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Influence of indigenous post-harvest handling practices on storage fungal contamination of common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) in Cameroon
Full text linkCommon bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) represents a staple legume crop in many tropical and subtropical regions typically Cameroon, serving as a major source of protein, income, and food security for rural households. In Cameroon, Common bean is usually stored by most farmers after harvest as a source of food and for sale. From the stored bean, the surplus from that meant for food is sold by some small-holder farmers to earn income However, post-harvest losses due to storage fungi significantly compromise grain quality and safety. Traditional post-harvest practices; including manual harvesting, inadequate drying, and low-level storage structures create conditions favorable for fungal infection and proliferation. This review examines how prevailing indigenous post-harvest practices in Cameroon contribute to common bean infection by storage fungi. Evidence from studies carried out in Cameroon indicates that incidence of fungal infection increases substantially during storage and involves genera such as Aspergillus, Penicillium, Fusarium, and Xylaria spp. Poor drying, exposure to moisture and pests, and insufficient storage hygiene exacerbate these infections. Improved drying methods, sanitation, hermetic storage technologies, and farmer education are discussed as strategies to reduce fungal contamination and associated mycotoxin risks. The review underscores the need for targeted farmer education, accessible storage technologies, and contextualized extension services to reduce post-harvest fungal losses in common bean production systems. Strengthening post-harvest management practices is essential for reducing fungal contamination, improving food safety, and enhancing the overall value chain of common beans in Cameroon. It is paramount that effective common bean fungal management strategies be implemented by farmers
Mind the (disability hate crime) gap: finding parity beyond the Law
No full textThere is no aggravated offence of disability hate crime. The current legislation fails to place the disability characteristic on an equal footing with the characteristics of race and religion (for which there are aggravated offences). The effect of this is evident not only in law, which does not adequately punish the perpetrators of disability hate crime, but also in the actions of the police who find it difficult to recognise and record disability hate crime. Recommendations have been made by the Law Commission, most recently in 2021 and also in 2014 to extend the aggravated offences that currently exist for race and religion to all other existing characteristics including disability. Nothing has yet been changed. This chapter identifies and examines the two types of police response to disability hate crime, namely the vulnerability response and the access to justice response. Drawing on the author’s previous research it examines the practical effect of both responses on victims of disability hate crime and makes suggestions as to how the police can make changes that help to find parity beyond the law
Air quality and health co-benefits of bus electrification: evidence from a UK metropolitan area
Full text linkAir pollution in cities is a critical environmental and public health concern, where achieving legal limit values and progress towards WHO health-based guidelines may be challenging. Transportation is one of the leading causes of air pollution in urban areas, and hence public transportation systems such as low / zero tailpipe emission buses play a crucial role in reducing toxic emissions to air, and improving sustainable mobility and social connectivity. In addition, as combustion emissions from transport also negatively impact the climate, a move to transportation systems that can be powered using green energy are necessary. Responding to the climate severity and its link to urban air pollution, a global push for sustainable transportation is occurring. This study employed an advanced street scale air quality dispersion modelling system to assess the impact of five hypothetical bus fleet electrification scenarios (i.e. 20 %, 40 %, 60 %, 80 % and 100 % electrification) on the changes to air pollution levels in a UK metropolitan area (West Midlands). Modelled spatial distributions of air pollutant concentrations have been integrated into the West Midlands Air Quality Lifecourse Assessment tool for the assessment of associated air quality related health effects, generating electoral ward level health and economic outcomes. Potential air quality improvements were observed in nitrogen dioxide (NO2) concentration up to 13 μg m−3 (or 27 %), and in PM2.5 (particulate matter with diameter less than 2.5 μm) concentration up to 0.5 μg m−3 (or 4 %). The modest improvements in regional health considering only air quality related impacts on disease incidence (up to 3.1 % in at attributable burden of asthma diagnoses over 10 years) and mortality (up to 0.7 % in deaths prevented over 10 years) were also observed. This study provides evidence for the air quality and health co-benefits of the carbon transportation systems
Engineering micro- and nanosized pharmaceutical salt crystals using high-pressure homogenization
Full text linkThis study presents an innovative application of high-pressure homogenization (HPH) for the synthesis of micro- and nanocrystalline pharmaceutical salts, offering a scalable and environmentally sustainable alternative to conventional crystallization techniques. Using ketoconazole (KTZ) and oxalic acid (OA) as a model system, salt formation was successfully achieved through HPH processing in the presence of various stabilizers (Pharmacoat® 606, Pluronic® F127, Soluplus®, and TPGS) at different concentrations and process temperatures. Structural analysis by XRPD and FT-IR confirmed the formation of a new multicomponent salt through proton transfer and hydrogen bonding, while SEM imaging revealed controlled crystal morphology and significant particle size reduction to the submicron range. The process demonstrated remarkable reproducibility and flexibility, allowing morphological tuning through simple adjustments in stabilizer concentration and temperature. Dissolution studies performed at pH 4.4 showed up to an 80% drug release within 15 minutes for HPH-processed KTZ:OA salts, a substantial improvement over bulk KTZ. The findings establish HPH as a versatile, solvent-free, and continuous manufacturing platform for the production of high-purity pharmaceutical salts with superior dissolution performance, highlighting its potential to transform solid-state drug formulation and process intensification strategies in pharmaceutical development
Institutional withdrawal in open prisons: power through omission in late modern imprisonment
No full textThis article argues that institutional withdrawal—the retraction of institutional infrastructure—is a distinctive mode of late-modern penal power. Drawing on fieldwork into peer-led induction in open prisons in England and Wales, it shows how withdrawal operates across interpersonal, procedural and organizational dimensions as institutional actors step back while retaining surveillance and sanctioning powers. Whether intentional or unintentional, withdrawal produces responsibilization by default, generating uncertainty and retreatist adaptations amongst those imprisoned, who carry responsibility without scaffolding. Far from signalling institutional failure, withdrawal reflects neoliberal logics of organizational retrenchment and responsibilization. Drawing on Goffman’s concept of abandonment and Merton’s account of retreatism, the article reframes late-modern imprisonment as governance through withdrawal, demonstrating how penal power persists through omission, producing iatrogenic harm
Examining the role of agroecology in food security prediction: evidence from Burkina Faso using machine learning methods
No full textBackground
Food insecurity affects a large proportion of the world's population, with enormous disparities to the disadvantage of low-income countries, especially those in sub-Saharan Africa. In this context, public decision-makers, funders, and NGOs urgently need streamlined indicators on households in precarious situations to better orient their policies and aid. However, existing food security monitoring tools focus on isolated dimensions of the problem, and some remain static. We aim to fill these gaps by focusing on a composite metric of food security to explore associations and identify variables with predictive relevance for food security outcomes using machine learning techniques.
Methodology
This paper applies machine learning methods to a panel dataset from Burkina Faso to explore which agroecological practices are associated with improvements in food security and have an impact on the prediction of food security outcomes.
Results
Overall, the trained models recorded accuracies varying from 64% for the Multi-Layer Perceptron model to 72% for the assembly models, with learning times generally < 1 min, except for the SVM model, which recorded around 30 min, suggesting good potential for these models to identify food-insecure households. Our results show that agroecological intensification through a combination of multiple agroecological practices, such as livestock and crop species diversification, plays a key role in predicting households’ food security status. Indeed, households practicing agroecology with good species diversification recorded a food insecurity rate of 6.6%, compared with 15% for conventional households, and pairwise differences in the prevalence of food security are significant (p-values most often < 0.01). The partial dependence plots show that the probability of belonging to the food-secure class increases by 3% as species richness increases or as livestock are integrated.
Conclusion
The performance of the algorithms using a simplified measure of food security suggests that machine learning model-driven approaches could significantly improve food insecurity crisis response
“Unconscious stipendiaries of this wicked system”? Female enslavers and compensation in nineteenth-century Britain
Full text linkThis article will use the records of the Slave Compensation Commission to examine how women experienced and negotiated property- and slave-ownership in nineteenth-century Britain. Demonstrating that women played a crucial role in facilitating the transmission of wealth rooted in enslavement into metropolitan society, it will show how they utilized, manipulated—and were restricted by—the financial mechanisms and legal frameworks that underpinned the British economy. Women’s engagement with the compensation process illustrates both the economic opportunities open to middle- and upper-class women in the early nineteenth century and the ways that female property ownership was mediated and constrained. But we cannot elide the nature of this particular form of “property.” These women were significant players in a system dependent on the violent exploitation of other human beings. The article shows the different ways that British women claimed enslaved people as property: how they used racialized violence to negotiate and wield power in a patriarchal society and to claim, establish, and reinforce their own potentially precarious positions. In doing so, it demonstrates the importance of interrogating the complex nexus of power relations—gendered, racialized, and classed—that shaped how female property- and wealth-holders thought, acted, and behaved in nineteenth-century Britain
Effects of energy-matched low- versus high-carbohydrate diets on glycaemic control, lipid profile, and body composition in healthy adults: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials
No full textBackground: The comparative effects of energy-matched low-carbohydrate (LC) versus high-carbohydrate (HC) diets on metabolic and anthropometric outcomes in healthy adults remain unclear.
Objective: To evaluate the effects of LC diets (≤44% of total daily caloric intake [TDCI] from carbohydrate) versus HC diets (≥45% TDCI) on fasting glycaemia, insulinaemia, blood lipids, and body composition in non-medicated, disease-free adults under energy-matched conditions.
Methods: Randomised controlled trials (RCTs) were identified through systematic searches of PubMed and secondary sources up to April 2025. Eligible studies compared energy-matched dietary interventions and reported pre- and post-intervention data for fasting blood glucose (FBG), fasting insulin (FINS), blood lipids (total cholesterol [TC], HDL-cholesterol [HDL-C], LDL-cholesterol [LDL-C], triglycerides [TAG]), and/or body composition. Pooled effect sizes (Hedges’ g) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were calculated using a random-effects model.
Results: Eighteen RCTs involving 905 participants met the inclusion criteria. LC diets produced greater reductions in FBG (g = −0.364; 95% CI: −0.709 to −0.019; P < 0.001) and FINS (g = −0.190; 95% CI: −0.361 to −0.014; P = 0.034) compared with HC. TAG decreased (g = −0.379; 95% CI: −0.540 to −0.219; P < 0.001), and HDL-C increased (g = 0.389; 95% CI: 0.229 to 0.550; P < 0.001) under LC diets. HC diets led to a greater reduction in LDL-C (g = −0.225; 95% CI: −0.406 to −0.043; P = 0.009). No significant effects were found for TC. LC diets also reduced body mass (g = −0.183; 95% CI: −0.349 to −0.017; P = 0.031) and fat mass (g = −0.304; 95% CI: −0.548 to −0.059; P = 0.015) to a greater extent than HC, with no effect on fat-free mass.
Conclusion: Under energy-matched conditions, LC confers modest advantages for glycaemia, HDL-C, and TAG, whereas HC better lowers LDL-C. Most effects do not depend on exercise status, offering evidence to guide carbohydrate intake recommendations in diets where total caloric intake remains unchanged
Exhaled CO2 and aerosol dispersion on a cruise ship: airflow and infection risk insights
No full textUnderstanding airborne pathogen transmission in cruise ship environments remains a critical challenge due to the confined nature of indoor spaces, high occupancy, and limited access for real-world experimentation. This study addresses the gap in empirical data on particulate matter and CO2 dynamics aboard operational cruise
ships, providing a high-resolution dataset that can be used for the validation of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) models and informing infection probability risk assessments. An experimental trial was designed for two mechanically ventilated cruise ship rooms (R01, R02), instrumented at ten locations under eight ventilation
scenarios: R01 with 100 % (S1a) and 50 % (S1b) design flow rates; R02 with 100 % (S2a), 50 % (S2b) and 10 % (S2c) design flow rates; R01 with high aerosol rate and 50 % flow rate (S3); and R01 with an air purifier at maximum (S4a, 1300 m3 h-1) and minimum (S4b, 422 m3 h-1) clean air delivery rate (CADR). A live UK-EU cruise hosted the experimental trial. Particulate matter and CO2 concentration, temperature and relative humidity were collected using portable sensors to build a unique dataset to validate subsequent computational modelling of aerosol dispersion, infection probability and transmission prevention, mitigation and management
(PMM) approaches in arbitrary passenger ship spaces. As expected, PM and CO2 were markedly reduced under 100 % design flow ventilation compared with 50 %. Maximum PM2.5 reductions were 84 % during background, 29 % in build-up, and 72 % in decay experimental phases. An air purifier further reduced particulate matter, with peak PM reductions of 57 % (PM10), 48 % (PM2.5), and 45 % (PM1). These findings offer practical guidance for optimising air quality management strategies in cruise ships and other high-occupancy spaces, besides providing a crucial high-resolution dataset for validating numerical modelling. Moreover, this study provides valuable insights into mechanically ventilated shipboard airflow behaviour
Progressive pathways for a resilient (re)construction of Ukraine: Towards a new social contract
No full textThis policy study places labour at the centre of reconstruction planning for Ukraine as the driving force of the economy and of all present and future economic reconstruction work there. It acknowledges the three stages of the reconstruction process, as outlined in the 2022 Lugano framework – repair of damage, short-term recovery, and long-term recovery – and their advancement in the subsequent conferences in London in 2023 and Berlin in 2024. It further acknowledges the tragic reality that the liquidation-of-damage phase (initially set at two years) has now lasted four years and will continue for an unknown period. In such circumstances, it is crucial to focus on the immediate economic problems. This can and should be done in line with the long-term reconstruction planning. Planning the liquidation of damage and the everyday survival of the economy should be done in a manner that lays the foundation for long-term reconstruction without creating significant systemic vulnerabilities and path dependencies that may be acceptable in a conflict management scenario but are suboptimal in the post-conflict period. Such considerations are relevant both in private economic affairs and in the management of state-owned enterprises and in the public services domain
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