Mangrove rice biodiversity valorization in Guinea Bissau. A bottom-up approach

Summary Rice is the staple crop of Guinea Bissau, and its production system is based on human labor with very limited possibility of mechanization, particularly in the Mangrove ecosystem. Due to this and to the low possibilities of controlling environment parameters, such as water level and availability, the genetic resistance to extreme abiotic factors was identified as a key point for increasing yields quantity and stability. Among the ample genetic material available in the country, no purification activities were carried out in the past decades. This led to the cultivation of mixtures or ecotypes and not to uniform varieties, with consequent issue related to cultivation and milling. On 103 samples collected, only on about 50% of ecotypes, the purification was carried out as the remaining half was too much variable. The purification ended with less than 20% of material considered stable and uniform varieties. Moreover, the program adopted a bottom-up approach for collection and variety conservation to drive the program and improve the genetic material.

Asthma and COVID-19: who wins the contested territory of the lower airways?

Among the numerous published studies on COVID-19 in a pandemic year, few listed asthma as a comorbidity, making it therefore difficult to draw any solid conclusions. The respiratory allergy and controlled exposures to allergens are associated with significant reductions in the expression of angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2), receptor for SARS-CoV-2 entry into human cells. There is a hypothesis that patients with chronic asthma, due to the type 2 inflammatory profile, may be potentially resistant to developing a severe clinical course of COVID-19. The low IFN-g-mediated response in the respiratory tract of asthmatic patients could limit ACE2 expression in the target cells of SARS-CoV-2 infection. The inflammatory profile of the airways in patients with chronic asthma is mainly related to a Th2 response in type-2 asthma, with production of IL-4, IL-13 and IL-5, presenting antagonistic relationship with pro-inflammatory cytokines such as IFN-g, produced at high levels in severe COVID-19. Published studies, for the most part, are retrospective and may have loss of information or present material with limited possibility for more robust and conclusive analysis. It is important to discuss how patients with atopic or nonatopic asthma seem to protect themselves from new coronavirus infection and how asthma affects COVID-19 and the course of the disease, since there is no increased mortality in asthmatic patients with COVID-19 compared to non-asthmatic patients.

Superovulatory responses based on ovarian sizes after superstimulation in Thai-Holstein crossbred dairy cows

This study was designed (1) to examine the relationship between ovary sides/sizes after superstimulation treatment and ovulatory responses in terms of large follicles, corpora lutea (CLs) numbers, and ovulation rate; and (2) to evaluate the coefficient of determination (R2) as a tool to predict the subsequent superovulatory responses by ovary sizes after superstimulation treatment in the Thai-Holstein crossbreed dairy cows. Data included 33 records from 12 superovulated Thai Holstein crossbreds. Cows were estrus synchronized on day 0 and superstimulated with 400 mg of FSH with decreasing doses twice daily for 4 days. After superovulatory treatment (day 9), the sizes of ovaries were measured and divided into 3 groups by quarters according to the ovarian sizes. Group A (< 816 mm2) ovaries were 25% smaller and group C (> 1449 mm2) ovaries were 25% larger than group B ovaries (816–1449 mm2). On day 9 and 16, there were no significant differences in the average ovary area (p > 0.05). The numbers of large follicles and CLs of group B and C were greater than those of group A (p < 0.05). The ovulation rate did not differ among groups (p > 0.05). The moderate R2 score between ovary size after superovulatory treatment and the numbers of dominant follicles and CLs were calculated (R2 = 0.445 and 0.370, p <0.05) while the beta coefficient (b-value) was positive for both observation parameters. In conclusion, the numbers of large follicles and CLs related to the size of ovaries after superovulation treatment. The moderate R2 score obtained in this study could be indicative of the limited possibility for using ovary size after superovulatory treatment for predicting superovulatory responses

Preventing children’s death by heatstroke: How alternative accident theories affect policy design and evaluation

When public policies are designed from scratch, with no or limited possibility of learning from past experience, decision makers rely on their creativity and lateral thinking to counterbalance cognitive biases. One of the crucial issues for both evaluators and policy makers in such situations is not only to elaborate a sound theory of the programme but also to be aware of the existence of competing theories to solve the same problem. Being able to detect such theories constitutes an essential step to avoid ‘Type III errors’, that is, enacting the right solution for the ‘wrong’ problem. Reflecting on the analysis of two programmes aimed at preventing the death of children by heatstroke, this article illustrates the implications of alternative ‘accident theories’ for the evaluation of safety policies.

When “Stay at Home” Can Be Dangerous: Data on Domestic Violence in Italy during COVID-19 Lockdown

The global pandemic caused by a new strain of Coronavirus has brought the Italian government to adopt quarantine, isolation, and lockdown strategies as restrictive measures to reduce the virus spread. Being forced to stay at home could significantly increase the likelihood of episodes of home-based violence and could also be accompanied by a limited possibility of complaints or defense by the victim. The present study aimed to document, through the use of newspaper articles, the characteristics of domestic violence during the lockdown period related to COVID-19 in Italy (from 9 March 2020 up to 18 May 2020) and compare the results with the same period in 2019. The results showed an increase in domestic violence during the lockdown period compared to the same period the year before and highlighted the differences between the dynamics and violent behavior between the two periods examined. The results and limitations of this research are discussed with reference to the literature.

Managing the Risk of Self-Judging Security Exceptions Through Insurance: How Recent Mergers and Acquisitions Practice Copes with Investment Screening

In light of the limited possibility to seek legal recourse against screening of foreign investments on grounds of national security, can insurance provide an alternative avenue to compensate affected investors? The answer is: Yes, but with caveats. For investors, even if insurance does not provide an equivalent to full reparation, it can serve as a useful mitigant of the risk that contemplated investment transactions cannot be consummated as anticipated due to screening measures. For host States, insurance provides a useful mechanism by which they can facilitate compensation of investors without having to disclose information contrary to their essential security interests and thus a means by which host States can remain attractive to foreign direct investment in spite of investment screening.

R. Kurzweil’s Worldview: A Critical Analysis of the Technocratic Projectto Achieve Immortality

The article is devoted to understanding the prospects of possible application of advanced technological developments in order to improve the biological nature of man. It analyses the ideas of Ray Kurzweil, who is a supporter of such transformations of human nature. It is shown that Kurzweil’s conclusions are of a worldview nature: in the near future, through the cyborgization of people, it will be possible to achieve a state close to immortality and, thus, solve the world-view issues of self-knowledge and create the conditions for unlimited self-development. It is concluded that such optimistic forecasts are insufficiently justified due to the limited possibility of modern technologies to “improve” a person’s life and help with the most difficult technical and ethical problems.

COVID-19 Outbreaks in Refugee Camps

1AbstractWe built a mathematical model for SARS-CoV-2 transmission and analyze it using both a deterministic and a stochastic approach. We used this model to project the burden of the disease in refugee camps characterized by peculiar demographic characteristics and a high level of deprivation, including lack of medical facilities and personnel, as well as limited possibility to implement containment and quarantine measures. Most of the parameters in our model were adapted from published literature but we used our own estimates of the basic reproduction number, R0 as well as the lethality by age group and gender. We projected the burden in terms of number of infections, number of deaths and number of bed-days in hospitalization and intensive care, among others. We conclude that the harsh conditions of refugee camps combined with a high share of young people leads to a relatively mild scenario for the burden of the disease.

Distributed FACTS for Power System Transient Stability Control

The high penetration of renewable energy sources, combined with a limited possibility to expand the transmission infrastructure, stretches the system stability in the case of faults. For this reason, operators are calling for additional control flexibility in the grid. In this paper, we propose the deployment of switchable reactors and capacitors distributed on the grid as a control resource for securing operations during severe contingencies and avoiding potential blackouts. According to the operating principles, the line reactance varies by switching on or off a certain number of distributed series reactors and capacitors and, therefore, the stabilizing control rule is based on a stepwise time-discrete control action. A control strategy, based on dynamic optimization, is proposed and tested on a realistic-sized transmission system.

FIXED PHRASE SCHEME AS A SPECIAL LINGUISTIC KNOWLEDGE FORMAT

The article focuses on the theoretical and practical aspects of logical-semantic and grammatical-communicative division of the fixed phrase scheme structure. The authors argue that a fixed phrase scheme is dominated by a plan of content over the plan of expression, and therefore generally the gnoseological aspect prevails. The syntactic construction phraseologization expands its possibilities in cognitive and communicative aspects: the number of represented typical objective situations, typical sentence meanings, types of relations, and therefore systems of relations between minimal segments of thought increases. At the same time, the orientation of relations between minimal segments of thought becomes stable, which is due to the limited possibility of a fixed phrase scheme in terms of grammatical variation. The phraseologization degree determines the cognitive and communicative parameters of the fixed phrase scheme: the higher the phraseologization degree, the more significant is the influence of the gnoseological aspect; the lower, the more the influence of the ontological aspect is manifested. The phraseologization phenomenon determines the representation possibility of a wider knowledge format that the fixed phrase scheme possesses in comparison with a free syntactic construction. Thus, in the fixed phrase scheme sphere, there is a different correlation between the linguistic knowledge format and the form of this knowledge representation at the language level. All this allows us to consider the fixed phrase scheme as a particular format of linguistic knowledge.