Variation and Distribution of Glucosinolates in 42 Cultivars of Brassica oleracea Vegetable Crops

Brassica vegetables are known to contain glucosinolates that are precursors for bioactive compounds like isothiocyanates that have been shown to play an important role in human health. This study reports the results of a screening of 11 Brassica oleracea crops consisting of 42 cultivars (6 white cabbage, 5 red cabbage, 7 Brussels sprouts, 2 kale, 1 tronchuda, 3 oxheart cabbage, 2 kohlrabi, 6 broccoli, 5 cauliflower, 3 romanesco and 2 Savoy cabbage). All these cultivars were cultivated under the same conditions on a single location in the same season. The variation found in the level of glucosinolates is expected to be mainly due to the genetic variation. A large variation was observed in the level and profile of glucosinolates. Total glucosinolates varied from 14 to 625 µmol/100 g fresh weight. Glucoraphanin, the precursor of the isothiocyanate sulforophane, varied from 0 to 141 µmol/100 g fresh weight. Within broccoli glucoraphanin varied from 27 to 141 µmol/100 g fresh weight. Glucoiberin that is structurally related to glucoraphanin varied from 6 to 397 µmol/100 g fresh weight. Within broccoli glucoiberin varied from 21 to 397 µmol/100 g fresh weigh

Differences in Thermal Stability of Glucosinolates in Five Brassica Vegetables

The thermal stability of individual glucosinolates within five different Brassica vegetables was studied at 100°C for different incubation times up to 120 minutes. Three vegetables that were used in this study were Brassica oleracea (red cabbage, broccoli and Brussels sprouts) and two were Brassica rapa (pak choi and Chinese cabbage). To rule out the influence of enzymatic breakdown, myrosinase was inactivated prior to the thermal treatments. The stability of three glucosinolates that occurred in all five vegetables (gluconapin, glucobrassicin and 4-methoxyglucobrassicin) varied considerably between the different vegetables. The degradation could be modeled by first order kinetics. The rate constants obtained varied between four to twenty fold between the five vegetables. Brussels sprouts showed the highest degradation rates for all three glucosinolates. The two indole glucosinolates were most stable in red cabbage, while gluconapin was most stable in broccoli. These results indicate the possibilities for plant breeding to select for cultivars in which glucosinolates are more stable during processin

Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion in New Student Enrolment: Transforming Undergraduate University Admissions

This Organizational Improvement Plan (OIP) explores the process of aligning a university’s internal admission policies, practices, and processes with its public commitments to equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI). Current admission practices reinforce the myth of meritocracy and existing alternative admission pathways are framed in discourses of deficiency. Using an EDI lens will align the university with provincial and federal strategic priorities that see an increase of new Canadians and students educated in social justice focused curricula. Critical whiteness theory and the cultural perspective underpin the change plan in order to understand the systemic barriers and legacies that contribute to the exclusion of equity-deserving students in the admission process. To initiate the change process employing an antioppression lens, the inclusion of the voices, truths, and counternarratives of systemically marginalized and historically underserved students is centered with a focus on the ethic of care. Internal and external stakeholders are key to the success of this plan, and to engage them in the process, authentic and distributed leadership approaches are used. After determining that the university is ready to engage in a policy review process, assessing resources and fiscal impacts, and conducting ethical stakeholder engagement, the preferred approach to leading the consultation process is to work with an internal EDI champion. The implementation and communication of the plan focuses on key messages that centre students in the policy review process and reinforce the urgency of making transformative change that benefits not just equity-deserving students, but all students applying for admission to a university

ICT as an Enabler for Innovation Adoption

In this paper we investigate how two online services (a portal and a digital library) may influence the adoption of an innovation. It is known from prior surveys that the installation services branch of the Dutch building industry has a relatively slow adoption rate for innovations. We examine if these two online services can influence the attitude towards the adoption of innovations. From the academic literature we have derived a list of factors that influence the attitude towards adoption by individuals. We limited this project to a number of factors that are commonly referred to as technological factors. Using an online digital library and a custom-built portal, we conducted a field experiment with a post-test only control group design for one particular innovative product (a gas-analysis device); the test was performed using a survey. Our main finding is that the portal has a significant and positive effect towards the adoption of the innovation by an individual. We did not find a significant impact for the use of the digital library. On the basis of this experiment, we propose that online services that offer a high degree of interaction amongst their users are more likely to induce an increase in the willingness of an individual to adopt an innovation.innovation;adoption;digital library;portal;field experiment.

Dynamic impacts of a financial reform of the CAP on regional land use, income and overall growth

In this paper we investigate the impacts of abolishing the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) for the post-2013 European Union (EU) financial perspective and the impacts of re-investing the released funds on research and development (R&D). We apply a linked system of models to analyze the impacts for the EU member states. The linked system consists of five land-use sector models (agriculture, forestry, urban area, tourism and transport infrastructure), which are connected to a macro-econometric model. Additionally, a land cover model is used to disaggregate land use countries to a 1 km² grid. Three scenarios are analysed. In the “baseline” currently decided policies are assumed to be continued until 2025. In the “tax rebate” scenario agricultural support (first pillar) is removed, and the member states’ contributions to EU lowered. In the “R&D investments” scenario agricultural support is also removed, and the released funds are used to increase general R&D efforts in the EU. We find that in both liberalization scenarios, agricultural producer prices drop compared to the baseline. Agricultural production drops too, but less so in the “R&D investment” scenario due to productivity gains resulting from the increased R&D spending. In some countries, the productivity gains totally offset the negative impact of liberalisation on agricultural production. Smaller agricultural production implies less agricultural land use, and the more so in the “R&D Investment” scenario where productivity increases. The fall in agricultural production and prices negatively affects economic activity and households’ purchasing power, but the reduced direct taxation compensates this effect and results in a GDP gain of 0.53% and 0.8 million additional jobs. In “R&D investment” GDP gain reaches 2.57% and yields 2.95 million additional jobs in EU in 2025. The GDP, consumption and employment gains in the “R&D Investment” scenario widely exceed the losses in the agriculture sectors. The analysis indicates that if no external effects of agriculture are considered, then the CAP is an inefficient use of tax money, and that a considerable contribution to reaching the goals of the Lisbon agenda would be achieved if the same amount of money was instead invested in R&D.CAP reform, economical growth, land use, Agricultural and Food Policy, Land Economics/Use,

An explorative philosophical study of envisaging the electrical energy infrastructure of the future

The electrical energy infrastructure is one of the key life-sustaining technologies of contemporary Western society. This infrastructure is extremely complex due to its size, its multifarious technologies, and its interweaving with societal structures. Smart grids are important in future infrastructure, yet extant literature does not adequately address this complexity. This paper argues that different elements of the philosophy of Dooyeweerd offer a key to understanding this intricate complexity more fundamentally. Key concepts are the ideas of normative practices, enkapsis (intertwinement) of practices, individuality structures, and ideals and basic beliefs. By developing these ideas in the context of smart grid engineering, our research contributes to philosophy of technology, philosophy of design, and philosophy of sustainability. It offers an ontological analysis of these infrastructures, pointing a direction to the development of workable infrastructures and supporting the transition to a sustainable society

Linking models for land use analysis: experiences from the SENSOR project

In order to quantify the effects of a comprehensive set of policies on land use, interaction between sectors needs to be accounted for, while maintaining a high level of detail for each sector. This calls for a combination of sector specific and sector wide models. This paper describes such a modelling system, with emphasis on the linking of the models to a coherent system. Five sectors of significant importance for land use are modelled individually: Forestry, agriculture, urban land use, transport infrastructure, and tourism. All models are connected as sub-modules to an economy-wide partial econometric model. In addition, a land cover model is used to disaggregate land use down to 1km grid resolution. The linking of such a diverse set of models in a consistent way poses conceptual as well as practical issues. The conceptual issues concern questions such as which items of the models to link, how to obtain a stable joint baseline scenario, and how to obtain a joint equilibrium solution for all models simultaneously in simulation. Practical issues concern the actual implementation of the conceptually sound linkages and provision of a workable technical solution. The linked system allows us to introduce a shock in either of the models, and the set of results will provide a joint solution for all sectors modelled in SENSOR. In this manner, the models take a complex policy scenario as argument and compute a comprehensive set of variables involving all five land use sectors on regional level, which in turn forms a basis for distilling out the impact on sustainability in the form of indicators. Without the extensive automation and technical linkages, it would not have been possible to obtain a joint equilibrium, or it would have required exorbitant amounts of working time.Model linking, sustainable land use, cross sector modelling, iterative recalibration, Land Economics/Use,

Expression and interpretation of emotions in multilingual psychotherapy:A literature review

This review aimed at presenting the findings of 19 original studies that were published in the period from 2000 to 2022 in order to outline the current state of the art in the field of emotion communication (i.e., expressing and interpreting emotions) in multilingual psychotherapy. This analysis involves in particular the studies that investigate multilingual phenomena (e.g., code-switching and language-mixing) that occur during psychotherapeutic sessions when client and therapist can speak more than one language, as well as the articles that research emotion communication in this multilingual setting. With this in mind, the articles selected for this review are divided into two main categories: linguistic phenomena in multilingual psychotherapy and emotion communication in multilingual psychotherapy. Results of the studies in the current analysis reveal that code-switching remains one of the main linguistic phenomena that arises in the area of multilingual psychotherapy. Switching languages in therapy tends to be considered as beneficial for both client and therapist. Besides, findings suggest a connection between speaking L1/LX and one's identity (e.g., feeling different depending on the language). Additionally, studies that investigate emotion communication in multilingual psychotherapy show that an individual's first language (L1) is predominantly viewed as more emotionally charged than their language(s) learned later in life (LX). However, some studies also demonstrate that the relationship between L1 and LX is more fluid and context-dependent than it has traditionally been regarded. Propositions are given for future research in the field of emotion communication in multilingual psychotherapy.</p