4,718 research outputs found
Halal Food Sustainability between Certification and Blockchain: A Review
Islam is the second-largest religion on a global scale. All around the world Muslims are estimated to comprise more than 1.9 billion people. Therefore, the demand for Halal commodities is expected to reach a high growth rate: thus, it is crucial to increase its global market’s reliability and traceability. Based on these grounds, the scope of this paper is to assess Halal food sustainability, examining the barriers and opportunities offered by the certification and blockchain tools. To this purpose, the authors carried out an integrative literature review, selecting 54 contributions in the Web of Science platform. Despite several limitations, such as the lack of a standardized framework or universally accepted and reliable certifying authorities, the implementation of blockchain technology has emerged as an interesting instrument to increase the trustworthiness and traceability of Halal foods. This tool could also help the development of protocols and standard procedures, ensuring hygienic and permitted products that may boost food safety and security. Besides, the enhancement of the Halal certification and the blockchain tool, even if several efforts are required in terms of innovation and cooperation by local authorities, industrial associations and leading consumers, could enhance fair trade, ethical business, green animal breeding and environmental economics, and hence sustainable development
Near-infrared thermal emissivity from ground based atmospheric dust measurements at ORM
We present an analysis of the atmospheric content of aerosols measured at
Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos (ORM; Canary Islands). Using a laser
diode particle counter located at the Telescopio Nazionale Galileo (TNG) we
have detected particles of 0.3, 0.5, 1.0, 3.0, 5.0 and 10.0 um size. The
seasonal behavior of the dust content in the atmosphere is calculated. The
Spring has been found to be dustier than the Summer, but dusty conditions may
also occur in Winter. A method to estimate the contribution of the aerosols
emissivity to the sky brightness in the near-infrared (NIR) is presented. The
contribution of dust emission to the sky background in the NIR has been found
to be negligible comparable to the airglow, with a maximum contribution of
about 8-10% in the Ks band in the dusty days.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures, 6 tables, accepted for publication in MNRA
HST/ACS weak lensing analysis of the galaxy cluster RDCS 1252.9-2927 at z=1.24
We present a weak lensing analysis of one of the most distant massive galaxy
cluster known, RDCS 1252.9-2927 at z=1.24, using deep images from the Advanced
Camera for Survey (ACS) on board the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). By taking
advantage of the depth and of the angular resolution of the ACS images, we
detect for the first time at z>1 a clear weak lensing signal in both the i
(F775W) and z (F850LP) filters. We measure a 5-\sigma signal in the i band and
a 3-\sigma signal in the shallower z band image. The two radial mass profiles
are found to be in very good agreement with each other, and provide a
measurement of the total mass of the cluster inside a 1Mpc radius of M(<1Mpc) =
(8.0 +/- 1.3) x 10^14 M_\odot in the current cosmological concordance model h
=0.70, \Omega_m=0.3, \Omega_\Lambda=0.7, assuming a redshift distribution of
background galaxies as inferred from the Hubble Deep Fields surveys. A weak
lensing signal is detected out to the boundary of our field (3' radius,
corresponding to 1.5Mpc at the cluster redshift). We detect a small offset
between the centroid of the weak lensing mass map and the brightest cluster
galaxy, and we discuss the possible origin of this discrepancy. The cumulative
weak lensing radial mass profile is found to be in good agreement with the
X-ray mass estimate based on Chandr and XMM-Newton observations, at least out
to R_500=0.5Mpc.Comment: 38 pages, ApJ in press. Full resolution images available at
http://www.eso.org/~prosati/RDCS1252/Lombardi_etal_accepted.pd
Simulations of Damped Lyman-Alpha and Lyman Limit Absorbers in Different Cosmologies: Implications for Structure Formation at High Redshift
We use hydrodynamic cosmological simulations to study damped Lyman-alpha
(DLA) and Lyman limit (LL) absorption at redshifts z=2-4 in five variants of
the cold dark matter scenario. Our standard simulations resolve the formation
of dense concentrations of neutral gas in halos with circular velocity v_c
roughly 140 km/s for Omega_m=1 and 90 km/s for Omega_m=0.4, at z=2; an
additional LCDM simulation resolves halos down to v_c approximately 50 km/s at
z=3. We find a clear relation between HI column density and projected distance
to the center of the nearest galaxy, with DLA absorption usually confined to
galactocentric radii less than 10-15 kpc and LL absorption arising out to
projected separations of 30 kpc or more. Detailed examination provides evidence
of non-equilibrium effects on absorption cross-section. If we consider only
absorption in the halos resolved by our standard simulations, then all five
models fall short of reproducing the observed abundance of DLA and LL systems
at these redshifts. If we extrapolate to lower halo masses, we find all four
models are consistent with the observed abundance of DLA systems if the the
extrapolated behavior extends to circular velocities roughly 50-80 km/s, and
they may produce too much absorption if the relation continues to 40 km/s. Our
results suggest that LL absorption is closely akin to DLA absorption, arising
in less massive halos or at larger galactocentric radii but not caused by
processes acting on a radically different mass scale.Comment: 33 pages with 10 embedded EPS figures. Substantially revised and
updated from original version. Includes new high-resolution simulations.
Accepted for publication in the Ap
Behavioural disorders in Alzheimer's disease: the descriptive and predictive role of brain 18F-fluorodesoxyglucose-positron emission tomography
Long-term use of pharmacological treatment in Alzheimer's disease: a retrospective cohort study in real-world clinical practice
Quantitative assessment of environmental impacts at the urban scale: the ecological footprint of a university campus
Thyroid nodules treated with percutaneous radiofrequency thermal ablation: a comparative study
Percutaneous radiofrequency thermal ablation (RTA) was reported as an effective tool for the management of thyroid nodules (TNs). The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of RTA and to establish whether they were treatment-related by comparison with a matched, untreated control group
Ground state and bias current induced rearrangement of semifluxons in 0-pi long Josephson junctions
We investigate numerically a long Josephson junction with several phase
pi-discontinuity points. Such junctions are usually fabricated as a ramp
between an anisotropic cuprate superconductor like YBCO and an isotropic metal
superconductor like Nb. From the top, they look like zigzags with pi-jumps of
the Josephson phase at the corners. These pi-jumps, at certain conditions, lead
to the formation of half-integer flux quanta, which we call semifluxons (SF),
pinned at the corners. We show (a) that the spontaneous formation of SFs
depends on the junction length, (b) that the ground state without SFs can be
converted to a state with SFs by applying a bias current, (c) that the SF
configuration can be rearranged by the bias current. All these effects can be
observed using a SQUID microscope.Comment: ~8 pages, 6 figures, submitted to PR
MARS, the MAGIC Analysis and Reconstruction Software
With the commissioning of the second MAGIC gamma-ray Cherenkov telescope
situated close to MAGIC-I, the standard analysis package of the MAGIC
collaboration, MARS, has been upgraded in order to perform the stereoscopic
reconstruction of the detected atmospheric showers. MARS is a ROOT-based code
written in C++, which includes all the necessary algorithms to transform the
raw data recorded by the telescopes into information about the physics
parameters of the observed targets. An overview of the methods for extracting
the basic shower parameters is presented, together with a description of the
tools used in the background discrimination and in the estimation of the
gamma-ray source spectra.Comment: 4 pages, 0 figures, submitted to the 31st International Cosmic Ray
Conference, {\L}odz 200
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