Environmentally Sustainable Transport in the CEI Countries

Moving people and freight in an environmentally sustainable manner that reduces environmental pollution and health hazards is a key challenge for transport and environment policies in Europe. Present mobility patterns of passenger and freight transport in Central and Eastern Europe do not correspond to the objectives of sustainable development. This paper presents the results of a transport futures study for the CEI region as a whole using backcasting methodology with long-term sustainability criteria to be met by 2030. Achieving environmentally sustainable transport (EST) doesn’t mean less transport and mobility than we have today, but it means primarily maintaining a balanced modal split that results in less environmental and health impacts than it would be under projected future trends. Rail, trams, busses and new forms of flexible inter-modal public transport mobility would have to take a large share and rail transport for passenger and freight as well as inland shipping would have to be nearly doubled by 2030 while road freight could still increase if it is based on alternative fuels reducing its impacts. Technological advancements for passenger cars and lorries, fuels and infrastructure will play an important part to achieve EST, but also ‘smart’ mobility management (e.g. transport avoidance, increasing load factors and modal shift), innovative mobility services and freight logistics would be critical. The implementation of these policies and strategies will require coherent and comprehensive packages of instruments and measures, including: economic instruments, regulatory instruments, changesin infrastructure investment, mobility management, information and education programmes as well as better integration of land use, transport and environment policies. Realising EST will provide new opportunities for businesses to develop and invest in innovative solutions for passenger and freight transport. Overall, achieving EST would constitute a net benefit for the environment and for quality of life in general

‘Better off, as judged by themselves’:A reply to Cass Sunstein

This paper is a reply to Sunstein’s comment on my paper ‘Do people really want to be nudged towards healthy lifestyles?’ The central claim of that paper was that, in their book Nudge, Thaler and Sunstein switch between two different interpretations of the ‘better off, as judged by themselves’ criterion, and that consistent use of one or other interpretation would have blunted the persuasive power of the book. In this reply, I defend that claim against Sunstein’s counter-arguments

Walking A Kilometer In Their Shoes: An Exploration Of American And South Korean University Students Expectations And Experiences

An exploratory study of university students from very different cultural backgrounds, attending universities in their home countries, was undertaken to assess their perceptions of multiculturalism, and their expectations and experiences as university students. Although a number of similarities existed, survey results indicated that the South Korean students were significantly more interested in multicultural issues.  Survey results of American students indicated that even though their university offered myriad opportunities for increasing their understanding of diversity, multiculturalism and global issues, students lacked awareness of the opportunities and infrequently participated in the activities. This finding suggests that if a university is constrained by the non-diverse demography of its region, it will face a difficult task in motivating students to become globally aware and internationally competitive

National Cycling Promotion Austrian Masterplan for Cycling and Action Programme klima:aktiv mobil

Cycling is an environmentally friendly, economical beneficial and health promoting means of transport, a quick alternative for short trips, space-saving and above all

The Effect of Varying Lysine Levels in Starter Diets on Pig Performance and on Subsequent Performance and Carcass Characteristics

Lysine is the first limiting amino acid in most cereal-based diets for swine. Thus, in cereal-based diets the lysine- requirement must be met first if the pig\u27s protein anabolism is to be efficient and maximal. The most widely used diet in the swine industry today is the corn-soybean meal diet. Corn is deficient in lysine, but soybean meal is a relatively good source of lysine, so soybean. meal is added to the corn base to increase the diet\u27s lysine content. Synthetic lysine also can be added to corn-soybean meal diets to increase lysine content or added as a replacement for part of the soybean meal. However, the dietary protein level should be reduced a maximum of only 2% or other amino acids may become limiting. Recent research has indicated that the lysine level recommended by the National Research Council (NRC) may be inadequate for maximum growth and feed efficiency for 10- to 20-kg pigs. This is in agreement with European estimates of the lysine requirement for starter pigs. In fact, many commercial starter diets contain lysine levels closer to European recommendations than that level recommended by the NRC. However, little research has been conducted to determine if the higher lysine levels responsible for improved performance in the starter period are beneficial to performance for the entire growth period (8 to 100 kg). or if higher levels of lysine in starter diets affect carcass characteristics of finished pigs. Therefore, it is important to determine if increasing the lysine content of starter diets is economically beneficial when raising pigs from approximately 8 to 100 kg. The ultimate objective of this study was to determine the optimum lysine level in swine starter diets (8 to 20 kg) which would result in maximum performance from 8 to 100 kg without adversely affecting carcass characteristics. The parameters used were as follows: (1) Pig performance as measured by average daily gain, average daily feed intake and feed efficiency during the starter (8 to 20 kg) , grower (20 to 35 kg and 20 to 55 kg), finishing (35 to 100 and 55 to 93 kg) and overall (8 to approximately 100 kg) periods. (2) Quantitative carcass characteristics at 100 kg including carcass length, average backfat, longissimus muscle area and percent muscle

Window Dressing by Pension Fund Managers

This paper takes a first look at investment strategies of managers of 769 pension funds, with total assets of $129 billion at the end of 1989. The data show that managers of these funds tend to oversell stocks that have performed poorly. Relative sales of losers accelerate in the fourth quarter, when funds' portfolios are closely examined by the sponsors. This result supports the view that fund managers "window dress" their portfolios to impress sponsors and suggests that managers are evaluated on their individual stock selections and not just aggregate portfolio performance.

Effect of Wean-to-Finish Management on Pig Performance

An experiment consisting of three trials was conducted to determine the effect of wean-to-finish management systems on pig performance. Treatments consisted of: 1) wean-to-finish single stock (WF) at 7.5 ft2/pig from weaning (17 day mean age) to slaughter in a fully slatted finishing facility; 2) double stock (DS) at 3.75 ft2/pig for eight weeks following weaning and then split into two pens at 7.5 ft2/pig each; and 3) nursery (NF) at 3.75 ft2/ pig for eight weeks in a conventional nursery followed by movement to the finisher and stocked at 7.5 ft2/pig to slaughter. All pens had one two-hole wean-finish dry feeder per 15 pigs and one cup-drinker per 15 pigs. While there were health related performance problems in Trials 1 and 2 due to PRRS, there were no trial by treatment interactions. At the end of eight weeks, WF pigs were heavier (P\u3c.01) than DS pigs with NF pigs intermediate in weight (63.1, 59.2, and 60.9 lbs, respectively). The heavier weight was due to a difference (P\u3c.01) in feed intake between the WF and DS treatments. There was no effect of nursery phase treatment on feed efficiency. There was no effect (P\u3e.1) of any management treatment on any grow-finish phase production parameter reported. These data suggest that the performance improvement associated with wean–to-finish production systems occurs during the first eight weeks post-weaning. They also suggest that the response can be expected even when health challenges occur in a production system

Effect of Wean-to-Finish Management on Pig Performance

An experiment consisting of three trials was conducted to determine the effect of wean-to-finish management systems on pig performance. Treatments consisted of: 1) wean-to-finish single stock (WF) at 7.5 ft2/pig from weaning (17 day mean age) to slaughter in a fully slatted finishing facility; 2) double stock (DS) at 3.75 ft2/pig for eight weeks following weaning and then split into two pens at 7.5 ft2/pig each; and 3) nursery (NF) at 3.75 ft2/ pig for eight weeks in a conventional nursery followed by movement to the finisher and stocked at 7.5 ft2/pig to slaughter. All pens had one two-hole wean-finish dry feeder per 15 pigs and one cup-drinker per 15 pigs. While there were health related performance problems in Trials 1 and 2 due to PRRS, there were no trial by treatment interactions. At the end of eight weeks, WF pigs were heavier (P\u3c.01) than DS pigs with NF pigs intermediate in weight (63.1, 59.2, and 60.9 lbs, respectively). The heavier weight was due to a difference (P\u3c.01) in feed intake between the WF and DS treatments. There was no effect of nursery phase treatment on feed efficiency. There was no effect (P\u3e.1) of any management treatment on any grow-finish phase production parameter reported. These data suggest that the performance improvement associated with wean–to-finish production systems occurs during the first eight weeks post-weaning. They also suggest that the response can be expected even when health challenges occur in a production system