Canadian Consumer's Willingness-To-Pay For Pesticide Free Food Products: An Ordered Probit Analysis

A new crop production system has emerged in western Canada. Pesticide Free ProductionTM (PFPTM) emphasizes reduced pesticide use in conjunction with increased reliance on producer knowledge of agronomic practices that mitigate weed, insect and disease pressure. A contingent valuation survey was undertaken to determine if Canadian consumers would pay a premium for PFPTM food products. Over 65 percent of respondents would be willing to pay a one to ten percent premium relative to a conventional food product. Five percent of respondents would be willing to pay more than a 20 percent premium. Health and environmental concerns, willingness to switch grocery stores and youth are important characteristics of consumers who would be willing to pay higher premiums. Distribution channels geared towards health food stores (or health food centers within grocery stores) are likely targets for PFPTM food products.Demand and Price Analysis, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety,

The black bar mitzvah : Representations of Jews in US hip-hop lyrics

References to Jews and to matters included in Jewish discourse are commonplace in US popular culture in general and in US-produced hip-hop lyrics in particular. This article deals with the latter, and aims to analyse how Jews are represented there. It is suggested here that 1. these representations are rendered comprehensible by analysing them in the light of the term coined by Zygmunt Bauman: allosemitism, which denotes that Jews are ‘other’. This article further suggests that 2. the representations of Jews featured in the lyrics cannot be made comprehensible without looking into the historical relations between American Jews and African Americans. According to Jeffrey Melnick, this relation is characterised by ‘robust ambivalences’. This article arrives at the conclusion that the representations of Jews draw on classical conspiratorial and economic antisemitic ideas that situate Jews within the realms of shadowy (economic and instrumental) power, but which at times can be understood as philosemitic, as Jews are represented as wealthy and influential role models. Hence the usage of the term allosemitism to analyse the empirics

Design of Fire-exposed Steel Structures - The Swedish Approach

A rational, analytical approach to a fire engineering design of load-bearing steel structures is described. The method of design is directly based on the natural compartment fire concept and on strictly defined functional requirements and performance criteria. The method is permitted to be generally applied in Sweden, as one alternative, since about ten years. For facilitating the practical application, a comprehensive design basis has been worked out in the form of diagrams and tables for a direct determination of the maximum steel temperature during a complete compartment fire and the corresponding design load-bearing capacity of the fire exposed structure. The design basis is presented in a manual which has been given type approval for practical use by the National Swedish Board of Physical Planning and Building

Modeling of room fire growth - Combustible lining materials

A computational procedure has been developed to correlate the room fire test process and results from the proposed IS0 small scale laboratory tests. The analysis assumes that the full scale room fire test follows the proposed ASTM method, implying that the lining material covers ceiling and walls. The procedure requires that the heat release measurement response time of the test room is evaluated and for a specific material linked to results from the ignitability test. From the same test, a value of koc must be calculated. From a small scale rate of heat release test are evaluated specific characteristics describing the RHR-curve. The derived test room and material characteristics are used as input data to an uncomplicated mathematical expression, essentially describing the full scale test fire process as a concurrent flame spread phenomenon. Undetermined parametors in the model have boon derived using regression analysis and results from seven full scale room tests. In these the tested materials were of such thickness that no burning through occurred. The quantitative accuracy was thought acceptable but further experimental confirmation and sensitivity studies are needed to assess the inherent variability. Qualitatively the procedure predicted the same relative ranking of materials as the room test. For thin surface finish materials on a non-combustible base it was possible to derive a radically simple expression to be used as indication of the risk of flashover. Again, the final usefulness can only be evaluated on the basis of further experimental evidence. In summary, it is thought that a first step has been taken in the efforts to use results from small scale tests to rationally predict full scale fire growth (for one specified scenario) and rank materials

Fire Behaviour of Upholstered Furniture - An Experimental Study

The first and largely experimental part of a research program on flammability characteristics of upholstered furniture has been completed with full-scale tests in an extensively instrumented burn-out room as main element. The results indicate that fire response parameters vary within a large range with choice of filling, interlining and fabric material. Selection of performance criteria may cause difficulties, as parameters like heat release and smoke potential fluctuate strongly during the fire process. A second part of the program will be directed towards measurement of heat release by oxygen consumption methods, more detailed smoke and gas analysis measurements and use of mathematical simulation procedures

Combustible linings and room fire growth - a first analysis

The objectives of the project were threefold: to utilize the proposed ISO tests to derive basic flammability characteristics which could rationally bc used as classification criteria: to generate a full-scale fire test standard: and finally, to mathematically correlate small-scale test data and the full-scale fire process. For this purpose 13 materials were tested in eight small-scale tests in the full-scale test room and in a one-third scalc version of this room. Table 1 lists the materials and Table 2 the test methods. Thc project is part of a larger one, described in Ref 3, carried out jointly by the Swedish National Testing Institute and Lund Institute of Technology