Self-sufficiency with vitamins and minerals on organic dairy farms

Self-sufficiency of nutrients is a central element in the organic farming principles. In a project involving five private organic dairy farms, we aimed to achieve self-sufficiency in vitamins and minerals at farm level. All the herds are fed 100% organically grown feed, but so far supplements of minerals and vitamins based on inorganic and synthetic products are imported to all farms. The same level and type of supplement was used for the cows all year round, even though all cows were on grass for at least 150 days during the summer period. The average daily intake from the supplement for a lactating cow was 751 mg E vitamin, 111 mg Cu, and 558 mg Zn. The content of vitamin and minerals in the home-grown feeds was modelled taking into account the effect of choice of crops; conservation method; season, plant development and climate conditions at harvest; quality of the silage production, and duration of storage. The modelled contents of vitamins in the main ingredients in the feed ration were verified by measuring the actual vitamin content in the silage at harvest as well as losses during storage. As an example, at one of the farms, where the feed intake was based on 85% grass clover crops during the summer but only 68% during the winter, the home-grown feed could supply the cows with enough vitamin E according to the requirement (800 mg/day) during the summer feeding but not during the winter period. The Cu requirement (10 mg/kg DM) could not be met from home-grown feed during any season. However, supplements of vitamins and minerals secure that requirement was met. The final outcome of the project will result in strategies for achieving self-sufficiency in vitamins and minerals at individual farms through optimization of the choice of forage crops and management of feed production

The hinge of history hypothesis: reply to MacAskill

Both Jago, in his 2020 article ‘A short argument for truthmaker maximalism’ and his 2021 article ‘Which Fitch?’, and Loss in his 2021 article ‘There are no fundamental facts’, employ arguments similar to that familiar from the Church–Fitch Paradox to infer some substantial metaphysical claims from their mere logical possibility. Trueman in his 2022 article ‘Truthmaking, grounding and Fitch’s paradox’ and Nyseth in his 2022 article ‘Fitch’s paradox and truthmaking’ respond by using exactly the same kind of argument to prove contrary theses. Intended as bad company objections, these counterarguments cast doubt on the original arguments, but do not actually identify their flaw. This paper aims to fill this gap

Vitaminer og mineraler i økologisk mælkeproduktion

Hvordan kan den økologiske malkekvægsbedrift blive selvforsynende med vitaminer og mineraler? Det spørgsmål bliver der frem til 2010 forsket i ved Det Jordbrugsvidenskabelige Fakultet, AU i projektet ECOVIT

Comparison between the degree of motor unit short-term synchronization and recurrence quantification analysis of the surface EMG in two human muscles

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Constitutive immune mechanisms: mediators of host defence and immune regulation

The immune system enables organisms to combat infections and to eliminate endogenous challenges. Immune responses can be evoked through diverse inducible pathways. However, various constitutive mechanisms are also required for immunocompetence. The inducible responses of pattern recognition receptors of the innate immune system and antigen-specific receptors of the adaptive immune system are highly effective, but they also have the potential to cause extensive immunopathology and tissue damage, as seen in many infectious and autoinflammatory diseases. By contrast, constitutive innate immune mechanisms, including restriction factors, basal autophagy and proteasomal degradation, tend to limit immune responses, with loss-of-function mutations in these pathways leading to inflammation. Although they function through a broad and heterogeneous set of mechanisms, the constitutive immune responses all function as early barriers to infection and aim to minimize any disruption of homeostasis. Supported by recent human and mouse data, in this Review we compare and contrast the inducible and constitutive mechanisms of immunosurveillance

Return to the workforce following first hospitalization for heart failure: a Danish nationwide cohort study

Background: Return to work is important financially, as a marker of functional status and for self-esteem in patients developing chronic illness. We examined return to work after first heart failure (HF) hospitalization. Methods: By individual-level linkage of nationwide Danish registries, we identified 21455 patients of working age (18-60 years) with a first HF hospitalization in the period of 1997-2012. Of these 11880 (55%) were in the workforce prior to HF hospitalization and comprised the study population. We applied logistic regression to estimate odds ratios (OR) for associations between age, sex, length of hospital stay, level of education, income, comorbidity and return to work. Results: One year after first HF hospitalization, 8040 (67.7%) returned to the workforce, 2981 (25.1%) did not, 805 (6.7%) died and 54 (0.5%) emigrated. Predictors of return to work included younger age (18-30 vs. 51-60 years, OR 3.12; 95% CI 2.42-4.03), male sex (OR 1.22 [1.18-1.34]) and level of education (long-higher vs. basic school OR 2.06 [1.63-2.60]). Conversely, hospital stay >7 days (OR 0.56 [0.51-0.62]) and comorbidity including history of stroke (OR 0.55 [0.45-0.69]), chronic kidney disease (OR 0.46 [0.36-0.59]), chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (OR 0.62 [0.52-0.75]), diabetes (OR 0.76 [0.68-0.85]) and cancer (OR 0.49 [0.40-0.61]) were all significantly associated with lower chance of return to work. Conclusions: Patients in the workforce prior to HF hospitalization had low mortality but high risk of detachment from the workforce one year later. Young age, male sex, and higher level of education were predictors of return to work

Tough enough? Robust satisficing as a decision norm for long-term policy analysis

This paper aims to open a dialogue between philosophers working in decision theory and operations researchers and engineers working on decision-making under deep uncertainty. Specifically, we assess the recommendation to follow a norm of robust satisficing when making decisions under deep uncertainty in the context of decision analyses that rely on the tools of Robust Decision-Making developed by Robert Lempert and colleagues at RAND. We discuss two challenges for robust satisficing: whether the norm might derive its plausibility from an implicit appeal to probabilistic representations of uncertainty of the kind that deep uncertainty is supposed to preclude; and whether there is adequate justification for adopting a satisficing norm, as opposed to an optimizing norm that is sensitive to considerations of robustness. We discuss decision-theoretic and voting-theoretic motivations for robust satisficing, and use these motivations to select among candidate formulations of the robust satisficing norm