Improvements in the storage and marketing quality of grain legumes: Final technical report

The objective of this three-year project based in northern Ghana was to identify qualitative and quantitative losses in the storage of grain legumes by small-scale farmers and develop means of reducing the losses. The project used participatory surveys to monitor the loss in value during storage, both on-farm and in the markets. These surveys showed that heavy losses occurred during storage in markets

LONG TERM IMPROVEMENT OF PERFORMANCE INDEXES IN BASKETBALL PLAYERS

In the present paper measurements and tests were carried out on 12 basketball players of a D-series team, undergoing muscular strengthen, for a period of more than 2 years. The team was divided into 2 groups : the control group, composed of 5 players undergoing only team-training, and the experimental group, composed of 7 players undergoing team-training and sinusoidal electrical stimulation to increase the power in quadriceps femoris and triceps surae . In this study a sinusoidal current at the frequency of 2500 Hz has been used. A stimulation time of 10 seconds was chosen, followed by a rest period of 50 seconds to avoid a reduction of the subsequent contraction force. This stimulation procedure was applied to the subjects of the experimental group for 20 minutes per day for 15days. Four stimulation cycles of 15 days were globally performed using the 4channel electrical stimulator mod. ST-E4C.Similar anthropometric data characterised the two groups : for the experimental group the mean age was 20.1 f 1.9 years, the mean height was 187.7 f 5.0 an and the mean weight 83.8 f 6.4 Kg for the control group these values were respectively 20.8 f 2.5 years, 189.0 f 2.8 cm, 80.6 f 3.7 Kg .Before and after each stimulation cycle, at the beginning and at the end of the agonistic season several tests were performed to evaluate performance indexes :1. Abalakov test (taking the best result of three tests);2. Standing long jump (taking the best result of three tests);3.30 meters dash (taking the average time of three tests).This study has shown that a h26 months the experimental group reached increments of performance indexes twice greater than the control group. After summer, before the beginning of the agonistic season, the absolute increments for the experimental group remained higher than the control group, suggesting that the improvement of the muscular performance by means of sinusoidal electrical stimulation is maintained by a normal training and constitutes a basic resource for the following improvements

Enhancing the Relevance and Effectiveness of Water Safety Education for Ethnic and Racial Minorities

In this paper we explore the ways in which culturally based beliefs, attitudes, and behaviours influence participation in and the development and delivery of water safety education programs. We examine existing data pertaining to ethnic and racial minorities’ drowning rates and argue that these groups’ high rates of drowning are related to a failure to understand and account for non-Eurocentric beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors, and issues of social exclusion. We then summarize health communication strategies and provide real-life examples of these strategies at work in water safety education. Finally, we identify four overarching promising practices to enhance the relevance and effectiveness of water education programs targeted at ethnic and cultural minorities. In short, we argue that literature pertaining to cultural aspects of water safety needs to be translated into evidence-based approaches that fundamentally change the ways in which water safety education programs are designed and delivered

Studying patterns of use of transport modes through data mining - Application to U.S. national household travel survey data set

Data collection activities related to travel require large amounts of financial and human resources to be conducted successfully. When available resources are scarce, the information hidden in these data sets needs to be exploited, both to increase their added value and to gain support among decision makers not to discontinue such efforts. This study assessed the use of a data mining technique, association analysis, to understand better the patterns of mode use from the 2009 U.S. National Household Travel Survey. Only variables related to self-reported levels of use of the different transportation means are considered, along with those useful to the socioeconomic characterization of the respondents. Association rules potentially showed a substitution effect between cars and public transportation, in economic terms but such an effect was not observed between public transportation and nonmotorized modes (e.g., bicycling and walking). This effect was a policy-relevant finding, because transit marketing should be targeted to car drivers rather than to bikers or walkers for real improvement in the environmental performance of any transportation system. Given the competitive advantage of private modes extensively discussed in the literature, modal diversion from car to transit is seldom observed in practice. However, after such a factor was controlled, the results suggest that modal diversion should mainly occur from cars to transit rather than from nonmotorized modes to transi

Light dark forces at flavor factories

SuperB experiment could represent an ideal environment to test a new U (1) symmetry related to light dark forces candidates. A promising discovery channel is represented by the resonant production of a boson U, followed by its decay into lepton pairs. Beyond approximations adopted in the literature, an exact tree level calculation of the radiative processes $e+ e- \rightarrow \gamma, U \rightarrow \mu^+ \mu^- \gamma, e^+ e^- \gamma$ and corresponding QED backgrounds is performed, including also the most important higher-order corrections. The calculation is implemented in a release of the generator BabaYaga@NLO useful for data analysis and interpretation. The distinct features of U boson production are shown and the statistical significance is analysed

Severe drug-induced gingival enlargement and periodontitis: A case series with clinical presentation and management

Gingival enlargement (GE) is a condition in which the size of the gingiva increases in response to inflammation, systemic disease, or certain medications including anticonvulsants, calcium-channel blockers, and immunosuppressants. This report describes the management of two cases involving severe gingival enlargement related to the use of an anti-hypertensive calcium-channel blocker and an immunosuppressant. Besides taking amlodipine, one patient had undergone a heart transplantation seven years prior and has been taking two immunosuppressant drugs, mycophenolate and tacrolimus. The extent of the destruction of periodontal support, aggravated by gingival enlargement, resulted in extensive tooth loss. Periodontitis and gingival enlargement exacerbate and accelerate one another and can result in loss of the entire dentition, severely affecting function and esthetics. The pharmacologic etiology sometimes cannot be altered and the patient has to be carefully managed and maintained with periodontal therapy. Physicians and dentists should be aware of these medications and be able to identify early changes in the oral cavity and to prevent, diagnose, and successfully manage the unwanted side effects of these drugs in patients

Antimicrobial Resistance and Virulence Genes in Enterococcus faecium and Enterococcus faecalis from Humans and Retail Red Meat

The emergence of antimicrobial-resistant and virulent enterococci is a major public health concern. While enterococci are commonly found in food of animal origin, the knowledge on their zoonotic potential is limited. The aim of this study was to determine and compare the antimicrobial susceptibility and virulence traits of Enterococcus faecalis and Enterococcus faecium isolates from human clinical specimens and retail red meat in Slovenia. A total of 242 isolates were investigated: 101 from humans (71 E. faecalis, 30 E. faecium) and 141 from fresh beef and pork (120 E. faecalis, 21 E. faecium). The susceptibility to 12 antimicrobials was tested using a broth microdilution method, and the presence of seven common virulence genes was investigated using PCR. In both species, the distribution of several resistance phenotypes and virulence genes was disparate for isolates of different origin. All isolates were susceptible to daptomycin, linezolid, teicoplanin, and vancomycin. In both species, the susceptibility to antimicrobials was strongly associated with a food origin and the multidrug resistance, observed in 29.6% of E. faecalis and 73.3% E. faecium clinical isolates, with a clinical origin (Fisher's exact test). Among meat isolates, in total 66.0% of E. faecalis and E. faecium isolates were susceptible to all antimicrobials tested and 32.6% were resistant to either one or two antimicrobials. In E. faecalis, several virulence genes were significantly associated with a clinical origin; the most common (31.0%) gene pattern included all the tested genes except hyl. In meat isolates, the virulence genes were detected in E. faecalis only and the most common pattern included ace, efaA, and gelE (32.5%), of which gelE showed a statistically significant association with a clinical origin. These results emphasize the importance of E. faecalis in red meat as a reservoir of virulence genes involved in its persistence and human infections with reported severe outcomes

Cell differentiation assisting in evaluating mastitis treatment prognosis

Bovine mastitis is commonly treated with antibiotics, which does notalways succeed and therefore, sometimes is unnecessary. Bacteriologicalcure is the goal of antibiotic therapy and depends on the causingmicroorganism, the applied therapy, and on animal-related factors.Determining the animal-related part of the probability of bacteriologicalcure before applying antibiotics might help to reduce unnecessaryusage. By now, this is only possible by considering individual cowdata including animal-related factors such as age, mastitis history andsomatic cell count. Former studies revealed that chronic mastitis lowersthe probability of cure and leads to specific characteristics foundin the differential cell count. The aim of this study was to develop aflow cytometric cell differentiation tool to determine animal-relatedfactors correlating with a score-based probability of bacteriologicalcure. Therefore, the proportions of different cell types and their vitalityin 874 Dairy Herd Improvement milk samples of 239 cows weredetermined by flow cytometry. The results were tested for a correlationbetween data of flow cytometry and the calculated animal-relatedprobability of bacteriological cure of each individual cow by binomiallogistic regression analysis. A statistically significant association to thecalculated and animal-related probability of bacteriological cure couldbe shown for highly granulated cells, non-vital cells and macrophages.With this model, 84.4 % of all animals could be allocated to theirestimated animal-related probability of bacteriological cure correctly.These findings suggest that flow cytometric cell differentiation mightbecome an innovative tool to estimate animal-related prognosis forbacteriological cure

Creating valuable outcomes: an exploration of value creation pathways in the business models of energy communities

Energy communities (ECs) have emerged as new, collective market actors within European energy systems. Their innovative business models are thought to result in a multiple types of value creation that transcend mere economic considerations. Yet, despite widespread acknowledgement of this, how multiple types of value are created in ECs remains inadequately explored and understood. We engage with this challenge by (1) situating ECs within the longer history and body of knowledge on community participation in energy systems before (2) mobilising insights on value creation from the literature on business models, and (3) distinguishing between value creation as a business model process and types of value outcomes derived from business activities. We apply this approach to three paradigmatic European cases and through comparative analysis identify two distinct value creation pathways. The first pathway links business activities and how they are assembled to functional value outcomes such as cost savings or CO2 reduction, which are quantifiable. The second pathway links how ECs are governed to normative value outcomes such as increased agency or social cohesion, which is a matter of individuals' perception. These results, we argue, call for greater attention and support to questions of organisation and process to ensure the transformational potential of ECs is realised