Developing of new technologies driving advances in precision agriculture to optimise inputs and reduce environmental footprint

Avances en el sector de la agrotecnología ofrecen la oportunidad de que los sistemas agroalimentarios contribuyan a conseguir objetivos políticos mundiales como lograr sistemas de carbono neto cero y reducir la huella ambiental mediante la eliminación de emisiones nocivas y el aumento de la biodiversidad. Una serie de sensores puede detectar la salud y el estrés de los cultivos debido a amenazas bióticas y abióticas. La detección precoz permite tomar medidas adecuadas antes de que el rendimiento de los cultivos se vea afectado o la presión de plagas y enfermedades no pueda controlarse sin el uso de pesticidas sintéticos. La tecnología de detección utiliza técnicas de imagen o detección de compuestos volátiles mediante e-nose y diagnóstico molecular en tiempo real, identificando patógenos vegetales recogidos en muestras de aire. Los datos generados por estas tecnologías proporcionan a los agricultores información temporal y espacial. Permite identificar plantas individualmente, incluso desde satélite, lo que posibilita aplicar con precisión fertilizantes y pesticidas, directamente a la planta o a la zona de cultivo afectada con técnicas de pulverización controladas a partir utilizando los datos adquiridos.Technological advances in the agri-tech sector offer the opportunity for food production systems to contribute to achieving global policy aims such as achieving net zero carbon systems and reducing environmental footprint through eliminating harmful emissions and increasing biodiversity. Arange of sensors can detect crop health and stress due to biotic and abiotic threats, often with an early detection which permits appropriate action to be taken before crop yield is affected or pest and disease pressure cannot be controlled without the use of synthetic pesticides. Detection technology uses imaging techniques, often beyond the visible spectrum, detection of volatile compounds using e-nose techniques and real time molecular diagnostic techniques to identify plant pathogens collected in air samples. The data generated by such technologies relies on connectivity of the hardware and subsequent analytical processes to provide growers with temporal and spatial information. It is possible to identify plant locations with great accuracy, even with satellite systems, which permits precision application of crop inputs, such as fertilisers and pesticides, directly to the plant or crop area as required. Spray application techniques can now treat individual plants, both crop and weeds, using data acquired to control the flow to individual nozzles

Challenges of the circular bioeconomy for food security from an analytical chemistry perspective

La Bioeconomía Circular (BEC) puede dar lugar a una serie de vulnerabilidades para la seguridad (entendida como inocuidad) de los alimentos, piensos, salud humana, animal y medioambiente. En el marco de la Bioeconomía Circular se extienden prácticas relacionadas con la obtención y reciclado de materiales, nuevos ingredientes de origen biológico usados junto con nuevas tecnologías para producir alimentos y piensos, nuevos bioestimulantes, bioplaguicidas y biofertilizantes, en definitiva una serie de nuevos insumos y procesos cuyo potencial riesgo para la cadena alimentaria, salud humana y medioambiente debe ser evaluados. La caracterización de residuos, migración de productos químicos y contaminantes en los diversos compartimentos ambientales constituyen nuevos problemas analíticos que deben ser abordados con nuevas metodologías, en donde la espectrometría de masas de alta resolución, la digitalización y el análisis de datos cobra una mayor relevancia.The Circular Bioeconomy (CBEC) can give rise to a number of vulnerabilities for food and feed safety human and animal health and the environment. Within the framework of the Circular Bioeconomy, practices related to the sourcing and recycling ofmaterials, new bio-based ingredients used together with new technologies to produce food and feed, new biostimulants, biopesticides and biofertilisers, in short a series of new inputs and processes whose potential risk to the food chain, human health and the environment must be assessed. The characterisation of residues, migration of chemical products and pollutants in the various environmental compartments constitute new analytical problems that must be tackled with new methodologies, where high resolution mass spectrometry, digitalisation and data analysis become more relevant

The Decline of Remarriage: Evidence From German Village Populations in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries

Family reconstitution data for fourteen German village populations permit the examination of remarriage during the eighteenth and nineteenth cen turies. The results provide compelling evidence for a secular decline in the tenden cy to remarry. Pronounced age and sex differentials in the likelihood of remar riage were evident: widows were far less likely to remarry than widowers, and the probability of remarriage declined rapidly with age, particularly for women. The probability of remarriage was also inversely associated with the number and age of children. There were, however, no clear differences in either the probability of remarriage or its tendency to decline over time among major occupational groups. The decline in remarriage probabilities was caused in part by declines in adult mortality, which gradually raised the ages of surviving spouses to levels at which remarriage has historically been rather unlikely. However, age-specific marriage probabilities also declined, affecting both men and women and all oc cupational groups, suggesting the presence of a social change of wide scope. Some comments on possible factors contributing to the decline of remarriage are presented. The need for a comprehensive explanation of remarriage trends and differentials remains an important challenge for family historians.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/68212/2/10.1177_036319908501000103.pd

Tick-, mosquito-, and rodent-borne parasite sampling designs for the National Ecological Observatory Network

Parasites and pathogens are increasingly recognized as significant drivers of ecological and evolutionary change in natural ecosystems. Concurrently, transmission of infectious agents among human, livestock, and wildlife populations represents a growing threat to veterinary and human health. In light of these trends and the scarcity of long-term time series data on infection rates among vectors and reservoirs, the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) will collect measurements and samples of a suite of tick-, mosquito-, and rodent-borne parasites through a continental-scale surveillance program. Here, we describe the sampling designs for these efforts, highlighting sampling priorities, field and analytical methods, and the data as well as archived samples to be made available to the research community. Insights generated by this sampling will advance current understanding of and ability to predict changes in infection and disease dynamics in novel, interdisciplinary, and collaborative ways. (Résumé d'auteur

Tick-, Mosquito-, and Rodent-Borne Parasite Sampling Designs for the National Ecological Observatory Network [Special Feature: NEON Design]

Parasites and pathogens are increasingly recognized as significant drivers of ecological and evolutionary change in natural ecosystems. Concurrently, transmission of infectious agents among human, livestock, and wildlife populations represents a growing threat to veterinary and human health. In light of these trends and the scarcity of long-term time series data on infection rates among vectors and reservoirs, the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) will collect measurements and samples of a suite of tick-, mosquito-, and rodent-borne parasites through a continental-scale surveillance program. Here, we describe the sampling designs for these efforts, highlighting sampling priorities, field and analytical methods, and the data as well as archived samples to be made available to the research community. Insights generated by this sampling will advance current understanding of and ability to predict changes in infection and disease dynamics in novel, interdisciplinary, and collaborative ways

Effects of antiplatelet therapy on stroke risk by brain imaging features of intracerebral haemorrhage and cerebral small vessel diseases: subgroup analyses of the RESTART randomised, open-label trial

Background Findings from the RESTART trial suggest that starting antiplatelet therapy might reduce the risk of recurrent symptomatic intracerebral haemorrhage compared with avoiding antiplatelet therapy. Brain imaging features of intracerebral haemorrhage and cerebral small vessel diseases (such as cerebral microbleeds) are associated with greater risks of recurrent intracerebral haemorrhage. We did subgroup analyses of the RESTART trial to explore whether these brain imaging features modify the effects of antiplatelet therapy

Measurement of the cosmic ray spectrum above 4×10184{\times}10^{18} eV using inclined events detected with the Pierre Auger Observatory

A measurement of the cosmic-ray spectrum for energies exceeding $4{\times}10^{18}$ eV is presented, which is based on the analysis of showers with zenith angles greater than $60^{\circ}$ detected with the Pierre Auger Observatory between 1 January 2004 and 31 December 2013. The measured spectrum confirms a flux suppression at the highest energies. Above $5.3{\times}10^{18}$ eV, the "ankle", the flux can be described by a power law $E^{-\gamma}$ with index $\gamma=2.70 \pm 0.02 \,\text{(stat)} \pm 0.1\,\text{(sys)}$ followed by a smooth suppression region. For the energy ($E_\text{s}$) at which the spectral flux has fallen to one-half of its extrapolated value in the absence of suppression, we find $E_\text{s}=(5.12\pm0.25\,\text{(stat)}^{+1.0}_{-1.2}\,\text{(sys)}){\times}10^{19}$ eV.Comment: Replaced with published version. Added journal reference and DO

Energy Estimation of Cosmic Rays with the Engineering Radio Array of the Pierre Auger Observatory

The Auger Engineering Radio Array (AERA) is part of the Pierre Auger Observatory and is used to detect the radio emission of cosmic-ray air showers. These observations are compared to the data of the surface detector stations of the Observatory, which provide well-calibrated information on the cosmic-ray energies and arrival directions. The response of the radio stations in the 30 to 80 MHz regime has been thoroughly calibrated to enable the reconstruction of the incoming electric field. For the latter, the energy deposit per area is determined from the radio pulses at each observer position and is interpolated using a two-dimensional function that takes into account signal asymmetries due to interference between the geomagnetic and charge-excess emission components. The spatial integral over the signal distribution gives a direct measurement of the energy transferred from the primary cosmic ray into radio emission in the AERA frequency range. We measure 15.8 MeV of radiation energy for a 1 EeV air shower arriving perpendicularly to the geomagnetic field. This radiation energy -- corrected for geometrical effects -- is used as a cosmic-ray energy estimator. Performing an absolute energy calibration against the surface-detector information, we observe that this radio-energy estimator scales quadratically with the cosmic-ray energy as expected for coherent emission. We find an energy resolution of the radio reconstruction of 22% for the data set and 17% for a high-quality subset containing only events with at least five radio stations with signal.Comment: Replaced with published version. Added journal reference and DO