An interdisciplinary and participatory methodology to improve user acceptability of root, tuber and banana varieties

Breeding programmes for root, tuber and banana (RTB) crops have traditionally considered consumer demand for quality characteristics low priority against other considerations such as yield and disease resistance. This has contributed to low levels of adoption of new varieties and its potential benefits. To address these challenges, an interdisciplinary five‐step methodology was developed to identify demand for quality characteristics among diverse user groups along the food chain. The methodology includes an evidence review, consultations with key informants and rural communities, processing diagnosis with experienced processors, and consumer testing in urban and rural areas. Quality characteristics are then prioritised into a Food Product Profile by user group to inform further work of biochemists and breeders in developing improved selection tools. This initiative presents a new basis to understand consumer preferences for RTB crops. The methodology is currently being applied in projects in sub‐Saharan Africa and is applicable globally

Aceleração do movimento ortodôntico: vibração VS fotobiomodulação

Introducã̧o: A Ortodontia é uma área da Medicina Dentária especializada nas más-oclusões com o objetivo de melhorar o equilíbrio postural entre estruturas ósseas, dentárias e musculares com objetivos funcionais e estéticos. Hoje em dia, um dos maiores desafios da Ortodontia é aumentar a velocidade do tempo de tratamento sem comprometer a precisão e, para isso, surgiram técnicas adicionais não invasivas que visam acelerar o movimento dentário ortodôntico. A vibração e a fotobiomodulação são modalidades terapêuticas que consistem em induzir efeitos biológicos estimulantes e inibidores nas células-alvo. Objetivos: Realizar uma revisão sistemática para compreender os efeitos da vibração e da fotobiomodulação na aceleração do movimento dentário ortodôntico. Métodos: Formulou-se uma questão segundo a estratégia PICOS e as orientações do PRISMA. Uma pesquisa bibliográfica foi realizada na base de dados PubMed, utilizando combinações de palavras-chave e abrangendo artigos entre 2012 e 2022 de idioma Inglês. Resultados: A fotobiomodulação diminui o tempo de tratamento dos pacientes tratados, bem como diminui o número de visitas dos pacientes. Por outro lado, a força vibratória adicional durante o tratamento ortodôntico não afetou o fecho de espaços, a duração do tratamento, o número total de consultas e o resultado final da oclusão. Conclusão: Entre estas duas técnicas, a fotobiomodulação mostrou ser superior à vibração na aceleração do movimento dentário ortodôntico. No entanto, existem resultados controversos na literatura, provavelmente, devido à enorme variabilidade dos parâmetros e tempos de estimulação em ambas as técnicas de estimulação, para além disso os efeitos dos protocolos dependem da colaboração do paciente.Introduction: Orthodontics is an area of dental medicine specialized in malocclusions. It aims to improve the postural balance between bone, dental and muscular structures for functional and aesthetic purposes. Nowadays, one of the biggest challenges in Orthodontics is to accelerate the treatment time without compromising precision. To this end, additional non-invasive techniques have been arising intending to speed up orthodontic tooth movement. Vibration and photobiomodulation represent the best examples of these techniques, which induced stimulation and inhibitory biological effects on target cells. Objectives: Producing a systematic review to understand the effects of vibration and photobiomodulation on the acceleration of orthodontic tooth movement. Materials and Methods: One question has been formulated with the guideline of the PICOS strategy and PRISMA. Desk research has been conducted in the PubMed database, based on keyword combinations and articles between 2012 and 2022 in English. Results: Photobiomodulation allowed a decrease in treatment time for treated patients, and also, offered benefit as a decrease in the number of visits. While the additional vibratory force during orthodontic treatment does not seem to affect space closure, treatment duration, the total number of visits or the final occlusion outcome. Conclusion: Between these two techniques, photobiomodulation has been shown to be superior to vibration in accelerating orthodontic tooth movement. However, there are controversial results in the literature, probably due to the enormous variability of parameters and stimulation times in both stimulation techniques, furthermore, the effect of the protocols depends on patient compliance

Theory and observations of ice particle evolution in cirrus using Doppler radar: evidence for aggregation

Vertically pointing Doppler radar has been used to study the evolution of ice particles as they sediment through a cirrus cloud. The measured Doppler fall speeds, together with radar-derived estimates for the altitude of cloud top, are used to estimate a characteristic fall time tc for the `average' ice particle. The change in radar reflectivity Z is studied as a function of tc, and is found to increase exponentially with fall time. We use the idea of dynamically scaling particle size distributions to show that this behaviour implies exponential growth of the average particle size, and argue that this exponential growth is a signature of ice crystal aggregation.Comment: accepted to Geophysical Research Letter