Hemp (Cannabis sativa L.) as a Resource for Green Cosmetics: Yield of Seeds and Fatty Acids Composition of 20 Varieties under the Growing Conditions of Organic Farming in Austria

The interest in hemp (non-drug Cannabis sativa L.) for skin care and cosmetic use is due to the high content of oil, especially unsaturated fatty acids in seed with technological and therapeutic effects. In a field trial on an organic farm, seed weight and content of fatty acids of 20 hemp varieties were surveyed on three different harvest dates. The dry matter seed yields ranged from 27-149 g m2. The varieties Ferimon-12, Fedora-19, and Bialobreszie produced high seed yields on all three harvest dates but yields were not significantly different from a large group of other varieties. Contents of palmitic acid range from 3.1 to 4.1%, of stearic acid from 0.1 to 1.9%, of oleic acid from 3.7 to 9.2%, of linoleic acid from 44.8 to 60.2%, of α-linolenic acid from 18.2 to 27.4%, and of γ-linolenic acid from 1.6 to 4.7%. The genotype has no significant influence on fatty acid content. All 20 varieties tested show high quantities of fatty acid depending on the harvest date, so that no variety can be favored. Results confirm that hemp is a very good source of fatty acids for skin care and cosmetic use

Organic Farming in Austria

During the present decade, Austria has experienced a dramatic increase in organic farming among those countries that comprise the European Union (EU). For example, in 1992, approximately 2,000 farms were practicing organic, ecological, or biodynamic farming methodes. By 1997 the number of certified organic farms plus those in transition from conventional farming had increased 10-fold to some 20,000 farms. This represents almost 9% of the total farms in Austria and an area of 345,375 ha, or 10% of the total cultivated farmland. The largest concentration of organic farms is in regions with a high proportion of alpine grassland or pastures. Approximately 50% of the organic farms range in size from 5 to 15 ha. The strong organic movement in Austria can be attributed to a) government subsidies which provide incentives to organic farmers and b) widepread acceptance of organic products and their brand names by large food chains and supermarkets. More than 60% of organic farmers are affiliated with associations and organizations that provide advisory and support services in marketing activities. Certification of organic farms and food processors is conducted by seven monitoring bodies according to EU regulations No. 2092/91, which guarantees legally-binding standards of food saftey and quality to EU consumers, and according to the Austian Alimentari Codex. Since January 1998, all monitoring/certifying bodies in Austria must verify accreditation according to rgulation European Norm 45011. The major supermarket chain offers a variety of organic dairy and meat products, as well as organic ice cream, pizza, vegetables, fruits, baby foods, and bread. The current domestic wholesale value of organic products arketed from Austria farms is approximately 170 million US$ annually. Unfortunately, funding for support of scientific research and extension to enhance organic farming and marketing has not kept pace with the increasing number of organic farms and farmers. Additional funding is essential to ensure the sustainable development of the organic movement and the organic market

The Impact of a Corporate Adventure Program

Corporations continue to use adventure challenge activities to create or enhance a sense of cohesion, or team, within their corporate culture. The purpose of this study was to document the perceived benefits of an Adventure Challenge program on a _short term basis. The program was designed to meet specific expectations held by high ranking employees of an international accounting firm. The goals for the program were developed in consultation with instructional designers and their superiors responS1ole for the finns\u27 training and devel\u3c\u3eJ\u3ement This paper reports on efforts t.o document the impact of an adventure challenge program integrated into an extended corporate education course. Two hours of adventure challenge activities took place in the afternoon during an intensive course in business consulting. Some of the goals of the program included building a network of international cooperation, creating trust, introducing an attitude of mk taking behavior, and recognizing the importance of working as a highly functioning team. Subjects in the study were assigned to small teams of eight or more members. The groups were structured with the intent of mixing participants from different countries as well as from different levels of responsibility within the firm. Groups remained the same over the ten day period with the same facilitator. Each team participated in a similar set of activities which were carefully sequenced to provide problems of steadily increasing difficulty. Activities included many standard initiative tasks which were adapted to fit the clientele. Common names of some of those activities are the nitro crossing, zigzag, trolleys, trust sequence, Mohawk walk, and the pamper pole. Each event was followed by a debriefing session designed to create an avenue for reflection with a large group debrief finalizing the program on the last day. Opinionnaires were administered to participants prior to the start of the program. and at its conclusion. Over 125 participants from five separate schools responded to the three questionnaires developed to explore their views. An eleven item questionnaire attempted to assess the extent to which program goals were met in each specific school. The results were reported as mean scores and tested for significance using a two tailed t scores. One instrument consisted of an eleven item opinionnaire which asked participants to assess the degree to which specific program goals were met. A pretest to establish a baseline of participant views was used for comparisons after the adventure challenge component. The opinionnaire was a five point Likert scale which addressed communication, risk taking, stress management, self confidence, motivation of others, trust, conflict management, and cooperation with colleagues from different countries. Significant results were reported in the areas of communicating with colleagues from other countries and management of conflict. Four of the five reported significant changes were in self confidence. Two of five schools reported significant change in communication abilities, handling stress, and trusting associates. A second Likert scale instrument was used on a post-test basis only. This survey asked participants to rate program activities in terms of how much they enjoyed each one and the extent to which each activity reached the previously stated program goals. The results are reported as mean scores in rank order. The data suggested that it is important to provide participants with several enjoyable activities in order to have participants feel that the goals of the program were achieved. It is also interesting to note that the mean scores for meeting program goals were consistently higher than the means for enjoyment for corresponding activities. This finding suggested a level of mature reflection on the part of the respondents. It must be assumed that facilitator ability and activity sequencing has influenced the ranking of these activities. A third instrument was open ended. It asked participants to give their views on six items regarding the value of program activities and personal changes created by the program.For many participants the adventure challenge program served as a powerful socializing force. Teamwork, knowledge of others, and friendships were the most frequently mentioned worthwhile outcomes. The results provide additional support for the overall positive socializing effect of adventure challenge activities. The results of this study lend support to the belief that adventure challenge programs assist corporations in boosting self-confidence in their employees, reducing social barriers between members of the organization, and facilitating the development of a team concept.The results also suggested that the benefits are dissimilar for each participating team. In some groups improved communication with subordinates occurred, in others, several participates gained in their ability to motivate others and trust associates. The most powerful impact of the adventure challenge program was that of socializing participants from various parts of the world to one another. Participants formed friendships with others from foreign lands and worked well together to accomplish the common challenges they were asked to pursue. While the research design should be improved to provide more definitive data on the role of adventure challenge activities in corporate educational programs, this preliminary study did suggest some of the more powerful effects of such programs

Mars orbiter conceptual systems design study

Spacecraft system and subsystem designs at the conceptual level to perform either of two Mars Orbiter missions, a Climatology Mission and an Aeronomy Mission were developed. The objectives of these missions are to obtain and return data

First human study in treatment of unresectable liver metastases from colorectal cancer with irinotecan-loaded beads (DEBIRI)

The objective of this pilot clinical study was to assess the safety, technical feasibility, pharmacokinetic (PK) profile and tumour response of DC Bead™ with irinotecan (DEBIRI™) delivered by intra-arterial embolisation for the treatment of metastatic colorectal cancer. Eleven patients with unresectable liver metastases from CRC, tumour burden <30% of liver volume, adequate haematological, liver and renal function, performance status of <2 were included in this study. Patients received up to 4 sessions of TACE with DEBIRI at 3-week intervals. Feasibility of the procedure, safety and tumour response were assessed after each cycle. PK was measured after the first cycle. Patients were followed up to 24 weeks. Only mild to moderate adverse events were observed. DEBIRI is a technically feasibile procedure; no technical complications were observed. Average Cmax for irinotecan and SN-38 was 194 ng/ml and 16.7 ng/ml, respectively, with average t½ of 4.6 h and 12.4 h following administration of DEBIRI. Best overall response during the study showed disease control in 9 patients (2 patients with partial response and 7 with stable disease, overall response rate of 18%). Our study shows that transarterial chemoembolisation with irinotecan-loaded DC beads (DEBIRI) is safe, technically feasible and effective with a good PK profile

Mesh Refinement for Anisotropic Diffusion in Magnetized Plasmas

Highly accurate simulation of plasma transport is needed for the successful design and operation of magnetically confined fusion reactors. Unfortunately, the extreme anisotropy present in magnetized plasmas results in thin boundary layers that are expensive to resolve. This work investigates how mesh refinement strategies might reduce that expense to allow for more efficient simulation. It is first verified that higher order discretization only realizes the proper rate of convergence once the mesh resolves the thin boundary layer, motivating the focusing of refinement on the boundary layer. Three mesh refinement strategies are investigated: one that focuses the refinement across the layer by using rectangular elements with a ratio equal to the boundary layer width, one that allows for exponential growth in mesh spacing away from the layer, and one adaptive strategy utilizing the established Zienkiewicz and Zhu error estimator. Across 4 two-dimensional test cases with high anisotropy, the adaptive mesh refinement strategy consistently achieves the same accuracy as uniform refinement using orders of magnitude less degrees of freedom. In the test case where the magnetic field is aligned with the mesh, the other refinement strategies also show substantial improvement in efficiency. This work also includes a discussion generalizing the results to larger magnetic anisotropy ratios and to three-dimensional problems. It is shown that isotropic mesh refinement requires degrees of freedom on the order of either the layer width (2D) or the square of the layer width (3D), whereas anisotropic refinement requires a number on the order of the log of layer width for all dimensions. It is also shown that the number of conjugate gradient iterations scales as a power of layer width when preconditioned with algebraic multigrid, whereas the number is independent of layer width when preconditioned with ILU