The effect of SME internationalization motivators on initial and successive international market entry mode choice

Source at https://vkm.no/In preparation for a legal implementation of EU-regulation 1829/2003, the Norwegian Environment Agency (former Norwegian Directorate for Nature Management) has requested the Norwegian Food Safety Authority (NFSA) to give final opinions on all genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and products containing or consisting of GMOs that are authorized in the European Union under Directive 2001/18/EC or Regulation 1829/2003/EC within the Authority’s sectoral responsibility. The Norwegian Food Safety Authority has therefore, by letter dated 13 February 2013 (ref. 2012/150202), requested the Norwegian Scientific Committee for Food Safety (VKM) to carry out scientific risk assessments of 39 GMOs and products containing or consisting of GMOs that are authorized in the European Union. The request covers scope(s) relevant to the Gene Technology Act. The request does not cover GMOs that VKM already has conducted its final risk assessments on. However, the Agency requests VKM to consider whether updates or other changes to earlier submitted assessments are necessary.I forbindelse med forberedelse til implementering av EU-forordning 1829/2003 i norsk rett har Miljødirektoratet (tidligere Direktoratet for Naturforvalting) bedt Mattilsynet om vurderinger av allegenmodifiserte organismer (GMOer) og avledete produkter som inneholder eller består av GMOer som er godkjent under forordning 1829/2003 eller direktiv 2001/18 som er godkjent for ett eller flere bruksområder som omfattes av genteknologiloven. På den bakgrunnen har Mattilsynet, i brev av 13. februar 2013 (ref. 2012/150202), bedt Vitenskapskomiteen for mattrygghet (VKM) om å utarbeide endelige vitenskapelige risikovurderinger av 39 GMOer og avledete produkter som inneholder eller består av genmodifiserte organismer, innen Mattilsynets sektoransvar. VKM er bedt om endelige risikovurderinger for de EU-godkjente søknader hvor VKM ikke har avgitt endelig risikovurdering. I tillegg er VKM bedt om å vurdere hvorvidt det er nødvendig med oppdatering eller annen endring av de endelige risikovurderingene som VKM tidligere har lever

Dramatic interannual changes of perennial Arctic sea ice linked to abnormal summer storm activity

Copyright © 2011 American Geophysical UnionThe perennial (September) Arctic sea ice cover exhibits large interannual variability, with changes of over a million square kilometers from one year to the next. Here we explore the role of changes in Arctic cyclone activity, and related factors, in driving these pronounced year-to-year changes in perennial sea ice cover. Strong relationships are revealed between the September sea ice changes and the number of cyclones in the preceding late spring and early summer. In particular, fewer cyclones over the central Arctic Ocean during the months of May, June, and July appear to favor a low sea ice area at the end of the melt season. Years with large losses of sea ice are characterized by abnormal cyclone distributions and tracks: they lack the normal maximum in cyclone activity over the central Arctic Ocean, and cyclones that track from Eurasia into the central Arctic are largely absent. Fewer storms are associated with above-average mean sea level pressure, strengthened anticyclonic winds, an intensification of the transpolar drift stream, and reduced cloud cover, all of which favor ice melt. It is also shown that a strengthening of the central Arctic cyclone maximum helps preserve the ice cover, although the association is weaker than that between low cyclone activity and reduced sea ice. The results suggest that changes in cyclone occurrence during late spring and early summer have preconditioning effects on the sea ice cover and exert a strong influence on the amount of sea ice that survives the melt season

Future Projections of EURO-CORDEX Raw and Bias-Corrected Daily Maximum Wind Speeds Over Scandinavia

Postponed access: the file will be available after 2023-08-21Twenty historical and future Coordinated Regional Climate Downscaling Experiment ensemble for Europe simulations are bias corrected to investigate the future changes in the daily maximum wind speed over Scandinavia. We use quantile mapping to adjust the wind for the historical period (1985–2014) and quantile delta mapping for two future periods (2041–2070, 2071–2100, RCP8.5) with the 3-km spatial resolution NORA3 hindcast as the reference data set. Decomposing the variance, we find that most of the inter-model spread in the bias and the response to climate change is due to the regional climate model over land and mainly to the general climate model over sea. On average, the mean daily maximum wind speed is projected to increase everywhere except along the western coast of Norway and Denmark. In summer, we see an opposite sign over Sweden and Finland. The Norwegian Sea experiences weaker mean and high wind whereas the Baltic Sea experiences a strengthening. Bias correction influences the amplitude of the response, not the response pattern. Wind speed distributions can have different shapes in the future, with, for example, a flattening of the distribution off the coast of Norway with more frequent weak and very strong winds. Apart from a few locations in Norway, we find an increase in the number of days in the local highest historical wind category. Overall, summer exhibits opposite signals compared to the three other seasons. At country scale, the sign of the change in the mean and 98th percentile varies greatly depending on the region and among the simulations, especially for Norway.publishedVersio

Real-Time Online Multiplayer Mobile Gaming

Gaming on mobile phones is a business with a great growth potential both in profit and popularity. In today's modern world, the number of potential users of online multiplayer mobile games is enormous. This is because of the wide deployment of mobile phones and the increasing general interest in gaming. For game developers, this is an interesting business area, since mobile games are faster and easier to develop than console or computer games, due to the mobile games' smaller size and reduced complexity. Telecom companies, on the other hand, may profit from this both by attracting users through exclusive contents only available to their subscribers, and trough the potential network traffic generated by online multiplayer games. Some multiplayer mobile games are available on the market today. However, few of these can be played real-time, which often involves a more entertaining and attractive gameplay compared to slower, turn-based games. This project has focused on two main areas. Firstly, different network technologies and transport protocols have been tested to evaluate whether these are suitable for real-time multiplayer mobile games or not. This was done by testing the different networks' response times and transfer speeds. Secondly, a framework for developing this kind of games has been developed. Also, a game prototype has been implemented based on this framework, and the experience from this development has been recorded to provide assistance for future development projects within the same scope. The results from the tests show that, among the widely available mobile networks today, only UMTS (3G) and EDGE offer performance sufficient for a fast and stable real-time multiplayer mobile game. GPRS is too slow and unstable, and using this technology for real-time game communication is likely to lead to lags and an incoherent gameplay. Furthermore, the tests have clearly shown that UDP is far better suited for in-game communication than TCP, because of UDP's superior response time. For developers of such games, there are several challenges that have to be closely considered. Synchronization of clients is a very difficult task because of high network latencies. Furthermore, mobile phones are weak in terms of available resources. Managing these problems requires distribution of calculations and efficient algorithms. The game framework developed in this project has proved to provide a good basis for developing different game concepts within real-time multiplayer mobile gaming. Common functionality for such games is implemented in the framework, thus helping game developers avoid having to reinvent the wheel. This project has shown that successful real-time multiplayer mobile games are definitely possible to implement. However, doing this is a great challenge, both for developers, distributors, and telecom companies offering such games to their subscribers. A middle way has to be found between the complexity of the game, the need for frequent network updates, and the user cost involved with playing the game. If this middle way is found, it is very likely that such a game could be a great success

Why has Precipitation Increased in the Last 120 Years in Norway?

We use a data set with daily precipitation observations from 55 homogeneity-tested stations in Norway from 1900 to 2019 available from MET-Norway. These observations show that precipitation in Norway has increased by 19% since 1900. Notably, over half of the overall increase occurred within the decade of 1980–1990 and is happening across all precipitation rates. To examine possible mechanisms behind the precipitation increase, we use a diagnostic model to separate the effects of changes in vertical velocity, temperature and relative humidity. We use daily vertical velocity, near-surface temperature and relative humidity from two reanalysis products, ERA-20C and 20th Century Reanalysis. The model-based precipitation correlates significantly with the observed precipitation on an annual timescale (r > 0.9), as well as captures the trend in all reanalysis products. The diagnostic model indicates that the variability in vertical velocity chiefly determines the interannual variability and long-term trend. The trend in vertical velocities contributes to more than 80% of the total modeled trend in precipitation between 1900 and 2019. However, over the last two decades (1995–2015), changes in temperature and relative humidity are the main contributors to the modeled trend in precipitation.publishedVersio

Agrárpiaci Jelentések ÉLŐÁLLAT ÉS HÚS

Az Amerikai Egyesült Államok agrárminisztériumának (USDA) októberben megjelent rövid távú projekciója szerint a világ marhahústermelése 930 ezer tonnával 61,4 millió tonnára emelkedhet az idén a 2016. évihez képest. Az USDA adatai szerint az Egyesült Államokban a bika ára 3,82 dollár (USD)/kilogramm hasított hideg súly volt 2017 szeptemberében, 1,6 százalékkal nőtt az egy évvel korábbihoz viszonyítva. Brazíliában a szarvasmarha ára brazil reálban kifejezve 4,4 százalékkal csökkent 2017 szeptemberében az előző év azonos hónapjának átlagárához képest. Argentínában a szarvasmarha ára argentin pezóban kifejezve 10 százalékkal emelkedett ugyanekkor. Az Európai Bizottság októberben megjelent rövid távú előrevetítése szerint az EU marhahústermelése várhatóan 7,9 millió tonna körül alakul 2017-ben, nem változik számottevően az előző évihez viszonyítva. A projekció szerint a marhahús kibocsátása 2018-ban előreláthatóan 7,85 millió tonnára csökken. Az Európai Unióban a fiatal bika „R3” kereskedelmi osztály vágóhídi belépési ára 3,83 euró/kilogramm hasított hideg súly volt 2017 szeptemberében, 5,3 százalékkal nőtt az egy évvel korábbihoz képest. Magyarországon a fiatal bika termelői ára 793 forint/kilogramm hasított meleg súly volt 2017 szeptemberében, 1,4 százalékkal nőtt az előző év azonos hónapjának átlagárához viszonyítva. A vágótehén ára 18,1 százalékkal, a vágóüszőé 22,9 százalékkal emelkedett ugyanekkor

Ground validation of oceanic snowfall detection in satellite climatologies during LOFZY

A thorough knowledge of global ocean precipitation is an indispensable prerequisite for the understanding of the water cycle in the global climate system. However, reliable detection of precipitation over the global oceans, especially of solid precipitation, remains a challenging task. This is true for both, passive microwave remote sensing and reanalysis based model estimates. The optical disdrometer ODM 470 is a ground validation instrument capable of measuring rain and snowfall on ships even under high wind speeds. It was used for the first time over the Nordic Seas during the LOFZY 2005 campaign. A dichotomous verification of precipitation occurrence resulted in a perfect correspondence between the disdrometer, a precipitation detector and a shipboard observer's log. The disdrometer data is further point-to-area collocated against precipitation from the satellite based Hamburg Ocean Atmosphere Parameters and fluxes from Satellite data (HOAPS) climatology. HOAPS precipitation turns out to be overall consistent with the disdrometer data resulting in a detection accuracy of 0.96. The collocated data comprises light precipitation events below 1 mm h–1. Therefore two LOFZY case studies with high precipitation rates are presented that indicate plausible HOAPS satellite precipitation rates. Overall, this encourages longer term measurements of ship-to-satellite collocated precipitation in the near future