A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF FOOD QUALITY ASSURANCE SCHEMES: THE CASE OF NEULAND AND EUREPGAP

Food Quality Assurance Schemes (QAS) are widely applied in the European Union. Neuland and EurepGAP represent two different approaches. Neuland differentiates meat clearly by a strict emphasis on rules regarding animal welfare to provide consumers with meat produced at a high animal welfare standard. EurepGAP certifies the compliance to international accepted standards with regard to Good Agricultural Practise to ease the exchange of products throughout the supply chain. In terms of overall benefits and costs, the study showed that for both QAS the benefits clearly outweigh the costs. This paper compares the schemes and their implications for the agro-food chain.Quality Assurance Schemes, Food policy, Food chain, Agribusiness, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety,

Verteilte Fernsehproduktion mit Cloud-Services

Der vorliegende Beitrag diskutiert, wie verteilte Produktionsabläufe vorteilhaft mit modernen Cloud Services abgebildet werden können. Dazu wird eine workflow-gesteuertes Media Asset Management (MAM) Plattform vorgestellt, die solche Produktionsabläufe steuern kann und über Dienste zum Speichern, Verwalten, Transkodieren und Transportieren von Videodaten verfügt. Die Produktionsprozesse werden anhand von zwei Szenarien vorgestellt. Eine Erörterung der Sicherheitsaspekte bei Produktionsprozessen in der Cloud schließt den Beitrag ab

Detecting Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide with BTB

A study of the concentration of carbon dioxide gas in air samples requires an understanding of effective sampling techniques, the use of pH indicators, an understanding of chemical reactions that result on the formation of acidic compounds, and an understanding of the chemical processes that contribute to the composition and characteristics of Earth’s atmosphere

Experiments to increase the used Energy with the PEGASUS Railgun

The French-German Research Institute (ISL) has several railguns installed, the largest of these is the PEGASUS accelerator. It is a 6m long, 4x4 cm2 caliber distributed energy supply (DES) railgun. It has a 10 MJ capacitor bank as energy supply attached to it. In the past, this installation was used to accelerate projectiles with a mass of about 300 g to velocities up to 2500 m/s. In the ongoing investigation, it is attempted to accelerate heavier projectiles to velocities above 2000m/s. For this a new type of projectile including a payload section was developed. In this paper the results of the experiments with payload projectiles using a primary energy between 3.8 MJ and 4.8 MJ are discussed.Comment: 6 pages, 11 figures, Submitted to IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science, Special Issue -- Pulsed Power Science & Technology 201

Social-ecological resilience in organic and non-organic cocoa farming systems in the Yungas of Bolivia

Cocoa based small scale agriculture is the basic livelihood of most farming families in the region of Alto Beni in the Bolivian Andes. Cocoa cultivation is affected by climate change impacts, soil degradation, pests and plant diseases, and insecure cocoa prices. From a sustainable development point of view, cocoa farms need thus to become more resilient. Resilience refers to the ability within a farming system to reduce the sensitivity to stress factors while maintaining productivity, the capacity for self-organisation, to learn, and to adapt to change. Resilience can be subdivided in the three features buffer capacity, self-organisation, and adaptive capacity. This study addresses differences in resilience of organic and non-organic cocoa farms, and the most important features that influence social-ecological resilience in cocoa farming systems. Indicators for resilience were defined in a transdisciplinary process with local experts and cocoa farmers in a workshop and focus groups. Indicators for buffer capacity were tree diversity, crop diversity, and the diversity of income sources of the farming family. Indicators for self-organisation were the interaction with farmers’ organisations, their subsistence level, cocoa yields, and the annual family income. Adaptive capacity was assessed by inquiring the number of courses on cocoa cultivation family members had participated in, and the number of information sources they had. We interviewed 52 certified and non-certified households and conducted an in-depth participant observation with 15 households from the sample. It resulted that organic farms in the research area were more diversified (tree species in cocoa plots: 4.4 vs. 1.9, crop diversity: 8.4 vs. 6.7 crop varieties on cocoa farms), and had higher cocoa yields (506 kg ha−1 yr−1 vs. 335.8 kg ha−1 yr−1, both without external inputs). Annual family income was significantly higher on organic farms with 7530.2 vs. 6044.4 USD. Organic farmers had participated in more courses on cocoa cultivation which may be the main reason for the better performance of their farms. We conclude that resilience building was enhanced by local organisations that organise organic certification and go further than basic organic certification principles by providing extension services, tree seedlings, capacity building, and certain social insurances

Single-Photon Transistor Using a F\"orster Resonance

An all-optical transistor is a device in which a gate light pulse switches the transmission of a target light pulse with a gain above unity. The gain quantifies the change of the transmitted target photon number per incoming gate photon. We study the quantum limit of one incoming gate photon and observe a gain of 20. The gate pulse is stored as a Rydberg excitation in an ultracold gas. The transmission of the subsequent target pulse is suppressed by Rydberg blockade which is enhanced by a F\"orster resonance. The detected target photons reveal in a single shot with a fidelity above 0.86 whether a Rydberg excitation was created during the gate pulse. The gain offers the possibility to distribute the transistor output to the inputs of many transistors, thus making complex computational tasks possible