Processing and Quality Guidelines for Organic Food Processing/Verarbeitungs- und Qualitätsleitfaden für biologische Lebensmittel/Linee guida per la lavorazione e la qualità visto che trasformazione di alimenti biologici

These guidelines on quality and processing of organic foods have been prepared as part of the Core Organic Plus funded project “SusOrganic - Development of quality standards and optimised processing methods for organic produce”

Towards a dendrochronologically refined date of the Laacher See Eruption

The precise date of the Laacher See eruption (LSE), central Europe’s largest Late Pleistocene volcanic event that occurred around 12,900 years ago, is still unknown. Here, we outline the potential of combined high-resolution dendrochronological, wood anatomical and radiocarbon (14C) measurements, to refine the age of this major Plinian eruption. Based on excavated trees that were killed during the explosive LSE and buried under its pyroclastic deposits, we describe how a firm date of the eruption might be achieved, and how the resulting temporal precision would further advance our understanding of the environmental and societal impacts of this event. Moreover, we discuss the relevance of an accurate LSE date for improving the synchronization of European terrestrial and lacustrine Late Glacial to Holocene archives, and outline how the proposed, interdisciplinary dating approach can be applied to other large, yet undated, volcanic eruptions

Modernizing and Expanding the NASA Space Geodesy Network to Meet Future Geodetic Requirements

NASA maintains and operates a global network of Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI), Satellite Laser Ranging (SLR), and Global Navigation Satellite System ground stations as part of the NASA Space Geodesy Program. The NASA Space Geodesy Network (NSGN) provides the geodetic products that support Earth observations and the related science requirements as outlined by the US National Research Council (NRC in Precise geodetic infrastructure: national requirements for a shared resource, National Academies Press, Washington, 2010. http://nap.edu/12954, Thriving on our changing planet: a decadal strategy for Earth observation from space, National Academies Press, Washington, 2018. http://nap.edu/24938). The Global Geodetic Observing System (GGOS) and the NRC have set an ambitious goal of improving the Terrestrial Reference Frame to have an accuracy of 1 mm and stability of 0.1 mm per year, an order of magnitude beyond current capabilities. NASA and its partners within GGOS are addressing this challenge by planning and implementing modern geodetic stations colocated at existing and new sites around the world. In 2013, NASA demonstrated the performance of its next-generation systems at the prototype next-generation core site at NASAs Goddard Geophysical and Astronomical Observatory in Greenbelt, Maryland. Implementation of a new broadband VLBI station in Hawaii was completed in 2016. NASA is currently implementing new VLBI and SLR stations in Texas and is planning the replacement of its other aging domestic and international legacy stations. In this article, we describe critical gaps in the current global network and discuss how the new NSGN will expand the global geodetic coverage and ultimately improve the geodetic products. We also describe the characteristics of a modern NSGN site and the capabilities of the next-generation NASA SLR and VLBI systems. Finally, we outline the plans for efficiently operating the NSGN by centralizing and automating the operations of the new geodetic stations

Supporting alternative organizations? Exploring scholars’ involvement in the performativity of worker-recuperated enterprises

This article analyses the role of academics in the production and maintenance of alternative organizations within the capitalist system. Empirically, we focus on academics from the University of Buenos Aires who, through the extension programme Facultad Abierta, have supported worker-recuperated enterprises since their emergence in Argentina in the early 2000s. Conceptually, we build on prior studies on worker-recuperated enterprises as well as the ‘critical performativity’ concept that we define as scholars’ subversive interventions that can involve the production of new subjectivities, the constitution of new organizational models and/or the bridging of these models to current social movements. Our results uncover the multiple roles of academics in relation to these three facets and highlight the key interactions of these roles. In so doing, our analysis advances prior studies of worker-recuperated enterprises by clarifying how academics can support alternative organizations while offering a renewed conceptualization of critical performativity as a multifaceted process through which academics and workers interact

Balneotherapy is a potential risk factor for Pseudomonas aeruginosa colonization

The practice of immersion in burn patient has been abandoned in many parts of the world but in Brazil it is still common. The aim of this study was to ascertain if balneotherapy is a risk factor for Pseudomonas aeruginosa colonization in thermally injured patients. Eighteen patients from a Burn Center were studied for 14 weeks for Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Samples were collected by swabbing the exudate of wounds, before and after giving bath to the patients and from balneotherapy table. Pulsed-field gel electrophoresis was used to determine bacterial genetic relatedness. Thirty-seven P. aeruginosa isolates were detected from 292 swabs collected from patients' burn surface area and from the balneotherapy table. Profile analysis of P. aeruginosa DNA fragmentation showed 10 clones among the 37 strains analyzed. Type A is the most prevalent clone, with 23 strains distributed into eight subtypes. These were present in the swabs collected, before and after the patients' bath, from the surface of the bath table, suggesting that there was cross-contamination between the patients in different ways. This work demonstrates that balneotherapy is a risk factor in the Burn Center studied, because the same clone was found among P. aeruginosa isolates collected at various points and times. Uniterms: Pseudomonas aeruginosa/colonization. Burn patients. Balneotherapy. PFGE. A prática de balneotarapia em paciente queimado foi abandonada em muitas partes do mundo, mas no Brasil ainda é comum. O objetivo deste estudo foi verificar se a balneoterapia é um fator de risco para a colonização por Pseudomonas aeruginosa em pacientes queimados. Dezoito pacientes internados em um Centro de Queimadura (CQ) foram acompanhados por 14 semanas. Amostras foram coletadas do exsudato de feridas, antes e depois do banho dos pacientes e também da mesa onde a balneoterapia foi realizada. A relação genética entre as cepas de P. aeruginosa foi determinada pela electroforese em gel de campo pulsado. Trinta e sete cepas foram detectadas a partir de 292 swabs coletados de área de superfície das feridas dos pacientes e da mesa de balneoterapia. Análise de fragmentação do DNA das 37 P. aeruginosa mostrou a existência de 10 clones. O tipo A foi o clone mais prevalente, com 23 cepas distribuídas em oito subtipos. Estas estavam presentes nas lesões dos pacientes antes e após o banho e na mesa onde o banho foi realizado, sugerindo contaminação cruzada inter e intra-pacientes e pacientes e mesa de banho. Este trabalho mostra que a balneoterapia é um fator de risco para colonização por P. aeruginosa, no CQ estudado, pois um mesmo clone da bactéria foi encontrado nos isolados coletados em vários pontos e épocas diferentes. Unitermos: Pseudomonas aeruginosa/colonização. Pacientes queimados/tratamento. Balneoterapia. Eletroforese em campo pulsado

Reconstructing 800 years of summer temperatures in Scotland from tree rings

We thank The Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland for providing funding for Miloš Rydval’s PhD. The Scottish pine network expansion has been an ongoing task since 2007 and funding must be acknowledged to the following projects: EU project ‘Millennium’ (017008-2), Leverhulme Trust project ‘RELiC: Reconstructing 8000 years of Environmental and Landscape change in the Cairngorms (F/00 268/BG)’ and the NERC project ‘SCOT2K: Reconstructing 2000 years of Scottish climate from tree rings (NE/K003097/1)’.This study presents a summer temperature reconstruction using Scots pine tree-ring chronologies for Scotland allowing the placement of current regional temperature changes in a longer-term context. ‘Living-tree’ chronologies were extended using ’subfossil’ samples extracted from nearshore lake sediments resulting in a composite chronology > 800 years in length. The North Cairngorms (NCAIRN) reconstruction was developed from a set of composite blue intensity high-pass and ring-width low-pass chronologies with a range of detrending and disturbance correction procedures. Calibration against July-August mean temperature explains 56.4% of the instrumental data variance over 1866-2009 and is well verified. Spatial correlations reveal strong coherence with temperatures over the British Isles, parts of western Europe, southern Scandinavia and northern parts of the Iberian Peninsula. NCAIRN suggests that the recent summer-time warming in Scotland is likely not unique when compared to multi-decadal warm periods observed in the 1300s, 1500s, and 1730s, although trends before the mid-16th century should be interpreted with some caution due to greater uncertainty. Prominent cold periods were identified from the 16th century until the early 1800s – agreeing with the so-called Little Ice Age observed in other tree-ring reconstructions from Europe - with the 1690s identified as the coldest decade in the record. The reconstruction shows a significant cooling response one year following volcanic eruptions although this result is sensitive to the datasets used to identify such events. In fact, the extreme cold (and warm) years observed in NCAIRN appear more related to internal forcing of the summer North Atlantic Oscillation.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Analysis of health related quality of life (HRQoL) of patients with clinically localized prostate cancer, one year after treatment with external beam radiotherapy (EBRT) alone versus EBRT and high dose rate brachytherapy (HDRBT)

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Purpose</p> <p>Prostate cancer is the leading form of cancer diagnosed among North American men. Most patients present with localized disease, which can be effectively treated with a variety of different modalities. These are associated with widely different acute and late effects, which can be both physical and psychological in nature. HRQoL concerns are therefore important for these patients for selecting between the different treatment options.</p> <p>Materials and methods</p> <p>One year after receiving radiotherapy for localised prostate cancer 117 patients with localized prostate cancer were invited to participate in a quality of life (QoL) self reported survey. 111 patients consented and participated in the survey, one year after completion of their treatment. 88 patients received EBRT and 23 received EBRT and HDRBT. QoL was compared in the two groups by using a modified version of Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy-Prostate (FACT-P) survey instrument.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>One year after completion of treatment, there was no significant difference in overall QoL scores between the two groups of patients. For each component of the modified FACT-P survey, i.e. physical, social/family, emotional, and functional well-being; there were no statistically significant differences in the mean scores between the two groups.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>In prostate cancer patients treated with EBRT alone versus combined EBRT and HDRBT, there was no significant difference in the QoL scores at one year post-treatment.</p