U.S. Grass-Fed Beef: Marketing Health Benefits

Grass-fed beef is a product with health benefits that may appeal to health-conscious consumers. This article analyzes the results of a choice experiment to explore the importance of health benefits in the marketing of grass fed beef. Both price and fat and calories have a negative effect on the choice of the product, and higher levels of omega-3 fatty acids have a positive effect. Price is the most important attribute to respondents (39.5%), a low level of fat and calories is the second most important attribute (36.9%), and the level of omega-3 fatty acids is the least important of these factors (23.6%).Livestock Production/Industries, Marketing,

Cross-case knowledge transfer in transformative research: enabling learning in and across sustainability-oriented labs through case reporting

The field of transdisciplinary sustainability research has brought forward a number of approaches aimed at fostering sustainability transformations and generating knowledge through collaborative experimentation in real-world settings. These cases are strongly embedded in their local context and thus the transfer of knowledge remains a key challenge. In this paper, we propose a case reporting approach that supports the structured and coherent reporting of such cases. This scheme is aimed at sustainability-oriented labs, where sustainability solutions are collaboratively developed through experimentation. The scheme focuses the reporting on local contexts, lab processes, and experiments. It is accompanied by a logic model and a set of four principles guiding the reporting procedure. The approach is designed to be general, in that it is applicable to diverse contexts and project designs, while its modularity allows the scheme to be adapted to the needs and specifics of each cases. The scheme was jointly developed and tested by a group of seven Urban Living Labs, each in their own unique context. With our approach we aim to contribute to knowledge transfer from and across cases of sustainability-oriented labs as emerging approaches in action-oriented research bridging the divide of case-based research and (meta) comparison

A discontinuous Galerkin approach for atmospheric flows with implicit condensation

We present a discontinuous Galerkin method for moist atmospheric dynamics, with and without warm rain. By considering a combined density for water vapour and cloud water, we avoid the need to model and compute a source term for condensation. We recover the vapour and cloud densities by solving a pointwise non-linear problem each time step. Consequently, we enforce the requirement for the water vapour not to be supersaturated implicitly. Together with an explicit time-stepping scheme, the method is highly parallelisable and can utilise high-performance computing hardware. Furthermore, the discretisation works on structured and unstructured meshes in two and three spatial dimensions. We illustrate the performance of our approach using several test cases in two and three spatial dimensions. In the case of a smooth, exact solution, we illustrate the optimal higher-order convergence rates of the method

A discontinuous Galerkin approach for atmospheric flows with implicit condensation

We present a discontinuous Galerkin method for moist atmospheric dynamics, with and without warm rain. By considering a combined density for water vapour and cloud water, we avoid the need to model and compute a source term for condensation. We recover the vapour and cloud densities by solving a pointwise non-linear problem each time step. Consequently, we enforce the requirement for the water vapour not to be supersaturated implicitly. Together with an explicit time-stepping scheme, the method is highly parallelisable and can utilise high-performance computing hardware. Furthermore, the discretisation works on structured and unstructured meshes in two and three spatial dimensions. We illustrate the performance of our approach using several test cases in two and three spatial dimensions. In the case of a smooth, exact solution, we illustrate the optimal higher-order convergence rates of the method.</p

Nanostructured In3SbTe2 antennas enable switching from sharp dielectric to broad plasmonic resonances

Phase-change materials (PCMs) allow for non-volatile resonance tuning of nanophotonic components. Upon switching, they offer a large dielectric contrast between their amorphous and crystalline phases. The recently introduced “plasmonic PCM” In3SbTe2 (IST) additionally features in its crystalline phase a sign change of its permittivity over a broad infrared spectral range. While optical resonance switching in unpatterned IST thin films has been investigated before, nanostructured IST antennas have not been studied, yet. Here, we present numerical and experimental investigations of nanostructured IST rod and disk antennas. By crystallizing the IST with microsecond laser pulses, we switched individual antennas from narrow dielectric to broad plasmonic resonances. For the rod antennas, we demonstrated a resonance shift of up to 1.2 µm (twice the resonance width), allowing on/off switching of plasmonic resonances with a contrast ratio of 2.7. With the disk antennas, we realized an increase of the resonance width by more than 800% from 0.24 µm to 1.98 µm while keeping the resonance wavelength constant. Further, we demonstrated intermediate switching states by tuning the crystallization depth within the resonators. Our work empowers future design concepts for nanophotonic applications like active spectral filters, tunable absorbers, and switchable flat optics

High-Tide Floods and Storm Surges During Atmospheric Rivers on the US West Coast

Amospheric rivers (ARs) effect inland hydrological impacts related to extreme precipitation. However, little is known about the possible coastal hazards associated with these storms. Here we elucidate high-tide floods (HTFs) and storm surges during ARs through a statistical analysis of data from the US West Coast during 1980-2016. HTFs and landfalling ARs co-occur more often than expected from random chance. Between 10%-63% of HTFs coincide with landfalling ARs, depending on location. However, only 2%-15% of ARs coincide with HTFs, suggesting that ARs typically must co-occur with anomalously high tides or mean sea levels to cause HTFs. Storm surges during ARs are interpretable in terms of local wind, pressure, and precipitation forcing. Meridional wind and barometric pressure are the primary drivers of the storm surge. This study highlights the relevance of ARs to coastal impacts, clarifies the drivers of storm surge during ARs, and identifies future research directions

Non-linear interaction modulates global extreme sea levels, coastal flood exposure, and impacts

We introduce a novel approach to statistically assess the non-linear interaction of tide and non-tidal residual in order to quantify its contribution to extreme sea levels and hence its role in modulating coastal protection levels, globally. We demonstrate that extreme sea levels are up to 30% (or 70 cm) higher if non-linear interactions are not accounted for (e.g., by independently adding astronomical and non-astronomical components, as is often done in impact case studies). These overestimates are similar to recent sea-level rise projections to 2100 at some locations. Furthermore, we further find evidence for changes in this non-linear interaction over time, which has the potential for counteracting the increasing flood risk associated with sea-level rise and tidal and/or meteorological changes alone. Finally, we show how accounting for non-linearity in coastal impact assessment modulates coastal exposure, reducing recent estimates of global coastal flood costs by ~16%, and population affected by ~8%

Detecting Bacteria on Wounds with Hyperspectral Imaging in Fluorescence Mode

Chronic non-healing wounds represent an increasing problem. In order to enable physicians and nurses to make evidence based decisions on wound treatment, the professional societies call for supporting tools to be offered to physicians. Oxygen supply, bacteria colonization and other parameters influence the healing process. So far, these parameters cannot be monitored in an objective and routinely manner. Existing methods like the microbiological analysis of wound swabs, mean a great deal of effort and partly a long delay. In this paper 42 fluorescence images from 42 patients with diabetic foot ulcer, recorded with a hyperspectral imaging system (TIVITA®), converted for fluorescence imaging, were analysed. Beside the fluorescence images, information about the bacterial colonization is available from microbiological analysis of wound swabs. After preprocessing, principal component analysis, PCA, is used for data analysis with a 405 nm excitation wavelength, the emission wavelength range 510 - 745 nm is used for analysis. After dividing the data into a training and a test dataset it could be shown, that bacteria are detectable in the wound area. A quantification in bacterial colonization counts (BCC) was not in the focus of the research in this study stage

Avoided metallicity in a hole-doped Mott insulator on a triangular lattice

Charge carrier doping of a Mott insulator is known to give rise to a wide variety of exotic emergent states, from high-temperature superconductivity to various charge, spin, and orbital orders. The physics underpinning their evolution is, however, poorly understood. A major challenge is the chemical complexity associated with traditional routes to the addition or removal of carriers. Here, we study the Mott insulating CrO$_2$ layer of the delafossite oxide PdCrO$_2$, where an intrinsic polar catastrophe provides a clean route to induce substantial doping of the surface layer. Despite this, from scanning tunneling microscopy and angle-resolved photoemission, we find that the surface retains an insulating character, but with a modified electronic structure and the development of a short-range ordered state with a distinct $(\sqrt{7}\times\sqrt{7})\mathrm{R}\pm 19.1^\circ$ periodicity. From density functional theory, we demonstrate how this reflects the formation of an intricate charge disproportionation that results in an insulating ground state of the surface layer that is disparate from the hidden Mott insulator found in the bulk. By applying voltage pulses to the surface layer, we induce substantial local modifications to this state, which we find relax on a time scale of tens of minutes, pointing to a glassy nature of the charge-disproportionated insulator realised here.Comment: manuscript and supplementary, 37 pages in total, 4 figures in the main text and 9 in the supplementar