The management and husbandry of male and female draught animals: Research achievements and needs

This paper reviews research findings relevant to draught animal husbandry and management, and highlights the differences in use of oxen and cows for draught. Topics considered include the choice between cows and oxen and effects of work on physiology, metabolism, health, food intake, digestion, bodyweight change and lactation and reproductive physiology in draught cows. The husbandry and management of draught animals are considered and methods are described which could be adjusted for different draught animal-powered farming systems. Aspects covered include duration of work, housing, health care and feeding of draught animals. In considering these aspects of husbandry, attention is focused on the need to optimise the use of farm resources in the search for sustainable farming methods. A summary of topics deserving more research is given. It is suggested that farming systems research in close copperation with the local communities is required to determine ways of producing adequate food for draught animals and the establishment of sustainable farming systems

Pharmaceuticals in drinking water and resources for drinking water

Geneesmiddelen komen in zeer lage concentraties voor in drinkwater en drinkwaterbronnen. De hoeveelheden zijn echter zo laag dat effecten op de volksgezondheid zijn te verwaarlozen. Dit blijkt uit een inventarisatie van RIVM in opdracht van het ministerie van VROM. De meest voorkomende medicijnen in drinkwater en drinkwaterbronnen zijn slecht afbreekbaar in het milieu en/of worden veel gebruikt. De inventarisatie is een vervolg op onderzoek van vier waterinstituten in 2003 (RIVM rapport 703719004). Het RIVM heeft destijds vier geneesmiddelen in drinkwater aangetoond. Nu heeft het RIVM van 22 geneesmiddelen onderzocht in welke hoeveelheden ze voorkomen in drinkwater en drinkwaterbronnen. Hiervoor is een meetprogramma tweemaal uitgevoerd bij 22 drinkwaterproductielocaties. Ondanks de lage concentraties blijkt dat geneesmiddelen waarschijnlijk vaker voorkomen in drinkwater dan enkele jaren geleden. De medicijnen die in 2003 zijn aangetroffen zijn ook in het huidige onderzoek aangetoond. De pijnstillers acetylsalicylzuur (overwegend afkomstig van aspirine) en fenazon en het epilepsiemiddel carbamazepine werden het vaakst aangetroffen. Het synthetisch hormoon van de anticonceptiepil is niet aangetoond. Van het antidepressivum prozac is in enkele gevallen een spoortje aangetroffen. Om de verspreiding van humane en diergeneesmiddelen naar water te verminderen heeft het kabinet begin 2007 een pakket aan beleidsmaatregelen voorgesteld. Voorbeelden van deze maatregelen zijn het beperken van geneesmiddelgebruik, het inzamelen en vernietigen van ongebruikte medicijnen, en het ontwikkelen van geneesmiddelen die beter worden opgenomen in het lichaam en makkelijker worden afgebroken in milieu. Volgens dit onderzoek zijn de aangekondigde beleidsmaatregelen nuttig en nodig om het watermilieu en het drinkwater nu en in de toekomst te beschermen tegen verontreiniging met medicijnen.Pharmaceuticals are present in drinking water and drinking water resources in very low concentrations. However, the amounts are so low that effects on public health are negligible. This was shown in an RIVM investigation performed under the authority of the Dutch Ministry for Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment (VROM). The most frequently detected medicines in drinking water are almost non-degradable in the environment and/or are frequently used. This investigation represents a follow-up to the research done by four water research institutes in 2003(Report 703719004); at that time RIVM detected four pharmaceuticals in drinking water. Recently, RIVM has investigated 22 pharmaceuticals for amounts present in drinking water and drinking-water resources. For this, a monitoring programme was conducted at 22 drinking-water production sites. In spite of low concentrations, detected pharmaceuticals are probably more frequently found in drinking water compared with several years ago. Medicines detected in 2003 were also found in this current investigation. The analgesics, salicylic acid (mainly from aspirin), phenazon and the anti-epileptic carbamazepin were detected most frequently. The synthetic hormone from the contraceptive pill was not found, while traces of the tranquilizer, prozac, were found in a few samples. At the beginning of 2007 the Dutch government proposed a package of policy measures to decrease the discharge of human and veterinary pharmaceuticals to water. Examples of these measures are reducing the use of pharmaceuticals, collecting and destroying unused pharmaceuticals, and developing pharmaceuticals which are better absorbed in the body and better degradable in the environment. This investigation supports the announced policy measures as being useful and necessary to protect the aquatic environment and drinking water against pollution by pharmaceuticals now and in the future.VROM-Inspecti

Report of the Horse Mackerel Exchange and Workshop 2006

Following a recommendation from PGCCDBS, a workshop on age calibration of horse mackerel was carried out. The workshop was preceded by an exchange. The objectives were: to improve the quality of horse mackerel readings by international calibration. In particular, attempt to resolve the observed differences between countries. Estimate the accuracy and precision of the age readings before and after the intercalibration. Take into account differences between areas and methods. Training of new horse mackerel readers

Carbon and nitrogen cycling in the Scheldt estuary: the major players, long-term changes and an integrated view

The Scheldt estuary is a highly heterotrophic, nutrient-rich, turbid, tidal estuary in a densely populated area (Belgium/The Netherlands). Here we present the results (1) on the long-term changes in nutrient loadings and transformations within the estuary and (2) on nitrogen cycling rate measurements obtained with isotopic tracers. Moreover, we have developed and applied novel techniques that allow direct linking of process rates to the identity and biomass of the organisms involved. Monitoring data and process studies have been used in numerical models to integrate the various biogeochemical cycles and to advance our understanding of the evolving estuarine filter function of the Scheldt estuary

Linking data and BPMN processes to achieve executable models

We describe a formally well founded approach to link data and processes conceptually, based on adopting UML class diagrams to represent data, and BPMN to represent the process. The UML class diagram together with a set of additional process variables, called Artifact, form the information model of the process. All activities of the BPMN process refer to such an information model by means of OCL operation contracts. We show that the resulting semantics while abstract is fully executable. We also provide an implementation of the executor.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Comment on "Effect of Age-Related Factors on the Pharmacokinetics of Lamotrigine and Potential Implications for Maintenance Dose Optimisation in Future Clinical Trials".

Pharmacolog

The 4C spectrum of fundamental behavioral relations for concurrent systems

The design of concurrent software systems, in particular process-aware information systems, involves behavioral modeling at various stages. Recently, approaches to behavioral analysis of such systems have been based on declarative abstractions defined as sets of behavioral relations. However, these relations are typically defined in an ad-hoc manner. In this paper, we address the lack of a systematic exploration of the fundamental relations that can be used to capture the behavior of concurrent systems, i.e., co-occurrence, conflict, causality, and concurrency. Besides the definition of the spectrum of behavioral relations, which we refer to as the 4C spectrum, we also show that our relations give rise to implication lattices. We further provide operationalizations of the proposed relations, starting by proposing techniques for computing relations in unlabeled systems, which are then lifted to become applicable in the context of labeled systems, i.e., systems in which state transitions have semantic annotations. Finally, we report on experimental results on efficiency of the proposed computations

Natuurverkenning 2010-2040 : visies op de ontwikkeling van natuur en landschap

De Natuurverkenning verschijnt in een turbulente tijd waarin natuur en landschap sterk gepolitiseerd zijn. Met de verkenning wil het PBL een bijdrage leveren aan het structureren van het debat over de vernieuwing van het langetermijnbeleid en een impuls geven aan de politieke afwegingen. Nieuw is het gebruik van normatieve toekomstscenario’s als hulpmiddel om de achterliggende drijfveren voor natuurbeleid te verhelderen