Billions Of Euros Research Articles

Origin products from African forests: A Kenyan pathway to prosperity and green inclusive growth?

Many tropical countries have potential for adding market value to unique forest origin products similarly to how EU gain billions of Euro's annually from registering agricultural origin products, with Protected Denomination of Origin or Protected Geographical Indication. Following analysis of the renaissance for the global Geographical Indication (GI) regime, this article provides case-studies from Kenya – on Mwingi Honey, Kakamega Silk and institutional conditions under which producers may incorporate territory specific cultural, environmental, and social qualities of their unique products. We investigate prospects for Kenyan producers to create and capture additional monetary value for their forest related origin products, allowing smallholders to build livelihood, while stewarding natural environments. The origin products are investigated for their potential for protection with a GI, within five different dimensions of and links with the social and natural world. Our study shows that Mwingi Honey and Kakamega Silk have potential for registration under a GI regime based mainly on close links between local environment, flora and product quality, and product specificity. The institutional environment presents major challenges for the development of GI products and markets, exemplified by the Kenyan GI bill which is not yet enacted after almost a decade in the making.

Burden of disease and costs of exposure to endocrine disrupting chemicals in the European Union: an updated analysis.

A previous report documented that endocrine disrupting chemicals contribute substantially to certain forms of disease and disability. In the present analysis, our main objective was to update a range of health and economic costs that can be reasonably attributed to endocrine disrupting chemical exposures in the European Union, leveraging new burden and disease cost estimates of female reproductive conditions from accompanying report. Expert panels evaluated the epidemiologic evidence, using adapted criteria from the WHO Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation Working Group, and evaluated laboratory and animal evidence of endocrine disruption using definitions recently promulgated by the Danish Environmental Protection Agency. The Delphi method was used to make decisions on the strength of the data. Expert panels consensus was achieved for probable (>20%) endocrine disrupting chemical causation for IQ loss and associated intellectual disability; autism; attention deficit hyperactivity disorder; endometriosis; fibroids; childhood obesity; adult obesity; adult diabetes; cryptorchidism; male infertility, and mortality associated with reduced testosterone. Accounting for probability of causation, and using the midpoint of each range for probability of causation, Monte Carlo simulations produced a median annual cost of €163billion (1.28% of EU Gross Domestic Product) across 1000 simulations. We conclude that endocrine disrupting chemical exposures in the EU are likely to contribute substantially to disease and dysfunction across the life course with costs in the hundreds of billions of Euros per year. These estimates represent only those endocrine disrupting chemicals with the highest probability of causation; a broader analysis would have produced greater estimates of burden of disease and costs.

Feature engineering strategies for credit card fraud detection

Every year billions of Euros are lost worldwide due to credit card fraud. Thus, forcing financial institutions to continuously improve their fraud detection systems. In recent years, several studies have proposed the use of machine learning and data mining techniques to address this problem. However, most studies used some sort of misclassification measure to evaluate the different solutions, and do not take into account the actual financial costs associated with the fraud detection process. Moreover, when constructing a credit card fraud detection model, it is very important how to extract the right features from the transactional data. This is usually done by aggregating the transactions in order to observe the spending behavioral patterns of the customers. In this paper we expand the transaction aggregation strategy, and propose to create a new set of features based on analyzing the periodic behavior of the time of a transaction using the von Mises distribution. Then, using a real credit card fraud dataset provided by a large European card processing company, we compare state-of-the-art credit card fraud detection models, and evaluate how the different sets of features have an impact on the results. By including the proposed periodic features into the methods, the results show an average increase in savings of 13%.

The CEOS Recovery Observatory Pilot

Abstract. Over the course of the last decade, large populations living in vulnerable areas have led to record damages and substantial loss of life in mega-disasters ranging from the deadly Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004 and Haiti earthquake of 2010; the catastrophic flood damages of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and the Tohoku tsunami of 2011, and the astonishing extent of the environmental impact of the Deepwater Horizon explosion in 2009. These major catastrophes have widespread and long-lasting impacts with subsequent recovery and reconstruction costing billions of euros and lasting years. While satellite imagery is used on an ad hoc basis after many disasters to support damage assessment, there is currently no standard practice or system to coordinate acquisition of data and facilitate access for early recovery planning and recovery tracking and monitoring. CEOS led the creation of a Recovery Observatory Oversight Team, which brings together major recovery stakeholders such as the UNDP and the World Bank/Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery, value-adding providers and leading space agencies. The principal aims of the Observatory are to: 1. Demonstrate the utility of a wide range of earth observation data to facilitate the recovery and reconstruction phase following a major catastrophic event; 2. Provide a concrete case to focus efforts in identifying and resolving technical and organizational obstacles to facilitating the visibility and access to a relevant set of EO data; and 3. Develop dialogue and establish institutional relationships with the Recovery phase user community to best target data and information requirements; The paper presented here will describe the work conducted in preparing for the triggering of a Recovery Observatory including support to rapid assessments and Post Disaster Needs Assessments by the EO community.

Introduction of biosimilar monoclonal antibodies: the changing face of rheumatoid arthritis, ankylosing spondylitis and psoriatic arthritis treatment

The introduction of biological medicines has revolutionized the treatment of chronic inflammatory diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis (RA), ankylosing spondylitis (AS) and psoriatic arthritis (PsA) enabling and maintaining clinical remission and improving quality of life in many patients [1,2]. As many of these biologics approach patent expiration, biosimilars are now starting to become available, potentially allowing clinicians to broaden access for patients in need of effective treatment as well as providing overall cost benefits to healthcare systems. Biosimilars are biological medicines which are highly similar but not identical to the reference original biologic product [3,4], and are only made available after the patents and Supplementary Protection Certificates have expired. (In European Union member countries, a supplementary protection certificate is a unique intellectual property right that extends the duration of the exclusive right which enters into force after expiry of a patent upon which it is based). Due to the complex nature and variability of biological medicines (they are proteins produced by living organisms) no two batches are ever exactly the same [4]. Thus, being nonidentical is a normal feature of biotechnologic processes [5], and both passive and active drifting is expected to occur over time, hence the strict regulations to control the manufacturing and monitoring of biosimilars. Even with biologic drugs that have been on the market for over 10 years, manufacturing changes occur frequently, and, provided manufacturers demonstrate that the process change does not alter the safety or efficacy of the biologic [5], no label change is required. In general, the difference between a biosimilar and its reference biologic is similar to the difference between a biologic before and after an approved manufacturing process change. Biosimilar monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) are a new generation of biologic medications expected to challenge the pharmaceutical market with products that are comparable in terms of efficacy, safety and quality, while potentially providing substantial cost savings. The time for that seems ideal since cash-strapped healthcare providers are under increasing pressure to curb costs. The European economic situation is characterized by an aging population, driving increases in public expenditure in both health and longterm care [6]. Biosimilar mAbs offer healthcare providers and payers treatments that are expected to cost in the range of 10–30% less than the originators, potentially saving billions of Euros, which could possibly be used to treat more patients with these drugs, for example, to initiate treatment earlier in the course of the disease in order to avoid structural damage [7]. Introduction of biosimilar monoclonal antibodies: the changing face of rheumatoid arthritis, ankylosing spondylitis and psoriatic arthritis treatment

Estimating burden and disease costs of exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemicals in the European union.

Rapidly increasing evidence has documented that endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) contribute substantially to disease and disability. The objective was to quantify a range of health and economic costs that can be reasonably attributed to EDC exposures in the European Union (EU). A Steering Committee of scientists adapted the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change weight-of-evidence characterization for probability of causation based upon levels of available epidemiological and toxicological evidence for one or more chemicals contributing to disease by an endocrine disruptor mechanism. To evaluate the epidemiological evidence, the Steering Committee adapted the World Health Organization Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) Working Group criteria, whereas the Steering Committee adapted definitions recently promulgated by the Danish Environmental Protection Agency for evaluating laboratory and animal evidence of endocrine disruption. Expert panels used the Delphi method to make decisions on the strength of the data. Expert panels achieved consensus at least for probable (>20%) EDC causation for IQ loss and associated intellectual disability, autism, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, childhood obesity, adult obesity, adult diabetes, cryptorchidism, male infertility, and mortality associated with reduced testosterone. Accounting for probability of causation and using the midpoint of each range for probability of causation, Monte Carlo simulations produced a median cost of €157 billion (or $209 billion, corresponding to 1.23% of EU gross domestic product) annually across 1000 simulations. Notably, using the lowest end of the probability range for each relationship in the Monte Carlo simulations produced a median range of €109 billion that differed modestly from base case probability inputs. EDC exposures in the EU are likely to contribute substantially to disease and dysfunction across the life course with costs in the hundreds of billions of Euros per year. These estimates represent only those EDCs with the highest probability of causation; a broader analysis would have produced greater estimates of burden of disease and costs.

Central plasticity resulting from chronic low back pain in degenerative disorders of the spine.

Degenerative disorders of the spine are the most common cause of chronic low back pain (cLBP); in Western Europe alone, billions of euros are spent each year on both conservative and surgical treatments for cLBP. And though only 5% of all patients with low back pain suffer from lumbar disc herniation (LDH), more than 30% of the overall annual cost of treating cLBP goes to this one agonizing and disabling pain disorder. Previous findings have shown that intervertebral disc herniation can occur in people who are asymptomatic (Jensen et al., 1994). However, much effort has been expended to identify prognostic variables based on the classification of the magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the spine. Unfortunately, no factor has yet been revealed that reliably distinguishes between patients who should be treated conservatively and those who would instead benefit from surgery. In fact, only a weak correlation has been observed between the size of the prolapsed disc and the presence of clinical symptoms (Benson et al., 2010). Since it is the brain that ultimately interprets pain, the neuroscientific community has in recent years increased its focus on studying pain-induced cerebral alterations. And indeed, the adult human brain has an astonishing capacity for the morphological alterations that follow the learning and adaptation processes necessary to a changed environment (Draganski et al., 2004). Until recently, chronic pain was thought to be associated with abnormal nociceptive function but an unchanged brain structure. Now, however, a large body of new evidence supports the idea that chronic pain not only signals an altered functional state but is also a consequence of central plasticity (May, 2011). While acute pain is associated with structural changes appearing mainly in the somatosensory system, predominantly the thalamus, chronic pain is believed to be more complex. Since the pioneering work of Apkarian and colleagues (2004), who were the first to observe cortical alterations in chronic pain, more than 50 studies investigating patients suffering from headache, migraine, phantom pain, fibromyalgia, and trigeminal and low back pain documented structural brain alterations that had occurred in the different chronic pain states. A striking characteristic of these observed structural alterations is that the changes are not distributed randomly (Smallwood et al., 2013). Thus, structural alterations of the brain were found frequently in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortices, basal ganglia and hippocampus. However, the precise locations of the regions that are affected by structural reorganization do slightly differ among the various studies. This lack of consistency is difficult to explain, but may be due to the different neuropathological mechanisms of the processes that ultimately lead to pain chronification. But it is still not at all clear why some people develop chronic pain syndromes and why others do not. It has been hypothesized that patients with long lasting pain have lost the ability to habituate themselves to pain due to increased cortical activity and/or a shift of the cortical representation, which is interpreted as either an expansion or a shrinkage of the representational field of the affected part of the body (May, 2011). The ensuing heightened sensitivity for pain is a result of central plasticity in the nociceptive pathways of the brain. This central sensitization, a form of (maladaptive) central synaptic plasticity, is a main pathophysiological cause for the development of chronic pain. Once chronic pain is generated, the increased sensitivity typically persists for a long time, even though the underlying cause of the pain is disappeared. Therefore, chronic pain is maladaptive in the sense that the pain neither protects nor support healing and repair. The underlying central malfunctions have been considered as a disease on its own right (Costigan et al., 2009).

Climate targets and cost-effective climate stabilization pathways

Climate economics has developed two main tools to derive an economically adequate response to the climate problem. Cost benefit analysis weighs in any available information on mitigation costs and benefits and thereby derives an “optimal” global mean temperature. Quite the contrary, cost effectiveness analysis allows deriving costs of potential policy targets and the corresponding cost- minimizing investment paths. The article highlights pros and cons of both approaches and then focusses on the implications of a policy that strives at limiting global warming to 2 °C compared to pre-industrial values. The related mitigation costs and changes in the energy sector are summarized according to the IPCC report of 2014. The article then points to conceptual difficulties when internalizing uncertainty in these types of analyses and suggests pragmatic solutions. Key statements on mitigation economics remain valid under uncertainty when being given the adequate interpretation. Furthermore, the expected economic value of perfect climate information is found to be on the order of hundreds of billions of Euro per year if a 2°-policy were requested. Finally, the prospects of climate policy are sketched.

Where the problem is with Listeria monocytogenes ?

Foodborne diseases are considerate an important public health concern in many countries and each year, ingestion of foods contaminated with pathogens causes millions of episodes of diarrhea and other debilitating effects. As results, large number of hospitalizations and thousands of deaths occur, and billions of Euros and Dollars are spent every year with recalls and patients medical treatment. The emergence of some of these diseases is the result of complex interactions, such as the advances in the medical field, the expansion of the food industry, cold storage systems, as well as the change in eating habits. Since the consumption of contaminated food has been associated with the development of diseases, various studies were developed, especially in industrialized countries, in order to clarify the relationship between these pathogens and their persistence in the food processing environment, their main routes of contamination, how they can survive and multiply in foods, and their potential to cause disease. Among these microorganisms, Listeria monocytogenes is a concern for Public Health agencies. Several countries adopt a zero tolerance policy regarding the presence of L. monocytogenes in foods. However, the environment conditions of food processing industries were always partially located in secondary importance in the tracking presence of reservoirs for L. monocytogenes and other foodborne pathogens. In recent years, phenotypic and genotypic studies led to new insights into ecology, epidemiology, virulence potential and genetic evolution of various genuses of bacteria. L. monocytogenes is the causative agent of listeriosis, a severe foodborne disease that affects mainly the elderly, immunocompromised individuals, pregnant women and neonates. Listeriosis is characterised by gastroenteritis and septicaemia, leading to abortion and infections in the nervous system. Its mortality rate varies from 20 to 30%, this being common mainly when the pathogen is able to cause encephalitis and meningitis.

The electronic McPhail trap.

Certain insects affect cultivations in a detrimental way. A notable case is the olive fruit fly (Bactrocera oleae (Rossi)), that in Europe alone causes billions of euros in crop-loss/per year. Pests can be controlled with aerial and ground bait pesticide sprays, the efficiency of which depends on knowing the time and location of insect infestations as early as possible. The inspection of traps is currently carried out manually. Automatic monitoring traps can enhance efficient monitoring of flying pests by identifying and counting targeted pests as they enter the trap. This work deals with the hardware setup of an insect trap with an embedded optoelectronic sensor that automatically records insects as they fly in the trap. The sensor responsible for detecting the insect is an array of phototransistors receiving light from an infrared LED. The wing-beat recording is based on the interruption of the emitted light due to the partial occlusion from insect's wings as they fly in the trap. We show that the recordings are of high quality paving the way for automatic recognition and transmission of insect detections from the field to a smartphone. This work emphasizes the hardware implementation of the sensor and the detection/counting module giving all necessary implementation details needed to construct it.

Fiscal Policy in the EU Countries Most Affected by the Crisis: Greece, Ireland, Portugal, and Spain

The global financial crisis which began in 2007-2008 had a negative effect on the economy of the European Union, mainly in selected countries of the euro area: Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain. These peripheral euro zone countries come out of recession and the financial crisis largely due to the great financial support of the international institutions. Hundreds of billions of euro were spent to save these economies. At the same time, however, these countries were characterized by the lowest level of fiscal policy - measured by share of taxes in GDP - among the countries of the euro area. In this paper I will try to answer the following questions:1. What were the causes of the downturn in those countries, and what restructuring actions were taken;2. What changes were introduced in the tax system under the policy to repair public finances;3 .How have these changes affected the level and the structure of budget revenues from taxes, and to what extent has the crisis affected the change in the tax burden on consumption, labour, and capital.

How the Proposed Payments Legislation Will Restrain Competition Among Payment Card Schemes and Harm Consumers in the European Union

The European Commission’s proposed payments card legislation and the common position reached by the European Parliament in April 2014 will harm competition, innovation, and consumers if broadly endorsed by the European Council in the coming months. The interchange fee price caps will soften competition between MasterCard and Visa, the global four-party bankcard systems, and disadvantage domestic card systems. The limits on what, in effect, merchants pay for cards will shift billions of euros of costs to European consumers. The infirmity of the legislation is particularly apparent from its treatment of the three-party card schemes. These three-party schemes, which have small shares of payment cards in European countries, provide an important source of competition. The proposed legislation impairs the ability of these smaller three-party systems to compete by permitting merchants to surcharge cards from the smaller three-party systems but not the larger four-party ones, and by potentially prohibiting three-party systems from only entering into select partnerships. They may also face arbitrary price caps. These anti-competitive restrictions on small rivals, advanced in the name of competition, demonstrate the lack of serious analysis behind the proposed legislation. For European consumers the proposed payments legislation will lead to a hefty price tag, diminished choice, and depressed innovation.

Optimization of the worldwide supply chain at Continental Tires: A case study

Continental Tires faces difficult challenges in its production and supply chain, both upstream on the production or sourcing side, and downstream on the market or delivery side. Meeting these challenges involves a complex planning process. For example, long-term production and supply chain planning, carried out every year, supports mid-term and short-term planning or scheduling. Since long-term planning is performed on the worldwide level, it affects enormous amounts of money—billions of Euros both in terms of revenue and costs. The major goals of management and planning teams are: increase sales (e.g., through optimal assignment of production to demands), reduce costs (e.g., through production in the correct locations), and balance critical trade-offs (e.g., supply versus demand). IBM addressed these challenges with the implementation of a new long-term planning solution. The mathematical optimization approach, together with a mature software platform, solves the complex planning models. The models include aspects such as limited resources, worldwide supply chain network, multiple production locations, many products, detailed material lists, production complexity, capacity limitations, and multiple planning periods. The solution helps supply chain planners and managers create the best possible plans, and react to unforeseen events and market changes—not only rapidly but also optimally in terms of revenue and costs.

The Irish “Bail-Out” and Cuts to Social Protection Spending— the Case for a Right to a Subsistence Minimum in EU Law

As part of the 2010 EU/IMF economic adjustment program or “bail-out,” the Irish Government was required to undertake billions of euros in cuts to social protection spending over a three-year period. These have been implemented in subsequent budgets, resulting in increased levels of poverty and social exclusion. In light of these impacts on social rights in Ireland and other Member States, this article argues that the outcome of such Union legislative measures should be subject to some degree of rights-based scrutiny. It examines how, in theHartz IVdecision, the German Constitutional Court ruled that an attempt by the German Government to pass legislation that significantly cut a range of social welfare benefits breached the fundamental right to a subsistence minimum under the German Basic Law. Drawing inspiration from the approach of the German Constitutional Court, the article argues that the two elements of the German Basic Law which grounded that decision—the right to human dignity (Article 1(1)) and the social state principle (Article 20(1))—are both present within the Union Treaties as a result of changes occasioned by the Lisbon Treaty. The article advocates that the European Court of Justice should discover such a right within Union law and use it as a tool to analyze the impact of future cuts mandated by Union institutions on the economically disadvantaged.

Analysis of Security of SCADA System

SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) is an important concern about national security of our country and its security professionals. During those early days, a so called "security by obscurity" helped provide a palpable layer of cyber security and defense and a general feeling of immunity kinds of security problems that have started emerging networks to emerge in the mid 1980's, starting with the known Morris Worm. However, with the global standardization of TCP/IP protocol, and for the past 20 years, with the migration of autonomous systems SCADA interconnected power grids, security risks have increased exponentially. The security officials can no longer rely on the isolated nature of these systems to provide protection. Unfortunately, the security of SCADA systems has not kept pace with advances in computer technology. According to a 2003 report by Sandia National Laboratories, the SCADA security is generally five to ten years behind compared to typical systems of information technology. As threat, the contradictory range has expanded to include not only domestic but foreign terrorists, disgruntled internal, organized crime and even international competitors. This volatile convergence of global computer network and critical weaknesses in the operating system and application software system are well understood by opponents. Although a catastrophic failure is unlikely, these risks could be very problematic and cause disruptions in essential services and billions of euros in losses. This study includes a description of the state of the art of attacks against these systems and the reasons for the vulnerability of these systems. [1, 2, 3]

Health promotion in small- and medium-sized enterprises (SME) – conceptualization and evaluation of a primary prevention measure related to skin protection

The demographic changes in Germany are leading to a decrease in labour supply. At the same time, costs of sick leave amount to billions of Euro per year. Against this background, it is particularly important for SMEs with notoriously low staffing level and high demand of skilled workers, to promote the health of their employees. The “healthy at work” project aims at determining concrete support needs for SME and in particular for micro-enterprises (< 10 employees) in order to develop tailored prevention measures. We focus on occupational skin diseases (OSD).

Considerations on the role of environmental toxins in idiopathic Parkinson's disease pathophysiology.

Neurodegenerative diseases are characterized by a progressive dysfunction of the nervous system. Often associated with atrophy of the affected central or peripheral nervous structures, they include diseases such as Parkinson’s Disease (PD), Alzheimer’s Disease and other dementias, Genetic Brain Disorders, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS or Lou Gehrig’s Disease), Huntington’s Disease, Prion Diseases, and others. The prevalence of neurodegenerative diseases has increased over the last years. This has had a major impact both on patients and their families and has exponentially increased the medical bill by hundreds of billions of Euros. Therefore, understanding the role of environmental and genetic factors in the pathogenesis of PD is crucial to develop preventive strategies. While some authors believe that PD is mainly genetic and that the aging of the society is the principal cause for this increase, different studies suggest that PD may be due to an increased exposure to environmental toxins. In this article we review epidemiological, sociological and experimental studies to determine which hypothesis is more plausible. Our conclusion is that, at least in idiopathic PD (iPD), the exposure to toxic environmental substances could play an important role in its aetiology.

The IZEST Framework

The past decade has seen a significant development of high energy laser facilities across Europe, Asia and North America. With these investments exceeding billions of euros, there is strong incentive to extend the applicability of such Big-Science infrastructure and pursue new possibilities for laser-based high energy physics. Many of these international laboratories have joined the IZEST collaboration as partners and thus will provide the facilities to carry out future pertinent experimental investigations.

New European Approach to Combat VAT Fraud?

The Member States of the European Union (EU) are missing billions of Euros each year as a result of cross-border VAT fraud. After its introduction, the current VAT system appeared to contain flaws and proved to be vulnerable to fraud. Tackling VAT fraud since then has become serious business within the EU. Despite the fact that there seems to come no end to new measures to combat fraud, so far though those measures seem not to be very effective. In June 2013, the European ministers again agreed on some (temporary) measures to combat fraud. Do these new measures make sense? And will they lead to an effective European approach to VAT fraud?

The effects and side‐effects of the EU emissions trading scheme

As many countries, regions, cities, and states implement emissions trading policies to limit CO2 emissions, they turn to the European Union's experience with its emissions trading scheme since 2005. As a prominent example of a regional carbon pricing policy, it has attracted significant attention from scholars interested in evaluating the effectiveness and impacts of emissions trading. Among the key difficulties faced by researchers is isolating the effect of the EU ETS on industry operation, investment, and pricing decisions from other dominant factors such as the financial crisis, and establishing credible counterfactual scenarios against this backdrop. This article reviews the evidence, focusing on two intended effects (emissions abatement and investment in low‐carbon technologies) as well as two side‐effects (profits and price impacts). We find that the EU ETS cut CO2 emissions by 40–80 million t/year on average, or 2–4% of the total capped, while the evidence on innovation and investment impacts is inconclusive. There is strong empirical support for cost‐pass through in electricity (20–100%), in diesel and gasoline (&gt;50%), and some preliminary evidence of pricing power in other industrial sectors. Windfall profits have amounted to billions of Euros, and concentrated in a few large companies.This article is categorized under: Climate Economics &gt; Economics of Mitigation The Carbon Economy and Climate Mitigation &gt; Policies, Instruments, Lifestyles, Behavior Policy and Governance &gt; Multilevel and Transnational Climate Change Governance