Health Check of the CAP: What’s at stake? Egmont - European Affairs Publication, April 2008

At the end of 2007, the European Commission launched the Health Check (HC) of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). After a consultation with all stakeholders, legislative proposals were made in May 2008, on which the Agricultural Council is intending to agree before the end of 20081 which will be under the French EU Presidency The role of the European Parliament is consultative, but it would receive co-decision power once the Lisbon Treaty enters into force. This paper will try to indicate what is at play in the discussion on the HC, because the interests concerned are more diverse than we may assume. The debate on the HC is directly or indirectly linked with a wide range of issues that are of importance to the society. Of course, agriculture has always been about food production. But in rural areas, agriculture is not only an important economic factor but also an element of the regional policy and a strong incentive for decent land management. Furthermore, European consumers demand agricultural products of the highest quality, produced in an environmentally friendly way, with respect for animal life and health. Moreover, the surge of bio-energy has created another outlet for agriculture, namely contributing to a diversified and secure energy supply. Finally, European agriculture does not stand on itself. Finally, in the World Trade Organisation (WTO) negotiations in the Doha Development Agenda, European agriculture is under pressure to reduce more trade distorting elements of its CAP

On the rise and fall of a ball with linear or quadratic drag

We review the problem of a vertically thrown ball, with a drag force which is either linear or quadratic in the speed. It is stressed from the outset that these two types of drag correspond to specific ranges of the Reynolds number (Re<1 and 103<Re<2×105, respectively) and do not hold outside these intervals. We also include the buoyant force in our treatment of the problem. The equations of motion are solved analytically and several true-to-life examples are discussed. The calculations are somewhat harder than for the well-known case without drag force, but no highbrow mathematics is required and the extra effort is amply compensated by the gain in realism and surprise value. © 1999 American Association of Physics Teachers

The impact of communication medium and outcome severity on the effectiveness of social accounts

The present study was designed as a partial test of the model of social accounts by Folger and Cropanzano (1998). Organizational justice researchers have shown that social accounts are effective in reducing negative reactions and displacing blame from the decision-maker following a harmful decision. Using a 2 x 3 completely randomized design, the study examined the effects of outcome severity and media choice on four types of fairness perceptions, medium appropriateness, anger, and turnover intentions. A temporary pay cut scenario was used to manipulate two levels of outcome severity, and the company president provided an explanation of the pay cut using three different media. It was hypothesized that fairness perceptions, anger, and turnover intentions would be most favorable in the low outcome severity conditions and when the social account was delivered through a medium high in media richness. It was also believed that outcome severity and media choice would interact such that the effect of media on the dependent variables would be more pronounced under high outcome severity conditions. One hundred and thirty-two undergraduate students participated in the scenario-based study. Each participant received a brief scenario that stated the president of the company for whom they worked had decided to implement a 10-week pay cut for all employees. A scenario gave detailed information on how the pay cut would affect their weekly net pay

Boundary conditions: Learning to live in a finite world

Please refer the PD

Contractualism and the Significance of Perspective-Taking

Many of us think that perspective-taking is relevant to moral judgment. In this paper I claim that Scanlon’s contractualism provides an appealing and distinctive account of why this is so. Contractualism interprets our moral judgments as making claims about the reasons of individuals in various situations, reasons that we can only recognise by considering their perspectives. Contractualism thereby commits itself to the view that our capacity for moral judgment depends on our capacity for perspective-taking. I show that neither utilitarianism nor Kantianism assign a similar significance to our capacity for perspective-taking

Thinking about agreement : the empirical plausibility of moral contract theory

Iedere morele theorie maakt aannames over menselijke vermogens. Voor morele contracttheorie betreft dit onder andere aannames over onze sociaal-cognitieve vermogens. Peter Timmerman onderzocht of deze aannames plausibel zijn in het licht van empirische bevindingen. Contracttheorieën stellen dat actoren in overeenstemming moeten handelen met principes waar we allemaal redelijkerwijs mee in zouden kunnen stemmen. Ze nemen daarmee aan dat we kunnen uitvinden wat deze principes zijn. Timmerman stelt dat dit vereist dat mensen morele oordelen kunnen vormen door zich in anderen te verplaatsen. Op basis van een uitgebreide discussie van empirische bevindingen met betrekking tot ons vermogen daartoe wordt betoogd dat actoren inderdaad kunnen uitvinden welke principes het object van overeenstemming zouden zijn. Dit vereist overigens wel dat ze veel meer aandacht hebben voor de standpunten van anderen dan wij normaliter neigen te hebben. Contracttheoretici nemen verder aan dat actoren gemotiveerd kunnen raken om te handelen volgens principes die het object van overeenstemming zouden zijn. Sommigen hebben gesteld dat we zo gemotiveerd kunnen raken omdat het in ons belang is om volgens morele principes te handelen. Timmerman stelt dat dit vereist dat actoren kunnen herkennen of anderen betrouwbaar zijn of niet. Het betoogt dat empirische studies laten zien dat mensen verrassend goed zijn in het detecteren van elkaars betrouwbaarheid en dat het daarom voor de meeste van ons inderdaad in ons belang is om moreel te zijn. Timmerman concludeert dat, anders dan critici hadden verwacht, empirische bevindingen de plausibiliteit van morele contracttheorie ondersteunen

Inhibin in immature rat Sertoli cell conditioned medium: a 32 kDa αβ-B dimer

Abstract Conditioned medium of cultured Sertoli cells from 21-day-old rats was used as starting material for the isolation of inhibin. Inhibin activity was monitored by the dose dependent suppression of the folliclestimulating hormone release of cultured rat pituitary cells. Sodium dodecyl sulphate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis analysis of the highly purified inhibin preparation revealed a 32 kDa protein after silver staining, which could be separated in subunits of 18 kDa and 12 kDa after reduction. Western blot analysis with an antibody recognizing the 22 N-terminal amino acids of the α-subunit of 32 kDa bovine inhibin confirmed the presence of a 32 kDa inhibin molecule under non-reducing conditions, whereas an 18 kDa a-subunit was found after reduction. An antibody recognizing the β-A subunit of inhibin did not yield a signal after Western blotting. N-terminal amino acid sequence analysis of two highly purified preparations of inhibin obtained using different methods yielded the sequence predicted for a 32 kDa αβ-B dimer on basis of cDNA nucleotide sequence. This result is in agreement with the large excess of β-B over β-A mRNA in the rat testis