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Crash fault tolerance describes the capability of a distributed system to maintain its proper function despite the occurrence of crashes or failures in one or more of its components. When a distributed system possesses crash fault tolerance, it can be further fortified to achieve Byzantine fault tolerance. Byzantine fault tolerance empowers a distributed system to establish consensus among participants, even when faced with faulty or malicious behavior. Consensus plays a critical role in various tasks, including determining the accurate value of a shared variable, electing a leader, or validating the integrity of a business transaction. Compared to crash fault tolerance, Byzantine fault tolerance instills greater trust because it enables consensus even in the presence of malicious entities. This paper focuses on the performance evaluation of two blockchain solutions that exhibit Byzantine fault tolerance, in contrast to a blockchain solution that demonstrates crash fault tolerance. Specifically, the paper investigates the additional performance requirements associated with the enhanced trust resulting from Byzantine fault tolerance in e-business trading on both national and transnational scales. We analyze the resources needed to operate a business-to-business/business-to-government (B2B/B2G) compliance framework in two distinct geographic scenarios. The first examines the national scale, using Denmark as an example, which is the eleventh largest European country by GDP. The second scenario considers the scale of the European Union (EU) with its 27 member states (plus the United Kingdom). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Featured Application: The proposed method can be applied to a specific building renovation project for evaluating and selecting energy efficiency and renewable energy production measures, with the aim of reaching the NZEB standard. Reaching environmental targets set by the European Union (EU) requires a constant renovation of the existing building stock to nearly Zero Energy Buildings (NZEB) in a cost-optimal manner. Studies show that the renovation rate of the existing building stock is more than two times less than what is necessary to reach the targets. Furthermore, the majority of performed renovations across the EU reach just a small amount of energy savings, whereas NZEB renovations are rarely achieved. This paper proposes a methodology for the evaluation of renovation measures, aiming to provide decision support related to the selection of what to renovate and to what extent. The proposed method is rooted in the well-established cost-optimal methodology, yet it suggests a pre-step to package evaluation. This is done by means of a simplified cost-effective parameter (CEP), linking cost, lifetime, and energy savings. The methodology is demonstrated using a case study building in Denmark. The results show that the CEP provides good grounds for the compilation of single actions to packages. Further developments could focus on the sensitivity of the model inputs and integration of additional evaluation parameters to cost, such as environmental, architectural, comfort, risk, etc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Renewable energy (RE) is one of the most popular public policy orientations worldwide. Compared to some other countries and continents, Europe has gained an early awareness of energy and environmental problems in general. At the theoretical level, free-market environmentalism indicates that based on the principle of private property rights, with fewer state interventionist and regulation policies, entrepreneurs, as the driving force of the market economy, can provide better services to meet the necessity of offering RE to protect the environment more effectively. Previous studies have revealed that Germany, Denmark, and the United Kingdom have made some progress in using the market to develop RE. However, this research did not analyze the three countries' RE conditions from the perspective of free-market environmentalism. Based on our review of the principles of free-market environmentalism, this paper originally provides an empirical study of how Germany, Denmark, and the United Kingdom have partly conducted free-market-oriented policies to successfully achieve their policy goal of RE since the 1990s on a practical level. In particular, compared with Germany and Denmark, the UK has maintained a relatively low energy tax rate and opted for more pro-market measures since the Hayekian-Thatcherism free-market reform of 1979. The paper also discovers that Fredrich A. Hayek's theories have strongly impacted its energy liberalization reform agenda since then. Low taxes on the energy industry and electricity have alleviated the burden on the electricity enterprises and consumers in the UK. Moreover, the empirical results above show that the energy enterprises play essential roles in providing better and more affordable RE for household and industrial users in the three sampled countries. Based on the above results, the paper also warns that state intervention policies such as taxation, state subsidies, and industrial access restrictions can impede these three countries' RE targets. Additionally, our research provides reform agendas and policy suggestions to policymakers on the importance of implementing free-market environmentalism to provide more efficient RE in the post-COVID-19 era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simple Summary: Two recent transmission chains of PRRSV-2-associated cases were documented in this study using field epidemiological and molecular genetic tools. The investigation highlighted the risks associated with the free movement of livestock in the European Union. To minimize this risk of re-infection of PRRS-free herds with PRRSV through animal imports, it is recommended that pigs are transported directly from the exporting holdings without the involvement of transit stations. Alternatively, the transit stations could be converted so that pigs in transit avoid contact with each other, thus preventing exposure to PRRSV infection. This study reports on the molecular epidemiology of Ingelvac-PRRS-MLV-associated cases in Hungary for the period 2020–2021. Field epidemiology investigations led the experts to conclude that imported pigs, which were shipped through transit stations in Denmark, introduced the vaccine virus. The movement of fatteners and the neglect of disease control measures contributed to the spread of the virus to PRRS-free pig holdings in the vicinity. Deep sequencing was performed to genetically characterize the genes coding for the virion antigens (i.e., ORF2 through ORF7). The study isolates exhibited a range of 0.1 to 1.8% nucleotide sequence divergence from the Ingelvac PRRS MLV and identified numerous polymorphic sites (up to 57 sites) along the amplified 3.2 kilo base pair genomic region. Our findings confirm that some PRRSV-2 vaccine strains can accumulate very high number of point mutations within a short period in immunologically naive pig herds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Achieving a sustainable global food chain is becoming particularly acute as modern Western diets are adopted in a growing number of countries and cultures around the world. Understanding the consequences that this shift has on health and sustainability is important. This exploratory study is the first to apply the life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology to analyze the sustainability implication of ongoing dietary shifts in Greenland, where locally hunted seal meat is increasingly being replaced by imported livestock products, primarily pig and poultry produced in Denmark. This dietary shift, indirectly driven by international trade bans such as the EU seal product ban, has sustainability implications. To inform and support more comprehensive analyses and policy discussions, this paper explores the sustainability of these parallel Greenlandic food supply chains. A quantitative comparison of the greenhouse gas emissions of Greenlandic hunted seal and Danish pig and poultry is complemented by a qualitative discussion of nutrition, cultural food preferences, animal welfare, and the use of land, pesticides and antibiotics. Although the variability in the life cycle inventory data collected from Greenlandic hunters was considerable, greenhouse gas emissions of seal meat were consistently lower than those of imported livestock products. Emissions of the latter are dominated by biogenic emissions from feed production and manure management, while these are absent for seal meat, whose emissions instead are dominated by fossil fuel use. The implications of these results for sustainable national food policies in a modern global context as well as important areas for additional research are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The most significant source of nitrate pollution in the European Union (EU) is attributed to agricultural activities, which threaten drinking water, marine, and freshwater resources. The Nitrates Directive is a key feature of the Water Framework Directive (WFD), which seeks to reduce nitrate pollution from agricultural sources. Yet, weak compliance by Member States (MS) diminishes the legitimacy of the EU environmental acquis and undermines efforts to achieve environmental objectives. This study examines the nitrate management discourse in Poland to identify influencing factors that impact governance capacity and overall compliance performance. The empirical investigation is based on nine stakeholder interviews, three written correspondences, and a literature review that collectively comprise an evaluation study. A comparison in governance approaches between Poland and Denmark provides a calibration in assessing performance respective to another MS. The findings categorize both Poland and Denmark as "laggard" in WFD compliance. This case contributes new insights in identifying 6 enabling and 13 constraining factors affecting the ability of MS to fulfill their implementation duties. The findings demonstrate that divergent stakeholder views based on historical and cultural norms require a differentiated approach tailored to domestic conditions for effective fulfillment of the objectives set forth in EU environmental legislation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]