AUTOMATION OR OPENNESS?: TECHNOLOGY AND TRADE IMPACTS ON COSTS AND LABOR COMPOSITION IN THE FOOD SYSTEM

Productivity, technology, production costs, Productivity Analysis, Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies,

ATTITUDES AND HOUSEHOLD CHARACTERISTICS INFLUENCING SOLID WASTE GENERATION: A HOUSEHOLD GARBAGE ANALYSIS

A survey of household decision-makers and an analysis of their garbage was used to suggest factors affecting the weight of household contributions to municipal solid waste. Iterative regression was used to build a model from the data that is hypothesized to explain garbage weight. Food expenditure, environmental attitude, consumption of soft drinks in plastic bottles, and cats in the household were significant for all households. Self-sufficiency and energy-conscious behavioral scales also affected the subgroup with female householders having an educational level of high school graduation or less.Environmental Economics and Policy,

Corporate Social Responsibility and Economic Performance

We describe some perspectives on corporate social responsibility (CSR), in order to provide a context for considering the strategic motivations and implications of CSR. Based on this framework, which is based on characterizing optimal firm decision making and underlies most existing work on CSR, we propose an agenda for further theoretical and empirical research on CSR. We then summarize and relate the articles in this special issue to the proposed agenda.

Growth Performance of Holstein Dairy Calves Supplemented with a Probiotic

Administration of antibiotics in both therapeutic and sub-therapeutic doses has been the standard practice for dealing with pathogenic bacteria problems in farm animals since the 1940s. Several types of antibiotics are currently used to promote weight gain and feed efficiency in domestic livestock. There is growing concern that the use of antibiotics as growth promoters may result in the development of resistant populations of pathogenic bacteria and, in turn, influence the therapeutic use of antibiotics. The indiscriminate and improper use of antibiotics in food-producing animals could result in the presence of residues in milk, meat, and other animal food products consumed by humans. One possible alternative to antibiotics is the use of probiotics. Probiotics can be defined as “live microbial feed supplements which beneficially affect the host animal by improving its intestinal microbial balance” (Fuller, 1989). Probiotics introduce beneficial microorganisms into the gut which act to maintain optimal conditions within the gastrointestinal tract and inhibit the growth of pathogenic or other undesirable bacteria

Personalized medicine : the impact on chemistry

An effective strategy for personalized medicine requires a major conceptual change in the development and application of therapeutics. In this article, we argue that further advances in this field should be made with reference to another conceptual shift, that of network pharmacology. We examine the intersection of personalized medicine and network pharmacology to identify strategies for the development of personalized therapies that are fully informed by network pharmacology concepts. This provides a framework for discussion of the impact personalized medicine will have on chemistry in terms of drug discovery, formulation and delivery, the adaptations and changes in ideology required and the contribution chemistry is already making. New ways of conceptualizing chemistry’s relationship with medicine will lead to new approaches to drug discovery and hold promise of delivering safer and more effective therapies

Education on the Frontier: Schools, Teachers and Community Influence in North-Central British Columbia

Rural education in British Columbia has traditionally been studied from urban-based perspectives. A more intimate interpretation of rural schools is called for, one afforded by the "window on rural society", namely the remote one-room school and its teacher. What did it mean to be a teacher in a small rural school in north-central British Columbia in the 1920s, and what was the interrelationship between the isolated school, its teacher and the community? The answers to these questions are pursued by looking at the experiences of individual teachers, highlighting the teacher's struggle to adapt to adverse physical and social conditions in his or her private and public life, and examining the community's reaction to the efforts by the Department of Education to improve rural school systems. This case study of a specific geographical region in British Columbia demonstrates that rural schools, along with community politics and society, were often markedly different from their urban counterparts.L'école rurale en Colombie-Britannique n'a été étudiée à ce jour que dans une perspective urbaine. Un autre regard s'impose, plus intimiste, comme « à travers une fenêtre s'ouvrant sur le monde rural » d'où l'on verrait, esseulées, l'institutrice et sa petite école. Que signifait, dans les années 1920, enseigner dans une école de campagne du nord de la Colombie-Britannique centrale, et quelle était la nature des rapports entre l'école, l'institutrice et la collectivité? Pour répondre à ces questions, on a interrogé l'expérience de diverses enseignantes, mettant en lumière leurs efforts pour s'adapter à des conditions matérielles et sociales hostiles et exminant les réactions des collectivités face aux mesures prises par le ministère de l'Éducation pour améliorer les systèmes scolaires ruraux. Cette étude de cas sur une région précise de la Colombie-Britannique permet de voir que les écoles rurales, de même que les réalités politiques et sociales de ces milieux, diffèrent souvent de façon marquée des pratiques et des réalités urbaines en ces domaines

Communication Development and Its Disorders: A Psycholinguistic Perspective

There is a reciprocal relationship between the study of language disorders and research in normal language development. Recent studies in normal acquisition have led to a model of language development that includes not only linguistic achievements, but the development of social and cognitive abilities that lay the basis for the transition from prelinguistic communication to the use of conventional forms. This model has been applied to the study of developmental disorders of language learning. Such a model allows the more puzzling disorders of language development, such as childhood aphasia and primary autism, to be placed in a framework that predicts language disruption when underlying perceptual, cognitive, or social abilities are lacking. Assessment procedures that can be drawn from the model of language disorders are presented. It is argued that the study of these disabilities is important in the building of theoretical models of intact language processing that specify more precisely the contribution of underlying skills to overall functioning. Questions for future research that serve this reciprocal purpose are discussed

Higher Calorie Intakes Related to Higher Incomes in Northern Mozambique

Resultados das investigações do Departamento de Análise de Políticas MAP-Direcção de Economíafood security, food policy, Mozambique, food consumption, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, Q18,

Factors associated with the efficacy of polyp detection during routine flexible sigmoidoscopy

Objective: Flexible sigmoidoscopy reduces the incidence of colonic cancer through the detection and removal of premalignant adenomas. However, the efficacy of the procedure is variable. The aim of the present study was to examine factors associated with the efficacy of detecting polyps during flexible sigmoidoscopy. Design and patients: Retrospective observational cohort study of all individuals undergoing routine flexible sigmoidoscopy in NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde from January 2013 to January 2016. Results: A total of 7713 patients were included. Median age was 52 years and 50% were male. Polyps were detected in 1172 (13%) patients. On multivariate analysis, increasing age (OR 1.020 (1.016–1.023) p<0.001), male sex (OR 1.23 (1.10–1.38) p<0.001) and the use of any bowel preparation (OR 3.55 (1.47–8.57) p<0.001) were associated with increasing numbers of polyps being detected. There was no significant difference in the number of polyps found in patients who had received an oral laxative preparation compared with an enema (OR 3.81 (1.57–9.22) vs 3.45 (1.43–8.34)), or in those who received sedation versus those who had not (OR 1.00 vs 1.04 (0.91–1.17) p=0.591). Furthermore, the highest number of polyps was found when the sigmoidoscope was inserted to the descending colon (OR 1.30 (1.04–1.63)). Conclusions: Increasing age, male sex and the utilisation of any bowel preparation were associated with an increased polyp detection rate. However, the use of sedation or oral laxative preparation appears to confer no additional benefit. In addition, the results indicate that insertion to the descending colon optimises the efficacy of flexible sigmoidoscopy polyp detection