First Critical Performing Edition of the Zarzuela Maria la O, by Ernesto Lecuona, Orchestrated by Felix Guerrero

The First Critical Performing Edition of the Zarzuela Maria la O by Ernesto Lecuona (as orchestrated by Felix Guerrero), is the rescue of the complete score of one of the most important works by a Cuban composer. The complete but still unpublished original score to Maria la O will finally have a clear and accurate performing edition. This will serve, both expert performers in Cuban popular music and anyone else interested in the subject. In this new score, indigenous rhythms and other traditional performance practice issues have been fully written out. This document will also include a brief history and overview of musical theatre in Cuba, as well as the facts and events involved in the genesis of the Cuban Zarzuela. It will undoubtedly bring assistance to those interested in the historic context of this genre. This project will also reveal, for the first time, the process by which Maria la O was developed and transformed from a simple one-act sainete to a more complex zarzuela Cubana. Finally, biographical information about the creators of Maria la O is included for the purpose of providing more background information about these individuals and about the culture in which they lived and worked. It is my hope that this work will serve to aid in the preservation and dissemination of Cuba’s musical heritage

Guidelines for small ruminant production systems under climate emergency in Europe

Projected climate change will involve an additional threat for the sustainability of small ruminant production systems in Europe. Aiming to understand its implications, we conducted a literature review on climate change interactions with sheep and goat systems. The review first identifies the main potential impacts on productivity at the animal level (heat stress effects) and at the forage level (quantity and quality). Results from analysed studies suggest that heat stress thresholds for small ruminants could be higher than previously indicated, although they still will be affected during projected heatwaves. At the forage level, the potential positive effect of CO2 fertilisation will probably be counteracted in most of the cases due to extreme weather events and other limitations. Based on that findings, the review analyses the most suitable adaptation strategies on animal heat stress and pasture production. Particular attention is paid to integrated approaches, providing co-benefits at different levels. Finally, structural and practical challenges affecting small ruminants’ sustainability in a climate change context are discussed, together with potential synergies and trade-offs among different policies and/or strategies. According to the information reviewed, small ruminant systems could be particularly vulnerable to environmental changes, as they are often produced in harsh areas under already severe circumstances. At the same time, they have particular features that could involve advantages against other livestock systems to cope with –and fight against- future climatic conditions. Consequently, they should play a important role for the climate change adaptation and mitigation options within the livestock sector.This research is supported by the Spanish Government through María de Maeztu excellence accreditation 2018-2022 (Ref. MDM-2017-0714) and by the Basque Government through the BERC 2018-2021 programme. This work was also supported by the Horizon2020 SFS-01c-2015 project entitled “Innovation of sustainable sheep and goat production in Europe (iSAGE)” (grant number 679302 ). Agustin del Prado is financed by the programme Ramon y Cajal from the Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness ( RYC-2017-22143 )

A simple model for the effect of thermal stress on the productivity of small ruminants

Projected climatic changes are expected to change temperature and precipitation patterns and to increase the frequency of extreme events in many regions of the world. This will affect livestock systems through direct effects on animal performance as a result of thermal stress. The purpose of this work is to develop a model that is able to estimate the potential impact of thermal stress on the productivity of small ruminants. To do so, a semi-mechanistic model is proposed, based on an energy balance perspective and the application of the temperature-humidity index (THI) as an indicator of the heat stress severity level. The effect of thermal stress on animal's energy balance is captured by two main mechanisms: i) an increase in energy maintenance requirements and ii) a modification on feed intake. As a result of energy imbalance, the decline on animal productivity is estimated (i.e. milk yield, tissue growth). The different components of the model have been tested against available experimental data, showing that it is able to capture non-linear productivity losses across a range of heat stress conditions and systems. Finally, the applicability of the model is tested with dfifferent examples, and limitations and strengths are discussed. Despite some constraints, we highlight its relative simplicity and flexibility, so it would be feasible to be integrated into whole farm modelling approaches and/or feed requirement systems for small ruminants. This will help to predict the potential consequences of climate change on productivity, and to explore appropriate adaptation strategies. © 2021 Elsevier B.V.This research is supported by the Spanish Government through María de Maeztu excellence accreditation 2018-2022 (Ref. MDM-2017-0714 ) and by the Basque Government through the BERC 2018-2021 programme. This work was also supported by the Horizon2020 SFS-01c-2015 project entitled “Innovation of sustainable sheep and goat production in Europe (iSAGE)” (grant number 679302 ). Agustin del Prado is financed by the programme Ramon y Cajal from the Spanish Ministry of Economy , Industry and Competitiveness ( RYC-2017-22143 )

Retrospective and projected warming-equivalent emissions from global livestock and cattle calculated with an alternative climate metric denoted GWP

Limiting warming by the end of the century to 1.5̊C compared to pre-Industrial times requires reaching and sustaining net zero global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and declining radiative forcing from non-CO2 greenhouse gas (GHG) sources such as methane (CH4). This implies eliminating CO2 emissions or balancing them with removals while mitigating CH4 emissions to reduce their radiative forcing over time. The global cattle sector (including Buffalo) mainly emits CH4 and N2O and will benefit from understanding the extent and speed of CH4 reductions necessary to align its mitigation ambitions with global temperature goals. This study explores the utility of an alternative usage of global warming potentials (GWP*) in combination with the Transient Climate Response to cumulative carbon Emissions (TCRE) to compare retrospective and projected climate impacts of global livestock emission pathways with other sectors (e.g. fossil fuel and land use change). To illustrate this, we estimated the amount and fraction of total warming attributable to direct CH4 livestock emissions from 1750 to 2019 using existing emissions datasets and projected their contributions to future warming under three historical and three future emission scenarios. These historical and projected estimates were transformed into cumulative CO2 equivalent (GWP100) and warming equivalent (GWP*) emissions that were multiplied by a TCRE coefficient to express induced warming as globally averaged surface temperature change. In general, temperature change estimates from this study are comparable to those obtained from other climate models. Sustained annual reductions in CH4 emissions of 0.32% by the global cattle sector would stabilize their future effect on global temperature while greater reductions would reverse historical past contributions to global warming by the sector in a similar fashion to increasing C sinks. The extent and speed with which CH4 mitigation interventions are introduced by the sector will determine the peak temperature achieved in the path to net-zero GHG. © 2023 del Prado et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.The authors of this paper report the following sources of funding: Global Dairy Platform supported authors AdP and BL. Ikerbasque, Basque Foundation for Science supported AdP, Spanish National Plan for Scientific and Technical Research and Innovation supported AdP through grant (RYC-2017-22143), Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación supported AdP through grant (CEX2021-001201-M), Eusko Jaurlaritza supported AdP through grant (BERC 2022-2024), Dairy Management Inc (US) supported AdP and JT through Global Dairy Platform AdP was also supported through Global Dairy Platform by Arla Foods, Dairy Australia, Dairy Companies of New Zealand, Global Round Table for Sustainable Beef, Innovation Centre for US Dairy, McDonalds Corporation, and Meat and Livestock Australia. BL is supported by Global Dairy Platform. JT received salary from Dairy Management Inc. The funders had a role in the study design by providing some of the general questions. The specific roles of these authors are articulated in the ‘author contributions’ section. Many thanks to Arla Foods, Dairy Australia, Dairy Companies of New Zealand, Dairy Man- agement Inc., Global Dairy Platform, Global Round Table for Sustainable Beef, McDonalds Corporation, and Meat and Livestock Australia for helping on the study design and providing some of the general questions

Opportunities for reducing environmental emissions from forage-based dairy farms

Modern dairy production is inevitably associated with impacts to the environment and the challenge for the industry today is to increase production to meet growing global demand while minimising emissions to the environment. Negative environmental impacts include gaseous emissions to the atmosphere, of ammonia from livestock manure and fertiliser use, of methane from enteric fermentation and manure management, and of nitrous oxide from nitrogen applications to soils and from manure management. Emissions to water include nitrate, ammonium, phosphorus, sediment, pathogens and organic matter, deriving from nutrient applications to forage crops and/or the management of grazing livestock. This paper reviews the sources and impacts of such emissions in the context of a forage-based dairy farm and considers a number of potential mitigation strategies, giving some examples using the farm-scale model SIMSDAIRY. Most of the mitigation measures discussed are associated with systemic improvements in the efficiency of production in dairy systems. Important examples of mitigations include: improvements to dairy herd fertility, that can reduce methane and ammonia emissions by up to 24 and 17%, respectively; diet modification such as the use of high sugar grasses for grazing, which are associated with reductions in cattle N excretion of up to 20% (and therefore lower N losses to the environment) and potentially lower methane emissions, or reducing the crude protein content of the dairy cow diet through use of maize silage to reduce N excretion and methane emissions; the use of nitrification inhibitors with fertiliser and slurry applications to reduce nitrous oxide emissions and nitrate leaching by up to 50%. Much can also be achieved through attention to the quantity, timing and method of application of nutrients to forage crops and utilising advances made through genetic improvements

Increasing Competitiveness through the Implementation of Lean Management in Healthcare

The main aim of this paper was two-fold: first, to design a participative methodology that facilitates lean management implementation in healthcare by adopting the action research approach; second, to illustrate the usefulness of this methodology by applying it to the sleep unit of a public hospital in Spain. This methodology proposes the implementation of lean management in its broadest sense: adopting both lean principles and some of its practical tools or practices in order to achieve competitive advantage. The complete service value chain was considered when introducing changes through lean management implementation. This implementation involved training and involving staff in the project (personnel pillar), detecting and analysing "waste" in value chain processes (processes pillar) and establishing control and measurement mechanisms in line with objectives (key performance indicators pillar) and putting in place improvement actions to achieve these objectives. The application of this methodology brought about an improvement in the management of patient flow in terms of effectiveness, efficiency and quality but also an internal transformation towards lean culture

Estimating soil organic carbon changes in managed temperate moist grasslands with RothC

Temperate grassland soils store significant amounts of carbon (C). Estimating how much livestock grazing and manuring can influence grassland soil organic carbon (SOC) is key to improve greenhouse gas grassland budgets. The Rothamsted Carbon (RothC) model, although originally developed and parameterized to model the turnover of organic C in arable topsoil, has been widely used, with varied success, to estimate SOC changes in grassland under different climates, soils, and management conditions. In this paper, we hypothesise that RothC-based SOC predictions in managed grasslands under temperate moist climatic conditions can be improved by incorporating small modifications to the model based on existing field data from diverse experimental locations in Europe. For this, we described and evaluated changes at the level of: (1) the soil water function of RothC, (2) entry pools accounting for the degradability of the exogenous organic matter (EOM) applied (e.g., ruminant excreta), (3) the month-on-month change in the quality of C inputs coming from plant residues (i.e above-, below-ground plant residue and rhizodeposits), and (4) the livestock trampling effect (i.e., poaching damage) as a common problem in areas with higher annual precipitation. In order to evaluate the potential utility of these changes, we performed a simple sensitivity analysis and tested the model predictions against averaged data from four grassland experiments in Europe. Our evaluation showed that the default model''s performance was 78% and whereas some of the modifications seemed to improve RothC SOC predictions (model performance of 95% and 86% for soil water function and plant residues, respectively), others did not lead to any/or almost any improvement (model performance of 80 and 46% for the change in the C input quality and livestock trampling, respectively). We concluded that, whereas adding more complexity to the RothC model by adding the livestock trampling would actually not improve the model, adding the modified soil water function and plant residue components, and at a lesser extent residues quality, could improve predictability of the RothC in managed grasslands under temperate moist climatic conditions. © 2021 Jebari et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited

Evaluating three-pillar sustainability modelling approaches for dairy cattle production systems

Milk production in Europe is facing major challenges to ensure its economic, environmental, and social sustainability. It is essential that holistic concepts are developed to ensure the future sustainability of the sector and to assist farmers and stakeholders in making knowledge-based decisions. In this study, integrated sustainability assessment by means of whole-farm modelling is presented as a valuable approach for identifying factors and mechanisms that could be used to improve the three pillars (3Ps) of sustainability in the context of an increasing awareness of economic profitability, social well-being, and environmental impacts of dairy production systems (DPS). This work aims (i) to create an evaluation framework that enables quantitative analysis of the level of integration of 3P sustainability indicators in whole-farm models and (ii) to test this method. Therefore, an evaluation framework consisting of 35 indicators distributed across the 3Ps of sustainability was used to evaluate three whole-farm models. Overall, the models integrated at least 40% of the proposed indicators. Different results were obtained for each sustainability pillar by each evaluated model. Higher scores were obtained for the environmental pillar, followed by the economic and the social pillars. In conclusion, this evaluation framework was found to be an effective tool that allows potential users to choose among whole-farm models depending on their needs. Pathways for further model development that may be used to integrate the 3P sustainability assessment of DPS in a more complete and detailed way were identified. © 2021 by the authors.This study was financially supported by the German Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture (BMEL) through the Federal Office for Agriculture and Food (BLE) under grant number 2819ERA08A (MilKey project, funded under the Joint Call 2018 ERA-GAS, SusAn and ICT-AGRI 2 on ?Novel technologies, solutions and systems to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions in animal production systems?). BC3-Research is supported by the Spanish Government through Mar?a de Maeztu excellence accreditation 2018-2022 (Ref. MDM-2017-0714) and by the Basque Government through the BERC 2018-2021 program. Agustin del Prado is financed through the Ramon y Cajal program by the Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry, and Competitiveness (RYC-2017-22143)

Serotonin receptors are involved in the spinal mediation of descending facilitation of surgical incision-induced increase of Fos-like immunoreactivity in rats

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Descending pronociceptive pathways may be implicated in states of persistent pain. Paw skin incision is a well-established postoperative pain model that causes behavioral nociceptive responses and enhanced excitability of spinal dorsal horn neurons. The number of spinal c-Fos positive neurons of rats treated intrathecally with serotonin, noradrenaline or acetylcholine antagonists where evaluated to study the descending pathways activated by a surgical paw incision.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The number of c-Fos positive neurons in laminae I/II ipsilateral, lamina V bilateral to the incised paw, and in lamina X significantly increased after the incision. These changes: remained unchanged in phenoxybenzamine-treated rats; were increased in the contralateral lamina V of atropine-treated rats; were inhibited in the ipsilateral lamina I/II by 5-HT_1/2B/2C(methysergide), 5-HT_2A(ketanserin) or 5-HT_{1/2A/2C/5/6/7}(methiothepin) receptors antagonists, in the ipsilateral lamina V by methysergide or methiothepin, in the contralateral lamina V by all the serotonergic antagonists and in the lamina X by LY 278,584, ketanserin or methiothepin.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>We conclude: (1) muscarinic cholinergic mechanisms reduce incision-induced response of spinal neurons inputs from the contralateral paw; (2) 5-HT_1/2A/2C/3receptors-mediate mechanisms increase the activity of descending pathways that facilitates the response of spinal neurons to noxious inputs from the contralateral paw; (3) 5-HT_1/2A/2Cand 5-HT_1/2Creceptors increases the descending facilitation mechanisms induced by incision in the ipsilateral paw; (4) 5-HT_2A/3receptors contribute to descending pronociceptive pathways conveyed by lamina X spinal neurons; (5) α-adrenergic receptors are unlikely to participate in the incision-induced facilitation of the spinal neurons.</p