Mancozeb (MNZ) is a fungicide commonly employed in many countries worldwide. This study assesses MNZ absorption dynamics in 19 greenhouse farmers, specifically following dermal exposure, aiming to ...verify the efficacy of both preventive actions and protective equipment. For data collection, a multi-assessment approach was used, which included a survey to record study population features. MNZ exposure was assessed through the indirect measurement of ethylene thiourea (ETU), widely employed as an MNZ biomarker. The ETU concentration was measured with the patch method, detecting environmental ETU trapped in filter paper pads, applied both on skin and working clothes, during the 8 h work shift. Urine and serum end-of-shift samples were also collected to measure ETU concentrations and well-known oxidative stress biomarkers, respectively, namely reactive oxygen metabolites (ROMs), advanced oxidation protein products (AOPPs), and biological antioxidant potential (BAP). It was observed that levels of ETU absorbed and ETU excreted were positively correlated. Additionally, working clothes effectively protected workers from MNZ exposure. Moreover, following stratification of the samples based on the specific working duty (i.e., preparation and spreading of MNZ and manipulation of MNZ-treated seedlings), it was found that the spreading group had higher ETU-related risk, despite lower chronic exposure levels. AOPP and ROM serum levels were higher in MNZ-exposed subjects compared with non-exposed controls, whereas BAP levels were significantly lower. Such results support an increase in the oxidative stress upon 8 h MNZ exposure at work. In particular, AOPP levels demonstrated a potential predictive role, as suggested by the contingency analysis results. Overall, this study, although conducted in a small group, confirms that ETU detection in pads, as well as in urine, might enable assessment of the risk associated with MNZ exposure in greenhouse workers. Additionally, the measurement of circulating oxidative stress biomarkers might help to stratify exposed workers based on their sensitivity to MNZ. Pivotally, the combination of both ETU measurement and biological monitoring might represent a novel valuable combined approach for risk assessment in farmhouse workers exposed to pesticides. In the future, these observations will help to implement effective preventive strategies in the workplace for workers at higher risk, including greenhouse farmers who are exposed to pesticides daily, as well as to clarify the occupational exposure levels to ETU.
Organoarsenic compounds are widely used in chicken feed for control of coccidial parasite, quick weight gain, and for imparting attractive color to the chicken flesh. A study was conducted to assess ...the level of arsenic in both chicken feed and flesh. Chicken feed was collected from 10 farm houses and total arsenic was estimated. The quantitative estimation suggests that the four levels of chicken feed contain different quantities of arsenic load. The results demonstrated that feed at stages III and IV levels contain 0.01 mg/g and 0.018 mg/g of arsenic respectively. However, at stages I and II levels, the feed contains 0.005 mg/g and 0.0052 mg/g of arsenic respectively. Proceeding similarly, chicken flesh was collected from ten vendors in the local markets of Burdwan. The experimental results revealed that deposition of arsenic in different parts of chicken body is not same. The highest accumulation was recorded in the flesh of chest followed by stomach, whereas flesh of the legs and heart showed lower levels of arsenic accumulation. A comprehensive calculation was thereafter done to assess the total amount of arsenic ingestion through consumption of chicken. If a person takes 60.0 g of chicken flesh (leg, breast, muscles, and stomach) everyday, then the person may consume 0.186–0.372 μg of arsenic per day. This study therefore clearly suggests that excessive consumption of poultry chicken may prove to be fatal. However, further research is necessary to confirm the present findings. To the best of our knowledge, this is probably the first report on the likelihood of arsenic contamination in the flesh of different body parts of poultry chicken from Eastern India.
In recent years, governments, public institutions, and local communities have devoted growing attention to the identification of promising strategies for the preservation and valorization of cultural ...heritage assets. Decisions on the management of cultural heritage assets based on multiple, often conflicting, criteria and on the stakes of various, and potentially non-consensual actors and stakeholders. In this context, in which the trade-offs between the preservation of assets historical symbolic values and the adaptation to alternative and economically profitable uses play a key role in investment decisions, multi-criteria analyses provide robust theoretical and methodological frameworks to support decision-makers in the design and implementation of adaptive reuse strategies for cultural heritage and public real estate assets. In this paper, we provide a multi-criteria decision aiding approach for ranking valorization strategies of cultural heritage assets aimed at promoting their restoration and conservation, as well as at creating cultural and economic benefits. In detail, we present a novel application of the A’WOT analysis to support the design and implementation of alternative management strategies of abandoned cultural heritage assets. The paper focuses on the potential reuse and management of four historical farmhouses (Cascina Mandria, Cascina Lavanderia, Cascina Gozzani, and Cascina Ortovalle) located in the Agliè Castle estate, one of the Residences of the Royal House of Savoy, currently listed in the UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
La atracción que la arquitectura vernácula ejerció en Le Corbusier es un hecho contrastable desde sus primeros dibujos del paisaje rural del Jura, cuando todavía era un niño, hasta los dibujos ...realizados de las casas del valle del M’Zab, previos a la presentación del Plan Obús para Argel. Su especial predilección por residir en antiguas granjas de La Chaux-de-Fonds o las anotaciones en sus cuadernos de viajes acerca del cubismo que reconocía en las humildes viviendas del sur de España son instantáneas de una experiencia mucho más profunda del arquitecto suizo con lo vernáculo. Lo vernáculo muestra continuidad en su evolución personal desde una etapa temprana de aprendizaje hasta la formación de un lenguaje arquitectónico propio, pudiendo identificar cuatro etapas con diferencias de matiz (regionalismo, apertura a nuevos lenguajes, purismo, brutalismo). El objetivo de la investigación es determinar el papel que desempeñó lo vernáculo en su pensamiento y obra desde la década de 1910 hasta sus proyectos de 1930.
The Rural Development Policy combines measures that favour the growth of the productive dimension of farms and their specialization, and measures aimed at supporting diversification paths, with the ...expansion of the productive functions performed. The evaluation of the economic and financial results of farms engaged in activities of the second type can help to calibrate the intervention between the two options. To this end, we have studied a constant sample of FADN farms in the period 2014-2016, identifying the units engaged in organic farming or other forms of qual-ity production, or engaged in direct sales or processing of their products or, again, in the management of farmhouses. We discuss the condition of financial sustainability of the farms involved in those activities by evaluating their ability to generate cash flows to offset for the depreciation of the farm production system. We used the ratio Free Cash Flow on Equity on Depreciation to compare the results of farms engaged in those activities and farms which are limited to conventional agriculture. The analy-sis of this comparison and of some structural, technical, and economic characteris-tics of the farms involved in those types of activities resulted in various considerations on their characteristics and conditions of financial sustainability. Our attention has focused above all on the financial results of farms within the sectors of Italian agricul-ture in greater financial difficulty. The main objective was, in fact, to verify whether to diversify the farm’s commitment with these activities has contributed to improving the financial sustainability in those agricultural sectors. Various considerations have arisen that can help fine-tune policies to support the types of diversification examined in this study.
Citizenship is gaining increased attention in the social sciences but has been under-utilised in rural studies. In this paper we argue that greater attention should be paid to social aspects of ...citizenship in order to understand participation in daily life and society. In doing so, emphasis needs to be placed on the rural citizen and how he or she engages with different communities across different scales. To explore these ideas we draw upon a case study of farmers living with dementia in Devon, UK. We use concepts of citizenship to explore their rights to services, the effectiveness of active citizenship policies and how the illness impacts on their life-worlds as farmers. We conclude by offering recommendations on the care of farmers with dementia and highlight the significance of citizenship to rural studies.
•A focus on citizens, rather than citizenship, opens up new directions in rural studies.•Dementia is an embodied, relational and socially-constructed illness that affects daily participation in society.•Access to care services are problematic. Many farmers ‘do not want to make a fuss’ and need to be persuaded to use them.•Formal community-based support is valuable but perceived changes in community make some farmers reluctant to engage with it.•Informal networks of care are important; many farmers prefer to engage with peers outside their locality via social media.
HOLOGRAPHIC VISIONS FOR ARCHITECTURE IN A PARK Bolognesi, C.; Vespasiani, M.; Zhang, Y.
International archives of the photogrammetry, remote sensing and spatial information sciences.,
01/2022, Letnik:
XLIII-B4-2022
Journal Article, Conference Proceeding
At present, buildings in arid and hot regions are facing severe challenges of indoor comfort improvement and carbon emission reduction, especially in rural areas. Multi-objective optimization could ...be an effective tool for tackling the aforementioned challenges. Therefore, this paper proposes a life-cycle optimization framework considering thermal comfort, which is beneficial to promoting residents’ motivation for low-carbon retrofit in arid climate regions. First, in response to the above problems, three objective functions are specified in the framework, which are global warming potential (GWP), life cycle cost (LCC), and thermal discomfort hours (TDH). To improve the optimization efficiency, this research uses Deep Neural Networks (DNN) combined with NSGA-II to construct a high-precision prediction model (meta-model for optimization) based on the energy consumption simulation database formed by the orthogonal multi-dimensional design parameters. The accuracy index of the modified model is
R
2
> 0.99, cv(RMSE) ≤ 1%, and NMBE ≤ 0.2%, which gets rid of the dilemma of low prediction accuracy of traditional machine learning models. In the scheme comparison and selection stage, the TOPSIS based on two empowerment methods is applied to meet different design tendencies, where the entropy-based method can avoid the interference of subjective preference and significantly improve the objectivity and scientific nature of decision analysis. Additionally, sensitivity analysis is conducted on the variables, which supports guidance for practitioners to carry out the low-carbon design. Finally, the multi-objective optimization analysis for a farmhouse in Turpan is taken as a case study to evaluate the performance of the framework. The results show that the framework could significantly improve the building performance, with 60.8%, 52.5%, and 14.2% reduction in GWP, LCC, and TDH, respectively.
This paper proposes a PV-PHS system designed for farmhouses to reduce electricity costs. This study uses existing irrigation systems to store surplus energy coming from PVs in the form of gravitation ...potential energy. The storage is a type of pumped hydro storage (PHS) system using a water well as the lower reservoir. A comprehensive PHS model is presented and tested with the experiment setup to accurately estimate the stored water. An energy management system (EMS) is designed to manage the stored water to reduce electricity costs without disturbing irrigation functionality. The proposed system is tested in an experimental setup to validate the performance of the system. Then the PV-PHS system is simulated in MATLAB to show the results with a high efficiency pump and turbine. The proposed PHS system reduced the operational cost of the farmhouse by 71.5%.
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