The logic of the CAP: Politics or Economics?

Distorted incentives, agricultural and trade policy reforms, national agricultural development, Agricultural and Food Policy, International Relations/Trade, F13, F14, Q17, Q18,

RECENT MARKET REQUIREMENTS FOR PORK QUALITY IN GERMANY

Meat market is changing continuously. The amount of meat sold in butcher shops is decreasing while pre packed meat in grocery stores and discounters is growing up to more than 50 % of the total consumption in 2007 (forecast). This has an impact on carcass evaluation concerning weight, proportion of cuts and homogeneity. New evaluation systems were developed and applied. Consumer’s demand to meat quality is, besides the well known characteristics for contents of nutrients, vitamins, minerals, trace elements, minimal residues, tenderness, water holding capacity etc., i.e. where objective measurements can be applied, also ethic considerations. These are sustainable production systems, animal welfare and enjoyment of meat consumption. The first group of traits mentioned has been improved substantially by selection against the MHS gene. But heterozygous products are still on the market and even in homozygous MHS negative populations a wide variation in meat quality remains. To gain further genetic progress additional characteristics of pork quality were introduced into progeny testing schemes, and, occasionally, in the slaughter line, i.e. drip loss and intramuscular fat. Due to heritability parameters and genetic correlations these efforts are promising. Ethic aspects are taken care of by integrated production schemes where the main steps of production (genetics, housing, handling, transport, slaughter etc.) are guaranteed by contract

Induction of VMAT-1 and TPH-1 Expression Induces Vesicular Accumulation of Serotonin and Protects Cells and Tissue from Cooling/Rewarming Injury

DDT1 MF-2 hamster ductus deferens cells are resistant to hypothermia due to serotonin secretion from secretory vesicles and subsequent cystathionine beta synthase (CBS) mediated formation of H2S. We investigated whether the mechanism promoting resistance to hypothermia may be translationally induced in cells vulnerable to cold storage. Thus, VMAT-1 (vesicular monoamino transferase) and TPH-1 (tryptophan hydroxylase) were co-transfected in rat aortic smooth muscle cells (SMAC) and kidney tissue to create a serotonin-vesicular phenotype (named VTSMAC and VTkidney, respectively). Effects on hypothermic damage were assessed. VTSMAC showed a vesicular phenotype and an 8-fold increase in serotonin content and 5-fold increase in its release upon cooling. Cooled VTSMAC produced up to 10 fold higher concentrations of H2S, and were protected from hypothermia, as shown by a 50% reduction of caspase 3/7 activity and 4 times higher survival compared to SMAC. Hypothermic resistance was abolished by the inhibition of CBS activity or blockade of serotonin re-uptake. In VTkidney slices, expression of CBS was 3 fold increased in cold preserved kidney tissue, with two-fold increase in H2S concentration. While cooling induced substantial damage to empty vector transfected kidney as shown by caspase 3/7 activity and loss of FABP1, VTkidney was fully protected and comparable to non-cooled control. Thus, transfection of VMAT-1 and TPH-1 induced vesicular storage of serotonin which is triggered release upon cooling and has protective effects against hypothermia. The vesicular serotonergic phenotype protects against hypothermic damage through re-uptake of serotonin inducing CBS mediated H2S production both in cells and kidney slices

Wachstum und Produktqualität verschiedener Schweineherkünfte aus ökologischer Haltung

In order to investigate if there are differences between endangered or modern pig breeds concerning growth and product quality a total of ninety fattened pigs were housed and fed after the principles of the organic farming. During the fattening period the animals got regularly weight and measured alive with magnetic resonance tomo-graphy (MRT) in order to research tissue growth. After achieving a live weight of about 120 kilogram the pigs got slaughtered. After slaughtering the carcass quality was acquired, samples were taken for investigating the meat quality and one carcass side was measured again with the MRT. Results point out that differences exist between the breeds concerning the attributes of growth, carcass and meat quality

Die Logik der europäischen Agrarpolitik: Politische Macht oder ökonomische Gesetzmäßigkeiten?

This paper derives an applied general political economy model incorporating a model of political decision-making into a computable general economic equilibrium model. Political decision-making among a set of legislators is modeled via a mean voter decision rule derived from a modified non-cooperative legislative bargaining game of a BARON-FEREJOHN type. Legislators’ preferences are endogenously derived from political support maximization, where policies translate into legislators’ support according to a political transformation surface. Each surface reflects specific economic framework conditions of legislators` constituency. The model allows a simultaneous analysis of political and economic factors determining policy outcome. In regard to the Health Check proposal of the Commission the model is applied to simulate future Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) under various political and economic scenarios. Main results are: (i) MTR-reform will not be stable in the future. In particular, EU-enlargement and technical progress imply further reforms in 2013 corresponding to further liberalization of CAP and a further shift towards the second pillar, i.e. from market & price to structural policies. (ii) These general trends would be attenuated by increased world market prices, while additional WTO restriction would amplify these trends. (iii) Compared to economic and international policy factors, constitutional reforms, e.g. a higher participation of the European Parliament in CAP decision-making, have only moderate impact on future CAP, while changed financial rules would significantly reverse policy trends, i.e. reallocating budget from the second to the first pillar.political economy general equilibrium model, European agricultural policy, endogenous policy preferences, CAP reform, Agricultural and Food Policy, International Relations/Trade, Political Economy,

Implementation of Four Real-Time Software Defined Receivers and a Space-Time Decoder using Xilinx Virtex 2 Pro Field Programmable Gate Array

This paper describes the concept, architecture, development and demonstration of a real time, high performance, software defined 4-receiver system and a space time decoder to be implemented on a Xilinx Virtex 2 Pro Field Programmable Gate Array. It is designed and developed for research into receiver diversity and multiple input and multiple output (MIMO)wireless systems. Each receiver has a Freescale DSP56321 digital signal processor (DSP) to run synchronization, channel state estimation and equalization algorithms. The system is software defined to allow for flexibility in the choice of receiver demodulation formats, output data rates and space-time decoding schemes. Hardware, firmware and software aspects of the receiver and space time decoder system to meet design requirements are discussed

Lust auf Verschiedenheit - Inklusionsprozesse gestalten

LUST AUF VERSCHIEDENHEIT - INKLUSIONSPROZESSE GESTALTEN Lust auf Verschiedenheit - Inklusionsprozesse gestalten / Baden, Henning (Rights reserved) ( -

The impact of antipsychotic drugs on food intake and body weight and on leptin levels in blood and hypothalamic ob-r leptin receptor expression in wistar rats

OBJECTIVES: The aim of our study was to investigate the impact of typical and atypical antipsychotic drugs on leptin concentration in blood and changes in the receptor expression in the hypothalamus of male Wistar rats. METHODS: From the age of 13 to 18 weeks, three groups of 20 animals were fed an average dose of 3.5 + 0.03 mg/ kg body weight (BW) haloperidol; 30.6 + 0.22 mg/kg BW clozapine; or 14.9 + 0.13 mg/kg BW ziprasidone in ground food pellets containing 15% fat. Twenty control animals received no drugs. Blood samples were taken at week 14, 16, and 19. Locomotor activity and exploratory behavior were measured using the alcove test at weeks 15 and 17. The expression of the hypothalamic leptin receptor in rat brains was determined by using a Western blot. RESULTS: Rats medicated with haloperidol and ziprasidone showed a significantly decreased percentage weight gain and food consumption. We observed no differences in the alcove test, but locomotor activity was significantly reduced in the haloperidol group. Except for rats in the clozapine and ziprasidone groups, after 2 weeks of drug application, we found no changes in the leptin blood concentrations among the four groups or animals within each group. Moreover, we did not find specific differences in hypothalamic leptin receptor expression among the groups. CONCLUSION: We concluded that in male Wistar rats during this treatment period, the tested drugs did not act directly on the leptin regulatory system. We recommend further studies using long-term treatment of different rat strains