Milk, dairy products and consumer health: a short review

There appears to be a large mis-match between (1) the advice given on milk/dairy foods by various authorities, (2) public perceptions of harm from the consumption of milk and dairy products and, (3) the evidence from long-term prospective cohort studies. These studies provide convincing evidence that increased consumption of milk can lead to reductions in the risk of vascular disease and possibly some cancers and provide an overall survival advantage. The volume of evidence available for milk products such as cheese and butter is however surprisingly limited and too small to come to any clear conclusions as to their effects on health.

Integrating the Climate Science Modelling Language with geospatial software and services

Much consideration is rightly given to the design of metadata models to describe data. At the other end of the data-delivery spectrum much thought has also been given to the design of geospatial delivery interfaces such as the Open Geospatial Consortium standards, Web Coverage Service (WCS), Web Map Server and Web Feature Service (WFS). Our recent experience with the Climate Science Modelling Language shows that an implementation gap exists where many challenges remain unsolved. To bridge this gap requires transposing information and data from one world view of geospatial climate data to another. Some of the issues include: the loss of information in mapping to a common information model, the need to create ‘views’ onto file-based storage, and the need to map onto an appropriate delivery interface (as with the choice between WFS and WCS for feature types with coverage-valued properties). Here we summarise the approaches we have taken in facing up to these problems.

Land use intensity and trees on farms in Malawi

Rapidly increasing population densities in Malawi have put a huge strain on the existing agricultural land and the surrounding woodland. Smallholder agriculture is the dominant economic activity of Malawi’s rural population and many farmers have been forced to cultivate marginal lands with less fertile soils, making conditions much more difficult to grow crops. Natural woodland is under increasing pressure from the opening of new lands for cultivation and the increased demand for firewood, timber and other woody resources, with rural households historically obtaining most of their complementary inputs and saleable commodities from nearby areas of forest (Arnold, 1997a). Despite this increasing pressure, woodlands are not being cleared indiscriminately; selected indigenous species are left standing in fields and around households. These are joined by exotic species that are planted and maintained. These trees provide products and services that are vital, yielding food, firewood, building materials and medicine, replenishing soil fertility and protecting against soil erosion. Following a Boserupian approach, this study attempts to establish the reality of a trajectory of enhanced on-farm tree planting and management as population pressure mounts and as part of a more general process of agricultural intensification. The study examines the combination of factors (social, economic, political and environmental) that either stimulate or discourage on-farm tree planting on smallholdings in Malawi, highlighting how woodland resource use changes over a gradient of land use intensity. This study gives a detailed insight into the way that tree planting and management in the smallholder farming system in Malawi works and identifies a trend of increased tree planting/management alongside an increase in agricultural intensification. However, there is no single ‘path’ of intensification; the link between agricultural change and tree planting is complex and there are many trajectories of intensification that a farmer may follow, dependent on his/her social or economic circumstances. The study recommends that agroforestry interventions give rigorous consideration to the needs of the local community, and the suitability of trees to address those needs, before embarking on programmes that advocate tree planting and management as a panacea.

Reaching the underbanked and unbanked in subsistence markets at the nexus of the formal and informal economy

It is estimated that globally over 2 billion people do not have a bank account, with many more in the developed and developing worlds ‘under-banked’, meaning they have limited access to financial services. Reaching the unbanked and underbanked with appropriate financial services is widely recognised as critical for future global economic growth and prosperity. Drawing upon multidimensional understandings of poverty, and framed by literature on poverty pools, traps and cycles, this paper explores the use of financial products and services in the developing world and critically reflects on their potential role in poverty alleviation and wider sustainable development. Discussions are illustrated with reference to qualitative empirical research undertaken in East and Southern Africa, and a sense-making of the lived financial experiences of low income individuals, households and communities.

Financial services for the poor within the formal/informal nexus in sub-Saharan Africa

This paper draws upon fieldwork undertaken across Kenya, Zambia, Mozambique and South Africa to present a reflective overview of the use of financial services amongst the poorest members of society. It considers the role that access to a portfolio of financial products and services may have as a contributory factor in poverty alleviation, but also how inappropriate use of these mechanisms may exacerbate a descent into poverty. This work draws upon the notions of poverty pools and the rise of fall of low income households in and out of poverty, alongside the contributory nature of vicious cycles of economic and political poverty. Drawing on fieldwork experiences it presents a synopsis of the types of financial mechanisms commonly in use on the African continent, as well as examples of public, private and civil society partnerships that are producing services specifically tailored for those in extreme and absolute poverty.

Ozonolysis of methyl oleate monolayers at the air–water interface: oxidation kinetics, reaction products and atmospheric implications

Ozonolysis of methyl oleate monolayers at the air–water interface results in surprisingly rapid loss of material through cleavage of the C[double bond, length as m-dash]C bond and evaporation/dissolution of reaction products. We determine using neutron reflectometry a rate coefficient of (5.7 ± 0.9) × 10−10 cm2 molecule−1 s−1 and an uptake coefficient of [similar]3 × 10−5 for the oxidation of a methyl ester monolayer: the atmospheric lifetime is [similar]10 min. We obtained direct experimental evidence that <2% of organic material remains at the surface on atmospheric timescales. Therefore known long atmospheric residence times of unsaturated fatty acids suggest that these molecules cannot be present at the interface throughout their ageing cycle, i.e. the reported atmospheric longevity is likely to be attributed to presence in the bulk and viscosity-limited reactive loss. Possible reaction products were characterized by ellipsometry and uncertainties in the atmospheric fate of organic surfactants such as oleic acid and its methyl ester are discussed. Our results suggest that a minor change to the structure of the molecule (fatty acid vs. its methyl ester) considerably impacts on reactivity and fate of the organic film.

Glucosinolates, myrosinase hydrolysis products, and flavonols found in rocket (Eruca sativa and Diplotaxis tenuifolia)

Rocket species have been shown to have very high concentrations of glucosinolates and flavonols, which have numerous positive health benefits with regular consumption. In this review we highlight how breeders and processors of rocket species can utilize genomic and phytochemical research to improve varieties and enhance the nutritive benefits to consumers. Plant breeders are increasingly looking to new technologies such as HPLC, UPLC, LC-MS and GC-MS to screen populations for their phytochemical content to inform plant selections. Here we collate the research that has been conducted to-date in rocket, and summarise all glucosinolate and flavonol compounds identified in the species. We emphasize the importance of the broad screening of populations for phytochemicals and myrosinase degradation products, as well as unique traits that may be found in underutilized gene bank resources. We also stress that collaboration with industrial partners is becoming essential for long-term plant breeding goals through research.

Bifidobacteria in milk products: An overview of physiological and biochemical properties, exopolysaccharide production, selection criteria of milk products and health benefits

Research and commercial interest in the genus Bifidobacterium have increased in the last decade due to their potential health benefits in probiotic functional foods, especially in dairy products. However, cultivation of bifidobacteria in milk is a difficult task compared with that of conventional starters because milk is not a good medium for growth of these nutritionally fastidious microorganisms. Therefore, suitable strains of Bifidobacterium for dairy products should be selected based on their safety and technological and functional properties. There are a number of milk products containing bifidobacteria in the world market and the demand for new products is increasing with the awareness of the potential health benefits of the consumption of products blended with bifidobacteria. Some strains of Bifidobacterium, which produce exopolysaccharide, have been isolated and characterised. This review will discuss the general characteristics of bifidobacteria, exopolysaccharide production, the selection criteria of bacterial strains for milk products, current applications of bifidobacteria in milk products, and their nutritional and beneficial health properties.

Obstacle avoidance routing scheme through optimal sink movement for home monitoring and mobile robotic consumer devices

In recent years, ZigBee has been proven to be an excellent solution to create scalable and flexible home automation networks. In a home automation network, consumer devices typically collect data from a home monitoring environment and then transmit the data to an end user through multi-hop communication without the need for any human intervention. However, due to the presence of typical obstacles in a home environment, error-free reception may not be possible, particularly for power constrained devices. A mobile sink based data transmission scheme can be one solution but obstacles create significant complexities for the sink movement path determination process. Therefore, an obstacle avoidance data routing scheme is of vital importance to the design of an efficient home automation system. This paper presents a mobile sink based obstacle avoidance routing scheme for a home monitoring system. The mobile sink collects data by traversing through the obstacle avoidance path. Through ZigBee based hardware implementation and verification, the proposed scheme successfully transmits data through the obstacle avoidance path to improve network performance in terms of life span, energy consumption and reliability. The application of this work can be applied to a wide range of intelligent pervasive consumer products and services including robotic vacuum cleaners and personal security robots1.

Knowledge process outsourcing in financial services: The vendor perspective

This research reports the findings from a study on nine knowledge process outsourcing (KPO) vendors working in the financial services industry. It delineates financial business processes along a low to high-end continuum. Findings suggest that KPO vendors are gradually moving along the value pathway offering more complex intellectual value activity based products and services to clients. However, they face many challenges including gaining the confidence of potential clients about outsourcing knowledge-intensive work, and finding effective solutions to mitigate outsourcing risk. Our paper concludes by developing a taxonomy of KPO scenarios to provide a backdrop for further academic research and to illustrate current practice.

Investigation of the accuracy of historical irradiance products and interannual variability of solar irradiance using Met Office ground data

Met Office station data from 1980 to 2012 has been used to characterise the interannual variability of incident solar irradiance across the UK. The same data are used to evaluate four popular historical irradiance products to determine which are most suitable for use by the UK PV industry for site selection and system design. The study confirmed previous findings that interannual variability is typically 3–6% and weighted average probability of a particular percentage deviation from the mean at an average site in the UK was calculated. This weighted average showed that fewer than 2% of site-years could be expected to fall below 90% of the long-term site mean. The historical irradiance products were compared against Met Office station data from the input years of each product. This investigation has found that all products perform well. No products have a strong spatial trend. Meteonorm 7 is most conservative (MBE = −2.5%), CMSAF is most optimistic (MBE = +3.4%) and an average of all four products performs better than any one individual product (MBE = 0.3%)

Education and training futures in horticulture and horticultural science

Horticultural knowledge and skills training have been with humankind for some 10,000 to 20,000 years. With permanent settlement and rising wealth and trade, horticulture products and services became a source of fresh food for daily consumption, and a source of plant material in developing a quality environment and lifestyle. The knowledge of horticulture and the skills of its practitioners have been demonstrated through the advancing civilizations in both eastern and western countries. With the rise of the Agricultural Revolutions in Great Britain, and more widely across Continental Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries, as well as the move towards colonisation and early migration to the New Worlds, many westernised countries established the early institutions that would provide education and training in agriculture and horticulture. Today many of these colleges and universities provide undergraduate, postgraduate and vocational and technical training that specifically targets horticulture and/or horticultural science with some research and teaching institutions also providing extension and advisory services to industry. The objective of this chapter is to describe the wider pedagogic and educational context in which those concerned with horticulture operate, the institutional structures that target horticulture and horticultural science education and training internationally; examine changing educational formats, especially distance education; and consider strategies for attracting and retaining young people in the delivery of world-class horticultural education. In this chapter we set the context by investigating the horticultural education and training options available, the constraints that prevent young people entering horticulture, and suggest strategies that would attract and retain these students. We suggest that effective strategies and partnerships be put in place by the institution, the government and most importantly the industry to provide for undergraduate and postgraduate education in horticulture and horticultural science; that educational and vocational training institutions, government, and industry need to work more effectively together to improve communication about horticulture and horticultural science in order to attract enrolments of more and talented students; and that the horticulture curriculum be continuously evaluated and revised so that it remains relevant to future challenges facing the industries of horticulture in the production, environmental and social spheres. These strategies can be used as a means to develop successful programs and case studies that would provide better information to high school career counsellors, improve the image of horticulture and encourage greater involvement from alumni and the industries in recruitment, provide opportunities to improve career aspirations, ensure improved levels of remuneration, and promote the social features of the profession and greater awareness and recognition of the profession in the wider community. A successful career in horticulture demands intellectual capacities which are capable of drawing knowledge from a wide field of basic sciences, economics and the humanities and integrating this into academic scholarship and practical technologies.

Sampling uncertainty in gridded sea surface temperature products and Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) Global Area Coverage (GAC) data

Sea surface temperature (SST) data are often provided as gridded products, typically at resolutions of order 0.05 degrees from satellite observations to reduce data volume at the request of data users and facilitate comparison against other products or models. Sampling uncertainty is introduced in gridded products where the full surface area of the ocean within a grid cell cannot be fully observed because of cloud cover. In this paper we parameterise uncertainties in SST as a function of the percentage of clear-sky pixels available and the SST variability in that subsample. This parameterisation is developed from Advanced Along Track Scanning Radiometer (AATSR) data, but is applicable to all gridded L3U SST products at resolutions of 0.05-0.1 degrees, irrespective of instrument and retrieval algorithm, provided that instrument noise propagated into the SST is accounted for. We also calculate the sampling uncertainty of ~0.04 K in Global Area Coverage (GAC) Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) products, using related methods.