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The EU&rsquo, s 2018 Bioeconomy Strategy Update and the European Green Deal recently confirmed that the bioeconomy is high on the political agenda in Europe. Here, we propose a conceptual analysis framework for quantifying and analyzing the development of the EU bioeconomy. The bioeconomy has several related concepts (e.g., bio-based economy, green economy, and circular economy) and there are clear synergies between these concepts, especially between the bioeconomy and circular economy concepts. Analyzing the driving factors provides important information for monitoring activities. We first derive the scope of the bioeconomy framework in terms of bioeconomy sectors and products to be involved, the needed geographical coverage and resolution, and time period. Furthermore, we outline a set of indicators linked to the objectives of the EU&rsquo, s bioeconomy strategy. In our framework, measuring developments will, in particular, focus on the bio-based sectors within the bioeconomy as biomass and food production is already monitored. The selected indicators commit to the EU Bioeconomy Strategy objectives and conform with findings from previous studies and stakeholder consultation. Additionally, several new indicators have been suggested and they are related to measuring the impact of changes in supply, demand drivers, resource availability, and policies on sustainability goals.

In this paper we construct bilateral emission trade balances (ETB) for The Netherlands with 17 regions and compare results for 1996 and 2007 for three different greenhouse gasses. We establish a cross-sectional analysis of bilateral ETBs into a volume of trade, composition and technology effect. In order to analyze the driving forces of changes over time we perform a structural decomposition analysis of embodied import and export emissions. The main findings are that the embodied import emissions have increased by 37% whereas export emissions increased by only 3%, which is primarily driven by CO2. The 2007 bilateral balances are positive with OECD countries but negative with economies such as Russia, Africa and China. The analyses demonstrate that the worsening of the ETB is to a large extent caused by the changing composition of trade: the Dutch economy increasingly exports clean products and imports dirty products.

Our knowledge of the relationship between the economy and the environment has increased significantly over recent decades. One of the areas in which this is most apparent is the area of environmental accounting, where environmental data is presented according to national accounting principles. These accounts provide consistent, complete and detailed information for understanding environmental-economic interdependencies. One of the modules of these accounts is the waste accounts which record the origin and destination of waste materials. The first part of this paper discusses the Dutch waste accounts and their relation with economic indicators. In the second part a number of applications, which are based on the input—output model, are applied to these accounts. This section includes a novel structural decomposition analysis which quantifies the underlying driving forces of changes in total waste and landfilled waste between 1995 and 2004. The results show that the total amount of waste is mainly driven by economic growth (positive effect) and the direct export of waste (negative effect). The models also show that the construction sector has played a very important part in the reduction of waste. Furthermore, the decrease in the amount of landfilled waste, which is caused by Dutch regulations, has led to a large shift towards recycling and to a lesser degree incineration. Finally, the calculations for the ‘environmental trade balance’ for waste show that the waste-contents of exports exceed that of imports. This paper shows that the waste accounts have many analytical and policy-relevant applications.

The current study investigated contralateral inhibition involved in a release from forward masking. The masker and probe were 1-kHz pure tones shaped by a 20-Hz modulation. Durations of the masker and probe were 500 ms and 50 ms (single cycle) respectively. A 10-ms delay between the masker and probe was added to rule out any confusion. A contralateral component (cue), with various spectral and temporal properties, could be added during the masker. The first experiment showed that masking release occurred more often or increased with an increasing number of spectral cue components. The second experiment showed that increasing cue duration, leaving the cue and masker offsets synchronous, increased detection thresholds. In the third experiment the temporal position of a short cue relative to the masker was varied. The lowest thresholds were obtained for 0- and 150-ms delays between the cue and masker offsets. Despite large individual differences, the obtained release from forward masking provided support for a contralateral inhibition process. Contralateral inhibition seemed to be dependent on the number of spectral cue components and on the delay between the cue onset and the masker offset.

Comodulation masking release (CMR) enhances the detection of signals embedded in wideband, amplitude-modulated maskers. At least part of the CMR is attributable to across-frequency processing, however, the relative contribution of different stages in the auditory system to across-frequency processing is unknown. We have measured the responses of single units from one of the earliest stages in the ascending auditory pathway, the ventral cochlear nucleus, where across frequency processing may take place. A sinusoidally amplitude-modulated tone at the best frequency of each unit was used as a masker. A pure tone signal was added in the dips of the masker modulation (reference condition). Flanking components (FCs) were then added at frequencies remote from the unit best frequency. The FCs were pure tones amplitude modulated either in phase (comodulated) or out of phase (codeviant) with the on-frequency component. Psychophysically, this CMR paradigm reduces within-channel cues while producing an advantage of approximately 10 dB for the comodulated condition in comparison with the reference condition. Some of the recorded units showed responses consistent with perceptual CMR. The addition of the comodulated FCs produced a strong reduction in the response to the masker modulation, making the signal more salient in the poststimulus time histograms. A decision statistic based on d' showed that threshold was reached at lower signal levels for the comodulated condition than for reference or codeviant conditions. The neurons that exhibited such a behavior were mainly transient chopper or primary-like units. The results obtained from a subpopulation of transient chopper units are consistent with a possible circuit in the cochlear nucleus consisting of a wideband inhibitor contacting a narrowband cell. A computational model was used to confirm the feasibility of such a circuit.

Detection of signals added solely to the peaks of an on-frequency modulated masker has never been found to improve after adding flanking components (FCs) at remote frequencies. However, according to theories underlying comodulation masking release (CMR), adding comodulated FCs could provide cues that improve signal detection for signal-peak placement. A reason masking release was not found with peak placement might be because of processes underlying modulation detection interference (MDI). This possibility was further investigated by using FCs that could diminish MDI but still provide signal detection cues associated with theories of CMR. It seemed that a peripheral within-channel and a central across-channel mechanism underlying MDI could hinder signal detection for signal peak placement.

The present study investigates the effects of long‐term practice on masked signal detection with experienced listeners. The on‐frequency masker (OFM) consists of a 700‐Hz pure tone, which is sinusoidally amplitude‐modulated at a 10‐Hz rate. Similar flanking components can be placed at 300, 400, 500, 900, 1000, and 1100 Hz. The signal is composed of three, 50‐ms, 700‐Hz tone bursts that are placed in the dips of the OFM envelope. The flanking component envelope phases were either in phase (comodulated condition) or 180° out of phase (uncorrelated condition) with the OFM. In the reference condition only the OFM was present. Two subjects gained experience (20 h) before the first data collection session took place. After extended practice (40 h) a second session took place. The results of the first session show a release from masking in the comodulated condition with regard to the reference condition (CMR R‐C) and the uncorrelated condition (CMR U‐C). Results from the second session show that reference thresh...

Two studies of comodulation masking release (CMR) investigated the influence of temporal position of brief signals added to a modulated on‐frequency band (OFB) [Grose and Hall III, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 85, 1276–1284 (1989); Moore et al., ibid. 87, 1683–1694 (1990)]. The former reports mixed results as to whether flanking bands (FBs) modulated to the same depth as the OFB elicit more CMR than 100%‐modulated FBs. The latter reports that when antiphase signals are added to valleys of 50%‐modulated OFBs, thresholds with correlated FBs are poorer than with quadrature‐phase FBs. In the present paper, signals were three antiphase tone pips added to valleys of a 50%‐modulated 700‐Hz pure tone. Thresholds were obtained with the OFB and 6 FBs, modulated at 10 Hz. FBs were comodulated or in quadrature phase with the OFB, at either 50% or 100% depth. With 50% FBs, subjects performed better with comodulated than with quadrature‐phase FBs. With 100% FBs, performance in the comodulated condition improved, and in the quad...

A copy of a paper published in Sustainability.