Scope and precision of sustainability assessment approaches to food systems

With sustainability within food systems becoming an increasingly important issue, several approaches that claim to assess the sustainability of farms, farming systems, and supply chains have been developed. Looking more closely at these sustainability impact assessment approaches, we discerned considerable differences between them in terms of scope, the level of assessment, and the precision of indicators used for impact assessment. Our aim was to classify and analyze a range of available sustainability impact assessment approaches with respect to scope and precision. From a total of 35 sustainability assessment approaches, we selected 6 for a detailed comparison. From our analysis, we concluded that there are 3 different types of trade-offs in these approaches: between different kinds of scope, between different indicators for precision and trade-offs, and between the scope and precision. Thus, one-size-fits-all solutions, with respect to tool selection, are rarely feasible. Furthermore, as indicator selection determines the assessment results, different and inconsistent indicators can lead to contradictory assessment results that may not be comparable. To overcome these shortcomings, sustainability impact assessments should include a precise definition of the notion of “sustainability” along with a description of the methodological approach and the indicator sets and should aim for harmonization of indicators and assumptions. Global initiatives such as the Sustainability Assessment in Food and Agriculture Systems (SAFA) Guidelines are a helpful step toward shedding light on the differences of these approaches and making the assessment results more comparable

Efficiency of bioswales in positively effecting storm water quality

Because of the increased need for sustainable construction in an ever urbanizing culture, new sustainable drainage systems are being developed and implemented. Bioswales are becoming an increasingly popular form of sustainable urban drainage used for parking lots and subdivisions. But little is known regarding the effectiveness of bioswales in really cleaning storm run-off. If bioswales are not working to the level which they are theoretically designed for, then untreated water is being put back into natural waterways. This can cause potential problems for water body health as well as local aquatic and plant life. This thesis aims to investigate the effectiveness of a particular bioswale in effecting the storm water quality for one season. This is done by measuring the dissolved oxygen contents, temperature, pH, and nutrient content at several locations along the swale and comparing them with Oregon Department of Environmental Quality water quality standards. The investigation showed some improvement in the water quality as it progressed through the swale. Many water quality standards were not met. However, the data is inconclusive because it is only testing the swale during one season and no water was leaving the swale

Efficiency of bioswales in positively effecting storm water quality

Because of the increased need for sustainable construction in an ever urbanizing culture, new sustainable drainage systems are being developed and implemented. Bioswales are becoming an increasingly popular form of sustainable urban drainage used for parking lots and subdivisions. But little is known regarding the effectiveness of bioswales in really cleaning storm run-off. If bioswales are not working to the level which they are theoretically designed for, then untreated water is being put back into natural waterways. This can cause potential problems for water body health as well as local aquatic and plant life. This thesis aims to investigate the effectiveness of a particular bioswale in effecting the storm water quality for one season. This is done by measuring the dissolved oxygen contents, temperature, pH, and nutrient content at several locations along the swale and comparing them with Oregon Department of Environmental Quality water quality standards. The investigation showed some improvement in the water quality as it progressed through the swale. Many water quality standards were not met. However, the data is inconclusive because it is only testing the swale during one season and no water was leaving the swale

Lophelia reefs

PHASECam is the fringe tracker for the Large Binocular Telescope Interferometer (LBTI). It is a near-infrared camera that is used to measure both tip/tilt and fringe phase variations between the two adaptive optics-corrected apertures of the Large Binocular Telescope (LBT). Tip/tilt and phase sensing are currently performed in the H (1.65 mu m) and K (2.2 mu m) bands at 1 kHz, but only the K-band phase telemetry is used to send corrections to the system in order to maintain fringe coherence and visibility. However, due to the cyclic nature of the fringe phase, only the phase, modulo 360 deg, can be measured. PHASECam's phase unwrapping algorithm, which attempts to mitigate this issue, occasionally fails in cases of fast, large phase variations or low signal-to-noise ratio. This can cause a fringe jump in which case the optical path difference correction will be incorrect by a wavelength. This can currently be manually corrected by the operator. However, as the LBTI commissions further modes that require robust, active phase control and for which fringe jumps are harder to detect, including multiaxial (Fizeau) interferometry and dual-aperture nonredundant aperture masking interferometry, a more reliable and automated solution is desired. We present a multiwavelength method of fringe jump capture and correction that involves direct comparison between the K-band and H-band phase telemetry. We demonstrate the method utilizing archival PHASECam telemetry, showing it provides a robust, reliable way of detecting fringe jumps that can potentially recover a significant fraction of the data lost to them. (C) 2020 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE)This item from the UA Faculty Publications collection is made available by the University of Arizona with support from the University of Arizona Libraries. If you have questions, please contact us at [email protected]

Messung der Nachhaltigkeit auf Betriebsebene: welches Instrument für welchen Zweck?

Für die Bewertung der Nachhaltigkeit auf der Ebene des Landwirtschaftsbetriebes liegen drei in der Schweiz entwickelte Methoden vor: RISE, SMART und SALCAsustain. Im vorliegenden Artikel werden die drei Methoden anhand eines Kriterienkatalogs und einiger konkreter Beispiele miteinander verglichen, mit dem Ziel, dem Leser, der Leserin die Entscheidung zu erleichtern, welches Tool für die eigene spezifische Anwendung und Zielgruppe am besten geeignet ist. Alle drei Methoden decken die Nachhaltigkeit umfassend ab, und aus den Ergebnissen lassen sich für die entsprechenden Interessengruppen konkrete Verbesserungsmassnahmen und Entscheidungen ableiten. Die Ausführungen zeigen, dass sich SALCAsustain für die Beantwortung von Forschungsfragen sowie die Analyse unterschiedlicher betrieblicher Managementstrategien eignet. Die Stärke von RISE ist seine flexible Anwendbarkeit, die es ermöglicht, RISE in der Beratung, im Unterricht und zum Vergleich von Betrieben und Betriebsgruppen einzusetzen. SMART erlaubt ein rasches Screening der betrieblichen Nachhaltigkeit und liefert dabei Ergebnisse, die sich auch zwischen Betrieben vergleichen und einfach an Dritte kommunizieren lassen. Die Wahl der geeigneten Methode hängt daher von der Fragestellung und der Zielgruppe ab

Partial Netrin-1 Deficiency Aggravates Acute Kidney Injury

The netrin family of secreted proteins provides migrational cues in the developing central nervous system. Recently, netrins have also been shown to regulate diverse processes beyond their functions in the brain, incluing the ochrestration of inflammatory events. Particularly netrin-1 has been implicated in dampening hypoxia-induced inflammation. Here, we hypothesized an anti-inflammatory role of endogenous netrin-1 in acute kidney injury (AKI). As homozygous deletion of netrin-1 is lethal, we studied mice with partial netrin-1 deletion (Ntn-1+/− mice) as a genetic model. In fact, Ntn-1+/− mice showed attenuated Ntn-1 levels at baseline and following ischemic AKI. Functional studies of AKI induced by 30 min of renal ischemia and reperfusion revealed enhanced kidney dysfunction in Ntn-1+/− mice as assessed by measurements of glomerular filtration, urine flow rate, urine electrolytes, serum creatinine and creatinine clearance. Consistent with these findings, histological studies indicated a more severe degree kidney injury. Similarly, elevations of renal and systemic inflammatory markers were enhanced in mice with partial netrin-1 deficiency. Finally, treatment of Ntn-1+/− mice with exogenous netrin-1 restored a normal phenotype during AKI. Taking together, these studies implicate endogenous netrin-1 in attenuating renal inflammation during AKI

First-light LBT nulling interferometric observations: warm exozodiacal dust resolved within a few AU of eta Corvi

We report on the first nulling interferometric observations with the Large Binocular Telescope Interferometer (LBTI), resolving the N' band (9.81 - 12.41 um) emission around the nearby main-sequence star eta Crv (F2V, 1-2 Gyr). The measured source null depth amounts to 4.40% +/- 0.35% over a field-of-view of 140 mas in radius (~2.6\,AU at the distance of eta Corvi) and shows no significant variation over 35{\deg} of sky rotation. This relatively low null is unexpected given the total disk to star flux ratio measured by Spitzer/IRS (~23% across the N' band), suggesting that a significant fraction of the dust lies within the central nulled response of the LBTI (79 mas or 1.4 AU). Modeling of the warm disk shows that it cannot resemble a scaled version of the Solar zodiacal cloud, unless it is almost perpendicular to the outer disk imaged by Herschel. It is more likely that the inner and outer disks are coplanar and the warm dust is located at a distance of 0.5-1.0 AU, significantly closer than previously predicted by models of the IRS spectrum (~3 AU). The predicted disk sizes can be reconciled if the warm disk is not centrosymmetric, or if the dust particles are dominated by very small grains. Both possibilities hint that a recent collision has produced much of the dust. Finally, we discuss the implications for the presence of dust at the distance where the insolation is the same as Earth's (2.3 AU).Comment: 9 pages, 6 figures, accepted for publication in Ap

The HOSTS Survey for Exozodiacal Dust: Preliminary results and future prospects

[abridged] The presence of large amounts of dust in the habitable zones of nearby stars is a significant obstacle for future exo-Earth imaging missions. We executed an N band nulling interferometric survey to determine the typical amount of such exozodiacal dust around a sample of nearby main sequence stars. The majority of our data have been analyzed and we present here an update of our ongoing work. We find seven new N band excesses in addition to the high confidence confirmation of three that were previously known. We find the first detections around Sun-like stars and around stars without previously known circumstellar dust. Our overall detection rate is 23%. The inferred occurrence rate is comparable for early type and Sun-like stars, but decreases from 71% [+11%/-20%] for stars with previously detected mid- to far-infrared excess to 11% [+9%/-4%] for stars without such excess, confirming earlier results at high confidence. For completed observations on individual stars, our sensitivity is five to ten times better than previous results. Assuming a lognormal luminosity function of the dust, we find upper limits on the median dust level around all stars without previously known mid to far infrared excess of 11.5 zodis at 95% confidence level. The corresponding upper limit for Sun-like stars is 16 zodis. An LBTI vetted target list of Sun-like stars for exo-Earth imaging would have a corresponding limit of 7.5 zodis. We provide important new insights into the occurrence rate and typical levels of habitable zone dust around main sequence stars. Exploiting the full range of capabilities of the LBTI provides a critical opportunity for the detailed characterization of a sample of exozodiacal dust disks to understand the origin, distribution, and properties of the dust.Comment: To appear in SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation 2018 proceedings. Some typos fixed, one reference adde

ATP Release from Vascular Endothelia Occurs Across Cx43 Hemichannels and Is Attenuated during Hypoxia

Background: Extracellular ATP is an important signaling molecule for vascular adaptation to limited oxygen availability (hypoxia). Here, we pursued the contribution of vascular endothelia to extracellular ATP release under hypoxic conditions. Methodology, Principal Findings: We gained first insight from studying ATP release from endothelia (HMEC-1) pre-exposed to hypoxia. Surprisingly, we found that ATP release was significantly attenuated following hypoxia exposure (2 % oxygen, 2263 % after 48 h). In contrast, intracellular ATP was unchanged. Similarly, lactate-dehydrogenase release into the supernatants was similar between normoxic or hypoxic endothelia, suggesting that differences in lytic ATP release between normoxia or hypoxia are minimal. Next, we used pharmacological strategies to study potential mechanisms for endothelialdependent ATP release (eg, verapamil, dipyridamole, 18-alpha-glycyrrhetinic acid, anandamide, connexin-mimetic peptides). These studies revealed that endothelial ATP release occurs – at least in part- through connexin 43 (Cx43) hemichannels. A real-time RT-PCR screen of endothelial connexin expression showed selective repression of Cx43 transcript and additional studies confirmed time-dependent Cx43 mRNA, total and surface protein repression during hypoxia. In addition, hypoxia resulted in Cx43-serine368 phosphorylation, which is known to switch Cx43 hemi-channels from an open to a closed state. Conclusions/Significance: Taken together, these studies implicate endothelial Cx43 in hypoxia-associated repression o

Adora2b Adenosine Receptor Engagement Enhances Regulatory T Cell Abundance during Endotoxin-Induced Pulmonary Inflammation

Anti-inflammatory signals play an essential role in constraining the magnitude of an inflammatory response. Extracellular adenosine is a critical tissue-protective factor, limiting the extent of inflammation. Given the potent anti-inflammatory effects of extracellular adenosine, we sought to investigate how extracellular adenosine regulates T cell activation and differentiation. Adenosine receptor activation by a pan adenosine-receptor agonist enhanced the abundance of murine regulatory T cells (Tregs), a cell type critical in constraining inflammation. Gene expression studies in both naïve CD4 T cells and Tregs revealed that these cells expressed multiple adenosine receptors. Based on recent studies implicating the Adora2b in endogenous anti-inflammatory responses during acute inflammation, we used a pharmacologic approach to specifically activate Adora2b. Indeed, these studies revealed robust enhancement of Treg differentiation in wild-type mice, but not in Adora2b−/− T cells. Finally, when we subjected Adora2b-deficient mice to endotoxin-induced pulmonary inflammation, we found that these mice experienced more severe inflammation, characterized by increased cell recruitment and increased fluid leakage into the airways. Notably, Adora2b-deficient mice failed to induce Tregs after endotoxin-induced inflammation and instead had an enhanced recruitment of pro-inflammatory effector T cells. In total, these data indicate that the Adora2b adenosine receptor serves a potent anti-inflammatory role, functioning at least in part through the enhancement of Tregs, to limit inflammation