Short food supply chain as an alternative for promoting family agriculture

In recent years, increasing attention has been given to promoting short agrifood supply chains, not only in Europe and the United States but also in Latin America. This bulletin describes some specific experiences with short food supply chains, both in Latin America and in other parts of the world, which have made it possible to identify success factors and lessons learned. These examples are based on cases discussed at the seminar on short food supply chains recently held by ECLAC, FAO and WHO.

Valores, variáveis sócio-demográficas e auto-relatos de comportamentos no trânsito de motoristas suspensos e não suspensos de Belém e Curitiba

Para investigar o comportamento de motoristas, possivelmente correlacionado a valores e variáveis demográficas, foram aplicados a 505 motoristas, de Belém e Curitiba, a Escala de Violações e Erros de Motoristas (EVEM) e o Questionário de Valores Pessoais (PVQ). Metade da amostra foi constituída de motoristas de ambos os sexos que tiveram suas Carteiras de Habilitação (CNH) suspensas e a outra metade de não suspensas. Os resultados da EVEM e do PVQ foram confrontados com a cidade dos participantes, a situação da CNH, e outras questões relativas ao ato de dirigir veículos, tendo sido encontradas algumas correlações entre os fatores. Na EVEM: 1) Erros: Cidade; 2) Violações: Idade, Idade que Aprendeu Dirigir e Situação da CNH; 3) Violações Agressivas: Idade que Aprendeu Dirigir, Situação da CNH, Idade e Sexo; 4) Agressão Interpessoal: Idade, Situação da CNH e Sexo. No PVQ: 5) Autodireção: Cidade e Escolaridade; 6) Poder: Cidade e Situação da CNH; 7) Universalismo: Cidade, Situação da CNH e Idade; 8) Hedonismo: Idade; 9) Segurança: Cidade, Idade e Situação da CNH; 10) Estimulação: Idade; 11) Conformidade: Situação da CNH, Idade e Cidade; 12) Benevolência: Cidade, Situação da CNH, Sexo e Idade; 13) Realização: Idade; 14) Tradição: Idade. Alguns resultados mostraram diferenças entre motoristas suspensos e não suspensos e também entre motoristas das cidades pesquisadas, como por exemplo, um maior percentual de suspensos aprendeu a dirigir com a família e os fatores Benevolência e Conformidade foram mais valorizados pelos motoristas de Belém.

Development of a knowledge-based system for cogeneration plant design: Verification, validation and lessons learned

This paper presents the development of a knowledge-based system (KBS) prototype able to design natural gas cogeneration plants, demonstrating new features for this field. The design of such power plants represents a synthesis problem, subject to thermodynamic constraints that include the location and sizing of components. The project was developed in partnership with the major Brazilian gas and oil company, and involved interaction with an external consultant as well as an interdisciplinary team. The paper focuses on validation and lessons learned, concentrating on important aspects such as the generation of alternative configuration schemes, breadth of each scheme description created by the system, and its module to support economic feasibility analysis. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Knox-Wise Family Papers - Accession 591

The Knox-Wise Family Papers includes a land grant issued to John Knox in 1768; diaries written by Dr. John Knox [1792-1859] covering the 1840s and 1850s; James N. Knox [1806-1880] covering 1859-1880; and William D. Knox [1847-1928] covering 1869-1928; indentures, deeds, receipts, court summonses and other papers of Hugh Knox [1757-1821], sheriff and justice of the peace in Chester County, South Carolina (ca. 1780s and 1790s); correspondence of James N. Knox, correspondence, and other professional papers of Dr. John Knox; correspondence, and other papers of William D. Knox, Superintendent of Education in Chester County from 1896-1928. Papers of various other members of the Knox and Wise families including Hugh Boyd Knox [1814-1886], Robert Knox [1796-1879], Sally Knox Wallace [1803-1901], Alexander Walker Wise, and Emmie R. Knox [1885-1969]; family histories of the Knox, Wise, Dunlap, Gaston, and Wilks families; church histories, photographs, and newspaper clippings. Also included are three published volumes of the United Confederate Veterans Minutes of the 21st (1911) and 25th (1915) Annual Meeting and Reunion; and the minutes of the annual reunion of the South Carolina Division of the United Confederate Veterans (1921-1927).

Learned helplessness in the rat: Effect of response topography in a within-subject design

Three experiments investigated learned helplessness in rats manipulating response topography within-subject and different intervals between treatment and tests among groups. In Experiment 1, rats previously exposed to inescapable shocks were tested under an escape contingency where either jumping or nose poking was required to terminate shocks: tests were run either 1, 14 or 28 days after treatment. Most rats failed to jump, as expected, but learned to nose poke, regardless of the interval between treatment and tests and order of testing. The same results were observed in male and female rats from a different laboratory (Experiment 2) and despite increased exposure to the escape contingencies using a within-subject design (Experiment 3). Furthermore, no evidence of helplessness reversal was observed, since animals failed to jump even after having learned to nose-poke in a previous test session. These results are not consistent with a learned helplessness hypothesis, which claims that shock (un)controllability is the key variable responsible for the effect. They are nonetheless consistent with the view that inescapable shocks enhance control by irrelevant features of the relationship between the environment and behavior. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Applying validated quality indicators to surgical antibiotic prophylaxis in a Brazilian hospital: Learning what should be learned

Background: Compliance with the best surgical antibiotic prophylaxis practice is usually low despite many published guidelines. Objective: This study investigated compliance with the Hospital Infection Control Committee guideline for antibiotic prophylaxis in a Brazilian hospital using quality indicators. Methods: A retrospective study was carried out from November 2009 to March 2010. Medical records from adult inpatients undergoing cardiac, neurologic, and orthopedic clean surgeries were included. The full compliance index was considered 100% when the antibiotic prophylaxis showed adequacy in all evaluated attributes. Analyses were conducted with 5% significance. Results: Medical records from 101 cardiac, 128 neurologic, and 519 orthopedic surgical patients were evaluated. The compliance index was 4.9%, and the compliance index according to specialty was 5.8%, 3.1%, and 3.0%, respectively, for orthopedic, neurologic, and cardiac surgeries. The attribute route of administration produced the best outcomes, whereas the attribute duration of antibiotic prophylaxis produced the worst. No association was identified between compliance to the attributes and patient characteristics. Conclusion: This study showed a low level of adherence to Hospital Infection Control Committee guidelines for antibiotic prophylaxis. This suggests that different strategies should be implemented to promote the best possible practice in the field of antibiotic prophylaxis with greater surgeon engagement. Copyright (C) 2012 by the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology, Inc. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Urethral toxicity vs. cancer control-Lessons to be learned from high-dose rate brachytherapy combined with intensity-modulated radiation therapy in intermediate- and high-risk prostate cancer

To describe biochemical relapse-free survival (BRFS) and late toxicity after combined high-dose rate brachytherapy (HDR-B) and intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) in intermediate- and high-risk prostate cancer patients.

Lessons in Software Evolution Learned by Listening to Smalltalk

The biggest challenge facing software developers today is how to gracefully evolve complex software systems in the face of changing requirements. We clearly need software systems to be more dynamic, compositional and model-centric, but instead we continue to build systems that are static, baroque and inflexible. How can we better build change-enabled systems in the future? To answer this question, we propose to look back to one of the most successful systems to support change, namely Smalltalk. We briefly introduce Smalltalk with a few simple examples, and draw some lessons for software evolution. Smalltalk's simplicity, its reflective design, and its highly dynamic nature all go a long way towards enabling change in Smalltalk applications. We then illustrate how these lessons work in practice by reviewing a number of research projects that support software evolution by exploiting Smalltalk's design. We conclude by summarizing open issues and challenges for change-enabled systems of the future.

Rats' Learned Preferences for Flavors Encountered Early or Late in a Meal Paired with the Postingestive Effects of Glucose

Rats learn to prefer flavors that are followed by postingestive effects of nutrients. This experiment investigated whether the timing of a flavor (specifically, in the first or second half of the meal) influences learning about that flavor. Stronger learning about earlier or later flavorswould indicate when the rewarding postingestive effects of nutrients are sensed. Ratswith intragastric (IG) catheters drank saccharin-sweetened, calorically-dilute solutions with distinct flavors added, accompanied by IG infusion of glucose (+sessions) or water (−sessions). In both types of sessions, an “Early” flavorwas provided for the first 8 min and a “Late” flavor for the last 8 min. Thus, rats were trained with Early(+) and Late(+) in high-caloriemeals, and Early(−) and Late(−) in low-calorie meals. Strength of the learned preference for Early(+) and Late(+) was then assessed in a series of two-bottle choice tests between Early(+) vs. Early(−), Late(+) vs. Late(−), Early(+) vs. Late(+), and Early(−) vs. Late(−). Rats preferred both Early(+) and Late(+) over the respective (−) flavors. But Early(+)was only preferredwhen rats were tested hungry. Late(+) was preferred when rats were tested hungry or recently satiated. This indicates qualitatively different associations learned about flavors at different points in themeal.While not supporting the idea that postingestive effects become most strongly associated with later-occurring (“dessert”) flavors, it does suggest a reason dessert flavors may remain attractive in the absence of hunger.

Learned irrelevance and associative learning is attenuated in individuals at risk for psychosis but not in asymptomatic first-degree relatives of schizophrenia patients: translational state markers of psychosis?

Learned irrelevance (LIrr) refers to a form of selective learning that develops as a result of prior noncorrelated exposures of the predicted and predictor stimuli. In learning situations that depend on the associative link between the predicted and predictor stimuli, LIrr is expressed as a retardation of learning. It represents a form of modulation of learning by selective attention. Given the relevance of selective attention impairment to both positive and cognitive schizophrenia symptoms, the question remains whether LIrr impairment represents a state (relating to symptom manifestation) or trait (relating to schizophrenia endophenotypes) marker of human psychosis. We examined this by evaluating the expression of LIrr in an associative learning paradigm in (1) asymptomatic first-degree relatives of schizophrenia patients (SZ-relatives) and in (2) individuals exhibiting prodromal signs of psychosis ("ultrahigh risk" [UHR] patients) in each case relative to demographically matched healthy control subjects. There was no evidence for aberrant LIrr in SZ-relatives, but LIrr as well as associative learning were attenuated in UHR patients. It is concluded that LIrr deficiency in conjunction with a learning impairment might be a useful state marker predictive of psychotic state but a relatively weak link to a potential schizophrenia endophenotype.

Pathways to vicimization. Lessons learned from research in kindergarten

During the last decade interest in bully/victim problems has grown tremendously and still, studies addressing this issue in the years preceding elementary school areextremely rare. Despite obvious methodological challenges, the study of bullying and victimization in settings such as kindergarten opens up unique opportunities to understand early processes in the pathways to victimization, and to investigate different social and individual risk factors and their interactions in the very beginnings of bullying patterns. In this presentation, key findings that shed light on early vulnerability factors for victimization and factors that may maintain bullying patterns will be addressed. First, results from our and others’ studies in kindergarten are generally consistent with results in school. Second, our studies show that patterns of reactions when children witness victimization are already present in kindergarten settings. Third, all findings confirm that bully-victims must be regarded as being distinct from passive victims and other aggressive children (i.e. bullies) already at kindergarten age. Our studies indicate that bully-victims have significantly more problems associated with ADHD or with a lack of behavioral regulation than all their peers and that they clearly differ from bullies in terms of the type of aggression they display. Furthermore, our longitudinal data show different pathways to victimization for victims and bully-victims. This knowledge of early risk factors and pathways mustbe taken into consideration in future research and may contribute to the improvement of prevention programs.