On the environmental impacts of voluntary animal-based policies in the EU: Technical and political considerations

The livestock sector has a large influence on direct and indirect (via land use change) greenhouse gas emissions, with potential negative impacts on climate change. We quantify the environmental impacts related to the introduction of a voluntary animal-based policy supported by the European Union (EU), the Measure 14 of Rural Development Programmes 2014–2020 on animal welfare. In particular, we focus on methane and nitrous oxide emissions (direct impacts), and on carbon-based and nitrous oxide emissions from land use change (indirect impacts). Our case study is the dairy sector of the EU Member States. We found that the animal-based measures have (on average) limited environmental impacts, although marked differences exist across Member States

Socio-economic factors & citizens’ practices, enabling Positive Energy Districts: advisory report on accelerating PED design

In this report, we investigate the issue of silo thinking in the development of Positive Energy Districts (PEDs) as testified by stakeholders and propose recommendations to overcome silo thinking to achieve better collaboration between and within stakeholder groups. Involving all relevant stakeholders is argued to be essential to effectively reach PEDs and to include vulnerable as well as often overlooked groups in the process (Sareen et al., 2022). However, silo thinking can prevent or hinder the collaboration between stakeholder groups and within a stakeholder group. Thus, we identify silo thinking and best practices to overcome them, from stakeholder interviews conducted as part of a separate report (Derkenbaeva et al., 2022). The analysis focuses on three types of silo thinking – institutional silos, silos of representation, and administrative silos – and how to overcome them. In addition to the best practices suggested by stakeholders, additional perspectives to overcome silo thinking are proposed by the authors of this report. In interviews with stakeholders from Amsterdam, the Canary Islands, and Lisbon metropolitan area, the following issues of silo thinking are identified: ▪ Institutional silos between citizens, who want to consume renewable, affordable, and community-based energy, and large companies, who are concerned with efficiency and profit ▪ Silo of representation of citizens about the impossibility for businesses to come out of their profit-driven practices ▪ Silo of representation about citizens’ knowledge and willingness to participate in PEDs projects that make citizens feel less empowered to collaborate as an equal partner with the government or large businesses ▪ Administrative silos that hinder the government’s financial support of cross sectoral energy transition efforts such as housing retrofit projects To overcome the identified silos, we recommend: ▪ Structural change by the national government providing a legal framework and incentives for local government and companies to engage more with citizens and small businesses during the development of PEDs ▪ The use of intermediary organizations that can facilitate communication and collaboration between government sectors and between stakeholders ▪ Intergroup communication that allows citizens and small businesses to acquire more information and voice their demands, breaking from misrecognition and exclusion from such discussion as the development of PEDs

How are compassion fatigue, burnout, and compassion satisfaction affected by quality of working life? Findings from a survey of mental health staff in Italy

BACKGROUND: Quality of working life includes elements such as autonomy, trust, ergonomics, participation, job complexity, and work-life balance. The overarching aim of this study was to investigate if and how quality of working life affects Compassion Fatigue, Burnout, and Compassion Satisfaction among mental health practitioners. METHODS: Staff working in three Italian Mental Health Departments completed the Professional Quality of Life Scale, measuring Compassion Fatigue, Burnout, and Compassion Satisfaction, and the Quality of Working Life Questionnaire. The latter was used to collect socio-demographics, occupational characteristics and 13 indicators of quality of working life. Multiple regressions controlling for other variables were undertaken to predict Compassion Fatigue, Burnout, and Compassion Satisfaction. RESULTS: Four hundred questionnaires were completed. In bivariate analyses, experiencing more ergonomic problems, perceiving risks for the future, a higher impact of work on life, and lower levels of trust and of perceived quality of meetings were associated with poorer outcomes. Multivariate analysis showed that (a) ergonomic problems and impact of work on life predicted higher levels of both Compassion Fatigue and Burnout; (b) impact of life on work was associated with Compassion Fatigue and lower levels of trust and perceiving more risks for the future with Burnout only; (c) perceived quality of meetings, need of training, and perceiving no risks for the future predicted higher levels of Compassion Satisfaction. CONCLUSIONS: In order to provide adequate mental health services, service providers need to give their employees adequate ergonomic conditions, giving special attention to time pressures. Building trustful relationships with management and within the teams is also crucial. Training and meetings are other important targets for potential improvement. Additionally, insecurity about the future should be addressed as it can affect both Burnout and Compassion Satisfaction. Finally, strategies to reduce possible work-life conflicts need to be considered

Prototype gluten-free breads from processed durum wheat: Use of monovarietal flours and implications for gluten detoxification strategies

gluten-free; detoxification strategies; sourdough; celiac disease; epitopes; in-vitro simulated human gastroduodenal digestionIn this investigation, we reported the production of prototype breads from the processed flours of three specific Triticum turgidum wheat genotypes that were selected in our previous investigation for their potential low toxic/immunogenic activity for celiac disease (CD) patients. The flours were subjected to sourdough fermentation with a mixture of selected Lactobacillus strains, and in presence of fungal endoproteases. The breads were characterized by R5 competitive enzyme linked immunosorbent assay in order to quantify the residual gluten, and the differential efficacy in gluten degradation was assessed. In particular, two of them were classified as gluten-free (<20 ppm) and very low-gluten content (<100 ppm) breads, respectively, whereas the third monovarietal prototype retained a gluten content that was well above the safety threshold prescribed for direct consumption by CD patients. In order to investigate such a genotype-dependent efficiency of the detoxification method applied, an advanced proteomic characterization by high-resolution tandem mass spectrometry was performed. Notably, to the best of our knowledge, this is the first proteomic investigation which benefitted, for protein identification, from the full sequencing of the Triticum turgidum ssp. durum genome. The differences of the proteins’ primary structures affecting their susceptibility to hydrolysis were investigated. As a confirmation of the previous immunoassay-based results, two out of the three breads made with the processed flours presented an exhaustive degradation of the epitopic sequences that are relevant for CD immune stimulatory activity. The list of the detected epitopes was analyzed and critically discussed in light of their susceptibility to the detoxification strategy applied. Finally, in-vitro experiments of human gastroduodenal digestion were carried out in order to assess, in-silico, the toxicity risk of the prototype breads under investigation for direct consumption by CD patients. This approach allowed us to confirm the total degradation of the epitopic sequences upon gastro-duodenal digestion

Socio‐economic factors and citizens' practices, enabling positive energy districts. Challenging 'silo thinking' for promoting PEDs

Executive Summary: Collaboration between disciplines, sectors, institutions, and communities is essential for the successful planning and implementation of Positive energy districts (PEDs). However, silo thinking, defined in this document as the disregard of other groups’ viewpoints or interests, poses a barrier to effective collaboration. Based on a review of existing literature, multiple factors were identified that could potentially cause silo thinking in the context of PEDs. First, differences in beliefs and ideologies create silos across disciplines, stakeholders, and communities. Divergent goals across sectors hinder collaboration between departments of the government. Misconceptions and prejudice present barriers in communication between citizens and the government. Furthermore, a lack of consideration for local culture and history may prevent collaboration between different cities and obstruct governments from engaging local innovations. Silos between disciplines and sectors are difficult to overcome because the long tradition of these silos means people are inexperienced in coordination across the boundaries of their own discipline or sector, making coordination more costly. In the planning and implementation of PEDs, systems thinking is a key change in mindset that allows problem solving in the presence of interdependencies between different groups. Systems thinking can be incorporated in education, mid‐management training, and work culture. Experts, researchers, and higher‐level governance institutions can incorporate this type of holistic thinking to take a nexus approach or multidisciplinary approach in policy framing. As useful as it may be, in practical application, the systems approach can be obstructed by existing boundaries of organisations. Thus, the government also takes a primary role in facilitating coordination of different entities, by devising coordination bodies within the government and channels of communication with the public, as well as encouraging networks among businesses. Finally, citizens and grassroot organisations can be empowered by these government efforts and more actively engage in actions for PEDs

Prosody abilities in a large sample of affective and non-affective first episode psychosis patients

Objective: Prosody comprehension deficits have been reported in major psychoses. It is still not clear whether these deficits occur at early psychosis stages. The aims of our study were to investigate a) linguistic and emotional prosody comprehension abilities in First Episode Psychosis (FEP) patients compared to healthy controls (HC); b) performance differences between non-affective (FEP-NA) and affective (FEP-A) patients, and c) association between symptoms severity and prosodic features. Methods: A total of 208 FEP (156 FEP-NA and 52 FEP-A) patients and 77 HC were enrolled and assessed with the Italian version of the “Protocole Montréal d'Evaluation de la Communication” to evaluate linguistic and emotional prosody comprehension. Clinical variables were assessed with a comprehensive set of standardized measures. Results: FEP patients displayed significant linguistic and emotional prosody deficits compared to HC, with FEP-NA showing greater impairment than FEP-A. Also, significant correlations between symptom severity and prosodic features in FEP patients were found. Conclusions: Our results suggest that prosodic impairments occur at the onset of psychosis being more prominent in FEP-NA and in those with severe psychopathology. These findings further support the hypothesis that aprosodia is a core feature of psychosis