Factors explaining farmers’ behaviours and intentions about agricultural methods of production. Organic vs. conventional comparison

We investigate the factors explaining behaviours and attitudes of farmers towards organic practices. Among a wide set of motivational, economic and environmental variables, we focus on those factors related to ethnocentrism of farmers and the importance of local origin labels. We find that ethnocentrism cannot explain neither the present status of farmers (organic vs. conventional) nor their future intentions about the adoption of agricultural methods of production. However, the absence of local origin labels is significantly affecting the choice of conventional farmers who do not convert to organic farming

An ERP study of low and high relevance semantic features

It is believed that the N400 elicited by concepts belonging to Living is larger than N400 to Non-living. This is considered as evidence that concepts are organized, in the brain, on the basis of categories. We conducted a feature-verification experiment where Living and Non-living concepts were matched for relevance of semantic features. Relevance is a measure of the contribution of semantic features to the “core” meaning of a concept. We found that when relevance is low the N400 is large. In addition, we found that when the two categories of Living and Non-living are equated for relevance the seemingly category effect at behavioral and neural level disappeared. In sum, N400 is sensitive, rather than to categories, to semantic features, thus showing that previously reported effects of semantic categories may arise as a consequence of the differing relevance of concepts belonging to Living and Non-living categories

FEATURE TYPE EFFECTS IN SEMANTIC MEMORY: AN EVENT RELATED POTENTIALS STUDY

It is believed that the N400 elicited by concepts belonging to Living is larger than N400 to Objects. This is considered as evidence that concepts are organized, in the brain, on the basis of categories. Similarly, differential N400 to sensory and non-sensory semantic features was taken as evidence for a neural organisation of conceptual memory based on semantic features. We conducted a feature-verification experiment where Living and Non-Living concepts are described by sensory and non-sensory features were matched for age-of-acquisition, typicality and familiarity and for relevance of semantic features. Relevance is a measure of the contribution of semantic features to the “core” meaning of a concept. We found that when Relevance is low then N400 is larger. In addition, we found that when the two categories of Living and Non-Living concepts are matched for relevance the seemingly category effect at the neural level disappeared. Also no difference between sensory and non-sensory descriptions was detected when relevance was matched. In sum, N400 does not differ between categories or feature types. Previously reported effects of semantic categories and feature type may have arisen as a consequence of the differing Relevance of concepts belonging to Living and Non-Living categories

Successful synthesis of a glial-specific blood-brain barrier shuttle peptide following a fragment condensation approach on a solid-phase resin

Successful manual synthesis of the TD2.2 peptide acting as a blood-brain barrier shuttle was achieved. TD2.2 was successfully synthesised by sequential condensation of four protected peptide fragments on solid-phase settings, after several unsuccessful attempts using the stepwise approach. These fragments were chosen to minimize the number of demanding amino acids (in terms of coupling, Fmoc removal) in each fragment that are expected to hamper the overall synthetic process. Thus, the hydrophobic amino acids as well as Fmoc-Arg (Pbf)-OH were strategically spread over multiple fragments rather than having them congested in one fragment. This study shows how a peptide that shows big challenges in the synthesis using the common stepwise elongation methodology can be synthesised with an acceptable purity. It also emphasises that choosing the right fragment with certain amino acid constituents is key for a successful synthesis. It is worth highlighting that lower amounts of reagents were required to synthesise the final peptide with an identical purity to that obtained by the automatic synthesiser

Specific immunotherapy by the sublingual route for respiratory allergy

Specific immunotherapy is the only treatment able to act on the causes and not only on the symptoms of respiratory allergy. Sublingual immunotherapy (SLIT) was introduced as an option to subcutaneous immunotherapy (SCIT), the clinical effectiveness of which is partly counterbalanced by the issue of adverse systemic reactions, which occur at a frequency of about 0.2% of injections and 2-5% of the patients and may also be life-threatening. A large number of trials, globally evaluated by several meta-analyses, demonstrated that SLIT is an effective and safe treatment for allergic rhinitis and allergic asthma, severe reactions being extremely rare. The application of SLIT is favored by a good compliance, higher than that reported for SCIT, in which the injections are a major factor for noncompliance because of inconvenience, and by its cost-effectiveness. In fact, a number of studies showed that SLIT may be very beneficial to the healthcare system, especially when its effectiveness persists after treatment withdrawal because of the induced immunologic changes

The Evolution of Compact Binary Star Systems

We review the formation and evolution of compact binary stars consisting of white dwarfs (WDs), neutron stars (NSs), and black holes (BHs). Binary NSs and BHs are thought to be the primary astrophysical sources of gravitational waves (GWs) within the frequency band of ground-based detectors, while compact binaries of WDs are important sources of GWs at lower frequencies to be covered by space interferometers (LISA). Major uncertainties in the current understanding of properties of NSs and BHs most relevant to the GW studies are discussed, including the treatment of the natal kicks which compact stellar remnants acquire during the core collapse of massive stars and the common envelope phase of binary evolution. We discuss the coalescence rates of binary NSs and BHs and prospects for their detections, the formation and evolution of binary WDs and their observational manifestations. Special attention is given to AM CVn-stars -- compact binaries in which the Roche lobe is filled by another WD or a low-mass partially degenerate helium-star, as these stars are thought to be the best LISA verification binary GW sources.Comment: 105 pages, 18 figure