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The main actors in the value chain are the farmers, who apply the CEI solutions in their work processes, and the equipment manufacturers, who manufacture, sell and provide life cycle support for agricultural machinery. CEI technologies are mainly integrated into farm equipment, making the equipment manufacturer essential for the uptake of CEI in agriculture. The machines are, therefore, hybrid service bundles: physical products combined with support, software and fitting data-based services. The equipment manufacturers are making the decisions on choosing and procuring concrete technologies and applications, keeping the farmers' requirements in mind and also managing the supply chain. This includes providers for hardware, software and infrastructure elements for the CEI solution. 

This policy brief discusses the politics of humanitarian aid in Syria, borders versus conflict lines, the role of armed groups, lessons learned to date, and the devolution of risk and responsibility. Recommendations are provided for donors, (I)NGOs, and diplomatic representatives. Over a decade of violent conflict has left deep scars on the Syrian socio-political and geographical landscape. The country is fragmented into four governance and territorial entities, and communities are divided by conflict lines. Yet, global challenges – such as the Syrian refugee crisis, the threat posed by transnational radical groups, and most recently the Covid-19 pandemic – do not stop at borders. Identifiable “fragments” do not operate in complete isolation and are indeed interdependent. The Navigating Fragmentation series of policy briefs has been developed from a research project that focused on the ever-evolving and interactive process of fragmentation in Syria and dynamics of “rebordering” (Vignal, 2017) during and after the Covid-19 pandemic.

BackgroundFoodborne disease (FBD) affects millions of people each year, posing a health burden similar to malaria, tuberculosis or HIV. A recent World Bank study estimated the productivity losses alone attributed to unsafe food within Africa at $20 billion in 2016, and the cost of treating these illnesses at an additional $3.5 billion. Ethiopia faces multiple food safety challenges due to lack of infrastructure and basic pre-requisites for food safety such as clean water and environment, washing facilities, compounded by limited implementation of food safety regulations, and a lack of incentives for producers to improve food safety. A consolidation of our understanding and evidence of the source, nature and scale of FBD in Ethiopia is needed to inform policy and future research. We performed a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) of publications on FBD occurrence in Ethiopia including hazard presence and impact. MethodThe SLR followed Cochrane and PRISMA guidelines. We searched PubMed and CAB-Direct for relevant publications between 1990 and 2019 (inclusive). Observational studies and reviews were included. Two reviewers screened titles and abstracts, and retained publications were reviewed in full for quality and data extraction. ResultIn total 128 articles met the inclusion criteria. Most articles focused on the identification of biological hazards in food. High levels of microbial contamination in different food value chains were often found in the small, ad hoc, observational studies that dominated the literature. Raw milk (22/128, 17.0%) and raw beef (21/128, 16.4%) were the most studied food products. Foodborne (FB) parasites were often found at higher rates in food than bacterial and viral pathogens, possibly due to differences in ease of identification. High levels of bacterial contamination on the hands of food handlers were widely reported. There were no reports on the incidence of human FBDs or resulting health and economic impacts. ConclusionOur findings reflect existing concerns around food safety in Ethiopia. A lack of substantial, coordinated studies with robust methodologies means fundamental gaps remain in our knowledge of FBD in Ethiopia, particularly regarding FBD burden and impact. Greater investment in food safety is needed, with enhanced and coordinated research and interventions.

An error was discovered in the function that calculates the melt mass within the code. This error led to an overestimate of the mass of melt produced by impacts, and therefore, the melt mass subsequently used in the remainder of the code for melt-atmosphere interactions. The final atmospheric states of the system at equilibrium should contain more H2 than indicated in the 2022 publication, henceforth referred to as I22. The equilibrium fO2 of the melt phase is also affected, although not identically in all cases. The distribution of iron between escaping the system, accretion by the planetary atmosphere, and accretion by the planetary interior remains unaffected. The theoretical work on how the post-impact atmosphere and impact-generated melt pool interact with one another also remains unchanged. The discussion and trends presented in I22 are still applicable. Our end-member case of Model 3A, where all of the impactor iron that accreted to the planet interior is assumed to interact with the post-impact melt phase, is only minorly affected. Our end-member case of Model 3B, where we assume that none of this interior-accreted iron can interact with the melt phase, now shows H2 column densities that are greater by up to a factor of 3 across our impactor mass range than in I22. However, the H2 column densities in Model 3B remain substantially lower than in Model 3A and in previous studies. The figures that required updating are given below.

This essay looks at the form of the early Torah scroll as found in the Cairo Genizah Collection by re-ex-amining the scroll originally described by Colette Sirat, Michèle Dukan and Ada Yardeni in the late 1980s as potentially the earliest to be found there. This scroll, com-posed of two fragments from the book of Genesis, T-S NS 3.21 and T-S NS 4.3 from Cambridge University Library, has been dated between the fifth and eighth centuries CE. Whether it had originally only held Genesis, or once had been a complete scroll of the Pentateuch, was unclear, but interest was generated by a number of what were assumed to be early and non-standard features in it, in particular a non-masoretic section division before Gen 17,1. The current essay presents a substantial new piece from the same scroll, this time from the book of Exodus, which was recently discovered in the library of the Jewish Theologi-cal Seminary, New York (ENA 4107.20). The essay looks at the new text, which covers chapters 5 to 7 of Exodus and includes several textual variants. In particular, it re-exam-ines the question of the non-masoretic section division in the light of numerous section divisions preserved in the new fragment, and concludes that this early scroll is in fact wholly consistent with later masoretic practice.

Background: Severe COVID-19 is linked to hyperactivation of the host immune response involving signaling through multiple spleen tyrosine kinase (SYK) pathways. Fostamatinib is an orally administered potent and selective inhibitor of SYK that has been approved in the US, Canada, Japan, and Europe for the treatment of chronic immune thrombocytopenia (ITP). Methods: We conducted a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled phase 3 trial of fostamatinib in adults hospitalized for COVID-19 who required oxygen supplementation (NCT04629703). Patients (pts) were randomly assigned 1:1 to receive fostamatinib (150 mg BID administered orally) or placebo for 14 days. All pts additionally received standard of care at their hospital. The primary endpoint was days on oxygen (days 1-29). Results: A total of 280 pts underwent randomization (with 141 assigned to fostamatinib and 139 to placebo). The primary endpoint was met; those who received fostamatinib had lower mean days on oxygen than those who received placebo (4.8 vs. 7.6 days, P=0.0136; Table 1). Fostamatinib showed significance or trend towards significance in all secondary endpoints of reducing mortality and morbidity compared to placebo. The mean change in the 8-point ordinal score from baseline to the average of Day 5 to 15 was significantly improved in pts who received fostamatinib vs. placebo (P=0.0092,Table 1). Furthermore, 6 pts were enrolled with a baseline ordinal score of 6 (3 in each group). All patients in the fostamatinib group survived, and all in the placebo group died by Day 30. A significantly higher proportion of pts who received fostamatinib were discharged from the hospital by Day 15 compared to placebo (P=0.0029,Table 1). Significantly more patients were alive and oxygen-free by Day 29 and Day 60 with fostamatinib treatment in comparison to placebo (P=0.0213 and P=0.0271, respectively, Table 1). Treatment-emergent adverse events were consistent with previous studies and were similar between the 2 groups. Conclusion: The addition of fostamatinib to standard of care treatment resulted in significantly fewer days on oxygen, an improved 8-point ordinal scale score, and significantly more patients alive and oxygen-free by Day 60 compared to placebo in pts with COVID-19 requiring hospitalization and supplemental oxygen. Disclosures: Deepa B. Gotur, MD, FCCP, FCCM, GSK: Advisor/Consultant|GSK: Speaker at ATS|Moderna: Advisor/Consultant Vadim Markovtsov, PhD, Rigel Pharmaceuticals, Inc.: Employee|Rigel Pharmaceuticals, Inc.: Stocks/Bonds Lucy Yan, MD, PhD, Rigel Pharmaceuticals, Inc.: Employee|Rigel Pharmaceuticals, Inc.: Stocks/Bonds Wolfgang Dummer, MD, PhD, Rigel Pharmaceuticals, Inc.: Stocks/Bonds.

There is some confusion in what is meant by “bio-based”, “biodegradable” and/or “compostable” plastics. This confusion is not only by consumers – there are differences in use of the terms in law and policy. The term “bio-based” refers to plastics manufactured, entirely or partly, from biological source material. However, issues arise as non-biologically sourced additives are used, or products combine more than one material from different sources. “Biodegradable” is used in different ways. Can materials be described as intrinsically biodegradable or can this term only be used in the context of specific environmental conditions in which materials are placed? What is the role of standards? Definitions of this term are used in different ways by different stakeholders and confusion may result. “Compostable” also has potential for confusion. Policy makers often limit this to industrial composting, yet the term itself does not do this and consumers may be misled. This briefing explores the different uses of these terms and proposes definitions which aim to overcome the confusion and inconsistency. It also makes recommendations for their use consistent with the principles of better law making. Law and policy should not use the terms without defining them.

Optimal auction design is a fundamental problem in algorithmic game theory. This problem is notoriously difficult already in very simple settings. Recent work in differentiable economics showed that neural networks can efficiently learn known optimal auction mechanisms and discover interesting new ones. In an attempt to theoretically justify their empirical success, we focus on one of the first such networks, RochetNet, and a generalized version for affine maximizer auctions. We prove that they satisfy mode connectivity, i.e., locally optimal solutions are connected by a simple, piecewise linear path such that every solution on the path is almost as good as one of the two local optima. Mode connectivity has been recently investigated as an intriguing empirical and theoretically justifiable property of neural networks used for prediction problems. Our results give the first such analysis in the context of differentiable economics, where neural networks are used directly for solving non-convex optimization problems.