A decline in pasture productivity is often associated with a reduction in vegetative cover. We hypothesize that nitrogen (N) in urine deposited by grazing cattle on degraded pastures, with low vegetative cover, is highly susceptible to losses. Here, we quantified the magnitude of urine-based nitrous oxide (N2O) lost from soil under paired degraded (low vegetative cover) and non-degraded (adequate vegetative cover) pastures across five countries of the Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) region and estimated urine-N emission factors. Soil N2O emissions from simulated cattle urine patches were quantified with closed static chambers and gas chromatography. At the regional level, rainy season cumulative N2O emissions (3.31 versus 1.91 kg N2O-N ha−1) and emission factors (0.42 versus 0.18%) were higher for low vegetative cover compared to adequate vegetative cover pastures. Findings indicate that under rainy season conditions, adequate vegetative cover through proper pasture management could help reduce urine-induced N2O emissions from grazed pastures.
Measures of social cognition have now become central in neuropsychology, being essential for early and differential diagnoses, follow-up, and rehabilitation in a wide range of conditions. With the scientific world becoming increasingly interconnected, international neuropsychological and medical collaborations are burgeoning to tackle the global challenges that are mental health conditions. These initiatives commonly merge data across a diversity of populations and countries, while ignoring their specificity. Objective: In this context, we aimed to estimate the influence of participants' nationality on social cognition evaluation. This issue is of particular importance as most cognitive tasks are developed in highly specific contexts, not representative of that encountered by the world's population. Method: Through a large international study across 18 sites, neuropsychologists assessed core aspects of social cognition in 587 participants from 12 countries using traditional and widely used tasks. Results: Age, gender, and education were found to impact measures of mentalizing and emotion recognition. After controlling for these factors, differences between countries accounted for more than 20% of the variance on both measures. Importantly, it was possible to isolate participants' nationality from potential translation issues, which classically constitute a major limitation. Conclusions: Overall, these findings highlight the need for important methodological shifts to better represent social cognition in both fundamental research and clinical practice, especially within emerging international networks and consortia. Key Points Question: We estimate the influence of cultural factors on social cognition assessment. Findings: Participants' nationality accounted for more than 20% of the variance of social cognition scores. Importance: Cognitive tasks are developed in highly specific contexts and should not be used in other cultures without adaptations. Next Steps: Finer-grain analyses of cross-cultural variations coupled with neural correlates of performances' convergences and divergences.
Cassava (Manihot esculenta Crantz) is the world's second most important starch source, after maize, and a staple food for up to 800 million people in tropical countries (Howeler et al., 2013). The ability of cassava to be productive under poor soil conditions has resulted in the mistaken assumption that it does not require soil amendments, the avoidance of which has led to low cassava yields and constrained its profitability (Kintché et al., 2017). Nonetheless, several studies have reported a yield response with fertilization (Howeler, 1996;Pellet & El-Sharkawy, 1993). Fertilization of cassava is also necessary to maintain long-term soil productivity (Howeler, 2011). Cassava has been grown in soils that received complementary and sole fertilization of organic and inorganic soil amendments (Ayoola & Makinde, 2007;Susan John et al., 1998). In rural communities, the application of inorganic fertilizer is common among resource-rich
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