The social & economic implications of alternative land uses involving pastoral farming and forestry in Northland : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Philosophy in Natural Resource and Environmental Economics at Massey University

This thesis is a scenario study which examines the social and economic impacts of different types of forestry being established in an area of pastoral farmland in Northland, New Zealand. Detailed production, income, expenditure, employment and demographic data was collected from 57 of the 59 farms in the study area. This included expenditure direction data. Those businesses and schools which supported, and were in turn supported by, the study area farms were interviewed to find out the importance of these farms to their continued operation. This pastoral farming scenario is then compared with four forestry scenarios - two conventional forestry scenarios, plus a woodlot and finally an agroforestry scenario. In the first conventional forestry scenario all the study area farms (15,000 hectares) are planted in exotics and in the second about 3,000 hectares are planted. With the two farm forestry scenarios about 1,000 hectares are planted. In the first conventional forestry scenario forestry replaces pastoral farming, while in the second and the farm forestry scenarios pastoral farming and forestry are integrated. Variable results resulted from the comparison, with expenditure comparisons very sensitive to the time harvesting commences, the amount cut and the time span of the scenarios. (Thirty-five years.) These comparisons were also sensitive to the locality in which farming and forestry expenditure were being compared. Forestry expenditure would be markedly higher than farming expenditure once harvesting commenced. But farming has higher backward linkage multipliers and unless forestry processing plants are established, the conventional forestry developments in the scenarios imply a relative decline in regional incomes and employment. If forestry processing plants are established, an increase in regional incomes and employment is implied. Woodlot and agroforestry generally imply an increase in expenditure and employment without the drop in agricultural spending associated with conventional forestry activities on former pastoral farmland. Conventional forestry would result in disruption to the existing social structure. It may result in a long term population decline, but it is likely many ex-farm houses would be re-occupied. Woodlot and agroforestry would strengthen the existing social and economic structure. It is concluded that the Northland United Council's interest and concern about the afforestation of pastoral farmland is justified. However, the rural decline, the corporatisation of government departments, plus the impacts of forestry harvesting and wood processing are considered to be of more importance in the establishment of regional planning priorities

Board Gender Quotas in Germany and the EU: An Appropriate Way of Equalising Participation of Women and Men?

The professional equalisation of men and women has become one of the most discussed topics in politics over the last years. As a solution to this problem many European countries have introduced regulations which ensure special quotas for women on the managing boards of companies. The main problem concerning such gender quotas is that the equalisation of men and women is primarily a sociopolitical objective which might result in a possible conflict with national and European constitutional law. Consequently, the current legal situation in Germany and the EU needs to be analysed critically. Therefore the different ways of incorporating gender quotas into the existing legal system must be compared with each other

Long short-term memory networks enhance rainfall-runoff modelling at the national scale of Denmark

This study explores the application of long short-term memory (LSTM) networks to simulate runoff at the national scale of Denmark using data from 301 catchments. This is the first LSTM application on Danish data. The results were benchmarked against the Danish national water resources model (DK-model), a physically based hydrological model. The median Kling-Gupta Efficiency (KGE), a common metric to assess performance of runoff predictions (optimum of 1), increased from 0.7 (DK-model) to 0.8 (LSTM) when trained against all catchments. Overall, the LSTM outperformed the DK-model in 80% of catchments. Despite the compelling KGE evaluation, the water balance closure was modelled less accurately by the LSTM. The applicability of LSTM networks for modelling ungauged catchments was assessed via a spatial split-sample experiment. A 20% spatial hold-out showed poorer performance of the LSTM with respect to the DK model. However, after pre-training, that is, weight initialisation obtained from training against simulated data from the DK-model, the performance of the LSTM was effectively improved. This formed a convincing argument supporting the knowledge-guided machine learning (ML) paradigm to integrate physically based models and ML to train robust models that generalise well

The new EU migration and asylum package: breakthrough or admission of defeat?

On 23 September 2020, the European Commission presented its long-awaited draft of a new migration and asylum package to overcome the protracted blockade in this policy area. Central elements are the planned preliminary examinations of asylum applications at the external borders of the European Union (EU) and a new division of labour among the member states, which in the future will have the choice between accepting asylum seekers and returning those who have been rejected. The risk of human rights violations inherent in these suggestions is immense. However, since this also applies to the status quo - as the situation on the Greek islands shows - the pros and cons of the reform proposal must be carefully weighed up. Support for the reform package can only be justified if the combination of restrictive and protection-oriented elements, as intended by the Commission, is maintained in the intergovernmental negotiations. (author's abstract

Evaluation of the effectiveness of a semi-finished occlusal appliance – a randomized, controlled clinical trial

INTRODUCTION: Painful temporomandibular disorders (TMDs) are usually treated with physiotherapy, self-exercises, medication-based therapy and splint therapy. For splint therapy different types of splints are available. Therefore this randomized controlled study compared the effectiveness of a semi-finished occlusal appliance (SB) with a laboratory-made occlusal appliance (SS) in myofascial pain patients. METHOD: The trial subjects allocated to the experimental groups with the (SB) occlusal appliance and those provided with a laboratory-made occlusal appliance (SS) did, in addition, receive conservative treatment (self-exercises, drug-based and manual therapy). The control group was given conservative therapy (CO) only. Overall, a total of 63 patients participated in the study with each group consisting of 21 subjects. RESULTS: When the first follow-up examination took place (14 days after splint insertion) mouth opening within the SB group was significantly enlarged. When the second examination was conducted (2.5 months after splint insertion) mouth opening was significantly enlarged in both splint groups when compared with the initial value. In the control group, no significant enlargement of mouth opening was detected. At no point there was a significant reduction in the number of pressure-sensitive areas of the TMJ. On palpation of the masticatory muscles however, a significant reduction in the number of pressure-sensitive areas could be observed within the CO group and the SS group after 2.5 months. When comparing pain reduction (muscle/joint pain) and mouth opening, no significant differences could be detected between the treatments. CONCLUSION: The results suggest that TMD should be treated conservatively. In cases of restricted mouth opening, the additional use of occlusal appliances can eliminate the patient’s discomfort more quickly. In this context, the tested, semi-finished occlusal appliance appears to offer an immediately available, temporary alternative to laboratory-made splints

Space Charge Transfer in Hybrid Inorganic/Organic Systems

We discuss density functional theory calculations of hybrid inorganic/organic systems (HIOS) that explicitly include the global effects of doping (i.e. position of the Fermi level) and the formation of a space-charge layer. For the example of tetrafluoro-tetracyanoquinodimethane (F4TCNQ) on the ZnO(000$\bar{1}$) surface we show that the adsorption energy and electron transfer depend strongly on the ZnO doping. The associated work function changes are large, for which the formation of space-charge layers is the main driving force. The prominent doping effects are expected to be quite general for charge-transfer interfaces in HIOS and important for device design

Intravitreal treatment in patients with exudative age-related macular degeneration and visual acuity ≤ 0.05

Background: To investigate intravitreal treatment efficiencies in patients suffering from exudative ARMD with a BCVA ≤ 0.05. Methods: Retrospective analysis: Analysis parameters were lesion type, BCVA at baseline and at follow-up, the intravitreal drug used, and its application frequency. Patients were divided into: 1) following injections of bevacizumab, triamcinolone, their combination, or ranibizumab regardless of their lesion subtype, 2) or by lesion subtype. Statistical tests were performed using Wilcoxon signed-rank tests, Kruskal-Wallis tests and multivariable logistic regressions. Results: Seventy four eyes of 74 patients were analyzed. Follow-up was at 12.0 to 15.7 weeks. Median difference of BCVA (logMAR) between baseline and follow-up was 0.000 (−0.030, 0.175) in classic (p = 0.105), 0.000 (−1.15, 0.20) in occult (p = 0.005), −0.200 (−1.20, 0.60) in cases with subretinal fluid (p = 0.207), 0.000 (-0.60, 0.30) in pigment epithelial detachment (p = 0.813), and 0.050 (−0.40, 0.70) in Junius Kuhnt maculopathy (p = 0.344). BCVA increased ≥ 0.2 logMAR in 4 (24 %) classic, 9 (47 %) occult, 6 (33 %) pigment epithelial detachment, 6 (55 %) subretinal fluid, in 29 (39 %) eyes regardless of the lesion type, and reached a BCVA ≥ 0.05 in 7 (9 %) of those with a baseline BCVA <0.05. Conclusions: Results indicate that in patients with ARMD and a BCVA lower 0.05, intravitreal treatment may improve visual acuity, most probably in cases with occult lesions.<br

Shear wave elastography-based liver fibrosis assessment in patients with chronic hepatitis E displays elevated liver stiffness regardless of previous antiviral therapy

Background: Hepatitis E virus (HEV) infection especially in immunocompromised individuals can lead to chronic hepatitis. Aggressive courses of chronic hepatitis E leading to liver cirrhosis in a short period of time have been described, but evidence on the degree of liver involvement in chronic hepatitis E is rare. Vie therefore aimed to quantify liver fibrosis in patients with chronic active hepatitis E compared to patients with sustained virological response after ribavirin (RBV) treatment using 2D-shear wave elastography (2D-SWE) to measure liver stiffness. Methods: Patients with chronic hepatitis E underwent 2D-SWE, B-mode and Doppler ultrasound and laboratory testing in order to assess severity of liver involvement. Results: In this cross-sectional study, we included 14 patients of whom 8 had ongoing chronic hepatitis E and 6 patients had been successfully treated for chronic hepatitis E. The most frequent cause for immunosuppression was prior kidney transplantation (n = 12), one patient was a multivisceral transplant recipient, one had been treated for lymphoma. Five patients cleared HEV after RBV therapy, one patient reached viral clearance after reduction of his immunosuppressive medication. Using 2D-SWE measurement, 71.4% displayed increased stiffness indicative of liver fibrosis: 57.1% classified as significant fibrosis and 14.3% as severe fibrosis. Liver stiffness did not differ between patients with active chronic hepatitis E and in patients who had cleared HEN (1.59 and 1.54 m/S respectively). Compared with a control group of kidney transplant recipients without hepatitis E (1.44 m/S), the patients with a history of hepatitis E displayed a significantly higher liver stiffness (P=0.04). Conclusions: In our cohort of chronic hepatitis E patients, elevated liver stiffness indicating liver fibrosis was common and significantly higher than in controls. This is consistent with prior sparse reports of the presence of liver fibrosis or cirrhosis in chronic hepatitis E and emphasizes the need for HEV testing, therapy and research on new therapeutic options. As elevated liver stiffness was also present in patients after HEV treatment, continuous liver surveillance including elastography and ultrasound should be considered

Endspurt bei der Reform des Gemeinsamen Europäischen Asylsystems: Herausforderungen und Handlungsmöglichkeiten für die deutsche und europäische Asylpolitik

Noch steht nicht fest, ob das Asyl- und Migrationspaket der EU-Kommission vor den Europawahlen 2024 verabschiedet werden kann; viele Elemente bleiben im Rat sowie zwischen Rat und Parlament umstritten. Angesichts der hitzigen Debatte über die asyl- und migrationspolitische Handlungsfähigkeit der EU und der Wahlerfolge rechtspopulistischer Parteien steht viel auf dem Spiel. Die ursprünglich angestrebte Balance von restriktiven und schutzorientierten Elementen wurde im Rat deutlich in Richtung Abschreckung verschoben. Aktuell zeigt sich das insbesondere bei der sogenannten Krisen-Verordnung. Die Bundesregierung sollte sich in den weiteren Verhandlungen dafür einsetzen, dass diese Verordnung nicht für sachfremde Ziele instrumentalisiert wird, dass mit Blick auf das gesamte Reformpaket die Überwachung grundrechtlicher Standards glaubwürdiger und robuster wird und dass sich die EU mit den Reformen nicht noch abhängiger von autokratischen Drittstaaten macht. (Autorenreferat