LIVESTOCK INSURANCE AS A RISK MANAGEMENT TOOL ON DAIRY FARMS

Faced with fast changing environment, livestock epidemics and EU accession, risk management is of utmost importance for Croatian farmers. Insurance is risk management strategy which enables risk transfer from farmer to insurance company. It has a positive effect on income stabilization and consequently could lead to higher level of specialization, credit access and competitiveness. Nevertheless, livestock insurance is relatively unimportant on dairy farms. Reasons are twofold. Uncompleted requirements for risk to be insurable, adverse selection and moral hazard problems reflect on untoward premium rates. Demand for insurance, on the other hand, depends on the farm structure, access to other risk management instruments as well as dairy farmer’s management capacities. The objective of the paper is to analyze risk management on dairy farms with focus on livestock insurance. Survey on 20 farmers in the Northwest Croatia has been made. Farmers’ risk perceptions, application and evaluation of risk management strategies were collected. Governmental insurance premium subsidy was also analyzed. Survey data were analysed by descriptive statistics while decision analysis toward livestock insurance with stohastic decision tree. European Union experiences with livestock insurance presented stand in creating suggestions for possible setting out of current constraints of livestock insurance in Croatia

Common scaling behavior in finance and macroeconomics

In order to test whether scaling exists in finance at the world level, we test whether the average growth rates and volatility of market capitalization (MC) depend on the level of MC. We analyze the MC for 54 worldwide stock indices and 48 worldwide bond indices. We find that (i) the average growth rate $\langle$ r $\rangle$ of the MC and (ii) the standard deviation $\sigma(r)$ of growth rates r decrease both with MC as power laws, with exponents $\alpha_w$ = 0.28 ± 0.09 and $\beta_w$ = 0.12 ± 0.04. We define a stochastic process in order to model the scaling results we find for worldwide stock and bond indices. We establish a power-law relationship between the MC of a country's financial market and the gross domestic product (GDP) of the same countr

CROATIAN FISHERY – HARMONIZATION OF REGULATIONS AND HOW TO ACCESS EU?

Problems in Croatian fishery that impacts on low competitiveness were well known even before harmonization process start. EU accession process put even addition emphasis on the mentioned problem. In fact, increasing competitiveness from equal situation for market participants is one of the basic functions of the EU regulation harmonization in the accession process. It is highly integrated market environment and extremely demanding due to high level of European market norms. Legal basis of the process, and at the same time criteria for Croatian legalization assessment, have been determined during screening phase - chapter 13 - fishery. Beside harmonization, changes are necessary in physical characteristics and spatial relationships, primary assuring area for fish discharge on the part of the front. It increases fishermen security, manipulation with a fish is easier, risk of contamination is low, control and compliances with the fish trade standards according to the EU standards and regulations are enabled. The paper aims to analyze national documents and acquis in fish trade (Common Market Organisation; Common Fishery Policy) and determine needs for harmonization between Croatian and EU laws and introduction of the CMO measures. The paper indicates necessary activities in harmonization of regulations and proposed institutional and administrative changes. Due to absence of regulation, changes in Croatian fishery sector will not be conducted properly and consequently it won’t have equal chances on the EU market. Therefore this subject needs to be included in governmental priorities with the objective to assure legal basis for adequate infrastructure and suprastructure. The results presented are a part of the research conducted during authors’ work on the Fishery infrastructure in accordance with EU acquis feasibility study

Long-term dynamics of aberrant neuronal activity in awake Alzheimer's disease transgenic mice

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is associated with aberrant neuronal activity, which is believed to critically determine disease symptoms. How these activity alterations emerge, how stable they are over time, and whether cellular activity dynamics are affected by the amyloid plaque pathology remains incompletely understood. We here repeatedly recorded the activity from identified neurons in cortex of awake APPPS1 transgenic mice over four weeks during the early phase of plaque deposition using in vivo two-photon calcium imaging. We found that aberrant activity during this stage largely persisted over the observation time. Novel highly active neurons slowly emerged from former intermediately active neurons. Furthermore, activity fluctuations were independent of plaque proximity, but aberrant activity was more likely to persist close to plaques. These results support the notion that neuronal network pathology observed in models of cerebral amyloidosis is the consequence of persistent single cell aberrant neuronal activity, a finding of potential diagnostic and therapeutic relevance for AD

The beta-Secretase Substrate Seizure 6-Like Protein (SEZ6L) Controls Motor Functions in Mice

The membrane protein seizure 6–like (SEZ6L) is a neuronal substrate of the Alzheimer’s disease protease BACE1, and little is known about its physiological function in the nervous system. Here, we show that SEZ6L constitutive knockout mice display motor phenotypes in adulthood, including changes in gait and decreased motor coordination. Additionally, SEZ6L knockout mice displayed increased anxiety-like behaviour, although spatial learning and memory in the Morris water maze were normal. Analysis of the gross anatomy and proteome of the adult SEZ6L knockout cerebellum did not reveal any major differences compared to wild type, indicating that lack of SEZ6L in other regions of the nervous system may contribute to the phenotypes observed. In summary, our study establishes physiological functions for SEZ6L in regulating motor coordination and curbing anxiety-related behaviour, indicating that aberrant SEZ6L function in the human nervous system may contribute to movement disorders and neuropsychiatric diseases

Seizure protein 6 controls glycosylation and trafficking of kainate receptor subunits GluK2 and GluK3

Seizure protein 6 (SEZ6) is required for the development and maintenance of the nervous system, is a major substrate of the protease BACE1 and is linked to Alzheimer's disease (AD) and psychiatric disorders, but its molecular functions are not well understood. Here, we demonstrate that SEZ6 controls glycosylation and cell surface localization of kainate receptors composed of GluK2/3 subunits. Loss of SEZ6 reduced surface levels of GluK2/3 in primary neurons and reduced kainate-evoked currents in CA1 pyramidal neurons in acute hippocampal slices. Mechanistically, loss of SEZ6 in vitro and in vivo prevented modification of GluK2/3 with the human natural killer-1 (HNK-1) glycan, a modulator of GluK2/3 function. SEZ6 interacted with GluK2 through its ectodomain and promoted post-endoplasmic reticulum transport of GluK2 in the secretory pathway in heterologous cells and primary neurons. Taken together, SEZ6 acts as a new trafficking factor for GluK2/3. This novel function may help to better understand the role of SEZ6 in neurologic and psychiatric diseases

Evaluation des écarts entre offre et demande en matière de ressources financières, institutions et législation

[Departement_IRSTEA]Territoires [TR1_IRSTEA]DTAMThis deliverable aims to identify existing discrepancies and gaps that exist in the demand and supply side of funding. Existing bias could be institutional, juridical and/or in terms of capacity.Ce rapport identifie les différences et écarts qui existent entre l'offre et la demande de fonds structurels. Les biais peuvent être institutionnels, juridiques et ou en terme de capacité de mobilisation

Periodic Report D0.3 PRIMA collaborative project, EU 7th Framework Programme, contract no. 212345

Facing structural change, European rural areas still fulfil multiple social, economic and ecological functions. Because of scale interplays and sustainability trade-offs, their future dynamics are yet particularly difficult to ascertain. PRIMA aims to develop methods for scaling down the assessment of policy impacts on multifunctional land-use and economic activities. The project focuses on agriculture, forestry, tourism, and ecosystem services, with special attention to the structural effects of the policies. An analysis of the strategic and planning documents in the case study areas highlights that many measures are targeted to several pillars of sustainable development, even though multifunctionality (MF) concept is often unaddressed. Because of the bottom-up governance of the European cohesion policy, a large variety of priorities and measures has been observed, so we oriented the first stakeholders interviews towards their major objectives and the specific measures they activate from the cohesion policy to reach their own objectives. Two groups of stakeholders were identified: those who can assist in scenario and model development and in model validation (drawn from the institutions which implement policy), and the actors who may be affected by the policy and whose behaviour will be captured in the AB model. Two rounds of interviews have been performed, the first one to gain contextual information about the wider case study information. From cluster analysis and this information, sets of municipalities were selected, then a second round of interviews was conducted to identify relevant policy issues and appropriate policy measures. These interviews provide the main events which have occurred during the last 20 years, policy outcomes, the EU funding streams, proposals for new measures. A conceptual model has been developed from extensive literature review and information collected during the surveys. This model focuses on the population dynamics in rural municipalities and on the decision making behaviours observed in such areas, including indicators requirements to match with IA methods. A general method for generating households from different available data at municipality level has been designed: at this level, only average data are available and the method enables to generate relevant individual data to be included in the models. The model has been adapted to the case studies: at this stage, downscaling occurs to input data for the models. We developed a working regional economic model that interacts between global changes (GTAP-IMAGE interactions) and multi-agent based tool at local level. It covers activities agriculture, forestry, services and nature. A start has been made with a program for downscaling. We are working on a procedure to generate the basic regional data for the input. We have to start data generation and theoretical and empirical work to improve on the allocation procedures of national developments to regions. Considering backbone scenarios, first modelling at European level started, with the identification of key economic and demographic factors that drive land use patterns at regional and local levels. External drivers and policies have been distinguished. GTAP and IMAGES have been linked to provide a working modelling framework. Last, we progressed towards enhancing the scope of IA methods, with a review of literature and extensive work between all workpackages.Le rapport présente le déroulement et les avancées du projet PRIMA à mi parcours de réalisation. Sont présentés les développements en termes d'analyse des politiques et des scénarios, d'implication des parties prenantes dans les processus de modélisation, de conceptualisation des modèles et d'apports pour les procédures d'évaluation des impacts

PRIMA, second rapport périodique

Facing structural change, European rural areas still fulfil multiple social, economic and ecological functions. Because of scale interplays and sustainability trade-offs, their future dynamics are still difficult to ascertain. In addition to the inherent difficulties of this undertaking, challenges in actual assessments also depend on external shocks to the economy at large or to particular regions, along with spillover effects among neighbouring regions. PRIMA proposes to improve knowledge in scaling down this assessment. It focuses on agriculture, forestry, tourism, and ecosystem services, with special attention to the structural effects of the European policies at municipality levels. The six case studies of PRIMA, conducted in Germany, United Kingdom, France, Croatia, Czech Republic, and Bulgaria, are important for two main reasons: They provide test cases for the PRIMA approaches, and they have influenced the development of the PRIMA approaches. These case studies have been chosen for their variety of rural dynamics and governance organisation. The strategic and planning documents in these study areas highlights that many measures are targeted to several pillars of sustainable development, even though multifunctionality concept is often not directly addressed. Because of the bottom-up governance of the European cohesion policy, a large variety of priorities and measures has been observed in the priorities and measures, targeted to several pillars of sustainable development. This variety has been narrowed in a pre-modelling stage, where 2 groups of stakeholders were interviewed: Those who can assist in scenario and model development (coming from the institutions which implement policy), and the actors who may be affected by the policy and hence those related behavioural changes should be captured by the model framework. A conceptual model has then been developed from extensive literature review and information collected during the surveys. This model focuses on the population dynamics in rural municipalities and on the decision making behaviours observed. The conceptual micro-simulation model was successfully adapted to three of the study regions (France, United Kingdom and Germany). Additionally, the developed agent-based model was adapted for the United Kingdom region; this allowed studying the effects of social aspects that are not captured in the micro-simulation model. A strong effort was made to adapt the models to the remaining regions (Czech Republic, Bulgaria and Croatia) but the lack of sufficient data would have made the adaptations unstable in the sense that small changes in policy could lead to unexpectedly large changes on key behavioural aspects. For validation purposes, a series of workshops were conducted on the case study areas. The orientation of these workshops depended on the availability of the models for the given case study area. The workshops promoted stakeholder learning about modelling. On the whole, participants recognised models as simplifications of reality. They found explanations about the model components comprehensible, and reacted fairly favourably to the idea of having such a decision-support tool available. However, the lack of good data Contract no. 212345 | Deliverable no. | 07/01/2012 Periodic Report 10/85 at a low geographical scale in most case study areas was seen as a severe limitation. Beyond pathways for model revision, stakeholder on-model involvement in PRIMA’s workshops identified some methodological advances in the field of participatory modelling have been identified. Among these is making explicit the role of a model broker, the endorsement of which should improve the various interpretations of participants. Scenario development, though far in advance of their technical skills, has also proved an efficient tool to involve stakeholders in challenging a model. Adaptation of these models to local conditions revealed their limitations and scope. Further conceptual work was identified and undertaken concerning the design of methods to reconstruct commuting network for regions where data was unavailable, to, to calibrate models with several number of variables and of new approaches to dynamically derive services jobs availability. PRIMA also developed a conceptual work and an integrated simulation tool that includes the MAGNET (formerly LEITAP) model for downscaling from world level to the country level, and a downscaling tool from country level towards the NUTS2 level. An interface has been developed for easy downscaling of scenarios. Special attention has been paid to procedures to process data from EUROSTAT towards a database useful as input for the downscaling model. Last, we progressed towards recommendations enhancing the scope of IA methods, with a review of literature and extensive work between all workpackages