Modelización de productos forestales no maderables en Europa: revisión

Non-wood forest products (NWFP) like cork, edible mushrooms, pine nuts, acorns, resins, medicinal plants, and floral greens, among others, provide important recreational and commercial activities in the rural forested areas of the world, being in certain regions more profitable than traditional timber harvesting. Despite the importance of non-wood forest products and services, forest management and planning methods and models in Europe have been traditionally wood oriented, leading to a lack for tools helping forest management based on optimizing these products. In the present work we’ll show and discuss the main factors and challenges limiting the development of classical empirical models for NWFP, and we will review the existing models for the main NWFP in Europe: cork, pine nuts, berries, mushrooms and resins.Los productos forestales no maderables (PFNM), como el corcho, los hongos coemstibles, piñones, bellotas, resinas y plantas medicinales u ornamentales, entre otros, son fuente tanto de servicios recreativos como de actividad económica en una parte importante de los bosques del mundo. En muchas de estas zonas, el aprovechamiento de estos productos supone un ingreso superior al obtenido en el aprovechamiento maderable tradicional. Sin embargo, y pese a la importancia de estos productos y servicios no maderables, la gestión forestal, las herramientas de apoyo y los modelos forestales existentes en Europa han sido normalmente desarrollados desde una perspectiva centrada en la producción de madera. Esto se ha traducido en la escasez de herramientas de apoyo a la decisión de la gestión basadas en la optimización de la producción no maderable. En el presente trabajo se exponen y discuten los principales factores que limitan el desarrollo de los modelos para productos no maderables, y se revisan los modelos existentes para los principales productos no maderables en Europa: corcho, piñones, frutos del bosque, hongos y resina

Positive Youth Development and Wellbeing: Gender Differences

The five C’s of positive youth development (PYD) (competence, confidence, character, caring, and connection) have been associated with adaptive development among young people. Gender differences in young people’s wellbeing and mental health have been studied and analyzed, but the investigation into their association with the five C’s is still in its infancy. In the present study, we analyzed the influence of the five C’s on the wellbeing, more specifically, anxiety, social alienation, general wellbeing, physical symptoms, and psychological symptoms, of Portuguese adolescents, by gender. Participants were 5th–12th grade students attending public schools in Lisbon, Portugal. The questionnaire was administered to 384 adolescents. The results indicated important gender differences in young people’s wellbeing. The results revealed some differences between genders that should be considered in interventions that aim to promote the wellbeing of adolescents. On the other hand, confidence was positively associated with mental health and wellbeing for both boys and girls, skill should be promoted among young people, because it was competence that revealed the greatest association with wellbeing, among the variables analyzed.publishedVersio

Assessing food sustainable intensification potential of agroforestry using a carbon balance method

Food security, climate change mitigation, and land use challenges are interlinked and need to be considered simultaneously. One possible solution is sustainable intensification, which is the practice of increasing food production per area of land whilst also reducing the environmental impacts associated with this. Agroforestry has been stated to be a practice that meets this definition. In this study, a new methodology is presented to assess the potential of different management options as sustainable intensification practices. The methodology is based on comparing the carbon emissions associated with the production of food and the carbon sequestered for that same activity for a particular quantity of food produced over a specific area and over a specific time. The resulting indicator, the “carbon balance” is the difference between the greenhouse gasses emitted (considered as negative values) and carbon sequestered (positive values) estimated in Mg CO2eq per Mg of food produced on one hectare of land for one year. The carbon balance quantifies the global warming potential associated with sustainable intensification by integrating a process-based model with life cycle analysis and is able to estimate above- and below-ground biomass and soil carbon content. This methodology is tested in Portugal for wheat production under crop monoculture and agroforestry systems. The results show agroforestry to be a suitable practice for sustainable intensification compared to a crop monoculture as it just slightly decreased wheat yields whilst providing a positive carbon balance from year 50 onwards of approximately 1 Mg of CO2eq sequestered per Mg of wheat produced

Focused extracorporeal shockwave therapy (f-ESWT) for knee osteoarthritis: a double-blind randomized clinical trial

Objetivo: Avaliar eficácia da terapia de ondas de choque focal (f-ESWT) comparada ao placebo para dor e incapacidade em pacientes com osteoartrose de joelho (OA). Métodos: Ensaio clínico randomizado, duplo-cego, placebo controlado, pacientes com OA primária de joelhos realizaram exercícios (alongamentos de isquiotibiais e fortalecimento de quadríceps) e randomizados em f-ESWT ou placebo. Todos os pacientes foram submetidos a 4 sessões semanais de 7.000 pulsos, e no grupo f-ESWT a energia foi de até 0.15mJ/mm2. O desfecho primário foi a escala analógica visual (VAS) para dor em 1 mês. Os desfechos secundários foram WOMAC, TUG, Lequesne e índice de resposta OMERACT-OARSI em 1 e 3 meses; bem como VAS aos 3 meses e eventos adversos (EAs). O teste de Mann-Whitney U e o teste exato Fisher foram utilizados com alfa = 5% e poder = 80% em uma análise de intenção de tratar. Os desfechos contínuos foram relatados como média ± desvio padrão. Resultados: 18 pacientes (9 em cada grupo), idade de 60.6±8.7 com 33.3% homens. Não houve diferença significativa entre grupos em qualquer variável. F-ESWT não foi superior ao placebo em 1 mês: VAS = -2,97 ± 3,18 e -2,68 ± 2,33 cm, respectivamente, p = 0,96. Somente o TUG no 1º mês foi significativo: 9.09 ± 2.30 e 11.01 ± 2.85 seg, p = 0.01. Conclusão: f-ESWT não foi superior ao placebo para osteoartrose de joelhos. Este estudo foi insuficiente para detectar diferenças. Novos estudos devem usar WOMAC A (subescala dor) como desfecho primário e recrutar 92 pacientes.Objective: To assess the efficacy of focused extracorporeal shockwave therapy (f-ESWT) when compared to placebo for pain and disability in patients with knee osteoarthritis (OA). Methods: Randomized, parallel, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial. Patients with primary knee OA were given a set of exercises (hamstring stretching and quadriceps strengthening) and randomized into f-ESWT or placebo (sham probe). All patients were submitted to 4 weekly sessions of 7,000 pulses, and in the f-ESWT group energy was up to 0.15mJ/mm2. Primary outcome was visual analog scale (VAS) for pain at 1 month. Secondary outcomes were WOMAC, TUG, Lequesne's index and OMERACT-OARSI responder index at 1 and 3 months; as well as VAS at 3 months and adverse events (AEs). Both patients and outcome assessors were blinded. Mann-Whitney U test and Fisher's exact test were used with alpha=5% and power=80% in an intention-to-treat analysis. Continuous outcomes were reported as mean± standard deviation. Results: 18 patients were included (9 in each group), aging 60.6±8.7, with 33.3% males. There was no significant difference at baseline across groups in any variables. f-ESWT was not superior to placebo at 1 month: VAS=-2.97±3.18 and -2.68±2.33cm, respectively, p=0.96. TUG at 1 month had significant differences: 9.09±2.30 and 11.01±2.85sec, p=0.01. No serious AEs were observed. Conclusions: f-ESWT was not superior to placebo for knee OA. This RCT was underpowered to detect differences in this study. New RCTs should use WOMAC A (pain subscale) as primary outcome and recruit at least 92 patients

Integrated approach and inventory system for the evaluation of sustainable forest management indicators at local scales in Western European regions

In the past decade, sustainability of forests has been assessed through monitoring of widely-accepted criteria and indicators for sustainable forest management. Evaluation of sustainable forest management indicators has generally been conducted at national levels on the basis of forest inventory data and agreed lists of indicators from inter-governmental processes. In parallel, forest certification schemes and processes have been developed and are generally conducted at smaller scales such as regional or management unit levels. Increasingly, sustainable forest management indicators will need to be evaluated at those local scales to answer public questions and facilitate social dialogue on the basis of scientifically sound and pertinent information.To undertake this type of evaluation within homogeneous bio-geographic zones and a socio-economic context, an integrated approach is proposed combining (i) use of reference pilot zones, (ii) elaboration of indicators and evaluation of their pertinence through scientific studies for priority domains (carbon sequestration, forest damage, soil disturbance, landscape patterns and biodiversity, global value of products and services), (iii) comparative test of common protocols, and (iv) organisation and sharing of forest information at regional levels with stakeholders and public. Preliminary testing has been carried out on key indicators corresponding to priority issues for planted forests of European Atlantic region

Overview of silviculture, models and decision support tools for multipurpose trees (MPT) and non-wood forest products (NWFP) in Europe

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The Association Between the 5Cs and Anxiety—Insights From Three Countries: Portugal, Slovenia, and Spain

Several of the most frequent psychological difficulties in childhood and adolescence are related to anxiety and lead to numerous short- and long-term negative outcomes in emotional, social, and academic domains. Empirical evidence consistently shows that the 5Cs (competence, caring, confidence, connection, and character) of Positive Youth Development (PYD) are positively related to adolescents’ contribution to self, family, and society as well as negatively related to risky behaviors and emotional difficulties, such as anxiety. Thus, the PYD can be one of the models that informs prevention programs. To provide contextualized, data-driven support for prevention efforts, we have analyzed the predictive value of the 5Cs for anxiety and anxiety dimensions using three different convenience youth samples from Portugal (N = 384, 46.6% female), Slovenia (N = 449, 69% females), and Spain (N = 768; 60.5% females). To assess the 5Cs, we used the same short form of the PYD scale in all samples (Geldhof et al., 2013) and different anxiety measures across samples: the Multidimensional Anxiety Scale for Children (MASC) in Portugal, the Lestvica anksioznosti za otroke in mladostnike anxiety scale (LAOM) in Slovenia and the Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7 (GAD-7) in Spain. The findings show significant associations of PYD and anxiety across all three contexts with all three different anxiety measures used. The associations vary across countries emphasizing the need to further research the role of contexts in anxiety prevention. Despite variations the results do indicate that connection is negatively associated with anxiety in all three contexts using the three anxiety measures, while confidence is a negative predictor and caring is a positive predictor of anxiety in Slovenia and Spain. Implications for practice within an educational framework for adolescents and youth are discussed, together with public policy recommendations

Projected changes in atmospheric rivers affecting Europe in CMIP5 models

Atmospheric Rivers (ARs) are elongated bands of high water vapor concentration extending to the midlatitudes, which can be associated with intense precipitation and floods over continental areas. We analyze ARs reaching Europe in simulations from six Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) global climate models (GCMs) to quantify possible changes during the current century, with emphasis in five western European prone coastal areas. ARs are represented reasonably well in GCMs for recent climate conditions (1980-2005). Increased vertically integrated horizontal water transport is found for 2074-2099 (RCP4.5 and RCP8.5) compared to 1980-2005, while the number of ARs is projected to double on average for the same period. These changes are robust between models and are associated with higher air temperatures and thus enhanced atmospheric moisture content, together with higher precipitation associated with extratropical cyclones. This suggests an increased risk of intense precipitation and floods along the Atlantic European Coasts from the Iberian Peninsula to Scandinavia