The Effects of Avian Influenza News on Consumer Purchasing Behavior: A Case Study of Italian Consumers' Retail Purchases

To better understand how information about potential health hazards influences food demand, this case study examines consumers’ responses to newspaper articles on avian influenza, informally referred to as bird flu. The focus here is on the response to bird flu information in Italy as news about highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza (HPAI H5N1) unfolded in the period October 2004 through October 2006, beginning after reports of the first outbreaks in Southeast Asia and extending beyond the point at which outbreaks were reported in Western Europe. Estimated poultry demand, as influenced by the volume of newspaper reports on bird flu, reveals the magnitude and duration of newspaper articles’ impacts on consumers’ food choices. Larger numbers of bird flu news reports led to larger reductions in poultry purchases. Most impacts were of limited duration, and all began to diminish within 5 weeks.Avian influenza, bird flu, consumer behavior, food safety, poultry sales and consumption, risk perception and response, Agricultural and Food Policy, Health Economics and Policy, Institutional and Behavioral Economics, International Relations/Trade,

Traceability for Food Safety and Quality Assurance: Mandatory Systems Miss the Mark

Traceability systems are record-keeping systems that are primarily used to help keep foods with different attributes separate from one another. When information about a particular attribute of a food product is systematically recorded from creation through marketing, traceability for that attribute is established. Recently, policy makers in many countries have begun weighing the usefulness of mandatory traceability for managing such diverse problems as the threat of bio-terrorism, country-of-origin labelling, mad cow disease, and identification of genetically engineered foods. The question before policymakers is, When is mandatory traceability a useful and appropriate policy choice?Agricultural and Food Policy, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety,

TRACEABILITY IN THE U.S. FOOD SUPPLY: ECONOMIC THEORY AND INDUSTRY STUDIES

This investigation into the traceability baseline in the United States finds that private sector food firms have developed a substantial capacity to trace. Traceability systems are a tool to help firms manage the flow of inputs and products to improve efficiency, product differentiation, food safety, and product quality. Firms balance the private costs and benefits of traceability to determine the efficient level of traceability. In cases of market failure, where the private sector supply of traceability is not socially optimal, the private sector has developed a number of mechanisms to correct the problem, including contracting, third-party safety/quality audits, and industry-maintained standards. The best-targeted government policies for strengthening firms' incentives to invest in traceability are aimed at ensuring that unsafe of falsely advertised foods are quickly removed from the system, while allowing firms the flexibility to determine the manner. Possible policy tools include timed recall standards, increased penalties for distribution of unsafe foods, and increased foodborne-illness surveillance.traceability, tracking, traceback, tracing, recall, supply-side management, food safety, product differentiation, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, Industrial Organization,

Nonlinear Magneto-Optics of Fe Monolayers from first principles: Structural dependence and spin-orbit coupling strength

We calculate the nonlinear magneto-optical response of free-standing fcc (001), (110) and (111) oriented Fe monolayers. The bandstructures are determined from first principles using a full-potential LAPW method with the additional implementation of spin-orbit coupling. The variation of the spin-orbit coupling strength and the nonlinear magneto-optical spectra upon layer orientation are investigated. We find characteristic differences which indicate an enhanced sensitivity of nonlinear magneto-optics to surface orientation and variation of the in-plane lattice constants. In particular the crossover from onedimensional stripe structures to twodimensional films of (111) layers exhibits a clean signature in the nonlinear Kerr-spectra and demonstrates the versatility of nonlinear magneto-optics as a tool for in situ thin-film analysis.Comment: 28 pages, RevTeX, psfig, submitted to PR

Process Development for a High-throughput Fine Line Metallization Approach Based on Dispensing Technology

AbstractIn order to enhance prosperous dispensing technology towards an industrial application, besides a continuous process development, especially throughput rate has to be increased. In this study, paste rheology of two different dispensing pastes was transferred to CFD-simulation (CFD: Computational Fluid Dynamics) to investigate different nozzle geometries and print head designs. In the following, a single nozzle dispensing setup was used to verify simulative values by comparing them with those obtained from experimental investigations. Consequently, the single nozzle process was scaled to a parallel application, where a homogeneous pressure and flow distribution within the print head turned out to be crucial to achieve a homogeneous mass flow at all nozzles. In various iteration steps, the influence of fabrication tolerances especially concerning the nozzle geometry was isolated and print head designs were optimized based on CFD towards maximum process stability. Based on these results, a novel 10 nozzle fine line dispensing unit was designed and fabricated. Finally, successful cell production with resulting finger widths of less than 35μm could be demonstrated using the novel prototype

A next generation measurement of the electric dipole moment of the neutron at the FRM II

In this paper we discuss theoretical motivations and the status of experimental searches to find time-reversal symmetry-violating electric dipole moments (EDM). Emphasis is given to a next generation search for the EDM of the neutron, which is currently being set up at the FRM II neutron source in Garching, with an ultimate sensitivity goal of 5 × 10−28 cm (3σ). The layout of the apparatus allows for the detailed investigation of systematic effects by combining various means of magnetic field control and polarized UCN optics. All major components of the installations are portable and can be installed at the strongest available UCN beam