Organic foods in public catering: Organisational development or a locomotive to boost organic sales

In many countries public procurement policies of organic foods have become a popular instrument to increase the sale of organic produce. However, unlike the relatively uncomplicated “organic” change process in private households, the processes related to implementation of foods in public food systems have proved to be quite complicated. In order to study the nature of these systems and their ability to implement organic consumption a study of the Danish Green Procurement Programme (GPP) method was carried out. The GPP aimed at supporting organic consumption in public catering. The study included document analysis, qualitative interviews and a questionnaire based survey among practitioners at catering and municipal level. The results show that organic conversion processes in municipal catering is a multifaceted process. The process is not only concerned with substituting conventional foods with organic ones but involves a number of significant spin offs and ramifications. Instead of being a simple replacement process the conversion also functions as a change opportunity in which public food systems can develop and innovate. However the Danish case also shows that if organic procurement policies should be a reliable alternative sales channel, it is important at all times to keep the goal of the conversion in mind and not to neglect the need for constant monitoring of the progress of the organic procurement policy in terms of actual amounts of organic products. The case shows that such monitoring is needed both at institutional, municipal and national levels

Ecological modernisation in the public catering sector. Danish experiences with use of organic food

The paper is part of the proceedings of an iPOPY seminar. The authors reflect on whether and how organic food in schools and kindergartens can be described as a part of an ecological modernization strategy in Denmark. They discuss how it has merged with more economically and technically approach in public catering policy. They discuss how it has merged with more economically and technically approaches in public catering policy

Near-threshold production of W±W^\pm, Z0Z^0 and H0H^0 at a fixed-target experiment at the future ultra-high-energy proton colliders

We outline the opportunities to study the production of the Standard Model bosons, $W^\pm$, $Z^0$ and $H^0$ at "low" energies at fixed-target experiments based at possible future ultra-high-energy proton colliders, \ie\ the High-Energy LHC, the Super proton-proton Collider and the Future Circular Collider -- hadron-hadron. These can be indeed made in conjunction with the proposed future colliders designed to reach up to $\sqrt{s}=100$ TeV by using bent crystals to extract part of the halo of the beam which would then impinge on a fixed target. Without disturbing the collider operation, this technique allows for the extraction of a substantial amount of particles in addition to serve for a beam-cleaning purpose. With this method, high-luminosity fixed-target studies at centre-of-mass energies above the $W^\pm$, $Z^0$ and $H^0$ masses, $\sqrt{s} \simeq 170-300$ GeV, are possible. We also discuss the possibility offered by an internal gas target, which can also be used as luminosity monitor by studying the beam transverse shape

Bremsstrahlung from relativistic heavy ions in a fixed target experiment at the LHC

We calculate the emission of bremsstrahlung from lead and argon ions in A Fixed Target ExpeRiment (AFTER) that uses the LHC beams. With nuclear charges of $Ze$ equal $208$ and $18$ respectively, these ions are accelerated to energies of $7$ TeV$\times Z$. The bremsstrahlung peaks around $\approx 100$ GeV and the spectrum exposes the nuclear structure of the incoming ion. The peak structure is significantly different from the flat power spectrum pertaining to a point charge. Photons are predominantly emitted within an angle of $1/\gamma$ to the direction of ion propagation. Our calculations are based on the Weizs\"{a}cker-Williams method of virtual quanta with application of existing experimental data on photonuclear interactions.Comment: 9 pages, 3 figures. Submitted to Advances in High Energy Physic

Hybridization at superconductor-semiconductor interfaces

Hybrid superconductor-semiconductor devices are currently one of the most promising platforms for realizing Majorana zero modes. Their topological properties are controlled by the band alignment of the two materials, as well as the electrostatic environment, which are currently not well understood. Here, we pursue to fill in this gap and address the role of band bending and superconductor-semiconductor hybridization in such devices by analyzing a gated single Al-InAs interface using a self-consistent Schrodinger-Poisson approach. Our numerical analysis shows that the band bending leads to an interface quantum well, which localizes the charge in the system near the superconductor-semiconductor interface. We investigate the hybrid band structure and analyze its response to varying the gate voltage and thickness of the Al layer. This is done by studying the hybridization degrees of the individual subbands, which determine the induced pairing and effective $g$-factors. The numerical results are backed by approximate analytical expressions which further clarify key aspects of the band structure. We find that one can obtain states with strong superconductor-semiconductor hybridization at the Fermi energy, but this requires a fine balance of parameters, with the most important constraint being on the width of the Al layer. In fact, in the regime of interest, we find an almost periodic dependence of the hybridization degree on the Al width, with a period roughly equal to the thickness of an Al monolayer. This implies that disorder and shape irregularities, present in realistic devices, may play an important role for averaging out this sensitivity and, thus, may be necessary for stabilizing the topological phase.Comment: 10 Figures. 16 pages. Published versio

Invention in Philippine Industry

This paper is presented at the Third National Convention on Statistics at the Philippine International Convention Center on December 13-14, 1982. It discusses the different legal instruments utilized in the Philippines to encourage invention and to facilitate technology purchase. A brief history of the patent system is provided.productivity, industry sector, patent and license, investment, invention and innovation

Discrete Optimization for Interpretable Study Populations and Randomization Inference in an Observational Study of Severe Sepsis Mortality

Motivated by an observational study of the effect of hospital ward versus intensive care unit admission on severe sepsis mortality, we develop methods to address two common problems in observational studies: (1) when there is a lack of covariate overlap between the treated and control groups, how to define an interpretable study population wherein inference can be conducted without extrapolating with respect to important variables; and (2) how to use randomization inference to form confidence intervals for the average treatment effect with binary outcomes. Our solution to problem (1) incorporates existing suggestions in the literature while yielding a study population that is easily understood in terms of the covariates themselves, and can be solved using an efficient branch-and-bound algorithm. We address problem (2) by solving a linear integer program to utilize the worst case variance of the average treatment effect among values for unobserved potential outcomes that are compatible with the null hypothesis. Our analysis finds no evidence for a difference between the sixty day mortality rates if all individuals were admitted to the ICU and if all patients were admitted to the hospital ward among less severely ill patients and among patients with cryptic septic shock. We implement our methodology in R, providing scripts in the supplementary material

The evolution of post-intensive care syndrome

No abstract available