. Defazio,郭俊Dept. of N

Dr.VaLidity of Family History Data on Primary Adult-Onset DystoniaMartino D./Aniello M.S./Masi G. et al. [Dr. G. Defazio,Dept. of Neurol. and Psychiat. Sci., University of Bari,Piazza Giulio Cesare 11, 1-70124 Bari, Italy]Background: To our knowledge, no study has assessed thevalidity of family hist ory data provided     

Climate adaptation imperatives: global sustainability trends and eco-efficiency metrics in four major crops – canola,cotton, maize,and soybeans

Supplying our world's growing nutrition needs in more sustainable ways has become an urgent global imperative, given the constraints of finite resources and the challenges of accelerating climate change. We present national-level eco-efficiency metrics in several representative production countries during the most recent decade (2000–2010) for four important crops: canola, cotton, maize, and soybeans. The metrics address greenhouse gas emissions and the utilization of land, water, and energy – all calculated per unit of production. We group countries based on their level of agricultural intensification and find that high-intensification countries are achieving the highest and yet still increasing levels of eco-efficiency, with these decadal gains: canola (26%), cotton (23%), maize (17%), and soybeans (18%). By stark contrast, low-intensification countries had no change in eco-efficiency during this same decade. Overall, our results suggest large opportunities for additional improvements in the developing world, and that cumulative resource savings through intensification have been significant. For instance, in the case of irrigated maize, if the high- and medium-intensification production countries had only achieved the same irrigation water-use efficiency as in the low-intensification countries, approximately 4 quadrillion (4×10¹⁵) more litres of irrigation water would have been consumed during the period 2000–2010.     

How sensitive is U.S. agricultural trade to the bilateral exchange rate? Evidence from bulk,intermediate, and consumer‐oriented products

This article examines the dynamic effects of changes in bilateral exchange rates on changes in bilateral trade of bulk, intermediate, and consumer‐oriented agricultural products between the United States and its 10 major trading partners. We find that, for consumer‐oriented products, U.S. exports are highly sensitive to bilateral exchange rates in both the short and long run, while U.S. imports are mostly responsive only in the short run. For bulk products, on the other hand, U.S. exports and imports are relatively insensitive to exchange rate changes in both the short and long run. For intermediate products, exports and imports are responsive to exchange rate changes in the short run, but not in the long run. It is also found that income of the United States and its trading partners has a significant effect on U.S. exports and imports of the three types of agricultural products in both the short and long run.     

Industrial upgrading and development in Lesotho’s apparel industry: global value chains,foreign direct investment,and market diversification

Many low-income countries are integrated into apparel global value chains through foreign direct investment (FDI), including Lesotho, which has become the largest Sub-Saharan African apparel exporter to the US under the African Growth and Opportunity Act. More recently, South Africa has emerged as a new apparel export market in Lesotho. The two markets are supplied by different types of FDI firms – affiliates of Taiwanese transnational producers and South African manufacturers – which are part of different value chain variants. The paper assesses the implications for industrial upgrading and development of integration into these two value chain variants in Lesotho, drawing on firm-level and institutional interviews. We show that their different characteristics in terms of investors’ motivation, governance structure, end markets, firm set up and most importantly and causally, ownership and embeddedness have crucial impacts on functional, product and process upgrading, local linkages, and skill development.