Foods, Vol. 4, Pages 622-644: Increased Foraging in Outdoor Organic Pig Production—Modeling Environmental Consequences

Consumers' motivations for buying organic products include a wish of acquiring healthy, environmentally friendly products from production systems that also ensure a high level of animal welfare. However, the current Danish organic pig production faces important challenges regarding environmental impact of the system. High ammonia emissions arise from outdoor concrete areas with growing pigs and sows on pasture possess an increased risk of nitrogen (N) leaching. Direct foraging in the range area is suggested as a way to improve the nutrient efficiency at farm level and to support a more natural behavior of the pig. Thus, by modeling, we investigated the environmental consequences of two alternative scenarios with growing pigs foraging in the range area and different levels of crops available for foraging—grass–clover or a combination of Jerusalem artichokes and lucerne. It was possible to have growing pigs on free-range without increasing N leaching compared to the current practice. The alternative system with Jerusalem artichokes and lucerne (high integration of forage) showed the lowest carbon foot print with 3.12 CO2 eq kg−1 live weight pig compared to the current Danish pasture based system with 3.69 kg CO2 eq kg−1 live weight pig. Due to positive impact on soil carbon sequestration, the second alternative system based on grass-clover (low integration of forage) showed a similar carbon foot print compared to current practice with 3.68 kg CO2 eq kg−1 live weight pig. It is concluded that in practice there is room for development of organic farming systems where direct foraging plays a central role.

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Biomolecules, Vol. 5, Pages 2978-2986: Update on Alcoholic Hepatitis

Alcoholic liver disease is one of the most prevalent liver diseases worldwide, and a major cause of morbidity and mortality. Alcoholic hepatitis is a severe form of liver injury in patients with alcohol abuse, can present as an acute on chronic liver failure associated with a rapid decline in liver synthetic function, and consequent increase in mortality. Despite therapy, about 30%–50% of patients with severe alcoholic hepatitis eventually die. The pathogenic pathways that lead to the development of alcoholic hepatitis are complex and involve oxidative stress, gut dysbiosis, and dysregulation of the innate and adaptive immune system with injury to the parenchymal cells and activation of hepatic stellate cells. As accepted treatment approaches are currently limited, a better understanding of the pathophysiology would be required to generate new approaches that improve outcomes. This review focuses on recent advances in the diagnosis, pathogenesis of alcoholic hepatitis and novel treatment strategies.

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Atmosphere, Vol. 6, Pages 1652-1675: Indoor Air Quality in Naturally Ventilated Italian Classrooms

Characterization of indoor air quality in school classrooms is crucial to children's health and performance. The present study was undertaken to characterize the indoor air quality in six naturally ventilated classrooms of three schools in Cassino (Italy). Indoor particle number, mass, black carbon, CO2 and radon concentrations, as well as outdoor particle number were measured within school hours during the winter and spring season. The study found the concentrations of indoor particle number were influenced by the concentrations in the outdoors; highest BC values were detected in classrooms during peak traffic time. The effect of different seasons' airing mode on the indoor air quality was also detected. The ratio between indoor and outdoor particles was of 0.85 ± 0.10 in winter, under airing conditions of short opening window periods, and 1.00 ± 0.15 in spring when the windows were opened for longer periods. This was associated to a higher degree of penetration of outdoor particles due to longer period of window opening. Lower CO2 levels were found in classrooms in spring (908 ppm) than in winter (2206 ppm). Additionally, a greater reduction in radon concentrations was found in spring. In addition, high PM10 levels were found in classrooms during break time due to re-suspension of coarse particles.

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Beverages, Vol. 1, Pages 311-319: Total Dietary Fiber Content of Selected Traditional Beverages in Egypt: A Brief Profile

Escalating obesity rates have become a major public health concern in North Africa and the Middle East. Culturally-congruent dietary health education and strategies continue to be warranted to address this increasing public health crisis. Knowledge and familiarity with traditional foods and their nutritive value would assist public health practitioners in becoming culturally competent when educating on healthy eating patterns. The aim of this study is to provide a brief dietary profile of the total dietary fiber (TDF) contents of selected traditional beverages in Egypt. Five cookbooks for Egyptian food recipes were reviewed for traditional beverages. Beverage recipes (n = 19) were selected and reviewed for their TDF content using the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) National Nutrient Database for Standard Reference (Release 27). The published values for TDF content were tabulated and reported per 100 mL of consumable portions. The highest TDF content was found in carob juice (8.0 g) and the lowest found in peppermint tea (0.0 g) with an overall TDF mean content of 2.8 g. Traditional beverages could be regarded as important sources of TDF within a healthy Egyptian dietary pattern. Cultural awareness and familiarities to traditional foods and their respective dietary profiles should be encouraged as an objective towards building culturally-competent health professionals and combating obesity in Egypt. Furthermore, developments of a traditional Egyptian food nutrient database for public access should be explored.

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Chromatography, Vol. 2, Pages 625-641: Prediction of Peak Shape and Characterization of Column Performance in Liquid Chromatography as a Function of Flow Rate

Traditionally, column performance in liquid chromatography has been studied using information from the elution of probe compounds at different flow rates through van Deemter plots, which relate the column plate height to the linear mobile phase velocity. A more recent approach to characterize columns is the representation of the peak widths (or the right and left peak half-widths) for a set of compounds versus their retention times, which, for isocratic elution, give rise to almost linear plots. In previous work, these plots have been shown to facilitate the prediction of peak profiles (width and asymmetry) with optimization purposes. In this work, a detailed study on the dependence of the peak widths (or half-widths) on the flow rate is reported. A new approach to quantify the deterioration of column performance for slow and fast flow rates and to characterize chromatographic columns is proposed. The approach makes use of the width (or half-widths) for a set of compounds with similar interaction kinetics and does not require knowledge of the extra-column contributions to the total variance. The chromatographic data of two sets of compounds of different natures (sulfonamides and β-blockers), eluted from Spherisorb and Chromolith columns with acetonitrile-water mixtures, are used to illustrate the approach.

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Could Profilin Be a ‘Canary in a Coal Mine' of the Increasing Allergy Epidemic?

Int Arch Allergy Immunol 2015;168:1-2

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In vitro Diagnosis of Immediate Drug Hypersensitivity: Should We Go with the Flow?

Background: Diagnosis of immediate drug hypersensitivity reactions (IDHRs) is based upon history taking, skin prick or intradermal tests and quantification of specific immunoglobulin E (IgE) antibodies. Unfortunately, this is often insufficient to correctly identify patients with IgE-mediated IDHRs and is impossible in the case of non-IgE-mediated IDHRs. Drug provocation tests (DPT) are considered the 'gold standard' diagnostic but are not always possible, for ethical and practical reasons. Therefore, the validation of new cellular tests such as basophil activation testing (BAT) was necessary. This review focuses on the applications of BAT in IDHRs. Methods: A literature search was conducted, using the words basophil, flow cytometry, immediate drug allergy and drugs; this was complemented by the authors' own expertise. Results: BAT/HistaFlow® is a useful diagnostic tool in IDHRs, mainly used to diagnose allergy to neuromuscular blocking agents (NMBAs), antibiotics, nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) and iodinated radiocontrast media. Its sensitivity varies between 50 and 60%, and specificity attains 80%, except for with quinolones and NSAIDs. Conclusions: The diagnostic utility of BAT (and to lesser extent HistaFlow) has been demonstrated and is mostly applied in IDHRs. However, larger-scale collaborative studies are necessary to optimize test protocols and validate the entry of BAT as a diagnostic instrument in drug allergy.
Int Arch Allergy Immunol 2015;168:3-12

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