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The year 2024 marks 20 years since Poland joined the European Union. In this paper, the authors review the economic literature analysing the longterm economic effects of Poland’s membership in the EU. Their study is based on international and Polish literature referring mainly to partial and general equilibrium analyses. They show both the sectoral effects, as related to different EU policies, as well as the overall consequences of membership for the level of welfare of Polish society. The authors first discuss the trade effects in the context of the removal of barriers to the movement of goods within the Single European Market. Next, the consequences of the inflow of funds from the EU budget which finance the country’s structural funds and the Common Agricultural Policy, which are of particular importance to the Polish economy are discussed. A review of the consequences of the inflow of foreign direct investment from EU countries to Poland and the effects of labour migration within the EU is then conducted. A review of the related welfare consequences by aggregating the effects of individual policies and making an overall assessment based on a synthetic control method is then summarised. The authors then refer to their estimations showing that, thanks to EU accession, Poland’s GDP per capita 15 years after accession was higher by almost 55% compared to the counterfactual scenario of non-accession. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the solutions to achieve the goal of net-zero emissions by 2050 is to try to reduce the carbon emission by using the carbon tax or carbon credit (carbon right). This paper examines the impact of carbon taxes and carbon credit costs on the cement industry, focusing on ESG indicators and corporate profits. Utilizing Activity-Based Costing and the Theory of Constraints, a production decision model is developed and analyzed using mathematical programming. The paper categorizes carbon tax models into continuous and discontinuous progressive tax rates, taking into account potential government policies like emission tax exemptions and carbon trading. It finds that reducing emission caps is more effective than increasing carbon tax rates in curbing emissions. These insights can assist governments in policy formulation and provide a reference framework for establishing carbon tax systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Distributed replicated databases play a crucial role in modern computer systems enabling scalable, fault-tolerant, and high-performance data management. However, achieving these qualities requires resolving a number of tradeoffs between various properties during system design and operation. This paper reviews trade-offs in distributed replicated databases and provides a survey of recent research papers studying distributed data storage. The paper first discusses a compromise between consistency and latency that appears in distributed replicated data storages and directly follows from CAP and PACELC theorems. Consistency refers to the guarantee that all clients in a distributed system observe the same data at the same time. To ensure strong consistency, distributed systems typically employ coordination mechanisms and synchronization protocols that involve communication and agreement among distributed replicas. These mechanisms introduce additional overhead and latency and can dramatically increase the time taken to complete operations when replicas are globally distributed across the Internet. In addition, we study tradeoffs between other system properties including availability, durability, cost, energy consumption, read and write latency, etc. In this paper we also provide a comprehensive review and classification of recent research works in distributed replicated databases. Reviewed papers showcase several major areas of research, ranging from performance evaluation and comparison of various NoSQL databases to suggest new strategies for data replication and putting forward new consistency models. In particular, we observed a shift towards exploring hybrid consistency models of causal consistency and eventual consistency with causal ordering due to their ability to strike a balance between operations ordering guarantees and high performance. Researchers have also proposed various consistency control algorithms and consensus quorum protocols to coordinate distributed replicas. Insights from this review can empower practitioners to make informed decisions in designing and managing distributed data storage systems as well as help identify existing gaps in the body of knowledge and suggest further research directions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Farm to Fork Strategy, which is the center of the green ambitions of the EU, presents indicators for organic farming development and sets ambitious targets. However, most EU Members lag behind, which is raising various questions about implementing the developed strategies and plans. The study aims to observe trends and changes in organic farming with a particular focus on Bulgaria and outline prospects post-2023. The analysis shows an increase in the share of organic UAA in almost all Member-States. In Bulgaria, there are variations, and the share is decreasing in 2021 compared to 2020. The EU emphasizes the importance of organic farming for the food system. Organic farms are eligible for support from several measures for 2023-2027 as a part of national strategic plans under the CAP. On the other hand, implementing the measures has to be efficient and well-targeted to achieve the EU's ambitions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we introduce a new dataset to complement the existing evidence on economic inequalities in Poland's rural areas. This important dataset uses annual information on the beneficiaries of income support, which is paid to farmers within the European Common Agricultural Policy and covers the period 2014–2021. The data can be used to analyse the changing distribution of this support at municipality level using conventional inequality measures. Since part of the support is granted per eligible hectare, our data can also serve as a good approximation of land use distribution, and thus allow researchers to scrutinise the changes in the distribution of an important component of the wealth of many people living in rural areas. The paper presents selected findings on the distribution of income support granted to land users in the studied period and suggests potential research areas, for which the presented dataset can provide useful insights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of sustainable development has been attracting the attention of the scientific and professional community for decades. Various researches and papers focused on the concept of sustainability, exploring it through the prism of the economic, ecological and social subsystem. In this paper, the authors focus on agriculture and its sustainability. Starting from the assumption that organic farming is a sustainable system production, the authors turn to institutional support, trying to find a link between EU agricultural policy (CAP) and the growth of areas in organic agriculture. The research showed that this kind of support system failed to play the role that was intended for it and did not lead to mass acceptance of organic agriculture everywhere. Authors on the example of Denmark, Germany and Italy show the extent to which state support has influenced the expansion of areas under this system. Also, the comparison with the US agricultural policy leads to the conclusion that support policies for organic production constructed on a one-dimensional focus of payments per unit area will not lead to the expected results in terms of further progress and development of the organic sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Acta Scientiarum Polonorum. Oeconomia is the property of Wydawnictwo SGGW and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper assesses the environmental ambition of 2023-2027 Common Agricultural Policy in France. Since conditionality and agri-environment-climate measures are only marginally improved relative to the previous period, attention is focused on the new environmental instrument of the eco-scheme that in France targets the whole farm. Results suggest low environmental progress since almost all French farms would reach the standard level of the eco-scheme by one of the three access paths with unchanged farming practices, and 85% of them would reach the superior level. The percentage of farms at the superior level would be lower for farms specialized in annual crops than for cattle farms. We then show that the payment difference of €20 per hectare between the standard and superior level is probably insufficient for farms specialized in cereals, oilseeds and protein crops to offset the additional cost of the change in farm practices required to move from the standard to the superior level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With an emphasis on the real-time implementation of a practical carrier-less amplitude and phase (CAP) receiver for visible light communication (VLC), this paper proposes a full-digital architecture for the $M$ -CAP receiver with synchronisation and adaptive blind equalisation. The architecture is mainly based on the observation that a CAP signal can be demodulated using a quadrature and amplitude (QAM) receiver with an added counterclockwise rotation operation. The proposed CAP receiver employs two digital phase-locked loops (DPLL) to realise the symbol timing and carrier synchronisation, which are the most critical issues in practical systems. With the constant-modulus algorithm (CMA) offering the benefit of decoupling carrier and symbol timing synchronisation, the receiver can blindly equalise the distorted signal at the output of symbol timing synchronisation. Finally, the performance of 4/16/64-CAP receivers, which are designed using this architecture and operates at 80/160/240 Mbit/s through a low-pass light-emitting diode (LED) with a 3-dB bandwidth of 7 MHz cascaded with three measured optical wireless channels, is evaluated by Monte Carlo simulations. Results show that the receiver architecture can successfully solve the symbol timing and carrier synchronisation problems and mitigate inter-symbol interference caused by LED and/or wireless channels. The design framework for a full-digital CAP receiver has been laid out in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In our opinion, the Local Action Groups represent an important point in the development of the rural area due to the public-private partnership between various actors such as public authorities, NGOs involved in local development, farmers and entrepreneurs in the non-agricultural sector. Continuing to fund their work under the second pillar of the CAP through the NRDP 2014-2020 has contributed to maintaining and developing these partnerships due to the inclusion of cities that meet the necessary criteria. The paper presents the LEADER axis and what it entails by presenting the Action Groups at the level of Bihor County, respectively of the Bihor Gal on the Border with Hungary and its local development plan for the period 2014-2020, this being the largest LAG in County level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main aim of this article is to establish and present the relationship between the production potential of agriculture in Poland's voivodships and the utilization of funds from selected Rural Development Programs (RDP) 2014-2020. The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) of the European Union has Rural Development as its “second pillar”, with the objectives of enhancing the competitiveness of agriculture and forestry; ensuring the sustainable management of natural resources and climate action; and the overall development of rural economies. The materials for this paper are based on data connected with the resources of production factors in Polish agriculture, as well as data on EU agricultural funds in Poland under RDP 2014-2020, made available by the Polish Central Statistical Office (GUS) and the Agency for Restructuring and Modernization of Agriculture (ARMA). The analysis showed that the diversification of the agricultural production potential of the different regions in Poland had an influence on the activity of farmers in applying for RDP measures. Based on the regional absorption of funds, there should be a wider range of conditions required to access selected EU programs in order to strengthen farms in areas with lower production potential. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mexico is a country prone to catastrophic events of seismic, vulcanological, or meteorological origin, among others. For this reason, many organizations monitor in Mexico different areas to prevent catastrophes. The Emergency Alert Systems (EAS) advise about the advent of a possible catastrophic event to the population in general. This paper explores the EAS in Mexico in order to propose improvements. First, the characteristics of the existing Emergency Alert Systems in México are evaluated. As the broadcasting have traditionally been the main alert media for the population, the coverage of radio and television is studied in order to know whether it is enough to cover all the country. Finally, a new integral Emergency Alert System covering all the country is proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Zeitschrift für Ägyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde is the property of De Gruyter and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Current trends such as mass individualization, matrix production, cloud manufacturing and production as a service can be addressed by implementing adaptive manufacturing process chains. Adaptive manufacturing process chains contain alternative manufacturing options at several levels (e.g. feature-based geometry sequence, manufacturing methods, production machines, clamping systems, fixture positions, tools or processing strategies) to be able to continuously adapt to the real time conditions of a manufacturing environment in the best possible way under given target variables. Currently, the design of process chains is often manual and based on implicit empirical knowledge, which on the one-side leads to non-optimal process chains and on the other side does not include alternative manufacturing possibilities. The required effort for implementing adaptive process chains is thus opposed to high costs and complexity in work planning. In this paper, a literature review is conducted to identify and evaluate approaches in the scientific literature for the generation of work plans of adaptive process chains in one-off manufacturing. The literature review is divided into three phases and is broken down into six steps. The preparation phase defines the scope of the research. In the implementation phase, approaches are first identified utilizing a keyword analysis based on the theoretical and practical principles of work planning and selected in a 2-step selection process. The evaluation of the relevant approaches by using defined evaluation criteria enables the identification of research deficits for the derivation of further research questions. The literature review in this paper concludes that no approach addresses all the different aspects of work planning comprehensively. In particular, the interactions of individual decisions between the planning dimensions are insufficiently considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Progress in Earthquake Sciences is the property of China Earthquake Administration, Institute of Geophysics and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

New social demands, opportunities in the green economy, opportunities opened up by digital technology, and the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic and the spread of remote work have again drawn attention to rural areas. In 2020, the European Commission conducted a public consultation on the long-term vision for rural areas. Support for rural areas is already provided under several EU policies, which contributes to their balanced, fair, green and innovative development. To support the implementation of the action plan, the common agricultural policy (CAP) and the cohesion policy will be of particular importance, which will be accompanied by a whole range of policies from other areas.The aim of this paper is an analysis of the EU legal framework of rural development policy, together with an analysis of the further development of the LEADER approach. Finally, a special focus is placed on the analysis of documents (long-term vision for the EU's rural areas) that deal with the future of rural development in the EU. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 2023-2027 CAP reform strongly emphasises Specific Objective 1, targeted to support viable farm income and resilience of the agricultural sector. The new CAP aims to achieve a fairer distribution of income support, in particular for small and medium-sized farms. This does not affect all Member States in the same way, depending on the choices made in previous programming periods. Italy has maintained the allocation of income support based on payment entitlements. Despite the internal convergence process that started in 2015, there are still important differences among farms in the level of unit support. This paper aims to analyse the effects of internal convergence of the Basic income support for sustainability (BISS), according to the Italian decisions established in the CAP Strategic Plan 2023-2027. It exploits administrative micro-data containing the value of each of the 10.5 million payment entitlements stored in Italy in the Entitlement Register of the Integrated Administrative and Control System (IACS). The analyses are based on the development of an original simulation tool replicating the actual implementation methods adopted by Italy for the 2023-2027 period. The results highlight that the internal convergence determines a significant modification to the financial allocation at both farm and territorial levels. Indeed, the internal convergence transfers support from very small and large farms towards small- and medium-sized ones. At the territorial level, the areas with a specialized agricultural sector experience a reduction of support to the benefit of more marginal and rural areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmental policy integration (EPI), that is, the incorporation of environmental concerns in non‐environmental policy areas, has been widely adopted in public policies. However, EPI research has found much discrepancy between environmental objectives and actual implementation. This paper argues that analyzing EPI in the context of policy mixes with multiple objectives, multiple instruments and their calibrations helps to better understand unavoidable tensions and limitations. We develop a framework to assess EPI at these three levels of policy output, synthesizing the EPI and policy mix literatures. We further distinguish four analytical dimensions to assess calibrations: stringency, specificity, flexibility, and temporality. A case study of the national implementation of the European Union's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) in Germany 2014–2022 is used to elaborate the conceptual argument. The CAP has saliently incorporated environmental objectives, while implementation, including the calibrations of most instruments within predetermined corridors, is left to member states. A systematic meta‐review of 142 texts evaluating policy instruments and calibrations in the CAP 2014–2022, focusing on Germany, found that several CAP instruments link most farm income support to pro‐environmental behavior. These instruments could potentially have high environmental effectiveness and efficiency. But actual policy calibrations delivered weak EPI due to low stringency and specificity, while high flexibility and temporal accommodation of farmers' needs might support EPI by increasing acceptance. Weak EPI resulted from instrument calibrations in the face of unavoidable trade‐offs between competing objectives. Our results demonstrate that calibrations can significantly affect the strength of EPI adoption, and the priorities within policy mixes more generally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digitalization makes its way into the agri-food sector; thus, new technologies provide conditions for sustainable agricultural production, contributing to "greening" of the agricultural sector. In this paper, we highlight EU as an actor that is able to form networks enhancing cooperation between the main economic and productive actors that seem to be critical for agricultural transition to digitalization. On the other hand, this proves to be a particular tool to achieve the goal of "greening" of the agri-food chain. Emphasis is laid on the extent to which this process is integrated in the European Union's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). For the purposes of the article we rely on relational and network-based approaches, providing a holistic framework on the role the EU plays to conceptualize change for sustainable agriculture and agri-food industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of King Abdulaziz University: Engineering Sciences is the property of King Abdulaziz University, Scientific Publishing Centre and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The European Union's Farm-to-Fork strategy, aiming at increasing the environmental sustainability of farming, is oriented to limit farm inputs that could harm the environment. This restrictive policy affects farmers' productive choices and economic well-being. However, limited attention has been paid to how this could affect the economic risk farmers face. To do so, we examine how risk is affected by fertilisers, crop protection, irrigation water, and labour choices. This study relied on Antle's method of moments applied to the irrigated field crop farms of the Italian Farm Accountancy Data Network from 2008 to 2019. This paper fills the literature gap jointly using three aspects usually adopted separately. First, consider the three moments and the semi-variance to investigate the risks of farmers' strategies. Second, it accounts also for government payments to consider the relationship between these and risk. Finally, it adopts an estimation strategy that relies on the Generalised Method of Moments (GMM) for the first step and the Fixed Effects-Generalized Least Squared (FE-GLS) estimator for the second, considering time and individual fixed effects and considering interaction terms effects. According to our research, constraining fertilisers, crop protection, and irrigation water increases income variability, causing farming to be potentially riskier. However, restricting fertilisers and crop protection use decreases the downside risk. These results indicate that policy measures constraining input use, such as those foreseen in the EU, strongly influence the extent and type of risks farmers face. Therefore, policymakers should consider this evidence when designing environmental policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Common Agricultural Policy of the European Union remains at the top tier of the union's legacies with the aim of bequeathing a sustainable future for all. Series of actions geared towards reforming the environmental and climate goals of the CAP are constantly being taken. The objective of this paper is to verify if the environmental and climatic CAP measures proposed in Poland's Strategic Development Plan for Agriculture, for the years 2023–2027, reflect farmers' preferences regarding the structure of the CAP support. To achieve this goal, we model a hypothetical strategic game involving farmers from different regions. The outcomes of the game were derived from the ex-post analysis of EU funds, in the application for environmental and climatic CAP measures, in addition to the results of simulations of the partial equilibrium model for the agricultural sector (CAPRI). It was found out that farmers from regions with disadvantaged agrarian structures would find it more difficult to cope with new eco-schemes due to the fact that good agricultural practices are rather low in such regions. For the long-term development of Polish agriculture, the agrarian structures need to be improved, as this affects the emission of greenhouse gases. The varying preferences of farmers from different Polish regions in implementing eco-schemes can be balanced by increasing redistributive payments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Rural Economics / Nōgyō Keizai Kenkyū is the property of Agricultural Economics Society of Japan and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper analyses the regional impacts of direct payments on the labour and land productivity of European farms. The basic assumption of the research is that direct CAP subsidies have a positive effect on productivity and efficiency. This was tested by quantitative regression-analysis models, which were based on NUTS2- level regional data from 2008-2018. The results show that direct subsidies have a negative effect on labour and productivity in agriculture, a finding that can be attributed to a number of underlying factors. The direction and magnitude of these productivity effects differ markedly between old and new Member States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the current global context, agriculture should develop both interdisciplinary and intradisciplinary. Digitalization and innovation represent the key drivers of evolution. Agriculture must become more flexible and adaptable to the current challenges, integrating eco-friendly solutions that can maintain production at optimal capacity for a longer period. This paper aims to review the Romanian agricultural policies from the 19th century to the present, bringing perspective on the international practices and focusing on the technological innovations that occurred in the past years. The research follows the evolution of agriculture on the European agenda. There are now new challenges imposed by the need for modernization and reconfiguration of farming into an integrated system with performance parameters and development routes. Romania has followed the trends and implemented several policies which aim to help farmers integrate the new technologies into their day-to-day work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The periodic reforms of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) are announced each time by a strategic document in the form of a Communication by the European Commission (EC). The content of the last Communication differs from previous ones, which raises the questions of what frames the EC has employed with respect to its CAP reforms and how these frames have been modified over the past 26 years (from 1991 to 2017) in order to legitimise the preservation of the CAP. This paper tries to fill the gap in the research of frames in the main strategic documents on the CAP by employing comparative historical framing analysis. The results show consistent use of five frames: the policy mechanism frame, farmers' economic frame, foreign trade frame, budgetary frame, and the societal concerns frame. While they have all remained in use, most have been changed significantly over the years. Throughout the analysed period, the farmers' economic frame has retained its primacy and continuity, demonstrating the power of the farmers' lobbies and conservative member states. If in the initial Communications the environment was barely present within the societal concerns frame, it has gained importance in the recent Communications, in addition to other general societal issues, such as climate change, food security and quality, health, digitalisation, innovation, and even migration. By marginalising the policy mechanism frame and replacing it with the implementation model and increasingly emphasising the societal concerns frame with social justifications of the CAP, the EC is trying to legitimise the CAP after 2021. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Distributed replicated databases play a crucial role in modern computer systems enabling scalable, fault-tolerant, and high-performance data management. However, achieving these qualities requires resolving a number of trade-offs between various properties during system design and operation. This paper reviews trade-offs in distributed replicated databases and provides a survey of recent research papers studying distributed data storage. The paper first discusses a compromise between consistency and latency that appears in distributed replicated data storages and directly follows from CAP and PACELC theorems. Consistency refers to the guarantee that all clients in a distributed system observe the same data at the same time. To ensure strong consistency, distributed systems typically employ coordination mechanisms and synchronization protocols that involve communication and agreement among distributed replicas. These mechanisms introduce additional overhead and latency and can dramatically increase the time taken to complete operations when replicas are globally distributed across the Internet. In addition, we study trade-offs between other system properties including availability, durability, cost, energy consumption, read and write latency, etc. In this paper we also provide a comprehensive review and classification of recent research works in distributed replicated databases. Reviewed papers showcase several major areas of research, ranging from performance evaluation and comparison of various NoSQL databases to suggest new strategies for data replication and putting forward new consistency models. In particular, we observed a shift towards exploring hybrid consistency models of causal consistency and eventual consistency with causal ordering due to their ability to strike a balance between operations ordering guarantees and high performance. Researchers have also proposed various consistency control algorithms and consensus quorum protocols to coordinate distributed replicas. Insights from this review can empower practitioners to make informed decisions in designing and managing distributed data storage systems as well as help identify existing gaps in the body of knowledge and suggest further research directions.

Agriculture is an important sector in Bulgaria, especially in the rural areas where it is considered an important source of income and employment. Bulgarian agriculture has changed substantially over the past ten years, which has led to a transformation in production, farm, organizational and sectorial structures. The aim of the paper is to observe the regional differences in Bulgarian farm structure and outline main prospects for the next programming period, 2023-2027. The survey reveals a significant decline in the number of holdings in parallel with the decreased role of small farms. By contrast, the importance of large holdings is increasing. There are different patterns of agricultural transformation in the regions of Bulgaria. While large extensive producers dominate North Bulgaria, there is more balanced agricultural development in the South part of the country. The new CAP 2023-2027 is directed to more ambitious objectives related to climate, innovations and convergence. The subsidiarity principles could help Bulgaria to overcome some of these challenges if the agricultural policy is better targeted and oriented towards intensive sectors and more balanced and sustainable rural development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Socio-economic factors are more important than risks in the allocation of RMT budget. • More affluent regions and areas of relatively high welfare spend more for the RMT. • Regions with high agricultural VA and more permanent crops land spend less on the RMT. • The income stabilization capacity of direct payments is an alternative to risk management. • The institutional environment and political economy processes have a key role in the allocation of budget. This paper analyses the factors influencing public expenditure on the EU's Risk Management Toolkit comparing six types of regional-level spatial autoregressive models, and finding that there is a predominance of socio-economic factors over risk and agro-ecological factors in the allocation of budget. Higher expenditure occurs in more affluent regions and in areas with clusters of relatively high welfare. Conversely, regions with high agricultural value added and a greater presence of permanent crops spend less on the Risk Management Toolkit, indicating a trade-off with private risk management products (e.g. insurance) and on-farm practices. A higher intensity of CAP subsidies tends to reduce expenditure on the Risk Management Toolkit, indicating that the income stabilization capacity of direct payments might be an alternative to risk management and indicating a substitution between policies. Moreover, a strong spatial dependence of the regional expenditures indicates a key role of the higher-level institutional environment and political economy processes in the allocation of budget. The paper concludes deriving policy implications for the new CAP reform which is characterized by higher flexibility in deciding what policy instruments to implement at the territorial level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The need for government assistance in the external economy is necessitated by other economic uncertainties, the impact of agricultural activity on the environment, and especially low and irregular cash flows in the agricultural sector. The received state and European aid in the form of various economic losses are necessary for agricultural producers. Based on the financial resources provided, the company's financial condition is stabilized and improved. This embodies a management policy in the agricultural sector in Bulgaria. The aim of the study is to look for possible options for financing agricultural producers in Bulgaria. For the purposes of the study, the analyzed period is divided into several main groups according to Bulgaria's membership in the EU and implementation of the Common Agricultural Policy: Pre-accession, First program period (2007-2013), Second program period (2014). - 2020) and the Third Program Period (2021-2027). Financing in the Agricultural sector is divided into internal and external. Internal financing refers to lending by banks and support through national surcharges, through the granting of state aid. External financing is the financial means provided to farmers by the European CAP programs (ISPA, SAPARD, RDP). Based on the analysis, it is found that the liabilities of the agricultural firms are growing faster than the assets, as farmers use more loans than savings to cover their financial needs, the small producers of the sector (under 20 ha) face the most many difficulties in obtaining financing. Subsidies are mainly received from large and major firms, while small and medium-sized ones that really need these funds remain disadvantaged. The granting of subsidies is associated with economic losses and very complicated programs, the implementation of which is tied to high public costs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Baghdad Science Journal is the property of Republic of Iraq Ministry of Higher Education & Scientific Research (MOHESR) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In this paper, the -caps are created by action of groups on the three-dimensional projective space over the Galois field of order eight. The types of -caps are also studied and determined either they form complete caps or not. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although, the environmental and climate concerns have been put on the agenda of the CAP, permanent grassland covers have decreased, agricultural greenhouse gas emissions still account for 10 percent of the EU's total emissions, soils continue to degrade and wildlife numbers decline. Hence, despite the fact that formally the CAP has integrated environmental aspects, the environmental outcomes of this approach have been questioned on multiple fronts. (Heyl K. et al, 2020) As a result, a series of reports and impact studies were carried out with the role of supporting the configuration of the CAP 2021-2027, as an attempt to further mainstream environmental considerations across the new CAP. Taking into account all these elements, this paper analyse descriptively the CAP's environment and climate elements. The objective is to identify the key challenges that the new CAP have to address considering shortcomings of the CAP 2014 - 2020 from the environmental and climate perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The agri-environment-climate measures of the European Union Common Agricultural Policy are incentives aiming to reduce negative environmental impacts and increase positive effects generated from agriculture. Several criticisms have been addressed to their efficiency and effectiveness and thus, the design of innovative contract solutions is currently suggested. Among the novel contractual solutions, there are result-based payments, collective implementation of measures, the engagement of private and business actors in value chains, and new forms of land tenure systems coupled with environmental clauses. Little is known about the factors at interplay influencing farmers' decision to uptake such contracts. The present paper investigates the acceptability determinants of the above-mentioned novel contractual solutions concerning a sample of nearly 1900 farmers from 10 European Union countries. The analysis is based on a questionnaire built through a common research framework. We apply ordered logistic regressions: both proportional and partial proportional odds models are used. Farmers' preferences are interpreted by splitting the innovative contractual solutions into 13 individual contractual features which are then modeled in combination with the structural characteristics of the farms and the sociodemographic and behavioral characteristics of the farmers. We estimate farmers' willingness to enroll in result-based, collective, value-chain, and land tenure contracts and highlight the positive and negative factors potentially influencing farmers' acceptability of each type of contract. • Acceptability of result-based, collective, value chain, and land tenure contracts • Through ordered logistic regressions on 1866 farmers from 10 EU countries • Contractual design features matter (implementation details more than contract type) • Farmers have a good level of interest, but trade-offs in design and implementation • Managerial aspects/contractual design features matter vs. farms' structural characteristics [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Common Agricultural Policy 2023-2027 introduces a new result-oriented approach based on a new delivery model. At the core of this model lies the need to ensure a higher consistence between stated objectives and the implementation of policy tool, such a direct payment. Enhancing farm income and fostering the provision of environmental public goods represent relevant policy goals that the new basic income support for sustainability is aimed to pursue. However, the use of land-based payments has been largely criticized as ineffective and unfair. To this purpose, we use "Italian Farm Accountancy Data Network" data, in order to descriptively analyse whether and how different criteria used to allocate this payment are differently correlated with farm income distribution and the use of chemical inputs and natural resources. Findings reveal that other parameters, rather than land, may be also taken into account in order to improve the effectiveness of the basic income support for sustainability in achieving its specific goals. However, there is not a first-best solution aimed to ensure at the same time a fairer distribution of the income support, by rewarding farmers that make a lesser use of input. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

External shocks and policy spillovers have facilitated a gradual shift away from the exceptionalism (exclusive role of agricultural interests) in the EU Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). This article argues that post-Lisbon decision-making rules and procedures, against some of the expectations, slowed this process. First, the parallel veto-based negotiations on the bloc's finances gave status quo actors the opportunity to influence the CAP indirectly (by blocking the redistribution of CAP funds) and directly (through package deals). Second, the co-decision procedure allowed the ministers of agriculture and the European Parliament's Committee of agriculture to change the proposals of the more reform-minded Commission more easily. The argument is supported by the case of the CAP 2023–2027 reform, which resulted in limited changes given the Brexit-related cut in CAP funding (external shock) and the inclusion of environmental targets as part of the European Green Deal (policy spillover effects). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: In this study, the changes in corneal cap and residual stromal thickness (RST) values during a 180-day observation period after refractive lenticule extraction small incision lenticule extraction (ReLEx SMILE) were assessed. Methods: Fifty patients underwent ReLEx SMILE using the VisuMax 500 femtosecond laser, with corneal imaging conducted pre and post procedure via anterior segment optical coherence tomography (AS-OCT). Cap thickness in the center and 1.5 mm from the center in four meridians was measured at various intervals. Results: The results showed a significant decrease in cap thickness 180 days post procedure compared to earlier intervals (p < 0.05). Similarly, RST decreased gradually and significantly post procedure (p < 0.05). Notably, changes in cap thickness within the central 1.5 mm area were more dynamic than RST changes during the 6-month observation period following SMILE. Conclusions: The corneal cap thickness measured with swept-source AS-OCT within the central 1.5 mm area underwent more dynamic changes than the residual stromal thickness during the 6-month observation following SMILE. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Extensive livestock farms in the EU operate in a context of increasing market liberalization and competition, changing consumer patterns and decreasing meat consumption, and increasing climate change-related risks. In turn, EU policy calls for better supporting extensive systems due to their numerous socio-ecological benefits and aims to improve the resilience of extensive livestock farms. The research question underlying this paper is: which resilience capacities may help livestock farmers deal with different types of challenges? The specific research objectives are: 1) to quantify the resilience capacities of robustness, adaptability and transformability and the challenges as perceived by farmers; 2) to identify the main challenges affecting the perceived resilience capacities; and 3) to evaluate how perceived resilience capacities perform under alternative scenarios. The paper relies on the use of data from a survey of 120 cattle and sheep farmers in Spain to study the latent property of resilience through farmers' perception. The methodology consists of mixed statistical methods to address the three specific objectives. First, descriptive statistics to quantify the perceived resilience capacities and challenges threatening farming systems; second, fitting Partial Least Square regressions to identify the main challenges affecting robustness, adaptability and transformability; and third, stochastically simulate challenging scenarios to predict the behavior of the three resilience capacities under different types of challenges. Resilience capacities perform in different manners when dealing with challenges. Adaptability and transformability seem to be more effective under socio-economic long-term pressures. Robustness performs poorly under challenges either in the short- or long-run and appears to be more effective against economic and environmental challenges. Institutional challenges are the main threats to resilience, especially when it comes to reduced subsidies, restricted access to land, and subsidies-induced competition. The paper's contribution consists of the empirical advances in understanding the resilience capacities and their ability to deal with different types of challenges, about which the literature offers little guidance. To this end, the paper proposes a quantitative methodological solution that is relevant considering the need for methodological progress towards resilience quantifications. Lastly, the paper may inform policymaking by bringing new evidence into the debate on the future of extensive livestock in the EU based on the case of Spanish cattle and sheep farms. [Display omitted] • The capacity of robustness, adaptability and transformability to deal with different types of challenges is investigated. • 120 surveys of sheep and cattle farmers are analyzed through Partial Least Square regressions and Monte Carlo simulations. • Challenges' perception is variable, but institutional and policy-related challenges are the main threats to resilience. • Robustness is perceived lower than other capacities, but is more effective against economic and environmental challenges. • Adaptability and transformability are strongly correlated, and more effective under socio-economic long-term pressures". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mycotoxins, harmful compounds produced by fungal pathogens, pose a severe threat to food safety and consumer health. Some commonly produced mycotoxins such as aflatoxins, ochratoxin A, fumonisins, trichothecenes, zearalenone, and patulin have serious health implications in humans and animals. Mycotoxin contamination is particularly concerning in regions heavily reliant on staple foods like grains, cereals, and nuts. Preventing mycotoxin contamination is crucial for a sustainable food supply. Chromatographic methods like thin layer chromatography (TLC), gas chromatography (GC), high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), and liquid chromatography coupled with a mass spectrometer (LC/MS), are commonly used to detect mycotoxins; however, there is a need for on-site, rapid, and cost-effective detection methods. Currently, enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISA), lateral flow assays (LFAs), and biosensors are becoming popular analytical tools for rapid detection. Meanwhile, preventing mycotoxin contamination is crucial for food safety and a sustainable food supply. Physical, chemical, and biological approaches have been used to inhibit fungal growth and mycotoxin production. However, new strains resistant to conventional methods have led to the exploration of novel strategies like cold atmospheric plasma (CAP) technology, polyphenols and flavonoids, magnetic materials and nanoparticles, and natural essential oils (NEOs). This paper reviews recent scientific research on mycotoxin toxicity, explores advancements in detecting mycotoxins in various foods, and evaluates the effectiveness of innovative mitigation strategies for controlling and detoxifying mycotoxins.