Sustainability assessment of goat and sheep farms: a comparison between European countries

European sheep and goat farming faces diverse challenges at global or local scales and constitutes an important sector for many countries, playing important sociocultural, economic and environmental roles. A closer examination of the overall sustainability of the sector is necessary to assess the performance of different farm types in various geographical settings. This comparative study evaluates the use of a common sustainability assessment (SA) tool for the major European countries in the sheep and goat sector. In particular, the study reports the results of a SA using the Public Goods (PG) Tool, adapted within the Innovation for Sustainable Sheep and Goat Production in Europe (iSAGE) Horizon 2020 project, which includes questions accounting for 13 dimensions of a sheep and goat farm sustainability. In total, 206 farmers from Greece, Italy, Spain, Finland, United Kingdom, France and Turkey were interviewed, all of which were typical of specific types of a pan-European sheep and goat farm typologies elaborated within iSAGE. The study resulted in composite indicators of performance in each dimension for each country. Finland, Italy and the United Kingdom performed better than other countries, while Turkey and Greece performed below average in most categories. The results highlight challenges for each country but also at the European level, the latter mainly relating to generational renewal and an unwillingness to invest in the adoption of a more sustainable approach with long-term results.</jats:p

The use of premature chromosome condensation to study in interphase cells the influence of environmental factors on human genetic material

Nowadays, there is a constantly increasing concern regarding the mutagenic and carcinogenic potential of a variety of harmful environmental factors to which humans are exposed in their natural and anthropogenic environment. These factors exert their hazardous potential in humans' personal (diet, smoking, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics) and occupational environment that constitute part of the anthropogenic environment. It is well known that genetic damage due to these factors has dramatic implications for human health. Since most of the environmental genotoxic factors induce arrest or delay in cell cycle progression, the conventional analysis of chromosomes at metaphase may underestimate their genotoxic potential. Premature Chromosome Condensation (PCC) induced either by means of cell fusion or specific chemicals, enables the microscopic visualization of interphase chromosomes whose morphology depends on the cell cycle stage, as well as the analysis of structural and numerical aberrations at the G1 and G2 phases of the cell cycle. The PCC has been successfully used in problems involving cell cycle analysis, diagnosis and prognosis of human leukaemia, assessment of interphase chromosome malformations resulting from exposure to radiation or chemicals, as well as elucidation of the mechanisms underlying the conversion of DNA damage into chromosomal damage. In this report, particular emphasis is given to the advantages of the PCC methodology used as an alternative to conventional metaphase analysis in answering questions in the fields of radiobiology, biological dosimetry, toxicogenetics, clinical cytogenetics and experimental therapeutics

Political economy of international trade: a theoretical and empirical investigation

The dissertation aims at contributing both theoretically and empirically to the scientific dialogue as to whether absolute or comparative advantage is the regulatory principle of international trade. The theoretical part of the dissertation presents the labor theory of value, competition and trade theories. In the empirical part, it raises research questions that focus on the famous ‘Leontief's Paradox’ and the notion of Unequal Exchange and transfers of value. The research method is that of vertical integration and within the context of Input Output Analysis. The results lend support to the absolute cost advantage theory as the regulatory principle of international trade rather than to comparative advantage one. The empirical analysis for the Unequal Exchange approach advocate that the feature for the transfers of values, is the socially necessary labor time needed for the production of a commodity. In addition, the empirical results confirm the persistence of ‘Leontief's Paradox’ in the United States in the international trade for the period 1997-2012.By that the dissertation raise doubts about the principle of the factor abundance which governs modern trade theories.Σκοπός της παρούσας διατριβής είναι να συμβάλλει θεωρητικά και εμπειρικά στον επιστημονικό διάλογο σχετικά με το εάν ισχύει το απόλυτο ή το συγκριτικό πλεονέκτημα, ως ρυθμιστική αρχή του διεθνούς εμπορίου. Για αυτόν τον λόγο προσπαθεί συνοπτικά να εντάξει μέσα σε ένα γενικότερο πλαίσιο ανάλυσης, έννοιες που σχετίζονται με την Εργασιακή Θεωρία της Αξίας, τις Θεωρίες του Ανταγωνισμού και, τέλος, τις Θεωρίες του Εμπορίου. Τα ερευνητικά ερωτήματα που θέτει η διατριβή επικεντρώνονται στην εμπειρική διερεύνηση του ‘Παράδοξου του Leontief’ και της Άνισης Ανταλλαγής όπως αυτή παρατηρείται μέσα από τις μεταβιβάσεις αξίας. Η εμπειρική τεκμηρίωση των ερευνητικών ερωτημάτων προκύπτει μέσα από τη μέθοδο της κάθετης ολοκλήρωσης και την ανάλυση των Πινάκων Εισροών Εκροών. Τα συμπεράσματα της έρευνας συνηγορούν υπέρ του απόλυτου πλεονεκτήματος ως ρυθμιστικής αρχής του διεθνούς εμπορίου. Ειδικότερα, τα αποτελέσματα αναφορικά με την Άνιση Ανταλλαγή υποδηλώνουν ότι καθοριστικός παράγοντας για τις μεταβιβάσεις αξίας είναι ο κοινωνικά αναγκαίος χρόνος εργασίας που απαιτείται για την παραγωγή ενός εμπορεύματος. Η εμπειρική διερεύνηση αφορά το διμερές εμπόριο μεταξύ Ελλάδας -Γερμανίας στην περίοδο 1995-2011. Επίσης, τα εμπειρικά αποτελέσματα επιβεβαιώνουν τη διαχρονική ισχύ του ‘Παράδοξου του Leontief’ στις ΗΠΑ για την περίοδο 1997-2012 με αποτέλεσμα να τίθεται υπό αμφισβήτηση η αρχή που διέπει τις σύγχρονες θεωρίες εμπορίου σχετικά με την αφθονία των παραγωγικών συντελεστών

The Effects of Health Sector Fiscal Decentralisation on Availability, Accessibility, and Utilisation of Healthcare Services: A Panel Data Analysis

BACKGROUND: Fiscal decentralisation (FD) is a widely implemented decentralisation policy consisting of the allocation of pooling and spending responsibilities from the central government to lower levels of governance within a country. In 2001, The Italian National Health System (Servizio Sanitario Nazionale, SSN) has introduced a strong element of FD, making regions responsible for their own pooling of resources and for their budgets. Despite the relevance, only few studies exist on health sector-FD in Italy, mostly looking at the effects of FD on infant mortality. METHODS: This study performs a fixed-effects panel data analysis of Italian Regions and Autonomous provinces between the years 2001 and 2017, to investigate the effects of health sector-FD on availability, accessibility, and utilisation of healthcare services in Italy. RESULTS: FD decreases availability of staff and hospital beds, decreases utilisation of care, measured by hospitalisation rates, and increases interregional patients' mobility for healthcare purposes, a finding suggesting increased disparities in access to healthcare. These effects seem to be stronger for public - rather than private - services, and are more prominent in poorer areas. CONCLUSION: This evidence suggest that FD has created a fragmented and unequal healthcare system, in which levels of availability, utilisation of, and accessibility to resources - as well as the extent of public sector's retrenchment - coincide with the wealth of the area

Headache in Systemic Lupus Erythematosus vs Multiple Sclerosis: A Prospective Comparative Study

Objective.-To clarify whether headache, and particularly migraine, belongs to the spectrum of neurologic manifestations of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), the archetypal autoimmune disease. Methods.-Consecutive SLE patients were matched 1: 1 for age, gender, and level of education with healthy control subjects. A representative subgroup of SLE patients were also matched with patients suffering from multiple sclerosis (MS), a nervous system-specific autoimmune disease. All study participants were assessed for headache present in the previous year. Anxiety, depression, and quality of life were also estimated at baseline. During the following year, all participants were assessed every 3 months using specific headache diaries. Results.-Seventy-two SLE/control pairs and 48 MS patients completed 12 months of follow-up. Prevalence of migraine, with or without aura, was similar between SLE patients (21%), MS patients (23%), and controls (22%), as was the prevalence of frequent tension-type headache. Duration and severity of migraine attacks were milder in SLE patients than controls. Only chronic tension-type headache was significantly more prevalent in SLE patients (12.5%) compared to controls (1.4%). MS patients also presented increased frequency of chronic tension-type headache (8.3%). No associations of any headache type with particular clinical manifestations, autoantibody, or disease activity, either in SLE or MS patient groups, were found. Irrespective of the presence of headache, anxiety symptoms and impaired quality of life were more frequent among SLE than MS patients or controls. Conclusion.-Migraine should be no longer considered a neurologic manifestation of systemic or organ-specific autoimmunity. Increased migraine prevalence in these patients found in previous studies could be due to methodological weaknesses