Structural Patterns of the Bioeconomy in the EU Member States – a SAM approach

The concept of 'bioeconomy' is gathering momentum in European Union (EU) policy circles as a sustainable model of growth to reconcile the goals of continued wealth generation and employment with bio-based sustainable resource usage. Unfortunately, an economy-wide quantitative assessment covering the full diversity of this sector is, hitherto, constrained by relatively poor data availability for disaggregated bio-based activities. This research takes a first step in addressing this issue by employing social accounting matrices (SAMs) for each EU27 member encompassing a highly disaggregated treatment of traditional bio-based agricultural and food sectors, in addition to identifiable bioeconomic activities from the national accounts data. Employing backward-linkage (BL), forward-linkage (FL) and employment multipliers, the aim is to profile and assess comparative structural patterns both across bioeconomic sectors and EU Member States. The results indicate six clusters of EU member countries with homogeneous bioeconomy structures. Within cluster statistical tests reveal a high tendency toward 'backward orientation' or demand driven wealth generation, whilst inter-cluster statistical comparisons across each bio-based sector show only a moderate degree of heterogeneous BL wealth generation and, with the exception of only two sectors, a uniformly homogeneous degree of FL wealth generation. With the exception of forestry, fishing and wood activities, bio-based employment generation prospects are below non bioeconomy activities. Finally, milk and dairy are established as 'key sectors'.JRC.J.4-Agriculture and Life Sciences in the Econom

Preferencias hacia el origen de un alimento étnico y la influencia de variables psicográficas

En los últimos años, el conocimiento y consumo de comidas y/o alimentos étnicos se ha difundido en el ámbito nacional. Diversos factores, entre los que destaca la inmigración, han sido decisivos en su comercialización. El mantener las costumbres alimentarias de su país de origen hace que los inmigrantes conformen segmentos de consumidores que generan una demanda específica en el mercado. Mediante un experimento de elección, se investigan las preferencias de los consumidores latinoamericanos con respecto a un alimento esencial en sus dietas, la harina de maíz. Para permitir que las preferencias puedan diferir entre individuos, se estima un modelo logit mixto. Entre las posibles fuentes explicativas de la heterogeneidad de preferencias, se contrasta la influencia de factores psicográficos, tales como los valores personales, la fobia a los alimentos nuevos y el etnocentrismo del consumidor. Así, se ha encontrado que los consumidores más neo-fóbicos y los más orientados hacia el desarrollo personal, tienden a ser más sensibles a variaciones en el precio; y los más etnocentristas manifiestan mayor preferencia hacia la harina de su país de origen.Experimento de elección, logit mixto, consumidores latinoamericanos, alimentos étnicos, características psicográficas., Agricultural and Food Policy, Q13, M31.,

Strain gauge fields for rippled graphene membranes under central mechanical load: an approach beyond first-order continuum elasticity

We study the electronic properties of rippled freestanding graphene membranes under central load from a sharp tip. To that end, we develop a gauge field theory on a honeycomb lattice valid beyond the continuum theory. Based on the proper phase conjugation of the tight-binding pseudospin Hamiltonian, we develop a method to determine conditions under which continuum elasticity can be used to extract gauge fields from strain. Along the way, we resolve a recent controversy on the theory of strain engineering in graphene: There are no K-point dependent gauge fields. We combine this lattice gauge field theory with atomistic calculations and find that for moderate load, the rippled graphene membranes conform to the extruding tip without significant increase of elastic energy. Mechanical strain is created on a membrane only after a certain amount of load is exerted. In addition, we find that the deformation potential --even when partially screened-- induces qualitative changes on the electronic spectra, with Landau levels giving way to equally-spaced peaks.Comment: 8 pages, 7 figure

Observing and analysing the Bioeconomy in the EU - Adapting data and tools to new questions and challenges

The concept of 'bioeconomy' is receiving increased attention in policy and business circles. The European Commission (EC) has initiated the Bioeconomy Strategy which is a signal of intent that the EU seeks to meet the challenge of reconciling responsible-resource usage respecting sustainability criteria, with wealth-generation. To this aim, the EC’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) has been entrusted to implement a Bioeconomy Information Systems Observatory (BISO) within which the objective is to develop an ongoing coherent picture of the activities of this sector, whilst developing forward-looking tools of analysis to help respond to the aforementioned challenge. This paper provides an overview of the research activities which are currently under development at the JRC. Whilst the scale of ambition of the BISO is significant, it is recognised that much of the research conducted so-far remains work-in-progress and therefore is only a starting point to fully capturing the nuances of this diverse and complex sector.JRC.J.4-Agriculture and Life Sciences in the Econom