The European Market for Organic Products: Growth and Development

The European Market for organic food has been growing rapidly in terms of both supply and demand during the 1990s. However, national markets develop in many different directions. In some countries the market share ist quiet high while in others a market for organic farming products nearly does not exist. This book detects and compares the national markets of the main organic products in 18 European countries - the 15 EU countries plus Switzerland, Norway and the Czech Republic - on the basis of the most comprehensive collection of data ever presented covering the period 1993 - 1997/1998. It is shown that European demand is far from being satisfied and the major efforts in organising a transparent international market and developing marketing strategies is necessary to realise this potential. This book is aimed at policy makers, the private sector, researchers and students in the field of economics and politics of organic farming

Organic Farming Development and Agricultural Institutions in Europe: A Study of Six Countries

Cooperation between general agricultural institutions and the organisation of the organic farming sector are key factors for the development of organic farming. This study analyses the relationships of organic farming organisations with other farmers' organisations, agencies of agricultural policy and food market firms in six European countries. On this basis it identifies a path for successful development of organic farming which is adaptable to the special conditions of all European countries. This book presents the most systematic and in-depth comparison of the dynamics of organic farming development to date, providing concrete suggestions for a line of action for everyone with an interest in developing organic farming

Relationship between chromatographic retention and donor and acceptor numbers

The prediction of chromatographic retention times for a wide range of chemical compounds has been a subject of interest and intense study during the past few decades. Several of these studies are discussed, in particular those which utilize empirical parameters of solvent polarity in a correlation to chromatographic retention. Several of these empirical scales of solvent polarity are discussed in detail. The compilation of accurate acceptor and donor numbers is thoroughly discussed. Correlation of some of these empirical parameters to the solvent\u27s normal phase liquid chromatographic retention was attempted. The multiple variable correlation equation which resulted in the best correlation utilized the solvent analyte\u27s acceptor number, donor number, and pi* value. The gas chromatographic retention behavior of a wide range of solvent classes was also correlated to solvent property data. The highest correlation of this retention data was achieved using a multiple variable correlation equation involving the solvent\u27s boiling point, donor number, and pi* value. In addition to these most successful attempts several other correlation equations are discussed

EMERGING AGRICULTURAL WATER CONSERVATION PRICE INCENTIVES

Recent Bureau of Reclamation policies encourage or require irrigation districts to adopt price conservation incentives. Using unpublished survey results and new district-level information, we examine the rate structures and incentives of district water pricing. Our findings reveal that the majority of districts use fixed charges independent of the quantity of water delivered and that most conservation rate structures recently implemented are designed so that the first tier quantity allocation satisfies most crop water needs. Although other district management objectives may be satisfied, price incentives are diminished or nonexistent. The question of whether conservation is being achieved is tautological and depends on how each district defines conservation.Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

IRRIGATION DISTRICT ADOPTION OF WATER CONSERVING RATE STRUCTURES

A binary choice model was used to identify the attributes that influence irrigation district adoption of conservation rate structures. Using principles of rate design and irrigation district administration as a framework, measures of irrigation district rate structure objectives and physical and economic conditions were developed. The factors investigated characterize the constraints under which districts operate, value and cost of water, quantity of water delivered and revenue risk for districts. Rate structure adoption was predicted with over 75% accuracy. Both significant and non-significant factors are key to understanding rate choice. Districts were more likely to adopt conservation rate pricing when the cost of water to farmers was greater, higher value crops were grown and in areas with warmer and longer growing seasons. These conditions may be interpreted as reflecting the presence of greater opportunity costs in allocating water between low and higher valued uses. Conservation rate pricing was less likely to be adopted by districts where the proportion of alfalfa to total acreage was higher and with higher per acre deliveries of water. Somewhat surprisingly, annual variation in water deliveries (which should increase the risk of revenue shortfalls) and size of the district (larger districts being more sophisticated) have little bearing on the type of rate structure adopted.Environmental Economics and Policy, Land Economics/Use, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

Opaque Service Virtualisation: A Practical Tool for Emulating Endpoint Systems

Large enterprise software systems make many complex interactions with other services in their environment. Developing and testing for production-like conditions is therefore a very challenging task. Current approaches include emulation of dependent services using either explicit modelling or record-and-replay approaches. Models require deep knowledge of the target services while record-and-replay is limited in accuracy. Both face developmental and scaling issues. We present a new technique that improves the accuracy of record-and-replay approaches, without requiring prior knowledge of the service protocols. The approach uses Multiple Sequence Alignment to derive message prototypes from recorded system interactions and a scheme to match incoming request messages against prototypes to generate response messages. We use a modified Needleman-Wunsch algorithm for distance calculation during message matching. Our approach has shown greater than 99% accuracy for four evaluated enterprise system messaging protocols. The approach has been successfully integrated into the CA Service Virtualization commercial product to complement its existing techniques.Comment: In Proceedings of the 38th International Conference on Software Engineering Companion (pp. 202-211). arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1510.0142

Turning Characteristics of U.S. Coast Guard Icebreaker M-5

http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/96616/1/39015087359009.pd

EVALUATING THE EFFECTIVENESS OF CONSERVATION WATER-PRICING PROGRAMS: REPLY

Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

EVALUATING THE EFFECTIVENESS OF CONSERVATION WATER-PRICING PROGRAMS

Charging farmers increasing block prices for irrigation deliveries is advocated as a means of encouraging agricultural water conservation in the West. We formulated a model of a hypothetical irrigated river basin to investigate the hyrdro-economic circumstances in which such pricing leads to water conservation. Our results indicate that increasing delivery prices may encourage irrigators to make adjustments with countervailing impacts on consumptive water use and conservation. Whether these countervailing impacts combine to conserve water or increase its consumptive use must be resolved empirically. An alternative resolution of this ambiguity is to assess water prices in terms of consumptive use.Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,