Traceability and the new CAP

The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) was strongly criticized for the food safety crises of the 1990s which included Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE), dioxin, foot and mouth disease and swine fever to name a few. Even though the first rules on food safety date from the very early days of the EU, a need was recognized to replace a number of these rules accumulated through the years, whose implementation was difficult to monitor, with a simpler and more comprehensive approach. The result was the General Food Law (REGULATION (EC) No 178/2002). A core concept introduced was traceability, namely “the ability to trace and follow food, feed, and ingredients through all stages of production, processing and distribution”. Furthermore after the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) Agreements on Agriculture (AoA) stated at the Uruguay Round and the current negotiations within the World Trade Organization (WTO), the EU has to transform a number of domestic support policies in order to be compliant with the Green Box criteria and non- or minimally trade distorting. Lastly taking into account the great concern of consumers worldwide for safe and healthy agricultural and food products, traceability would be suitable for motivating the European agricultural and food producers to differentiate their products from other competitors. The aim of this paper is to study how traceability has been included within the framework of the new CAP. In the first part of this paper we review the ways in which the issues of food safety were taken into consideration in the various reforms of the CAP from the beginning until the Agenda 2000. In the second part we briefly present the objectives and aims of the General Food Law, paying special attention to the meaning and content of traceability. Finally, in the third part we investigate the ways in which the issue of traceability has affected the shaping of the Mid-term Review of the CAP (2003) and the “Health check on CAP” (2008) through the aspects of Cross Compliance, Market Orientation and Rural Development.Traceability, CAP reforms, Cross Compliance, Market Orientation, Rural Development, Agricultural and Food Policy, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety,

Isokinetic Evaluation of the Elbow Joint at 45° and 80° of Shoulder Abduction

Since Hislop and Thistle published the first reports on isokinetic exercise, a lot of progress has been made towards the use of isokinetic exercise and isokinetic evaluation of muscle and joint performance in sports and orthopedic physical therapy. Cybex II+ with the Cybex Data Reduction Computer is one of the most widely used isokinetic systems for research and rehabilitation purposes. There are more than 500 published works describing the use of Cybex in various applications, Many investigations have used the Cybex isokinetic system to develop normative data on torque and work measurements of various muscle groups. Normative data are valuable to clinicians in the evaluation of the severity of an injury in terms of muscle performance deficits. In addition, such data provide physical therapists with objective data in setting rehabilitation goals, and enabling sports medicine experts to identify functional deficiencies during screening of athletes. There is a limited number of published works that have developed normative data for elbow flexor and extensor muscle groups. While there is some information about peak torque and agonist-antagonist ratios, minimal information is available about torque acceleration energy, work endurance ratios, average power and flexion-extension total work ratios. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of 450 and 800 of shoulder abduction on torque and work measurements of the elbow joint. In addition, normative data for elbow flexion and extension at both arm positions (testing positions suggested by Cybex) were developed

Loss of Spin Entanglement For Accelerated Electrons in Electric and Magnetic Fields

Using an open quantum system we calculate the time dependence of the concurrence between two maximally entangled electron spins with one accelerated uniformly in the presence of a constant magnetic field and the other at rest and isolated from fields. We find at high Rindler temperature the proper time for the entanglement to be extinguished is proportional to the inverse of the acceleration cubed.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figures, appendix and other discussion added, fixed some typographical errors and some references were correcte

THERMAL DENATURATION OF MONOMERIC AND TRIMERIC PHYCOCYANINS STUDIED BY STATIC AND SPECTROSCOPY POLARIZED TIME-RESOLVED FLUORESCENCE

C-Phycocyanin (PC) and allophycocyanin (APC). as well as the a-subunit of PC. have been isolated from the blue-green alga (cyanobacterium). Spirulina platensis. The effects of partial thermal denaturation of PC and of its state of aggregation have been studied by ps time-resolved, polarized fluorescence spectroscopy. All measurements have been performed under low photon fluxes (< 10’ ’ photonsipulse x cm’) to minimize singlet-singlet annihilation processes. A complex decay is obtained under most conditions, which can be fitted satisfactorily with a bi-exponential (7’ = 70400 ps. T? = 1000-3000 ps) for both the isotropic and the polarized part, but with different intensities and time constants for the two decay curves. The data are interpreted in the frameworkof the model first developed by Teak and Dale (Biochern. J. 116, 161 (1970)], which divides the spectroscopically different chromophores in (predominantly) sensitizing (s) and fluorescing U, ones. If one assumes temperature dependent losses in the energy transfer from the s to the f and between f chromophores. both the biexponential nature of the isotropic fluorescence decay and the polarization data can be rationalized. In the isotropic emission (corresponding to the population of excited states) the short lifetime is related to the s-,f transfer. the longer one to the “free“ decay of the final acceptor(s) (= f). The polarized part is dominated by an extremely short decay time. which is related to s+f transfer, as well as to resonance transfer between the f-chromophores

Quantum Communication in Rindler Spacetime

A state that an inertial observer in Minkowski space perceives to be the vacuum will appear to an accelerating observer to be a thermal bath of radiation. We study the impact of this Davies-Fulling-Unruh noise on communication, particularly quantum communication from an inertial sender to an accelerating observer and private communication between two inertial observers in the presence of an accelerating eavesdropper. In both cases, we establish compact, tractable formulas for the associated communication capacities assuming encodings that allow a single excitation in one of a fixed number of modes per use of the communications channel. Our contributions include a rigorous presentation of the general theory of the private quantum capacity as well as a detailed analysis of the structure of these channels, including their group-theoretic properties and a proof that they are conjugate degradable. Connections between the Unruh channel and optical amplifiers are also discussed.Comment: v3: 44 pages, accepted in Communications in Mathematical Physic

Interferon-γ induced expression of MHC antigens facilitates identification of donor cells in chimeric transplant recipients

After whole organ transplantation, donor bone marrow-derived cells migrate out of the graft into the recipient, leading to establishment of chimerism, which is the first step towards the subsequent induction of donor-specific tolerance. In routine immunohistochemical staining, monoclonal antibodies specific for heterotopic MHC alleles are used to identify donor and recipient cells. However, it is difficult to detect these cells using this technique in long-term allograft recipients who have a persistently low donor cell population (microchimerism). Because Interferon-gamma (IFN-γ) is known to induce expression of MHC class I and class II cell surface molecules, we used this cytokine 12-48 h before sacrifice, to facilitate the identification of donor and recipient cells in the tissues of animals transplanted with either liver (B10 → C3H) or bone marrow (LEW → BN). In long-term allograft recipients, the use of IFN-γ for as briefly as 12 h prior to sacrifice, results in marked upregulation of class I and class II antigens, leading to easy identification of ubiquitously distributed low numbers of donor cells. © 1994

A Proof of Concept Study on Real-Pime LiMAx CYP1A2 Liver Function Assessment of Donor Grafts During Normothermic Machine Perfusion

No single reliable parameter exists to assess liver graft function of extended criteria donors during ex-vivo normothermic machine perfusion (NMP). The liver maximum capacity (LiMAx) test is a clinically validated cytochromal breath test, measuring liver function based on 13CO2 production. As an innovative concept, we aimed to integrate the LiMAx breath test with NMP to assess organ function. Eleven human livers were perfused using NMP. After one hour of stabilization, LiMAx testing was performed. Injury markers (ALT, AST, miR-122, FMN, and Suzuki-score) and lactate clearance were measured and related to LiMAx values. LiMAx values ranged between 111 and 1838 µg/kg/h, and performing consecutive LiMAx tests during longer NMP was feasible. No correlation was found between LiMAx value and miR-122 and FMN levels in the perfusate. However, a significant inverse correlation was found between LiMAx value and histological injury (Suzuki-score, R = − 0.874, P < 0.001), AST (R = − 0.812, P = 0.004) and ALT (R = − 0.687, P = 0.028). Furthermore, a significant correlation was found with lactate clearance (R = 0.683, P = 0.043). We demonstrate, as proof of principle, that liver function during NMP can be quantified using the LiMAx test, illustrating a positive correlation with traditional injury markers. This new breath-test application separates livers with adequate cytochromal liver function from inadequate ones and may support decision-making in the safe utilization of extended criteria donor grafts