SummaryBackgroundRemote ischaemic conditioning with transient ischaemia and reperfusion applied to the arm has been shown to reduce myocardial infarct size in patients with ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) undergoing primary percutaneous coronary intervention (PPCI). We investigated whether remote ischaemic conditioning could reduce the incidence of cardiac death and hospitalisation for heart failure at 12 months.MethodsWe did an international investigator-initiated, prospective, single-blind, randomised controlled trial (CONDI-2/ERIC-PPCI) at 33 centres across the UK, Denmark, Spain, and Serbia. Patients (age >18 years) with suspected STEMI and who were eligible for PPCI were randomly allocated (1:1, stratified by centre with a permuted block method) to receive standard treatment (including a sham simulated remote ischaemic conditioning intervention at UK sites only) or remote ischaemic conditioning treatment (intermittent ischaemia and reperfusion applied to the arm through four cycles of 5-min inflation and 5-min deflation of an automated cuff device) before PPCI. Investigators responsible for data collection and outcome assessment were masked to treatment allocation. The primary combined endpoint was cardiac death or hospitalisation for heart failure at 12 months in the intention-to-treat population. This trial is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov (NCT02342522) and is completed.FindingsBetween Nov 6, 2013, and March 31, 2018, 5401 patients were randomly allocated to either the control group (n=2701) or the remote ischaemic conditioning group (n=2700). After exclusion of patients upon hospital arrival or loss to follow-up, 2569 patients in the control group and 2546 in the intervention group were included in the intention-to-treat analysis. At 12 months post-PPCI, the Kaplan-Meier-estimated frequencies of cardiac death or hospitalisation for heart failure (the primary endpoint) were 220 (8·6%) patients in the control group and 239 (9·4%) in the remote ischaemic conditioning group (hazard ratio 1·10 [95% CI 0·91–1·32], p=0·32 for intervention versus control). No important unexpected adverse events or side effects of remote ischaemic conditioning were observed.InterpretationRemote ischaemic conditioning does not improve clinical outcomes (cardiac death or hospitalisation for heart failure) at 12 months in patients with STEMI undergoing PPCI.FundingBritish Heart Foundation, University College London Hospitals/University College London Biomedical Research Centre, Danish Innovation Foundation, Novo Nordisk Foundation, TrygFonden.

Intended to draw a frame of the impact of plastics usage and the role of the circular economy, this paper relied on specific literature, data from different studies, case studies, reports and databases existing on the research area. Being produced at low costs and used in a wide range of fields, plastics has been confirmed as one of the most impactful inventions for human. Recently, during the pandemic years, plastics has gotten multiple usages, such as keeping a hygienic sanitary environment facing the critical situations, with a highly increased role in the fight against the SARS-COVID-19 crisis. It is also well known that plastics presents risks arising from its production flow, linked to a huge degree of massive pollution with high impact on the environment. Plastic waste exposed to the environment generated problems and it is of huge concern for all forms of life. As plastics products are present all around the world, there is an increasing statement to one-use plastics in the environment. Thus, it is urge to take actions for managing this situation as appropriate, to protect the environment and reduce the consumption of plastics, which can be achieved by developing and sustain the circular economy, as a new research field to explore. Through this paper we intended to emphasize the importance that, both theoretical contribution and practical measures, have on the production, the use and recycling of plastics and on the circular economy.

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The paper aims to establish a framework based on the method of LCA (Life Cycle Assessment) and LCCA (Life Cycle Cost Analysis) in order to select the best parameters of apple technology by identifying the particularities of fruit production technologies and providing practical recommendations on how to approach the two methods. The methodology of the paper is the use of LCA and LCCA methods, as techniques for assessing the environmental elements associated with the technological process and the economic indicators. The paper was meant to be part of a project whose purpose is to develop a decision and management instrument for the fruit farm Istrița, USAMV of Bucharest. The results consist in a technological and economic structure suitable for application to the selected apple tree technologies, in conventional and ecological system.

The paper was based on the idea that important changes have been occurred in the last years in the Romanian agriculture. Labour is one of the most important production factor in rural area and when this is linked to the agriculture sector, becomes a strategic issue. Land as one of the most limited resources in agriculture plays also an important role, its degree of concentration determining the structure of the farms system. The purpose of the study was to explore, by means of the Gini coefficient, whether the labour, in different forms (paid, unpaid labour) follows a similar degree of concentration as the Total Utilized Agricultural Area (UAA) and the farm output. The datasets used for the paper were the FADN public database (period 2007-2015) and the Tempo online dataset from Romanian National Institute of Statistics. The findings of this analyse were that paid labour, unpaid labour and the output followed a decreased trend of concentration and become during the analysed period, more equal distributed, while the area tends to have more unequal distribution, so the large farms tends to become larger.