Farmer groups for animal health and welfare planning in European organic dairy herds

A set of common principles for active animal health and welfare planning in organic dairy farming has been developed in the ANIPLAN project group of seven European countries. Health and welfare planning is a farmer‐owned process of continuous development and improvement and may be practised in many different ways. It should incorporate health promotion and disease handling, based on a strategy where assessment of current status and risks forms the basis for evaluation, action and review. Besides this, it should be 1) farm-specific, 2) involve external person(s) and 3) external knowledge, 4) be based on organic principles, 5) be written, and 6) acknowledge good aspects in addition to targeting the problem areas in order to stimulate the learning process. Establishing farmer groups seems to be a beneficial way of stimulating a dynamic development on the farms towards continuous improvement, as in this case with focus on animal health and welfare planning. Various factors influence the process in different contexts, e.g. geographical, cultural, traditional factors, and a proper analysis of the situation as well as the purpose of the group is necessary, and can relevantly be negotiated and co‐developed with farmers as well as facilitators before being implemented. Farmer groups based on farmer‐to‐farmer advice and co‐development need a facilitator who takes on the role of facilitating the process and ‘decodes’ him‐ or herself from being ‘expert’

Quantum probabilities as Dempster-Shafer probabilities in the lattice of subspaces.

yesThe orthocomplemented modular lattice of subspaces L[H(d)] , of a quantum system with d-dimensional Hilbert space H(d), is considered. A generalized additivity relation which holds for Kolmogorov probabilities is violated by quantum probabilities in the full lattice L[H(d)] (it is only valid within the Boolean subalgebras of L[H(d)] ). This suggests the use of more general (than Kolmogorov) probability theories, and here the Dempster-Shafer probability theory is adopted. An operator D(H1,H2) , which quantifies deviations from Kolmogorov probability theory is introduced, and it is shown to be intimately related to the commutator of the projectors P(H1),P(H2) , to the subspaces H 1, H 2. As an application, it is shown that the proof of the inequalities of Clauser, Horne, Shimony, and Holt for a system of two spin 1/2 particles is valid for Kolmogorov probabilities, but it is not valid for Dempster-Shafer probabilities. The violation of these inequalities in experiments supports the interpretation of quantum probabilities as Dempster-Shafer probabilities

Introducing the INSIGNIA project: environmental monitoring of pesticide use through honey bees

INSIGNIA aims to design and test an innovative, non-invasive, scientifically proven citizen science environmental monitoring protocol for the detection of pesticides by honey bees. It is a 30-month pilot project initiated and financed by the EC (PP-1-1-2018; EC SANTE). The study is being carried out by a consortium of specialists in honey bees, apiculture, statistics, analytics, modelling, extension, social science and citizen science from twelve countries. Honey bee colonies are excellent bio-samplers of biological material such as nectar, pollen and plant pathogens, as well as non-biological material such as pesticides or airborne contamination. Honey bee colonies forage over a circle of 1 km radius, increasing to several km if required, depending on the availability and attractiveness of food. All material collected is accumulated in the hive.The honey bee colony can provide four main matrices for environmental monitoring: bees, honey, pollen and wax. Because of the non-destructive remit of the project, for pesticides, pollen is the focal matrix and used as trapped pollen and beebread in this study. Although beeswax can be used as a passive sampler for pesticides, this matrix is not being used in INSIGNIA because of its polarity dependent absorbance, which limits the required wide range of pesticides to be monitored. Alternatively, two innovative non-biological matrices are being tested: i) the “Beehold tube”, a tube lined with the generic absorbent polyethylene-glycol PEG, through which hive-entering bees are forced to pass, and ii) the “APIStrip” (Absorbing Pesticides In-hive Strips) with a specific pesticide absorbent which is hung between the bee combs.Beebread and pollen collected in pollen traps are being sampled every two weeks to be analysed for pesticide residues and to record foraging conditions. Trapped pollen provides snapshots of the foraging conditions and contaminants on a single day. During the active season, the majority of beebread is consumed within days, so beebread provides recent, random sampling results. The Beehold tube and the APIStrips are present throughout the 2-weeks sampling periods in the beehive, absorbing and accumulating the incoming contaminants. The four matrices i.e. trapped pollen, beebread, Beehold tubes and APIStrips will be analysed for the presence of pesticides. The botanical origin of trapped pollen, beebread and pollen in the Beehold tubes will also be determined with an innovative molecular technique. Data on pollen and pesticide presence will then be combined to obtain information on foraging conditions and pesticide use, together with evaluation of the CORINE database for land use and pesticide legislation to model the exposure risks to honey bees and wild bees. All monitoring steps from sampling through to analysis will be studied and rigorously tested in four countries in Year 1, and the best practices will then be ring-tested in nine countries in Year 2. Information about the course of the project, its results and publications will be available on the INSIGNIA website www.insignia-bee.eu and via social media: on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/insigniabee.eu/); Instagram insignia_bee); and Twitter (insignia_bee). Although the analyses of pesticide residues and pollen identification will not be completed until December 2019, in my talk I will present preliminary results of the Year 1 sampling.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Lower and upper probabilities in the distributive lattice of subsystems

yesThe set of subsystems ∑ (m) of a finite quantum system ∑(n) (with variables in Ζ(n)) together with logical connectives, is a distributive lattice. With regard to this lattice, the ℓ(m | ρn) = Tr ((m) ρn ) (where (m) is the projector to ∑(m)) obeys a supermodularity inequality, and it is interpreted as a lower probability in the sense of the Dempster–Shafer theory, and not as a Kolmogorov probability. It is shown that the basic concepts of the Dempster–Shafer theory (lower and upper probabilities and the Dempster multivaluedness) are pertinent to the quantum formalism of finite systems

Introducing the INSIGNIA project: Environmental monitoring of pesticides use through honey bees

INSIGNIA aims to design and test an innovative, non-invasive, scientifically proven citizen science environmental monitoring protocol for the detection of pesticides via honey bees. It is a pilot project initiated and financed by the European Commission (PP-1-1-2018; EC SANTE). The study is being carried out by a consortium of specialists in honey bees, apiculture, chemistry, molecular biology, statistics, analytics, modelling, extension, social science and citizen science from twelve countries. Honey bee colonies are excellent bio-samplers of biological material such as nectar, pollen and plant pathogens, as well as non-biological material such as pesticides or airborne contamination. Honey bee colonies forage over a circle of about 1 km radius, increasing to several km if required depending on the availability and attractiveness of food. All material collected is concentrated in the hive, and the honey bee colony can provide four main matrices for environmental monitoring: bees, honey, pollen and wax. For pesticides, pollen and wax are the focal matrices. Pollen collected in pollen traps will be sampled every two weeks to record foraging conditions. During the season, most of pollen is consumed within days, so beebread can provide recent, random sampling results. On the other hand wax acts as a passive sampler, building up an archive of pesticides that have entered the hive. Alternative in-hive passive samplers will be tested to replicate wax as a “pesticide-sponge”. Samples will be analysed for the presence of pesticides and the botanical origin of the pollen using an ITS2 DNA metabarcoding approach. Data on pollen and pesticides will be then be combined to obtain information on foraging conditions and pesticide use, together with evaluation of the CORINE database for land use and pesticide legislation to model the exposure risks to honey bees and wild bees. All monitoring steps from sampling through to analysis will be studied and tested in four countries in year 1, and the best practices will then be ring-tested in nine countries in year 2. Information about the course of the project and its results and publications will be available in the INSIGNIA website www.insignia-bee.eu.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Gliding Motility of Babesia bovis Merozoites Visualized by Time-Lapse Video Microscopy

BACKGROUND: Babesia bovis is an apicomplexan intraerythrocytic protozoan parasite that induces babesiosis in cattle after transmission by ticks. During specific stages of the apicomplexan parasite lifecycle, such as the sporozoites of Plasmodium falciparum and tachyzoites of Toxoplasma gondii, host cells are targeted for invasion using a unique, active process termed "gliding motility". However, it is not thoroughly understood how the merozoites of B. bovis target and invade host red blood cells (RBCs), and gliding motility has so far not been observed in the parasite. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Gliding motility of B. bovis merozoites was revealed by time-lapse video microscopy. The recorded images revealed that the process included egress of the merozoites from the infected RBC, gliding motility, and subsequent invasion into new RBCs. The gliding motility of B. bovis merozoites was similar to the helical gliding of Toxoplasma tachyzoites. The trails left by the merozoites were detected by indirect immunofluorescence assay using antiserum against B. bovis merozoite surface antigen 1. Inhibition of gliding motility by actin filament polymerization or depolymerization indicated that the gliding motility was driven by actomyosin dependent process. In addition, we revealed the timing of breakdown of the parasitophorous vacuole. Time-lapse image analysis of membrane-stained bovine RBCs showed formation and breakdown of the parasitophorous vacuole within ten minutes of invasion. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: This is the first report of the gliding motility of B. bovis. Since merozoites of Plasmodium parasites do not glide on a substrate, the gliding motility of B. bovis merozoites is a notable finding

Influences of Forest Structure, Climate and Species Composition on Tree Mortality across the Eastern US

Few studies have quantified regional variation in tree mortality, or explored whether species compositional changes or within-species variation are responsible for regional patterns, despite the fact that mortality has direct effects on the dynamics of woody biomass, species composition, stand structure, wood production and forest response to climate change. Using Bayesian analysis of over 430,000 tree records from a large eastern US forest database we characterised tree mortality as a function of climate, soils, species and size (stem diameter). We found (1) mortality is U-shaped vs. stem diameter for all 21 species examined; (2) mortality is hump-shaped vs. plot basal area for most species; (3) geographical variation in mortality is substantial, and correlated with several environmental factors; and (4) individual species vary substantially from the combined average in the nature and magnitude of their mortality responses to environmental variation. Regional variation in mortality is therefore the product of variation in species composition combined with highly varied mortality-environment correlations within species. The results imply that variation in mortality is a crucial part of variation in the forest carbon cycle, such that including this variation in models of the global carbon cycle could significantly narrow uncertainty in climate change predictions