A Review of Potential Feed Additives Intended for Carbon Footprint Reduction through Methane Abatement in Dairy Cattle.

Eight rumen additives were chosen for an enteric methane-mitigating comparison study including garlic oil (GO), nitrate, Ascophyllum nodosum (AN), Asparagopsis (ASP), Lactobacillus plantarum (LAB), chitosan (CHI), essential oils (EOs) and 3-nitrooxypropanol (3-NOP). Dose-dependent analysis was carried out on selected feed additives using a meta-analysis approach to determine effectiveness in live subjects or potential efficacy in live animal trials with particular attention given to enteric gas, volatile fatty acid concentrations, and rumen microbial counts. All meta-analysis involving additives GO, nitrates, LAB, CHI, EOs, and 3-NOP revealed a reduction in methane production, while individual studies for AN and ASP displayed ruminal bacterial community improvement and a reduction in enteric CH4. Rumen protozoal depression was observed with GO and AN supplementation as well as an increase in propionate production with GO, LAB, ASP, CHI, and 3-NOP rumen fluid inoculation. GO, AN, ASP, and LAB demonstrated mechanisms in vitro as feed additives to improve rumen function and act as enteric methane mitigators. Enzyme inhibitor 3-NOP displays the greatest in vivo CH4 mitigating capabilities compared to essential oil commercial products. Furthermore, this meta-analysis study revealed that in vitro studies in general displayed a greater level of methane mitigation with these compounds than was seen in vivo, emphasising the importance of in vivo trials for final verification of use. While in vitro gas production systems predict in vivo methane production and fermentation trends with reasonable accuracy, it is necessary to confirm feed additive rumen influence in vivo before practical application.

Pesticide taxes or voluntary action? An analysis of responses among Norwegian grain farmers.

This paper analyses two strategies to reduce the use of pesticides in grain production. We study Norwegian farmers' willingness to voluntarily forego income by reducing pesticide use as well as their responses to a doubling of the pesticide price (through increased pesticide taxes). We use mixed methods including an experiment, a survey and focus group discussions. The experiment shows that most farmers are willing to sacrifice some income to reduce environmental risks by using less pesticide. According to the survey, they are, at the same time, relatively insensitive to a 100% price increase on herbicides and fungicides. While the response to the price increase probably would have been stronger if differentiated between chemicals, our research indicates potential benefits from supporting voluntary action. Value orientations and agronomic conditions influence the stated responses in both circumstances. Respondents emphasizing environmental values are more willing to voluntarily reduce pesticide use and show a greater response to the economic incentive than farmers emphasizing economic outcome and issues such as clean fields. A hypothesized willingness to reduce pesticide use voluntarily to strengthen the reputation of the sector was, however, rejected. Farmers appear to have few alternatives to pesticides, but increased knowledge about the alternatives that do exist, seems able to promote some change. Our findings suggest that the extension service should put greater emphasis on these options, even if they may have negative effects on income.

The alignment of agricultural and nature conservation policies in the European Union.

Europe is a region of relatively high population density and productive agriculture subject to substantial government intervention under the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). Many habitats and species of high conservation interest have been created by the maintenance of agricultural practices over long periods. These practices are often no longer profitable, and nature conservation initiatives require government support to cover the cost for them to be continued. The CAP has been reformed both to reduce production of agricultural commodities at costs in excess of world prices and to establish incentives for landholders to adopt voluntary conservation measures. A separate nature conservation policy has established an extensive series of protected sites (Natura 2000) that has, as yet, failed to halt the loss of biodiversity. Additional broader scale approaches have been advocated for conservation in the wider landscape matrix, including the alignment of agricultural and nature conservation policies, which remains a challenge. Possibilities for alignment include further shifting of funds from general support for farmers toward targeted payments for biodiversity goals at larger scales and adoption of an ecosystem approach. The European response to the competing demands for land resources may offer lessons globally as demands on rural land increase.

El Alineamiento de las Políticas Agrícolas y de Conservación de la Naturaleza en la Unión Europea Resumen Europa es una región con una densidad poblacional relativamente alta y con una agricultura productiva sujeta a una intervención gubernamental sustancial bajo la Política Agrícola Común (PAC). Debido al mantenimiento de las prácticas agrícolas a lo largo de periodos extensos de tiempo, se han creado muchos hábitats y especies de alto interés para la conservación. Estas prácticas muchas veces ya no son rentables y las iniciativas para la conservación de la naturaleza requieren del apoyo del gobierno para cubrir el costo de su continuación. La PAC se ha reformado para reducir la producción de mercancía agrícola por encima de los precios mundiales y para establecer incentivos para que los propietarios adopten voluntariamente las medidas de conservación. Una política de conservación aparte ha establecido una serie extensa de sitios protegidos (Natura 2000) que, hasta ahora, ha fallado en detener la pérdida de la biodiversidad. Se ha abogado por estrategias de escalas más generales para la conservación en la matriz más amplia de paisajes, incluido el alineamiento de las políticas agrícolas y de conservación de la naturaleza, lo cual sigue siendo un reto. Las posibilidades de alineamiento incluyen un mayor movimiento de los fondos del apoyo general para los granjeros hacia pagos enfocados en los objetivos de la biodiversidad a escalas mayores y la adopción de una estrategia de ecosistema. La respuesta europea a las demandas conflictivas por recursos de suelo puede ofrecer lecciones a nivel global conforme incrementen las demandas por suelo rural.

Parameterization of annealing kinetics in pharmaceutical glasses.

Numerical simulations indicate that neglecting the canonical nonlinearity of glassy-state annealing kinetics in pharmaceutical (and other) glasses leads to good KWW fits to the dependence of enthalpy on annealing time, but with spurious KWW parameters that are affected by nonlinearity. A simplified treatment of nonlinearity that uses the Struik shift factor is found to be a useful approximation for these analyses, and can account for previously reported differences between linear and nonlinear KWW parameters (Kawakami K, Pikal MJ. 2005. J Pharm Sci 94:948-965).

Biodiversity conservation: challenges beyond 2010.

The continued growth of human populations and of per capita consumption have resulted in unsustainable exploitation of Earth's biological diversity, exacerbated by climate change, ocean acidification, and other anthropogenic environmental impacts. We argue that effective conservation of biodiversity is essential for human survival and the maintenance of ecosystem processes. Despite some conservation successes (especially at local scales) and increasing public and government interest in living sustainably, biodiversity continues to decline. Moving beyond 2010, successful conservation approaches need to be reinforced and adequately financed. In addition, however, more radical changes are required that recognize biodiversity as a global public good, that integrate biodiversity conservation into policies and decision frameworks for resource production and consumption, and that focus on wider institutional and societal changes to enable more effective implementation of policy.

Correlation of annealing with chemical stability in lyophilized pharmaceutical glasses.

This research constitutes a thorough study of the relationship between the chemical stability, aging state and global molecular motion on the one hand, and microscopic local mobility in multi-component systems on the other hand. The objective of the present work was to determine whether annealing a glass below T(g) affects its chemical stability and determine if the rate of chemical degradation couples with global relaxation times determined using calorimetery, and/or with T(1) and T(1rho) relaxation times measured using ssNMR. Model compounds chosen for this research were lyophilized aspartame/sucrose and aspartame/trehalose (1:10 w/w) formulations. The chemical degradation was assessed at various temperatures using high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) to determine the impact of annealing on chemical stability. The rate constant for chemical degradation was estimated using stretched time kinetics. The results support the hypothesis that thermal history affects the molecular mobility required for structural relaxation and such effect is critical for chemical stability, that is, a stabilization effect upon annealing is observed.

Investigation of the impact of annealing on global molecular mobility in glasses: optimization for stabilization of amorphous pharmaceuticals.

The purpose of this research was to investigate the effect of annealing on the molecular mobility in lyophilized glasses using differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and isothermal microcalorimetry (IMC) techniques. A second objective that emerged was a systematic study of the unusual pre-T(g) thermal events that were observed during DSC warming scans after annealing. Aspartame lyophilized with three different excipients; sucrose, trehalose and poly vinyl pyrrolidone (PVP) was studied. The aim of this work was to quantify the decrease in mobility in amorphous lyophilized aspartame formulations upon systematic postlyophilization annealing. DSC scans of aspartame:sucrose formulation (T(g) = 73 degrees C) showed the presence of a pre-T(g) endotherm which disappeared upon annealing. Aspartame:trehalose (T(g) = 112 degrees C) and aspartame:PVP (T(g) = 100 degrees C) showed a broad exotherm before T(g) and annealing caused appearance of endothermic peaks before T(g). This work also employed IMC to measure the global molecular mobility represented by structural relaxation time (tau(beta)) in both un-annealed and annealed formulations. The effect of annealing on the enthalpy relaxation of lyophilized glasses, as measured by DSC and IMC, was consistent with the behavior predicted using the Tool-Narayanaswamy-Moynihan (TNM) phenomenology (Luthra et al., 2007, in press). The results show that the systems annealed at T(g) -15 degrees C to T(g) -20 degrees C have the lowest molecular mobility.

Effects of annealing on enthalpy relaxation in lyophilized disaccharide formulations: mathematical modeling of DSC curves.

The overall objective of these studies was to investigate, by experimental studies and theoretical analysis, the optimum annealing conditions to obtain maximum structural relaxation in lyophilized glasses of pharmaceutical significance. The model formulations used in this work were aspartame: sucrose and aspartame: trehalose (1:10 w/w) freeze-dried glasses. In this article, structural relaxation in amorphous systems was described in terms of the change in the fictive temperature (T(f)) and was measured using the enthalpy relaxation endotherm in a differential scanning calorimeter (DSC). The theoretical analysis was performed using the Tool-Narayanaswamy-Moynihan (TNM) model. The effect of different annealing conditions (temperature and time) on fictive temperature obtained from the theoretical analysis was calculated and compared with the experimental results. The model reproduced the experimental data very well for samples that were quench cooled from the liquid. However, the model fits were poor for lyophilized samples, indicating an inability to incorporate the complex thermal history of freeze-drying in the TNM model. The optimum aging conditions were determined from both DSC and approximated best-fit parameters of the TNM model, and it was found that annealing when done at a temperature about 15-25 degrees C below T(g) resulted in maximum structural relaxation.

Application of the thermorheologically complex nonlinear Adam-Gibbs model for the glass transition to molecular motion in hydrated proteins.

The nonlinear thermorheologically complex Adam Gibbs (extended "Scherer-Hodge") model for the glass transition is applied to enthalpy relaxation data reported by Sartor, Mayer, and Johari for hydrated methemoglobin. A sensible range in values for the average localized activation energy is obtained (100-200 kJ mol(-1)). The standard deviation in the inferred Gaussian distribution of activation energies, computed from the reported KWW beta-parameter, is approximately 30% of the average, consistent with the suggestion that some relaxation processes in hydrated proteins have exceptionally low activation energies.

Incorporation of nonlinear thermorheological complexity into the phenomenologies of structural relaxation.

A distribution of activation energies is introduced into the nonlinear Adam-Gibbs ("Hodge-Scherer") phenomenology for structural relaxation. The resulting dependencies of the stretched exponential beta parameter on thermodynamic temperature and fictive temperature (nonlinear thermorheological complexity) are derived. No additional adjustable parameters are introduced, and contact is made with the predictions of the random first-order transition theory of aging of Lubchenko and Wolynes [J. Chem. Physics121, 2852 (2004)].

Adam-Gibbs Formulation of Enthalpy Relaxation Near the Glass Transition.

The entropically based nonlinear Adam-Gibbs equation is discussed in the context of phenomenologies for nonlinear enthalpy relaxation within the glass transition temperature range. In many materials for which adequate data are available, the nonlinear Adam-Gibbs parameters are physically reasonable and agree with those obtained from linear relaxation data and thermodynamic extrapolations. Observed correlations between the traditional Tool-Narayanaswamy-Moynihan parameters are rationalized in terms of the Adam-Gibbs primary activation energy (Δµ) determining how close the kinetic glass transition temperature can get to the thermodynamic Kauzmann temperature. It is shown that increased nonlinearity in the glass transition temperature range is associated with greater fragility in the liquid/rubber state above Tg.