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This study aims to explore the impacts of long-term trends in the closure of abattoir businesses in the UK on the robustness of the network of abattoirs which provides private kill services.

This proof-of-concept study uses responses from a farmer and an abattoir survey in a spatial analysis to help visualise the private kill network. Monte Carlo simulation is used to estimate the impacts of possible further closures of private kill abattoirs on the robustness of the private kill network.

In August 2020, 18% of the area of the UK was more than 45 km from a private kill abattoir, 21% was serviced by one, 14% by two and 47% by three or more abattoirs. After randomly removing 9 and 18% of private kill abattoirs, to reflect the current trend in the closure of private kill abattoirs, the area of the UK more than 45 km from a private kill service and the areas with one and two providers increased, whilst the area with three or more providers decreased for each scenario. This approach, therefore, can be used to quantify the network's resilience to further closures.

The additional information that would be needed to allow this approach to help policymakers identify strategically valuable abattoir businesses is discussed.

No other national or international study has attempted to quantify the robustness of the network of private kill abattoirs.

When the UK's Milk Marketing Boards (MMB) were disbanded in 1994 the formal link between the farm gate milk price with the milk's end‐use was broken. The purpose of this paper is to examine whether milk prices fell to their “marginal value in the least remunerative use” or whether “the market had put in place some other mechanism for raising the price upwards”.

An on‐line survey of UK milk producers, open to all, conducted in the summer of 2008, explored farmers' knowledge of their milk contract, the use of their milk, and the reasons for choosing their current milk buyer.

A liquid milk price premium (of 1.06ppl.) was earned by farmers who: sold on liquid milk contracts to processors, rather than to one of the three large farmer‐owned co‐operatives; and who recently switched milk buyer. Switching incurred high transaction costs, additional uncertainty, and went against commitments to the co‐operative ideal.

Publication of differences between a buyer's milk price and a benchmark related to how the milk is processed, (a D‐score), cumulative difference values (D_C), 12 and 24 monthly moving average difference measures (D_MA12 and D_MA24 respectively) alongside milk buyers' milk price would improved supply chain transparency, and lower farmers' switching costs. It would also help farmers to treat their milk's final markets, rather than their milk buyer, as their customers.

The paper puts forward practical suggestions that have never been discussed by the UK supply chain, even though they would have direct and indirect benefits to the actors involved.

In 1994, after 61 years, the UK’s Milk Marketing Boards were disbanded. One consequence, an increase in the variation of milk price paid to producers, is analysed here. Initially most milk producers joined the farmer‐owned co‐operative Milk Marque, accepting lower milk prices (estimated here at about 1.5 ppl in the 1997 milk quota year). A second analysis shows that these farmers accepted this lower milk price because of Milk Marque’s perceived financial security, and to support the principle of co‐operative marketing which they believed would protect milk prices in the long run. Milk Marque was dismantled in 2000 principally because of its planned enlargement of vertically integrated processing capacity. This has left dairy farmers at another crossroads; their choices now will shape the development of the marketing of milk in England and Wales for the foreseeable future. These options are discussed.

The recent background to the UK market for organic milk is reviewed to establish the background to the Organic Dairy Production: A Sustainable Future for Organic Dairying conference held in March 2002. The presentations given at that conference are critically reviewed. Several of arguably the most important determinants of the sustainable future of organic dairying did not find their full expression at that conference. Issues largely or wholly excluded include: a priori evidence for expecting a higher level of co‐operation among organic than conventional farmers; the distinction between “competitive pricing” and “sustainable pricing”; import penetration and substitution, and post‐conversion subsidies; utilising innovative information technologies to “tell the organic story”; policing organic standards and traceability; and the ownership of the “organic label” and the number of organic standard bodies. The importance of these issues is shown by reference to the current market situation for organic milk in the UK. There is a need for considerable developments in the marketing of organic milk. More distance must be placed between associations that campaign for market growth and an organisation that will need to be appointed to take responsibility for providing reliable and impartial market‐based information.

Jeremy Bentham (1748 - 1832) was an eccentric 18th Century English genius of many interests. He was the leader of a group of social and political reformers known as the philosophical radicals that included John Stuart Mill. While Bentham never held a government position, his writings influenced many who did. Bentham’s ideas and works touch on a variety of disciplines including: administrative management, criminal justice, economics, law, organizational theory and decision making, philosophy, political science, public administration, public policy, social welfare, and sociology. Bentham was a wordsmith adding such terms to the popular lexicon as: "minimize," "maximize," and "rational." He was also the first person to use the term "international." This article looks at Jeremy Bentham’s contributions in three areas: organizational theory and decision-making, public policy analysis, and administrative management. The article argues that although his ideas and works have been dismissed as passé in the post 1960s era of selective social consciousness and heightened political correctness, Bentham has much to say that is still important and relevant today

The purpose of this study is to investigate contemporary pre-service English teacher education in the UK and the transition, for one individual, from pre-service into early-career English teacher. The investigation explores how standards-based education reforms are narrowing the scope of professional practice in UK schools, especially in regard to the creativity of teachers and students.

The authors use critical autobiography (Haug, 1992; Miller, 1995; Rosen, 1998) and dialogic storytelling strategies (Doecke and Parr, 2009; Parr et al., 2015), that are grounded in Bakhtinian (1981) theories of language, education and creativity.

The essay critically illustrates how standards-based reforms are narrowing the professional practice of English teachers in secondary classrooms in England and compares this with one account of pre-service teacher education in which prospective teachers are taught to appreciate the situated nature of teaching and learning and the power of creative practices to engage students in their learning and development.

The critical and creative use of dialogic storytelling strategies allows the authors to present rigorously contextualised accounts of English teacher education and English teaching in England. The reflexive accounts complement the increasing numbers of studies that are showing the injurious effects of standards-based education reforms on English teaching and learning in schools.

The purpose of this study is analysis on fluid flow characteristics inside a modified designed spiral bubble column photo-bioreactor. Available fluid dynamic simulation of bubble column reactor (BCR) (which is well-known conventional photobioreactor) had shown significance contribution over the past two decades, where the fluid dynamics of the culture medium and mixing will influence the average irradiance and the light regimen to which the cells are exposed. This enhances the growth. To develop this, and also to cut down the cost parameter involving the production of biodiesel from algae, the growth rate of algae has to be enhanced.

Some design modification through a staggered spiral-path inside the bubble column design had been proposed and comparative simulation of the modified design has been reported. Three-dimensional simulations of gas–liquid flow both in the BCR and spiral path column reactor have been carried out using the Euler–Euler approach. Various graphs are plotted, and from comparing, it has been seen that the proposed reactor will enhance better mixing rate, which could help the growth rate in microalgae in the present proposed model. In this paper, an earnest attempt had made to carry out computational simulation of conventional BCR and designed reactor used for cultivation of microalgae which had analyzed using commercial code ANSYS 14.

From this work, it was observed that the average turbulence kinetic energy fluctuates more in designed reactor over the conventional photo bioreactor, which will in turn increase diffusivity and enhance transfer of mass, momentum and energy. The results provide comprehensive information concerning effect of fluid flow characteristics inside a modified designed spiral bubble-column photo-bioreactor.

Some of our earlier published results (www.scientific.net/AMM.592-594.2427) are also referred in this paper. This work had been performed under the financial aid from RPS project (no. 8,023/RID/RPS/27/11/12), sponsored by All India Council for Technical Education.