Adapting established instruments to build useful food sovereignty indicators

The recent context of global food emergency and ecological crisis has increased the relevance of people’s struggle for food sovereignty (FSv), which promotes the transformation of the dominant food system and claims ‘the right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and their right to define their own food and agriculture systems’. Revisiting two Spanish and Catalan articles developing FSv indicators, this article aims at discussing the need and utility of developing FSv indicators at different territorial levels. Confronting these two territorial scales, the paper also identifies common steps that can facilitate other future processes of building FSv indicators. As a conclusion, the paper suggests that these processes of building indicators can contribute to providing political direction at different geographical scales for the implementation of the FSv proposal. At the same time, they favor the movement’s self-reflexivity in its practices while supporting the collective shaping of future action

Feature extraction based on bio-inspired model for robust emotion recognition

Emotional state identification is an important issue to achieve more natural speech interactive systems. Ideally, these systems should also be able to work in real environments in which generally exist some kind of noise. Several bio-inspired representations have been applied to artificial systems for speech processing under noise conditions. In this work, an auditory signal representation is used to obtain a novel bio-inspired set of features for emotional speech signals. These characteristics, together with other spectral and prosodic features, are used for emotion recognition under noise conditions. Neural models were trained as classifiers and results were compared to the well-known mel-frequency cepstral coefficients. Results show that using the proposed representations, it is possible to significantly improve the robustness of an emotion recognition system. The results were also validated in a speaker independent scheme and with two emotional speech corpora.Fil: Albornoz, Enrique Marcelo. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Santa Fe. Instituto de Investigación en Señales, Sistemas e Inteligencia Computacional. Universidad Nacional del Litoral. Facultad de Ingeniería y Ciencias Hídricas. Instituto de Investigación en Señales, Sistemas e Inteligencia Computacional; ArgentinaFil: Milone, Diego Humberto. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Santa Fe. Instituto de Investigación en Señales, Sistemas e Inteligencia Computacional. Universidad Nacional del Litoral. Facultad de Ingeniería y Ciencias Hídricas. Instituto de Investigación en Señales, Sistemas e Inteligencia Computacional; ArgentinaFil: Rufiner, Hugo Leonardo. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Santa Fe. Instituto de Investigación en Señales, Sistemas e Inteligencia Computacional. Universidad Nacional del Litoral. Facultad de Ingeniería y Ciencias Hídricas. Instituto de Investigación en Señales, Sistemas e Inteligencia Computacional; Argentin

Vibrotactile pedals : provision of haptic feedback to support economical driving

The use of haptic feedback is currently an underused modality in the driving environment, especially with respect to vehicle manufacturers. This exploratory study evaluates the effects of a vibrotactile (or haptic) accelerator pedal on car driving performance and perceived workload using a driving simulator. A stimulus was triggered when the driver exceeded a 50% throttle threshold, past which is deemed excessive for economical driving. Results showed significant decreases in mean acceleration values, and maximum and excess throttle use when the haptic pedal was active as compared to a baseline condition. As well as the positive changes to driver behaviour, subjective workload decreased when driving with the haptic pedal as compared to when drivers were simply asked to drive economically. The literature suggests that the haptic processing channel offers a largely untapped resource in the driving environment, and could provide information without overloading the other attentional resource pools used in driving

Effects of antiplatelet therapy on stroke risk by brain imaging features of intracerebral haemorrhage and cerebral small vessel diseases: subgroup analyses of the RESTART randomised, open-label trial

Background Findings from the RESTART trial suggest that starting antiplatelet therapy might reduce the risk of recurrent symptomatic intracerebral haemorrhage compared with avoiding antiplatelet therapy. Brain imaging features of intracerebral haemorrhage and cerebral small vessel diseases (such as cerebral microbleeds) are associated with greater risks of recurrent intracerebral haemorrhage. We did subgroup analyses of the RESTART trial to explore whether these brain imaging features modify the effects of antiplatelet therapy

Number of implants placed for complete‐arch fixed prostheses: A systematic review and meta‐analysis

Objectives The main purpose of this systematic review was to evaluate outcomes related to the number of implants utilized to support complete‐arch fixed prostheses, both for the maxilla and the mandible. Materials and methods This review followed the reporting guidelines of the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta‐Analyses (PRISMA). A focused question using the PICO format was developed, questioning whether “In patients with an implant supported fixed complete dental prosthesis, do implant and prosthetic survival outcomes differ between five or more compared to fewer than five supporting implants?”. A comprehensive search of the literature was formulated and performed electronically and by hand search. Two independent reviewers selected the papers and tabulated results. Primary outcomes analyzed were implant and prosthesis survival. Implant distribution, loading, and type of retention were observed as secondary outcomes, as they relate to the number of implants. A meta‐analysis was performed to compare results for studies by number of implants. Results The search strategy identified 1,579 abstracts for initial review. Based on evaluation of the abstracts, 359 articles were identified for full‐text evaluation. From these, 93 were selected and included in this review, being nine RCTs, 42 prospective and 42 retrospective. Of the 93 selected studies, 28 reported number of implants for the maxilla, 46 for the mandible, and 19 for both maxilla and mandible. The most reported number of implants for the “fewer than five” group is 4 for the maxilla, and 3 and 4 for the mandible, whereas for the “five or more” implants group, the most reported number of implants was 6 for the maxilla and 5 for the mandible. No significant differences in the primary outcomes analyzed were identified when fewer than five implants per arch were compared with five or more implants per arch (p > 0.05), in a follow‐up time ranging from 1 to 15 years (median of 8 years). Conclusions Evidence from this systematic review and meta‐analysis suggests that the use of fewer than five implants per arch, when compared to five or more implants per arch, to support a fixed prosthesis of the completely edentulous maxilla or mandible, present similar survival rates, with no statistical significant difference at a p < 0.05 and a confidence interval of 95%

Particulate matter concentrations and emissions in rabbit farms

[EN] The extent of the potential health hazards of particulate matter (PM) inside rabbit farms and the magnitude of emission levels to the outside environment are still unknown, as data on PM concentrations and emissions in and from such buildings is scarce. The purpose of this study was to quantify airborne PM10 and PM2.5 concentrations and emissions on two rabbit farms in Mediterranean conditions and identify the main factors related with farm activities influencing PM generation. Concentrations of PM10 and PM2.5 were determined continuously using a tapered element oscillating microbalance (TEOM) in one farm with fattening rabbits and one reproductive doe farm in autumn. At the same time as PM sampling, the time and type of human farm activity being performed was recorded. Additionally, temperature, relative humidity and ventilation rate were recorded continuously. Emissions were calculated using a mass balance on each farm. Results showed PM concentrations in rabbit farms are low compared with poultry and pig farms. Average PM10 concentrations were 0.082±0.059 mg/m3 (fattening rabbits), and 0.048 ±0.058 mg/m3 (reproductive does). Average PM2.5 concentrations were 0.012±0.016 mg/m3 (fattening rabbits), and 0.012±0.035 mg/m3 (reproductive does). Particulate matter concentrations were significantly influenced by the type of human farm activity carried out in the building rather than by animal activity. The main PM-generating activity on the fattening rabbit farm was sweeping, and the major PM-generating activity in reproductive does was sweeping and burning hair from the cages. Average PM10 emissions were 5.987±6.144 mg/place/day (fattening rabbits), and 14.9±31.5 mg/place/day (reproductive does). Average PM2.5 emissions were 0.20±1.26 mg/place/day (fattening rabbits), and 2.83±19.54 mg/place/day (reproductive does). Emission results indicate that rabbit farms can be considered relevant point sources of PM emissions, comparable to other livestock species. Our results improve the knowledge on factors affecting concentration and emissions of PM in rabbit farms and can contribute to the design of suitable PM reduction measures to control not only PM inside rabbit houses, but also its emission into the atmosphere.The authors thank the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation for the economic support to conduct this study (Project GasFarm-2 AGL2008-04125) and the Campus de Excelencia Internacional of the Universitat Politecnica de Valencia. The authors are also grateful to the farmers and staff at the farms who collaborated during sampling periods.Adell Sales, E.; Calvet Sanz, S.; Torres, AG.; Cambra López, M. (2012). Particulate matter concentrations and emissions in rabbit farms. World Rabbit Science. 20(1):1-11. https://doi.org/10.4995/wrs.2012.1035SWORD11120

Morphology, chemical composition, and bacterial concentration of airborne particulate matter in rabbit farms

[EN] Livestock houses are major sources of airborne particulate matter (PM), which can originate from manure, feed, feathers, skin and bedding and may contain and transport microorganisms. Improved knowledge of particle size, morphology, chemical and microbiological composition of PM in livestock houses can help identify major sources of PM and contribute to the development of appropriate source- specific reduction techniques. In rabbit production systems, however, there is limited information on specific particle characteristics. The objective of this study was to characterise airborne PM in rabbit farms in terms of morphology, chemical compositions and bacterial concentration in different size fractions. Size-fractioned PM was sampled in the air of 2 rabbit farms, 1 for fattening rabbits and 1 for reproductive does, using a virtual cascade impactor, which simultaneously collected total suspended PM (TSP), PM10 and PM2.5 size fractions. Airborne PM samples were examined by light microscopy and scanning electron microscopy combined with energy dispersive X-ray analysis. Representative samples from potential sources of PM were also collected and examined. Additionally, a methodology to extract bacteria from the collected samples of airborne PM was developed to determine the bacterial concentration per PM size fraction. Results showed that airborne PM in rabbit farms is highly complex in particle morphology, especially in size. Broken skin flakes, disintegrated particles from feed or faecal material from mechanical fracture are the main sources of airborne PM in rabbit farms. Major elements found in rabbit airborne PM were S, Ca, Mg, Na and Cl. Bacterial concentrations ranged from 1.7¿104 to 1.6¿106 colony forming units (CFU)/m3 (TSP); from 3.6¿103 to 3.0¿104 CFU/m3 (PM10); and from 3.1¿103 to 1.6¿104 CFU/m3 (PM2.5). Our results will improve the knowledge on essential particle characteristics necessary to understand PM¿s origin in rabbit farms and contribute to its reduction.The authors thank the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation for the economic support to conduct this study (Project GasFarm AGL2009-0067) and the Campus de Excelencia Internacional of the Universitat Politecnica de Valencia. The authors are also grateful to the farmers and staff at the farms who collaborated during sampling periods. We thank the Electronic Microscopy Service (Universitat Politecnica de Valencia) for expert technical assistance during SEM analysis.252Adell Sales, E.; Estellés Barber, F.; Torres, AG.; Cambra López, M. (2012). Morphology, chemical composition, and bacterial concentration of airborne particulate matter in rabbit farms. World Rabbit Science. 20(4). doi:10.4995/wrs.2012.1211SWORD24120

The amount of keratinized mucosa may not influence peri-implant health in compliant patients: A retrospective 5-year analysis

AIM (a) To investigate the influence of the keratinized mucosa (KM) on peri-implant health or disease and (b) to identify a threshold value for the width of KM for peri-implant health. MATERIALS AND METHODS The total dataset was subsampled, that is one implant was randomly chosen per patient. In 87 patients, data were extracted at baseline (prosthesis insertion) and 5 years including the width of mid-buccal KM, bleeding on probing, probing depth, plaque index and marginal bone level (MB). Spearman correlations with Holm adjustment for multiple testing were used for potential associations. RESULTS Depending on the definition of peri-implant diseases, the prevalence of peri-implantitis ranged from 9.2% (bleeding on probing threshold: <50% or ≥50%) to 24.1% (threshold: absence or the presence). The prevalence of peri-implant mucositis was similar, irrespective of the definition (54%-55.2%). The width of KM and parameters for peri-implant diseases demonstrated negligible (Spearman correlation coefficients: -0.2 < ρ < 0.2). No threshold value was detected for the width of mid-buccal KM in relation to peri-implant health. CONCLUSION The width of KM around dental implants correlated to a negligible extent with parameters for peri-implant diseases. No threshold value for the width of KM to maintain peri-implant health could be identified