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Introduction:Piglet facial and sow teat lesions are the main reported reasons why pig producers routinely practice teeth resection. This is a painful procedure performed on piglets, where their needle teeth are clipped or ground to resect the pointed tip. The practice raises welfare concerns. In contrast to other procedures, such as tail docking, we know little about the risk factors for these two types of lesions.MethodsWe employed two methods to answer these questions: (1) reviewing the literature to identify potential risk factors, and (2) surveying pig production stakeholders worldwide to identify the occurrence of these lesions and the strategies used in practice that enable pig producers to manage or prevent these lesions while avoiding teeth resection. For the literature review, we used Google Scholar to include peer-reviewed publications and gray literature. We distributed the survey using convenience sampling and documented information on the current situation regarding teeth resection, including the methods, frequencies, and reasons for resecting piglets' teeth, the occurrence of piglet facial and sow teat lesions, and measures used to prevent and control these lesions.ResultsThe literature review identified six major risk factors for both lesions, including the presence or absence of teeth resection, housing system, litter size, piglet management, environmental enrichment, milk production and other piglet management practices. However, most studies focused on the effects of the first two factors with very few studies investigating the other risk factors. There were 75 responses to the survey from 17 countries. The survey showed that half of the respondents practiced teeth resection with many recognizing that facial and teat lesions are the main reasons behind this practice. However, many producers used other interventions rather than teeth resection to prevent these lesions. These interventions focused on improving milk production of the sow, managing large litters, and providing environmental enrichment.DiscussionMore research is needed to validate these interventions and more science-based advice is needed to bridge the gap between research and practice to help more producers further understand the cause of piglet facial and sow teat lesions to transition toward the cessation of routine teeth resection.

The swine industry is often forced to euthanize pigs in the first few weeks of life due to injuries, hernias, or unthriftiness. The majority of pigs are euthanized using carbon dioxide (CO2) gas asphyxiation but concerns as to the humaneness of CO2 are increasing. This study compared the euthanasia of weaned pigs using N2O (N2O, n = 9) or CO2 (n = 9), at 50% and 25% min&minus, 1 exchange rate, respectively. In addition, we administered an analgesic prior to euthanasia with CO2 (CO2B) exposure as a third treatment (n = 9) to elucidate behaviors indicative of pain. Pigs in the CO2 and N2O treatments lost posture at similar times (latency of 145.0 &plusmn, 17.3 and 162.6 &plusmn, 7.0 s respectively, p &gt, 0.10), while the CO2B treatment pigs lost posture the soonest (101.2 &plusmn, 4.7 s, p &lt, 0.01). The pigs in the CO2B treatment made more escape attempts than the CO2 or N2O pigs (16.4 &plusmn, 4.2, 4.7 &plusmn, 1.6, 0.3 &plusmn, 0.2, respectively, p &lt, 0.0004). However, pigs in N2O squealed more often than either the CO2 or CO2B pigs (9.0 &plusmn, 1.6, 2.8 &plusmn, 1.2, 1.3 &plusmn, 0.6, respectively, p &lt, 0.001). Given the similar time to loss of posture and shorter time displaying open mouth breathing, N2O may cause less stress to pigs, however, the greater number of squeals performed by these pigs suggests the opposite. It was not apparent that any behavior measured was indicative of pain. In conclusion, N2O applied at a 50% min&minus, 1 flow rate can be an alternative to CO2 for pig euthanasia.

This paper uses a dynamic stochastic model to solve for the optimal pricing policy of music recordings in the presence of P2P file-sharing networks eroding their sales. We employ a policy iteration algorithm on a discretized state space to numerically compute the optimal pricing policy. The realistically calibrated model reflects the real-world figures we observe and provides estimates of the optimal pricing policy as well as comparative statics figures. The pricing policy is such that, for a given P2P network size, prices are increasing in the number of buyers of the product and, for a given number of buyers of the product, prices are non-monotonic in the P2P network size. Surprisingly, in the presence of P2P networks, increases in production costs and decreases in the valuation of the product increase the consumer and total surplus. A higher valuation of the product leads to a lower steady state price. Increased switching costs have a negative effect on prices and profits, so the long term incentive to attract new consumers dominates the short term incentive to harvest loyal consumers. The full enforcement of intellectual property rights has adverse effect on both consumer surplus and total welfare. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Simple Summary Over the past three decades, the litter size of sows has been increased to improve productivity. This has not only led to more piglets per sow, but also an increased proportion of low birth weight piglets, and consequently, higher pre-weaning mortality. In an attempt to improve the resilience of small piglets, an oral supplementation (drenching) with a bioactive compound can be applied. In this study, low birth weight piglets were drenched with bovine colostrum, short-chain fructo-oligosaccharides or quercetin (each dissolved in a plain milk replacer) during the first seven days after birth. The animals' body weight, mortality, skin lesions, and different blood parameters were evaluated between birth and 2 weeks post-weaning. None of the supplemented compounds had a positive effect on any of the parameters, and thus, on the resilience of low birth weight piglets. Moreover, a negative effect on survival was observed in piglets that were drenched with short-chain fructo-oligosaccharides. These results showed that the evaluated bioactive compounds, in their given dosages, were unable to improve the low birth weight piglets' survival and emphasized the complex, multifactorial origin of pre-weaning mortality. The introduction of hyperprolific sows has resulted in more low birth weight (LBW) piglets, accompanied by higher mortality. A possible strategy to enhance the resilience and survival of LBW piglets is oral supplementation (drenching) of bioactive substances. This study evaluated the supplementation of bovine colostrum, short-chain fructo-oligosaccharides (scFOS) or quercetin that were dissolved separately in a milk replacer. The study was divided into two sub-experiments. First, the milk replacer was compared with a sham drenched group. Secondly, each dissolved compound was compared with the milk replacer. The LBW piglets, defined as weighing between (mean litter birth weight -1*SD) and (mean litter birth weight -2.5*SD), were randomly allocated to the different treatments and drenched once a day for seven days. On day 1, 3, 9, 24 and 38, piglets were weighed and scored for skin lesions. Blood samples were collected on day 9 and 38 and analyzed to determine glucose, non-esterified fatty acids, urea, immunoglobulin G, insulin-like growth factor 1, and a standard blood panel test. There was no difference between sham drenched piglets and piglets that were drenched with milk replacer regarding any of the parameters. No effect was observed between the milk replacer group and any of the bioactive compounds either, except a higher mortality within the scFOS group. In conclusion, this study showed that drenching the evaluated bioactive compounds, in the used dosages, did not improve LBW piglets' resilience or survival and more research is required to determine the effect of scFOS on small piglets.

The use of hyperprolific sow lines has increased litter size considerably in the last three decades. Nowadays, in some countries litters can reach up to 18-20 piglets being a major challenge for the sow's physiology during pregnancy, parturition and lactation. The increased number of piglets born per litter prolongs sensibly the duration of farrowing, decreases the piglets' average weight at birth and their vitality, increases the competition for colostrum intake and can affect negatively piglets' survival. This review aims to describe how large litters can affect the immune system of the sow and the piglets and proposes measures to improve this condition.

The purpose of this paper was to estimate consumers’ preferences for environmentally sustainable beef products, with the aim of developing and promoting environmentally sustainable products in South Africa. The findings reveal that there is profound preference heterogeneity at segment level for environmentally sustainable beef products. Three distinct consumer segments were identified. We demonstrate that socioeconomic factors, public awareness creation and campaigns on threats posed by climate changes, subjective and objective knowledge on environmental sustainability significantly explain consumers’ choice of environmentally sustainable beef products. Furthermore, it is concluded that there are relevant segmental equity issues that need to be addressed when designing environmental sustainability policies to promote environmentally sustainable products. Finally, we demonstrate that there is a potential market for environmentally sustainable products in South Africa.

This observational retrospective cohort study provides benchmarking information on recent sow productivity development in Finnish herds. It focuses on parity cycle specific trends in sow removal patterns, and especially on the role of litter performance (size and piglet survival) in sow removal. In addition, the generated models offer a tool for calculating sow removal risks in any period, which could be used in economic and other simulation models. The data used in the study pool information of sows starting the same parity cycle (1 through 8) over the enrollment period of July 1st, 2013 through June 30th, 2014 and followed until the end of the study period (December 31st, 2014), and their performance histories across their entire previous productive life. Out of 71,512 individual sow parity cycle observations from the first to the eighth, 15,128 ended up in removal. Average litter sizes exceeded 13 piglets born in total in all of the most recent farrowings. Yet, even larger litter sizes were favored by the implemented culling policies, as sows having medium and large early life litters had lower risks of removal compared to those with the smallest litters, particularly in younger animals. With regard to piglets born just prior to removal, the smallest litter sizes were associated with the greatest culling risk for sows of that particular parity. In addition, having more than one stillborn piglet in the first and second litter put the sow at higher risk of being removed in all but the last (sixth through eighth) of the studied parity cycles. Investigation of removal patterns revealed a negative linear relationship between parity count and the mean days from farrowing to removal. More specifically, the median (mean) times to removal varied across the parity cycles from 62 (72) in the first to 34 days in both the seventh and eighth (47 and 42, respectively). Moreover, one in every six sows was removed within the first and second parity cycle. The findings especially in the earliest cycles may be a reflection of removal decisions not made according to any clear and pre-determined policy, or of biological issues that prevent farmers from firmly adhering to their policy. Quantitative performance should be linked to overall system functionality and profitability while taking animal welfare into consideration in identifying opportunities to improve herd parity structure and future farm success.

This long series of papers consist of three parts. Part I is concerned with the basic dual relations between the Cournot and Bertrand models. Part II begins to deal with the world of risk and uncertainty, with a discussion of the Cournot duopoly model with a common demand risk as a starting point. It then deals with other types of duopoly models with a common risk. Part III discusses more complicated problems such as private risks and oligopoly models. All these three parts taken together aim to carefully outline and critically evaluate the problem of information exchanges in oligopoly models, one of the most important topics in contemporary economics.The true motivation of writing such survey papers is to strive for a synthesis of the economics of imperfect competition and the economics of imperfect information. The problem at issue is how and to what extent the information exchanges among firms influence the welfare of producers, consumers and the whole society. It is seen in the paper that a definite answer to the problem really depends on the following many factors. (1) The type of competitors (Cournot-type or Bertrand-type), (2) the nature of risk (a common value or private values; demand risk or cost risk), (3) the degree and direction of physical and stochastic interdependence among firms, and (4) the number of firms. If any set of those factors is specified in a given oligopoly model, the welfare and policy implications may very systematically be derived by way of their decomposition into the following four effects. That is, (i) own variation effects, (ii) cross variation effects, (iii) own efficiency effects, and (iv) cross efficiency effect.In the real world, trade associations may be regarded as typical information exchange mechanisms. Many welfare implications obtained in the papers will shed a new light to the effectiveness and limitations of those trading groups.

The long series of papers on the information exchanges among firms and their welfare implications contain three parts, namely Part I, Part II and Part III.In the previous papers, we already discussed Parts I and II. Part I was concerned with the basic dual relations between the Cournot and Bertrand models. Part II dealt with the world of risk and uncertainty, focusing on the Cournot duopoly model with a common demand risk as a starting point. It then explored other types of duopoly models with a common risk.The purpose of this paper is to discuss more complicated problems such as private risks and oligopoly models. When there exist more than two firms in an industry, the problem of the information exchange among firms becomes more complicated yet more intriguing. It will be seen that as the number of "producers as insiders" rises, the possibility of "consumers as outsiders" gaining their welfare is likely to increase. This is certainly the result which may agree with common sense. Some policy implications of our analysis will also be investigated.

Assessing unconsciousness is important to safeguard animal welfare shortly after stunning at the slaughter plant. Indicators that can be visually evaluated are most often used when assessing unconsciousness, as they can be easily applied in slaughter plants. These indicators include reflexes originating from the brain stem (e.g. eye reflexes) or from the spinal cord (e.g. pedal reflex) and behavioural indicators such as loss of posture, vocalisations and rhythmic breathing. When physically stunning an animal, for example, captive bolt, most important indicators looked at are posture, righting reflex, rhythmic breathing and the corneal or palpebral reflex that should all be absent if the animal is unconscious. Spinal reflexes are difficult as a measure of unconsciousness with this type of stunning, as they may occur more vigorous. For stunning methods that do not physically destroy the brain, for example, electrical and gas stunning, most important indicators looked at are posture, righting reflex, natural blinking response, rhythmic breathing, vocalisations and focused eye movement that should all be absent if the animal is unconscious. Brain stem reflexes such as the cornea reflex are difficult as measures of unconsciousness in electrically stunned animals, as they may reflect residual brain stem activity and not necessarily consciousness. Under commercial conditions, none of the indicators mentioned above should be used as a single indicator to determine unconsciousness after stunning. Multiple indicators should be used to determine unconsciousness and sufficient time should be left for the animal to die following exsanguination before starting invasive dressing procedures such as scalding or skinning. The recording and subsequent assessment of brain activity, as presented in an electroencephalogram (EEG), is considered the most objective way to assess unconsciousness compared with reflexes and behavioural indicators, but is only applied in experimental set-ups. Studies performed in an experimental set-up have often looked at either the EEG or reflexes and behavioural indicators and there is a scarcity of studies that correlate these different readout parameters. It is recommended to study these correlations in more detail to investigate the validity of reflexes and behavioural indicators and to accurately determine the point in time at which the animal loses consciousness.

Vehicle taxation based on CO2 emissions is increasingly being adopted worldwide to shift consumer purchases to low-carbon cars, yet evidence on its effectiveness and economic impact is limited. We focus on feebate schemes, which impose a fee on high-carbon vehicles and give a rebate to low-carbon cars. We estimate demand for passenger cars in Germany and simulate the impact of alternative feebate schemes on emissions, consumer welfare, public revenues and firm profits. We find that revenue-neutral feebate schemes are welfare decreasing welfare can only increase with schemes that increase tax revenues at the expense of consumer and producer surplus. © 2014 Royal Economic Society. 124 F420 F443 F420-F443

A three-country, two-bloc trade model is used to determine the impact of a coalition within the blocs on the optimal pricing policies of the bloc. It is shown in a North-South world where the South has to cooperate for efficient pricing policy. In addition to the complexities of interactions between three countries, a dynamic game approach leads to the usage of numerical methods in this paper. We used a new algorithm based on adaptive search procedure called genetic algorithm to optimize strategies for three-person discrete dynamic games. Welfare implications are also addressed.

A general equilibrium modeling approach is used to estimate the effects within Indonesia of unilateral and global trade liberalization, including effects on poverty incidence. It is concluded that global reform of trade policy in all commodities is a significant potential source of poverty reduction for Indonesia. The poor rural and urban have a strong interest in global trade policy reform. If Indonesia were to liberalize unilaterally, poverty incidence also will decline but the effect is small. If liberalization is confined to agricultural products, the effects are similar but the declines in poverty incidence within Indonesia are much smaller.

pain relief. In general, anaesthesia does not provide any longterm pain relief. Mischler et al. (1994), however, report a prolonged mild antinociception after CO2-induced anaesthesia. In general, local as well as general anaesthesia should be supplemented with postoperative pain relief. It cannot be concluded from this research that CO2-anaesthesia leads to a mortality of 50%. Based on the results of Svendsen (2006), a pilot safety study was performed. In this pilot it became clear that a safe exposure to 70% CO2 and 30% O2 is time-limited; mortality was deemed unacceptable and thus experiments ended at the death of a maximum of two piglets. Further extensive studies (not published) showed that exposure with a maximum of 2 min is safe. Long-term effects of CO2 inhalation for the given time of 2 min are unlikely to occur in practice. The piglets of the presented research and extensive additional studies did not show any long-term effects; no respiratory diseases or other abnormalities were observed or reported. In conclusion, we agree that anaesthesia and thus CO2anaesthesia will account for a certain amount of stress during induction. It provides, however, an excellent anaesthetic state for a short-lasting surgical procedure such as castration. Additionally, CO2 is an anaesthesia that can be used at a farm level and can easily be integrated in common farm practice, as extensive experience in The Netherlands has shown by now. To complete the improvement of welfare, this anaesthesia should be supplemented with long-term postoperative pain relief. We acknowledge the concerns of the correspondents and thank you for the opportunity to respond to their comments.

In this paper we derive a microfounded macro New Keynesian model for open economies, be them large or small. We consider habit formation in consumption, sectoral linkages, domestic and foreign governments, tradable and non-tradable final and intermediate goods and imperfect pass-through in these sectors. Sticky nominal prices and wages are modeled in a Calvo way. The model economy is composed of a continuum of infinitely-lived consumers and producers for three regions (countries). Numerical simulations and econometric estimations are presented with a focus on a small open economy member of the EMU. Welfare implications of the involved price and wage rigidities are discussed