Economics of boar taint prevention without surgical castration in the pork chain

An economic analyses of boar taint prevention without surgical castration is lacking. This paper explores currently feasible alternatives to surgical castration along the pork chain. The considered alternatives include genetic selection (pig breeding stage); altering management strategies (pig growing stage); slaughter at younger age and lower weight (slaughtering stage). Control measures relevant to these alternatives were designed and examined, using costeffectiveness and cost-benefit analysis. Results show that the option of single-sex raising of entire males is more cost-effective compared to the mixed-sex option. The breeding programs combining selection on boar taint and economics are more cost-effective than programs focusing on boar taint only, and also much more cost-effective than slaughtering at a younger age and lower weigh

Phase transitions related to the pigeonhole principle

Since Paris introduced them in the late seventies (Paris1978), densities turned out to be useful for studying independence results. Motivated by their simplicity and surprising strength we investigate the combinatorial complexity of two such densities which are strongly related to the pigeonhole principle. The aim is to miniaturise Ramsey's Theorem for $1$-tuples. The first principle uses an unlimited amount of colours, whereas the second has a fixed number of two colours. We show that these principles give rise to Ackermannian growth. After parameterising these statements with respect to a function f:N->N, we investigate for which functions f Ackermannian growth is still preserved

EnsembleSVM: A Library for Ensemble Learning Using Support Vector Machines

EnsembleSVM is a free software package containing efficient routines to perform ensemble learning with support vector machine (SVM) base models. It currently offers ensemble methods based on binary SVM models. Our implementation avoids duplicate storage and evaluation of support vectors which are shared between constituent models. Experimental results show that using ensemble approaches can drastically reduce training complexity while maintaining high predictive accuracy. The EnsembleSVM software package is freely available online at http://esat.kuleuven.be/stadius/ensemblesvm.Comment: 5 pages, 1 tabl

De consumptie van dierlijke producten : ontwikkelingen, invloedsfactoren, actoren en interventies

LEI Wageningen UR heeft in opdracht van het Planbureau voor de Leefomgeving (PBL) met behulp van kwantitatief onderzoek onderzocht hoe de consumptie van dierlijke producten zich in Europese landen in de afgelopen decennia heeft ontwikkeld. Daarnaast zijn met behulp van kwalitatief onderzoek mogelijke interventies geïdentificeerd gericht op het beïnvloeden van de consumptie van dierlijke producten. Dit onderzoek biedt een basis voor de verdere uitwerking en uitvoering van door publieke en private actoren te nemen maatregelen gericht op verandering of vermindering van de consumptie van dierlijke producten

WZW-like Action for Heterotic String Field Theory

We complete the construction of the Neveu-Schwarz sector of heterotic string field theory begun in hep-th/0406212 by giving a closed-form expression for the action and gauge transformations. Just as the Wess-Zumino-Witten (WZW) action for open superstring field theory can be constructed from pure-gauge fields in bosonic open string field theory, our heterotic string field theory action is constructed from pure-gauge fields in bosonic closed string field theory. The construction involves a simple alternative form of the WZW action which is consistent with the algebraic structures of closed string field theory.Comment: 22 pages, no figures, LaTeX2

Livestock transportation: a model for ex-ante policy analysis

The protection of live animals during transport in the EU is currently regulated under the Council Regulation No. 1/2005. The current legal regime is strongly criticized by the European society. To reform the existing regulation, policy makers need insights into the impact of possible transport restrictions for live animals. In this work, we propose a mathematical programming model to assess the potential impact of a policy reform involving limitations of travelling times and space allowances. This model is implemented for the years 2002 and 2013. A sensitivity analysis is performed on variations of fuel prices and cost of meat transpor