Search Results for: Belgium

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission is claiming its reform of the European Union (EU) sugar and isoglucose sector has been a success, lowering prices for confectionery manufacturers. Brussels also claims that a planned contraction of EU sugar production over the past three years has left a sustainable industry based on efficient producers.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL, EMMA JACKSON and ALAN OSBORN

DESPITE widespread initial scepticism about its viability, the ITER project to build the world’s first commercial nuclear fusion reactor is now under way. It is employing specialists (nearly 300 staff and rising at the end of 2008); releasing Euro millions in research and procurement funding; and in November of last year moved into its headquarters, in Cadarache, southern France, which is where the first nuclear fusion reactor will be built on a 180 hectare site.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission has concluded in a detailed report that a fully functioning European Union (EU)-wide single market in natural gas and electricity is far from complete. It spoke of a "mixed picture of the progress of completing the internal energy market".…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A GROUNDBREAKING starter motor-alternator, enabling cars to automatically and smoothly stop and start when in congested traffic, has been developed by European companies involved in the Eureka research network. The i-StARS (NOTE – SPELLING IS CORRECT) project, coordinated by France’s Valeo Electrical Systems, spent Euro 9.85 million on developing this second-generation technology, whose aim is to create significant environmental improvements to auto performance without forcing car makers to make radical changes to engine design.…

By Monica Dobie

Universities examining pedigree dogs may provide some answers to the mystery of genetic illnesses in people through a new European Union (EU)-funded project called LUPA. It will try to pinpoint such disorders in pure bred canines. The work could prove to be valuable as humans share many of the same diseases.…

By Monica Dobie

A European Union (EU)-funded research project called SonoDrugs is developing tiny, image-guided medicine capsules conveying doses through blood vessels to the centre of an infection or disease, after which the drugs are activated by ultrasound pulses. This new technology is initially being developed for cardiovascular disease and cancer by the Euro 15.9 million project, which includes Dutch electronics giant Philips; Nanobiotix, of France; and Lipoid, of Germany; as well as academics from the University of Cyprus, University of Gent (Belgium), University of Helsinki, University of London, University of Tours (France), University Victor Segalen Bordeaux (France), University of Technology Eindhoven (the Netherlands), and the University of Udine (Italy).…

BY MONICA DOBIE

IT is one of nursing’s unlikelier medical developments, but those often pampered pedigree dogs that make an exhibition of themselves at Crufts may actually be a lynchpin to fighting genetic diseases in humans.

Veterinary clinics from 12 European countries will collect 10,000 DNA samples from a large cohort of dogs either healthy or suffering from a range of 18 defined diseases of relevance to human health such as cancer, heart disease and epilepsy.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A EUROPEAN Union (EU)-funded research project called SonoDrugs has united universities and high-tech businesses in developing tiny, image-guided medicine capsules which could target medicines to where they are needed in a patient’s body. The aim of the innovation is conveying doses through blood vessels to the centre of an infection or disease, after which the drugs are activated by ultrasound pulses.…

BY MONICA DOBIE

DOGS may provide some answers to the mystery of genetic illnesses in people through a new European Union (EU) project called LUPA that will try to pinpoint such disorders in canines. The work could prove to be valuable as humans share many of the same diseases.…

BY ALAN OSBORN, LUCY JONES and KEITH NUTHALL

INTRODUCTION

CLOTHING and textile production and trade subsidies are under pressure today, as they have not been for many years. There has been a steady trend towards liberalisation in the sector worldwide, stemming from the abolition of the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) Agreement on Textiles and Clothing (ATC) in January 2005 and with it, then end of restrictive quotas for imports for the WTO’s 152 member countries.…