Land property, tenure security and credit access: a historical perspective of change processes in China

The North China Plain is the country?s granary: most of wheat and maize is supplied by this region in the northeast of China. Intensity of agricultural production has risen sharply in the last decades and the negative environmental effects like water scarcity, salinization and nitrate contamination have been widely acknowledged. In the wake of the country?s rapid economic development it becomes at the same time more and more urgent to narrow the gap between the well-being of the urban and rural population. In order to better understand the paths that lead to this present dilemma, this paper provides a historical overview of the development of the land and water markets and the rural financial system. It highlights the linkages and reciprocal restraints between these three sectors and gives some conclusions and policy recommendations on how to proceed in order to further a more sustainable development in the North China Plain. Apart from literature review, data from an original farm household survey, conducted by the authors, is used to substantiate the arguments put forth in this paper

DataM – Biomass estimates (v3): a new database to quantify biomass availability in the European Union

In 2012, the Communication of the European Commission "Innovating for Sustainable Growth: A Bioeconomy for Europe" (COM(2012)60) has put the development of the Bioeconomy at the forefront, as a way of reconciling economic growth and the green economy. But current official statistics fall short in providing relevant data to document this new concept. The establishment of the bioeconomy observatory (BISO) aims at filling this gap, compiling qualitative and quantitative data of relevance for policy makers. Considering that biomass is the raw material of the bioeconomy, JRC-IPTS together with the Nova- Institute has elaborated in the BISO framework a new database that quantifies the production and residues of biomass: DataM – Biomass estimates. Compared to existing databases like Eurostat-MFA (env_ac_mfa) and SERI Global material flows, this new database presents a higher level of disaggregation at the geographical and commodity level. Moreover, it allows gathering data either into fresh or dry matter. This database is stored in DataM, a JRC data management tool, and is accessible via two applications: the full version in datamintracomm for all European commission staff, and a public light version online datamweb. Apart from offering a quantification of crop biomass and residues at European level, these two applications also allows browsing data at member state and commodity level. A quantification of the European trade and biomass uses in biomass equivalent is foreseen in next versions, together with the integration of woody and aquatic product.JRC.J.4-Agriculture and Life Sciences in the Econom

Occurrence and formation of indole-3-acetamide in Arabidopsis thaliana

An HPLC/GC–MS/MS technique (high-pressure liquid chromatography in combination with gas chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry) has been worked out to analyze indole-3-acetamide (IAM) with very high sensitivity, using isotopically labelled IAM as an internal standard. Using this technique, the occurrence of IAM in sterile-grown Arabidopsis thaliana (L.) Heynh. was demonstrated unequivocally. In comparison, plants grown under non-sterile conditions in soil in a greenhouse showed approximately 50% higher average levels of IAM, but the differences were not statistically significant. Thus, microbial contributions to the IAM extracted from the tissue are likely to be minor. Levels of IAM in sterile-grown seedlings were highest in imbibed seeds and then sharply declined during the first 24 h of germination and further during early seedling development to remain below 20–30 pmol g–1 fresh weight throughout the rosette stage. The decline in indole-3-aetic acid (IAA) levels during germination was paralleled by a similar decline in IAM levels. Recombinant nitrilase isoforms 1, 2 and 3, known to synthesize IAA from indole-3-acetonitrile, were shown to produce significant amounts of IAM in vitro as a second end product of the reaction besides IAA. NIT2 was earlier shown to be highly expressed in developing and in mature A. thaliana embryos, and NIT3 is the dominantly active gene in the hypocotyl and the cotyledons of young, germinating seedlings. Collectively, these data suggest that the elevated levels of IAM in seeds and germinating seedlings result from nitrilase action on indole-3-acetonitrile, a metabolite produced in the plants presumably from glucobrassicin turnover

Monitoring Bioeconomy Transitions with Economic−Environmental and Innovation Indicators: Addressing Data Gaps in the Short Term

Monitoring bioeconomy transitions and their effects can be considered a Herculean task, as they cannot be easily captured using current economic statistics. Distinctions are rarely made between bio-based and non-bio-based products when official data is collected. However, production along bioeconomy supply chains and its implications for sustainability require measurement and assessment to enable considered policymaking. We propose a starting point for monitoring bioeconomy transitions by suggesting an adapted framework, relevant sectors, and indicators that can be observed with existing information and data from many alternative sources, assuming that official data collection methods will not be modified soon. Economic–environmental indicators and innovation indicators are derived for the German surfactant industry based on the premise that combined economic–environmental indicators can show actual developments and trade-offs, while innovation indicators can reveal whether a bioeconomy transition is likely in a sector. Methodological challenges are discussed and low-cost; high-benefit options for further data collection are recommended.Peer Reviewe

MizAR 60 for Mizar 50

As a present to Mizar on its 50th anniversary, we develop an AI/TP system that automatically proves about 60% of the Mizar theorems in the hammer setting. We also automatically prove 75% of the Mizar theorems when the automated provers are helped by using only the premises used in the human-written Mizar proofs. We describe the methods and large-scale experiments leading to these results. This includes in particular the E and Vampire provers, their ENIGMA and Deepire learning modifications, a number of learning-based premise selection methods, and the incremental loop that interleaves growing a corpus of millions of ATP proofs with training increasingly strong AI/TP systems on them. We also present a selection of Mizar problems that were proved automatically

Magnetic stray fields in nanoscale magnetic tunnel junctions

The magnetic stray field is an unavoidable consequence of ferromagnetic devices and sensors leading to a natural asymmetry in magnetic properties. Such asymmetry is particularly undesirable for magnetic random access memory applications where the free layer can exhibit bias. Using atomistic dipole-dipole calculations we numerically simulate the stray magnetic field emanating from the magnetic layers of a magnetic memory device with different geometries. We find that edge effects dominate the overall stray magnetic field in patterned devices and that a conventional synthetic antiferromagnet structure is only partially able to compensate the field at the free layer position. A granular reference layer is seen to provide near-field flux closure while additional patterning defects add significant complexity to the stray field in nanoscale devices. Finally we find that the stray field from a nanoscale antiferromagnet is surprisingly non-zero arising from the imperfect cancellation of magnetic sublattices due to edge defects. Our findings provide an outline of the role of different layer structures and defects in the effective stray magnetic field in nanoscale magnetic random access memory devices and atomistic calculations provide a useful tools to study the stray field effects arising from a wide range of defects

Temperature dependence of the thermal conductivity of an indium gallium zinc oxide thin film

Transparent conducting oxides are an exciting family of materials with applications ranging from display technologies to alternative energy generation. One interesting possibility is the use of these materials in thermoelectric energy generation. Amorphous indium gallium zinc oxide (a-InGaZnO) has been shown to have favorable properties for high thermoelectric efficiency. Given the critical role lattice thermal conductivity plays in determining the efficiency of thermoelectric energy generation, we examine the thermal conductivity of this thin film material at temperatures between roughly 117K and 352 K. We begin with a brief introduction to heat transport and a discussion of the thermoelectric effect. The 3ω technique, which we employ to determine the thermal conductivity of an a-InGaZnO film, is discussed in detail. Thin film deposition and materials characterization will be discussed. Finally, we present our experimentally measured thermal conductivities of a-InGaZnO. We close by acknowledging work that remains for the future

Land property, tenure security and credit access: a historical perspective of change processes in China

The North China Plain is the country's granary: most of wheat and maize is supplied by this region in the northeast of China. Intensity of agricultural production has risen sharply in the last decades and the negative environmental effects like water scarcity, salinization and nitrate contamination have been widely acknowledged. In the wake of the country's rapid economic development it becomes at the same time more and more urgent to narrow the gap between the well-being of the urban and rural population. In order to better understand the paths that lead to this present dilemma, this paper provides a historical overview of the development of the land and water markets and the rural financial system. It highlights the linkages and reciprocal restraints between these three sectors and gives some conclusions and policy recommendations on how to proceed in order to further a more sustainable development in the North China Plain. Apart from literature review, data from an original farm household survey, conducted by the authors, is used to substantiate the arguments put forth in this paper

Are primary agricultural residues promising feedstock for the European bioeconomy?

Launched in 2012, the Bioeconomy Strategy of the European Commission aims at developing the production and use of biomass within the European Union as a strategy to limit the consumption of fossil carbon while fostering jobs and growth. The quantification of biomass flows and their timely reporting are crucial for the monitoring of such strategy. In this framework, the present study focuses on the quantification of primary agricultural residues in the European Union as a promising feedstock for the bio-based and bioenergy sectors. Harvest indices or residue-to-product ratios (RPRs), determined at crop level, usually enter the computation of primary agricultural residues. Comparing four different functional forms of RPRs in function of the level of crop yield, we show that exponential forms better simulate the production of crop residues for high levels of annual crop yields. We then complement the RPRs reported in the scientific literature with twenty two exponential forms of RPRs and four fixed RPRs for commodities (or group of commodities) not reported so far. Finally, we estimate that 395 million tonnes of dry matter (Tdm) of primary agricultural residues are produced in Europe in 2013 from more than 130 crop commodities. Out of them, 297 million Tdm should remain in the fields for the maintenance of ecosystem services (using conservative assumptions) and 37 million tonnes are collected for agricultural uses. Hence, 62 million Tdm are collectable as feedstock for the bio-based and bioenergy sectors. They are mainly composed of cellulose (58%) and sugar and starch (11%). The production of primary agricultural residues is concentrated in the major cereal producing countries and stable over time. Nevertheless, a wider adoption of ad’hoc harvesting machinery, the optimisation of logistic processes and the maturation of the new bio-based value chains could help to better take advantage of the current production of agricultural residues.JRC.D.4-Economics of Agricultur