Global Governance for Environmentally Sustainable Food Systems: Certified Organics in a North – South and South-South Perspective

Challenged to consume with less environmental impact, consumers buy certified organic products to “proxy” environmental governance. The paper explores how far certified organic agriculture is institutionally embedded in Brazil, China, and Egypt. The three case studies illustrate how regulation, including standard-setting and certification processes differ between south and north, in terms of the evolution and nature of certification, as well as stakeholders and agency involved in shaping the regulation. A comparative analysis is presented on south-south differences in this regard along with some possible explanations of these. The paper finally discusses the perspectives in the global success of organic certification and whether it has potential to transform global agriculture towards higher overall levels of sustainability

Effects of Companies’ Initiatives to Reduce Early Retirement Among Older Workers

Although active ageing policy and practice vary between countries, we believe that knowledge about the effects of Norwegian companies’ initiatives to delay early retirement is of interest for all countries striving to increase the employment rates of older workers. Since the agreement on a more inclusive working life (IW agreement) was signed in 2001, the Norwegian government and social partners have encouraged companies to develop a more senior-friendly policy and implement special measures to retain older workers. In this article, we evaluate the effects of such measures. Our research question is, have preventive measures offered by companies to employees aged 62 years and older contributed to reduced rates of early retirement? We use a ‘difference-in-differences’ approach and examine whether measures at the company level to counteract early retirement actually affect older employees’ retirement decisions, controlling for different individual and enterprise factors. This is done by comparing changes and differences in the individual likelihood of early retirement on the contractual pension (AFP scheme) and disability pension in the period 2002–2007 among employees 62 years of age in businesses with and without the corresponding preventive measures/instruments. The analyses show that the likelihood that a 62-year-old worker will retire on the AFP scheme has increased from 2002 to 2007. This applies equally to 62-year-old employees in enterprises that have enacted special measures to retain older workers as well as 62-year-olds in enterprises that have not enacted any such measures. On the other hand, the likelihood that a 62-year-old worker will retire because of disability decreased from 2002 to 2007, among employees in both the intervention enterprises and the control enterprises. However, when controlling for other relevant characteristics of individuals and enterprises, the analysis indicates that the measures as such have had no effect on the likelihood of 62-year-olds retiring

Validation of Simplified Rack Boundary Conditions for Numerical Data Center Models

As cloud computing and computational needs grow, data centers will continue to become a larger part of our energy load. Proper design and layout is crucial to efficient energy use in data centers. Modeling the rack is one of critical pieces in this design. Often this is done as a black box rather than modeling the rack in detail. Modeling a computer rack as a black box has been done in numerous data center studies, but rarely has it been validated against experimental temperature and velocity data. This study looks at two simplified rack models and compares them against a rack composed of four 10U server simulators. The first model is an open box model that has a heating and fan plate and allows air to flow through the rack. The second model is a black box model that allows no flow through the rack and imposes a constant pressure boundary across the inlet and exhaust. The model adds the proportion of the rack load to the upwind cells at the rack inlet plate to generate the exhaust temperature profile. The models were tested across a range of airflows and rack loads. Agreements were found to be within 3°C and 0.2 m/s on average over all experiments. An interesting finding of this study was the importance of correctly capturing the boundary conditions at the perforated floor tile. Modeling the perforated floor tile as a nozzle using the momentum method described in ASHRAE RP-1009 was found to produce acceptable results for airflow from the perforated floor tile

Adults With Intellectual Disabilities in a Day Program Setting Using Activity Schedules

Research suggests teaching adults and children with disabilities to follow pictorial cues increases home life skills, vocational skills and on-task behavior. Activity schedules use pictorial cues to prompt individuals to complete behavioral sequences. The purpose of this study was to examine if, after training, adults with intellectual disabilities completed a series of behaviors using an activity schedule. The dependent variable is percent of components completed independently. Three individuals with mild to severe intellectual and physical disabilities receiving services from a private provider day program participated. Each participant used an activity schedule to complete a skill set during training. The results show that, for all participants, an activity schedule increased independently completed steps of the skill set, typing on a computer, as compared to when the activity schedule was not present

Epidemiology and integrated control of Potato Late Blight in Europe

Phytophthora infestans, the causal agent of late blight, is a major threat to potato production in northwestern Europe. Before 1980, the worldwide population of P. infestans outside Mexico appeared to be asexual and to consist of a single clonal lineage of A1 mating type characterized by a single genotype. It is widely believed that new strains migrated into Europe in 1976 and that this led to subsequent population changes including the introduction of the A2 mating type. The population characteristics of recently collected isolates in NW Europe show a diverse population including both mating types, sexual reproduction and oospores, although differences are observed between regions. Although it is difficult to find direct evidence that new strains are more aggressive, there are several indications from experiments and field epidemics that the aggressiveness of P. infestans has increased in the past 20 years. The relative importance of the different primary inoculum sources and specific measures for reducing their role, such as covering dumps with plastic and preventing seed tubers from becoming infected, is described for the different regions. In NW Europe, varieties with greater resistance tend not to be grown on a large scale. From the grower’s perspective, the savings in fungicide input that can be achieved with these varieties are not compensated by the higher (perceived) risk of blight. Fungicides play a crucial role in the integrated control of late blight. The spray strategies in NW Europe and a table of the specific attributes of the most important fungicides in Europe are presented. The development and use of decision support systems (DSSs) in NW Europe are described. In The Netherlands, it is estimated that almost 40% of potato growers use recommendations based on commercially available DSS. In the Nordic countries, a new DSS concept with a fixed 7-day spray interval and a variable dose rate is being tested. In the UK, commercially available DSSs are used for c. 8% of the area. The validity of Smith Periods for the new population of P. infestans in the UK is currently being evaluated

Sow body condition at weaning and reproduction performance in organic piglet production

The objective was to investigate the variation in backfat at weaning and its relations to reproduction results in organic sow herds in Denmark. The study included eight herds and 573 sows. The average backfat at weaning mean�13 mm; SD�4.2 mm) ranging from 10.5 to 17.3 mm among herds shows that it is possible to avoid poor body condition at weaning even with a lactation length of seven weeks or more. No main effect of backfat at weaning on reproduction performance was found, but the probability of a successful reproduction after weaning tended to decrease with decreasing backfat for first parity sows, whereas the opposite was the case for multiparous sows

Testing of trawl-acoustic stock estimation of spawning capelin 2023

This report describes the fifth in a series of trawl-acoustic monitoring surveys of the maturing stock of capelin during the spawning migration to the coast. The survey is a response to a proposal from the industry to evaluate the possibility of using winter monitoring of maturing capelin as an input to the capelin assessment and advice. The timing and geographic coverage of the survey are such that they would be relevant to use for advice given that the output is reliable. The rental of the vessel was this year funded by the Norwegian Fishermen’s Sales Organization for Pelagic Fish. Pre-defined areas off the Troms and Finnmark coast were covered using FV Vendla. A stratified random transect design was adopted with a zig-zag transect grid covered in west-east direction over 6 strata. Echo sounders with frequencies from 18-333 kHz were run together with a low frequency ST90 sonar, and target trawls were carried out on significant pelagic aggregations. Capelin abundance was estimated using 38 kHz data. The total biomass of maturing capelin in the coverage area was estimated at 274 732 tons, with a CV of 35%. The 5% lower and 95% upper confidence limits were 128 879 and 448 768 tons, respectively. The confidence bands overlap with the uncertainty intervals in the prediction from the autumn 2022, but on the low side. Capelin recorded in the stratum covering the coast from Hjelmsøy to Nordkyn dominated in the estimate (strata 3 and 4). Ca. 86% of the total biomass was found in these two strata, and ca. 78% of the schools detected with sonar. Sonar data showed that the capelin schools in these easterly areas in general moved in a westerly direction. Very little capelin was recorded in the west and in the Varangerfjord. Age 4 capelin (2019 year class) totally dominated the sampled capelin. Mean length of the capelin was 16.03 cm, mean weight 20.3 g, and mean roe percentage was 16 with no temporal or geographical trend, but maturation had extended further close to the coast than off the coast. The abnormal low frequency response at 38 kHz observed in some of the earlier survey years, was not observed to any large extent this year. This is the fifth year that the estimate from this survey shows consistency with the estimate from the autumn survey. This is promising for the use of the survey results for advice, but it was obvious that there were maturing capelin that had not been covered, in particular in the Russian EEZ where the Russian vessels were fishing. The results from the 4 previous survey years were evaluated in a recent ICES capelin benchmark meeting in November last year, but the report from the meeting was not published by the time of the release of the present report.Testing of trawl-acoustic stock estimation of spawning capelin 2023publishedVersio

Changes in aerosol properties during spring-summer period in the Arctic troposphere

The change in aerosol properties during the transition from the more polluted spring to the clean summer in the Arctic troposphere was studied. A six-year data set of observations from Ny-Ålesund on Svalbard, covering the months April through June, serve as the basis for the characterisation of this time period. In addition four-day-back trajectories were used to describe air mass histories. The observed transition in aerosol properties from an accumulation-mode dominated distribution to an Aitken-mode dominated distribution is discussed with respect to long-range transport and influences from natural and anthropogenic sources of aerosols and pertinent trace gases. Our study shows that the air-mass transport is an important factor modulating the physical and chemical properties observed. However, the air-mass transport cannot alone explain the annually repeated systematic and rather rapid change in aerosol properties, occurring within a limited time window of approximately 10 days. With a simplified phenomenological model, which delivers the nucleation potential for new-particle formation, we suggest that the rapid shift in aerosol microphysical properties between the Arctic spring and summer is mainly driven by the incoming solar radiation in concert with transport of precursor gases and changes in condensational sink

The mating behavior and reproduction performance in a multi-sire mating system for pigs

Abstract An important aim of organic animal production is to allow natural animal behaviour. Regarding reproduction techniques, artificial insemination is permitted but natural mating is preferred. The outdoor multi-sire system, where the sows are placed in large paddocks with a group of boars, is one example of a service system, which complies well with the organic ideals of facilitating natural animal behavior. However, very little knowledge is available about such system. Seven groups of in total of 47 sows and 31 boars were observed to study the mating behavior in an outdoor multi-sire mating system and the subsequent reproduction results. The time of start of courtship, behavior and the cause of disruption if the courtship was terminated, were recorded each time a boar courted a sow. All aggressive interactions between the boars were also recorded to estimate the boar ranking order. The observations revealed numerous poor quality matings, a huge variation in the number of times sows are mated, and overworked boars. Only 35% of all copulations lasted 2 min or more and 63% of all copulations were disrupted, mainly by competitor boars. The higher social status of the boar, the more copulations did it disrupt ( p < 0.05). The outcome was an unacceptable variation in reproduction results. Only 71% of all estrus sows conceived, corresponding to a pregnancy rate of 77% of all mated sows. A large inter-group variation in reproduction performance was observed, indicating scope for improvements. In some groups all sows showed estrus and all sows conceived. Recommendations for improvement of the system are proposed.

Self-Efficacy and Mental Health Services Provided by Rural and Frontier Oncology Social Workers

This pilot study explores the relationship between self-efficacy and professional behaviors of a non-random membership sample of the Association of Oncology Social Work (AOSW) who practice in rural and frontier settings (N = 19). The New Generalized Self-Efficacy (NGSE) scale was used to measure provider self-efficacy; a researcher-designed questionnaire was used to assess the professional behaviors of conducting mental health assessments and providing supportive counseling to individuals diagnosed with cancer. Pearson correlation and two-sample t-tests were used to analyze data. While study results did not elucidate relationships explored, results revealed a disparity between participants’ overall high sense of professional preparedness and comfort conducting mental health assessments and the regularity with which they perform these functions of oncology patient care