Healthy or Environmentally Friendly? Meat Consumption Practices of Green Consumers in Vietnam and Switzerland

High meat consumption is a phenomenon in both developed countries such as Switzerland and emerging countries such as Vietnam. This high meat consumption is associated with environmental, social, and health consequences. Drawing upon social practice theory, this study explores the influence of social practices on the meat consumption of green consumers, as a growing number of consumers in both countries want to eat healthy and sustainably but still have different needs and face different barriers. Data were collected from online group discussions. For green consumers, meat consumption was found to convey certain meanings and depends, among other things, on the information available. The consumption decision in Vietnam is strongly influenced by health and food safety, whereas negative environmental consequences are important in Switzerland. Social and cultural aspects also play a major part in the decision to eat or abstain from meat in both countries. Meat is a non-negotiable part of any special occasion meal in Vietnam and is often eaten at social gatherings in Switzerland. We argue that meat consumption is linked to social status in both countries, but family influence is stronger in Vietnam than in Switzerland. Interventions, such as policy measures that are adapted to regional, cultural, and consumer group specificities and focus on social practices rather than individual behavior, are a promising means to promote meat reduction

Camellia sinensis extract delays microbiological and oxidative changes in striped catfish fillets during frozen storage

peer reviewedThis study investigated the effects of tea leaf (Camellia sinensis) extract on the quality of striped catfish (Pangasianodon hypophthalmus) fillets during 18-months of frozen storage (-20 ± 2 °C). Fillet samples were submitted to the treatments Control (cold tap water), CS 7.63 (C. sinensis extract solution 7.63 µg/mL) and CS 625 (C. sinensis extract 625 µg/mL) and stored for 18 months, with collections performed at 0, 1, 3, 6, 9, 12 and 18 months. Total viable count, physicochemical parameters (water holding capacity, total volatile basic nitrogen, peroxide value, thiobarbituric acid reactive substances, moisture and pH), sensory properties and color measurement were evaluated. Results showed that fillets treated with C.a sinensis extracts slightly reduced lipid oxidation, inhibited bacterial growth and improved sensory properties compared to untreated samples, without causing significant changes in the other quality indicators. The findings indicated that the green tea leaf extract immersion treatments, contributed to the improved quality preservation of striped catfish fillets during frozen storage

H'mong mustard seed production calendar

H’mong mustard seed production calendars for awareness creation and capacity building activities in vegetable and seed production and storage among ethnic minority vegetable farming households in Northern Vietnam. Particularly designed with and for the H’Mong and Dao people in Lao Cai province and Thai people in Son La province in English and Vietnamese

French bean seed production calendar

French bean seed production calendars for awareness creation and capacity building activities in vegetable and seed production and storage among ethnic minority vegetable farming households in Northern Vietnam. Particularly designed with and for the H’Mong and Dao people in Lao Cai province and Thai people in Son La province in English and Vietnamese

Vegetable seed systems for ethnic minorities in northern Vietnam for enhanced nutrition and income

Vegetables are a main source of nutrition and income for ethnic minority farmers in Vietnam’s Northern highlands. While the consumption of vegetables and value chains for fresh retail produce and seed markets offer huge opportunities for household nutrition security and development, and particularly women inclusion, current smallholder systems suffer from multiple problems. The Integrated vegetable seed systems development project addressed these issues by elucidating how, and under what conditions, increased access and use of high-quality seed translates into enhanced smallholder nutrition and income security. This poster provides the project highlights presented at the NL-CGIAR Conference, 2-3 November 2022

Socializing One Health: an innovative strategy to investigate social and behavioral risks of emerging viral threats

In an effort to strengthen global capacity to prevent, detect, and control infectious diseases in animals and people, the United States Agency for International Development’s (USAID) Emerging Pandemic Threats (EPT) PREDICT project funded development of regional, national, and local One Health capacities for early disease detection, rapid response, disease control, and risk reduction. From the outset, the EPT approach was inclusive of social science research methods designed to understand the contexts and behaviors of communities living and working at human-animal-environment interfaces considered high-risk for virus emergence. Using qualitative and quantitative approaches, PREDICT behavioral research aimed to identify and assess a range of socio-cultural behaviors that could be influential in zoonotic disease emergence, amplification, and transmission. This broad approach to behavioral risk characterization enabled us to identify and characterize human activities that could be linked to the transmission dynamics of new and emerging viruses. This paper provides a discussion of implementation of a social science approach within a zoonotic surveillance framework. We conducted in-depth ethnographic interviews and focus groups to better understand the individual- and community-level knowledge, attitudes, and practices that potentially put participants at risk for zoonotic disease transmission from the animals they live and work with, across 6 interface domains. When we asked highly-exposed individuals (ie. bushmeat hunters, wildlife or guano farmers) about the risk they perceived in their occupational activities, most did not perceive it to be risky, whether because it was normalized by years (or generations) of doing such an activity, or due to lack of information about potential risks. Integrating the social sciences allows investigations of the specific human activities that are hypothesized to drive disease emergence, amplification, and transmission, in order to better substantiate behavioral disease drivers, along with the social dimensions of infection and transmission dynamics. Understanding these dynamics is critical to achieving health security--the protection from threats to health-- which requires investments in both collective and individual health security. Involving behavioral sciences into zoonotic disease surveillance allowed us to push toward fuller community integration and engagement and toward dialogue and implementation of recommendations for disease prevention and improved health security

A hybridization of machine learning and NSGA-II for multi-objective optimization of surface roughness and cutting force in AISI 4340 alloy steel turning

This work focuses on optimizing process parameters in turning AISI 4340 alloy steel. A hybridization of Machine Learning (ML) algorithms and a Non-Dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm (NSGA-II) is applied to find the Pareto solution. The objective functions are a simultaneous minimum of average surface roughness (Ra) and cutting force under the cutting parameter constraints of cutting speed, feed rate, depth of cut, and tool nose radius in a range of 50–375 m/min, 0.02–0.25 mm/rev, 0.1–1.5 mm, and 0.4–0.8 mm, respectively. The present study uses five ML models – namely SVR, CAT, RFR, GBR, and ANN – to predict Ra and cutting force. Results indicate that ANN offers the best predictive performance in respect of all accuracy metrics: root-mean-squared-error (RMSE), mean-absolute-error (MAE), and coefficient of determination (R2). In addition, a hybridization of NSGA-II and ANN is implemented to find the optimal solutions for machining parameters, which lie on the Pareto front. The results of this multi-objective optimization indicate that Ra lies in a range between 1.032 and 1.048 μm, and cutting force was found to range between 7.981 and 8.277 kgf for the five selected Pareto solutions. In the set of non-dominated keys, none of the individual solutions is superior to any of the others, so it is the manufacturer's decision which dataset to select. Results summarize the value range in the Pareto solutions generated by NSGA-II: cutting speeds between 72.92 and 75.11 m/min, a feed rate of 0.02 mm/rev, a depth of cut between 0.62 and 0.79 mm, and a tool nose radius of 0.4 mm, are recommended. Following that, experimental validations were finally conducted to verify the optimization procedure