• SDSN - Greece

Abstract This paper proposes a novel concept of territorial fitting for the analysis of the functioning of small farms in broader food, environmental, and socio-economic systems. We elaborate on the framing and definition of territorial fitting (TF) in relation to other concepts, such as territorial and social embeddedness, nested markets and territorial governance. Based on an analysis of empirical manifestations of territorial fitting as found in sample studies of small farms in Latvia, Portugal, and Norway we determine dimensions of territorial fitting such as natural resources, integrated landscape, social ties, and economic ties. Our approach to the identification and articulation of TF is characteristic of exploratory studies that attempt to conceptualise emerging findings. The study suggests that TF works by: (i) improving integration in niche markets and regional food systems; (ii) supporting micro-management of nature and eco-systems; (iii) connecting fields of activity, like agriculture, forestry, rural and environmental services; and (iv) establishing new territorial linkages. We argue that the concept of territorial fitting has the potential for further research on the role of small farms in food systems.

Abstract Background Beer is the most popular alcoholic beverage worldwide. In the manufacture of beer, various by-products and residues are generated, and the most abundant (85% of total by-products) are spent grains. Thanks to its high (hemi)cellulose content (about 50% w/w dry weight), this secondary raw material is attractive for the production of second-generation biofuels as butanol through fermentation processes. Results This study reports the ability of two laccase preparations from Pleurotus ostreatus to delignify and detoxify milled brewer’s spent grains (BSG). Up to 94% of phenols reduction was achieved. Moreover, thanks to the mild conditions of enzymatic pretreatment, the formation of other inhibitory compounds was avoided allowing to apply the sequential enzymatic pretreatment and hydrolysis process (no filtration and washing steps between the two phases). As expected, the high detoxification and delignification yields achieved by laccase pretreatment resulted in great saccharification. As a fact, no loss of carbohydrates was observed thanks to the novel sequential strategy, and thus the totality of polysaccharides was hydrolysed into fermentable sugars. The enzymatic hydrolysate was fermented to acetone-butanol-ethanol (ABE) by Clostridium acetobutilycum obtaining about 12.6 g/L ABE and 7.83 g/L butanol within 190 h. Conclusions The applied sequential pretreatment and hydrolysis process resulted to be very effective for the milled BSG, allowing reduction of inhibitory compounds and lignin content with a consequent efficient saccharification. C. acetobutilycum was able to ferment the BSG hydrolysate with ABE yields similar to those obtained by using synthetic media. The proposed strategy reduces the amount of wastewater and the cost of the overall process. Based on the reported results, the potential production of butanol from the fermentation of BSG hydrolysate can be envisaged.

We investigated the effect of temperature on the limiting oxygen saturation (LOS) of gilthead sea bream Sparus aurata. This threshold was defined as the % O2 saturation where fish no longer upheld their routine metabolic rate (RMR, the metabolic rate of fed and active fish) during a progressive decline in oxygen saturation. S. aurata (398 ± 10 g, mean ± SE) were kept in 3 replicate tanks and subjected to 3 changes in temperature: 16 to 20°C, 20 to 16°C and 16 to 12°C. At each temperature, fish were left to acclimatize for 8 to 10 d, before daily feed intake (DFI), the routine oxygen consumption rate (routine MO2, mg kg-1 min-1) and the LOS were measured. In addition, at 20°C the swimming speed was measured in fish subjected to a decline in O2 from full air saturation to levels below the LOS (minimum of 8-10% O2). For the temperature range tested (12-20°C), DFI, MO2 and LOS increased exponentially with temperature (7.5-, 3.6- and 2.2-fold, respectively) with mean (± SE) LOS being 17 ± 1, 21 ± 0 and 35 ± 5% O2 at 12, 16 and 20°C, respectively. A gradual decline in swimming activity was observed as O2 declined below the LOS, indicating increasing metabolic stress and/or a 'sit-out' coping strategy which may prolong survival time in severe hypoxia. The results show the importance of temperature as an influential variable over the environmental O2 requirements of S. aurata. © The authors 2015. The study was funded by the EU Seventh Framework Programme by the AQUAEXCEL (FP7-2007-2012; grant agreement no. 262336) and the Norwegian Research Council through the Centre for Research-based Innovation in Aquaculture Technology, CREATE. Peer Reviewed

International audience; Genomic prediction utilizes single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) chip data to predict animal genetic merit. It has the advantage of potentially capturing the effects of the majority of loci that contribute to genetic variation in a trait, even when the effects of the individual loci are very small. To implement genomic prediction, marker effects are estimated with a training set, including individuals with marker genotypes and trait phenotypes; subsequently, genomic estimated breeding values (GEBV) for any genotyped individual in the population can be calculated using the estimated marker effects. In this study, we aimed to: (i) evaluate the potential of genomic prediction to predict GEBV for nematode resistance traits and BW in sheep, within and across populations; (ii) evaluate the accuracy of these predictions through within-population cross-validation; and (iii) explore the impact of population structure on the accuracy of prediction. Four data sets comprising 752 lambs from a Scottish Blackface population, 2371 from a Sarda×Lacaune backcross population, 1000 from a Martinik Black-Belly×Romane backcross population and 64 from a British Texel population were used in this study. Traits available for the analysis were faecal egg count for Nematodirus and Strongyles and BW at different ages or as average effect, depending on the population. Moreover, immunoglobulin A was also available for the Scottish Blackface population. Results show that GEBV had moderate to good within-population predictive accuracy, whereas across-population predictions had accuracies close to zero. This can be explained by our finding that in most cases the accuracy estimates were mostly because of additive genetic relatedness between animals, rather than linkage disequilibrium between SNP and quantitative trait loci. Therefore, our results suggest that genomic prediction for nematode resistance and BW may be of value in closely related animals, but that with the current SNP chip genomic predictions are unlikely to work across breeds.

Energy efficiency is in the interest of everyone, from individuals to governments, since it yields economical savings, reduces greenhouse gas emissions and alleviates energy poverty. Buildings are one of the largest consumers of primary energy and attaining their efficiency is, therefore, an important goal. The Internet of Things currently provides vast amounts of data that can be used to extract knowledge of all kinds, including that regarding energy prediction. This has motivated us to test wether the prior information on the physics of building heat transfer, that is currently available is now redundant owing to the completeness of the data from the system. We propose a machine learning approach and a grey-box model approach with which to test this hypothesis. The former is blind to the physiscs of the problem, while the latter is greatly influenced by it. The energy consumption prediction models were created with both approaches and then used to estimate energy consumption in a normal operation state and compare it with energy consumption when an energy efficiency campaign is run. Our black-box method, which is based on a combination of statistical and machine learning models and on a time series structurization of the data, shows better prediction accuracy than the so-called grey-box methods that include basic physical equations. This shows that also a data driven approach outperforms more informed methods in this, like other fields.

International audience; Xylella fastidiosa (Xf) is an insect-borne bacterium confined to the xylem vessels of plants. This plant pathogen has a broad host range estimated to 560 plant species. Five subspecies of the pathogen with different but overlapping host ranges have been described, but only three subspecies are widely accepted, namely subspecies fastidiosa, multiplex, and pauca. Initially limited to the Americas, Xf has been detected in Europe since 2013. As management of X. fastidiosa outbreaks in Europe depends on the identification of the subspecies, accurate determination of the subspecies in infected plants as early as possible is of major interest. Thus, we developed various tetraplex and triplex quantitative PCR (qPCR) assays for X. fastidiosa detection and subspecies identification in planta in a single reaction. We designed primers and probes using SkIf, a bioinformatics tool based on k-mers, to detect specific signatures of the species and subspecies from a data set of 58 genome sequences representative of X. fastidiosa diversity. We tested the qPCR assays on 39 target and 30 non-target strains, as well as on 13 different plant species spiked with strains of the different subspecies of X. fastidiosa, and on samples from various environmental and inoculated host plants. Sensitivity of simplex assays was equal or slightly better than the reference protocol on purified DNA. Tetraplex qPCR assays had the same sensitivity than the reference protocol and allowed X. fastidiosa detection in all spiked matrices up to 10(3) cells.ml(-1). Moreover, mix infections of two to three subspecies could be detected in the same sample with tetraplex assays. In environmental plant samples, the tetraplex qPCR assays allowed subspecies identification when the current method based on multilocus sequence typing failed. The qPCR assays described here are robust and modular tools that are efficient for differentiating X. fastidiosa subspecies directly in plant samples

As a tool for overcoming radio spectrum shortages in wireless communications, cognitive radio technology plays a vital role in future smart grid applications, particularly in advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) networks with quality of service (QoS) requirements. This paper focuses on the investigation of the receiver-based routing protocol for enhancing QoS in cognitive radio-enabled AMI networks, due to their potentials of enhancing reliability and routing efficiency. In accordance with practical requirements of smart grid applications, a new routing protocol with two purposes is proposed: One is to address the real-time requirement while another protocol focuses on how to meet energy efficiency requirements. As a special feature of cognitive radio technology, the protocol has the mechanism for protecting primary (licensed) users while meeting the utility requirements of secondary (cognitive radio) users. System-level evaluation shows that the proposed routing protocol can achieve better performances compared with existing routing protocols for cognitive radio-enabled AMI networks.

The paper deals with a critical review of unique problems and challenges related to the design and technology of zero-emission, battery driven, fast marine vehicles. The uniqueness of the ensuing ship design problem is the request to fit maximum battery capacity and to ensure minimum required power in order to achieve the set operational requirements for high service speed and sufficient range. The high-speed requirement is inherently connected with the request for minimum structural and lightship weight, while the design needs also to comply with set regulatory safety constraints. The underlying research is in the frame of the EU funded project TrAM (Transport: Advanced and Modular) and leads to the development and construction of a physical demonstrator for operation in the Stavanger area in Norway. The paper discusses the incurring critical issues, discusses the feasibility of the concept and concludes on the way ahead.