Adoption of communicationtechnologies and national culture

Les pays du inonde n\u27adoptent pas les nouvelles technologies de communication à lamême vitesse. Cet article se pose la question quelles variables, autres que le produit natio-nal brut par personne, pourraient élucider ce phénomène. Se basant sur des données em-piriques au niveau national, il conclut que des variables culturelles sont en jeu. En parti-culier, les dimensions culturelles de l\u27individualisme et du contrôle de l\u27incertitudeprédisent la nature et la rapidité d\u27adoption des technologies.Les différences culturelles entre pays vont-elles disparaître suite à la venue du « villa-ge global,, ? Ce papier propose que bien ait contraire, les nouveaux média de communi-cation permettent aux gens de renforcer leurs identités culturelles

Transparency in the Pork Supply Chain: Comparing China and The Netherlands

We present a research plan to assess the value of transparency by comparing pork supply chains in The Netherlands and China.We assume that chain performance depends on chain configuration, which depends on societal context and its associated quality control institutions. We define chain configuration in terms of structure and transparency. In order to be able to assess the influence of societal context and its quality control institutions on chain configuration and performance, we compare two countries that have very different societies. Ultimately, our goal is to be able to indicate whether a certain chain configuration suits all, or whether chain configuration should be tailored to societal context.Pork supply chain, societal context, transparency, information exchange, chain configuration, Agribusiness, Industrial Organization,

Biomass and biogas:potentials, efficiencies and flexibility

In the field of ‘renewable energy resources’ formation of biogas is an important option. Biogas can be produced from biomass in a multistep process called anaerobic digestion (AD) and is usually performed in large digesters. Anaerobic digestion of biomass is mediated by various groups of microorganisms, which live in complex community structures. However, there is still limited knowledge on the relationships between the type of biomass and operational process parameters. This relates to the changes within the microbial community structure and the resulting overall biogas production efficiency. Opening this microbial black box could lead to an better understanding of on-going microbial processes, resulting in higher biogas yields and overall process efficiencies

Lemon car game

Abstract This article presents two versions of a negotiation game, the LEMON CAR GAME, that is used to investigate cross-cultural variation in negotiation behaviour. The game is about trading a second-hand car with a possible hidden defect. One version is a specific research set-up destined to investigate face to face negotiation between participants with different acculturation on the cultural dimension of power distance. The other is a first Web-based version of the game. Both games are described. At the time of writing there are no experimental data yet

Prebiotics in human digestion

Analysis of the bacterial flora is important for the characterization of fermentation events. They help the further validation of the “prebiotic index“ as fast and cost-effective screening of prebotic action within individuals or selected populations