The European Regulatory Framework and its implementation in influencing organic inspection and certification systems in the EU

The report presents a review of the most important European and international legislation that set the framework for organic certification, of reports prepared by international agencies working with organic standard setting and certification, and of relevant scientific literature. It discusses problems, future challenges of the organic control systems in Europe leading to suggestions for improvement. Food quality assurance is of key importance for the future development of the Common Agricultural Policy of the EU. A large number of mandatory and voluntary assurance and certification schemes exist for agriculture and in the food industry leading to the risk of increased costs for producers and confusion of consumers. Such schemes include the setting of requirements and bodies that undertake control and provide certificates. Requirements can be divided into statutory regulations regarding food safety and good agricultural practice and standards for voluntary attributes. Basic requirements of food safety, animal health and animal welfare are controlled by the Official Food and Feed Control (OFFC) systems, governed by Council Regulation (EC) 882/2004. Third party certification provides credibility to claims related to voluntary standards and is communicated to the consumers through the use of certification marks. The EU has developed a legislative basis for quality claims in relation to geographical indications, traditional specialities and organic farming and considers introducing labelling rules in relation to animal welfare, environmental impact and the origin of raw materials. Organic certification is one of a number of overlapping and competing schemes. The development of organic standards and certification in Europe started with private standards and national rules, leading to Regulation (EEC) 2092/1991. The requirements for competent authorities, control bodies and operators in this regulation regarding the control systems are reviewed. The discussion highlights the low level of knowledge among consumers of the requirements of organic certification, a weak emphasis of the control system on operator responsibility for organic integrity, issues of competition and surveillance of control bodies, a lack of consideration of risk factors in designing the inspection systems and a lack of transparency. A total revision of the European Regulations on organic production began in 2005. One important change introduced by the new Council Regulation (EC) 834/2007 for Organic Food and Farming is that the organic control system is placed under the umbrella of Council Regulation (EC) 882/2004 on Official Food and Feed Controls. Regulation (EC) 834/2007 also requires that control bodies have to be accredited according to general requirements for bodies operating product certification systems (ISO Guide 65/EN 45011). From July 2010 packaged organic products will have to carry the new EU logo as well as the compulsory indication of the control body. The report reviews the requirements for competent authorities, control bodies and operators from the various legal sources. The discussion highlights a lack of clarity on the impact of the OFFC regulation on the organic control system including how risk based inspections are to be implemented and the potential for in-consistencies in the enforcement of the regulation. A number of international initiatives concerned with the harmonisation of organic standards and to a lesser extent certification are reviewed, such as the International Task Force on Harmonisation and Equivalence (ITF)1 Two main alternative guarantee systems for organic production have been developed and researched by a number of organisations including IFOAM, ISEAL, FAO and the EU Commission. Smallholder Group Certification based on an Internal Control System (ICS) and Participatory Guarantee Systems (PGS) could also represent ways to minimize certification costs also for European farmers, in particular for operators that market directly or through very short supply chains. Both systems also illustrate examples of certification systems with a focus on system development and improvement. , the European Organic Certifiers Council (EOOC), the International Social and Environmental Accreditation and Labelling Alliance (ISEAL) and the Anti-Fraud Initiative (AFI). The multilateral initiatives have led to a better understanding of current problems and the scope and limitations for harmonisation. They have also contributed to the sharing of tools and methods and the identification of best practice. Apart from organic farming the European Union has two other food quality schemes: Regulation (EC) 510/2006 on geographical indications and Regulation (EC) 509/2006 on traditional specialities. The report explores the potential for combining these with organic certification, and draws lessons for organic certification based on Italian experience. The final chapter summarises problems and challenges from the previous chapters. Suggestions for improvements of the organic control system focus on two issues: the need for further harmonisation of the surveillance of control bodies and enforcement of the regulation and how operators’ responsibility for further development of organic systems could be supported in the control and certification system

UK clinical guideline for the prevention and treatment of osteoporosis

The National Osteoporosis Guideline Group (NOGG) has revised the UK guideline for the assessment and management of osteoporosis and the prevention of fragility fractures in postmenopausal women, and men age 50 years and older. Accredited by NICE, this guideline is relevant for all healthcare professionals involved in osteoporosis management. INTRODUCTION The UK National Osteoporosis Guideline Group (NOGG) first produced a guideline on the prevention and treatment of osteoporosis in 2008, with updates in 2013 and 2017. This paper presents a major update of the guideline, the scope of which is to review the assessment and management of osteoporosis and the prevention of fragility fractures in postmenopausal women, and men age 50 years and older. METHODS Where available, systematic reviews, meta-analyses and randomised controlled trials were used to provide the evidence base. Conclusions and recommendations were systematically graded according to the strength of the available evidence. RESULTS Review of the evidence and recommendations are provided for the diagnosis of osteoporosis, fracture-risk assessment and intervention thresholds, management of vertebral fractures, non-pharmacological and pharmacological treatments, including duration and monitoring of anti-resorptive therapy, glucocorticoid-induced osteoporosis, and models of care for fracture prevention. Recommendations are made for training; service leads and commissioners of healthcare; and for review criteria for audit and quality improvement. CONCLUSION The guideline, which has received accreditation from the National Institute of Health and Care Excellence (NICE), provides a comprehensive overview of the assessment and management of osteoporosis for all healthcare professionals involved in its management. This position paper has been endorsed by the International Osteoporosis Foundation and by the European Society for the Clinical and Economic Aspects of Osteoporosis, Osteoarthritis and Musculoskeletal Diseases

A novel approach of homozygous haplotype sharing identifies candidate genes in autism spectrum disorder

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a highly heritable disorder of complex and heterogeneous aetiology. It is primarily characterized by altered cognitive ability including impaired language and communication skills and fundamental deficits in social reciprocity. Despite some notable successes in neuropsychiatric genetics, overall, the high heritability of ASD (~90%) remains poorly explained by common genetic risk variants. However, recent studies suggest that rare genomic variation, in particular copy number variation, may account for a significant proportion of the genetic basis of ASD. We present a large scale analysis to identify candidate genes which may contain low-frequency recessive variation contributing to ASD while taking into account the potential contribution of population differences to the genetic heterogeneity of ASD. Our strategy, homozygous haplotype (HH) mapping, aims to detect homozygous segments of identical haplotype structure that are shared at a higher frequency amongst ASD patients compared to parental controls. The analysis was performed on 1,402 Autism Genome Project trios genotyped for 1 million single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). We identified 25 known and 1,218 novel ASD candidate genes in the discovery analysis including CADM2, ABHD14A, CHRFAM7A, GRIK2, GRM3, EPHA3, FGF10, KCND2, PDZK1, IMMP2L and FOXP2. Furthermore, 10 of the previously reported ASD genes and 300 of the novel candidates identified in the discovery analysis were replicated in an independent sample of 1,182 trios. Our results demonstrate that regions of HH are significantly enriched for previously reported ASD candidate genes and the observed association is independent of gene size (odds ratio 2.10). Our findings highlight the applicability of HH mapping in complex disorders such as ASD and offer an alternative approach to the analysis of genome-wide association data

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead

Two-stage group screening

The work in this thesis focuses on product improvement experiments in which the response or product performance can depend on the levels of a number of different factors.  Factorial experiments are used which allow the joint effects of the different factors to be investigated and thus provide valuable information on possible interactions between the factors.  As the number of factors to be investigated increases, the number of observations needed for such an experiment can rapidly become economically infeasible.  One approach which aims to achieve a practical number of runs is to group factors together.  New grouped factors are defined to represent each group and these grouped factors are investigated in a first stage experiment.  The individual factors within those groups found to be important in the first stage experiment are then investigated in a second stage experiment. This thesis presents new theory for this group screening approach in which the group sizes are unequal and individual control main effects, noise main effects, control x noise interactions and control x control interactions are assumed to be active with possibly different probabilities.  Examples are presented which demonstrate the investigation of different grouping strategies and group sizes through an examination of their impact on the distribution of the predicted number of effects that require estimation in the two-stage experiment. This theory has been used in the planning of a two-stage group screening experiment at Jaguar Cars whose aim is to identify the key or active factors that influence engine cold start performance.  The experiment is described and the results are presented.</p

Two-stage group screening

EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

The impact of substance use on treatment as a compulsory patient

OBJECTIVES: This paper considers the impact of having a diagnosis of substance use disorder on the utilisation of compulsory orders under the Victorian Mental Health Act (2014). METHODS: We analysed the subsequent treatment episodes over 2 years of people who had been on a community treatment order for at least 3 months and determined the odds of a further treatment order if there was a diagnosis of substance use at or about the time the index community treatment order ended. RESULTS: An additional diagnosis of a substance use disorder was coded in 47.7% and was associated with significantly increased odds of a subsequent treatment order in the following 2 years for those with a main diagnosis of schizophrenia (AOR = 3.03, p<0.001) and 'other' disorders (AOR = 11.60, p=0.002). Those with a main diagnosis of mood disorder had a significant increase in odds for an inpatient treatment order if there was an additional substance use disorder diagnosis (AOR = 3.81, p=0.006). CONCLUSIONS: Having an additional diagnosis of substance use disorder was associated with increased likelihood of being placed on an order. This study supports greater emphasis being given to treatment of substance use concurrently with that of mental illness

The Challenges in Training Energy Efficiency Program Evaluators

The energy efficiency services sector is an increasingly important part of the global economy, with an increased need for trained evaluators to foster energy efficiency program accountability and improvement. Organizations are experiencing difficulty in finding people who are knowledgeable about and experienced in the evaluation of energy efficiency programs. Accordingly, there is a need to assess the training needs of the energy efficiency evaluation community (for both new and “experienced” evaluators). This paper presents the results of a recent survey conducted by the International Energy Program Evaluation Conference (IEPEC) on energy efficiency evaluation training needs, and contrasts those findings with findings from a survey conducted by the American Evaluation Association on young evaluators (those people in the field less than 5 years)

Screening strategies in the presence of interactions (with discussion)

Product and process improvement can involve a large number of factors which must be varied simultaneously. Understanding how factors interact is a key step in identifying those factors that have a substantial impact on the response. This paper gives the first comprehensive assessment and comparison of screening strategies for interactions using two-level supersaturated designs, group screening, and a variety of data analysis methods including shrinkage regression and Bayesian methods. Novel methodology is developed to allow application of Bayesian methods in two-stage group screening. Insights on using the strategies are provided through a variety of simulation scenarios and open issues are discussed. Supplementary materials are available online