Crop diversification can enhance farm economic sustainability while reducing the negative impact on the environment and ecosystem services related. Despite the market and non-market benefits of crop ...diversification, monocropping is a widely used dominant practice in Europe. In this context, this works aims to assess the overall economic impact of several crop diversification systems across Europe and compared it to the monocropping system. For this purpose, an economic valuation by integrating market and non-market values for eight case studies distributed across three different European pedoclimatic regions (Southern Mediterranean, Northern Mediterranean and Boreal) is proposed. The economic valuation was conducted both in the short and medium-long term. For the short-term we conducted a social gross margin analysis, while for the medium-long term a cost-benefit analysis is developed. The results show an improvement in social gross margins for most of the diversification scenarios assessed when environmental and socio-cultural benefits are considered in the short-term. In the medium and long-term the transformation of cropping towards a more diversified agriculture is encouraged by greater economic benefits. These results provide a first insight in global economic performance of diversified cropping systems, whose main contribution relies on the integration of market and non-market values of ecosystem services from crop diversification. They are expected to be useful for guiding policy makers to promote crop diversification practices as a key instrument for building resilience in farming systems for an adaptive management to climate change.
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•First insight in global economic performance of diversified cropping systems is provided.•Diversified cropping systems are assessed in terms of market and non-market values.•Social gross margins and cost-benefit analysis were applied in three European regions.•Market benefits provide the largest contribution to the value of crop diversification.•Internalising non-market value of agroecosystems is key to ensure farm sustainability.
This commentary responds to Janet G. van Hell's article "The Neurocognitive Underpinnings of Second Language Processing: Knowledge Gains From the Past and Future Outlook" (same journal issue).
SARS2‐CoV‐2 breakout in Italy caused a huge number of severely ill patients with a serious increase in mortality. Although lungs seem to be the main target of the infection, very few information are ...available about liver involvement, possibly evocating a systemic disease. Post‐mortem wedge liver biopsies from 48 patients died from severe pulmonary COVID‐19 disease with respiratory failure were collected from two main hospitals in northern Italy. No patient had clinical symptoms of liver disease or signs of liver failure before and during hospitalization; for each of them liver function tests were available. All liver samples showed minimal inflammation features. Histological pictures compatible with vascular alterations were observed, characterized by increase in number of portal vein branches associated with lumen massive dilatation, partial or complete luminal thrombosis of portal and sinusoidal vessels, fibrosis of portal tract, focally markedly enlarged and fibrotic. SARS‐CoV‐2 was found in 15 of 22 samples tested by in situ hybridization method. Our preliminary results confirm the clinical impression that liver failure is not a main concern and this organ is not the target of significant inflammatory damage. Histopathological findings are highly suggestive for marked derangement of intrahepatic blood vessel network secondary to systemic changes induced by virus that could target not only lung parenchyma but also cardiovascular system, coagulation cascade and endothelial layer of blood vessels. It still remains unclear if the mentioned changes are directly related to virus infection or if SARS‐CoV‐2 triggers a series of reactions leading to striking vascular alterations.
Foodborne diseases remain a global public health challenge worldwide. The European surveillance system of multistate foodborne outbreaks integrates elements from public and animal health and the food ...chain for early detection, assessment, and control. This review includes descriptions of the significant outbreaks that occurred in Europe in the last decade. Their significance and relevance to public health is derived from the changes, improvements, and novelties that pushed toward building a safer food system in the European Union, certainly driven by the One Health approach. In 2011, a point source monoclonal outbreak of infections caused by Escherichia coli serotype O104:H4 in sprouted seeds resulted in hundreds of cases of hemolytic uremic syndrome and several fatalities. In 2015, a prolonged outbreak of Listeria monocytogenes infections caused by contamination of frozen corn in Europe resulted in 47 cases and nine deaths. In 2016, a persistent polyclonal outbreak of Salmonella Enteritidis was linked to the consumption of eggs and was associated with hundreds of cases. The outbreak evaluations highlight the importance of rapid sharing of data (e.g., sequencing and tracing data) and the need for harmonizing bioinformatics outputs and computational approaches to facilitate detection and investigation of foodborne illnesses. These outbreaks led to development of a legal framework for a European collaboration platform for sharing whole genome sequence data and enabled the enforcement of existing hygiene and food safety provisions and the development of new hygiene guidelines and best practices. This review also briefly touches on the new trends in information technologies that are being explored for food traceability and safety. These technologies could enhance the traceability of food throughout the supply chain and redirect the conventional tracing system toward a digitized supply chain.
We set constraints on the trilinear Higgs boson self-coupling, λ3, by combining the information coming from the W mass and leptonic effective Weinberg angle, electroweak precision observables, with ...the single Higgs boson analyses targeting the γγ,ZZ⁎,WW⁎,τ+τ− and b¯b decay channels and the double Higgs boson analyses in the bb¯bb¯,bb¯τ+τ− and bb¯γγ decay channels, performed by the ATLAS collaboration. With the assumption that the new physics affects only the Higgs potential, values outside the interval −1.8λ3SM<λ3<9.2λ3SM are excluded at 95% confidence level. With respect to similar analyses that do not include the information coming from the electroweak precision observables our analysis shows a stronger constraint on both positive and negative values of λ3.
Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a complex condition that affects various aspects of a patient's life. Music therapy may be considered a beneficial supplementary tool to traditional therapies, that not ...fully address the range of AD manifestations.
The purpose of this systematic review is to investigate whether music therapy can have a positive impact on AD patients and on which symptoms.
The main research databases employed have been PubMed and Cochrane, using the keywords "dementia", "music therapy", "Alzheimer", "fMRI", "music", and "EEG".
After removing duplicates and irrelevant studies, 23 were screened using set criteria, resulting in the final inclusion of 15 studies. The total number of participants included in these studies has been of 1,196 patients. For the fMRI analysis the search resulted in 28 studies on PubMed, two of which were included in the research; the total number of participants was of 124 individuals. The studies conducted with EEG were found using PubMed. The initial search resulted in 15 studies, but after a more accurate evaluation only 2 have been included in the analysis.
Even though the data currently available is not sufficient to draw conclusions supported by robust statistical power, the impact of music therapy on AD neuropsychiatric symptoms deserves great interest. Further research should be ushered, possibly multicentric studies, led with neuroimaging and other recent techniques, which can eventually open views on the music role in improving the cognitive status in AD.
Targeted and untargeted approaches based on 1H NMR coupled with chemometrics were developed for detecting illegal amounts of cocoa butter equivalents (CBEs) in milk chocolate for the first time. 1H ...NMR spectra of blends of chocolate fats with CBEs (0 and 50 %) were acquired. The targeted approach was developed using the integrals of the signals belonging to ω-3, ω-6, ω-9, and saturated fatty acids, while the untargeted using the spectra as fingerprints. The performances of the models on the two datasets were evaluated in terms of chemometric indicators and compared. The untargeted partial least-squares discriminant analysis model (PLS-DA) recognized the type of CBE in blends with sensitivities in prediction higher than 75%. The targeted PLS-DA model was capable of recognizing non-adulterated milk chocolate fats with 100% sensitivity and specificity in prediction. Conversely, low percentages in sensitivity were achieved for most of CBEs. Both targeted and untargeted PLS regression models efficiently determined the amount of CBE in blends, displaying R2 higher than 0.95 and RMSEP lower than 4. Fingerprinting models showed better results both in the classification and quantification of CBEs proving the applicability of 1H NMR in milk chocolate quality control.
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•1H NMR/PLS methods were developed for authenticating milk chocolate.•Targeted and untargeted approaches were used and compared.•Untargeted PLS-DA identified cocoa butter equivalents (CBE) in milk chocolate fats.•Targeted and untargeted PLS-R models quantified CBE with low prediction errors.•The untargeted approach showed higher predictive performances.
Malnutrition plays a major role in clinical and functional impairment in older adults. The use of validated, user-friendly and rapid screening tools for malnutrition in the elderly may improve the ...diagnosis and, possibly, the prognosis. The aim of this study was to assess the agreement between Mini-Nutritional Assessment (MNA), considered as a reference tool, MNA short form (MNA-SF), Malnutrition Universal Screening Tool (MUST), and Nutrition Risk Screening (NRS-2002) in elderly institutionalized participants.
Participants were enrolled among nursing home residents and underwent a multidimensional evaluation. Predictive value and survival analysis were performed to compare the nutritional classifications obtained from the different tools.
A total of 246 participants (164 women, age: 82.3 ± 9 years, and 82 men, age: 76.5 ± 11 years) were enrolled. Based on MNA, 22.6% of females and 17% of males were classified as malnourished; 56.7% of women and 61% of men were at risk of malnutrition. Agreement between MNA and MUST or NRS-2002 was classified as "fair" (k = 0.270 and 0.291, respectively; P < .001), whereas the agreement between MNA and MNA-SF was classified as "moderate" (k = 0.588; P < .001). Because of the high percentage of false negative participants, MUST and NRS-2002 presented a low overall predictive value compared with MNA and MNA-SF. Clinical parameters were significantly different in false negative participants with MUST or NRS-2002 from true negative and true positive individuals using the reference tool. For all screening tools, there was a significant association between malnutrition and mortality. MNA showed the best predictive value for survival among well-nourished participants.
Functional, psychological, and cognitive parameters, not considered in MUST and NRS-2002 tools, are probably more important risk factors for malnutrition than acute illness in geriatric long-term care inpatient settings and may account for the low predictive value of these tests. MNA-SF seems to combine the predictive capacity of the full version of the MNA with a sufficiently short time of administration.
Context: There is a high prevalence of thyroid nodules on ultrasonographic (US) examination. However, most of them are benign. US criteria may help to decide cost-effective management.
Objective: Our ...objective was to develop a standardized US characterization and reporting data system of thyroid lesions for clinical management: the Thyroid Imaging Reporting and Data System (TIRADS).
Design: This was a prospective study using the TIRADS, which is based on the concepts of the Breast Imaging Reporting Data System of the American College of Radiology.
Materials: A correlation of the US findings and fine needle aspiration biopsy (FNAB) results in 1959 lesions biopsied under US guidance and studied histologically during an 8-yr period was divided into three stages. In the first stage, 10 US patterns were defined. In the second stage, four TIRADS groups were defined according to risk. The percentages of malignancy defined in the Breast Imaging Reporting and Data System were followed: TIRADS 2 (0% malignancy), TIRADS 3 (<5% malignancy), TIRADS 4 (5–80% malignancy), and TIRADS 5 (>80% malignancy).
Results: The TIRADS classification was evaluated at the third stage of the study in a sample of 1097 nodules (benign: 703; follicular lesions: 238; and carcinoma: 156). Sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, negative predictive value, and accuracy were 88, 49, 49, 88, and 94%, respectively. The ratio of benign to malignant or follicular FNAB results currently is 1.8.
Conclusions: The TIRADS has allowed us to improve patient management and cost-effectiveness, avoiding unnecessary FNAB. In addition, we have established standard codes to be used both for radiologists and endocrinologists.
The TIRADS system is a ultrasonographic classification for thyroid nodules that is cost-effective and also improves patient management.
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