Life Cycle Assessment across the Food Supply Chain

The environmental impact is one of the major pillars of concerns when addressing the sustainability of food production and sustainable food consumption strategies. To assess to what extent food production affects the environment, one needs to choose a proper environmental assessment tool. Different types of assessment tools have been developed to establish environmental indicators, which can be used to determine the environmental impact of livestock production systems or agricultural products. The environmen¬tal assessment tools can be divided into the area based or product based (Halberg et al., 2005). Area-based indicators are, for example, nitrate leached per hectare from a pig farm, and product-based indicators are, for example, global warming potential per kg pork (Dalgaard, 2007). The area-based indicators are useful for evaluating farm emissions of nutrients such as nitrate that has an effect on the local environment. On the other hand, when considering the greenhouse gas emissions from the agricultural production, the product-based indicators are useful for evaluating the impact of food productions on the global environment (e. g., climate change) and have the advantage that in addition to emis-sions from the farms, emissions related to the production of input s (e.g., soybean and artificial fertilizer) and outputs (e.g., slurry exported to other farms) are also included. In that way it is easier to avoid pollution swapping, which means that the solving of one pollution problem creates a new (Dalgaard, 2007)

Identification of a novel type of spacer element required for imprinting in fission yeast

Asymmetrical segregation of differentiated sister chromatids is thought to be important for cellular differentiation in higher eukaryotes. Similarly, in fission yeast, cellular differentiation involves the asymmetrical segregation of a chromosomal imprint. This imprint has been shown to consist of two ribonucleotides that are incorporated into the DNA during laggingstrand synthesis in response to a replication pause, but the underlying mechanism remains unknown. Here we present key novel discoveries important for unravelling this process. Our data show that cis-acting sequences within the mat1 cassette mediate pausing of replication forks at the proximity of the imprinting site, and the results suggest that this pause dictates specific priming at the position of imprinting in a sequence-independent manner. Also, we identify a novel type of cis-acting spacer region important for the imprinting process that affects where subsequent primers are put down after the replication fork is released from the pause. Thus, our data suggest that the imprint is formed by ligation of a not-fullyprocessed Okazaki fragment to the subsequent fragment. The presented work addresses how differentiated sister chromatids are established during DNA replication through the involvement of replication barriers

D02 Noise Cancellation of Multichannel Magnetic Resonance Sounding Measurements with Wiener and Adaptive Filters

SUMMARY Magnetic resonance sounding (MRS) is a unique and promising hydrogeophysical technique. Due to its ability of providing a direct estimate of the water content and estimates of the porosity in the subsurface, MRS has the potential of being a great team player in the field of hydrological prospecting. However, the MRS measurements suffer from a low signal to noise ratio due to the signal being inherently weak and the susceptibility to electromagnetic interference. The low signal to noise ratio currently impedes the applicability of the technique, particularly in urban areas. In recent years the development of multichannel MRS has opened up new possibilities for advanced noise cancellation methods. Before multichannel MRS can realize its full potential robust and reliable methods for noise cancellation must be developed. In this work we compare two noise cancellation methods: The multichannel Wiener filter and a multichannel adaptive noise cancellation filter. The comparison is performed on noise records from a multichannel MRS instrument with or without synthetic signal added. Our results show that adaptive noise cancellation performs better than the Wiener filter for both pure noise removal and for recovery of the parameters of the synthetic signal

Instructional Improvement Through Individual Consultation

Theoretical Bases: Theory 1: Instructional Interaction Theory 2: Student Differences Theory 3: Change The Approach An Example: Step 1: Identify the Instructor\u27s Major Concerns Step 2: Challenge Instructor\u27s Concepts of Teaching Step 3: Formulate Alternative Teaching Approaches Step 4: Evaluate New Approach Conclusions Reference

Instructional Improvement Through Individual Consultation

Theoretical Bases: Theory 1: Instructional Interaction Theory 2: Student Differences Theory 3: Change The Approach An Example: Step 1: Identify the Instructor\u27s Major Concerns Step 2: Challenge Instructor\u27s Concepts of Teaching Step 3: Formulate Alternative Teaching Approaches Step 4: Evaluate New Approach Conclusions Reference

Mapping leaf nitrogen and leaf area index in European landscapes using high spatial resolution satellite data and the REGularized canopy reFLECtance (REGFLEC) model

Leaf biochemistry and biophysical parameters are important for simulating soil‐vegetation‐atmosphere exchanges of energy, water, CO2 and ammonia. The accumulation of leaf nitrogen (N) in vegetation canopies is a major component of the ecosystem N balance, and leaf N concentration and leaf area index (LAI) are important determinants of the maximum CO2 uptake by plants and trees. In NEU, high spatial resolution remote sensing data from the SPOT satellite were acquired to prepare maps of leaf N and LAI for 5 European landscapes. Mapping was conducted using the REGFLEC model which is an automatic and image‐based methodology developed for regional chlorophyll (Cab) and LAI estimation (ie. Houborg and Andersen, JARS 3, 2009). REGFLEC combines models for atmospheric correction (6S), canopy reflectance (ACRM) and leaf optics (PROSPECT). Model performance previously proved promising in Denmark and in Maryland, USA. In this study, REGFLEC performance is evaluated and discussed using field measurements of leaf N, SPADmeter data and LAI in Denmark, Poland, Scotland, the Netherlands and Italy. The inverse model estimations of soil reflectance parameters and canopy parameters are discussed in relation to the prevailing soil types and vegetation characteristics of land cover classes across the 5 European landscapes

Fiber-optic probe for noninvasive real-time determination of tissue optical properties at multiple wavelengths

We present a compact, fast, and versatile fiber-optic probe system for real-time determination of tissue optical properties from spatially resolved continuous-wave diffuse reflectance measurements. The system collects one set of reflectance data from six source-detector distances at four arbitrary wavelengths with a maximum overall sampling rate of 100 Hz. Multivariate calibration techniques based on two-dimensional polynomial fitting are employed to extract and display the absorption and reduced scattering coefficients in real-time mode. The four wavelengths of the current configuration are 660, 785, 805, and 974 nm, respectively. Cross-validation tests on a 6 x 7 calibration matrix of Intralipid-dye phantoms showed that the mean prediction error at, e.g., 785 nm was 2.8% for the absorption coefficient and 1.3% for the reduced scattering coefficient. The errors are relative to the range of the optical properties of the phantoms at 785 nm, which were 0-0.3/cm for the absorption coefficient and 6-16/cm for the reduced scattering coefficient. Finally, we also present and discuss results from preliminary skin tissue measurements. (C) 2001 Optical Society of Americ