Suchergebnisse

{I}United Kingdom Federation for Culture Collections, Issue 29, 1998{/P} {/I}{B}{P}United Kingdom Federation for Culture Collections{/B}{/P} {I}{B}Newsletter{/I}{/B}{/P} {P}Edited by Dr. John Day {B}{P} Code Number:NL98005 {BR} Sizes of Files: {BR} Text: 49K {BR} Graphics: No associated graphics files {/P} {P}Editorial{/P} {/B}{P}Amongst other important subjects, this issue of the UKFCC Newsletter contains an update on the development of the United Kingdom National Culture Collection (UKNCC). {P}A further subject covered in this issue is the proposed changes to the UKFCC Statutes. {/P} {B}{P}The United Kingdom National Culture Collection (UKNCC){/B}{/P} {/B}{P}The Initiative to implement the UK Govermnents strategy for UK microbial collections has now been running for over two years. Just to remind you it brings together 9 National Collections (one on two sites) under the UK National Culture Collection (UKNCC). The Office of Science and Technology established the UKNCC following the Governments response to an independent Review of UK Microbial Culture Collections. {B}{P}World Federation for Culture Collections: associate membership for UKFCC members{/P} {/B}{B}{P}The WFCC: Its Present Activities and Plans for the Millennium{/B}{/P} {P}The WFCC has had an active period promoting the work of the Federation, operating both through its executive board and committee members, and in a general consultancy capacity to other organisations. It is now planning for the new millennium.{/P} {B}{P}UKFCC Bursary Competition{/P} {/B}{P}The UKFCC Bursary to attend the XVIIth European Culture Collection Organisation (ECCO) meeting at VTT, Espoo, Finland from 24th - 26th June 1998 was awarded to Dr RA Fleck. An abstract of the paper he presented "{I}Development of effective preservation procedures for use in culture collections"{/I} is published {/P} {P}{B}Report on the UKFCC Student Bursary (Summer 1998){/P} {/B}{P}Morphological and temperature studies on a selection of{I} Ganoderma {/I}isolates from the CABI BIOSCIENCE Genetic Resources Collection, formerly IMI.{/P} {B}{P}Report on: World Federation for Culture Collections (WFCC) Workshop: {BR} The economic value of microbial genetic resources{/P} {/B}{P}The Workshop was held at the Eighth International Symposium on Microbial Ecology (Halifax, Canada, August 12th 1998){/P} {P}NOTE: A full report with extended abstracts, bibliography, background documents etc will be published by the WFCC; this will also be made available on the WFCC Web Site {B}{P}MOSAICC Developments{/P} {/B}{P}The EU supported project to develop guidelines (or a voluntary code of conduct) for the implementation of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) by culture collections and microbiologists in general is reaching its final stage. The second meeting of the steering group takes place at the beginning of February 1999 in Brussels and additional participants will be invited to attend and contribute to the final development of the guidelines.{/P} {B}{P}Future UKFCC Meetings{/P} {B}{P}Meetings of Interest{/P} {B}{P}UKFCC Committee Members{/P} {B}{P}UKNCC Service Culture Collections {/P} {B}{P}Sustaining Members{/P} {B}{P}STATUTES OF THE UK FEDERATION for CULTURE COLLECTIONS{/A}{/P} {B}{P}UKFCC Training Course on the Preservation and Maintenance of Microorganisms and Cell Lines {/B}{BR} 26-28 April 1999{/P} {P}Copyright UKFCC 1998

The purpose of this thesis is twofold: First, it aims at detecting empirical regularities of the business cycle in Denmark, Germany and the U.S. Second, it tries to give a theoretical explanation for these stylized facts. The thesis is fully in line with the modern analysis of business cycles in the spirit of the Real Business Cycle school initiated by Kydland/Prescott (1982) and Long/Plosser (1983). After a short summary in chapter 1 the second chapter gives a brief introduction to the structure of the basic model, to the solution method (details are transferred to the appendix) and to the main propagation mechanisms at work. The role of the degree of risk aversion of the representative agent is carefully examined. In chapter 3 the series of specific national accounts are detrended using the HP-filter to extract the cyclical component of the series. The standard deviations of these series and their cross correlations with output are reported. Special emphasis is given to lead-lag relationships. Chapter 4 builds upon the basic model of King/Plosser/Rebelo (1988a,b) which is extended in various forms to a small open economy model used to explain the stylized facts of Denmark. The speciality here is the detailed analysis of the effects of adding government spending shocks and interest rate shocks to the model. To summarize, there is no model version that fits the data well. The empirical observation that Danish consumption fluctuates more than output remains unexplained. The absolute standard deviations are too high and the variables are too strongly correlated with output. The trade balance does not move countercyclically. Chapter 5 tries to explain the German business cycle stylized facts using the two country one good model of Baxter/Crucini (1995) as a starting point. The combination of GHH-preferences (Greenwood/Hercowitz/Huffman (1988)) with taste shocks resulting from government consumption as in Bec (1995) is shown to be an important feature of the German business cycle. A VAR model for the exogenous variables is estimated that enables the model to account for the observed positive international correlations and for the lead-lag relationship of international outputs, hours worked and savings. Nevertheless the consumption correlation remains above the output correlation. Technology and government consumption shocks cannot fully account for the observed volatilities. The trade balance does not fluctuate adequately and its countercyclicality cannot be explained. The latest developments in the literature regarding these open economy business cycle models are reviewed in chapter 6. They are categorized in two country models with two goods and multi country models. Each subsection presents at first a short overview. Thereafter some specific models are depicted to make clear in which way the remaining anomalies of the one good model are tried to overcome. The main problem of all these models is to explain a high variability of the trade balance and the terms of trade while simultaneously displaying the correct ranking of the international correlations of outputs, consumption, investment and hours worked. In chapter 7 some of the very latest developments which do not fit the categories of chapter 6 are presented. The assumptions underlying the representative agent approach - utility and production functions and the aggregation problem - are critically investigated and some suggestions for future research are made.

Book reviewed in this article:Margaret Bonney, Lordship and the urban community: Durham and its overlords, 1250‐1540Peter Borsay, The English urban renaissance: culture and society in the English provincial town, 1660‐1770Rosalind Mitchison and Leah Leneman, Sexuality and social control: Scotland, 1660‐1780J.E. Burnett and A.D. Morrison‐Low, 'Vulgar and Mechanick': the scientific instrument trade in Ireland, 1650‐1921T. M. Devine, ed., Conflict and stability in Scottish society. Proceedings of the Scottish Historical Studies Seminar. University of Strathclyde, 1988‐89J. V. Beckett, The agricultural revolutionClive Behagg, Politics and production in the early nineteenth centuryGregory Claeys, Citizens and saints: politics and anti‐politics in early British socialismD. Gareth Evans, A history of Wales, 1815‐1906J.J. Van Helten and Y. Cassis, eds., Capitalism in a mature economy: financial institutions, capital exports and British industry, 1870‐1939W.R. Garside, British unemployment, 1919‐1939: a study in public policyRichard Rodger, ed., Scottish housing in the twentieth centuryPeter Burnham, The political economy of postwar reconstructionKeith Middlemas, Power, competition and the state, 2: threats to the postwar settlement: Britain, 1961‐1974Max Munday, Japanese manufacturing investment in WalesDavid Herlihy, Opera muliebria: women and work in medieval EuropeHerman Lebovics, The alliance of iron and wheat in the Third French Republic, 1860‐1914: origins of the new conservatismPaul Weindling, Health, race and German politics between national unification and Nazism, 1870‐1945Hans‐Joachim Braun, The German economy in the twentieth century: the German Reich and the Federal RepublicIan D. Turner, ed., Reconstruction in post‐war Germany: British occupation policy and the western zones, 1945‐1955B.W. de Vries, From pedlars to textile barons: the economic development of a Jewish minority group in the NetherlandsRichard C. Hoffmann, Land, liberties and lordship in a late medieval countryside: agrarian structures and change in the duchy of WrocclawDavid A. Dyker, Yugoslavia: socialism, development and debtBen Eklof and Stephen P. Frank, eds., The world of the Russian peasant: post‐emancipation culture and societyPeter Scholliers, ed., Real wages in nineteenth and twentieth century EuropeWayne Thorpe, 'The workers themselves': revolutionary syndicalism and international labour, 1913‐1923Stephen A. Marglin and Juliet B. Schor, eds., The golden age of capitalism: reinterpreting the postwar experienceLee Soltow, Distribution of wealth and income in the United States in 1798Michael Tadman, Speculators and slaves: masters, traders, and slaves in the Old SouthDon H. Doyle, New men, new cities, New South: Atlanta, Nashville, Charleston, Mobile, 1860‐1910Stephen Salter and John Stevenson, eds., The working class and politics in Europe and America, 1929‐1945Iwan W. Morgan, Eisenhower versus 'the spenders': the Eisenhower administration, the Democrats and the budget, 1953‐60Paul Gootenburg, Between silver and guano: Commercial policy and the state in post‐independence PeruJohn Higginson, A working class in the making: Belgian colonial labor policy, private enterprise, and the African mineworker, 1907‐1951Frank Broeze, ed., Brides of the sea: port cities of Asia from the sixteenth‐twentieth centuriesAnand Chandavarkar, Keynes in India: a study in economics and biographyMarie‐Claire Bergère, The golden age of the Chinese bourgeoisie, 1911‐1937 trans. Janet LloydDavid Faure, The rural economy of pre‐liberation China: trade increase and peasant livelihood in Jiangsu and Guangdong, 1870 to 1937Carl‐Ludwig Holtfrerich, ed., Interactions in the world economy: perspectives from international economic historyM. June Flanders, International monetary economics, 1870‐1960Evsey D. Domar, Capitalism, socialism and serfdomC.P. Kindleberger, Economic laws and economic historyDavid C. Mowery and Nathan Rosenberg, Technology and the pursuit of economic growth

Theories that relate organization-level variables to one another frequently contain just three variables. "Formalization is negatively associated with success in a turbulent environment" and "Technology is a determinant of span of control at lower organizational levels" are examples. Theories limited to two or three variables tend to have low predictive validity and consequently are of limited use to anyone attempting to predict or interpret relationships among organizational variables. One purpose of the study reported here was to develop a more encompassing and more valid theory about a specific relationship—the relationship between centralization and effectiveness. A second purpose of the study was to set forth and test the efficacy of a general approach for developing more encompassing and more valid theories about organizations. The successful application of this approach resulted in a six-variable theory: the relationship between the two variables centralization and effectiveness is a function of (1) the average size of the units of analysis, (2) the effectiveness subconstruct considered, (3) the extent of professionalization in the organizations, and (4) whether the organizations produce primarily goods or services. Specifically, 57% of the variance in the linear association between centralization and effectiveness was shown to be explainable by a linear function of the four variables just noted. This theory enables identification of the conditions where centralization will be related to effectiveness most positively (i.e. r = 0.49) and the conditions where it will be related to effectiveness most negatively (i.e., r = −0.56). Besides these four predictor variables, four others were tested as possible predictors of the centralization-effectiveness relationship, but were rejected. Rejection of two of these latter four variables contradicted commonly accepted beliefs—decentralization was not more positively related to effectiveness in turbulent environments and decentralization was not more positively related to effectiveness in larger organizations. Two concerns regarding the organization science literature resulted from this research. The first follows from our observations that most reports of studies include dysfunctionally sparse descriptions of the organizational contexts in which the data were collected and that in many studies the magnitudes of both the variables of primary interest and also the contextual variables are reported on coarse scales (e.g., on nominal scales with few levels, such as "small" and "large"). As a consequence of these two practices, researchers synthesizing the literature and developing theories from it—as was done in the research reported here—necessarily group together studies that should be distinguished from one another on the basis of their attributes. This unwanted grouping results in theories that are less predictive than they could be. The second concern is that the subset of the organization science literature dealing with relationships between organizational design variables (such as centralization) and organizational effectiveness contains few studies demonstrating the causal directions of observed relationships. As a result, because various levels of effectiveness may lead to the adoption or evolution of different levels of "design variables," or may be related to certain levels of a design variable because both are related to a third variable researchers and administrators observing high correlations between a design variable and effectiveness must be cautious in inferring that effectiveness can be enhanced by changing, the level of the respective design variable.

The system of cereal grain production in Ethiopia has been stratified into private, cooperative and state farms since the 1975 land reform. The private farms are being gradually replaced by the cooperative farms while the state farms are receiving increased technical and budgetary assistance by the Ethiopian government. lt is, however, not clear if these policies are consistent with the technical characteristics of these three modes of production. This study, therefore, evaluated technical efficiency, impacts of known and latent input factors, and returns to scale parameters for each farm type. Sample data were collected from Ethiopia on five cereal crops, namely, barley, com, sorghum, teff and wheat and several input factors, including labor, land, oxen, traditional farm implements, tractors, machinery services, modern yield·increasing inputs, livestock, education and rainfall over 77 awrajjas for the 1980-1986 production period. A covariance regression model was applied with these data to determine an appropriate functional form between the Cobb-Douglas and translog production functions. The Translog functional form was selected for the analysis on the basis of statistical tests. Results of the analysis suggest that the producer cooperatives collectively appear to have a potential to generate increased gross income per hectare at a declining rate with respect to an equiproportionate increase in all inputs, except land, upon an increasing average cost of production per unit of cereal output. The private and state farms appear to be operating with a close to fixed proportions type of production technology with a constant average cost of production per unit of cereal output per hectare. Moreover, the range of substitutability between input factors tends towards a complementary relationship as the institutional transformations and management techniques of the cereal producing farms shift from the traditional to a more advanced and centrally managed state mode of production. Partial income elasticity parameters suggest that (a) the private sectors gross income per hectare is most responsive to traditional hand tools, fertilizer, labor, human capital at primary level of education, and rain in August and September; (b) the cooperative sectors gross income per hectare is most responsive to the use of tractors and September rain; whereas (c) gross income per hectare of the state farms is most responsive to the use of traditional labor, machinery services and rain in June and August. Thus, Ethiopias agricultural income production per hectare is likely to be revitalized by: (a) qualitative changes in the traditional inputs, water management, and introduction of modem technical inputs such as fertilizer and farmer education in the private sector; (b) increased traditional labor employment, improved management of water, machinery and modem yield-increasing inputs on the state farms; and (c) a better usage of tractors and collaborative input factors, improved water management, and a substantial increase in capital investment to achieve full employment of the seemingly redundant labor and oxen input factors on the cooperative farms. It seems unlikely that the producer cooperatives will achieve the goal of maximum cereal output per hectare with the most prevalent composition of the redundant traditional input factors which contribute insignificantly at the margin without a major change in the current production techniques and structural policies of the sector. ; Ph. D.

Dondurulmuş meyve ve sebze tüketimi gelişmiş ülkelerde gittikçe artmaktadır. Ülkemizde yetiştirilen meyve ve sebzeler bunların dondurularak satılabilmesine olanak vererek miktardadır. Birkaç yıl öncesine kadar sadece deneme amacıyla işlenen ve yurdumuzda bol miktarda bulunan bir çok ürün bugün ihraç edilmek üzere dondurulmaktadır.Kısa ve uzun dönemde Türkiye'nin yurt dışına dondurulmuş satabileceği meyve ve sebze çeşitlerinin belirlenmesi ve planlı bir şekilde dış pazarların genişletilmesi ile yaklaşık -30 u tüketilmeden bozulan taze meyve ve sebzelerin dış ülkelere satılması mümkündür. Araştırmanın amacı, derin dondurma yöntemi ile sebze ve meyve muhafaza eden işletmelerin teknolojik düzeyi, uyguladıkları yöntemler ve karşılaştıkları sorunların belirlenmesidir. Araştırma İstanbul ve Bursa illerindeki işletmeleri kapsamaktadır. Bursa' da dört, İstanbul'da bir tesiste gözlem ve inceleme yapılmıştır. Araştırma sonunda Bursa bölgesindeki bir işletmede akışkan yatak dondurucu bulunduğu, diğer işletmelerde oda tipi dondurucular kullanıldığı saptanmıştır. Ön işlem için gerekli araçlar ise her işletmede farklıdır.Fakat kullanılan yöntem ve işlem basamakları işletmelerde temel olarak birbirinin aynıdır. Saptanan sorunların başında, işlemeye uygun, tek tip ve yeter miktarda hammadde bulunması gelmektedir. Bunun dışında bazı işletmelerin yer, kapasite ve teknoloji seçimindeki aksaklıkları diğer sorunları oluşturmaktadır. Araştırma sonunda sözleşmeli ve kontrollü ekim yapılması, hasat zamanlarının iyi saptanması, fizibilite çalışmalarının daha dikkatli yapılması, üretici ve işletmecilerin konu ile ilgili olarak eğitilmeleri önerilmiştir. ; The consumption of frozen fruit and vegetable in the developed countries has gradually increased. The amount of fruits and vegetables grown in our country is of enough capasity to be exported as frozen form. Inspite of the fact that alotof products available in large amount in our country could be exported with the aim of only experiment a few year ago, these ones are able to be exported as frozen form today. It is possible for Turkey to export frozen fruits and vege tables both determining the kinds of these and widening the foreign markets volume in planned way because % 25-30 of fresh fruits and vegetables have become putrid withast being consumed. The aim of research is to find out the problems arising from technological level, the methods put in to practice and un avoid able obstacles of the organizations where fruits and vegetables are kept with the 'method of deep freezing system. The research compries the organizations available in Istanbul and in Bursa. Observation and scientific study realized at four organizations in Bursa at only one organization in Istanbul. As a result of the research, it was observed that fluid frezing bearing is available at only one organization but other ones make use of room type freezing in Bursa region. Required equipment for initial working are different at evei organization but no difference fundamentaly fromm the point of view of methods and working steps .The difficulty of having raw ma terial which is of same type, required sufficiency and suitable for working comes a head. As a second suitable area,capasity and obstacles deriving from having the most suitable technology relating to organizations constitute the other problems. As a result of the research it has been proposed that it is essential to make sow a seed under ; the controll in accordance with agreement, and to determine haruest time and to realize fizi bilite process more carefully, and to train producers and business men with in the frome work of the subject.

A series of studies were carried out in Brazil, on a regional basis, to determine how cassava can fit into the Brazilian agricultural economy in the future so as to assist the country in reaching policy goals (improved welfare of the rural community and increased availability of low-priced food). The recent developments in the Brazilian agricultural sector are summarized with emphasis on agricultural policies and on the balance between food production and exports. Urbanization as well as wheat subsidies have reduced the importance of cassava. Current policies, however, are found to favor food crops such as cassava that are produced by the small farmers. Trends in cassava for human food and its future potential role are also analyzed. The role of farinha as a staple food should be improved; increased per capita consumption will depend on better availability, better quality, and lower prices. To increase the consumption of fresh cassava, it is necessary to reduce marketing margins. The reduction of production costs of cassava starch is also crucial. The rapidly expanding feed industry is discussed with reference to cassava supply. Improved production technology would mean increased benefits to both producers and consumers. A dried cassava industry would reduce the need to import maize, stabilize on-farm prices of cassava, and extend the market size of the crop, particularly in NE Brazil. The cost structure of cassava production and processing is analyzed from the viewpoint of the cassava's future role as a source of rural income and its contribution to the food and feed supply. (CIAT) ; Se realizo una serie de estudios en Brasil, a nivel regional, para determinar el papel de la yuca en la economia agricola brasilera del futuro y ayudar a alcanzar las metas propuestas en las diferentes politicas (mayor bienestar de la comunidad rural y mayor disponibilidad de alimentos a bajo costo). Se resumen los ultimos avances en el sector agricola brasilero, con enfasis en las politicas agricolas y en el balance entre produccion de alimentos y exportaciones. La urbanizacion y los subsidios al trigo le han restado importancia a la yuca. Las politicas actuales, sin embargo, favorecen los cultivos alimenticios, como la yuca, producidos por pequenos agricultores. Tambien se analizan las tendencias del uso de la yuca en la alimentacion humana y su potencial futuro. Se debe mejorar el papel de la farinha como alimento basico; el aumento en el consumo per capita dependera de una mayor disponibilidad, una mejor calidad y precios mas bajos. Para aumentar el consumo de raices frescas es necesario reducir los margenes de mercadeo. Tambien es importante la reduccion de los costos de produccion del almidon de yuca. Se discute la creciente industria de alimentos para animales con referencia a la oferta de yuca. Un tecnologia de produccion mejorada significaria mayor beneficio tanto para los productores como para los consumidores. Una industria de yuca seca reduciria la necesidad de importar maiz, estabilizaria los precios de la yuca a nivel de finca y ampliaria el mercado del cultivo, particularmente en el nordeste del Brasil. Se analiza la estructura de los costos de produccion y procesamiento de la yuca desde el punto de vista de su futuro papel como fuente de ingresos a nivel rural y su contribucion a la oferta de alimentos para humanos y animales. (CIAT)

This is a continuation of the previous abstract. MANAGAGING SOCIAL CHANGE: SOME PUBLIC ATTITUDES, Chairman: G. Ray Funkhouser (Field Research Corp), "What We Don't Understand about Public Understanding of Science"; Ronald E. Anderson (U of Minnesota, Minneapolis), "Public Opinion on the Computerizing of America"; Daniel Metlay (U of California, Berkeley), "Who Should Control Technology?" RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN ANALYTIC TECHNIQUES, Chairman: Ronald Gatty (City U New York, NY), Charles Kadushin & Richard Alba (Columbia U, New York, NY), "Methods of Finding Clusters and Networks of Influence in Large-Scale Data"; Ronald E. Frank (U of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia), "Segmentation Analysis: Methods of Escaping Some Past Limitations." THE STUDENT AWARD PAPER, Chairman: Kurt Back (Duke U, Durham, NC), presented by Henry Barbera (City Coll, City U of New York, NY) to Paul J. Placek (Vanderbilt U, Nashville, Tenn), "Using Direct Mailing as a Catalyst in the diffusion Process: The Case of Family Planning." KINOSTATISTICS, Chairman: Barry M. Feinberg (Bureau of Social Science Research), Discussants: Ugo Torricelli (Torricelli Productions), & Charles P. Venus (General Electric Computer Animation Lab). PUBLIC SERVICE ADVERTISING AND ITS ASSESSMENT, Chairman: James W. Swinehart, (U of Michigan, Ann Arbor), Joan Dunne Rittenhouse (National Academy of Sciences), "Evaluating Drug Information Programs"; J. Richard Udry (U of North Carolina, Chapel Hill), "A Mass Media Experiment in Family Planning." LIFESTYLES, VALUES, AND PSYCHOGRAPHICS: A RE-EXAMINATION, Chairman: Helen J. Kaufman (Clairol, Inc); William D. Wells (U of Chicago, Ill) "Psychographics--Personality Measure Life Styles: Where are they Heading?" Ruth Ziff (Benton & Bowles, Inc), "The Marketing of Consumer Products: What can we Expect from Psychographics?" M. Dean Havron (Human Sciences Research), "Value Orientations and Persuasive Communication." HEALTH RESEARCH IN DRUG AND ALCOHOL USE, Chairman: Herbert I. Abelson (Response Analysis Corp), Albert E. Gollin & Catherine B. Judd (Bureau of Social Science Research), "Drug Abuse and the Professions: Center Stage or Sideshow?" Hugh K. Parry, Elizabeth L. McSapdden, & Ira H. Cision (George Washington U, Washington DC), Mitchell B. Balter, (NIMH), Dean I. Manheimer & Glen D. Mellinger (Instit for Research in Social Behavior), "Acquisition of Prescription Psychtherapeutic Drugs Through Non-Medical Channels"; Herbert I. Abelson (Response Analysis Corp) "An Overview of Legal and Illicit Drug Use"; Paul W. Haberman (Columbia U, New York) "Drinking, Drugs, and Death." THE LUNCHEON OPEN DISCUSSION GROUPS included: DEVELOPMENTS IN RESEARCH ABROAD, Organizer: Douglas H. Mendel, Jr., (U of Wisconsin, Madison, Panelists: Helen Dinerman (International Research Assoc), Helen M. Crossley (ArchCross Associates), Lloyd Free (Institute for International Social Research). THE ISSUE OF PAYMENT TO RESPONDENTS: WISE OR UNWISE? Organizer: Eve Weinberg (National Opinion Research Center) THE TEACHING OF SURVEY METHODS, Organizer: Fritz Kafka (US Bureau of Mines). HUMANIZING THE questionnaire, Organizer: Joan Fredricks (Joan Fredricks Marketing Research); Panelists: Mannuel N. Manfield (Coordinated Research Interviewing Service Inc), Robert Bezilla (Benson & Benson, Inc), Bruce Meyers (Benton & Bowles, Inc). COMMUNICATIONS POLICY AND THE GOVERNMENT, Gladys Engel Lang (State U of New York, Stony Brook); Paul M. Douglas (Videoconference Networks, Inc). MAIL SURVEYS: CAN SEGMENTATION AND EXPERIMENTATION IMPROVE THEM? Jagdish N. Sheth (U of Illinois, Urbana); A. Marvin Roscoe, Jr., (AT&T), Terry L. Talbert (Atlanta Regional Commission). Other discussion groups were held ranging from ELITE SURVEYS: THEIR INTELLECTUAL PURPOSES, AND SOME PROBLEMS OF DATA COLLECTION TO THE MEASUREMENT OF SATISFACTION, for which there are no abstracts. J. Grimes.

The village of Sachs Harbour on Banks Island, Northwest Territories, has been the outstanding example of a successful trapping community in northern North America for a generation . Trapping is still the full-time occupation of virtually every active male, and per capita income from trapping is higher than in any other settlement in the Arctic or Subarctic. Eighty-seven per cent of cash income at Sachs Harbour was derived from trapping during the years 1963 to 1967, and the average income of full-time trappers from furs was $6,296. The sole basis of the fur harvest is the arctic or white fox, although the people also rely on 3 other major resources for their livelihood: caribou, seal, and polar bears. In recent years, the fewer than 20 trappers on Banks Island have accounted for as much as one-third of Canadian arctic fox production, indicating not only their own productivity but also the decline of trapping in other areas of the North. . The explanation for such high productivity lies not in ecology, or even primarily in economics, but rather in the unique history of the Canadian Western Arctic coast, and the resulting social and economic orientations of its people . The Bankslanders, as they call themselves, are acquisitive and proud. They are strongly motivated towards trapping as the most appropriate means of achieving both economic success and the prestige traditionally brought by conspicuous consumption. . The Bankslanders have a tradition of innovation. They are quick to test new means of production, and to invest money in high quality capital goods which have proven their worth. . The trapping and hunting system on Banks Island is probably the most modern of its type in the world, relying on the best available technology, and the most productive systems of organization and marketing. . The snowmobile has been gradually integrated into the Banks Island trapping system over a decade. Caution and astuteness have marked its acceptance. It would appear that it will not have any profound effects on the system. Temporarily the snowmobile constitutes a considerable extra economic burden, and although this will very likely diminish, it cannot but increase production costs. Although it will probably not increase trapline productivity significantly, it will provide more leisure time during the trapping season, and more free time for the assumption of temporary wage positions during the summer months. As a result, total net income will probably increase, and with reduced reliance on fox pelts as the sole source of cash, the cyclic pattern of income from year to year should be reduced. Harvests of all species should remain within sustainable limits, and some species will be harvested at lower levels than at present. There do not appear to be any serious effects on animal behaviour. The snowmobile is only one of many forces that will change the social system at Sachs Harbour. The encroachment of government administration and private resource development, both of which accelerated greatly in the summer of 1970, will be of far more profound consequence than the snowmobile. Data on trapping effort and productivity from 1970 onwards will therefore have to be interpreted in the light of these events as well as of the transition to snowmobiles, which is now, in 1972, virtually complete.

PURPOSE: Essential to exposome research is the collection of data on many environmental exposures from different domains in the same subjects. The aim of the Human Early Life Exposome (HELIX) study was to measure and describe multiple environmental exposures during early life (pregnancy and childhood) in a prospective cohort and associate these exposures with molecular omics signatures and child health outcomes. Here, we describe recruitment, measurements available and baseline data of the HELIX study populations. PARTICIPANTS: The HELIX study represents a collaborative project across six established and ongoing longitudinal population-based birth cohort studies in six European countries (France, Greece, Lithuania, Norway, Spain and the UK). HELIX used a multilevel study design with the entire study population totalling 31 472 mother-child pairs, recruited during pregnancy, in the six existing cohorts (first level); a subcohort of 1301 mother-child pairs where biomarkers, omics signatures and child health outcomes were measured at age 6-11 years (second level) and repeat-sampling panel studies with around 150 children and 150 pregnant women aimed at collecting personal exposure data (third level). FINDINGS TO DATE: Cohort data include urban environment, hazardous substances and lifestyle-related exposures for women during pregnancy and their offspring from birth until 6-11 years. Common, standardised protocols were used to collect biological samples, measure exposure biomarkers and omics signatures and assess child health across the six cohorts. Baseline data of the cohort show substantial variation in health outcomes and determinants between the six countries, for example, in family affluence levels, tobacco smoking, physical activity, dietary habits and prevalence of childhood obesity, asthma, allergies and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. FUTURE PLANS: HELIX study results will inform on the early life exposome and its association with molecular omics signatures and child health outcomes. Cohort data are accessible for future research involving researchers external to the project. ; The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Community's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-206) under grant agreement no 308333—the HELIX project. Dr Maribel Casas and Dr Jordi Julvez received funding from Instituto de Salud Carlos III (Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness) (MS16/00128, MS14/00108). INMA data collections were supported by grants from the Instituto de Salud Carlos III, CIBERESP, the Conselleria de Sanitat, Generalitat Valenciana, Department of Health of the Basque Government; the Provincial Government of Gipuzkoa, and the Generalitat de Catalunya-CIRIT. KANC was funded by the grant of the Lithuanian Agency for Science Innovation and Technology (6-04-2014_31V-66). The Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort Study (MoBa) is supported by the Norwegian Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Education and Research, NIH/NIEHS (contract no. N01-ES-75558), and NIH/NINDS (grant no. 1 UO1 NS 047537-01 and grant no. 2 UO1 NS 047537-06A1). The Rhea project was financially supported by European projects, and the Greek Ministry of Health (Program of Prevention of Obesity and Neurodevelopmental Disorders in Preschool Children, in Heraklion district, Crete, Greece: 2011–2014; 'Rhea Plus': Primary Prevention Program of Environmental Risk Factors for Reproductive Health, and Child Health: 2012–2015). The work was also supported by MICINN (MTM2015-68140-R) and Centro Nacional de Genotipado-CEGEN-PRB2-ISCIII. CW received funding from the Fondation de France.

Characterization of the "exposome", the set of all environmental factors that one is exposed to from conception onwards, has been advocated to better understand the role of environmental factors on chronic diseases. Here, we aimed to describe the early-life exposome. Specifically, we focused on the correlations between multiple environmental exposures, their patterns and their variability across European regions and across time (pregnancy and childhood periods). We relied on the Human Early-Life Exposome (HELIX) project, in which 87 environmental exposures during pregnancy and 122 during the childhood period (grouped in 19 exposure groups) were assessed in 1301 pregnant mothers and their children at 6-11 years in 6 European birth cohorts. Some correlations between exposures in the same exposure group reached high values above 0.8. The median correlation within exposure groups was >0.3 for many exposure groups, reaching 0.69 for water disinfection by products in pregnancy and 0.67 for the meteorological group in childhood. Median correlations between different exposure groups rarely reached 0.3. Some correlations were driven by cohort-level associations (e.g. air pollution and chemicals). Ten principal components explained 45% and 39% of the total variance in the pregnancy and childhood exposome, respectively, while 65 and 90 components were required to explain 95% of the exposome variability. Correlations between maternal (pregnancy) and childhood exposures were high (>0.6) for most exposures modeled at the residential address (e.g. air pollution), but were much lower and even close to zero for some chemical exposures. In conclusion, the early life exposome was high dimensional, meaning that it cannot easily be measured by or reduced to fewer components. Correlations between exposures from different exposure groups were much lower than within exposure groups, which have important implications for co-exposure confounding in multiple exposure studies. Also, we observed the early life exposome to be variable over time and to vary by cohort, so measurements at one time point or one place will not capture its complexities. ; This work was supported by the European Commission Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007–2013) [grant number: 308333–the HELIX project]. INMA data collections were supported by grants from the Instituto de Salud Carlos III, CIBERESP, and the Generalitat de Catalunya-CIRIT. KANC was funded by the grant of the Lithuanian Agency for Science Innovation and Technology (6-04-2014_31V-66). The Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort Study is supported by the Norwegian Ministry of Health and Care Services and the Ministry of Education and Research, NIH/NIEHS (contract no N01-ES-75558), NIH/NINDS (grant no.1 UO1 NS 047537-01 and grant no.2 UO1 NS 047537-06A1). The Rhea project was financially supported by European projects (EU FP6-2003-Food-3-NewGeneris, EU FP6. STREP Hiwate, EU FP7 ENV.2007.1.2.2.2. Project No 211250 Escape, EU FP7-2008-ENV-1.2.1.4 Envirogenomarkers, EU FP7-HEALTH-2009-single stage CHICOS, EU FP7 ENV.2008.1.2.1.6. Proposal No 226285 ENRIECO, EUFP7-HEALTH-2012 Proposal No 308333 HELIX, FP7 European Union project, No. 264357 MeDALL), and the Greek Ministry of Health (Program of Prevention of obesity and neurodevelopmental disorders in preschool children, in Heraklion district, Crete, Greece: 2011–2014; "Rhea Plus": Primary Prevention Program of Environmental Risk Factors for Reproductive Health, and Child Health: 2012–15).

Background: Mobility is defined as the ability to independently move around the environment and is a key contributor to quality of life, especially in older age. The aim of this study was to evaluate the use of mobility as a decisive outcome for the marketing authorisation of drugs by the European Medicines Agency (EMA). Methods: Fifteen therapeutic areas which commonly lead to relevant mobility impairments and alter the quantity and/or the quality of walking were selected: two systemic neurological diseases, four conditions primarily affecting exercise capacity, seven musculoskeletal diseases and two conditions representing sensory impairments. European Public Assessment Reports (EPARs) published by the EMA until September 2020 were examined for mobility endpoints included in their 'main studies'. Clinical study registries and primary scientific publications for these studies were also reviewed. Results: Four hundred and eighty-four EPARs yielded 186 relevant documents with 402 'main studies'. The EPARs reported 153 primary and 584 secondary endpoints which considered mobility; 70 different assessment tools (38 patient-reported outcomes, 13 clinician-reported outcomes, 8 performance outcomes and 13 composite endpoints) were used. Only 15.7% of those tools distinctly informed on patients' mobility status. Out of 402, 105 (26.1%) of the 'main studies' did not have any mobility assessment. Furthermore, none of these studies included a digital mobility outcome. Conclusions: For conditions with a high impact on mobility, mobility assessment was given little consideration in the marketing authorisation of drugs by the EMA. Where mobility impairment was considered to be a relevant outcome, questionnaires or composite scores susceptible to reporting biases were predominantly used. ; S.J., M.W., and R.T. are partly supported by the Robert Bosch Stiftung Stuttgart. M.W. reports grants from HORIZON2020 IMI No. 820820, during the conduct of the study. D.S. reports grants from HORIZON2020 IMI No. 820820, during the conduct of the study. M.C. reports personal fees from Takeda Pharmaceuticals, during the conduct of the study; personal fees from Takeda Pharmaceuticals, outside the submitted work. J.K. reports grants from HORIZON2020 IMI No. 820820, during the conduct of the study. J.G.A. reports grants from HORIZON2020 IMI No. 820820, and from AstraZeneca, Chiesi, Esteve, outside the submitted work. W.M. receives or received funding from the European Union, the German Federal Ministry of Education of Research, Michael J. Fox Foundation, Robert Bosch Foundation, Neuroalliance, Lundbeck and Janssen. He received speaker honoraria from Abbvie, Bayer, GlaxoSmithKline, Licher MT, Rölke Pharma and UCB, was invited to Advisory Boards of Abbvie, Biogen, Lundbeck and Market Access & Pricing Strategy GmbH, and is an advisory board member of the Critical Path for Parkinson's Consortium. He serves as the co-chair of the MDS Technology Task Force. M.P. reports grants from HORIZON2020 IMI No. 820820, outside the submitted work. M.S. is supported by the Robert Bosch Stiftung Stuttgart and reports grants from HORIZON2020 IMI 2 Mobilise D, during the conduct of the study, and grants and non-financial support from Green Cross WellBeing Co. Ltd., Gilead Sciences Inc., Robert Bosch GmbH, and CORAT Therapeutics GmbH, as well as other from Agena Bioscience GmbH, outside the submitted work. C.B. disclosed consultation from E. Lilly and speaker fees from Amgen, Nutricia and Pfizer reports grants from HORIZON2020 IMI No. 820820, during the conduct of the study.

Microscale thermophoresis (MST), and the closely related Temperature Related Intensity Change (TRIC), are synonyms for a recently developed measurement technique in the field of biophysics to quantify biomolecular interactions, using the (capillary-based) NanoTemper Monolith and (multiwell plate-based) Dianthus instruments. Although this technique has been extensively used within the scientific community due to its low sample consumption, ease of use, and ubiquitous applicability, MST/TRIC has not enjoyed the unambiguous acceptance from biophysicists afforded to other biophysical techniques like isothermal titration calorimetry (ITC) or surface plasmon resonance (SPR). This might be attributed to several facts, e.g., that various (not fully understood) effects are contributing to the signal, that the technique is licensed to only a single instrument developer, NanoTemper Technology, and that its reliability and reproducibility have never been tested independently and systematically. Thus, a working group of ARBRE-MOBIEU has set up a benchmark study on MST/TRIC to assess this technique as a method to characterize biomolecular interactions. Here we present the results of this study involving 32 scientific groups within Europe and two groups from the US, carrying out experiments on 40 Monolith instruments, employing a standard operation procedure and centrally prepared samples. A protein-small molecule interaction, a newly developed protein-protein interaction system and a pure dye were used as test systems. We characterized the instrument properties and evaluated instrument performance, reproducibility, the effect of different analysis tools, the influence of the experimenter during data analysis, and thus the overall reliability of this method. ; All authors acknowledge the COST Action project ARBRE-MOBIEU CA15126 under the auspices of whose Working Group 4 this study was carried out. ARBRE-MOBIEU COST Action CA15126 funded meetings in the Center for Protein Research, University of Copenhagen (ECOST-MEETING-CA15126-280618-098884) to organize this study and in the Vienna Biocenter Core Facilities GmbH (ECOST-MEETING-CA15126-121119-111544) to discuss the results of the benchmark. Ondřej Vaněk acknowledges support from the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the Czech Republic (LTC17065 in frame of the COST Action CA15126). Jitka Holková and Josef Houser acknowledge CF Biomolecular Interactions and Crystallization of CIISB, Instruct-CZ Centre, supported by MEYS CR (LM2018127). Jasmina Rokov-Plavec acknowledges support from the Croatian Science Foundation (IP-2016-06-6272). Alexander K. Buell thanks the Novo Nordisk Foundation (grant number NNFSA170028392) for funding. Li Peng Lundgren acknowledges for preliminary MST/TRIC experiments (STMS 37745 in the frame of the COST Action CA15126) and the COST Action (CA15126) for a STMS (STMS 44783) for the data analysis. The Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Protein Research is supported financially by the Novo Nordisk Foundation (Grant agreement NNF14CC0001). Katja Pirc and Marjetka Podobnik acknowledge the grant by the Slovenian Research Agency P1-0391 (Title: Molecular Interactions). This research was funded by Fondo de Investigaciones Sanitarias from Instituto de Salud Carlos III and European Union (ERDF/ESF, "Investing in your future" PI18/00349 and Diputación General de Aragón Digestive Pathology Group B25_17R to O.A. Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities, FPI Predoctoral Research Contract BES-2017-080739 to D.O.A. This research was funded by project no 2015/17/B/NZ2/01160 (granted to MA)

Introduction: Existing mobility endpoints based on functional performance, physical assessments and patient self-reporting are often affected by lack of sensitivity, limiting their utility in clinical practice. Wearable devices including inertial measurement units (IMUs) can overcome these limitations by quantifying digital mobility outcomes (DMOs) both during supervised structured assessments and in real-world conditions. The validity of IMU-based methods in the real-world, however, is still limited in patient populations. Rigorous validation procedures should cover the device metrological verification, the validation of the algorithms for the DMOs computation specifically for the population of interest and in daily life situations, and the users' perspective on the device. Methods and analysis: This protocol was designed to establish the technical validity and patient acceptability of the approach used to quantify digital mobility in the real world by Mobilise-D, a consortium funded by the European Union (EU) as part of the Innovative Medicine Initiative, aiming at fostering regulatory approval and clinical adoption of DMOs.After defining the procedures for the metrological verification of an IMU-based device, the experimental procedures for the validation of algorithms used to calculate the DMOs are presented. These include laboratory and real-world assessment in 120 participants from five groups: healthy older adults; chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, Parkinson's disease, multiple sclerosis, proximal femoral fracture and congestive heart failure. DMOs extracted from the monitoring device will be compared with those from different reference systems, chosen according to the contexts of observation. Questionnaires and interviews will evaluate the users' perspective on the deployed technology and relevance of the mobility assessment. Ethics and dissemination: The study has been granted ethics approval by the centre's committees (London-Bloomsbury Research Ethics committee; Helsinki Committee, Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Centre; Medical Faculties of The University of Tübingen and of the University of Kiel). Data and algorithms will be made publicly available. Trial registration number: ISRCTN (12246987). ; We acknowledge support from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation through the "Centro de Excelencia Severo Ochoa 2019-2023" Program (CEX2018-000806-S), and support from the Generalitat de Catalunya through the CERCA Program. SDD, AY and LRo are also supported by the Newcastle Biomedical Research Centre (BRC) based at Newcastle upon Tyne and Newcastle University. CM, BS, LVG and EB are also supported by the Sheffield Biomedical Research Centre (BRC) based at the Sheffield Teaching Hospital and the University of Sheffield. The work was also supported by the NIHR/Wellcome Trust Clinical Research Facility (CRF) infrastructure at Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and the CRF at the Sheffield Teaching Hospital. The views expressed are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of the NIHR or the Department of Health and Social Care or the funders.This study was co-funded by the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme and EFPIA via the Innovative Medicine Initiative 2 (Mobilise-D project, grant number IMI22017-13-7-820820). The views expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the IMI, the European Union, the EFPIA, or any Associated Partners. We acknowledge the support of Grünenthal GmbH via the funding of a PhD scholarship directly dedicated to the technical validation protocol.

Al estudiar los procesos sociales acontecidos en un espacio social particular, suelen observarse dos escalas para estudiarlos: una local, vinculada al proceso histórico que llevó a comprender la forma en que dicho lugar fue construido, vivido y abandonado y uno regional, que tiende a tratar de vincular diferentes procesos a mayor escala, donde las historias locales se subsumen a esta visión más amplia. En este sentido, la ocupación humana durante el 1º milenio de la era en la Sierra de El Alto-Ancasti, fue principalmente contada desde una visión regional, donde los pobladores locales fueron vinculados a dos grandes procesos: la producción pastoril a gran escala para centros políticos importantes o la realización de rituales en los espacios rupestres. Esto se insertaba directamente en la lógica de comprensión de las relaciones sociales en el contexto del señorío Aguada. Nuestras investigaciones en la Sierra han tomado otra dirección, pretendiendo profundizar el conocimiento local, para luego pensar en la relación entre estas poblaciones y contextos regionales de media y larga distancia. En particular, en este trabajo, contaremos la historia local de ocupación de una unidad doméstica (ET19), ubicada en la cumbre de la Sierra de El Alto-Ancasti, a través de la materialidad lítica y los recursos faunísticos explotados, con el objetivo de comprender la forma en que se construía un paisaje campesino a escala local y reproducido en el tiempo. ; When we study the social processes happened in a particular landscape, two scales generally are shown to study them: a local one, linked to the historical process that take place to understand the form in which that place was constructed, lived and leaved; and a regional one, which tends to identified the linkage between different processes in a major scale, where the local histories are subsumed to this more wide vision. In this respect, the human occupation during the 1 º millennium of the era at El Alto-Ancasti mountains was principally told from a regional vision, where the local settlers were linked to two major processes: the large-scale pastoral production for political centers or the accomplishment of rituals in the rock art places. This was inserted directly in the logic of comprehension of the social relations in the historical context of Aguada culture. Our investigations in the area, have taken another direction, trying to deepen into the local knowledge, telling the history from this point of view, and form it thinking about the relation between these populations and regional contexts of short and long distance. Especially, in this work, we will count the local history of occupation of a domestic unit (ET19), located in the higher section of El Alto-Ancasti mountains, across the lithic technology and the faunal resources exploited, with the aim to understand the form in which a peasant landscape was constructed at a local scale and reproduced through time. ; Fil: Moreno, Enrique Alejandro. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro de Investigaciones y Transferencia de Catamarca. Universidad Nacional de Catamarca. Centro de Investigaciones y Transferencia de Catamarca; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de Catamarca. Escuela de Arqueología; Argentina ; Fil: Ahumada, Nicolás Maximiliano. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro de Investigaciones y Transferencia de Catamarca. Universidad Nacional de Catamarca. Centro de Investigaciones y Transferencia de Catamarca; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de Catamarca. Escuela de Arqueología; Argentina