Family dairy farms in the Podlasie province, Poland: farm typology according to farming system

The aim of this paper is to establish a farm typology according to the dairy farming systems in the western part of the Podlasie province. Data of 39 variables was collected by a survey to owners of 123 family farms. A two-stage multivariate analysis was conducted in order to determine farm typology. Three principal components were detected, explaining 80.4% of the total variance. The cluster analysis identified five groups of farms. In two groups the cow productivity is the biggest in the area. A third group contains the smallest and lowest cow productivity farms, with high proportion of non-agricultural activities. One of the two remaining groups has better soil quality and medium cow productivity. The other group has low or medium soil quality but cow productivity is higher than in the fourth group. The SWOT analysis shows different weaknesses and strengths for different groups, as well as those common to a larger number of groups. Weaknesses are related to small farm size, large number of workers, low or medium soil quality and low or medium level of technology. Strengths are related to a large share of fodder crops, low livestock density, diversification of agrarian activities and acceptable cow productivity. On the other hand, general opportunities are linked to the EU-CAP evolution and to the presence of cooperatives in the region, whereas general threats derive from a hypothetic increase of feed prices and quantity of milk produced in the EU, which could lead to a fall in milk prices.El objetivo de este trabajo es establecer tipologías de sistemas lecheros en el oeste de Podlasia (Polonia). Se analizaron 39 variables a partir de encuestas realizadas a propietarios de 123 explotaciones. Tras el análisis multivariante en dos etapas (factorial y cluster) se encontraron tres componentes principales que explican el 80,4% de la varianza total y se obtuvieron cinco grupos de explotaciones. En dos de los grupos la productividad de las vacas es la mayor de la zona. Un tercer grupo tiene las granjas más pequeñas y menos productivas, con una mayor proporción de actividades no agrarias. El cuarto tiene los suelos de mejor calidad y una productividad de las vacas media y el quinto tiene suelos de calidad media o baja pero una productividad de las vacas superior. En general, las debilidades están relacionadas con una escasa dimensión de las granjas, un elevado número de trabajadores, una baja o media calidad de los suelos y un bajo o mediano nivel de tecnología. Las fortalezas están relacionadas con la abundancia de cultivos forrajeros, una carga ganadera baja, una aceptable diversificación agraria y una aceptable productividad de las vacas. Las principales oportunidades están ligadas a la evolución de la PAC de la UE y a la presencia de cooperativas para la comercialización de la leche. Las principales amenazas derivan de los posibles incrementos de precios de los alimentos para el ganado y de leche producida en la UE, que puede conducir a una caída de los precios de venta de la leche

Altered tissue electrical properties in women with breast cancer – Preliminary observations.

Introduction and objectives: In the United States, breast cancer (BC) is the most common non-skin cancer. In Poland, it is estimated that the number of new breast cancer cases affects about 13,500 women each year. There are many methods for nutritional status assessment. One of them is bioimpedance analysis (BIA). Direct bioimpedance measures (resistance, reactance, phase angle (PA)) determined by bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA) detectf changes in tissue electrical properties. The study was conducted to investigate whether there are any tissue electrical differences in patients with breast cancer. Materials and methods: The direct bioimpedance measures determined by bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA) were performed on 34 patients with BC and 34 healthy volunteers. The measurements were made with ImpediMed bioimpedance analysis SFB7 BioImp v1.55 (Pinkenba Qld 4008, Australia). Results: Reactance and resistance at 50 kHz was found to be significantly greater in patients with BC than in the control group (53.59° ± 1.53 vs. 47.26° ± 1.25, respectively, p=0.0031; 603.24° ± 15.38 ohm vs. 515.87° ± 11.48 ohm, respectively, p=0.00004). Conclusion: Pre-surgical patients diagnosed with BC have altered tissue electrical properties. Further observations of a larger patient group would be valuable to calculate survival, validate the prognostic significance of PA, and monitor nutritional and therapeutic interventions in this patient population