Review: Ethical responsibilities and transformation strategies of focal companies in the meat supply chain: the implementation dilemma.

In Germany (and other Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries), the need for a fundamental transformation of livestock farming has become increasingly evident in recent years. Two broad-based stakeholder commissions including the German farmers' association, the meat industry, and Non-Governmental Organizations have endorsed this demand. Nevertheless, major steps towards its implementation are still missing - a circumstance we refer to in this paper as the implementation dilemma. In a globalised economy, farmers cannot solve the problem of low animal welfare standards alone although they are important actors. Moreover, consumer behaviour is changing too slowly, and possibilities for granting more subsidies are limited in the face of multiple economic crises. Against this background, we argue for a stronger focus on voluntary (private) sustainability agreements. We therefore analyse how the German meat supply chain is organised and what responsibility and power the individual actors have to push the sector's transformation. Large slaughterhouses, processors, and the retailing sector seem promising due to their high market concentration and power. Especially retailers can influence the transformation of the market through their role as gatekeepers between suppliers and consumers. Based on business ethics principles of taking responsibility, we consider the focus on sustainability obligations of the retail sector to be ethically justified. However, it is then necessary to give the four retail groups dominating the meat chain in Germany more leeway for sustainability agreements in antitrust law.

More room for legume - Consumer acceptance of meat substitution with classic, processed and meat-resembling legume products.

The substitution of meat with legumes is one way of making food consumption more sustainable. The substitution would ease the debate on food security and is aligned with the recommendations of climate change experts. Consumer preferences on whether meat should be substituted and how meat can be substituted are heterogeneous. This article explores consumers' acceptance of replacing meat with legumes, their acceptance of meat alternatives made from legumes and their acceptance of processed legumes in general. Consumer samples were drawn from Germany (GER: N = 633) and New Zealand (NZ: N = 445). The samples reflect the underlying age, gender and income distributions. Two separate latent class analyses reveal seven consumer types with five in each country. A large cluster from both countries will not consider substituting meat with legumes or buying processed legume products. Another cluster will consider processed legume products if the products are not marketed as an alternative to meat. Although they do not use them regularly, many consumers in NZ are open to using meat substitutes made from legumes. Another group would prefer to directly substitute meat with specific legumes rather than having highly processed products. We discuss the cluster specific findings and how to develop consumers' acceptance of meat substitution with respect to each cluster.

Discussing modern poultry farming systems-insights into citizen's lay theories.

A growing public concern, especially about animal welfare problems in poultry farming systems in the EU, has been addressed by numerous (mostly quantitative) studies. However, in-depth research about the underlying reasons for the lack of acceptance concerning modern poultry farming is rare. Debates on animal welfare are often polarized. Thus, this study involved 8 exploratory focus group discussions in 4 German cities. To understand the different positions and to simulate controversial debates on animal welfare, the study includes vegetarians/vegans (as a critical and involved group) and meat eaters. The actual level of knowledge about modern poultry production among participants was heterogeneous, varying between detailed specialized knowledge and misinformation. It was found that improvements for poultry animal welfare that have already been achieved, such as the ban of conventional cages for laying hens in the EU, were not yet recognized by the wider public. A central finding was that participants mostly use lay theories and conclude that the actual poultry husbandry systems make a high use of antibiotics necessary, which has a negative influence on the meat products and, thus, endangers consumer health. The results also indicate that an industrialized agri-food system (rather than farmers) is held primarily responsible for the perceived problems in the poultry value chain. Furthermore, participants are aware of their responsibility and also blame their buying behavior.

Labeling strategies to overcome the problem of niche markets for sustainable milk products: The example of pasture-raised milk.

Pasture-raised milk is gaining in importance in some European countries and in the United States. The production of pasture-raised milk is linked to higher costs, as the milk is normally collected and processed separately from conventional barn milk. This could hinder the production of sustainable milk products. We discuss alternative labeling strategies that allow the mixing of pasture-raised (sustainable) and conventional milk to reduce costs and break free from the current niche market. The lower price would allow for more pasture-raised milk to be produced and enter the mainstream market. The aim of this study was to analyze consumers' willingness to pay for alternative labeling types using a discrete choice experiment with 1,065 German milk buyers. The 2 alternative labels, besides the classical labeling approach, are based on the mass balance approach (at least 50% pasture-raised milk in a package) and cause-related marketing (support of farmers who keep their cows on pasture). The discrete choice experiment was combined with a cluster analysis to get a deeper understanding of the buying behavior of the diverse consumer segments for milk. We found that all consumer groups prefer the classical label where products are segregated but also understand the benefits of cause-related marketing. The average consumer was willing to pay €0.50 more for pasture-raised milk certified with the classical label and €0.38 more for pasture-raised milk labeled with a cause-related marketing claim. However, differences between the clusters are strong: The smallest cluster of ethically involved consumers (15%) is willing to pay the highest premiums, especially for the classical label. Cause-related marketing is an interesting alternative for involved buyers under price pressure (41%), whereas the mass balance approach is little understood and thus less valued by consumers. From our results we concluded that cause-related marketing (in our case, the support of pasturing of dairy cows) can be useful for dairies for which it is not efficient to collect and process products separately. This approach is furthermore suitable for reaching consumers who are mainly interested in altruistic issues but at the same time are more price sensitive, as this labeling strategy does not need separate collection and processing and can thereby be marketed at a lower price.

Neurovascular coupling remains unaffected during normal aging.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: During normal aging, the cerebral autoregulation mechanism and the CO2-induced cerebral reserve capacity remain unaffected. This led to the suggestion of a wide compensatory range of mechanisms responsible for the cerebral blood flow regulation. The authors investigated the neurovascular coupling mechanism for age-related changes. Because several authors criticized the comparison between higher and younger age groups, the current authors restricted their study on volunteers between 10 and 60 years. METHODS: Twenty healthy volunteers in the age group of 10 to 20, 20 to 40, and 40 to 60 each without cerebrovascular risk factors were enrolled in this study; they were aged 16.3 +/- 3.4 SD years (9 boys), 32.7 +/- 2.3 SD years (9 men), and 53.1 +/- 5.3 SD years (10 men). A functional transcranial Doppler test was performed using a visual stimulation paradigm. The resultant flow velocity changes in the posterior cerebral artery were analyzed using a control system approach. Resting flow velocity and each of the control system parameters, which were time delay, attenuation, natural frequency, rate time, and gain, were compared between groups statistically. RESULTS: Control system parameters remained statistically unchanged between groups, whereas the resting flow velocity decreased significantly by age. CONCLUSIONS: The neurovascular coupling mechanism seems to be unaffected by moderate aging as estimated by Doppler parameters. Vasoregulative dysfunction in patients at vascular risk is more likely to be caused by the risk factor rather than by age.

Mossy fiber sprouting induced by repeated electroconvulsive shock seizures.

The elicitation of repeated focal seizures (kindling) induces mossy fiber sprouting in the hippocampus of the rat. The present study investigated whether repeated generalized seizures also induce mossy fiber sprouting. Human psychiatric patients receive repeated generalized seizures during electroconvulsive therapy (ECT). Male Long-Evans rats received a course of eight electroconvulsive shock (ECS) seizures administered on a 48-h schedule over a course of 2 1/2 weeks. Control subjects received matched handling, but no stimulation. Fourteen days after the last ECS trial, all subjects were sacrificed and their brains subjected to Timm staining. Cell counts and area measures were also taken in the hilus. Significant sprouting, but not significant cell loss, was seen in the fascia dentata of the subjects that had received ECS.

Activation of astrocytes during epileptogenesis in the absence of neuronal degeneration.

The issue of whether neuronal degeneration is a primary factor in activation of astrocytes during epileptogenesis was addressed using the kindling model of epilepsy. No degenerative changes specific to the kindling process were observed in brain sections from kindled animals, sampled from the olfactory bulbs through to cerebellum and processed with the degeneration-sensitive cupric silver stain. Also, examination of lectin-stained sections did not reveal any reactive microglia. At the same time, reactive astrocytes, as judged by an increase in glial fibrillary acidic protein immunoreactivity and a de novo vimentin immunoreactivity, were prominent in amygdala, piriform cortex, entorhinal cortex and hippocampus. These results suggest that loss of neurones is not a prerequisite for establishment of epilepsy-prone state, that seizures of short duration do not necessarily result in neuronal death, and that in kindling, astrocytes are activated by factors that are not related to neuronal degeneration, but which are likely associated with abnormal neuronal activity.

Transfer kindling between sites in the entorhinal cortex-perforant path-dentate gyrus system.

Repeated electrical stimulation of forebrain sites can lead to an enhanced epileptogenic response (the kindling phenomenon). When stimulation is subsequently applied to related sites, these developments occur more rapidly (the transfer effect). Axonal pathways do not support epileptiform discharge, so it is generally assumed that the kindling develops, when these pathways are stimulated, in the target structures of those pathways. Consequently, transfer kindling should be immediate, or at least very rapid. Primary and 'transfer' kindling effects were examined in the excitatory, monosynaptically coupled, entorhinal cortex-dentate gyrus system. Transfer kindling was begun following either a 24 h delay or a 4 week delay between the last primary site convulsion and the start of transfer kindling in the secondary site. A 4 week delay between kindling sites was chosen to minimize the effects of a previously reported transient suppression of transfer kindling and the increased inhibition that has been shown to develop in the dentate gyrus as a result of kindling the perforant path. Although there was a significant transfer to the dentate gyrus following perforant path stimulation, the dentate gyrus still required a mean of 18.5 (24 h delay) and 20.3 (4 week delay) stimulations to reach criterion. In the entorhinal cortex, there was a significant positive transfer following primary kindling of the perforant path only in the group in which transfer kindling was begun after a 4 week delay. When the perforant path itself was the transfer site, there was a significant savings in number of afterdischarges needed to reach criterion following dentate gyrus kindling but no savings following entorhinal cortex kindling.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

The effect of kindling beyond the 'stage 5' criterion on paired-pulse depression and hilar cell counts in the dentate gyrus.

Recent experiments have indicated that recurrent inhibition in the dentate gyrus, as measured with paired-pulse tests, is reduced following the induction of status epilepticus. Also, a loss of cells in the hilus has been reported, and it has been suggested that the two effect might be related. In this experiment, we have monitored paired-pulse depression and counted cells in the hilus in animals that have been kindled well beyond the typical stage 5 criterion. Responses evoked in the dentate gyrus by paired-pulse stimulation of the perforant path were monitored before and after kindling of the perforant path. One group of animals served as controls and received no kindling stimulations. Another group was kindled to 4 stage 5 seizures and then allowed to recover for 2 months. A third group was kindled to 44 stage 5 seizures and then allowed to recover for at least 5 weeks. Paired-pulse tests were taken at 1 week intervals during the kindling and recovery phases. Paired-pulse inhibition increased during kindling, peaked after 4 stage 5 seizures, remained enhanced throughout the additional 40 stage 5 seizures, and recovered towards baseline over a period of about 5 weeks. Upon completion of this phase of the experiment, cell counts were taken in the hilar regions of the Nissl stained brain sections. There was a significant reduction in number of cells in the tissue from kindled animals, compared to controls, but there was no significant difference between the 2 kindled groups.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

[Differentiation of renal and postrenal hematuria and proteinuria with SDS polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis and immunoblotting]. / Differenzierung renaler und postrenaler Hämaturien und Proteinurien mit SDS-Polyacrylamidgel-Elektrophorese und Immunoblotting.

The pattern of serum proteins separated by SDS-PAGE is typified by the microprotein apolipoprotein A I which is split from high density lipoprotein by SDS. High density lipoprotein is generally retained by the glomerulus and does not appear in the urine even in glomerulopathies. Thus, apolipoprotein A I is generally absent in the SDS-PAGE protein pattern of renal proteinurias. However, in postrenal hematurias and proteinurias apolipoprotein A I can be found by SDS-PAGE, immunoblotting and Ouchterlony test. Using rabbit anti-human-apolipoprotein A I as primary antibody and alkaline phosphatase-conjugated anti-rabbit immunoglobulins as secondary antibody antibody apolipoprotein A I could be detected even at a 1:128,000 dilution of blood. This means a microhematuria of only 8 microliters blood/l urine theoretically can be identified as postrenal. Unfortunately, apolipoprotein A I is not only visible on the immunoblots of postrenal hematurias and proteinurias but could also be seen in renal proteinurias. Thus, only with reservation can apolipoprotein A I be called a marker of postrenal hematuria and proteinuria. On the other hand, most renal proteinurias can be identified reliably by SDS-PAGE and analysis of apolipoprotein A I is superfluous. Apolipoprotein A I, however, could become useful in the differentiation of microhematurias without proteinuria.