The 1921 European drought: impacts, reconstruction and drivers

The European drought of 1921 is assessed in terms of its impacts on society and in terms of its physical characteristics. The development of impacts of the drought are categorized by a systematic survey of newspaper reports from five European newspapers covering the area from England to the Czech Republic and other parts of Europe. This is coupled to a reconstruction of daily temperature and precipitation based on meteorological measurements to quantify the drought severity and extent, and reanalysis data are used to identify its drivers. This analysis shows that the first impacts of the drought started to appear in early spring and lingered on until well into autumn and winter, affecting water supply and agriculture and livestock farming. The dominant impact in western Europe is on agriculture and livestock farming while in central Europe the effects of wildfires were reported on most often. The peak in the number of reports is in late summer. Preceding the first impacts was the dry autumn of 1920 and winter 1920–1921. The area hardest hit by the drought in the following spring and summer was the triangle between Brussels, Paris and Lyon, but a vast stretch of the continent, from Ireland to the Ukraine, was affected. The reported impacts on water supply and water-borne transport in that region were matched by an analysis of the hydrological situation over the Seine catchment. On average, the 1921 summer was not particularly hot, but the heatwave which was observed at the end of July saw temperatures matching those of the heatwaves in modern summers. Similar to modern droughts, an anticyclone was present roughly over the British Isles, maintaining sunny and dry weather in Europe and steering away cyclones to the north. Its persistence makes it exceptional in comparison to modern droughts. The 1921 drought stands out as the most severe and most widespread drought in Europe since the start of the 20th century. The precipitation deficit in all seasons was large, but in none of the seasons in 1920 and 1921 was the precipitation deficit the largest on record. The severity of the 1921 drought relates to the conservative nature of drought which amplifies the lack of precipitation in autumn and winter into the following spring and summer

Comparison of HPLC-RI, LC/MS-MS and enzymatic assays for the analysis of residual lactose in lactose-free milk

Lactose intolerance is the decreased ability to digest lactose, and the population involved is rapidly increasing all over the world. Different procedures have been reported in the literature to quantify lactose in dairy products, but the official method of analysis is based on enzymatic assay. In this paper, the effectiveness of two enzymatic kits in detecting residual lactose in lactose-free milk was investigated, and a comparison with two alternative chromatographic methods was done. The investigation used several samples of UHT milk containing different levels of lactose, and the results highlighted the inadequacy of the enzymatic assays and of the HPLC-RI method to analyse lactose-free milk. An LC-MS/MS method using the formate adduct was developed, and it allowed quantitation of lactose and lactulose in all samples at a high level of precision and repeatability

Effects of a lactobacillus acidophilus d2 enriched diet on yolk protein in hen eggs

The effects of probiotic supplementation on hen egg quality were studied, focusing on yolk protein changes. Electrophoretic analysis and protein spot identification were performed and the relative quantity of each protein was computed. Results showed a higher quantity of ovotransferrin, YGP42 and YGP40 (P<0.05) together with a reduced quantity of lipovitellin-2 (P<0.01) in the yolk of treated hens. Noteworthy is the increased concentration of YGP40. This is a yolk glycoprotein of 40 kDa recently suggested to be a potential new allergen. Eggs from treated hens also had a lower fat content than those from the control hens, both because of a lower fat concentration (P<0.05) and a smaller yolk (P<0.01)

Dietary habits and neurological features of Parkinson's disease patients: Implications for practice

Background & aims: Parkinson's disease (PD) patients can benefit considerably from appropriate nutritional care, particularly from diet. However, there is limited evidence on the eating habits of PD patients and their relationship with the features of the disease. Methods: We conducted a large caseecontrol study. Consecutive PD patients (N \ubc 600) receiving systematic nutritional care and healthy controls (N \ubc 600) matched (1:1) for age, gender, education, physical activity level and residence were studied using a 66-item food frequency questionnaire. The relationship between dietary habits and the following features of PD were investigated in patients: body weight, energy balance, constipation, and levodopa therapy (dose) and its related motor complications. Results: PD patients had lower BMI and reported higher food intake than controls. BMI was found to be inversely associated with disease duration and severity, and levodopa-related motor complications, whereas energy intake was positively associated with these variables. An increase in protein intake by 10 g over physiological requirements (0.8 g/kg/day) corresponded to a mean increase in levodopa dose of 0.7 mg/kg/day. Constipation was also associated with higher levodopa requirements. Finally, protein intake and its distribution throughout the day influenced levodopa-related motor complications. Conclusion: The management of protein intake and the treatment of constipation should be considered to be an integral part of the care of PD patients. Attention should always be focused on energy intake also. This would result in the maintenance of nutritional status, the optimization of levodopa-therapy and the minimization of its related motor complications

EUropean Flood Fatalities (EUFF) database 1980-2018

This dataset, named EUFF (EUropean Flood Fatalities) collects data about flood mortality (2466 cases) occurred during a 39-year period (1980-2018) in 8 countries divided into 9 study areas (Czech Republic, Israel, Italy, Turkey, Greece, Portugal, South France, Catalonia and Balearic Islands). The methodological approach to gather data was based on the systematic collection of fatal events descriptions from documentary sources and the disaggregation and systematization of all the available information into the database. Narratives of fatal events gathered from documentary sources were disaggregated in database fields describing victim’s profile and the circumstances of the deaths; each row contains data related to a single fatality, organized in fields with informations about event (place, date, hour), victim (age, gender, conditions, residency, activity), and victim-event interactions (accident place, accident dynamic, death causes, protective and/or hazardous behaviours). EUFF database represents a unique source of data for the study of flood victims with a broad potential for further spatial and temporal extension for different use