Collect Earth is a free and open source software for land monitoring developed by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). Built on Google desktop and cloud computing ...technologies, Collect Earth facilitates access to multiple freely available archives of satellite imagery, including archives with very high spatial resolution imagery (Google Earth, Bing Maps) and those with very high temporal resolution imagery (e.g., Google Earth Engine, Google Earth Engine Code Editor). Collectively, these archives offer free access to an unparalleled amount of information on current and past land dynamics for any location in the world. Collect Earth draws upon these archives and the synergies of imagery of multiple resolutions to enable an innovative method for land monitoring that we present here: augmented visual interpretation. In this study, we provide a full overview of Collect Earth's structure and functionality, and we present the methodology used to undertake land monitoring through augmented visual interpretation. To illustrate the application of the tool and its customization potential, an example of land monitoring in Papua New Guinea (PNG) is presented. The PNG example demonstrates that Collect Earth is a comprehensive and user-friendly tool for land monitoring and that it has the potential to be used to assess land use, land use change, natural disasters, sustainable management of scarce resources and ecosystem functioning. By enabling non-remote sensing experts to assess more than 100 sites per day, we believe that Collect Earth can be used to rapidly and sustainably build capacity for land monitoring and to substantively improve our collective understanding of the world's land use and land cover.
The “Allometric, Biomass and Carbon factors” database (ABC factors database) was designed to facilitate the estimation of the biomass carbon stocks of forests in order to support the development and ...the verification of greenhouse gas inventories in the LULUCF sector (Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry). The database contains several types of expansion, conversion and combined factors, by various tree species or species groups that can be used to calculate biomass or carbon of forests of Eurasian region from proxy variables (e.g., tree volume) that may come from forest inventories. In addition to the factors, and depending on the information that was available in the cited source, the database indicates: (1) the biomass compartments involved when the factor was developed; and (2) the possible applicability of the factor, e.g. by country or by ecological regions. The applicability of the factors is either suggested by the source itself, or the type of source (e.g. National Greenhouse Gas Inventory Report), or was based on the expert judgement by the compilers of the database. Finally, in order to facilitate the selection of the most appropriate of the data, the web-based interface provides the possibility to compare several factors that may come from different sources. The ABC factors database is freely available at the URL: http://afoludata.jrc.it/data_fs.cfm, in the web site AFOLU-DATA, funded and hosted by the Joint Research Centre (European Commission, DG-JRC).
Campylobacter jejuni and Campylobacter coli strains, isolated from slaughtered chickens and human feces, were examined for their susceptibility to six antibiotics (ampicillin, cefotaxime, ...erythromycin, levofloxacin, nalidixic acid and trimethoprim) by broth microdilution, for minimum inhibitory concentration determination, and disc diffusion assays. For the 32 C. jejuni isolates, the highest levels of resistance were to trimethoprim (65.6% of the isolates by broth microdilution and 62.5% by disc diffusion) and cefotaxime (62.5% by both methods). Comparable levels of resistance to these antibiotics were found in the 24 C. coli isolates. Statistically significant differences were found between all C. coli isolates for cefotaxime (P = 0.0043) using disc diffusion. A high proportion of C. jejuni isolates show resistance to nalidixic acid using both the broth microdilution (59.4%) and disc diffusion (56.2%) methods. C. coli strains were resistant to this antibiotic showing proportions of 75% when tested by broth microdilution and 70.8% by disc diffusion. Multidrug resistance was detected in 21.8% and 62.5% of C. jejuni and C. coli strains, respectively, by broth microdilution test and in 28.1% and 75% of C. jejuni and C. coli strains by disc diffusion method. None of the isolates showed the same pattern of multidrug resistance. Practical Applications: The massive use of antibiotics in modern animal husbandry for the treatment and prevention of diseases can result in the development of antibiotic resistance in zoonotic bacteria, like Campylobacter. In turn, the consumption of infected food of animal origin may represent a vehicle of transmission of resistant bacteria to humans. The aim of this study was to ascertain the antibiotic resistance distributions of Campylobacter jejuni and Campylobacter coli strains arising from both animal and human origins, in particular resistance to antibiotics commonly used in human therapies. This can contribute to evaluate the sanitary risks of foods intended for human consumption, especially those of animal source.
National, regional and global CO2 emissions and removals from forests were estimated for the period 1990–2020 using as input the country reports of the Global Forest Resources Assessment 2020. The ...new Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) estimates, based on a simple carbon stock change approach, update published information on net emissions and removals from forests in relation to (a) net forest conversion and (b) forest land. Results show a significant reduction in global emissions from net forest conversion over the study period, from a mean of 4.3 in 1991–2000 to 2.9 Gt CO2 yr−1 in 2016–2020. At the same time, forest land was a significant carbon sink globally but decreased in strength over the study period, from −3.5 to −2.6 Gt CO2 yr−1. Combining net forest conversion with forest land, our estimates indicated that globally forests were a small net source of CO2 to the atmosphere on average during 1990–2020, with mean net emissions of 0.4 Gt CO2 yr−1. The exception was the brief period 2011–2015, when forest land removals counterbalanced emissions from net forest conversion, resulting in a global net sink of −0.7 Gt CO2 yr−1. Importantly, the new estimates allow for the first time in the literature the characterization of forest emissions and removals for the decade just concluded, 2011–2020, showing that in this period the net contribution of forests to the atmosphere was very small, i.e., a sink of less than −0.2 Gt CO2 yr−1 – an estimate not yet reported in the literature. This near-zero balance was nonetheless the result of large global fluxes of opposite sign, namely net forest conversion emissions of 3.1 Gt CO2 yr−1 counterbalanced by net removals on forest land of −3.3 Gt CO2 yr−1. Finally, we compared our estimates with data independently reported by countries to the United Nations Framework on Climate Change, indicating close agreement between FAO and country emissions and removals estimates. Data from this study are openly available via the Zenodo portal (Tubiello, 2020), with DOI https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3941973, as well as in the FAOSTAT (Food and Agriculture Organization Corporate Statistical Database) emissions database (FAO, 2021a).
The association of apple peel bowel with multiple intestinal atresias is a rare event. The authors report a case of a 2.200-g newborn affected by this uncommon condition. The interruptions of small ...bowel continuity were treated successfully with 5 end-to-end anastomoses and with the construction of 2 ostomies. A gastroduodenal silicone tube (Vygon S.A., Ecouen, France) was used as an intraluminal stent.
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•For the first time poultry litter ash are well-characterized.•Poultry litter ash contains large amount of amorphous phase.•This waste is proposed to be used for heavy metals ...stabilization.
This paper reports a complete characterisation of poultry litter ash and its potential use as a heavy metal stabiliser. We propose a novel approach, in which the ashes deriving from municipal solid waste incineration (MSWI) are combined with poultry litter ash, rather than with coal combustion flue gas desulfurisation (FGD) residues. Heavy metals stabilisation was demonstrated by comparing the elemental concentrations in the leaching solutions of the starting raw and stabilised materials: leachable Pb and Zn showed a reduced solubility. The characterisation was conducted by total reflection X-ray fluorescence (TXRF), X-ray diffraction (XRD), micro-Raman spectroscopy and scanning electron microscopy combined with energy-dispersive X-ray spectrometry (SEM-EDX). The results showed that the poultry litter ash was Ca-, P-, K- and S-rich (>29 g/kg). It contained amorphous materials (i.e. fly ash economiser (FAECO) 73% and fly ash cyclone (FACYC) 61%) and soluble phases (e.g. arkanite and sylvite; up to 13% FAECO and 28% FACYC), as well as resilient crystalline (up to 2% of FAECO and FACYC) and amorphous phases (e.g. hydroxyapatite). After two months, the Pb and Zn concentrations in the leachate solutions were below the limit set by the European regulations for waste disposal (<0.2 mg/L and 1.5 mg/L, respectively). We propose a mechanism for the heavy metals stabilisation based on the carbonation process and high amounts of P, Ca and reactive amorphous phases. In conclusion, it is demonstrated that poultry litter ash can be an effective secondary source of heavy metals, allowing their immobilisation through P- and Ca-based reactive amorphous phases.
Hereditary recurrent fevers (HRF) are a group of rare monogenic diseases leading to recurrent inflammatory flares. A large number of variants has been described for the four genes associated with the ...best known HRF, namely MEFV, NLRP3, MVK, TNFRSF1A. The Infevers database ( http://fmf.igh.cnrs.fr/ISSAID/infevers ) is a large international registry collecting variants reported in these genes. However, no genotype-phenotype associations are provided, but only the clinical phenotype of the first patient(s) described for each mutation. The aim of this study is to develop a registry of genotype-phenotype associations observed in patients with HRF, enrolled and validated in the Eurofever registry.
Genotype-phenotype associations observed in all the patients with HRF enrolled in the Eurofever registry were retrospectively analyzed. For autosomal dominant diseases (CAPS and TRAPS), all mutations were individually analyzed. For autosomal recessive diseases (FMF and MKD), homozygous and heterozygous combinations were described. Mean age of onset, disease course (recurrent or chronic), mean duration of fever episodes, clinical manifestations associated with fever episodes, atypical manifestations, complications and response to treatment were also studied. Data observed in 751 patients (346 FMF, 133 CAPS, 114 MKD, 158 TRAPS) included in the Eurofever registry and validated by experts were summarized in Tables. A total of 149 variants were described: 46 TNFRSF1A and 27 NLRP3 variants, as well as various combinations of 48 MVK and 28 MEFV variants were available.
We provide a potentially useful tool for physicians dealing with HRF, namely a registry of genotype-phenotype associations for patients enrolled in the Eurofever registry. This tool is complementary to the Infevers database and will be available at the Eurofever and Infevers websites.
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