Farmers' willingness to stabilize the land contract relationship facing the upcoming expiry of land contracts

On the verge of the expiry of land contracts, it is theoretically and practically important to explore the willingness and motivations of farmers to stabilize the land contract relationship, with regards to protecting their land contract rights, addressing potential contradictions during the land contract extension, and maintaining the stability of contracted land. Using China Land Economic Survey Data in 2020, this paper explores the impact of differences in areas per capita of household contracted land on farmers' willingness to stabilize land contract relationship. The findings show that most farmers support the stability of land contract relationship;the smaller areas per capita of contracted land are occupied by households than the average in the village, the weaker of the farmers' willingness to stabilize the land contract relationship. The difference between the areas per capita of contracted land ownership of a household and the average in the village has a greater impact on the willingness to stabilize land contract relationship for middle-and low-income farmers, while the development of land transfer market does not increased the willingness. Affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, the land plays a more important role of employment security, which reduces farmers' willingness to stabilize the land contract relationship. Furthermore, the promotion of socialized agricultural service has also mitigated the willingness of farmers o stabilize the land contract relationship.

Risky business: how Peru's wildlife markets are putting animals and people at risk

This publication presents Peru's illegal wildlife trade activity before and after Covid-19 pandemic which creates a perfect conditions for zoonotic emerging infectious diseases such as SARS-CoV-2 to emerge and spread among animals and people, thus recommendations to prevent this scenario are highlighted.

Assessing research on the COVID-19 pandemic and tourism published in English-language journals: 7research progress and academic contributions

This article aims to address the adequacies of the preceding review studies, which have largely failed to systematically analyze the academic contributions (notably, theoretical and methodological contributions) made by the extant studies pertinent to COVID-19 and tourism. Specifically, we have collected up to 245 articles indexed in top 10 academic journals in the field of tourism studies, including Annals of Tourism Research, Tourism Management, Journal of Travel Research, Journal of Sustainable Tourism and so forth. The keywords used for search involve "COVID-19" "COVID" "pandemic" "epidemic" "coronavirus" and "corona virus". The publication dates of the articles all fall somewhere between the start of the pandemic in January, 2020 and the 31st of August, 2021. Based upon the analysis framework proposed by authors, according to John Tribe's essay, and that formulated by Colquitt and Zapata-Phelan, this article evaluates the extent to which the sampled studies have made a contribution to the extant theories and methodology related to tourism.As the research outcomes manifest, first, the extant studies could be categorized according to their research themes. Specifically, most research shed light on tourist behaviours and the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on tourism development, particularly on the national and destinational levels. In contrast, very few has reflected upon the changes in tourism as a discipline, in general, and the relevant research approaches, in specific. Second, roughly half of the sample articles are quantitative studies, most of which are in favour of either questionnaires or statistics. In contrast, qualitative studies only take a lesser share. Third, with respect to academic contribution, it is clear that significant theoretical contribution is rarely made in the sampled studies. Most are found oriented to solving real-world problems. This imbalance would, perhaps, pose a threat to the growing tourism research in the long run. The reasons are manifold, but we focus upon triple key human and nonhuman factors, namely, academics, academic journals, and the rule and regulations by institutions (e.g., universities), which might have conspired to manipulate the process of (co-)producing tourism knowledge. Thus, to solve practical questions in the real time has become popular among academics, who might be increasingly reluctant to spend sufficient time and energy on theory building itself. Nevertheless, theory building, after all, is vitally significant, not least because it arguably paves a base stone for the future of tourism research. As such, we suggest that the current tourism knowledge production system needs to be reformed, encouraging more academics in future to focus on the theoretical significance of their own studies. This article has some limitations, as we only target the articles indexed in the top 10 journals in tourism. It means that our research findings might be less representative than expected. Moreover, it might be better to evaluate respectively the significance of the studies in different tourism subjects, whose fabrics might vary from one to another. In so doing, more nuanced insights might be mobilized in this aspect, providing most useful guidance to other scholars with utmost interest in the production of tourism knowledge.

Randomized regulation: the impact of minimum quality standards on health markets

We report results from the first randomization of a regulatory reform in the health sector. The reform established minimum quality standards for patient safety, an issue that has become increasingly salient following the Ebola and COVID-19 epidemics. In our experiment, all 1348 health facilities in three Kenyan counties were classified into 273 markets, and the markets were then randomly allocated to treatment and control groups. Government inspectors visited health facilities and, depending on the results of their inspection, recommended closure or a timeline for improvements. The intervention increased compliance with patient safety measures in both public and private facilities (more so in the latter) and reallocated patients from private to public facilities without increasing out-of-pocket payments or decreasing facility use. In treated markets, improvements were equally marked throughout the quality distribution, consistent with a simple model of vertical differentiation in oligopolies. Our paper thus establishes the use of experimental techniques to study regulatory reforms and, in doing so, shows that minimum standards can improve quality across the board without adversely affecting utilization.

Swine breeding in the villages of Valcea county, Oltenia (Romania) - tradition or necessity?

Food supply has been a constant source of concern for mankind. In the present context, with food security a priority of European and national policies, an analysis of pig farming in a representative NUTS2 administrative level of Romania that emphasizes the proportion of households raising at least one pig and the main factors influencing farmers to adopt or give up swine breeding could allow a much clearer understanding of this phenomenon that lies at the border between cultural tradition and socio-economic necessity. This study uses mixed methods that complement each another to help reveal this complex phenomenon in the analyzed territory. Cluster analysis shows the concentration of swine breeding and maps its spread in terms of both subsistence and larger farms, and qualitative interviews prove the motivation of farmers to continue in this occupation. As a primary result, the study visualizes the spatial distribution of pig farming in the rural environment of Valcea county, Romania, from a diachronic perspective in the post-communist period. It also reveals areas of differing concentrations of both very small-sized farms, which prioritize meeting their own food needs, and larger farms, which prioritize commercial production to supplement their revenue streams. Both categories, but particularly the latter, are of particular interest in a period in which the socio-economic environment after 1990 - marked by economic restructuring, unemployment, population migration, the economic crisis of 2008-2010, the pandemic of 2020-2021, and the most recent energy crisis - periodically highlights the importance of rural areas in ensuring food security and sufficiency at both the local and regional levels.

Application of Benford's law in agricultural production statistics

The importance of food supply throughout the world has once again shown its significance in the COVID-19 pandemic period. A continuous food supply is possible with correct agricultural programming. An effective agricultural product programming can only be possible by obtaining precise agricultural data. However, it is very difficult to gather accurate agricultural production statistics from all over the world and confirm their accuracy. In this study, the compatibility of the production statistics of six important agricultural products (wheat, rice, potato, onion, banana, apple) which had been collected from local sources, and had published as opensource by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, with Benford's law was examined for the first time. Data for the last two decades are used to ignore the impact of annual fluctuations. The compatibility of theoretically expected and observed data was tested by Chi-square (X2) and Mean Absolute Deviation (MAD) tests. Although inconsistencies were found in some data by examining the numbers in the first, second, and first two digits, in general, the MAD test results gave a mostly concordant result.

European legal framework of rural development policy

New social demands, opportunities in the green economy, opportunities opened up by digital technology, and the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic and the spread of remote work have again drawn attention to rural areas. In 2020, the European Commission conducted a public consultation on the long-term vision for rural areas. Support for rural areas is already provided under several EU policies, which contributes to their balanced, fair, green and innovative development. To support the implementation of the action plan, the common agricultural policy (CAP) and the cohesion policy will be of particular importance, which will be accompanied by a whole range of policies from other areas. The aim of this paper is an analysis of the EU legal framework of rural development policy, together with an analysis of the further development of the LEADER approach. Finally, a special focus is placed on the analysis of documents (long-term vision for the EU's rural areas) that deal with the future of rural development in the EU.

The right to science as a guidepost for fair access to COVID-19 vaccines: investigating the interpretive role of the united nations committee on economic, social and cultural rights. (Special Issue: COVID-19 vaccine equity and human rights.)

Facing the unmet need for new, affordable medicines for public health crises, how should states' duty to ensure that everyone shares in the benefits of science be understood in relation to pandemic vaccine supply, and how has the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights monitored the implementation of this right? In this paper, we examine the contours and content of state obligations with regard to pandemic vaccine supply under the right to science (article 15(1)(b) of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights), focusing on three aspects of state obligations: mobilizing public resources for developing and disseminating the benefits of scientific progress in areas of public health need;preventing unreasonably high medicines prices;and international cooperation, particularly in a globalized health emergency. The committee regularly assesses state parties' implementation of their obligations under the covenant, culminating in the issuing of concluding observations, which often serve as a basis for the next round of periodic reporting by states and can thereby direct future state action. Our analysis of the committee's concluding observations reveals that the committee has inconsistently applied its own guidance on the right to science regarding medicines and intellectual property in these monitoring exercises. These findings inform a rights-based response to medical innovation for health crises and advance the Sustainable Development Goal target on medicines research and development.

A needle in a haystack? Human rights framing at the World Trade Organization for access to COVID-19 vaccines. (Special Issue: COVID-19 vaccine equity and human rights.)

How and why is implicit and explicit human rights language used by World Trade Organization (WTO) negotiators in debates about intellectual property, know-how, and technology needed to manufacture COVID-19 vaccines, and how do these findings compare with negotiators' human rights framing in 2001? Sampling 26 WTO members and two groups of members, this study uses document analysis and six key informant interviews with WTO negotiators, a representative of the WTO Secretariat, and a nonstate actor. In WTO debates about COVID-19 medicines, negotiators scarcely used human rights frames (e.g., "human rights" or "right to health"). Supporters used both human rights frames and implicit language (e.g., "equity," "affordability," and "solidarity") to garner support for the TRIPS waiver proposal, while opponents and WTO members with undetermined positions on the waiver used only implicit language to advocate for alternative proposals. WTO negotiators use human rights frames to appeal to previously agreed language about state obligations;for coherence between their domestic values and policy on one hand, and their global policy positions on the other;and to catalyze public support for the waiver proposal beyond the WTO. This mixed-methods design yields a rich contextual understanding of the modern role of human rights language in trade negotiations relevant for public health.

Prospect of Vaccinia virus vector vaccine for wildlife

Against a pandemic of emerged infectious disease, COVID-19, new generation vaccines based on nucleic acids or recombinant viruses, which had not been used as vaccines in humans, have been inoculated and shown to be successful. They are, however, heat-labile and need a cold-chain including deep-freezers for storage and transportation. Vaccinia virus (VAC) vector vaccine (VACV) is a pioneer of new generation of vaccines constructed by using molecular biological technology. VACV, which has contributed to eradication of smallpox, has excellent characteristics of vaccinia virus such as a high heat-stability and long-lasting immunological effects. It is possible to distinguish the immunological responses of vaccination from those of natural infections. We started our developmental researches 35 years ago, using attenuated VAC strains established in Japan. In this article, we first describe the early researches of VACVs;development of two VACVs for Bovine leukemia virus and Rinderpest morbillivirus antigens and their protective immunity in large mammals, sheep and cows. Second, application of VACV is described;Rabies-VACV, which has already been licensed, used in the field in Europe and USA, and resulted in a prominent decrease of rabies. Then, current status of VACV research is described;non-replicating VACVs in mammalian cells have been developed as new-generation and ultimately-safe vaccines. We discuss the possibility of future application of VACV for wildlife.

The influences degree of various factors on the development of agricultural enterprises of Moldova Republic

Agriculture sector in the Republic of Moldova is the main and strategic brunch for the national economy. During the 2020-2022 years, we studied the factors influencing the development of enterprises in the horticulture sector in the Republic of Moldova. The research was carried out within the project: "Impact of macromedia and geographical factors on bankruptcy and business performance of economic entities in the agri-food sector in the Republic of Moldova", project code 20.80009.0807.26, according to contract with NARD. The study was conducted by interviewing approx. 1000 companies from agri-food (vegetal, animal, postharvest, processing, HORECA sectors etc.), inclusive approx. 800 enterprises from Horticulture brunch. As a result of the study it was established: economic factors / risks obtained an average rating of 3,94 points on the scale of 5 pt.;technical and technological factors / risks obtained an average rating of 4.1 points on the scale of 5 pt.;ecological factors / risks obtained an average rating of 4,06 points on the scale of 5 pt.;legislative-legal factors / risks obtained an average rating of 4,05 points on the scale of 5 pt.;information factors / risks obtained an average rating of 4,02 points on the scale of 5 pt.;moral factors / risks obtained an average rating of 4.04 points on the scale of 5 pt., qualification of staff factor / risk obtained an average rating of 4.08 points on the scale of 5 pt. and other factors, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine, etc.

Fumbling out the effective pathways to apply the wildlife and forest analytic toolkit in the Mekong region: looking at data and analysis perspectives

The Wildlife and Forest Analytic Toolkit, introduced by the International Consortium on Combating Wildlife Crime (ICCWC), is designed to increase the effectiveness of measures combating wildlife and forest crimes (WAFCs). Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) countries have applied this toolkit as one of their priority actions after recognizing concerns about the biodiversity system and conservational zone through several illegal wildlife trade (IWT) activities. Although the toolkit has realized its fundamental objectives to readjust legal frameworks, enhance enforcement involvement, and improve their judicial and prosecutorial operations, the last components of data and analysis have not yet been implemented. This leads to slow updates of both trends and patterns concerning WAFCs that raise questions about the real levels of exploitation in the region. Using gray literature with published materials, combined with the IWT's database in the CITES system, this study examines why the data and analysis component of the Toolkit created obstacles in the GMS countries. Findings point to there being at least four main challenges to implementing data and analysis as the toolkit has recommended in the region: (1) availability and reliability of data;(2) data collection;(3) data resources (internal vs. external level);and (4) analytic research and its related monitors. Some practical recommendations call for further discussions. Meanwhile, updated information and specific data relating to zoonotic disease transmission are timely, considering the coronavirus pandemic.

The impact of COVID-19 on small and micro-enterprises in South Africa

Small and micro-enterprises cannot be wished away. This became more clear in the fight for survival during the COVID-19 pandemic. The impact of this pandemic on small and micro-enterprises has challenged both government and the private sector to rethink their approaches to support these enterprises. The study was aimed at examining the impact of COVID-19 on small and micro-enterprises in South Africa. A desk research design was used to collect the data. The discussion included the government's response to address the pandemic's impact on small and micro-enterprises. The plight of small business practitioners, as a consequence of the lockdown, are also reported on in the findings of the study. Recommendations of the study are to revisit the regulatory environment that should enable small businesses to thrive, strengthen skills development, and speed up the transfer of knowledge of the digital economy to small and micro-enterprise practitioners.

Improving access to COVID-19 vaccines: an analysis of TRIPS waiver discourse among WTO members, civil society organizations, and pharmaceutical industry stakeholders. (Special Issue: COVID-19 vaccine equity and human rights.)

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, international access to COVID-19 vaccines and other health technologies has remained highly asymmetric. This inequity has had a particularly deleterious impact on low- and middle-income countries, engaging concerns about the human rights to health and to the equal enjoyment of the benefits of scientific progress enshrined under articles 12 and 15 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. In response, the relationship between intellectual property rights and public health has reemerged as a subject of global interest. In October 2020, a wholesale waiver of the copyright, patent, industrial design, and undisclosed information sections of the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPS Agreement) was proposed by India and South Africa as a legal mechanism to increase access to affordable COVID-19 medical products. Here, we identify and evaluate the TRIPS waiver positions of World Trade Organization (WTO) members and other key stakeholders throughout the waiver's 20-month period of negotiation at the WTO. In doing so, we find that most stakeholders declined to explicitly contextualize the TRIPS waiver within the human right to health and that historical stakeholder divisions on the relationship between intellectual property and access to medicines appear largely unchanged since the early 2000s HIV/AIDS crisis. Given the WTO's consensus-based decision-making process, this illuminates key challenges faced by policy makers seeking to leverage the international trading system to improve equitable access to health technologies.

An inquiry into state agreement and practice on the international law status of the human right to medicines. (Special Issue: COVID-19 vaccine equity and human rights.)

Global disparities in access to COVID-19 vaccines have brought back into focus questions about whether the right to medicines has assumed any level of binding legality within international law. In this paper, we attempt to answer this question by considering if there is evidence of subsequent state agreement and practice to read the right to medicines into the rights to health and science protected in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. We adopt the interpretive framework in the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties and the International Law Commission's 2018 report to analyze the work of the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights relevant to medicines, and its relationship to the content and voting in successive resolutions of the United Nations General Assembly. We find that these resolutions provide some evidence of state agreement that the rights to health and science, as enshrined in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, include access to affordable medicines. Yet the legal implications of this right remain highly contested, particularly when it comes to trade-related intellectual property rights. The negotiation of a pandemic treaty offers possibilities for codifying this right beyond these discursive instances, while political opposition remains likely to continue to undercut this emerging legal norm.

Detention in pandemic

During the COVID-19 pandemic, detained persons suffered an increasing number of human rights violations. A World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT) report highlighted the abusive practices and legal ways to fight them. People in detention are generally at high risk of infectious diseases. Jails are overcrowded everywhere, hygiene is generally poor, and quarantine is often impossible. Persons with pre-existing medical conditions or pregnancies are especially vulnerable. It thus was no surprise that COVID-19 spread fast in detention facilities. Because of rules meant to contain the disease, infected persons often struggled to get in touch with lawyers and insisted on judicial review. Nonetheless, lawyers did find ways to assist people in jails and improve protection against COVID-19. This article highlights the OMCT report that assessed pandemic-related human rights issues, which were prevalent in many countries, focusing on Asia, Africa, and Latin America. It also discusses the legal and advocacy strategies and promising practices to protect people from COVID-19 in detention effectively, challenge ongoing and pandemic-related human rights violations occurring in detention settings, and seek accountability for abusive law enforcement measures.

The impact of temporary COVID-19 legislative moves on the ability of food enterprises to pivot in Arizona. (Special Issue: The impact of the covid-19 pandemic and the foodservice industries.)

The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted shortfalls in the U.S. food system, exposing how regulatory processes shape access to the market. This paper builds on ongoing research following the impact of shut-down orders on alcohol retail via small restaurants and breweries in Arizona and examines the impacts of regulatory shifts on the ability of these food enterprises to pivot. We highlight how the concept of the pivot creates expectations of individual businesses ability to be resilient to shocks. Responses within Arizona to COVID-19 induced systemic failures, demonstrate that bottom-up pivots from small businesses can creatively and quickly meet local community needs. However, those efforts were stymied by state government and top-down approaches that proved incapable of pivoting to meet local needs. Through this case study, we highlight the need and opportunity for further examination of the interplay between regulatory agencies and small businesses in times of crisis. We invite others into the work of creating guidelines for pivoting that facilitate bottom-up and top-down collaboration while ensuring the voice and agency of different players.

Current status of management of medical waste in medical institutions of Chongqing

OBJECTIVE: To understand the status of generation and management of medical waste in medical institutions of Chongqing. METHODS: By means of onsite investigation and questionnaire survey, the generation categories and current status of management of medical waste in 50 medical institutions were investigated from Oct 2021 to Apr 2022 the existing limitations and prominent problems in the whole-process management of medical waste were identified so as to enable the safe disposal of medical waste based on laws and regulations. RESULTS: The average pollutants generation coefficient of medical waste was 0.22-0.72 kg/bed.day among all the grades of hospitals, the average pollutant generation coefficient of medical waste was 0.28-2.30 kg/10 people among grass-root medical institutions. The management of medical waste was more standardized in tertiary hospitals. There were a variety of problems in management of medical waste in clinics and village clinics, such as nonstandard classification of medical waste, unreasonable site selection for temporary storage of medical waste, unsatisfactory transportation means and untimely collection and transportation of medical waste. The problems of chemical, pharmaceutical and pathological medical waste were more prominent. The costs of disposal of medical waste were not strictly implemented in accordance with standards. The packaging, storage, loading, handover and disinfection of COVID-19 medical waste have been carried out in accordance with regulations. CONCLUSION: It is necessary to further standardize the management of medical waste, explore and formulate the collection and transportation modes of medical waste in primary medical institutions, intensify the supervision of classification, collection, storage, transportation and disposal of medical waste, optimize and upgrade the medical waste management information system, and encourage subsidies for the disposal of medical waste in Chongqing medical waste disposal enterprises during the COVID-19 period.

COVID-19 and international travel restrictions: the geopolitics of health and tourism

In an effort to contain the advancement of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, many states have introduced unprecedented peacetime measures ranging from border closures and travel bans to the suspension of visa exemptions, as well as internal mobility restrictions, including full lockdowns and quarantine for incoming passengers. Nevertheless, coercive measures such as sanctions continue to be applied during the COVID-19 outbreak and have largely undermined sanctioned countries' capacity to respond to the pandemic. The latter has prompted renewed discussion of the humanitarian costs of this frequently deployed foreign policy tool against the civilian populations in the target countries. The inconsistent application of border controls and travel restrictions by states also raise questions as to the politics of pandemics and how they fulfill the International Health Regulations. Framed from a geopolitical perspective, this study aims to discuss the power of sanctions regime in relation to state responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper also discusses the degree of selectivity of border restrictions by major global tourism destinations. While the COVID-19 pandemic is first and foremost a health crisis, its implications are economically and geo-politically far-reaching with corresponding implications for the framing of travel and tourism within humanitarian and political contexts.

Special Issue: The impact of the covid-19 pandemic and the foodservice industries. (Special Issue: The impact of the covid-19 pandemic and the foodservice industries.)

This special issue contains 12 papers dealing with the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the foodservice industries and the response of restaurateurs to the crisis. Specific topics covered include, among others: online food delivery app adoption behaviour during the pandemic;restaurant crowdfunding during the pandemic;the impact of temporary COVID-19 legislative moves on the ability of food enterprises to pivot;restaurant patronage during the pandemic;COVID-19 policies and recommendations for foodservice reopening;managerial decision-making during the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on the sustainability initiatives of foodservice businesses;and consumer risk perception of online food delivery during the pandemic.