Tuinbouw Integraal Digitaal (TID); Inventarisatie, analyse en programmavoorstel

In dit rapport wordt de huidige situatie op het gebied van integrale digitale informatievoorzieningin de tuinbouwsector in kaart gebracht en geanalyseerd. Vervolgens worden de contouren geschetst van een mogelijk programma voor verbetering en integratie van deze digitale informatievoorziening. Hiermee wordt een overzicht geboden van de huidige initiatieven en projecten en een uitgangspunt gegeven voor de rol die het Nederlandse tuinbouwclusterwil vervullen. Het ziet voor zichzelf een richtinggevende rol weggelegd als ontwikkelaar en eigenaar van besturings- of coördinatieconcepten die gebruikt worden in ICT-systemen, informatiestromen en ketenstandaards. Het rapport onderstreept de noodzaak om tot een integrale aanpak van de digitale informatievoorziening te komen.This report charts and analyses the current situation regarding integrated digitalinformation facilities in the horticultural sector. It also suggests the outlines of a possible programme for improving the integration of these digital information facilities. Additionally it offers an overview of the current initiatives and projects and suggests a starting point for the role which the Dutch horticulture cluster wishes to fill. Dutch horticulture is aiming towards a guiding role as a developer and owner of operational and coordinating concepts which are used in ICT systems, data flows, and chain standards. The report emphasises the necessity of creating an integrated approach to digital information facilities

Floral displays suffer from sulphur deprivation

Nutrient deficiency is known to constrain plant growth in numerous ways, but how it impacts floral displays and pollination success remains unclear. Here we investigate how insufficient availability of sulphur – a vital plant nutrient that is a limiting factor in natural and agricultural regions throughout the world – influences the production of floral displays in Brassica rapa, Physalis philadelphica and three Petunia species with differently coloured flowers. Sulphur deficiency led to a drastic reduction in the number of open flowers, an aberrant flower morphology and smaller pollen with an altered mineral nutrient content. Intriguingly, sulphur deprivation also led to a clear reduction in pigmentation of yellow flowers, but not in flowers with white, purple and red colours. The pale yellow flower colour was due to decreased amounts of violaxanthin, lutein and other carotenoids, suggesting that the carotenoid synthesis pathway is particularly susceptible to sulphur deficiency. Additional experiments with nitrogen and phosphorus depletion confirmed that observed colour and morphological changes were not a general nutrient limitation response, but could be ascribed to sulphur depletion specifically. Taken together, our results showed that (mild) sulphur deficiency deteriorates a suite of floral traits, and that the effects may cascade to pollinators and so have the potential to undermine (agro-)ecosystem functioning.<br/

Functional mechanisms underlying pleiotropic risk alleles at the 19p13.1 breast-ovarian cancer susceptibility locus

A locus at 19p13 is associated with breast cancer (BC) and ovarian cancer (OC) risk. Here we analyse 438 SNPs in this region in 46,451 BC and 15,438 OC cases, 15,252 BRCA1 mutation carriers and 73,444 controls and identify 13 candidate causal SNPs associated with serous OC (P=9.2 × 10-20), ER-negative BC (P=1.1 × 10-13), BRCA1-associated BC (P=7.7 × 10-16) and triple negative BC (P-diff=2 × 10-5). Genotype-gene expression associations are identified for candidate target genes ANKLE1 (P=2 × 10-3) and ABHD8 (P<2 × 10-3). Chromosome conformation capture identifies interactions between four candidate SNPs and ABHD8, and luciferase assays indicate six risk alleles increased transactivation of the ADHD8 promoter. Targeted deletion of a region containing risk SNP rs56069439 in a putative enhancer induces ANKLE1 downregulation; and mRNA stability assays indicate functional effects for an ANKLE1 3′-UTR SNP. Altogether, these data suggest that multiple SNPs at 19p13 regulate ABHD8 and perhaps ANKLE1 expression, and indicate common mechanisms underlying breast and ovarian cancer risk

The Influence of Number and Timing of Pregnancies on Breast Cancer Risk for Women With BRCA1 or BRCA2 Mutations

Background: Full-term pregnancy (FTP) is associated with a reduced breast cancer (BC) risk over time, but women are at increased BC risk in the immediate years following an FTP. No large prospective studies, however, have examined whether the number and timing of pregnancies are associated with BC risk for BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutation carriers. Methods: Using weighted and time-varying Cox proportional hazards models, we investigated whether reproductive events are associated with BC risk for mutation carriers using a retrospective cohort (5707 BRCA1 and 3525 BRCA2 mutation carriers) and a prospective cohort (2276 BRCA1 and 1610 BRCA2 mutation carriers), separately for each cohort and the combined prospective and retrospective cohort. Results: For BRCA1 mutation carriers, there was no overall association with parity compared with nulliparity (combined hazard ratio [HRc] ¼ 0.99, 95% confidence interval [CI] ¼ 0.83 to 1.18). Relative to being uniparous, an increased number of FTPs was associated with decreased BC risk (HRc¼ 0.79, 95% CI ¼ 0.69 to 0.91; HRc¼ 0.70, 95% CI ¼ 0.59 to 0.82; HRc¼ 0.50, 95% CI ¼ 0.40 to 0.63, for 2, 3, and 4 FTPs, respectively, Ptrend < .0001) and increasing duration of breastfeeding was associated with decreased BC risk (combined cohort Ptrend ¼ .0003). Relative to being nulliparous, uniparous BRCA1 mutation carriers were at increased BC risk in the prospective analysis (prospective hazard ration [HRp] ¼ 1.69, 95% CI ¼ 1.09 to 2.62). For BRCA2 mutation carriers, being parous was associated with a 30% increase in BC risk (HRc ¼ 1.33, 95% CI ¼ 1.05 to 1.69), and there was no apparent decrease in risk associated with multiparity except for having at least 4 FTPs vs. 1 FTP (HRc¼ 0.72, 95% CI ¼ 0.54 to 0.98). Conclusions: These findings suggest differential associations with parity between BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutation carriers with higher risk for uniparous BRCA1 carriers and parous BRCA2 carriers

The chemistry in the freeboard of a coal-fired pressurized fluized bed combustor

Applied Science

Organizing information integration in agri-food: A method based on a service-oriented architecture and living lab approach

Agri-food enterprises operate in a complex and dynamic environment. To meet increasing demands of consumers, government and business partners, enterprises continuously have to work on innovations of products, processes and ways of cooperation in agri-food supply chain networks (AFSCN). Hence, a development towards a more knowledge-based economy is needed. The Lisbon strategy, launched by the European Union, to attain this knowledge-based economy, has failed so far. This paper argues that information sharing and organizing ICT are main critical areas to overcome this deadlock. However, ICT development in AFSCN involves an information integration task that has to deal with technical and organizational requirements and starts with an existing installed base. Traditional software engineering approaches are inadequate to address these issues. This paper provides an overall method for analysis, design and implementation of information integration, taking technical as well as organizational development into account. The method was derived from experiences in a research and development program in the Dutch arable farming sector. A generic integration framework forms the backbone of the method to ensure systematic and sustainable ICT development. Business process management (BPM), in combination with reference information models, plays an important role. The technical architecture and infrastructure are based on a service-oriented architecture (SOA). Attention is paid to the organizational infrastructure that is needed to embed the results in the right context, so that they will be broadly supported and used. The method is divided into three phases: analysis, basic design and iterative implementation. Analysis of the current situation in AFSCN is supported by an information integration framework. The basic design is a first version of the generic integration framework. In the iterative implementation phase, pilot projects are guided by this basic design, which results in incremental growth of the framework. The pilot projects follow a Living Lab (LL) approach. LLs represent a user-centric, open innovation approach for sensing, prototyping, validating and refining complex solutions in multiple and evolving real life contexts. The method is illustrated by an application to the Dutch arable farming sector. It can be concluded that the contribution of the presented method lies in combining different methodologies into a design approach for information integration, based on a sound architecture. The presented method leads to ICT that follows the business processes in real life and thus enhances appropriate information sharing to support a knowledge-based econom