Benchmarking International Food Safety Performance in the Fresh Produce Sector

The objective of this paper is to assess food systems performance in Mediterranean countries to deliver safe food (fresh produce), and to demonstrate the capacity to the satisfaction of private customers and public regulators. To that end, an international benchmarking exercise was developed to assess the quality performance gap in food standards across countries and food systems. The study was carried out in three Mediterranean countries: Spain, Morocco and Turkey and involved an audit of the citrus and tomatoes supply chains, and a comparison with existing "best practice" in infrastructure and management practices at both firm and industry level. The aim was to identify the gaps between fresh produce exporters and a best practice company. To that end, the Spanish fresh produce supply chain was used as the benchmark since in many areas it is more advanced than elsewhere.benchmarking, performance, quality and safety, fresh produce, Mediterranean countries, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety,

Ubiquity of optical activity in planar metamaterial scatterers

Recently it was discovered that periodic lattices of metamaterial scatterers show optical activity, even if the scatterers or lattice show no 2D or 3D chirality, if the illumination breaks symmetry. In this Letter we demonstrate that such `pseudo-chirality' is intrinsic to any single planar metamaterial scatterer and in fact has a well-defined value at a universal bound. We argue that in any circuit model, a nonzero electric and magnetic polarizability derived from a single resonance automatically imply strong bianisotropy, i.e., magneto-electric cross polarizability at the universal bound set by energy conservation. We confirm our claim by extracting polarizability tensors and cross sections for handed excitation from transmission measurements on near-infrared split ring arrays, and electrodynamic simulations for diverse metamaterial scatterers.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure

A MegaCam Survey of Outer Halo Satellites. VI: The Spatially Resolved Star Formation History of the Carina Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxy

We present the spatially resolved star formation history (SFH) of the Carina dwarf spheroidal galaxy, obtained from deep, wide-field g,r imaging and a metallicity distribution from the literature. Our photometry covers $\sim2$ deg$^2$, reaching up to $\sim10$ times the half-light radius of Carina with a completeness higher than $50\%$ at $g\sim24.5$, more than one magnitude fainter than the oldest turnoff. This is the first time a combination of depth and coverage of this quality has been used to derive the SFH of Carina, enabling us to trace its different populations with unprecedented accuracy. We find that Carina's SFH consists of two episodes well separated by a star formation temporal gap. These episodes occurred at old ($>10$ Gyr) and intermediate ($2$-$8$ Gyr) ages. Our measurements show that the old episode comprises the majority of the population, accounting for $54\pm5\%$ of the stellar mass within $1.3$ times the King tidal radius, while the total stellar mass derived for Carina is $1.60\pm0.09\times 10^{6} M_{\rm{\odot}}$, and the stellar mass-to-light ratio $1.8\pm0.2$. The SFH derived is consistent with no recent star formation which hints that the observed blue plume is due to blue stragglers. We conclude that the SFH of Carina evolved independently of the tidal field of the Milky Way, since the frequency and duration of its star formation events do not correlate with its orbital parameters. This result is supported by the age/metallicity relation observed in Carina, and the gradients calculated indicating that outer regions are older and more metal poor.Comment: Accepted in ApJ (22 pages, 13 figures

Título: Pragmatica 1594 09 17

Texto en españolAl final del texto aparece la fecha en la que se hizo pública esta pragmática: 1594 10 07Hay un ejemplar encuadernado con: Informe legal y politico a la S.C.R.M. del Rey... por los Iurados de la... ciudad de Valencia, y por los insaculados para los oficios mayores... (XVII/33).Hay un ejemplar encuadernado con: Crida y capitols concernents la nova imposicio de sises : (XVII/721).Hay un ejemplar encuadernado con: Capitols del quitament de la ...Hay un ejemplar encuadernado con: Discurso y proposicion de un expediente para el desempeño de la ciudad de Valencia y para que sus vezinos puedan viuir sin la ... carga de la multitud de sisas ... (XVII/1025).Sign. : A10Port. con esc. real xi

A new species of Parastacus Huxley, 1879 (Crustacea, Decapoda, Parastacidae) from a swamp forest sothern Brazil

In this contribution we describe a new species of burrowing crayfi sh of the genus Parastacus Huxley, 1879 from a swamp forest in southern Brazil and determine its conservation status. Th e distinction of the new species is based on morphology and the mitochondrial DNA marker 16S rRNA. Th e extinction risk was assessed according to the sub-criterion B1 of IUCN that estimates the Extent of Occurrence (EOO). Parastacus tuerkayi sp. nov. is morphologically distinguishable from all species of Parastacus by having three lines of verrucous tubercles on the dorsomesial margin of the cheliped propodus and a suborbital angle exceeding 90°. Th e EOO comprises 647,674 km², and the species is classifi ed as “endangered”. Phylogenetic relationships indicate the distinct position of this new species in relation to the already described species

Physical and chemical properties, pectinases activity, and cell wall pectin of Acidulus, Momordica, Inodorus and Cantalupensis melons with different ripening degree at harvest

The objective of the present study was to evaluate the physical and chemical changes, pectinases activity, and cell wall pectin in melon varieties Acidulus (access 16), Momordica (access 2), Inodorus (cv. ‘Iracema’) and Cantalupensis (cv. ‘Olympic’), in the relation of ripening degree at harvest. Melon fruits were planted and evaluated with different ripening degree at harvest, from 15 to 35 days after anthesis (DAA). The fruits, arranged in a completely randomized design, had been evaluated on the harvest days to physical and chemical characteristics. We evaluate pectin methylesterase, polygalacturonase, beta-galactosidase, and pectin contents (water-soluble, chelate soluble, and sodium carbonate soluble). The ideal harvest for each melon was, 35 days after anthesis for cv ‘Iracema’, 30 days after anthesis for cv. ‘Olympic’, 30 days after anthesis for access 16, and 20 days after anthesis for access 2. High pulp firmness of access 16 is associated with the high levels of sodium carbonate soluble pectin and low levels of polygalacturonase and beta-galactosidase activity. Momordica melon fruit cracking is related to the high levels of pectinases activity, as well as pectin degradation

The potential consequences for cell Signaling by a class of NOD-Like Receptor proteins (NLRs) bearing an N-terminal signal sequence

The authors gratefully acknowledge the support of the UK Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) for the work on cellular 2A-like sequences.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Combining reference trials, farm surveys and mathematical models to assess carbon footprint and mitigation measures in tropical agriculture

Acknowledgements We would like to thank the CGIAR Research Program on Roots, Tubers and Bananas (RTB) and Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) and the CGIAR Fund donors for funding this research. For a list of CGIAR Fund donors please see: http://www.cgiar.org/whowe-are/cgiar-fund/fund-donors-2/. The senior author also acknowledges the support from the National Secretariat of Science and Technology of Panama (SENACYT, Professional Excellence subprogram) and the Agricultural Research Institute of Panama (IDIAP).Peer reviewedPublisher PD