‘Clearing the air’: Common drivers of climate-smart smallholder food production in Eastern and Southern Africa

African smallholders should adopt climate-smart agriculture to make a sustainable transition towards cleaner, circular and more productive food systems. Farmers must play a key role in that process. However, the adoption and diffusion of climate-smart technologies have been slow. Here, a cross-sectional econometric analysis using primary data on sustainable farming practices in the cereal-legume farming systems of Ethiopia, Malawi, South Africa and Tanzania is applied to analyse the drivers and intensity of innovation adoption. Socio-economic barriers reduce adoption intensity among marginalised farmers, and proper incentives are needed to overcome them. Business links between technology-ready smallholders and small-to-medium enterprises must be created to enable the uptake and scaling-up of innovations and the development of industrial application models. Such results can support the design of evidence-based strategies for the sustainable transformation of production systems. While national climate policies already include climate-smart agriculture as an adaptation blueprint, policy makers need empirical evidence to support large-scale adoption. This research is an innovative contribution to that effort. It uses a unique household dataset where data is scarce; it considers the impact of smallholders’ conditioning factors on technology climate-smartness level; and it estimates the correlations among a wide range of practices, agro-ecologies and geographical contexts

Study of archaeological samples via neutron techniques

The discovery of ancient artefacts and artworks usually raises a variety of questions such as the correct determination of their historical and cultural timeframe, the place and method of production, the choice of treatments and conditions for restoration and preservation. In the field of archaeometry, new perspectives are opened up by the use of neutron techniques. Results on a selection of archaeological samples, Etruscan bronzes coming from the Museo Nazionale di Villa Giulia and Roman marbles from Villa Adriana (Tivoli, Rome), are presented. ANCIENT CHARM project aims to develop a quantitative 3D imaging technique. This work presents some of results on a series of experimental investigation performed on test samples called “Black Boxes”. Elements’ and compounds’ identification on the internal features of the boxes are obtained by the combined use of different neutron analysis methods. The presented studies successfully showed the high potential of neutron techniques in the study of ancient archaeological artefacts

The very low angle detector for high-energy inelastic neutron scattering on the VESUVIO spectrometer

The Very Low Angle Detector (VLAD) bank has been installed on the VESUVIO spectrometer at the ISIS spallation neutron source. The new device allows for high-energy inelastic neutron scattering measurements, at energies above 1 eV, maintaining the wave vector transfer lower than 10 A^- 1. This opens a still unexplored region of the kinematical (q,w) space, enabling new and challenging experimental investigations in condensed matter. This paper describes the main instrumental features of the VLAD device, including instrument design, detector response, and calibration procedure

Lacrimal Gland Tumours in Dogs: A Histological and Immunohistochemical Study

Previous article in issueNext article in issue Introduction: Lacrimal gland tumours (LGTs) are well-known neoplasms affecting both the nictitating membrane and the main lacrimal glands in dogs; however, extensive histological and immunohistochemical studies are currently lacking. In recent years an increasing number of LGTs with a complex (i.e. epithelial and myoepithelial) phenotype have been recorded in our routine histopathology service. The aim of the present study was to review histological and immunohistochemical features of LGTs in dogs. Material and Methods: Nictitating membrane (NM) and main lacrimal gland (LG) biopsy samples from the departmental archive (2010\u20132016) were reviewed. HE sections were re-evaluated by light microscopy. Since a specific classification for LGTs is currently lacking, the classification proposed by Goldschmidt (2011) for mammary gland tumours was applied. Immunohistochemistry for pancytokeratin (CK AE1/AE3), CK14, \u3b1-smooth muscle actin, calponin and p63 was performed. Results: One-hundred and sixty-one NM and LG specimens were reviewed: 106 neoplastic lesions were diagnosed, 28 were epithelial gland tumours (25 NM; three LG). Twenty-four of 28 were carcinomas: seven complex, five solid, two simple tubular, two tubulopapillary, two comedocarcinoma, one ductal, four carcinoma and malignant myoepithelioma, one malignant myoepithelioma. Four were benign tumours: two complex adenomas, two multilobular adenomas. CKAE1/AE3 labelled tubular cells, while CK14, \u3b1-SMA, calponin and p63 labelled myoepithelial cells, when present. Conclusions: In the present cohort of cases, NM and LG complex carcinomas and adenomas were highly represented among LGTs. NM and LG carcinomas outnumbered adenomas and were characterized by marked intratumoural variability. A specific classification for lacrimal tumours is needed

Diamond detector for high rate monitors of fast neutrons beams

A fast neutron detection system suitable for high rate measurements is presented. The detector is based on a commercial high purity single crystal diamond (SDD) coupled to a fast digital data acquisition system. The detector was tested at the ISIS pulsed spallation neutron source. The SDD event signal was digitized at 1 GHz to reconstruct the deposited energy (pulse amplitude) and neutron arrival time; the event time of flight (ToF) was obtained relative to the recorded proton beam signal t0. Fast acquisition is needed since the peak count rate is very high (~800 kHz) due to the pulsed structure of the neutron beam. Measurements at ISIS indicate that three characteristics regions exist in the biparametric spectrum: i) background gamma events of low pulse amplitudes; ii) low pulse amplitude neutron events in the energy range Edep = 1.5-7 MeV ascribed to neutron elastic scattering on 12C; iii) large pulse amplitude neutron events with En < 7 MeV ascribed to 12C(n,α)9Be and 12C(n,n')3α