Hur ett certifieringsorgan kan bidra till en hållbar värdekedja

Med miljöföroreningar och överfisket i världshaven står fiskbranschen inför stora utmaningar för att ställa om till ett mer hållbart fiske. Landbaserade system för fisk- och skaldjursproduktion är en relativt ny produktionsform som uppkommit där systemen har en uppbyggnad likt ett kretslopp. Systemen är effektiva, hållbara och har en minimal negativ påverkan på miljön. Fiskbranschen är en relativt oreglerad bransch med bristande riktlinjer och lagar jämfört med andra animalieproduktioner både i Sverige och globalt. Därför utvecklar Svenskt Sigill en IPstandard för landbaserad fisk- och skaldjursproduktion som ger producenter möjlighet att kunna certifiera sig och märka sina produkter med Svenskt Sigill. Detta kommer skapa riktlinjer, ett ordentligt regelverk och ge konsumenter ett hållbart alternativ av fiskkonsumtion. I och med denna nya certifiering kommer många aktörer bli inblandade. Hur Svenskt Sigill förhåller sig till de andra aktörerna i denna utveckling intresserade uppsatsförfattarna. En miljömärkning på en produkt skapar ett mervärde hos konsumenterna som ökar betalningsviljan på produkten. Detta mervärde utvecklas i varje del av en värdekedja som består av flera aktörer. Syftet med denna studie är då att utveckla och förstå rollen av certifierande organ i utvecklingen av mer hållbara värdekedjor. För att kunna besvara frågeställningarna i denna kvalitativa fallstudie har representanter från Svenskt Sigill, Axfood, Coop och ICA intervjuats. Svenskt Sigill är ett certifierande organ som kontrollerar och utvecklar standarder inom livsmedel och blommor. Axfood, Coop och ICA är aktörer inom dagligvaruhandeln som tillsammans har marknadsandelar motsvarande ca 90 %. För att uppnå syftet har en teoretisk syntes gjorts som kopplar hållbar utveckling med företagsekonomiska teorier kring värdekedja och marknadskanaler. Resultatet visar att Svenskt Sigill har fått förfrågningar att göra en certifiering av landbaserade system för fisk- och skaldjur, från både producenter och handeln. Detta betyder att fallstudien inte visar sig överensstämma med den traditionella modellen av marknadskanaler. Istället visade sig marknadskanalen ha en mer dynamisk utformning där det sker ett samspel mellan aktörerna. Att ha ett certifierande organ likt Svenskt Sigill i en värdekedja gör att den blir mer dynamisk och frångår sin traditionella linjära form. De verkar som en kontrollerande tredje part samtidigt som de sammankopplar handeln med producenter och till viss del konsumenter.With environmental pollution and overfishing in the oceans, the fish industry faces major challenges to convert to a more sustainable fishing. Land-based systems are a relatively new form of production that arose where the systems have a structure similar to a cycle. The systems are efficient, durable and have a minimal negative impact on the environment. The fish industry is a relatively unregulated industry with a lack of guidelines and laws compared to another animal production both in Sweden and globally. Therefore, Svenskt Sigill develops an IP-standard for land-based fish and shellfish production, which gives producers the opportunity to certify themselves and label their products with Svenskt Sigill. This will create guidelines, a proper regulatory framework and give consumers a sustainable alternative of fish consumption. With this new certification, many actors will be involved. The essay writers are interested in how the Svenskt Sigill relates to the other actors in this development. An eco-label on a product creates added value for consumers, which increases the willingness to pay for the product. This added value develops in every part of a value chain that consists of several actors. The purpose of this study is to develop and understand the role of certifying organizations in the development of more sustainable value chains. In order to answer the questions in this qualitative case study, representatives from the Svenskt Sigill, Axfood, Coop and ICA have been interviewed. Svenskt Sigill is a certification bodies that controls and develops standards in food and flowers. Axfood, Coop and ICA are actors in the grocery trade, which together have market shares corresponding to about 90 %. In order to achieve the purpose, a theoretical synthesis has been made that links sustainable development with business-economic theories on value chain and market channels. The result shows that the Svenskt Sigill has received requests to make a certification of land-based systems for seafood, from both producers and the trade. This means that the case study does not prove to be consistent with the traditional model of market channels. Instead, the market channel turned out to have a more dynamic design where there is an interaction between the actors. Having a certifying body like the Svenskt Sigill in a value chain makes it more dynamic and departs from its traditional linear form. They act as a controlling third party while linking trade with producers and to some consumers

Från Sverige till Rosengård - Studie av en etniskt diversifierad marknad

Studiens syfte är att undersöka om, och i sådana fall hur, företag anpassar sina marknadsföringsinstrument på en lokalt etniskt diversifierad marknad. Vidare ämnas studera om företag, på central nivå, tillvaratar lokala butikers/kontors erfarenheter och kunskaper av en etniskt diversifierad marknad. En kvalitativ metod valdes eftersom vi ämnade skapa en djupgående förståelse och helhetsuppfattning av den undersöka företeelsen. Djupintervjuer genomfördes med företagsrepresentanter från fallföretagen samt med experter på den studerande företeelsen. Dessa intervjuer utgjorde empirin som sedan var grunden för analysen och slutsatserna. Hos samtliga fallföretag hade någon form av anpassning av marknadsföringsinstrumenten skett till den etniskt diversifierade marknaden. Produkt, promotion och personal är de marknadsföringsinstrument med vilka fallföretagen anpassat sig till den lokala etniskt diversifierade marknaden. Tillvaratagandet av personalens kunskap från kontor/butiker verksamma på en etniskt diversifierad marknad varierade mellan fallföretagen, från att inte vara intresserade till försök till tillvaratagande. Inget av fallföretagen hade ett utvecklat systematiskt tillvaratagande, utan i de fall tillvaratagande önskades skedde det på ett ostrukturerat sätt. Företag som på centralnivå arbetar med mångfaldsfrågor tycktes vara mera intresserade av att tillvarata kunskapen som skapats på en lokalt etniskt diversifierad marknad

Bacteria Penetrate the Inner Mucus Layer before Inflammation in the Dextran Sulfate Colitis Model

Protection of the large intestine with its enormous amount of commensal bacteria is a challenge that became easier to understand when we recently could describe that colon has an inner attached mucus layer devoid of bacteria (Johansson et al. (2008) Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 105, 15064-15069). The bacteria are thus kept at a distance from the epithelial cells and lack of this layer, as in Muc2-null mice, allow bacteria to contact the epithelium. This causes colitis and later on colon cancer, similar to the human disease Ulcerative Colitis, a disease that still lacks a pathogenetic explanation. Dextran Sulfate (DSS) in the drinking water is the most widely used animal model for experimental colitis. In this model, the inflammation is observed after 3-5 days, but early events explaining why DSS causes this has not been described.When mucus formed on top of colon explant cultures were exposed to 3% DSS, the thickness of the inner mucus layer decreased and became permeable to 2 microm fluorescent beads after 15 min. Both DSS and Dextran readily penetrated the mucus, but Dextran had no effect on thickness or permeability. When DSS was given in the drinking water to mice and the colon was stained for bacteria and the Muc2 mucin, bacteria were shown to penetrate the inner mucus layer and reach the epithelial cells already within 12 hours, long before any infiltration of inflammatory cells.DSS thus causes quick alterations in the inner colon mucus layer that makes it permeable to bacteria. The bacteria that reach the epithelial cells probably trigger an inflammatory reaction. These observations suggest that altered properties or lack of the inner colon mucus layer may be an initial event in the development of colitis

Swedish free school companies going global: Spatial imaginaries and movable pedagogical ideas

Enabled by market-oriented policies implemented in the early 1990s, a nation-wide for-profit education industry has emerged and flourished in Sweden. As a more recent expansion strategy, Swedish school companies have begun exporting their school and early childhood education and care services internationally. In this article, three such companies and a selection of the foreign operations they have set up are studied to analyse how they describe the education services they are establishing in the new national settings. The findings show that the companies have developed and followed different edu-business models, using and transforming particular pedagogical ideas and connecting them to different spatial imaginaries. These include the Swedish/Scandinavian as both places and idealized spaces, infused with borderless global transformative spatial imaginaries on the creation of autonomous learners and futuristic education visions for global futures. Educational profiles and concepts from the Swedish context are both adjusted and marketed to the foreign settings, and entail stories on spaces and mobilities, encompassing pedagogy, teachers and students. </p

Effect of Aerosolization and Drying on the Viability of Pseudomonas syringae Cells

Airborne dispersal of microorganisms influences their biogeography, gene flow, atmospheric processes, human health and transmission of pathogens that affect humans, plants and animals. The extent of their impact depends essentially on cell-survival rates during the process of aerosolization. A central factor for cell-survival is water availability prior to and upon aerosolization. Also, the ability of cells to successfully cope with stress induced by drying determines their chances of survival. In this study, we used the ice-nucleation active, plant pathogenic Pseudomonas syringae strain R10.79 as a model organism to investigate the effect of drying on cell survival. Two forms of drying were simulated: drying of cells in small droplets aerosolized from a wet environment by bubble bursting and drying of cells in large droplets deposited on a surface. For drying of cells both in aerosol and surface droplets, the relative humidity (RH) was varied in the range between 10 and 90%. The fraction of surviving cells was determined by live/dead staining followed by flow cytometry. We also evaluated the effect of salt concentration in the water droplets on the survival of drying cells by varying the ionic strength between 0 and 700 mM using NaCl and sea salt. For both aerosol and surface drying, cell survival increased with decreasing RH (p &lt; 0.01), and for surface drying, survival was correlated with increasing salt concentration (p &lt; 0.001). Imaging cells with TEM showed shrunk cytoplasm and cell wall damage for a large fraction of aerosolized cells. Ultimately, we observed a 10-fold higher fraction of surviving cells when dried as aerosol compared to when dried on a surface. We conclude that the conditions, under which cells dry, significantly affect their survival and thus their success to spread through the atmosphere and colonize new environments as well as their ability to affect atmospheric processes

Dissociation of EphB2 Signaling Pathways Mediating Progenitor Cell Proliferation and Tumor Suppression

SummarySignaling proteins driving the proliferation of stem and progenitor cells are often encoded by proto-oncogenes. EphB receptors represent a rare exception; they promote cell proliferation in the intestinal epithelium and function as tumor suppressors by controlling cell migration and inhibiting invasive growth. We show that cell migration and proliferation are controlled independently by the receptor EphB2. EphB2 regulated cell positioning is kinase-independent and mediated via phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase, whereas EphB2 tyrosine kinase activity regulates cell proliferation through an Abl-cyclin D1 pathway. Cyclin D1 regulation becomes uncoupled from EphB signaling during the progression from adenoma to colon carcinoma in humans, allowing continued proliferation with invasive growth. The dissociation of EphB2 signaling pathways enables the selective inhibition of the mitogenic effect without affecting the tumor suppressor function and identifies a pharmacological strategy to suppress adenoma growth

HTR1A a Novel Type 1 Diabetes Susceptibility Gene on Chromosome 5p13-q13

Background: We have previously performed a genome-wide linkage study in Scandinavian Type 1 diabetes (T1D) families. In the Swedish families, we detected suggestive linkage (LOD less than= 2.2) to the chromosome 5p13-q13 region. The aim of our study was to investigate the linked region in search for possible T1D susceptibility genes. Methodology/Principal Findings: Microsatellites were genotyped in the Scandinavian families to fine-map the previously linked region. Further, SNPs were genotyped in Swedish and Danish families as well as Swedish sporadic cases. In the Swedish families we detected genome-wide significant linkage to the 5-hydroxytryptamine receptor 1A (HTR1A) gene (LOD 3.98, pless than9.8x10(-6)). Markers tagging two separate genes; the ring finger protein 180 (RNF180) and HTR1A showed association to T1D in the Swedish and Danish families (pless than0.002, pless than0.001 respectively). The association was not confirmed in sporadic cases. Conditional analysis indicates that the primary association was to HTR1A. Quantitative PCR show that transcripts of both HTR1A and RNF180 are present in human islets of Langerhans. Moreover, immunohistochemical analysis confirmed the presence of the 5-HTR1A protein in isolated human islets of Langerhans as well as in sections of human pancreas. Conclusions: We have identified and confirmed the association of both HTR1A and RFN180, two genes in high linkage disequilibrium (LD) to T1D in two separate family materials. As both HTR1A and RFN180 were expressed at the mRNA level and HTR1A as protein in human islets of Langerhans, we suggest that HTR1A may affect T1D susceptibility by modulating the initial autoimmune attack or either islet regeneration, insulin release, or both

Synthesis of 5-Hydroxyectoine from Ectoine: Crystal Structure of the Non-Heme Iron(II) and 2-Oxoglutarate-Dependent Dioxygenase EctD

As a response to high osmolality, many microorganisms synthesize various types of compatible solutes. These organic osmolytes aid in offsetting the detrimental effects of low water activity on cell physiology. One of these compatible solutes is ectoine. A sub-group of the ectoine producer's enzymatically convert this tetrahydropyrimidine into a hydroxylated derivative, 5-hydroxyectoine. This compound also functions as an effective osmostress protectant and compatible solute but it possesses properties that differ in several aspects from those of ectoine. The enzyme responsible for ectoine hydroxylation (EctD) is a member of the non-heme iron(II)-containing and 2-oxoglutarate-dependent dioxygenases (EC 1.14.11). These enzymes couple the decarboxylation of 2-oxoglutarate with the formation of a high-energy ferryl-oxo intermediate to catalyze the oxidation of the bound organic substrate. We report here the crystal structure of the ectoine hydroxylase EctD from the moderate halophile Virgibacillus salexigens in complex with Fe3+ at a resolution of 1.85 Å. Like other non-heme iron(II) and 2-oxoglutarate dependent dioxygenases, the core of the EctD structure consists of a double-stranded β-helix forming the main portion of the active-site of the enzyme. The positioning of the iron ligand in the active-site of EctD is mediated by an evolutionarily conserved 2-His-1-carboxylate iron-binding motif. The side chains of the three residues forming this iron-binding site protrude into a deep cavity in the EctD structure that also harbours the 2-oxoglutarate co-substrate-binding site. Database searches revealed a widespread occurrence of EctD-type proteins in members of the Bacteria but only in a single representative of the Archaea, the marine crenarchaeon Nitrosopumilus maritimus. The EctD crystal structure reported here can serve as a template to guide further biochemical and structural studies of this biotechnologically interesting enzyme family

31st Annual Meeting and Associated Programs of the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC 2016) : part two

Background The immunological escape of tumors represents one of the main ob- stacles to the treatment of malignancies. The blockade of PD-1 or CTLA-4 receptors represented a milestone in the history of immunotherapy. However, immune checkpoint inhibitors seem to be effective in specific cohorts of patients. It has been proposed that their efficacy relies on the presence of an immunological response. Thus, we hypothesized that disruption of the PD-L1/PD-1 axis would synergize with our oncolytic vaccine platform PeptiCRAd. Methods We used murine B16OVA in vivo tumor models and flow cytometry analysis to investigate the immunological background. Results First, we found that high-burden B16OVA tumors were refractory to combination immunotherapy. However, with a more aggressive schedule, tumors with a lower burden were more susceptible to the combination of PeptiCRAd and PD-L1 blockade. The therapy signifi- cantly increased the median survival of mice (Fig. 7). Interestingly, the reduced growth of contralaterally injected B16F10 cells sug- gested the presence of a long lasting immunological memory also against non-targeted antigens. Concerning the functional state of tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs), we found that all the immune therapies would enhance the percentage of activated (PD-1pos TIM- 3neg) T lymphocytes and reduce the amount of exhausted (PD-1pos TIM-3pos) cells compared to placebo. As expected, we found that PeptiCRAd monotherapy could increase the number of antigen spe- cific CD8+ T cells compared to other treatments. However, only the combination with PD-L1 blockade could significantly increase the ra- tio between activated and exhausted pentamer positive cells (p= 0.0058), suggesting that by disrupting the PD-1/PD-L1 axis we could decrease the amount of dysfunctional antigen specific T cells. We ob- served that the anatomical location deeply influenced the state of CD4+ and CD8+ T lymphocytes. In fact, TIM-3 expression was in- creased by 2 fold on TILs compared to splenic and lymphoid T cells. In the CD8+ compartment, the expression of PD-1 on the surface seemed to be restricted to the tumor micro-environment, while CD4 + T cells had a high expression of PD-1 also in lymphoid organs. Interestingly, we found that the levels of PD-1 were significantly higher on CD8+ T cells than on CD4+ T cells into the tumor micro- environment (p < 0.0001). Conclusions In conclusion, we demonstrated that the efficacy of immune check- point inhibitors might be strongly enhanced by their combination with cancer vaccines. PeptiCRAd was able to increase the number of antigen-specific T cells and PD-L1 blockade prevented their exhaus- tion, resulting in long-lasting immunological memory and increased median survival

Actions for Annulment and the Right to Effective Judicial Protection : the Criteria for Admissibility under Article 263(4) TFEU

The right of private applicants to bring actions for annulment in European Union courts is regulated by article 263(4) TFEU. According to the article, private parties may bring actions for annulment only in three situations. First, as stated in the first limb, they may institute proceedings against an act addressed to them. Second, the second limb enables instituting proceedings against an act, which is of direct and individual concern to them. The third limb and last possibility is to institute proceedings against a regulatory act, which is of direct concern to them and does not entail implementing measures. These limitations raise the question of whether the effective judicial protection is sufficiently ensured in the Union legal order. The principle of effective judicial protection is a general principle of Union law. It can be seen as one of the emanations of rule of law, which is a foundational value of the European Union. The principle is also laid down in article 47 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, which is inspired by articles 6 and 13 of the European Convention of Human Rights. The judicial protection in the European Union rests on two pillars: the Union remedies and the remedies before national courts. Although the European Union offers a complete legal system of legal remedies and procedures, the effectiveness of the alternative remedies is not always adequate. The Court of Justice of the European Union has consequently interpreted especially the criterion of individual concern strictly. However, it has used a more generous approach in the fields of competition, state aid, and anti-dumping. It seems like the Court has been more willing to safeguard the effectiveness of European Union law than the effective judicial protection of individuals. If the Union legal system wishes to be a modern, value-driven legal system that is accountable for its substance, it should match its effectiveness understanding with a right to effective judicial protection