Contribution of periurban farming systems to local food systems: a systemic innovation perspective

The debate on food security has highlighted the connection between periurban farming systems (PFS) and local food systems (LFS) for academic research. Several researchers have called for in-depth analysis of the participation and impact of farmers in LFS, and the systemic innovation perspective can provide relevant analysis of the sustainability of this agro-food system. The objective of the current study is to investigate the integration of PFS into LFS from the systemic innovation perspective, by analysing systemic failures and merits that hinder or promote the contribution of PFS to LFS for farmers and commercial actors. The case study is the LFS of the urban Pisa region in central Italy. Results show that farmers there are adapting to urban pressure, which improves the sustainability of their farming practices. At the same time, commercial actors have a commercial opportunity to include local farmers in their economic strategy. Nevertheless, individual initiatives must be coordinated to support the sustainability of both LFS and PFS. This study thus developed an innovative method to identify systemic failures and merits for farmers and commercial actors to address sustainability strategies at the territorial level.

K-Nearest Neighbor and Random Forest-Based Prediction of Putative Tyrosinase Inhibitory Peptides of Abalone Haliotis diversicolor

Skin pigment disorders are common cosmetic and medical problems. Many known compounds inhibit the key melanin-producing enzyme, tyrosinase, but their use is limited due to side effects. Natural-derived peptides also display tyrosinase inhibition. Abalone is a good source of peptides, and the abalone proteins have been used widely in pharmaceutical and cosmetic products, but not for melanin inhibition. This study aimed to predict putative tyrosinase inhibitory peptides (TIPs) from abalone, Haliotis diversicolor, using k-nearest neighbor (kNN) and random forest (RF) algorithms. The kNN and RF predictors were trained and tested against 133 peptides with known anti-tyrosinase properties with 97% and 99% accuracy. The kNN predictor suggested 1075 putative TIPs and six TIPs from the RF predictor. Two helical peptides were predicted by both methods and showed possible interaction with the predicted structure of mushroom tyrosinase, similar to those of the known TIPs. These two peptides had arginine and aromatic amino acids, which were common to the known TIPs, suggesting non-competitive inhibition on the tyrosinase. Therefore, the first version of the TIP predictors could suggest a reasonable number of the TIP candidates for further experiments. More experimental data will be important for improving the performance of these predictors, and they can be extended to discover more TIPs from other organisms. The confirmation of TIPs in abalone will be a new commercial opportunity for abalone farmers and industry.

Fatty Acid Composition of Salami Made by Meat from Different Commercial Categories of Indigenous Dairy Cattle

In autochthonous dairy cattle farms, the production of salami could represent an alternative commercial opportunity. Therefore, a study was carried out to investigate the fatty acid (FA) composition of salami made using the meat from grazing (GB) or housed (HB) young bulls and grazing adult cows (AC) of Cinisara breed. The products were manufactured by adding 20% of pork lard. Animal category influenced the FA composition, although the addition of lard mitigated the differences found in fresh meat. The salami from GB showed higher polyunsaturated FA content (p ≤ 0.01) and, in particular, a higher level of linoleic acid (p ≤ 0.05), than from other animal categories. Salami made from AC meat showed lower polyunsaturated/saturated FA ratio (p ≤ 0.05), but a better n-6/n-3 ratio compared to HB (p ≤ 0.05), due to the lower content of linoleic acid. Multivariate analysis showed an important influence of animal category on FA composition due to age, feeding system and meat fat content of animals, despite the addition of lard.

Assessment of biodiversity goods for the sustainable development of the chagra in an indigenous community of the Colombian Amazon: local values of crops

Background The chagra is the agroforestry system adapted to the characteristics of the Amazon region. Recently, there has been a reported loss of biodiversity and traditional knowledge associated with the chagras. This paper characterizes the cultivators, exploring knowledge and expressed value perception in the context of the Amazonian chagra of an indigenous community; also, this prioritizes species, under the optics of commercial opportunity. Methods A semi-structured instrument was applied to 14 volunteers, asking about marketing preferences and use values of the species; later, a floristic inventory and prioritization workshop was developed. Results Sixty-two percent of the participants were 50 years or older at the time of the interview. Open conversations showed that traditional knowledge is a matter of practice; and is maintained mainly by the older "grandfathers". Thirty-eight species, belonging to 28 different families, were reported, showing considerable diversity. Seventy-nine percent of the participants consider the Leticia market and sales to tourists as the main marketing scenarios. Conclusions The Ziora-Amena community centralizes the handling of chagras in the community's older adults, who transmit their traditional knowledge to new generations through oral tradition. Indicators of preference, use, and abundance highlight the food species. The perception of the trade stakeholder encourages research and development of endemic species, with health properties or ingredients for industry, which represent an opportunity of high added value for the region.

War Photography: Díaz & Spencer’s coverage of the War of the Pacific (1879-1883)

In the study of 19th-century Latin American photography, the photographic capture of war and military operations has implicitly been equated with the eye of national states, understanding that photographers would want to show a positive portrayal of the military forces. However, war photography as a language of state power was not the point of departure. In most of the earlier examples of war photography, it was private photographers who first ventured into military conflicts almost as soon as the new visual technology was made available. They saw war as both an important historical event and a commercial opportunity. Experiencing with a technology that forced them to produce images of war stripped of battle action while trying to capitalize on the diverse interests in these conflicts, most photographers offered a rendering of war of ambiguous political meanings. In this essay, I argue that the photographs of the War of the Pacific taken by the studio Díaz & Spencer are one of the first examples of the successful use of war photography for nation-building purposes, that is, as national propaganda. Photographers had the challenge to create impressive, apologetic and heroic captures of the military forces, and Díaz & Spencer succeeded in creating a visual narrative congruent with Chilean official discourses, consolidating, rather than challenging, the Chilean state view of the war. Equally important, this allignment of political views was accomplished on account of Díaz and Spencer’s initiative—not that of Chilean state officials.

Organised lying and professional legitimacy: Public relations’ accountability in the disinformation debate

The role of the public relations industry in the disinformation debate has been largely overlooked, while an emphasis has been put on the responsibilities of platforms, media organisations and audiences to monitor content and eliminate fake news. In contrast, this article argues that disinformation and fake news are well-established tools in public relations work and are implicated in the current crisis. Drawing on an exploratory study of UK industry publications about fake news and disinformation, the article shows that public relations has addressed disinformation as a commercial opportunity and a platform for demonstrating professional legitimacy. Industry narratives position professional practice as ethical, trustworthy and true, while simultaneously ‘othering’ dubious practices and normalising ‘organised lying’. The article concludes by arguing that the fight against disinformation must take seriously the impact of public relations, if it is to be effective.

Value-based estimate of market size and opportunity for economic benefit through innovative pancreatic cancer (PC) therapies.

e16790 Background: Over the past 20 years, cancer drugs have contributed to increased life expectancy, reduced mortality, decreased hospitalization and decreased use of medical services. The economic value of these improvements is about as large as the value of the increase in the US gross domestic product during that time period. Recently, a health economic study presented at ASCO GI 2020 cited that every $1 (adjusted for inflation) spent on innovative PC treatments reduced non-drug expenditures by $9, thereby lowering the total cost of care for PC patients. Accordingly, the commercial opportunity of a new therapy should be measured by some combination of the clinical, economic and social value generated. We demonstrate the value of a novel PC drug from this perspective. Methods: Analysis of SEER survival and incidence data between 2008 and 2016 shows the introduction of new medicines for PC of all stages was associated with a cumulative increase of 26,456 life years, or 2.52 life years per patient. It was also associated with quality of life improvements, measured by a decline in hospitalizations rates and emergency room visits that can also lead to more days at work, at school and with family. Several studies have suggested the average value of an additional year of life, for the age of a typical patient diagnosed with PC, is at least $250,000. Using this figure, the value of 26,456 life years gained from 2008-2016 is $6.61 billion (26,456*$250,000) to patients, the healthcare system and society, as a result of advancing medical innovation for patients with PC. Results: The median annual list price of a life-enhancing cancer therapy is $150,000 per patient. Using the NCI treatment prevalence estimator (holding incidence constant), we estimate that between 2020-2025, there will be an additional 10,728 advanced PC patients requiring treatment who could benefit from innovative drugs. The total cost of these drugs for these patients would be $1.61 billion. However, the economic value of the life years saved would be $6.76 billion (10,728*2.52 life years*$250,000 = $6.76 billion). A review of cancer medicine payor coverage suggests a new PC therapy that produces such value would be able to obtain coverage from US payors given this value-based price. Conclusions: A value-based approach to estimating the opportunity for clinical and economic benefit reveals significant potential for new PC medicines.

Agriculture and the Environment

During the Holocene, the present geological epoch, an increasing portion of humans began to manipulate the reproduction of plants and animals in a series of environmental practices known as agriculture. No other ecological relationship sustains as many humans as farming; no other has transformed the landscape to the same extent. The domestication of plants by American Indians followed the end of the last glacial maximum (the Ice Age). About eight thousand years ago, the first domesticated maize and squash arrived from central Mexico, spreading to every region and as far north as the subarctic boreal forest. The incursion of Europeans into North America set off widespread deforestation, soil depletion, and the spread of settlement, followed by the introduction of industrial machines and chemicals. A series of institutions sponsored publically funded research into fertilizers and insecticides. By the late 19th century, writers and activists criticized the technological transformation of farming as destructive to the environment and rural society. During the 20th century, wind erosion contributed to the depopulation of much of the Great Plains. Vast projects in environmental engineering transformed deserts into highly productive regions of intensive fruit and vegetable production. Throughout much of the 19th and 20th centuries, access to land remained limited to whites, with American Indians, African Americans, Latinas/os, Chinese, and peoples of other ethnicities attempting to gain farms or hold on to the land they owned. Two broad periods describe the history of agriculture and the environment in that portion of North America that became the United States. In the first, the environment dominated, forcing humans to adapt during the end of thousands of years of extreme climate variability. In the second, institutional and technological change became more significant, though the environment remained a constant factor against which American agriculture took shape. A related historical pattern within this shift was the capitalist transformation of the United States. For thousands of years, households sustained themselves and exchanged some of what they produced for money. But during the 19th century among a majority of American farmers, commodities took over the entire purpose of agriculture, transforming environments to reflect commercial opportunity.

It’s cool! analysis of factors that influence smart thermostat adoption intention

Smart thermostats represent an innovative smart home technology and a growing commercial opportunity, yet little is known about the salient factors that affect the adoption of such devices. To address this gap in research, we conduct a three-stage study that progresses through belief elicitation, exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factory analysis within a nomological network. We leverage the mixed methods approach to explore the factorial structure of salient perceived benefits and concerns associated with smart thermostats, and we examine the effects of the emergent factors on the adoption intention. We discover that a novel factor, which we term techno-coolness, is the key predictor of the smart thermostat adoption intention. Techno-coolness encompasses the perceptions that a smart thermostat can make a home look modern and futuristic, be fun to use, and make the user feel technologically advanced. We also find that compatibility concerns as well as privacy concerns are significant impediments to the smart thermostat adoption intention.