Impact of earthworm activity on the chemical fertility of irrigated soil with urban effluents

The reuse of urban effluents to irrigate the soils of peri-urban grasslands in the vicinity of the town of Setif (northeastern Algeria) is an old and widespread practice. In this context, the present study was conducted to evaluate the effect of the irrigation with urban effluents on the biological and chemical behavior of soils. Effluents analysis showed significant organic and particulate pollution, the latter contributed to earthworm abundance and increased the richness of irrigated soils with nutrients. The analysis of turricules revealed the role of earthworms through the activity of bioturbation in the increase of the rate of organic matter as well as in the bioavailability of the nutrients of the irrigated soils. In space, permanent vegetation cover has played an important role as a biofilter. This was confirmed by the inter-site differences recorded through the measured variables particularly organic ones.Keywords: Natural grasslands, urban effluents, earthworm activity, turricles, organic matte

Analysis of the phenotypic variability of some varieties of durum wheat (Triticum durum Desf) to improve the efficiency of performance under the constraining conditions of semiarid environments

The experiment was conducted during three growing seasons and two planting dates. The cultivation site is placed at the ITGC Setif characterized by a semi-arid environment. The objective of the study is the analysis of phenotypic variability of traits measured for 15 varieties of durum wheat, through the average effects, to decline the ways, characters and varieties could play in favour of performance under the constraining semi-arid conditions. The year effect indicates that given the difficulty of predicting the performance enabled by years, it then makes sense to go straight for this performance within genotypes. Analysis of the effect genotype highlights characters connected to performance and is the Setifis variety that lends itself well. For the effect of sowing date, it is that early sowing promotes a better expression of the characteristics compared to late sowing.Keywords: Effect; genotype; year; date; variation; character

Estimating health state utility from activities of daily living in the French National Hospital Discharge Database : a feasibility study with head and neck cancer

BackgroundHealth state utility (HSU) is a core component of QALYs and cost-effectiveness analysis, although HSU is rarely estimated among a representative sample of patients. We explored the feasibility of assessing HSU in head and neck cancer from the French National Hospital Discharge database.MethodsAn exhaustive sample of 53,258 incident adult patients with a first diagnosis of head and neck cancer was identified in 2010-2012. We used a cross-sectional approach to define five health states over two periods: three "cancer stages at initial treatment" (early, locally advanced or metastatic stage); a "relapse state" and otherwise a "relapse-free state" in the follow-up of patients initially treated at early or locally advanced stage. In patients admitted in post-acute care, a two-parameter graded response model (Item Response Theory) was estimated from all 144,012 records of six Activities of Daily Living (ADLs) and the latent health state scale underlying ADLs was calibrated with the French EQ-5D-3L social value set. Following linear interpolation between all assessments of the patient, daily estimates of utility in post-acute care were averaged by health state, patient and month of follow-up. Finally, HSU was estimated by health state and month of follow-up for the whole patient population after controlling for survivorship and selection in post-acute care.ResultsHead and neck cancer was generally associated with poor HSU estimates in a real-life setting. As compared to distant metastasis at initial treatment, mean HSU was higher in other health states, although numerical differences were small (0.45 versus around 0.54). It was primarily explained by the negative effects on HSU of an older age (38.4% aged >= 70years in early stage at initial treatment) and comorbidities (>50% in other health states). HSU estimates significantly improved over time in the relapse-free state (from 8 to 12months of follow-up).ConclusionsHSU estimates in head and neck cancer were primarily driven by age at diagnosis, comorbidities, and time to assessment of cancer survivors. This feasibility study highlights the potential of estimating HSU within and across severe conditions in a systematic way at the national level

Time-frequency analysis of multichannel signals using two-sided autoregressive modeling

SCOPUS: ar.jinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe