Analyse des Einflusses von Biolandbau-Verordnungen und Richtlinien auf die Sensorik von Produkten

In the EU funded research project Ecropolis (www.ecropolis.eu), a comparative analysis of relevant sensory related requirements in regulations and standards for mainly processed organic products was made. A potential impact matrix of standards requirements on sensory properties of organic food has been made. The empirical verification of product qualities through consumers and sensory laboratory testing showed significant impacts for oil and salami, but no impact for apple, cookies, and tomato sauce

Automation, robots and wage inequality in Germany : a decomposition analysis

We analyze how and through which channels wage inequality is affected by the rise in automation and robotization in the manufacturing sector in Germany from 1996 to 2017. Combining rich linked employer-employee data accounting for a variety of different individual, firm and industry characteristics with data on industrial robots and automation probabilities of occupations, we are able to disentangle different potential causes behind changes in wage inequality in Germany. We apply the recentered influence function (RIF) regression based Oaxaca-Blinder (OB) decomposition on several inequality indices and find evidence that besides personal characteristics like age and education the rise in automation and robotization contributes significantly to wage inequality in Germany. Structural shifts in the workforce composition towards occupations with lower or medium automation threat lead to higher wage inequality, which is observable over the whole considered time period. The effect of automation on the wage structure results in higher inequality in the 1990s and 2000s, while it has a significant decreasing inequality effect for the upper part of the wage distribution in the more recent time period

Wachkoma - ein anderes Leben : Schmerzerfassungsinstrumente bei Kindern mit schweren, erworbenen Hirnschädigungen

Einleitung: Jährlich fallen schweizweit ungefähr 40 Kinder aufgrund schwerer, erworbenen Hirnschädigungen in ein Wachkoma (Donis & Trojer, 2015). Sie können sich nicht zu ihrem Befinden äussern und so bleibt für das betreuende Fachpersonal unklar, ob die gewählten Massnahmen zur Zustandsverbesserung der Kinder beitragen. Zur Überprüfung dieser Massnahmen verwendet man deshalb im Praxisalltag Verlaufsparameter, die objektive Aussagen ermöglichen. Ziel: Das Ziel ist, reliable, valide und für die Physiotherapie relevante Schmerzassessments für Kinder im Wachkoma zu finden. Solche Assessments helfen, eine bessere und zielorientierte Empfehlung für eine physiotherapeutische Behandlung zu geben und den Therapieverlauf objektiv festzuhalten. Methodik: Mittels einer Literaturrecherche wurden Assessments gesucht, welche für Kinder mit schweren, erworbenen Hirnschädigungen anwendbar sind. Die inkludierten Validierungsstudien wurden bezüglich Methodik und psychometrischen Eigenschaften nach Lienert und Raatz (1998) beurteilt und kritisch diskutiert. Ergebnisse: Für die Schmerzerfassung zeigt die NCS-R die höchsten Werte für Reliabilität und Validität. Offen bleibt die Frage, inwiefern die Ergebnisse dieser Arbeit für Kinder anwendbar sind. Schlussfolgerungen: Da Kinder ab 2 Jahren bereits über entwickelte Schmerzbewältigungsstrategien (Deutscher Hebammenverband, 2010) verfügen, wird empfohlen, den Entwicklungsstand der Kinder immer miteinzubeziehen (Ashwal, 2004). Dadurch könnte die Möglichkeit bestehen, Kinder ab einer gewissen Reife, mit Assessments für Erwachsene zu bewerten

The Organic Market in Switzerland and the EU - Overview and market access information for producers and international trading companies

The organic market is highly diverse. Production standards and certification and trade rules place considerable demands upon market participants. At the same time, this market holds out excellent opportunities for creative and circumspect producers, processors and traders. To operate successfully in organic import and export business alike, it is crucial to have accurate information on the potential of the specific organic market and on the conditions governing market access. The attractively designed handbook offers the very latest market information for producers an international trading companies, organized both by product group an by country on 80 pages. This second edition is updated in all chapters and has in addition three new markets: Austria, Italy and Sweden. In addition, the handbook provides an easily accessible overview of the - in some instances - quite complicates - import requirements applicable in Switzerland and the EU. In a further 50-page appendix, the handbook contains an extensive collection of addresses (trading companies, authorities, certification bodies, organizations etc.) and Internet Websites. The second edition of this handbook has been produced in English

Investment in Irrigation Systems under Weather Uncertainty

Irrigated agriculture will play a crucial role to meet future food demand, but a sustainable water resource management in agriculture is crucial as well. Therefore, the European Water Framework Directive promotes several measures, e.g., the adoption of adequate water pricing mechanisms or the promotion of water-saving irrigation techniques. Since production conditions such as weather and climate development are uncertain, farmers might be reluctant to invest in a water-saving but capital intensive irrigation system. We apply a stochastic dynamic programming approach to analyze a farmer’s optimal investment strategy for either a water–saving drip irrigation system or sprinkler irrigation system under weather uncertainty and assess the probability of adopting either irrigation system until the year 2040. We design two policy scenarios: (i) irrigation water pricing and (ii) equipment subsidies for drip irrigation, and investigate how they affect the farmer’s optimal investment strategy. Our case study analysis is performed for the region Marchfeld, a typical semi-arid agricultural production region in Austria. We use data from the bio-physical process simulation model EPIC (Environmental Policy Integrated Climate) which accounts for site and management related characteristics as well as weather parameters from a statistical climate change model. We find that investment in drip irrigation is unlikely unless subsidies for equipment cost are granted. Even water prices do not increase the probability to adopt a drip irrigation system, but rather decrease the probability to invest into either irrigation system.Irrigation investment, stochastic dynamic programming approach, water policies, weather uncertainty, EPIC, Farm Management, Risk and Uncertainty,

Immune Gene Expression in Bombus terrestris: Signatures of Infection Despite Strong Variation among Populations, Colonies, and Sister Workers

Ecological immunology relies on variation in resistance to parasites. Colonies of the bumblebee Bombus terrestris vary in their susceptibility to the trypanosome gut parasite Crithidia bombi, which reduces colony fitness. To understand the possible origin of this variation in resistance we assayed the expression of 28 immunologically important genes in foraging workers. We deliberately included natural variation of the host “environment” by using bees from colonies collected in two locations and sampling active foraging workers that were not age controlled. Immune gene expression patterns in response to C. bombi showed remarkable variability even among genetically similar sisters. Nevertheless, expression varied with parasite exposure, among colonies and, perhaps surprisingly, strongly among populations (collection sites). While only the antimicrobial peptide abaecin is universally up regulated upon exposure, linear discriminant analysis suggests that the overall exposure effect is driven by a combination of several immune pathways and further immune functions such as ROS regulation. Also, the differences among colonies in their immune gene expression profiles provide clues to the mechanistic basis of well-known inter-colony variation in susceptibility to this parasite. Our results show that transcriptional responses to parasite exposure can be detected in ecologically heterogeneous groups despite strong background noise

How sensitive are estimates of carbon fixation in agricultural models to input data?

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Process based vegetation models are central to understand the hydrological and carbon cycle. To achieve useful results at regional to global scales, such models require various input data from a wide range of earth observations. Since the geographical extent of these datasets varies from local to global scale, data quality and validity is of major interest when they are chosen for use. It is important to assess the effect of different input datasets in terms of quality to model outputs. In this article, we reflect on both: the uncertainty in input data and the reliability of model results. For our case study analysis we selected the Marchfeld region in Austria. We used independent meteorological datasets from the Central Institute for Meteorology and Geodynamics and the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF). Land cover / land use information was taken from the GLC2000 and the CORINE 2000 products.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>For our case study analysis we selected two different process based models: the Environmental Policy Integrated Climate (EPIC) and the Biosphere Energy Transfer Hydrology (BETHY/DLR) model. Both process models show a congruent pattern to changes in input data. The annual variability of NPP reaches 36% for BETHY/DLR and 39% for EPIC when changing major input datasets. However, EPIC is less sensitive to meteorological input data than BETHY/DLR. The ECMWF maximum temperatures show a systematic pattern. Temperatures above 20°C are overestimated, whereas temperatures below 20°C are underestimated, resulting in an overall underestimation of NPP in both models. Besides, BETHY/DLR is sensitive to the choice and accuracy of the land cover product.</p> <p>Discussion</p> <p>This study shows that the impact of input data uncertainty on modelling results need to be assessed: whenever the models are applied under new conditions, local data should be used for both input and result comparison.</p

Measuring Snow Liquid Water Content with Low-Cost GPS Receivers

The amount of liquid water in snow characterizes the wetness of a snowpack. Its temporal evolution plays an important role for wet-snow avalanche prediction, as well as the onset of meltwater release and water availability estimations within a river basin. However, it is still a challenge and a not yet satisfyingly solved issue to measure the liquid water content (LWC) in snow with conventional in situ and remote sensing techniques. We propose a new approach based on the attenuation of microwave radiation in the L-band emitted by the satellites of the Global Positioning System (GPS). For this purpose, we performed a continuous low-cost GPS measurement experiment at the Weissfluhjoch test site in Switzerland, during the snow melt period in 2013. As a measure of signal strength, we analyzed the carrier-to-noise power density ratio (C/N-0) and developed a procedure to normalize these data. The bulk volumetric LWC was determined based on assumptions for attenuation, reflection and refraction of radiation in wet snow. The onset of melt, as well as daily melt-freeze cycles were clearly detected. The temporal evolution of the LWC was closely related to the meteorological and snow-hydrological data. Due to its non-destructive setup, its cost-efficiency and global availability, this approach has the potential to be implemented in distributed sensor networks for avalanche prediction or basin-wide melt onset measurements

Validation of the new fast perimetric strategy GATE (German Adaptive Thresholding Estimation) for static perimetry

Purpose To validate the commercially available “EyeSuite” version of the new fast thresholding algorithm GATE (German Adaptive Thresholding Estimation) for automated static perimetry. Methods Thirty patients suffering from visual pathway lesions of various origin (anterior ischemic optic neuropathy [n=3], glaucoma [n=15], (post-) chiasmal visual pathway lesion [n=6], retinitis pigmentosa (RP) [n=6]) were tested on three Octopus 900 perimeters (Haag-Streit AG, Köniz, Switzerland) with various maximum stimulus intensities (serial device 104: 318 cd/m², 894: 1273 cd/m² and 1075: 3183 cd/m²). Grid 84NO (90° eccentricity, 109 test locations) was applied for patients with RP, grid 30A (30° eccentricity, 83 test locations) for all other patients. Repeatability of the prototype version of GATE (GATEp) and agreement between GATEp and the commercially available EyeSuite version (GATEe) were assessed by comparing local differential luminance sensitivities (DLS) and median test durations by means of modified Bland-Altman plots. Mean sensitivities [MS] were compared. Results The comparison of DLS values showed very good repeatability for GATEp (bias <0.5 dB, limits of agreement [LOA] <3 dB) and a very good to acceptable agreement between GATEp and GATEe (bias <2 dB, LOA <5 dB). Median examination durations for GATEp and GATEe were 7.8 min and 8.8 min for grid 30A, 6.7 min and 7.8 min for grid 84NO. MS values were comparable for both software versions, but higher values were assessed by the perimeter with the highest maximum stimulus luminance (serial device 1075). Conclusion The prototype version of GATE (GATEp) shows a very good repeatability. GATEp and the software version implemented in the EyeSuite software (GATEe) show good agreement regarding local differential luminance sensitivity and examination duration. GATEe can therefore be recommended for clinical practice.Ziel Validierung der kommerziell erhältlichen „EyeSuite“-Version von GATE (German Adaptive Thresholding Estimation), eines neuen Algorithmus für schnelle Schwellenbestimmung in der automatischen statischen Perimetrie. Methoden 30 Patienten mit Sehbahnläsionen unterschiedlicher Ursachen (anteriore ischämische Optikusneuropathie [n=3], Glaukom [n=15], (post-) chiasmale Sehbahnläsion [n=6], Retinitis pigmentosa (RP) [n=6]) wurden an drei Octopus 900 Perimetern (Haag-Streit AG, Köniz, Schweiz) mit verschiedenen maximalen Stimulusleuchtdichten (Seriengerät 104: 318 cd/m², 894: 1273 cd/m² und 1075: 3183 cd/m²) untersucht. Raster 84NO (90° Exzentrizität, 109 Prüfpunkte) wurde für RP-Patienten angewandt, Raster 30A (30° Exzentrizität, 83 Prüfpunkte) für alle anderen. Die Reproduzierbarkeit der Prototypversion von GATE (GATEp) und die Übereinstimmung zwischen GATEp und der käuflich erwerbbaren EyeSuite-Version (GATEe) wurde bestimmt, indem lokale Lichtunterschiedlichkeitsempfindlichkeiten (LUE) und die mediane Untersuchungs-dauer mit Hilfe modifizierter Bland-Altman-Diagramme verglichen wurden. Mean Sensitivity-(MS) Werte wurden verglichen. Ergebnisse Der Vergleich der LUE-Werte zeigte eine sehr gute Reproduzierbarkeit der Messungen für GATEp (Bias <0.5 dB, limits of agreement [LOA] <3 dB) und eine sehr gute bis akzeptable Übereinstimmung zwischen GATEp und GATEe (Bias <2 dB, LOA <5 dB). Die medianen Testzeiten betrugen für GATEp und GATEe 7.8 min und 8.8 min (Raster 30A), 6.7 min und 7.8 min (Raster 84NO). Die MS-Werte waren für beide Softwareversionen vergleichbar, aber höher für das Gerät mit der größten maximalen Stimulusleuchtdichte (Seriengerät 1075). Fazit Die Prototypversion von GATE (GATEp) zeigt eine sehr gute Wiederholbarkeit. GATEp und die in EyeSuite implementierte Version, GATEe, zeigen in Bezug auf die LUE-Werte und Testzeiten eine gute Übereinstimmung. Daher kann GATEe für die klinische Praxis empfohlen werden