Report on parallel proceedings

Report of a Working Group considering the problems that arise from parallel proceedings, particularly in City fraud cases, within the national jurisdiction and ways in which those problems could be addressed. The Working Group was chaired by George Staple QC

Livestock trade networks for guiding animal health surveillance

BACKGROUND: Trade in live animals can contribute to the introduction of exotic diseases, the maintenance and spread endemic diseases. Annually millions of animals are moved across Europe for the purposes of breeding, fattening and slaughter. Data on the number of animals moved were obtained from the Directorate General Sanco (DG Sanco) for 2011. These were converted to livestock units to enable direct comparison across species and their movements were mapped, used to calculate the indegrees and outdegrees of 27 European countries and the density and transitivity of movements within Europe. This provided the opportunity to discuss surveillance of European livestock movement taking into account stopping points en-route. RESULTS: High density and transitivity of movement for registered equines, breeding and fattening cattle, breeding poultry and pigs for breeding, fattening and slaughter indicates that hazards have the potential to spread quickly within these populations. This is of concern to highly connected countries particularly those where imported animals constitute a large proportion of their national livestock populations, and have a high indegree. The transport of poultry (older than 72 hours) and unweaned animals would require more rest breaks than the movement of weaned animals, which may provide more opportunities for disease transmission. Transitivity is greatest for animals transported for breeding purposes with cattle, pigs and poultry having values of over 50%. CONCLUSIONS: This paper demonstrated that some species (pigs and poultry) are traded much more frequently and at a larger scale than species such as goats. Some countries are more vulnerable than others due to importing animals from many countries, having imported animals requiring rest-breaks and importing large proportions of their national herd or flock. Such knowledge about the vulnerability of different livestock systems related to trade movements can be used to inform the design of animal health surveillance systems to facilitate the trade in animals between European member states. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12917-015-0354-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users

Fair Inputs and Fair Outputs: The Incompatibility of Fairness in Privacy and Accuracy

Fairness concerns about algorithmic decision-making systems have been mainly focused on the outputs (e.g., the accuracy of a classifier across individuals or groups). However, one may additionally be concerned with fairness in the inputs. In this paper, we propose and formulate two properties regarding the inputs of (features used by) a classifier. In particular, we claim that fair privacy (whether individuals are all asked to reveal the same information) and need-to-know (whether users are only asked for the minimal information required for the task at hand) are desirable properties of a decision system. We explore the interaction between these properties and fairness in the outputs (fair prediction accuracy). We show that for an optimal classifier these three properties are in general incompatible, and we explain what common properties of data make them incompatible. Finally we provide an algorithm to verify if the trade-off between the three properties exists in a given dataset, and use the algorithm to show that this trade-off is common in real data

Really responsive risk-based regulation

Regulators in a number of countries are increasingly developing "risk-based" strategies to manage their resources, and their reputations as "risk-based regulators" have become much lauded by regulatory reformers. This widespread endorsement of risk-based regulation, together with the experience of regulatory failure, prompts us to consider how risk-based regulators can attune the logics of risk analyses to the complex problems and the dynamics of regulation in practice. We argue, first, that regulators have to regulate in a way that is responsive to five elements: (1) regulated firms' behavior, attitude, and culture; (2) regulation's institutional environments; (3) interactions of regulatory controls; (4) regulatory performance; and (5) change. Secondly, we argue that the challenges of regulation to which regulators have to respond vary across the different regulatory tasks of detection, response development, enforcement, assessment, and modification. Using the "really responsive" framework, we highlight some of the strengths and limitations of using risk-based regulation to manage risk and uncertainty within the constraints that flow from practical circumstances and, indeed, from the framework of risk-based regulation itself. The need for a revised, more nuanced conception of risk-based regulation is stressed

Alternative uses for co-products: Harnessing the potential of valuable compounds from meat processing chains

peer-reviewedOpportunities for exploiting the inherent value of protein-rich meat processing co-products, in the context of increased global demand for protein and for sustainable processing systems, are discussed. While direct consumption maybe the most profitable route for some, this approach is influenced greatly by local and cultural traditions. A more profitable and sustainable approach may be found in recognizing this readily available and under-utilised resource can provide high value components, such as proteins, with targeted high value functionality of relevance to a variety of sectors. Applications in food & beverages, petfood biomedical and nutrition arenas are discussed. Utilization of the raw material in its entirety is a necessary underlying principle in this approach to help maintain minimum waste generation. Understanding consumer attitudes to these products, in particular when used in food or beverage systems, is critical in optimizing commercialization strategies.This work forms part of the ReValueProtein Research Project (Grant Award No. 11/F/043) which is supported by the Irish Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) and the Food Institutional Research Measure (FIRM) both funded by the Irish Government under the National Development Plan 2007–2013.Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marin

Reconciling nuclear risk: The impact of the Fukushima accident on comparative preferences for nuclear power in UK electricity generation

Polls conducted in the United Kingdom following the Fukushima nuclear accident (March 2011) indicated a fairly muted and temporary shift in public approval of nuclear power. This study investigated how: (a) comparative preferences for nuclear power in the U nited Kingdom might have been affected by the accident; and (b) how “supporters” of nuclear power reconciled their pro-nuclear attitude in the wake of the disaster. Between-subjects comparisons with a pre-Fukushima sample revealed our post-Fukushima sample to have comparable preferences for nuclear power. Further analysis suggested that “supporters” retained their pro-nuclear stance in response to Fukushima by emphasizing the necessity of nuclear power in the U.K. context. The theoretical, practical and methodological implications for these findings are discussed

Towards an Economy of Higher Education

This paper draws a distinction between ways thinking and acting, and hence of policy and practice in higher education, in terms of different kinds of economy: economies of exchange and economies of excess. Crucial features of economies of exchange are outlined and their presence in prevailing conceptions of teaching and learning is illustrated. These are contrasted with other possible forms of practice, which in turn bring to light the nature of an economy of excess. In more philosophical terms, and to expand on the picture, economies of excess are elaborated with reference, first, to the understanding of alterity in the work of Emmanuel Levinas and, second, to the idea of Dionysian intensity that is to be found in Nietzsche. In the light of critical comment on some current directions in policy and practice, the implications of these ways of thinking for the administrator, the teacher and the student in higher education are explored

Skills in the green economy: recycling promises in the UK e-waste management sector

In advanced economies the ‘greening’ of the economy is widely seen as promising extensive job creation and upskilling, alongside its other benefits. In popular and policy rhetoric, the growing importance of ‘green skills’ is asserted frequently. This paper critically examines these claims within the context of the electronic waste management sector in the UK. Drawing on the cases of a non profit organisation and a small private enterprise in North West England, we observe that despite government support for developing skills in e-waste, both the development and utilisation of skills remain minimal. Critically, the relatively more skill-intensive process of reuse is substantially less profitable than recycling and resource capture. The paper concludes by noting that the expectations from the green economy for high quality jobs need to be assessed within the context of similar, misplaced celebrations of previous transformations of work in order to avoid recycling the same promises

The impact of chemometrics on food traceability

In the last decades, mankind has become totally aware about the importance of food quality: nowadays authentication and traceability are words of general use. Food authentication verifies how much a food is in accordance with its label description and law and it could be considered a further guarantee for the quality and safety of a foodstuff. The traceability of food could be considered an essential element in ensuring safety and high quality of food. The synergistic use of instrumental analytical techniques and chemometrics represents a promising way to obtain trustworthy results in the development of authenticity and traceability models. This chapter deals with the potentialities of chemometrics tools in resolving some real issues related to food traceability and authenticity. Particular attention will be paid to the use of some exploratory, classification and discrimination techniques. In the first part of this chapter, a briefly description of European regulations (Authenticity and Traceability: the European Union point of view), and traceability and authenticity markers (Authenticity and Traceability: a scientific point of view) is reported. The second part is split into two sections: namely Food Authenticity and Food Traceability applications, where the main features and advantages of some chemometrics approaches are presented