Are the Mediterranean countries competitive in fresh fruit and vegetable exports?

The Barcelona Agreement was signed in 1995, setting forth a structure with bilateral agreements between the EU and twelve Mediterranean countries. The agreement also foresaw the creation of a free trade area in the Euro-Mediterranean region by 2010. For many of the countries surrounding the Mediterranean sea, fruit and vegetables are very important products. In light of the increasing trade liberalization and thus increasing competition between countries, this paper aims to investigate further the competitiveness of Mediterranean countries with respect to fresh fruit and vegetables. The results generally show that the competitiveness of the investigated countries has deteriorated over the period. In only two cases, there is an increase in competitiveness.International Relations/Trade,

Seal Hunters, Fishermen and Sea-voyagers: Late Middle Neolithic (2600–2400 cal BC) Maritime Hunter-Gatherers in the Baltic Sea Archipelago at Tråsättra, Sweden

Large scale excavations of Neolithic settlements and cemeteries along the Swedish east coast and on the islands of Gotland and Öland in the Baltic Sea during the last 30 years have produced a large amount of new information concerning the Funnel Beaker Culture, the Pitted Ware Culture and the Battle Axe Culture. Excavations of large areas in a number of sites have given us a much deeper understanding of how these societies were organized, how people made their living and how they buried their dead. Large scale studies of palaeoecological remains, lipids in ceramics and isotopes in animal and human bones have given us new information concerning differences in diet and economy, and studies of genetic material have produced new essential knowledge of ethnic and cultural affiliations. The excavation at Tråsättra covered the whole area of a permanent hunter-gatherer settlement that can be related to the late Pitted Ware Culture, ca. 2600– 2400calBC. This gave us the opportunity to study the organization of the settlement, economy and diet, craftsmanship and ritual activities in detail. Also, finds of a large number of anthropomorphic and zoomorphic clay figurines, a cult building with ritual deposits and a small cemetery made a unique analysis of religious and ideological aspects of the hunter-gatherers in the archipelago of the eastern middle part of Sweden during the late Middle Neolithic B possible

LUCY: Large scale Urban Consumption of Energy

Model and datasets to document changes in global anthropogenic heat flux (QF) for spatial (30?? × 30?? to 0.5° × 0.5°) resolution and temporal coverage (historical, current and future). See further details in the Lindberg et al. publications linked from this record

Graphene oxide and adsorption of chloroform: A density functional study

Chlorinated hydrocarbon compounds are of environmental concerns, since they are toxic to humans and other mammals, and are widespread, and exposure is hard to avoid. Understanding and improving methods to reduce the amount of the substances are important. We present an atomic-scale calculational study of the adsorption of chlorine-based substance chloroform (CHCl3) on graphene oxide, as a step in estimating the capacity of graphene oxide for filtering out such substances, e.g., from drinking water. The calculations are based on density functional theory, and the recently developed consistent-exchange functional for the van der Waals density-functional method is employed. We obtain values of the chloroform adsorption energy varying from roughly 0.2 to 0.4 eV per molecule. This is comparable to previously found results for chloroform adsorbed directly on clean graphene, using similar calculations. In a wet environment, like filters for drinking water, the graphene will not stay clean and will likely oxidize, and thus adsorption onto graphene oxide, rather than clean graphene, is a more relevant process to study

Carbide Precipitation during Processing of Two Low-Alloyed Martensitic Tool Steels with 0.11 and 0.17 V/Mo Ratios Studied by Neutron Scattering, Electron Microscopy and Atom Probe

Two industrially processed low-alloyed martensitic tool steel alloys with compositions Fe-0.3C-1.1Si-0.81Mn-1.5Cr-1.4Ni-1.1Mo-0.13V and Fe-0.3C-1.1Si-0.81Mn-1.4Cr-0.7Ni-0.8Mo-0.14V (wt.%) were characterized using small-angle neutron scattering (SANS), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM), and atom probe tomography (APT). The combination of methods enables an understanding of the complex precipitation sequences that occur in these materials during the processing. Nb-rich primary carbides form at hot working, while Fe-rich auto-tempering carbides precipitate upon quenching, and cementite carbides grow during tempering when Mo-rich secondary carbides also nucleate and grow. The number density of Mo-rich carbides increases with tempering time, and after 24 h, it is two to three orders of magnitude higher than the Fe-rich carbides. A high number density of Mo-rich carbides is important to strengthen these low-alloyed tool steels through precipitation hardening. The results indicate that the Mo-rich secondary carbide precipitates are initially of MC character, whilst later they start to appear as M2C. This change of the secondary carbides is diffusion driven and is therefore mainly seen for longer tempering times at the higher tempering temperature of 600◦C

Uncertainties in tidally adjusted estimates of sea level rise flooding (bathtub model) for the Greater London

Sea-level rise (SLR) from global warming may have severe consequences for coastal cities, particularly when combined with predicted increases in the strength of tidal surges. Predicting the regional impact of SLR flooding is strongly dependent on the modelling approach and accuracy of topographic data. Here, the areas under risk of sea water flooding for London boroughs were quantified based on the projected SLR scenarios reported in Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) fifth assessment report (AR5) and UK climatic projections 2009 (UKCP09) using a tidally-adjusted bathtub modelling approach. Medium- to very high-resolution digital elevation models (DEMs) are used to evaluate inundation extents as well as uncertainties. Depending on the SLR scenario and DEMs used, it is estimated that 3%–8% of the area of Greater London could be inundated by 2100. The boroughs with the largest areas at risk of flooding are Newham, Southwark, and Greenwich. The differences in inundation areas estimated from a digital terrain model and a digital surface model are much greater than the root mean square error differences observed between the two data types, which may be attributed to processing levels. Flood models from SRTM data underestimate the inundation extent, so their results may not be reliable for constructing flood risk maps. This analysis provides a broad-scale estimate of the potential consequences of SLR and uncertainties in the DEM-based bathtub type flood inundation modelling for London boroughs

Insights gained from a systematic reanalysis of a successful model-facilitated change process in health care

Health care is a complex system with multiprofessional staff and multiple patient care pathways. Time pressure and minimal margins for error make it challenging to implement new policies or procedures, no matter how desirable. Changes in health care also requires the participation of the staff. System dynamics (SD) simulations can lead to shared systems understanding and allows for the development and testing of new scenarios in silico before implementing solutions. However, research shows that the actual implementation rate of simulations is low. This paper presents a reanalysis of a successful change project in health care combining SD principles with basic action research (AR) premises. The analysis was done by a multidisciplinary research group using qualitative methodology and identifies that a fruitful combination of AR inquiry and SD modelling potentially can improve implementation rates.publishedVersio

Health-related quality of life is related to COPD disease severity

BACKGROUND: The aim of this study was to evaluate the association between health-related quality of life (HRQL) and disease severity using lung function measures. METHODS: A survey was performed in subjects with COPD in Sweden. 168 subjects (70 women, mean age 64.3 years) completed the generic HRQL questionnaire, the Short Form 36 (SF-36), the disease-specific HRQL questionnaire; the St George's Respiratory Questionnaire (SGRQ), and the utility measure, the EQ-5D. The subjects were divided into four severity groups according to FEV(1 )per cent of predicted normal using two clinical guidelines: GOLD and BTS. Age, gender, smoking status and socio-economic group were regarded as confounders. RESULTS: The COPD severity grades affected the SGRQ Total scores, varying from 25 to 53 (GOLD p = 0.0005) and from 25 to 45 (BTS p = 0.0023). The scores for SF-36 Physical were significantly associated with COPD severity (GOLD p = 0.0059, BTS p = 0.032). No significant association were noticed for the SF-36, Mental Component Summary scores and COPD severity. Scores for EQ-5D VAS varied from 73 to 37 (GOLD I-IV p = 0.0001) and from 73 to 50 (BTS 0-III p = 0.0007). The SGRQ Total score was significant between age groups (p = 0.0047). No significant differences in HRQL with regard to gender, smoking status or socio-economic group were noticed. CONCLUSION: The results show that HRQL in COPD deteriorates with disease severity and with age. These data show a relationship between HRQL and disease severity obtained by lung function