Changes in some factors of the innate immunity and serum zinc and iron concentrations in pigs following intravenous administration of Escherichia coli lipopolysaccharide

The changes in some factors of the innate immunity (phagocytosis, complement, lysozyme); haematological parameters - leukocytes, erythrocytes, differential white blood cell counts, haemoglobin, haematocrit and the serum concentrations of the microelements zinc and iron in six 2- to 3-months-old female piglets after the intravenous administration of lipopolysaccharide from Escherichia coli 0111:B4 were determined. It was found out that 1 h after the administration of lipopolysaccharide at the dosage rate of 10 µg/kg body weight resulted in a decrease in the phagocytic parameters, i.e. the phagocytic number and the index of phagocytic activity, which was followed by an increase in their values between post treatment hours 2 and 4. The leukocyte counts had decreased by hour 2 after the injection, but thereafter increased, and at post treatment hour 72, a leukocytosis was observed. The differential white blood cell counts were characterized by a shift to the left between hours 2 and 4 and a statistically significant increase in lymphocyte counts at hour 48 of the experiment. The serum zinc concentrations were increased an hour after the lipopolysaccharide application; after which their average values were lower. The haemolytic activities (CH₅₀) of the classical and the alternative pathways of complement activation decreased. The haemolytic activity (CH₅₀) for the classical pathway began to increase at hour 48 following the treatment. Significant changes were not observed in lysozyme activity, serum iron concentrations or the related haematological parameters (erythrocytes and haemoglobin).The articles have been scanned in colour with a HP Scanjet 5590; 600dpi. Adobe Acrobat v.9 was used to OCR the text and also for the merging and conversion to the final presentation PDF-format

Global governance approaches to addressing illegal logging: Uptake and lessons learned

One of the most challenging tasks facing development agencies, trade ministries, environmental groups, social activists and forest-focused business interests seeking to ameliorate illegal logging and related timber trade is to identify and nurture promising global governance interventions capable of helping improve compliance to governmental policies and laws at national, subnational and local levels. This question is especially acute for developing countries constrained by capacity challenges and “weak states” (Risse, 2011). This chapter seeks to shed light on this task by asking four related questions: How do we understand the emergence of illegal logging as a matter of global interest? What are the types of global interventions designed to improve domestic legal compliance? How have individual states responded to these global efforts? What are the prospects for future impacts and evolution? We proceed in the following steps. Following this introduction, step two reviews how the problem of “illegal logging” emerged on the international agenda. Step three reviews leading policy interventions that resulted from this policy framing. Step four reviews developments in selected countries/regions around the world according to their place on the global forest products supply chain: consumers (United States, Europe and Australia); middle of supply chain manufacturers (China and South Korea) and producers (Russia; Indonesia; Brazil and Peru; Ghana, Cameroon and the Republic of Congo). We conclude by reflecting on key trends that emerge from this review relevant for understanding the conditions through which legality might make a difference in addressing critical challenges

Exploiting Group Symmetry in Semidefinite Programming Relaxations of the Quadratic Assignment Problem

We consider semidefinite programming relaxations of the quadratic assignment problem, and show how to exploit group symmetry in the problem data. Thus we are able to compute the best known lower bounds for several instances of quadratic assignment problems from the problem library: [R.E. Burkard, S.E. Karisch, F. Rendl. QAPLIB — a quadratic assignment problem library. Journal on Global Optimization, 10: 291–403, 1997]. AMS classification: 90C22, 20Cxx, 70-08

United in diversity? Typology, objectives and socio-economic characteristics of public and private forest owners in Europe

Extrait de documentUnderstanding the decision and behaviour of forest owners and managers is a critical task, as many studies show that forest policies are not as successful as anticipated, despite the wide range of policy tools used to influence decisions and behaviour. According to our conceptual framework, this gap can be understood if individual and collective actors’ behaviour is taken into account alongside structural factors. In this paper, we first identified five forest owner profiles, based on extent of involvement in forest management, integration of environmental and social services, and membership of peer networks. These profiles were given the names “economy-oriented”, “routine and traditional knowledge oriented”, “passive or outsider”, and “environmentally-oriented”. Following this classification, we analysed the influence of structural factors on decision making. In all the 20 case-study areas in 10 European countries, we found that forest owners are influenced by public policies, local/regional wood markets, environmental issues, access to knowledge, etc. While structural factors play an important role in orienting and channelling individual decisions, the combination of different logics of behaviour leads to different kinds of integrated/segregated forest management practises, which can have either a positive or negative impact on their relationship with other social groups (urban dwellers, hunters, environmental NGOs).Comprendre la décision et le comportement des propriétaires et gestionnaires forestiers est une tâche essentielle. De nombreuses études montrent ainsi que les politiques forestières ne parviennent pas toujours à toucher leurs publics, malgré le large éventail d'outils de politique utilisés pour influencer les décisions et les comportements. Notre cadre conceptuel propose de réduire cet écart par une prise en compte conjointe des facteurs individuels et des facteurs structurels. Dans cet article nous avons ainsi identifé cinq profils de propriétaires forestiers, différents par leur niveau d'implication dans la gestion forestière, par leur intégration des services environnementaux et sociaux, et par leur appartenance à des réseaux d'interconnaissance. Ces profils sont qualifiés de forestiers "entrepreneurs", "traditionnels", " environnementalistes", "passifs". Le cinquième profil est celui des forestiers" publics et para-publics". Après cette classification, nous avons analysé l'influence des facteurs structurels sur leur prise de décision. Dans tous les 20 études cas (10 pays européens), nous avons trouvé que les propriétaires forestiers sont influencés par les politiques publiques, les marchés du bois locaux, les enjeux environnementaux, l'accès à l'information et à la connaissance, etc. Si ces facteurs structurels jouent un rôle important dans l'orientation des décisions individuelles, la combinaison de différentes logiques de comportements individuels conduit à différents types de pratiques de gestion intégrée de la forêt qui peuvent avoir un impact positif ou négatif sur leur relation avec d'autres groupes sociaux (les citadins, les chasseurs, les ONG environnementales)