Classifying Organizations for Food System Ontologies using Natural Language Processing

Our research explores the use of natural language processing (NLP) methods to automatically classify entities for the purpose of knowledge graph population and integration with food system ontologies. We have created NLP models that can automatically classify organizations with respect to categories associated with environmental issues as well as Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) codes, which are used by the U.S. government to characterize business activities. As input, the NLP models are provided with text snippets retrieved by the Google search engine for each organization, which serves as a textual description of the organization that is used for learning. Our experimental results show that NLP models can achieve reasonably good performance for these two classification tasks, and they rely on a general framework that could be applied to many other classification problems as well. We believe that NLP models represent a promising approach for automatically harvesting information to populate knowledge graphs and aligning the information with existing ontologies through shared categories and concepts.Comment: Presented at IFOW 2023 Integrated Food Ontology Workshop at the Formal Ontology in Information Systems Conference (FOIS) 2023 in Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada July 17-20th, 202

Sustainable Sourcing of Global Agricultural Raw Materials: Assessing Gaps in Key Impact and Vulnerability Issues and Indicators.

Understanding how to source agricultural raw materials sustainably is challenging in today's globalized food system given the variety of issues to be considered and the multitude of suggested indicators for representing these issues. Furthermore, stakeholders in the global food system both impact these issues and are themselves vulnerable to these issues, an important duality that is often implied but not explicitly described. The attention given to these issues and conceptual frameworks varies greatly--depending largely on the stakeholder perspective--as does the set of indicators developed to measure them. To better structure these complex relationships and assess any gaps, we collate a comprehensive list of sustainability issues and a database of sustainability indicators to represent them. To assure a breadth of inclusion, the issues are pulled from the following three perspectives: major global sustainability assessments, sustainability communications from global food companies, and conceptual frameworks of sustainable livelihoods from academic publications. These terms are integrated across perspectives using a common vocabulary, classified by their relevance to impacts and vulnerabilities, and categorized into groups by economic, environmental, physical, human, social, and political characteristics. These issues are then associated with over 2,000 sustainability indicators gathered from existing sources. A gap analysis is then performed to determine if particular issues and issue groups are over or underrepresented. This process results in 44 "integrated" issues--24 impact issues and 36 vulnerability issues--that are composed of 318 "component" issues. The gap analysis shows that although every integrated issue is mentioned at least 40% of the time across perspectives, no issue is mentioned more than 70% of the time. A few issues infrequently mentioned across perspectives also have relatively few indicators available to fully represent them. Issues in the impact framework generally have fewer gaps than those in the vulnerability framework

Plant-soil biodiversity relationships and nutrient retention in agricultural riparian zones of the Sacramento Valley, California

Forested riparian buffers in California historically supported high levels of biodiversity, but human activities have degraded these ecosystems over much of their former range. This study examined plant communities, belowground biodiversity and indicators of multiple ecosystem functions of riparian areas across an agricultural landscape in the Sacramento Valley of California, USA. Plant, nematode and soil microbial communities and soil physical and chemical properties were studied along 50-m transects at 20 sites that represented the different land use, soil and vegetation types in the landscape. Riparian zones supported greater plant diversity and nearly twice as much total carbon (C) per hectare compared to adjacent land managed for agricultural uses, but had generally lower soil microbial and nematode diversity and abundance. When woody plant communities were present in the riparian zone, plant diversity and species richness were higher, and soil nitrate and plant-available phosphorus levels were lower. Belowground diversity and community structure, however, appeared to depend more on plant productivity (as inferred by vegetation cover) than plant diversity or species richness. Greater plant species richness, nematode food web structure, total microbial biomass, woody C storage and lower soil nitrate and phosphorus loading were correlated with higher visual riparian health assessment scores, offering the possibility of managing these riparian habitats to provide multiple ecosystem functions

Assessment of carbon in woody plants and soil across a vineyard-woodland landscape

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Quantification of ecosystem services, such as carbon (C) storage, can demonstrate the benefits of managing for both production and habitat conservation in agricultural landscapes. In this study, we evaluated C stocks and woody plant diversity across vineyard blocks and adjoining woodland ecosystems (wildlands) for an organic vineyard in northern California. Carbon was measured in soil from 44 one m deep pits, and in aboveground woody biomass from 93 vegetation plots. These data were combined with physical landscape variables to model C stocks using a geographic information system and multivariate linear regression.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Field data showed wildlands to be heterogeneous in both C stocks and woody tree diversity, reflecting the mosaic of several different vegetation types, and storing on average 36.8 Mg C/ha in aboveground woody biomass and 89.3 Mg C/ha in soil. Not surprisingly, vineyard blocks showed less variation in above- and belowground C, with an average of 3.0 and 84.1 Mg C/ha, respectively.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>This research demonstrates that vineyards managed with practices that conserve some fraction of adjoining wildlands yield benefits for increasing overall C stocks and species and habitat diversity in integrated agricultural landscapes. For such complex landscapes, high resolution spatial modeling is challenging and requires accurate characterization of the landscape by vegetation type, physical structure, sufficient sampling, and allometric equations that relate tree species to each landscape. Geographic information systems and remote sensing techniques are useful for integrating the above variables into an analysis platform to estimate C stocks in these working landscapes, thereby helping land managers qualify for greenhouse gas mitigation credits. Carbon policy in California, however, shows a lack of focus on C stocks compared to emissions, and on agriculture compared to other sectors. Correcting these policy shortcomings could create incentives for ecosystem service provision, including C storage, as well as encourage better farm stewardship and habitat conservation.</p

Re-visiting Meltsner: Policy Advice Systems and the Multi-Dimensional Nature of Professional Policy Analysis

10.2139/ssrn.15462511-2

The role of pulmonary arterial stiffness in COPD

AbstractCOPD is the second most common cause of pulmonary hypertension, and is a common complication of severe COPD with significant implications for both quality of life and mortality. However, the use of a rigid diagnostic threshold of a mean pulmonary arterial pressure (mPAP) of ≥25mHg when considering the impact of the pulmonary vasculature on symptoms and disease is misleading. Even minimal exertion causes oxygen desaturation and elevations in mPAP, with right ventricular hypertrophy and dilatation present in patients with mild to moderate COPD with pressures below the threshold for diagnosis of pulmonary hypertension. This has significant implications, with right ventricular dysfunction associated with poorer exercise capability and increased mortality independent of pulmonary function tests.The compliance of the pulmonary artery (PA) is a key component in decoupling the right ventricle from the pulmonary bed, allowing the right ventricle to work at maximum efficiency and protecting the microcirculation from large pressure gradients. PA stiffness increases with the severity of COPD, and correlates well with the presence of exercise induced pulmonary hypertension. A curvilinear relationship exists between PA distensibility and mPAP and pulmonary vascular resistance (PVR) with marked loss of distensibility before a rapid rise in mPAP and PVR occurs with resultant right ventricular failure. This combination of features suggests PA stiffness as a promising biomarker for early detection of pulmonary vascular disease, and to play a role in right ventricular failure in COPD. Early detection would open this up as a potential therapeutic target before end stage arterial remodelling occurs

Translational models for vascular cognitive impairment: a review including larger species.

BACKGROUND: Disease models are useful for prospective studies of pathology, identification of molecular and cellular mechanisms, pre-clinical testing of interventions, and validation of clinical biomarkers. Here, we review animal models relevant to vascular cognitive impairment (VCI). A synopsis of each model was initially presented by expert practitioners. Synopses were refined by the authors, and subsequently by the scientific committee of a recent conference (International Conference on Vascular Dementia 2015). Only peer-reviewed sources were cited. METHODS: We included models that mimic VCI-related brain lesions (white matter hypoperfusion injury, focal ischaemia, cerebral amyloid angiopathy) or reproduce VCI risk factors (old age, hypertension, hyperhomocysteinemia, high-salt/high-fat diet) or reproduce genetic causes of VCI (CADASIL-causing Notch3 mutations). CONCLUSIONS: We concluded that (1) translational models may reflect a VCI-relevant pathological process, while not fully replicating a human disease spectrum; (2) rodent models of VCI are limited by paucity of white matter; and (3) further translational models, and improved cognitive testing instruments, are required

Genome-wide analyses identify a role for SLC17A4 and AADAT in thyroid hormone regulation.

Thyroid dysfunction is an important public health problem, which affects 10% of the general population and increases the risk of cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. Many aspects of thyroid hormone regulation have only partly been elucidated, including its transport, metabolism, and genetic determinants. Here we report a large meta-analysis of genome-wide association studies for thyroid function and dysfunction, testing 8 million genetic variants in up to 72,167 individuals. One-hundred-and-nine independent genetic variants are associated with these traits. A genetic risk score, calculated to assess their combined effects on clinical end points, shows significant associations with increased risk of both overt (Graves' disease) and subclinical thyroid disease, as well as clinical complications. By functional follow-up on selected signals, we identify a novel thyroid hormone transporter (SLC17A4) and a metabolizing enzyme (AADAT). Together, these results provide new knowledge about thyroid hormone physiology and disease, opening new possibilities for therapeutic targets