EU agricultural policy in relation to climate change : a qualitative text analysis of the common agricultural policy, CAP

Till mitten av seklet förväntas världens befolkning uppnå 9 miljarder. Efterfrågan på livsmedel kommer därför att öka, och konsumtionstrycket kommer spädas på ytterligare i och med en förbättrad levnadsstandard globalt. Jordbrukssektorn upplever idag en enorm konkurrens om markresurser från andra sektorer, vilket påverkar livsmedelsproduktionen. Till skillnad från många andra ekonomiska sektorer är jordbruket beroende utav väderförhållandena, och fluktuationerna samt den ovisshet klimatförändringarna medför i nederbördsmängden utgör därför ett hot mot den framtida livsmedelssäkerheten. Frågan kvarstår ifall planeten kan klarar av att producera mer mat till följd av den ökande efterfrågan på livsmedel, som den stigande befolkningsmängden och levnadsstandarden medför, samt inom ramen för klimatförändringarna. I den här studien försöker jag att söka svar på hur klimatförändringarna presenteras och hanteras av europeiska kommissionen i sitt meddelande för den gemensamma jordbrukspolitiken (GJP) 2021 – 2027. Som världens största livsmedelsproducent utgör EU ett viktigt nav i den globala livsmedelssäkerheten, och därför ingår det i uppdraget att utforma politiken så att jordbrukssektorn inom Europa strävar åt en hållbar inriktning. Genom att analysera hur europeiska kommissionen i sitt meddelande utav GJP för nästkommande programperiod hanterar klimatförändringarna i relation till den framtida jordbrukspolitiken, kan jag få en uppfattning om hur arbetet för att säkerställa och trygga livsmedelsförsörjningen inför framtiden går till. Jag har använt mig av en kvalitativ textanalys som både teori och metod för undersökningen. Genom en noggrann läsning av meddelandets olika delar i förhållande till varandra och i sin kontext kan jag tolka och utläsa hur problematiken hanteras av EU. Mina tolkningar och därmed resultat, baseras på att jag utgått ifrån olika begrepp inom teorin för att tyda politiken och meddelandet. Studiens resultat visar att EU i sin nästkommande programperiod för GJP kommer att utvecklas mot ett större eget ansvar hos medlemsländerna själva, vilket europeiska kommissionen benämner som en ökad subsidiaritet. Det är främst inom områdena miljö, klimatförändringar och hållbar utveckling som EU delegerar mer ansvar till sina medlemslände

Låtskapande och genus - Hur beskriver kvinnliga respektive mannliga singer-songwriters sitt låtskrivande? Hur kan likheter respektive skillnader förklaras?

English title: Song writing and gender. The purpose of this study has been to find out if there are any differences between women's and men's song writing processes, primarily in the singer/songwriter genre. I have interviewed three female songwriters and three men about their way of writing songs. The result shows mainly that there are not any gender related differences in the way songs are written, with the exception of a few deviations. Equity feminism theory has provided a way for me to understand my results. Upbringing is one of the causes behind them. Syftet med detta arbete har varit att ta reda på om det finns några skillnader i kvinnligt och manligtlåtskapande inom främst singer-songwriter genren. Jag har intervjuat tre kvinnliga låtskrivare och tre män om deras sätt att skriva låtar. Resultatet visar främst på att det inte finns några könsrelaterade skillnader i skapandet med undantag för ett par avvikelser. Utifrån likhetsfeministisk teori har jag fått möjlighet att förstå mina resultat. De kan relateras till uppfostran

Känsligheten hos blåklint mot en ALS-inhibitor

Växtföljder fick mindre betydelse för den sanerande effekten på ogräs när de kemiska bekämpningsmedlen introducerades på 1940-50-talen. Fram till sommaren 2010 hade herbicidresistens upptäckts i 194 arter i över 340 000 olika fält världen över och det är ett problem som kommer att öka i världen. Herbicider kan verka på olika sätt i växten. De flesta fall av herbicidresistens beror på en förändring på verkningsplatsen för herbiciden, men kan också bero på en ökad metabolism i plantan, dvs. herbiciden bryts ner innan den hinner göra verkan. I Sverige har resistens hos blåklint hittats på två platser. Under 2012-13 konstaterades sämre bekämpningseffekter mot blåklint på några fält i Östergötland, Blekinge och Skåne. För att studera om känsligheten mot herbicider hade minskat hos blåklintspopulationerna samlades fröer in för att testas i ett växthusexperiment. Syftet med experimentet var att undersöka känsligheten hos fem populationer av blåklint mot en ALS-inhibitor. För att undersöka känsligheten mot herbiciden utfördes ett växthusexperiment där blåklintsplantor från fem populationer behandlades med en ALS-inhiberande herbicid (Express 50 SX). Alla populationer visade sig vara känsliga mot herbiciden. Efter behandling avstannade tillväxten hos plantorna, toppskottet dog, och efter en tid började flera plantor istället skjuta sidoskott. Slutsatsen var att det inte fanns några tecken på resistens hos de testade populationerna.Crop rotations became of less importance to the sanitizing effect on weeds when chemical pesticides were introduced in the 1940s and -50s. Until the summer of 2010, herbicide resistance was detected in 194 species in over 340 000 different fields over the world, which is a problem that will increase all over the world. Her-bicides may act in different ways in the plant. Most cases of herbicide resistance are due to a change in the site of action on the herbicide, but it may also be due to an increased metabolism in the plant. In Sweden resistance in cornflower has been found in two places. In 2012-13, lower effects against herbicides were found in cornflower in a few fields in Östergötland, Blekinge, and Skåne. To study if the sensitivity to herbicides had decreased in these populations of cornflower, seeds were collected and tested in a greenhouse experiment. The purpose of the experiment was to examine the sensitivity of five populations of cornflower against an ALS-inhibiting herbicide. To study the sensitivity against the herbicide a greenhouse experiment was performed where cornflower from five populations were treated with an ALS-inhibiting herbicide. All populations turned out to be sensitive to the herbicide. After the chemical control the growth of the plants stopped, the top shoot died, and after a while several plants began to develop side shoots. The conclusion was that no herbicide resistance was detected in either of the populations

Integrerat växtskydd (IPM)

År 2009 kom EU-direktivet ”Hållbar användning av bekämpningsmedel” som bland annat innehåller begreppet integrerat växtskydd (IPM). Direktivet säger bland annat att år 2014 ska alla jordbruksproducenter inom EU använda sig av integrerat växtskydd. Integrerat växtskydd betyder att man tar hjälp av flera kontrollåtgärder tillsammans med kemisk bekämpning när man reglerar ogräs och växtskadegörare i jordbruket. Målsättningen är att när förebyggande och mekaniska åtgärder används för att kontrollera ogräs och växtskadegörare kan man minska mängden kemisk bekämpning. Syftet med denna litteraturstudie är att göra en sammanställning över vilka kontrollåtgärder som finns tillgängliga för framförallt ogräs vid tillämpning av integrerat växtskydd. Den största andelen växtskyddsmedel som säljs på marknaden idag är ogräsmedel (herbicider). Användningen av bekämpningsmedel varierar mycket mellan olika landsdelar och grödor. Störst är förbrukningen i områden där spannmålsgårdar utan djur dominerar medan mycket lite kemiska bekämpningsmedel används i valldominerade områden. Ökad användning av kemiska bekämpningsmedel leder bland annat till ökad risk för resistensbildning hos både ogräsarter och växtskadegörare. Genom att introducera fler kontrollåtgärder kan man förhoppningsvis minska utvecklingen av resistensbildningen. Direkta kontrollåtgärder som idag används för att bekämpa ogräs är kemisk bekämpning och mekaniska åtgärder. Beroende på gröda och hur beståndet ser ut, vad gäller konkurrenskraft, så ska man anpassa den eventuella kemiska bekämpningen. Mekaniska åtgärder som används är främst plöjning, stubbearbetning, harvning, ogräsharvning, radhackning och avslagning. Genom dessa åtgärder störs ogräsens utveckling och tillväxt vilket ger den odlade grödan ett försprång så att den kan konkurrera bra med ogräsen. Indirekta kontrollåtgärder som är tillgängliga är framförallt utformning av växtföljd där man med hjälp av grödval och sortval kan påverka utvecklingen av ogräsfloran i en väl genomtänkt växtföljd. Fleråriga grödor ger en sanerande effekt mot ettåriga ogräs som är vanligt förekommande i spannmålsdominerade växtföljder. Genom att växla mellan vårsådda och höstsådda grödor kan man missgynna utvecklingen av vissa ogräs

Existing evidence related to soil retention of phosphorus from on-site wastewater treatment systems in boreal and temperate climate zones: a systematic map

BackgroundIn Sweden there are nearly one million soil-based on-site wastewater treatment systems (OWTSs). OWTSs may contribute to eutrophication of surface waters, due to the discharge of phosphorus (P). Hence, in certain cases, a high P removal rate (up to 90%) of OWTSs is required by Swedish authorities. Since these requirements may have costly consequences to property owners, it is debated whether they are too strict. In this debate, it is often claimed that the soil retention of P occurring in the natural environments may be underestimated by authorities. Soil retention is the inhibition of the transport of P through the ground, due to different chemical, physical and biological processes occurring there. These processes make the P transport slower, which may reduce the unwanted impact on receiving water bodies. However, the efficiency of soil retention of P remains unclear. The objective of this systematic map was to collect, code, organise and elucidate the relevant evidence related to the topic, to be able to guide stakeholders through the evidence base, and to support future research synthesising, commissioning, and funding. The systematic map was carried out in response to needs declared by the Swedish Agency for Marine and Water Management but the conclusions should be valid for a wider range of countries across boreo-temperate regions.MethodsSearches were made for peer-reviewed and grey literature using bibliographic databases, search engines, specialist websites, and stakeholder contacts. The references were screened for relevance according to a predefined set of eligibility criteria. A detailed database of the relevant studies was compiled. Data and metadata that enable evaluation and discussion of the character and quality of the evidence base were extracted and coded. Special focus was placed on assessing if existing evidence could contribute to policy and practice decision making. Descriptive information about the evidence base was presented in tables and figures. An interactive evidence atlas and a choropleth were created, displaying the locations of all studies.Review findings234 articles out of 10,797 screened records fulfilled the eligibility criteria. These articles contain 256 studies, performed in the field or in the laboratory. Six different study types were identified, based on where the measurements were conducted. Most studies, including laboratory studies, lack replicates. Most field studies are observational case studies.ConclusionsIt is not possible to derive valid generic measures of the efficiency of soil retention of P occurring in the natural soil environment from available research. Neither does the evidence base allow for answering the question of the magnitude of the potential impact of OWTSs on the P concentration in recipients on a general basis, or under what conditions OWTSs generally have such an impact. A compilation of groundwater studies may provide examples of how far the P may reach in x years, but the number of groundwater studies is insufficient to draw any general conclusions, given the complexity and variability of the systems. Future research should strive for replicated study designs, more elaborate reporting, and the establishment of a reporting standard

Prevalence and diagnostic outcomes of children with duodenal lesions and negative celiac serology

Background: Celiac disease diagnostics begin by measuring autoantibodies, which may fail to identify seronegative patients. Duodenal lesion in the absence of antibodies is scarcely studied, especially in children. Aims: To investigate the prevalence and diagnostic outcomes of children with seronegative duodenal lesion in two countries with different disease profiles. Methods: Medical data, including the results of histology and transglutaminase (tTGab) and endomysium (EmA) antibody measurements were collected from 1172 Finnish and 264 Romanian children with systematic duodenal sampling. Database of 509 Finnish children with celiac disease was examined to identify earlier seronegative patients. Results: Celiac disease was diagnosed in 307 Finnish and 83 Romanian children in the endoscopy cohorts. No seronegative patients were found among 899 celiac disease patients, although some were only tTGab or EmA positive. Non-celiac duodenal lesion was detected in eight Finnish and 32 Romanian children, their most common diagnoses being inflammatory bowel disease and infections, respectively. Six children with morphological lesion received no diagnosis. None of them developed celiac disease during a follow-up of 3-11 years. Conclusion: Pediatric seronegative celiac disease is exceptional in the era of modern autoantibodies. Other reasons for duodenal lesion should therefore be sought, bearing in mind possible differences across countries. (C) 2019 Editrice Gastroenterologica Italiana S.r.l. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.Peer reviewe

Socioeconomic and ethnical disparity in coronary heart disease outcomes in Denmark and the effect of cardiac rehabilitation-A nationwide registry study

AIMS: Cardiovascular patients with low socioeconomic status and non-western ethnic background have worse prognostic outcomes. The aim of this nationwide study was first to address whether short-term effects of hospital-based outpatient cardiac rehabilitation (CR) are similar across educational level and ethnic background, and secondly to study whether known disparity in long-term prognosis in patients with cardiovascular disese is diminished by CR participation. METHODS: All patients with myocardial infarction and/or coronary revascularization from August 2015 until March 2018 in the Danish national patient registry or the Danish cardiac rehabilitation database (DHRD) were included. We used descriptive statistics to address disparity in achievement of quality indicators in CR, and Cox proportional hazard regression to examine the association between the disparity measures and MACE (cardiovascular hospitalization and all-cause mortality) with adjustment for age, gender, index-diagnose and co-morbidity. RESULTS: We identified 34,511 patients of whom 19,383 had participated in CR and 9,882 provided information on CR outcomes from the DHRD. We demonstrated a socioeconomic gradient in improvements in VO(2peak), and non-western patients were less often screened for depression or receive dietary consulting. We found a strong socioeconomic gradient in MACE irrespective of CR participation, medication, and risk factor control (adjusted HR 0.65 (95% CI 0.56–0.77) for high versus low education). Non-western origin was associated with higher risk of MACE (adjusted HR 1.2 (1.1–1.4)). CONCLUSION: We found only minor socioeconomic and ethnic differences in achievement of CR quality indicators but strong differences in CHD prognosis indication that conventional risk factor control and medical treatment following CR do not diminish the socioeconomic and ethnical disparity in CHD prognosis

A Physically-Motivated Photometric Calibration of M Dwarf Metallicity

The location of M dwarfs in the V-K_s--M_Ks color-magnitude diagram (CMD) has been shown to correlate with metallicity. We demonstrate that previous empirical photometric calibrations of M dwarf metallicity exploiting this correlation systematically underestimate or overestimate metallicity at the extremes of their range. We improve upon previous calibrations in three ways. We use both a volume-limited and kinematically-matched sample of F and G dwarfs from the Geneva-Copehnagen Survey (GCS) to infer the mean metallicity of M dwarfs in the Solar Neighborhood, we use theoretical models of M dwarf interiors and atmospheres to determine the effect of metallicity on M dwarfs in the V-K_s--M_Ks CMD, and we base our final calibration purely on high-resolution spectroscopy of FGK primaries with M dwarf companions. As a result, we explain an order of magnitude more of the variance in the calibration sample than previous photometric calibrations. We non-parametrically quantify the significance of the observation that M dwarfs that host exoplanets are preferentially in a region of the V-K_s--M_Ks plane populated by metal-rich M dwarfs. We find that the probability p that planet-hosting M dwarfs are distributed across the V-K_s--M_Ks CMD in the same way as field M dwarfs is p = 0.06 +/- 0.008. Interestingly, the subsample of M dwarfs that host Neptune and sub-Neptune mass planets may also be preferentially located in the region of the V-K_s--M_Ks plane populated by high-metallicity M dwarfs. The probability of this occurrence by chance is p = 0.40 +/- 0.02, and this observation hints that low-mass planets may be more likely to be found around metal-rich M dwarfs. An increased rate of low-mass planet occurrence around metal-rich M dwarfs would be a natural consequence of the core-accretion model of planet formation. (abridged)Comment: 10 pages, 4 figures, and 1 table in A&A format; accepted for publication in A&

Differentiating and quantifying carbonaceous (tire, bitumen, and road marking wear) and non-carbonaceous (metals, minerals, and glass beads) non-exhaust particles in road dust samples from a traffic environment

Tires, bitumen, and road markings are important sources of traffic-derived carbonaceous wear particles and microplastic (MP) pollution. In this study, we further developed a machine-learning algorithm coupled to an automated scanning electron microscopy/energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (SEM/EDX) analytical approach to classify and quantify the relative number of the following subclasses contained in environmental road dust: tire wear particles (TWP), bitumen wear particles (BiWP), road markings, reflecting glass beads, metallics, minerals, and biogenic/organics. The method is non-destructive, rapid, repeatable, and enables information about the size, shape, and elemental composition of particles 2–125 μm. The results showed that the method enabled differentiation\ua0between TWP and BiWP for particles > 20 μm with satisfying results. Furthermore, the relative number concentration of the subclasses was similar in both analyzed size fractions (2–20 μm and 20–125 μm), with minerals as the most dominant subclass (2–20 μm x̄ = 78%, 20–125 μm x̄ = 74%) followed by tire and bitumen wear particles, TBiWP, (2–20 μm x̄ = 19%, 20–125 μm x̄ = 22%). Road marking wear, glass beads, and metal wear contributed to x̄ = 1%, x̄ = 0.1%, and x̄ = 1% in the 2–20-μm fraction and to x̄ = 0.5%,x̄ = 0.2%, and x̄ = 0.4% in the 20–125-μm fraction. The present results show that road dust appreciably consists of TWP and BiWP within both the coarse and the fine size fraction. The study delivers quantitative evidence of the importance of tires, bitumen, road marking, and glass beads besides minerals and metals to wear particlesand MP pollution in traffic environments based on environmental (real-world) sample