Working Paper 19-08 - Quantifying environmental leakage for Belgium

This paper illustrates the deficiency of the production approach as a tool to measure a country's responsibility for international environmental impacts. A use approach is presented as a more suitable tool. The difference between the two approaches is determined by a better grasp of international trade, which can lead to environmental leakage when a country specialises in the production of environmentally friendly products and has the environmentally unfriendly products which it consumes produced abroad. We show that in the period 1995-2002 Belgium was on average a provider of air emission intensive products for the rest of the world. Environmental leakage was mostly negative. However, the evolution of the Belgian environmental terms of trade shows that by 2002 its imports had become considerably more air emission intensive with respect to its exports than in 1995. There are indications that this evolution is due to a considerable increase of extra-EU imports of air emission intensive products. This in turn could point to environmentally inspired offshoring. However, the currently available data do not allow us to test this hypothesis.Environmental leakage, Environmental terms of trade, Input-output analysis

Der Einfluss von Yersinia-Effektoren auf podosomale Adhäsionsstrukturen primärer humaner MAkrophagen

Podosomen sind aktinreiche Strukturen des Zytoskeletts primärer humaner Makrophagen. Für Adhäsion, Polarisation und Chemotaxis sind diese Strukturen von essentieller Bedeutung. Ihr ständiger Umbau und ihre Regulation unterliegt einer fein abgestimmten Balance der Rho GTPasen Rho, Rac und Cdc42. Pathogene Yersinien spp. haben Aktinzytoskelett von Wirtszellen durch Modulation von Rho GTPasen als Angriffsobjekt gewählt. Mit ihrem plasmidkodierten Typ III Sekretions- und Translokationsapparat werden wichtige Immunfunktionen paralysiert. In dieser Arbeit wurde in primären humanen Makrophagen der Einfluss von Yersinien-Effektoren auf Podosomen untersucht. Konkret interessierte die Frage, welchen Effekt YopE auf diese Strukturen hat. Hierzu wurden in einem standardisierten Verfahren gewonnene und gereinigte Makrophagen gesunder Spender mit unterschiedlichen Mutanten der Spezies Yersinia enterocolitica für verschiedene Zeiten infiziert. Nach Färbung der Zellen mit Rhodamin-Phalloidin wurde die Anzahl der verbliebenen Zellen mit Podosomen im konfokalen Mikroskop ermittelt und statistisch ausgewertet. Es konnte erstens gezeigt werden, daß ein voll virulenter Yersinien Stamm in der Lage ist, nach einer Infektion von bereits 30 min die podosomalen Strukturen der Makrophagen vollkommen zu zerstören. Zweitens sind an diesem Effekt verschiedene Yersinien-Effektoren und zusätzlich der Typ III Sekretions- und Translokationsapparat beteiligt. Drittens reicht YopE für die Zerstörung von Podosomen alleine aus. Viertens ist die GAP-Aktivität von YopE für die Destruktion von Podosomen nicht notwendig und lässt auf GAP-unabhängige Mechanismen von YopE schliessen. Zusammenfassend lassen die Ergebnisse dieser Arbeit vermuten, daß YopE ein wichtiger aber nicht der alleinige Effektor der Yersinien bei der Paralyse von menschlichen Makrophagen und insbesondere der Zerstörung podosomaler Adhäsionsstrukturen ist

Customer relationship management for brand commitment and brand loyalty

This article examined the impact of customer relationship management strategy on customers brand commitment and brand loyalty in the Nigeria financial sector. Methodology: the positivist quantitative survey approach was used to collect primary for this research. Simple random sampling was used to select 250 customers of Nigerian deposit accepting banks. Findings: the study found that CRM strategy impacts positively on banks’customers brand commitment and loyalty behaviours. However, continuance loyalty weighted highly positive on customer advocacy behaviour than affective loyalty. Conclusions: the study concluded that customer relationship management strategy helps in winning customers brand commitment and loyalty. Thus, continuance factors are suitable for predicting advocacy intentions of customers of Nigerian banks. Recommendations: the study recommended for strategic policy makers in the Nigeria financial sector to improve on their firms’ CRM infrastructure in order to continually meet customers’ expectations. KEYWORDS: Customer relationship management, customer advocacy, brand commitment, loyalt

Working Paper 13-09 - Qualitative Employment Multipliers for the Belgian Environmental Industry

The present paper computes cumulative employment generated by the Belgian environmental industry. Relying on Belgian input-output tables for the year 2000 and on detailed employment data (SAM sub]matrix), we investigate the patterns of the employment in the environmental industry, by considering the worker types differentiated by gender, educational attainment or a combination of these characteristics. The employment multiplier analysis of environmental employment reveals some interesting differences between employment of the overall economy and environmental employment for the level of education as well as for the gender type.

DIVERSITE ET DURABILITE DE L'AGRICULTURE URBAINE : UNE NECESSAIRE ADAPTATION DES CONCEPTS ?

N° ISBN - 978-2-7380-1284-5International audienceSocial, economical and environmental conditions of Urban Agriculture are very different between industrialized and developing countries, some research models and operational tools may be similarly questioned by this agriculture. In three case studies: in Senegal, France and Madagascar, where agro-economic surveys where done in punctual or long-term research programs, we question the renewal of the representation of farming systems' diversity, the duality of the concepts of sustainability and the analysis of multi-functionality of Urban Agriculture according to different actors. The global activity system must be taken into account due to the frequency of external activities to understand the agricultural production system itself. An external sustainability, i.e. the vision the urban planners and residents have about Urban Agriculture compared to other urban uses of land, is as important as the classical internal sustainability of farming systems to diagnose the future of urban agriculture. The place the urban planners give to agriculture in urban projects depends on the functions they or the inhabitants recognize to it. Thus, research must analyse them and lighten the hierarchy of functions made by these different stakeholders. The analysis of multifunctionality of urban agriculture crossed with internal and external diagnosis of sustainability is an important tool to help urban decision-makers to consider agriculture in urban planning

Urban agriculture and sustainable urban landscape. An applied research on two case studies (Madagascar and Senegal)

In developing countries, like in Madagascar and Senegal facing high rates of urbanisation, urban agriculture is progressively taken into account in urban planning. To produce knowledge on this largely unknown activity and to help to design its place in urban landscape, two researches have been done with numerous surveys of farmers and of other stakeholders. We analysed the urban agriculture functions and its internal and external sustainability. With these tools and in straight relationships with urban planners and decision?makers, it was possible to discuss the types of production systems and zones where agriculture should be preserved to contribute to sustainable urban landscape. (Résumé d'auteur

The use of legume cover crops for livestock feeding in semi arid environments : Effects of Calopogonium mucunoïdes used as forage on weight maintenance of draught donkeys during the dry season

International audienceEn régions semi-arides, la saison sèche est une période difficile pour l'entretien des animaux, du fait de la rareté des ressources alimentaires. Les animaux sont maintenus sur des résidus de fourrage de pauvre qualité, nécessitant une complémentation protéique si l'on veut assurer leur productivité. Dans cette étude, Calopogonium mucunoides a été distribué à des ânes de trait au repos pendant la saison sèche pour tester son appétibilité et ses valeurs nutritionnelles: 12 ânes adultes ont été repartis en 3 groupes alimentés comme suit: Groupe A = tiges de maïs + 0.5 kg d'une provende domestique constituée d'un mélange de son de maïs et de tourteau de coton en quantités égales; Groupe B = C. mucunoides + 0.25 kg de provende; Groupe C = C. mucunoides + 0.5 kg de provende. La consommation de fourrage, d'eau et le poids vif des animaux ont été enregistrés. Des échantillons de fourrage et de fèces ont été analysés. Les résultats n'ont montré aucune différence significative dans la consommation de fourrage. Une différence hautement significative a été observée pour la digestibilité des rations proposées, la meilleure étant pour le groupe B. Quel que soit le groupe, la consommation d'eau augmente et l'ingestion de fourrage diminue lorsque la température ambiante s'élève. La forte digestibilité de C. mucunoides confirme sa qualité supérieure aux autres ressources alimentaires. En dépit de sa faible appétibilité ou acceptabilité par d'autres espèces, C. mucunoides présente un taux élevé de protéines brutes intéressant pour tous les animaux. Elle pourrait effectivement remplacer les sources agro-industrielles de compléments protéiques, difficiles d'accès pour les petits exploitants. (Résumé d'auteur