Various management practices can influence milk quality traits in dairy cattle. As an example, an increasing investment in automatic milking system to substitute milking parlors has been observed in ...the last 2 decades in dairy farms which could have affected certain bulk milk quality traits. What is more, milking practices can also affect certain milk parameters; as an example, teat disinfectants containing I are used in commercial farms where pre- or postdipping is performed, leading to presence of some I in the bulk milk. However, this trace mineral is also supplied in cows' diet to fulfill their nutritional requirements, partly contributing to the milk I final concentration. Therefore, the aim of this study was to evaluate the sources of variation of milk I along with other traditional milk quality traits. A total of 91 dairy farms in northeastern Italy were enrolled in the study. In each farm, diet and bulk milk samples were collected on the same day for chemical analysis. Concentration of I, in particular, was determined in both milk and feed with gold standard. Pearson correlations were calculated among the traits available for milk and diet, and a general linear model was used to test significance of fixed effects (feeding system, milking system, farming system, herd size, herd stage of lactation, and sampling month) on milk quality traits including the I concentration. In the case of milk I, diet I and presence of I-based predipping and postdipping teat disinfect application were also tested as fixed effects. Results showed a positive linear correlation between milk and diet I content (correlation coefficient r = 0.78). Although milk I was also positively correlated with lactose content (r = 0.25), dietary I was not correlated with other milk traits. Milk I content was significantly affected by dietary I, I-based predipping teat disinfectant application, and herd composition. Compared with conventional farms, organic farms showed lower protein content and greater somatic cell score (SCS) but similar milk I. Milking system significantly affected only lactose content and SCS of milk. Sampling month was only significant for milk urea nitrogen and herd composition, feeding system, herd size, and herd average days in milk did not modify milk gross composition and SCS. In conclusion, dietary supply of I is the main factor affecting milk I concentration and findings suggest that I level in milk can be naturally improved in dairy cows by modulating the I content in the diet administered. However, further research is needed to evaluate the effect of I-based sanitizers on milk I.
Antimicrobial use (AMU) in livestock species and the associated antimicrobial resistance are a global concern, thus strategies for their reduction and a more judicious use are needed. Previous ...research has revealed a link between improved animal welfare, biosecurity and AMU reduction in pig and dairy sectors, however, little is known about the beef sector. This study aimed to investigate the impact of welfare standards and biosecurity on AMU in beef cattle. Data on performance traits and AMU were collected over a 3.5 year time from 27 specialised beef farms and a treatment incidence was calculated using the defined daily dose for animals. An on-farm assessment was carried out by assigning a score from 0 (very poor) to 100% (very good) to 3 sections: welfare, biosecurity and emergency management. The highest average score was obtained for the welfare section (76%) followed by emergency management (39%) and biosecurity (24%). This suggests that major focus on strategies for the implementation of biosecurity measures and emergency management is needed, due to the low scores reported. A statistically significant lower AMU was observed with improved level of welfare. These results may be helpful for farm benchmarking and highlight the importance of improved animal welfare for an efficient antimicrobial stewardship.
The western Amazon is one of the world's last high-biodiversity wilderness areas, characterized by extraordinary species richness and large tracts of roadless humid tropical forest. It is also home ...to an active hydrocarbon (oil and gas) sector, characterized by operations in extremely remote areas that require new access routes. Here, we present the first integrated analysis of the hydrocarbon sector and its associated road-building in the western Amazon. Specifically, we document the (a) current panorama, including location and development status of all oil and gas discoveries, of the sector, and (b) current and future scenario of access (i.e. access road versus roadless access) to discoveries. We present an updated 2014 western Amazon hydrocarbon map illustrating that oil and gas blocks now cover 733 414 km2, an area much larger than the US state of Texas, and have been expanding since the last assessment in 2008. In terms of access, we documented 11 examples of the access road model and six examples of roadless access across the region. Finally, we documented 35 confirmed and or suspected untapped hydrocarbon discoveries across the western Amazon. In the Discussion, we argue that if these reserves must be developed, use of the offshore inland model-a method that strategically avoids the construction of access roads-is crucial to minimizing ecological impacts in one of the most globally important conservation regions.
During the COVID-19 pandemic and the related lockdowns, outpatient follow-up visits for patients with chronic neurological diseases have been suspended. Managing people affected by amyotrophic ...lateral sclerosis (ALS) has become highly complicated, leaving patients without the standard multidisciplinary follow-up. This study aimed to analyze the impact of the COVID-19 lockdown on ALS disease progression. We compared the clinical data and progression in the first year following diagnosis for patients who received ALS diagnosis during 2020 (G20, N = 34), comparing it with a group of diagnosed in 2018 (G18, N = 31). Both groups received a comparable multidisciplinary model of care in our Tertiary Expert ALS Centre, Novara, Italy. The monthly rate of ALSFRS-R decline during the lockdown was significantly increased in G20 compared to G18 (1.52 ± 2.69 vs. 0.76 ± 0.56; p-value: 0.005). In G20, 47% required non-invasive ventilation (vs. 32% of G18). Similarly, in G20, 35% of patients died vs. 19% of patients in G18 (p-value: 0.01). All results were corrected for gender, age, site of onset, and diagnostic delay. Several factors can be implicated in making ALS more severe, with a faster progression, such as reduced medical evaluations and the possibility of therapeutic changes, social isolation, and rehabilitation therapy suspension.
Agricultural lands are the widest Human-modified ecosystems, making crop production the most extensive form of land use on Earth. However, in conventional agricultural land management, soil erosion ...may be boosted up to 1-2 orders of magnitude higher than the natural rates of soil production, making unproductive about the 30% of the world's arable. Nowadays in Europe, vineyards represent the most erosion-prone agricultural lands, especially in Mediterranean countries, showing the highest erosion rates in comparison to other type of land uses. Prosecco wine is produced in NE Italy by a rate of 400 M bottles per year, with the fastest growing demand in the global market at present. A production of 90 M bottles year-1 is currently running in the historical Prosecco DOCG (215 km2), in a steep hilly landscape of Veneto Region (Conegliano-Valdobbiadene). To sustain wine production, agricultural intensification is at present increasing, by re-setting of hillslopes and land use changes towards new vineyard plantations. The aim of this study is to estimate and to map potential soil erosion rate, calculating a sort of "soil footprint" for wine production in different agricultural land-management scenarios. RUSLE model was adopted to estimate potential soil erosion in Mg ha-1 year-1, by using high resolution topographic data (LiDAR), 10 years rainfall data analysis, detailed land use and local soil characteristics. For a conventional land-management scenario the estimated that total potential soil erosion in the Prosecco DOCG area is 411,266 Mg year-1, with an erosion rate of 19.5 Mg ha year-1. Modelled soil erosion is mainly clustered on steep slopes, with rates higher than 40 Mg ha-1 year-1. In Prosecco vineyards potential soil erosion could reach 300,180 Mg year-1, by a mean rate of 43.7 Mg ha-1 year-1, which is 31 times higher than the upper limit of tolerable soil erosion threshold defined for Europe. In contrast, simulation of different nature-based scenarios (hedgerows, buffer strips, and grass cover) showed soil erosion could be effectively reduced: a 100% inter-row grass cover showed a reduction of almost 3 times in vineyards (from 43.7 to 14.6 Mg ha-1 year-1), saving about 50% of soil in the whole Prosecco DOCG. The soil footprint modelled for a conventional land-management scenario is about 3.3 kg every bottle produced; in contrast it would be reduced to 1.1 kg/bottle in the completely green land-management scenario. This study, as the first estimation of potential soil erosion at Prosecco DOCG scale, suggests that an integrated and public soil erosion monitoring system is strongly needed in viticultural area, by implementing direct/indirect field measures with spatial analyses at agricultural landscape scale.
The quality of colostrum administered to calves is based on its concentration in immunoglobulins G (IgG, g/L). Immunoglobulins A (IgA) and M (IgM) are also present but at a lower level. The gold ...standard reference analysis for these traits, radial immunodiffusion, is time-consuming and expensive. In order to define breeding strategies that are aimed at improving colostrum quality in dairy cattle, a large amount of data is needed, and the use of indicator traits would be beneficial. In the study presented here, we explored the heritabilities of reference (radial immunodiffusion) and near infrared-predicted IgG, IgA, and IgM concentrations and estimated their genetic correlations. First, the colostrum of 765 Holstein cows from nine herds was sampled to perform a reference analysis and the near-infrared spectra (400-2500 nm) were stored. We used a calibration set (28% of the initial samples) that was representative of the herds and cow parity orders to develop prediction equations for IgG, IgA, and IgM concentrations. Finally, these traits were predicted in the validation set (72% of the initial samples) to estimate genetic parameters for the predictions. Genetic correlations between reference and predicted values of each trait were estimated through bivariate linear animal models. The three near-infrared-predicted immunoglobulin fractions were genetically correlated with their reference value. In particular, the reference and predicted IgG concentrations were strongly correlated at both the genetic (0.854 + or - 0.314) and phenotypic level (0.767 + or - 0.019). Weaker associations were observed for IgA and IgM concentrations, which were predicted with lower accuracy compared to IgG. Simulation analyses suggested that improving colostrum quality by selective breeding in Holstein cattle based on near-infrared predicted colostrum immunoglobulins concentrations is feasible. In addition, less than 10 mL of colostrum are needed for spectra acquisition and thus implementation of such analyses is possible in the near future. The concentrations of colostrum immunoglobulins can be predicted from near-infrared spectra and the genetic correlation between the reference and the predicted traits is positive and favourable, in spite of the large standard errors of the estimates. Near-infrared spectroscopy can be exploited in selective breeding of dairy cattle to improve colostral immunoglobulins concentration.
Abstract
Soil degradation is one of the main environmental issues within the international agendas on sustainability and climate adaptation. Among degradation processes, soil sealing represents the ...major threat, as ecosystem services dramatically decrease or are even nullified. The increasing use of big open data from satellites combined with AI algorithms are making geodata mining and mapping techniques essential to quantify soil sealing. Different keywords are adopted to define the phenomenon. However, at present, review articles presenting the state-of-the-art on mapping soil sealing by including the most common definitions are currently not available. Hence, we analyzed: (a) impervious surface, (b) soil sealing, (c) land take, (d) soil consumption, (e) land consumption. We provide a systematic review of remote sensing platforms and methodologies to map and to classify soil sealing, by highlighting: (a) definitions; (b) relationships among study areas, scales, platforms, resolutions, and classification methodologies; (c) emerging trends and policy implications. We performed a systematic search on Scopus (from 2000 to 2020), identifying 1277 papers; 392 focused on mapping soil sealing. ‘Impervious surface’ is the dominant definition. The phenomenon is more studied by the USA, China and Italy and, ‘soil sealing’ is recently more adopted in EU. Most studies focuses on mapping soil sealing at urban scale. We found Landsat are the most adopted platforms; they are frequently used for multi-temporal analyses. Eleven methodologies were identified: automatic classifications are the most adopted, dominated by pixel/sub-pixel-based approaches; other methods include Band Ratios, Supervised, OBIA, ANN. The majority of mapping analyses are performed on 30 m resolution in areas of 1000–10 000 km
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. Landsat images are less used for smaller areas. In conclusion, as study area size increases, a decrease in image resolution with the use of more completely automatic classification methodologies is recorded. However, most studies focuses on comparing classification techniques rather than supporting policy making for sustainable urban planning. Thus, we encourage to fill the gap by developing approaches that applicable to international policies.
The aim of the present study was to investigate the ability of a handheld near-infrared spectrometer to predict total and gelatinized starch, insoluble fibrous fractions, and mineral content in ...extruded dry dog food. Intact and ground samples were compared to determine if the homogenization could improve the prediction performance of the instrument. Reference analyses were performed on 81 samples for starch and 99 for neutral detergent fiber (NDF), acid detergent fiber (ADF), acid detergent lignin (ADL), and minerals, and reflectance infrared spectra (740 to 1070 nm) were recorded with a SCiO™ near-infrared (NIR) spectrometer. Prediction models were developed using modified partial least squares regression and both internal (leave-one-out cross-validation) and external validation. The best prediction models in cross-validation using ground samples were obtained for gelatinized starch (residual predictive deviation, RPD = 2.54) and total starch (RPD = 2.33), and S (RPD = 1.92), while the best using intact samples were obtained for gelatinized starch (RPD = 2.45), total starch (RPD = 2.08), and K (RPD = 1.98). Through external validation, the best statistics were obtained for gelatinized starch, with an RPD of 2.55 and 2.03 in ground and intact samples, respectively. Overall, there was no difference in prediction models accuracy using ground or intact samples. In conclusion, the miniaturized NIR instrument offers the potential for screening purposes only for total and gelatinized starch, S, and K, whereas the results do not support its applicability for the other traits.
Milk differential somatic cell count (DSCC) represents the percentage of polymorphonuclear neutrophils and lymphocytes out of the total somatic cell count (SCC) and has been proposed in recent years ...as a proxy for udder health in dairy cows. We investigated phenotypic factors affecting SCC and DSCC using 3978 records of 212 Alpine Grey and 426 Burlina cows farmed in Northern Italy. The linear mixed model accounted for the fixed effects of breed, parity, lactation stage, sampling season, and first-order interactions of breed with the other effects. Cow, herd-test-date nested within breed were random. Subsequently, four udder health status groups (UHS) were created by combining SCC and DSCC to assess the UHS impact on milk yield and quality. DSCC was greater in Alpine Grey (66.2 ± 0.8%) than Burlina cows (63.2 ± 0.6%) and, similarly to SCC, it increased with days in milk and parity regardless of breed. Milk yield and composition were affected by UHS in both breeds. These results suggest that also udder health of local breeds can be monitored on a large scale through SCC and DSCC for reduction in biodiversity loss and increased farm profitability. However, in addition to milk data, the introduction of mastitis recording and monitoring plans is advisable.
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