scholarly journals Inconsistencies in the risk classification of alien species and implications for risk assessment in the European Union

Ecosphere ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (6) ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Matthews ◽  
G. Velde ◽  
F. P. L. Collas ◽  
L. de Hoop ◽  
K. R. Koopman ◽  
...  
Resources ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (5) ◽  
pp. 49
Author(s):  
Ewa Mazur-Wierzbicka

There are many studies which implement and assess existing measurement manners and document the progress of entities towards the circular economy (CE) at various levels, or present or propose new possibilities of measurement. The majority of them refer to the micro level. The aim of this paper is to conduct a multidimensional comparative analysis of the implementation of circular economy by EU countries. After an in-depth critical analysis of the literature, CE indicators which were proposed by the European Commission were adopted as a basis. Owing to the research population-Member States of the European Union (EU-28), focusing on the said indicators was declared reasonable in all aspects. The classification of EU countries according to the level of their advancement in the concept of CE was adopted as a main research task. In order to do so, a relevant index of development of circular economy was created (IDCE). This will allow us, inter alia, to trace changes in the spatial differentiation of advancement of the EU countries in implementing CE over the years, to identify CE implementation leaders as well as countries particularly delayed in this regard. The comparative analysis was conducted by means of statistical methods. On the basis of the analyses, it was concluded that among all EU countries, those of the old EU are the most advanced in terms of CE. The analysis confirmed significant rising trends for IDCE only in the case of Belgium and The Netherlands.


2013 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Andreas Hadjigeorgiou ◽  
Elpidoforos S. Soteriades ◽  
Anastasios Philalithis ◽  
Anna Psaroulaki ◽  
Yiannis Tselentis ◽  
...  

This paper is a comparative survey of the National Food Safety Systems (NFSS) of the European Union (EU) Member-States (MS) and the Central EU level. The main organizational structures of the NFSS, their legal frameworks, their responsibilities, their experiences, and challenges relating to food safety are discussed. Growing concerns about food safety have led the EU itself, its MS and non-EU countries, which are EU trade-partners, to review and modify their food safety systems. Our study suggests that the EU and 22 out of 27 Member States (MS) have reorganized their NFSS by establishing a single food safety authority or a similar organization on the national or central level. In addition, the study analyzes different approaches towards the establishment of such agencies. Areas where marked differences in approaches were seen included the division of responsibilities for risk assessment (RA), risk management (RM), and risk communication (RC). We found that in 12 Member States, all three areas of activity (RA, RM, and RC) are kept together, whereas in 10 Member States, risk management is functionally or institutionally separate from risk assessment and risk communication. No single ideal model for others to follow for the organization of a food safety authority was observed; however, revised NFSS, either in EU member states or at the EU central level, may be more effective from the previous arrangements, because they provide central supervision, give priority to food control programs, and maintain comprehensive risk analysis as part of their activities.


Author(s):  
Ana Maria Mihaela Iordache ◽  
Codruța Cornelia Dura ◽  
Cristina Coculescu ◽  
Claudia Isac ◽  
Ana Preda

Our study addresses the issue of telework adoption by countries in the European Union and draws up a few feasible scenarios aimed at improving telework’s degree of adaptability in Romania. We employed the dataset from the 2020 Eurofound survey on Living, Working and COVID-19 (Round 2) in order to extract ten relevant determinants of teleworking on the basis of 24,123 valid answers provided by respondents aged 18 and over: the availability of work equipment; the degree of satisfaction with the experience of working from home; the risks related to potential contamination with SARS-CoV-2 virus; the employees’ openness to adhering to working-from-home patterns; the possibility of maintaining work–life balance objectives while teleworking; the level of satisfaction on the amount and the quality of work submitted, etc. Our methodology entailed the employment of SAS Enterprise Guide software to perform a cluster analysis resulting in a preliminary classification of the EU countries with respect to the degree that they have been able to adapt to telework. Further on, in order to refine this taxonomy, a multilayer perceptron neural network with ten input variables in the initial layer, six neurons in the intermediate layer, and three neurons in the final layer was successfully trained. The results of our research demonstrate the existence of significant disparities in terms of telework adaptability, such as: low to moderate levels of adaptability (detected in countries such as Greece, Croatia, Portugal, Spain, Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, Italy); fair levels of adaptability (encountered in France, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovenia, or Romania); and high levels of adaptability (exhibited by intensely digitalized economies such Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, Belgium, etc.).


Author(s):  
Pavel Zemánek ◽  
Patrik Burg

In relation to entrance of Czech Republic to the European union and with wo-revolving harmonization of our law order with EU direction, happen to classification of composting meaning. In presents act there are two circle of problems. First is utilization of rising waste, the second is perfection of soil fertility and raising of enviroment quality.The contribution deal with problems of modelling solution of place to biowaste composting and it´s optimum placing, applied on concrete conditions of the Lednice-Valtice Area. The basis is placement of dominant producer of biowaste, their kind, quantity and season in relation to prescription of compost fill. The proposal of compost technology enable determine size of place and help solve its placing.Circumscribed method is able to find practical exploitation at creation of place suggestion in real condition of existent areas.


2020 ◽  
Vol 73 (7) ◽  
pp. 1459-1464
Author(s):  
Tatyana O. Yastrub ◽  
Sergii T. Omelchuk ◽  
Andrii M. Yastrub

The aim: The toxicological-hygienic assessment of dermal absorption of diquat in terms of potential risk of its bioavailability in professional use. Materials and methods: The object of the study was cutaneous exposure of diquat, determined in toxicological experiments of different duration (data of scientific literature) and at the stage of state testing of pesticide preparations based on diquat dibromide (data of a full-scale hygiene experiment, prognostic model of risk assessment), the technical concentrate of diquat dibromide (active substance content not less than 377 g / kg) contains relevant supplements, the content of which is regulated by the Food and Agriculture Organization. Results and conclusions: Due to the high risk of the diquat adverse effects affecting the personnel, general public and environment, the European Union has introduced administrative decisions to forbid plant protection products containing the diquat. Fulfillment of the conditions of the Association Agreement between Ukraine and the European Union indicates the need to develop common regulations and risk assessment methods aimed at ensuring high level of protection of human health and the environment.


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