Screening and Evaluation of Essential Oils from Mediterranean Aromatic Plants against the Mushroom Cobweb Disease, Cladobotryum mycophilum

The main aim of this study was to evaluate the use of essential oils (EOs) as an alternative to synthetic fungicides used in the control of cobweb disease of button mushroom (Agaricus bisporus) caused by Cladobotryum mycophilum. The EOs used were obtained by hydrodistillation from five Mediterranean aromatic species (Lavandula × intermedia, Salvia lavandulifolia, Satureja montana, Thymus mastichina, and Thymus vulgaris), analyzed by gas chromatography, and tested in vitro for their antifungal activity against C. mycophilum. In vitro bioassays showed that the EOs obtained from T. vulgaris and S. montana (ED50 = 35.5 and 42.8 mg L−1, respectively) were the most effective EOs for inhibiting the mycelial growth of C. mycophilum, and were also the most selective EOs between C. mycophilum and A. bisporus. The in vivo efficacy of T. vulgaris and S. montana EOs at two different concentrations (0.5 and 1%) were evaluated in two mushroom growing trials with C. mycophilum inoculation. The treatments involving T. vulgaris and S. montana EOs at the higher dose (1% concentration) were as effective as fungicide treatment. The effect of these EOs on mushroom productivity was tested in a mushroom cropping trial without inoculation. They had a strong fungitoxic effect at the first flush. However, a compensatory effect was observed by the end of the crop cycle and no differences were observed in biological efficiency between treatments. The main compounds found were carvacrol and p-cymene for S. montana, and p-cymene and thymol for T. vulgaris. These results suggest that T. vulgaris and S. montana EOs may be useful products to manage cobweb disease if used as part of an integrated pest management (IPM) program

STATE-MANDATED FOOD SAFETY CERTIFICATION REQUIREMENTS FOR RESTAURANTS: A 2002 REVIEW OF STATES

The Food and Drug Administration publishes a Standard Food Code which individual states either ratify, or amend and ratify, as the State Food Code. New Jersey has not adopted any revisions to the FDA Standard Food Code since 1993. Currently, the New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services is considering the implementation of a mandatory food safety certification program for all of the state's foodservice establishments beginning in April 2003. Foodservice businesses serving "high risk" populations, such as the young, ill, or elderly, will be the first segment of the industry required to comply with the new guidelines. Other segments of the industry would be phased in over three years. The exact nature of the revision is yet to be determined; however, it will likely require at least one individual from each foodservice establishment to be certified in proper food safety/food handling techniques. This revision will affect more than 21,000 foodservice businesses that collectively employ 180,000 workers. To proactively respond to the upcoming changes in the State Food Code, the New Jersey Restaurant Association (NJRA) requires information on the status and nature of other state-mandated food safety certification programs. As a service to the foodservice industry, and at the request of the NJRA, the Food Policy Institute at Rutgers University conducted a study to determine the status of state food safety certification requirements across the country. The Institute interviewed all 50 state restaurant associations and found that 16 states presently have some form of state-mandated food safety certification requirement for restaurant workers. Local (municipal or county) food safety certification requirements exist in many states, even in the absence of a state mandate, but these are beyond the scope of this review.Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety,

Higher Education on Buildings: Case Study in the North Dakota Region

Because of the growing demand for local skilled professionals to improve the health, energy efficiency, and sustainability of residential and commercial buildings in North Dakota, this case study reports the current situation of higher education relating to buildings in the state’s vicinity, including Minnesota, Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota. In this region, 116 programs relating to buildings were found in 41 postsecondary institutions, and both their majors and courses were then studied with frequency lists. The frequency information was analyzed over nine sets of curriculum areas at both graduate and undergraduate levels for the four states. After the current state of buildings in North Dakota was investigated, strategies were then proposed to rectify current issues regarding higher education on buildings, including but not limited to forming a comprehensive and interdisciplinary program on buildings (e.g., architectural engineering), providing more graduate programs, developing more courses in areas that lack adequate coursework, and increasing student enrollment. These strategies will greatly promote the health, energy efficiency, and sustainability for new and existing buildings in the four-state region of Minnesota, Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota

Magnetostratigraphy of the Hell Creek and lower Fort Union formations in northeast Montana

Magnetostratigraphic evaluation of a well-exposed stratigraphic section in northeast Montana has been undertaken to expand upon and better understand the timing of the deposition of Hell Creek and Fort Union Formations. Characteristic remnant magnetizations show clear magnetostratigraphic patterning of chrons C28n, C28r, C29n, C29r, C30n, and possibly C30r. Differentially corrected GPS coordinates, including elevation, were recorded at each sample site allowing the magnetostratigraphic framework to be precisely relocated in the field and traced laterally across the landscape. Localities in Montana that have been sampled for fossil studies have been mapped and correlated to the same stratigraphic sections as the magnetostratigraphy, and so can be compared directly to the geomagnetic polarity time scale. The new magnetostratigraphy can also be used to relate to other basins of Cretaceous and Paleogene age using information independent from biostratigraphic zonation, making it possible to directly compare the composition of coeval faunas from significantly different latitudes

Adversarialism in Italy: Using the concept of legal culture to understand resistance to legal modifications and its consequences

Based on the author’s empirical study on Italian prosecutors, this article uses legal culture to analyze the reasons why prosecutors are resisting certain legal modifications. In so doing, this paper tries to offer a fresh perspective over (comparative) global issues, such as: the meaning of inquisitorial and adversarial in modern criminal justice systems, the impact of legal transplants and legal translations and the centrality of prosecutors’ powers in contemporary criminal justice systems. In particular, the analysis of legal culture in a comparative perspective can stretch our imagination about what is the true extent of prosecutors’ powers, and how these can be related and balanced against the defendant’s rights

GLOBALIZATION AND POVERTY IN ROSIA MONTANA

Globalization is a concept that, for the past decades, carried on dreadful fears, as well asgreat expectations. Defined as a process of global intercommunication and interconnection ofeconomical, political, cultural forces and actors, globalization leads to a global network that enablestransnational spread of information, technologies, capital, commodities, structures, cultures and people,representing a major change in the social structure of society. In this context we witness new fears andalso, new hopes considering the state of communities, democracies, freedom and identity. Romaniaentered a transition process from a closed society to a hub in the global network with the dawn ofcommunist era, even though the forces of globalization per se empowered the struggle against thecommunist regime. Rosia Montana, a mining locality in Apuseni Montains, in the context of the debatesover the mining project proposed by Rosia Montana Gold Corporation (RMGC), represents a naturallaboratory of observation for social scientists, gathering the main concerns of modernization: theinteraction between global economic forces and local cultures, the empowerment of local community andcivil society, the tension between economic interest and cultural and environmental preservation. In thiscontext, the study emphasizes the analysis of people`s life standard and expectations in Rosia Montana, inthe context of globalization. Admitting that globalization is a multidimensional concept, ambiguous andambivalent in its consequences, we analyze its possible risks and benefits on the quality of life in RosiaMontana.globalization, objective poverty, subjective poverty, corporate social responsibility, sustainabledevelopment.