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Virally vectored immunocontraception using a modified murine cytomegalovirus (MCMV) is being developed for the control of house mice in Australia. In this paper, we develop disease–host models using a combination of laboratory and field data. We then combine these models with a model of a previous mouse population outbreak to explore the likely effectiveness of modified MCMV for controlling mice. Models of homogeneous mixing with and without vertical/pseudovertical transmission provided reasonable fits to field serological data collected during the onset and development of a mouse population outbreak in south-eastern Australia. Both models include the high transmission rate of MCMV suggested by the data. We found no strong support for non-linear contact rates or heterogeneous mixing. When applied to a past outbreak of mice both models gave similar results and suggested that immunocontraceptive MCMV could be effective at reducing agricultural damage to acceptable levels. Successful control was still possible when lags in the development of infertility of up to 10 weeks were added to the model, provided high levels of infertility were achieved. These lags were added because mice can become pregnant just before becoming infertile – the resultant litter would not emerge for 6–7 weeks. Trade-offs between two parameters that could be altered by engineering strains of MCMV – the level of infertility in infected mice and the virus transmission rate – were explored and suggest that a variety of parameter combinations could produce successful control. Our results are encouraging for the future development of virally vectored immunocontraception control of house mice, but future work will need to consider some of the assumptions of these single-strain models.

This is one of a series of seven in-depth country studies on maize production systems in Asia, funded by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). It is part of a project designed to promote sustainable intensification of maize production systems while ensuring equitable income growth and improved food security, especially for poor households that depend on maize. Maize is one of five major crops grown in the uplands of Thailand, along with rice, cassava, sugar cane, and rubber trees. Government-promoted crop diversification, increased population growth, improved transportation networks, international trade, expansion of upland farming areas, and increased demand for grains from the domestic livestock and poultry industry stimulated Thailand's maize production beginning in the 1980s. However, Thailand's domestic maize supply is currently not sufficient to meet the needs of its in-country demands, and small quantities have to be imported. Rapid economic growth and accelerated urbanization are expected to create an even higher demand for maize in Thailand. This trend will lead to the intensification of current maize production systems, with more land being shifted to maize production, particularly in marginal areas. Thailand's challenge is to produce more maize for an expanding market, while preserving the natural resource base and the environment through careful agricultural planning. Effective policy design and implementation must be based on comprehensive, accurate data on the current state of maize-based farming systems. This study characterized the social and biophysical maize production environment of Thailand; examined its response to increasing maize demand; determined constraints to future productivity growth; indicated the potential environmental consequences, and examined the options available for promoting sustainable growth in maize production

Judging in the extreme, J. C. H. Blom, B. G J. de Graaff, D. C. L. SchoonoordThis article is a reply to the remarkably different contributions from J.W.L. Brouwer, J.W. Honig and P. Lagrou. Against this differing background in terms of appreciation for the Srebrenica report and the point of view taken, attention is given to the manner in which the enquiry was conducted. The researchers never intended to produce a definitive history of what happened at Srebrenica, rather their aim was to provide a thorough and meaningful contribution to the debate. A convincing study, both from an international, Dutch and local perspective, could only be produced in the light of the violent disintegration of the Former Yugoslavia and the subsequent involvement of the international community and organisations. Only within that framework could the role of the Netherlands Government and the Dutch military be surveyed. But the main focus of the report is not Dutch history in the making, even if a lot of attention was paid to the Netherlands. It would lead too far afield to agree with Lagrou that the researchers had an unshakeable belief that the verified facts would speak for themselves. Nevertheless, the essence of their enquiry was to work according to the traditional methods of their trade, i.e. to rely on the sources. With regard to Honig's alternative interpretation, there are no grounds for stating that the mass murders and the attack on Srebrenica would have required more advance planning. The available sources point in a different directionThis response is part of the discussion forum 'Srebrenica, een "veilig" gebied' (J. C. H. Blom, B. G J. de Graaff, D. C. L. Schoonoord).

The article surveys the history of economic warfare from the Seven Years' War to the present. Three different aspects of economic warfare are studied: international law, effectiveness, and strategies. From the seventeenth century until World War I economic warfare scholarship was dominated by the perspective of international law. But as belligerents ignored jurists' rules of acceptable conduct in economic warfare, the international law approach receded into irrelevance. Practitioners and analysts alike have differed over the effectiveness of economic warfare. Its lack of success against Germany in World War II was a severe blow to the prestige of the blockade weapon. Economic warfare protagonists had underestimated the capability of a determined power elite, controlling the army, to retain power despite economic hardship. In general, economic warfare seems able to do little more than shorten conflicts. Strategies of economic warfare have two dimensions: the institution of blockades and other measures `at large', and the question of according to which principles one should draw up lists of prohibited items. Developments on the first dimension have gone full circle, from Napoleon's Continental self-blockade prohibiting imports from the United Kingdom while promoting exports, to the CoCom embargo of the USA and its allies restricting exports to the Warsaw Pact countries without attempting to prevent imports. On the second dimension, lists of contraband swelled until by World War II they became all-encompassing. In modern wars every good can have relevance to the war effort. Economists have even pointed out that the most strategic item is not the one having the greatest military use but the one relatively most expensive for the adversary to produce domestically and therefore bringing the greatest gains from trade.

The upswing in Europe, North America and Japan since mid-1975 has been unsteady. It has been sufficiently modest to allow a — however slight — decline of inflation rates. Since economic policy refrained from massive reflation, the shortrun outlook remains for a moderate recovery with no rekindling of inflation. High unemployment and weak investment can partly be attributed to the abrupt change to a restrictive course in 1973/1974 which led to unintended increases of real wages and to a dramatic profit squeeze. Moreover, there have been increasing changes in the structure of demand and production techniques as well as political uncertainties which have prevented a marked improvement of the investment climate. This diagnosis calls for a steady economic policy, less aggressive wage policy, and incentives to promote innovative spirit and risk taking. Although money illusion and exchange rate illusion have largely vanished and reduced the effectiveness of short-term stimulation measures, most countries are far from pursuing a steady and pre-announced course. In strong countries — the United States, West Germany and Japan — the reduction of the share of public absorption especially through a shortfall of public investment since 1974 was a retarding factor for improving employment and growth. In weak countries — for example the United Kingdom and Italy — an easy money policy continued to produce high inflation rates and increasing external imbalances. Only after drastic exchange rate depreciations in 1976 did these countries — sometimes too drastically — turn to a restrictive policy course. Cooperation in matters of economic policy, often misunderstood as the sharing of evils, should be designed as help for self-help. International credits should be granted under the condition that the recipient country pursues a stability-oriented policy and refrains from restricting trade.

The International Wheat Council held its 31st session in London from November 7 to 19, 1960, for the purpose of reviewing the world wheat situation in accordance with article 21 of the 1959 International Wheat Agreement. The meeting was attended by representatives of 29 member countries and by observers from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the European Economic Community. According to the press, the results of the second annual review, published on December 12, 1960, revealed that although climatic conditions had created unusually favorable preconditions for an expansion of the world wheat trade during 1960–61, the world surplus at the end of the season was expected to be larger than ever. The press reported that the cause of the wheat surplus problem was government intervention in production, pricing, and trading. Government measures introduced during and shortly after World War II to meet supply deficiencies in a war-disrupted world had been allowed to continue in effect, although the years since the war had seen growing surpluses. According to reports, there had been few changes in national policies affecting producer price supports in 1960; among 25 cases classified by the Council, supports had been reduced in only two instances, while in six instances they had been raised and in seventeen they had remained unchanged. In the four main wheat exporting countries—the United States, Canada, Argentina, and Australia—the end-of-season carry-overs as of July 31 were expected to reach an unprecedented total of 60.4 million metric tons, 37.3 million metric tons over the normal stock surplus. The ultimate solution of wheat surplus problems, concluded the press, depended on a growing adjustment of national wheat policies to international realities.

Social entrepreneurship has become the popular term used to describe business forms that aim to produce profits while also seeking to significantly advance one or more social or environmental goals. In response to an increase in social entrepreneurship across sectors—from progressive industries like organic farming to conservative industries such as insurance and banking—several states have adopted new corporate governance structures. Such legislation allows incorporating businesses to choose an off-the-shelf formation type that embeds a social mission into its legal structure. The bulk of the newly implemented statutory forms provide not only a new framework for social entrepreneurs to work within, but also an indication to socially conscious investors, consumers, and business partners that these businesses are obligated and dedicated to operating in a responsible and sustainable manner—in addition to their duty to generate shareholder profits. Public Benefit Corporations (PBCs) are generally formed in the same manner as traditional for-profit companies; however, a PBC entity is usually required to identify in its certificate of incorporation a statement of purpose identifying one or more specific public benefits to be promoted by the corporation, and the entity must have a name that clearly identifies its status as a PBC. This Note considers the Delaware PBC statute and addresses the prospective risk that traditional shareholder expectations could dissuade directors of publicly traded for-profit companies from investing in and acquiring PBCs as wholly owned subsidiaries; specifically, because inconsistent corporate purposes between a parent company and its subsidiary could result in an unprecedented new type of director liability.

125 133 181 ; S ; [EN] One of the events occurring when a biomaterial is implanted in an host is the protein deposition onto its surface, which might regulate cell responses. When a biomaterial displays a compromised biocompatibility, distinct complement pathways can be activated to produce a foreign body reaction. In this article, we have designed different types of biomaterial surfaces to study the inflammation process. Here, we used different concentrations of (3-glycidoxypropyl)-trimethoxysilane (GPTMS), an organically-modified alkoxysilane as a precursor for the synthesis of various types of sol-gel materials functionalizing coatings for titanium implants to regulate biological responses. Our results showed that greater GPTMS surface concentrations induced greater secretion of TNF-alpha and IL-10 on RAW 264.7 macrophages. When implanted into rabbit tibia, osseointegration decreased with higher GPTMS concentrations. Interestingly, higher deposition of complement-related proteins C-reactive protein (CRP) and ficolin-2 (FCN2), two main activators of distinct complement pathways, was observed. Taking all together, inflammatory potential increase seems to be GPTMS concentration-dependent. Our results show that a greater adsorption of complement proteins can condition macrophage polarization. This work was supported by MINECO [MAT2017-86043-R]; Universitat Jaume I [Predoc/2014/25, UJI-B2017-37]; Basque Government [IT611-13, Predoc/2016/1/0141]; University of the Basque Country [UFI11/56]; CIC bioGUNE is supported by Basque Department of Industry, Tourism and Trade (Etortek and Elkartek programs), ProteoRed-ISCIII [PRB3 IPT17/0019]; CIBERehd Network and Severo Ochoa Grant [SEV-2016-0644]. Authors would like to thank Antonio Coso and Jaime Franco (GMI-Ilerimplant) for their inestimable contribution to this study, and Raquel Oliver, Jose Ortega (UJI), René van Rheden, Vicent Cuijpers (Radboudumc) and Iraide Escobes (CIC bioGUNE) for their valuable technical assistance. Araújo-Gomes, N.; Romero-Gavilán, F.; Zhang, ...

The resources available for the public provision of health care are not unlimited. Cost-effectiveness evidence on new healthcare interventions can help us prioritise in order to use scarce resources wisely, but to interpret cost-effectiveness evidence, it may appear as if we must make trade-offs between life and money. This is not so. If we are able to quantify the health improvements that resources would or could have generated in alternative use, a decision about providing or denying treatment can instead be framed as a trade-off between health gained and health forgone. In this thesis, I seek to provide a more robust basis for this way of reporting and interpreting cost-effectiveness evidence. In Chapter II, I discuss the definition of opportunity cost in economic evaluation. The opportunity cost of providing an intervention is what we must give up to provide it. More precisely, it is typically defined as the value of the best alternative forgone. In economic evaluation of health care, opportunity cost has been understood in terms of the least cost-effective, currently funded intervention, which should be displaced when funding new interventions subject to a fixed budget. I show that alternative uses forgone may be neither currently funded nor well-defined, which implies that we should not look to cost-effectiveness evidence on specific interventions for information on opportunity cost. Further, identifying a best alternative use assumes that priority setting is based on objectives that can be summarised into a single measure of value. If economic evaluation is used to inform trade-offs between one measure of value (e.g., quality-adjusted life years, QALYs) and other, unquantified objectives, I suggest that it would be more appropriate to define opportunity cost as value in expected alternative use. To quantify opportunity cost as health forgone, we need evidence on the health that resources would or could have generated in alternative use. In Chapter III, I use panel data on health spending and life expectancy in Swedish regions to estimate the marginal cost of producing a QALY. My findings imply that Swedish health care can produce health at a marginal cost of SEK 180,000 per QALY, which could be used as an expectation on how productive health spending would be in alternative use. I discuss methodological issues with this approach and identify some credibility problems with selection-on-observables strategies plaguing this and similar research to date. I address (some of) these problems by assessing coefficient stability and the causal mechanisms between healthcare resource use and health outcomes, using a second panel on hospital bed capacity and mortality. This analysis finds that health could be gained at a cost of SEK 420,000 per QALY by providing more hospital beds. To illustrate the role of this evidence in healthcare priority setting, Chapter IV considers how it could have been used to inform decision making in a case of pharmaceutical reimbursement. I propose that economic evaluation report cost-effectiveness evidence as QALYs forgone per QALY gained. This frames a decision about providing or denying treatment as a judgement on the relative priority of QALYs gained and QALYs forgone, which is more transparent about a trade-off between equity and efficiency than deciding whether the monetary cost per QALY is too high. Framing decisions as health gained versus health forgone could also lead to better decision making by making opportunity costs more salient to decision makers and the reason for sometimes denying costly treatments easier to communicate. In summary, cost-effectiveness evidence can be used to achieve the theoretical objective of health maximisation, but economic evaluations rarely report opportunity costs explicitly as health forgone. This thesis provides the practical means to be explicit and implications for the definition of opportunity cost and the interpretation of cost-effectiveness evidence when health maximisation is not the sole objective of healthcare priority setting.

In a globalised world, companies are encouraged to change the location of their activities in order to take advantage of the different advantages of the many eligible territories. For their part, public authorities at the various territorial levels are engaged in actions that can increase their attractiveness. However, it would be dangerous to perceive territories as simply competitors to capture market shares on the market for localisations of undertakings on the basis of generic advantages. The development of territories is, admittedly, dependent on the local advantages enjoyed by undertakings, but also on the link between territories, which, although in competition, are in competition with each other, but competition of multiple dimensions which can be beneficial to everyone. The question raised is not so much to identify the advantages of proximity, but to show how and how the performance of territories depends both on the agglomeration of activities and on the globalisation of trade in a context of permanent restructuring. The objective of public action is less to address direct cost benefits for businesses than to contribute to a coherent functioning of markets and to the development of cooperation between innovation actors in an open environment. The effectiveness of this action is conditional on the size of the geographical area concerned and/or the degree of cooperation between the different regions. The evolution of a policy aimed at the development of technopoles towards a policy of pole of competitiveness is significant of this requirement. ; In a globalised world, firms are looking for the best place to produce goods and services. Local governments, on the other hand, are looking to attract these firms and associated jobs on their territory. This leads to the outsourcing and relocation phenomena that are the most visible aspects of globalisation. However, it would be dangerous to consider that competition amongst geographical regions is a simple struggle for a larger share of activity.Regional ...

Entre 1950 y 1980, el modelo predominante en los países europeos centrales era el de pleno empleo estable, asalariado, a tiempo completo y con garantías sociales. Entre 1980 y 1995 se produce en la Unión Europea el fin de la hegemonía de ese modelo de empleo para dar paso a otro de características y rasgos netamente distintos. Es un fenómeno que tiene que ver, ante todo, con un cambio paulatino, pero profundo, en la configuración de las relaciones sociales y políticas en los países de la propia Unión Europea. Se empiezan a dibujar otros modelos que mantienen tasas altas de paro, grados importantes de inseguridad y un deterioro progresivo de las garantías sociales mínimas. Esta tendencia se presenta con grandes diferencias entre los países de la Unión. Esas diferencias tienen que ver con un doble orden de factores: en primer lugar con la fortaleza o debilidad del sistema de relaciones laborales de cada país; y en segundo lugar con la incorporación al empleo de nuevos sujetos laborales distintos del varón adulto nacional, en particular jóvenes, mujeres e inmigrantes, grupos en general muy alejados de la influencia sindical y que, por sus peculiares características, han podido contribuir a que formas flexibilizadas de empleo se acaben consolidando como habituales. ; Between 1950 and 1980, the predominant model in the Central European countries is characterized by full-time, wage-earning and stable full employment with social guarantees. Between 1980 and 1995 the end of the hegemony of such a model of employment in the EU occurs, leading to another one with clearly different features. It is a phenomenon that has mainly to do with a gradual, but deep, change in the pattern of the social and political relations in the European Union countries. Amove away from the full employment model begins to outline, opening the way to other models that maintain high rates of unemployment, high levels of insecurity and a progressive deterioration of the minimum social guarantees. This tendency shows considerable differences among the countries of the EU depending on two main factors; in the first place they have to do with the fortress or weakness of the industrial relations system of each country; and in the second place they are concerned by the incorporation of new labour individuals in the labour force, apart form the national adult male, particularly young people, women and migrants. In general, such collectives are far away from the influence of trade unions, and, because of their distinctive features, they have probably contributed to the consolidation of flexible forms of employment, becoming thus instability as usual.

The egg is fertilized by a sperm cell and human, with an act of being, with a body and a souland therefore its first human desire is the right to live The advancement of medical and biological science, incorporates new factual situations that the law can not fail to understand as is the case with the consequences of the application of technical standards and assisted human reproduction techniques specifically in vitro fertilization which the procedure uses sperm and eggs needed to produce just one live embryo but several embryos be frozen without knowing what their fate generating the question, what happens to those human beings frozen in the lab? This problem requires urgent and appropriate legislation. ; El óvulo fecundado por un espermatozoide es ya persona humana, con un acto de ser, con un cuerpo y con un alma, y por lo tanto su primer deseo humano es el derecho a vivir. El avance de la ciencia médico-biológica incorpora nuevas situaciones fácticas que el Derecho no puede dejar de comprender, como es el caso de las consecuencias derivadas de la aplicación de las normas técnicas de reproducción humana asistida, y específicamente de las técnicas de fertilización in vitro, en los que el procedimiento utiliza espermatozoides y óvulos necesarios para producir solo un embrión vivo, con lo que varios embriones quedarían congelados, sin saber cuál es su destino, generando la pregunta ¿qué sucede con aquellos seres humanos congelados en el laboratorio? Este problema requiere de una legislación adecuada y urgente.

These regional highlights present some of the key trends in developing countries, drawn from the data presented in World Development Indicators 2012, the World Bank's annual compilation of relevant, high-quality, and internationally comparable statistics about development and the quality of people's lives. Charts and short narratives highlight the state and progress of various development topics such as poverty, health, education, the environment, the economy, governance, investment, aid, trade, and capital flows. A global review of progress toward the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) is presented in the introduction to the world view section of World Development Indicators 2012. The high income economies are the largest emitters of carbon dioxide, but East Asia and the Pacific produces the largest share of global carbon dioxide emissions among developing regions-more than a quarter of total global emissions. As the global economy becomes more integrated, air transport is increasingly important for delivering not only perishable goods such as flowers, but also highly specialized component parts used in transnational production networks. Agriculture is a declining industry in Europe and Central Asia. The share of agriculture in regional Gross Domestic Product (GDP) fell from 19 percent to 7 percent over the last two decades. People in the developing economies of Europe and Central Asia have greater access to commercial bank branches and automated teller machines than people in other developing regions-about 18 commercial bank branches and 45 ATMs per 100,000 adults. Governments and citizens in Latin America and Caribbean spend more on health care as a share of GDP than other developing regions, which is reflected in generally good health outcomes. Poverty is falling in the Latin America and Caribbean, most notably in Brazil-the most populous country in the region. South Asia has the second lowest business start-up costs among developing regions.

After almost two decades, Golden Rice was approved last week by the Philippines authorities for use as food. This together with the approval of the bioengineered Bt eggplant represents a landmark victory of science over misinformation; it will provide consumers with improved nutrition (Golden Rice) and safer food (Bt eggplant).

The role of agriculture in the Malaysian economy has been declining steadily over the years. Today, agriculture's share of the country's GDP and employment is around 7% and 10%, respectively (Figure 1).2 As a result, there is lingering concern for the long-term viability of some agricultural mainstays and their links with insecure livelihoods in rural areas. Despite agriculture's relative decline, the sector exerts a disproportionate influence on Malaysian politics due to the malapportionment of parliamentary seats. This is reflected in the prominent role of agriculture in the election manifestos of political parties as well as fiscal allocations in support of the sector. This paper examines the political significance of agriculture, the current state of policymaking regarding the sector and political aspirations for the sector.