This book describes the upper watershed technologies and quotes successful examples. It is concerned with the less researched and often less-tractable land-use problems of rural areas involving the management of croplands, plantations, forests, and rangelands.
In: The journal of modern African studies: a quarterly survey of politics, economics & related topics in contemporary Africa, Band 8, Heft 2, S. 288-293
Before commenting on the situation in separate countries, it is useful to look briefly at the over-all state of natural resources science in Africa. This was reviewed in detail six years ago at a U.N.E.S.C.O. conference in Lagos and there has been no major change in the picture of fragmentation of effort, with as yet no effective machinery for co-operation. Some rather slow pro. gress was made by the C.C.T.A. among the countries south of the Sahara towards the co-ordination and sharing of scarce scientific resources, but this initiative has not yet been effectively regained by its successor organisation, the Scientific and Technical Research Committee of the Organisation of African Unity.
This paper assesses the impact of SI QREN – a set of enterprise support mechanisms that were in place in Portugal between 2007 and 2013 – on firm performance. For this purpose, we used an unprecedented set of firm-level information, gathered from different institutional sources. These data allowed to control for several determinants of performance that are usually ignored in similar studies, and to assess the impact of the policy in various dimensions of enterprise performance, including: investment, financial situation, human capital, innovation, internationalization, firm growth, competitiveness, eco-efficiency, job quality, intra-firm income distribution, and gender equality. In order to address the selection bias that is inherent to the policy under analysis we estimated the impacts using the bias corrected matching estimator put forward by Abadie and Imbens (2002, 2011), producing results based on both the Propensity-Score Matching and Malahanobis Distance Matching methods, for robustness purposes. Our results suggest that SI QREN accomplished its main policy goals, as they are identified in the theory of change of the policy. Generally speaking, the impacts of SI QREN remain positive and statistically significant in the mid-term, after the supported projects have been completed. We also find that SI QREN is less effective in inducing additional investment in firms that have easier access to external finance. ; FCT
Significance: More than 2 million eye injuries and infections occur each year in the United States that leave civilians and military members with reduced or complete vision loss due to the lack of effective therapeutics. Severe ocular injuries and infections occur in varied settings including the home, workplace, and battlefields. In this review, we discuss the potential of developing antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) as therapeutics for the treatment of corneal wounds and infections for which the current treatment options are inadequate.
Kosovo, located in the heart of the Balkans, was formerly a part of Yugoslavia. The breakup of Yugoslavia led not only to the creation of new countries and borders; it also had a huge impact on the transportation and availability of raw materials and goods. Kosovo's forest products industry has been greatly affected by the country's current political and legal environment. The creation of new boundaries, combined with trade constraints between Kosovo and some neighboring countries, has changed the amount and type of available wood raw material. Although the forest products industry is a very important part of Kosovo's economy, this change in distribution has had a negative impact on the sawmill structure of the country. To better understand the current state of Kosovo's forest products sector, data was collected through a survey of all sawmills in Kosovo and through information gathered from the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Rural Development of Kosovo. In this paper, the forest resources and sawmill structure of Kosovo are analyzed and the availability of different species of wood in different regions of the country is presented. Based on these fi ndings, recommendations are provided for further development of the forest and sawmill industry. ; This research was supported by the Agency of European Integration and Economic Development. ; 4 ; 323-327 pp ; 65 (4) ; DE/NEM ; Drvna Industrija
Novel porous bilayered scaffolds, fully integrating a silk fibroin (SF) layer and a silk-nano calcium phosphate (Silk-NanoCaP) layer for osteochondral defect (OCD) regeneration were developed. Homogeneous porosity distribution was achieved in the scaffolds, with calcium phosphate phase only retained in the Silk-NanoCaP layer. The scaffold presented compressive moduli of 0.4 MPa in wet state. Rabbit bone marrow mesenchymal stromal cells (RBMSCs) were cultured on the scaffolds, and good adhesion and proliferation were observed. The Silk-NanoCaP layer showed a higher alkaline phosphatase level than the silk layer in osteogenic conditions. Subcutaneous implantation in rabbits demonstrated weak inflammation. In a rabbit knee critical size OCD model, the scaffolds firmly integrated into the host tissue. The histological analysis and immunohistochemistry analysis showed that collagen II positive cartilage and glycosaminoglycan regeneration presented in the silk layer, and de novo bone ingrowths and vessel formation were observed in the Silk-NanoCaP layer. These bilayered scaffolds can therefore be promising candidates for OCD regeneration. ; This study was funded by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) projects Tissue2Tissue (PTDC/CTM/105703/2008) and OsteoCart (PTDC/CTM-BPC/115977/2009), as well as the European Union's FP7 Programme under grant agreement no REGPOT-CT2012-316331-POLARIS. The authors are grateful to Viviana P. Ribeiro and Teresa Oliveira for the assistance with the immunohistochemical staining. L-P.Y. was awarded a FCT PhD scholarship (SFRH/BD/64717/2009). The FCT distinction attributed to J.M.O. under the Investigator FCT program (IF/00423/2012) is also greatly ...
National and local governments need to step up efforts to effectively implement the post-2020 global biodiversity framework of the Convention on Biological Diversity to halt and reverse worsening biodiversity trends. Drawing on recent advances in interdisciplinary biodiversity science, we propose a framework for improved implementation by national and subnational governments. First, the identification of actions and the promotion of ownership across stakeholders need to recognize the multiple values of biodiversity and account for remote responsibility. Second, cross-sectorial implementation and mainstreaming should adopt scalable and multifunctional ecosystem restoration approaches and target positive futures for nature and people. Third, assessment of progress and adaptive management can be informed by novel biodiversity monitoring and modeling approaches handling the multidimensionality of biodiversity change.
Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted routine hospital services globally. This study estimated the total number of adult elective operations that would be cancelled worldwide during the 12 weeks of peak disruption due to COVID-19. Methods: A global expert response study was conducted to elicit projections for the proportion of elective surgery that would be cancelled or postponed during the 12 weeks of peak disruption. A Bayesian β-regression model was used to estimate 12-week cancellation rates for 190 countries. Elective surgical case-mix data, stratified by specialty and indication (surgery for cancer versus benign disease), were determined. This case mix was applied to country-level surgical volumes. The 12-week cancellation rates were then applied to these figures to calculate the total number of cancelled operations. Results: The best estimate was that 28 404 603 operations would be cancelled or postponed during the peak 12 weeks of disruption due to COVID-19 (2 367 050 operations per week). Most would be operations for benign disease (90·2 per cent, 25 638 922 of 28 404 603). The overall 12-week cancellation rate would be 72·3 per cent. Globally, 81·7 per cent of operations for benign conditions (25 638 922 of 31 378 062), 37·7 per cent of cancer operations (2 324 070 of 6 162 311) and 25·4 per cent of elective caesarean sections (441 611 of 1 735 483) would be cancelled or postponed. If countries increased their normal surgical volume by 20 per cent after the pandemic, it would take a median of 45 weeks to clear the backlog of operations resulting from COVID-19 disruption. Conclusion: A very large number of operations will be cancelled or postponed owing to disruption caused by COVID-19. Governments should mitigate against this major burden on patients by developing recovery plans and implementing strategies to restore surgical activity safely.