously opaque regional assistance scheme that has received hundreds of millions of dollars of US government funding -- a thorough review of the LAPOP study data seemed appropriate.The following report examines the data collected during the LAPOP study and subjects them to a number of statistical tests. The authors find that the study cannot support the conclusion that the areas subject to treatment in the CARSI programs showed better results than those areas that were not.This report identifies major problems with the LAPOP study, namely, the nonrandomness of the selection of treatment versus control areas and how the differences in initial conditions, as well as differences in results between treatment and control areas, have been interpreted. In the case of reported robberies, if the areas subject to treatment have an elevated level of reported robberies in the year prior to treatment, it is possible that there is some reversion to normal levels over the next year. The LAPOP methodology does not differentiate between effective treatment and, for example, an unrelated decline in reported robberies in a treated area following a year with an abnormally high number of reported robberies. The series of statistical tests in this report indicate that this possibility is quite plausible, and cannot be ruled out; and that the LAPOP study, therefore, does not demonstrate a statistically significant positive effect of treatment. The same can be said for the other variables where the LAPOP study finds significant improvement

The French Economy, European Authorities, and the IMF: "Structural Reform" or Increasing Employment?

This paper looks at two competing views among economists and other observers, of how the French economy can overcome mass unemployment and have a more robust recovery. One view sees the unemployment and economic stagnation of the past decade as overwhelmingly structural. An alternative narrative, mostly from the Left but with some elements adopted by the far Right, sees the most immediate problem as one of inadequate demand in the economy.The authors find that France's unemployment rate, which has averaged 9.1 percent over the last decade, is not the product of "structural" barriers, but rather due to political choices made by the French government and European authorities. With inflation well below target, real borrowing costs at about zero, and a low current interest burden on the debt, it would make much more economic sense for the government -- and the eurozone as well -- to pursue an expansionary fiscal policy that increases employment

Amount and Chemical Composition of the Organic Matter Contributed by Overstory and Understory Vegetation to Forest Soil

Mode of access: Internet

Activities of organic farmers succeeding in reducing lameness in dairy cows

Sixty-seven organic producers were among 189 dairy farmers completing the “Healthy Feet Project” in the UK. This aimed to reduce lameness in dairy herds by implementing existing knowledge. Participants received input at two levels: monitoring alone, or monitoring with extra support through a single veterinary advisory visit, annual visits from a trained non-veterinary facilitator and materials and contacts to encourage change. On average lameness on organic farms reduced by 12 percentage points over the three year period. On the farms achieving the greatest reduction,the most common changes were improvements to tracks and cubicle comfort, and more frequent footbathing or foot trimming. Practices to improve foot cleanliness, such as more frequent removal of slurry, were less often adopted. Further progress might be achieved by improvements of foot hygiene. Several farms with low lameness that reduced prevalence further improved their handling facilities and treated cows more promptly

Free upper regular bands

AbstractIn universal domains, the retractions form a fundamental notion of ‘data type’. We define a partial order on the retractions of Scott's domain Pω and completely describe the set of data types which can be generated by an arbitrary chain of such retractions. This set is precisely the free upper regular band over the chain, and is a lattice-ordered semigroup

Diatoms of Northeastern Iowa Fens

Analysis of water samples from 10 fens in NE Iowa, collected 13-14 November 1987, revealed a gradient from acid, low conductivity water conditions (pH 5.6, alkalinity 30 mg/I HCO, conductivity 65 μmho, total hardness 30 mg/I Ca) to circumneutral, moderately conductive conditions (pH 7 .2, alkalinity 390 mg/I, conductivity 705 μmho, total hardness 380 mg/I Ca). Three sites along this gradient were sampled 15 May 1988 and 3 September 1988 to evaluate seasonal variation in water conditions. Examination of composite diatom samples collected concurrently with the water samples yielded 150 taxa, of which 14 are new Iowa distributional records and 6 remain unidentified. Previous investigators have reported 102 of these taxa from other Iowa fens, bogs, or prairie swales. Only 58 have been reported from the Cedar River basin, where most of these fens are located. This evidence suggests these scattered small wetlands resemble similar areas some distance away more than the surrounding surface waters. Distributional patterns of diatoms along the environmental gradient appear sufficiently distinct to permit delineation of species autecology

The Elastics of Snap Removal: An Empirical Case Study of Textualism

This article reports the findings of an empirical study of textualism as applied by federal judges interpreting the statute that permits removal of diversity cases from state to federal court. The “snap removal” provision in the statute is particularly interesting because its application forces judges into one of two interpretive camps—which are fairly extreme versions of textualism and purposivism, respectively. We studied characteristics of cases and judges to find predictors of textualist outcomes. In this article we offer a narrative discussion of key variables and we detail the results of our logistic regression analysis. The most salient predictive variable was the party of the president who appointed the judge. Female judges and young judges were also more likely to reach textualist outcomes. Cases involving torts were substantially more likely to be removed even though the statute raises a pure legal question upon which the subject matter of the case should have no bearing. Our most surprising finding was the impact of a judges’ undergraduate and legal education: the eliteness of the educational institution was positively correlated with removal for judges appointed by Republicans, but negatively correlated for judges appointed by Democrats. This disordinal interaction was especially striking since there was no party effect among judges who attended non-elite institutions. In addition to the aforementioned variables which were significant, several variables that were not predictive are also discussed; these include race, seniority, state court experience, and the prospect of multi-district case consolidations

Snap Removal: Concept; Cause; Cacophony; and Cure

So-called “snap removal” – removal of a case from state to federal court prior to service on a forum state defendant – has divided federal trial courts for 20 years. Recently, panels of the Second, Third and Fifth Circuits have sided with those supporting the tactic even though it conflicts with the general prohibition on removal when the case includes a forum state defendant, a situation historically viewed as eliminating the need to protect the outsider defendant from possible state court hostility. Consistent with the public policy underlying diversity jurisdiction – availability of a federal forum to protect against defending claims in an inconvenient or hostile forum – such removals are barred so long as resident defendants are properly joined “and served.” Defendants preferring the federal forum have invested significant resources monitoring state trial dockets in order to race to remove before service on forum defendants can be effectuated. Where such snap removal is permitted, defendants, both in-state and outsider are allowed to select their preferred forum – an outcome in derogation of the history, purpose, and logic of permitting removal. This clever strategy of defense counsel is facilitated and accelerated by electronic docket monitoring and sometimes (as in the Third Circuit case) attorney trickery amounting to deceit. The recent federal appellate decisions are regrettable both in taking the wrong fork of the metaphorical road regarding snap removal and in shifting the trial court landscape from one of resistance to snap removal to one of toleration. Disturbingly, the appellate decisions (without recorded dissent) analyzed the issue through the simplistic lens of textual literalism with nary a nod to the history, purpose, and public policy of federal removal law. In doing so, the Circuit panels not only reached a problematic result but also displayed an impoverished interpretative methodology. Corrective action by Congress can put a stop to these mistaken results in a manner that vindicates the intent and purpose of the 1948 Congress that added the service requirement and that adequately protects the interests of both plaintiffs and defendants. We outline and assess the most prominent suggestions for fixing the snap removal problem, including our own preferred solution