Freshwater ecotoxicity assessment of pesticide use in crop production: Testing the influence of modeling choices

Pesticides help to control weeds, pests, and diseases contributing, therefore, to food availability. However, pesticide fractions not reaching the intended target may have adverse effects on the environment and the field ecosystems. Modeling pesticide emissions and the link with characterizing associated impacts is currently one of the main challenges in Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of agricultural systems. To address this challenge, this study takes advantage of the latest recommendations for pesticide emission inventory and impact assessment and frames a suitable interface for those LCA stages and the related mass distribution of pesticide avoiding a temporal overlapping. Here, freshwater ecotoxicity impacts of the production of feed crops (maize, grass, winter wheat, spring barley, rapeseed, and peas) in Denmark were evaluated during a 3-year period, testing the effects of inventory modeling and the recent updates of the characterization method (USEtox). Potential freshwater ecotoxicity impacts were calculated in two functional units reflecting crop impact profiles per ha and extent of cultivation, respectively. Ecotoxicity impacts decreased over the period, mainly because of the reduction of insecticides use (e.g., cypermethrin). Three different emission modeling scenarios were tested; they differ on the underlining assumptions and data requirements. The main aspects influencing impact results are the interface between inventory estimates and impact assessment, and the consideration of intermedia processes, such as crop growth development and pesticide application method. Impact scores for AS2 were higher than RS and AS1, but the differences in the crops ranking was less apparent. On the other hand, the influence on the estimation of impacts for individual AIs was considerable and statistical differences were found in the impact results modeled in scenarios RS and AS2. Thereby indicating the effect of inventory models on ecotoxicity impact assessment.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

Greenhouse gas emissions of organic dairy farms from six European countries

Posteri. Scientific seminar on organic food, Mikkeli 5-7.11.2014. Book of Abstracts published on the seminar 6.11.201

Insulin Detemir in the Treatment of Type 1 and Type 2 Diabetes

Insulin detemir is a soluble long-acting human insulin analogue at neutral pH with a unique mechanism of action. Following subcutaneous injection, insulin detemir binds to albumin via fatty acid chain, thereby providing slow absorption and a prolonged metabolic effect. Insulin detemir has a less variable pharmacokinetic profile than insulin suspension isophane or insulin ultralente. The use of insulin detemir can reduce the risk of hypoglycemia (especially nocturnal hypoglycemia) in type 1 and type 2 diabetic patients. However, overall glycemic control, as assessed by glycated hemoglobin, is only marginally and not significantly improved compared with usual insulin therapy. The weight gain commonly associated with insulin therapy is rather limited when insulin detemir is used. In our experience, this new insulin analogue is preferably administrated at bedtime but can be proposed twice a day (in the morning and either before the dinner or at bedtime). Detemir is a promising option for basal insulin therapy in type 1 or type 2 diabetic patients

AGFORWARD: achievments during the first two years

info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

AGFORWARD Third Periodic Report: July 2016 to December 2017

Project context The European Union has targets to improve the competitiveness of European agriculture and forestry, whilst improving the environment and the quality of rural life. At the same time there is a need to improve our resilience to climate change and to enhance biodiversity. During the twentieth century, large productivity advances were made by managing agriculture and forestry as separate practices, but often at a high environmental cost. In order to address landscape-scale issues such as biodiversity and water quality, we argue that farmers and society will benefit from considering landuse as a continuum including both agriculture and trees, and that there are significant opportunities for European farmers and society to benefit from a closer integration of trees with agriculture. Agroforestry is the practice of deliberately integrating woody vegetation (trees or shrubs) with crop and/or animal systems to benefit from the resulting ecological and economic interactions.AGFORWARD (Grant Agreement N° 613520) is co-funded by the European Commission, Directorate General for Research & Innovation, within the 7th Framework Programme of RTD. The views and opinions expressed in this report are purely those of the writers and may not in any circumstances be regarded as stating an official position of the European Commissio

AGFORWARD Project Final Report

Executive summary: The AGFORWARD project (Grant Agreement N° 613520) had the overall goal to promote agroforestry practices in Europe that will advance sustainable rural development. It had four objectives (described below) which address 1) the context and extent of agroforestry in Europe, 2) identifying, developing and field-testing agroforestry innovations through participatory networks, 3) evaluating innovative designs and practices at field-, farm-, and landscape-scales, and promoting agroforestry in Europe through policy development and dissemination. Agroforestry is defined as the practice of deliberately integrating woody vegetation (trees or shrubs) with crop and/or animal systems to benefit from the resulting ecological and economic interactions. Context: European agroforestry has been estimated to cover 10.6 Mha (using a literature review) and 15.4 Mha using the pan-European LUCAS dataset (i.e. 8.8% of the utilised agricultural area). Livestock agroforestry (15.1 Mha) is, by far, the dominant type of agroforestry. The LUCAS analysis provides a uniform method to compare agroforestry areas between countries and over time. Identify, develop and field-test agroforestry innovations: 40 stakeholder groups (involving about 820 stakeholders across 13 European countries) developed and field-tested agroforestry innovations which have been reported in 40 “lesson learnt” reports, and in a user-friendly format in 46 “Agroforestry innovation leaflets”. The innovations for agroforestry systems of high nature and cultural value included cheaper methods of tree protection and guidance for establishing legumes in wood pastures. Innovations for agroforestry with timber plantations, olive groves and apple orchards include the use of medicinal plants and reduction of mowing costs. Innovations for integrating trees on arable farms included assessments of yield benefits by providing wind protection. Innovations for livestock farms included using trees to enhance animal welfare, shade protection, and as a source of fodder. Peer-reviewed journal papers and conference presentations on these and other related topics were developed. Evaluation of agroforestry designs and practices at field- and landscape-scale: a range of publicly available field-scale analysis tools are available on the AGFORWARD website. These include the “CliPick” climate database, and web-applications of the Farm-SAFE and Hi-sAFe model. The results of field- and landscape-scale analysis, written up as peer-reviewed papers, highlight the benefits of agroforestry (relative to agriculture) for biodiversity enhancement and providing regulating ecosystem services, such as for climate and water regulation and purification. Policy development and dissemination: detailed reviews of existing policy and recommendations for future European agroforestry policy have been produced. The support provided is far wider than the single specified agroforestry measures. The recommendations included the collation of existing measures, and that agroforestry systems should not forfeit Pillar I payments. Opportunities for farmlevel and landscape-level measures were also identified. The project results can be found on the project website (www.agforward.eu), a Facebook account (www.facebook.com/AgforwardProject), a Twitter account (https://twitter.com/AGFORWARD_EU), and a quarterly electronic newsletter (http://www.agforward.eu/index.php/en/newsletters-1514.html). The number of national associations in Europe was extended to twelve, and a web-based training resource on agroforestry (http://train.agforward.eu/language/en/agforall/) created. AGFORWARD also supported the Third European Agroforestry Conference in Montpellier in 2016 attracting 287 delegates from 26 countries including many farmers. We also initiated another 21 national conferences or conference sessions on agroforestry, made about 240 oral presentations, 61 poster presentations, produced about 50 news articles, and supported about 87 workshop, training or field-visit activities (in addition to the stakeholder groups)

Online Bayesian Optimization for a Recoil Mass Separator

The SEparator for CApture Reactions (SECAR) is a next-generation recoil separator system at the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB) designed for the direct measurement of capture reactions on unstable nuclei in inverse kinematics. To maximize the performance of this system, stringent requirements on the beam alignment to the central beam axis and on the ion-optical settings need to be achieved. These can be difficult to attain through manual tuning by human operators without potentially leaving the system in a sub-optimal and irreproducible state. In this work, we present the first development of online Bayesian optimization with a Gaussian process model to tune an ion beam through a nuclear astrophysics recoil separator. We show that this method achieves small incoming angular deviations (\textless 1 mrad) in an efficient and reproducible manner that is at least three times faster than standard hand-tuning. Additionally, we present a Bayesian method for experimental optimization of the ion optics, and show that it validates the nominal theoretical ion-optical settings of the device, and improves the mass separation by 32\% for some beams

Atmospheric constraints on the methane emissions from the East Siberian Shelf

Subsea permafrost and hydrates in the East Siberian Arctic Shelf (ESAS) constitute a substantial carbon pool, and a potentially large source of methane to the atmosphere. Previous studies based on interpolated oceanographic campaigns estimated atmospheric emissions from this area at 8–17 TgCH₄ yr⁻¹. Here, we propose insights based on atmospheric observations to evaluate these estimates. The comparison of high-resolution simulations of atmospheric methane mole fractions to continuous methane observations during the whole year 2012 confirms the high variability and heterogeneity of the methane releases from ESAS. A reference scenario with ESAS emissions of 8 TgCH₄ yr⁻¹, in the lower part of previously estimated emissions, is found to largely overestimate atmospheric observations in winter, likely related to overestimated methane leakage through sea ice. In contrast, in summer, simulations are more consistent with observations. Based on a comprehensive statistical analysis of the observations and of the simulations, annual methane emissions from ESAS are estimated to range from 0.0 to 4.5 TgCH₄ yr⁻¹. Isotopic observations suggest a biogenic origin (either terrestrial or marine) of the methane in air masses originating from ESAS during late summer 2008 and 2009