Ethical rooms for maneuver and theirprospects vis á vis the current ethical food policies in Europe

In this paper I want to show that consumer concerns can be implemented in food chains by organizing ethical discussions of conflicting values that include them as participators. First, it is argued that there are several types of consumer concerns about food and agriculture that are multi-interpretable and often contradict each other or are at least difficult to reconcile without considerable loss. Second, these consumer concerns are inherently dynamic because they respond to difficult and complex societal and technological situations and developments. For example, because of the rising concern with global warming, carbon dioxide absorption of crops is now attracting public attention, which means that new requirements are being proposed for the environmentally friendly production of crops. Third, there are different types of consumers, and their choices between conflicting values differ accordingly. Consumers use different weighing models and various types of information in making their food choices. Changing food chains more in accordance with consumer concerns should at least take into account the multi-interpretable, dynamic, and pluralist features of consumer concerns, for example, in traceability schemes. In discussing usual approaches such as codes, stakeholder analysis, and assurance schemes, I conclude that these traditional approaches can be helpful. However, in cases of dynamic, pluralistic, and uncertain developments, maintaining some pre-existing evaluating scheme or some clear cut normative hierarchy, such as codes or assurance schemes, can be disastrous in undermining new ethical desirable initiatives. Instead of considering ethical standards and targets as fixed, which is done with codes and schemes, it is more fruitful to emphasize the structure of the processes in which ethical weighing of relevant consumer concerns get shaped. The concept of ¿Ethical Room for Maneuver¿ (ERM) is constructed to specify the ethical desirable conditions under which identification and weighing of paramount values and their dilemmas can be processed. The main aims of the ERM are making room in all the links of the food chain for regulating and implementing the relevant consumer concerns by (1) balancing and negotiating, (2) supporting information systems that are relevant and communicative for various consumer groups and (3) organizing consumer involvement in the links of the food chain. The social and political context of agriculture and food production, particularly in Europe, gives ample opportunity for implementing several types of Ethical Rooms for Maneuver. Finally, I discuss several types of Ethical Rooms for Manoeuvre in the food chains that can be communicated by means of specific traceability schemes to less involved stakeholders with the potential consequence that the stakeholders will be motivated to be more involve

Dilute monopole gas, magnetic screening and k-tensions in hot gluodynamics

An adjoint multiplet of screened monopoles forming a dilute gas fits very well lattice data at high $T$. There are now seven ratios for k-strings available, checking within a few percent with the prediction $k(N-k)$. The diluteness turns out to be a small parameter for SU(N) gluodynamics, to a good approximation ($1\over N^2$) independent of the value of $N$, and also independent of $T$. This suggests a dilute Bose-Einstein gas, with a BE transition at the deconfinement temperature $T_c$.Comment: 13 pages, talk given at Workshop on Continuous Advances in QCD 2004, Minneapolis, Minnesota, 13-16 May 200

Magnetic monopoles in hot QCD

In this talk we review how a dilute gas of magnetic monopoles in the adjoint describes the spatial k-Wilson loops. We formulate an effective theory from $S_{MQCD}$ by integrating out dof's down to scales in between the magnetic screening mass and the string tension and relate the 3d pressure and the string tension. Lattice data are consistent with the gas being dilute for all temperatures.Comment: 7 pages, two figures, talk given at Continuous Advances in QCD, Minneapolis, May 200

Effective potential analysis for 5D SU(2) gauge theories at finite temperature and radius

We calculate the one loop effective potential for a 5D SU(2) gauge field theory at finite temperature $T=1/\beta$ and radius R=1/M. This calculation is performed, for the first time, in the case of background fields with two constant components $A^{3}_{y}$ (directed towards the compact extra dimension with radius R) and $A^{3}_{\tau}$ (directed towards the compact Euclidean time with radius $\beta$). This model possesses two discrete symmetries known as Z_{M}(2) and Z_{T}(2). The corresponding phase diagram is presented in Ref. 4. However the arguments which lead to this diagram are mainly qualitative. We present a detailed analysis, from our point of view, for this phase diagram, and we support our arguments performing lattice simulations for a simple phenomenological model with two scalar fields interacting through the previously calculated potential.Comment: 18 pages, 7 figures ; typos correcte

Spatial 't Hooft loop to cubic order in hot QCD

Spatial 't Hooft loops of strength k measure the qualitative change in the behaviour of electric colour flux in confined and deconfined phase of SU (N) gauge theory. They show an area law in the deconfined phase, known analytica lly to two loop order with a ``k-scaling'' law k(N-k). In this paper we comput e the O(g^3) correction to the tension. It is due to neutral gluon fields that get their mass through interaction with the wall. The simple k-scaling is lost in cubic order. The generic problem of non-convexity shows up in this order an d the cure is provided. The result for large N is explicitely given. We show tha t nonperturbative effects appear at O(g^5).Comment: 22 pages. Apart from a discussion on the renormalization effect of the Polyakov loop to cubic order only cosmetic changes with respect to the earlier hep-ph/021229