AbstractTransitions to sustainable consumption and production patterns now appear as a widely acknowledged necessity for contemporary food systems. Sustainable transition processes raise major issues of social justice as they often exclude some actors and social groups, as the literature on alternative food networks has amply shown. Based on three case studies anchored in different national contexts (France, Brazil and Belgium), which all emerged at the interface of civil society and public policy, the aim of this article is to show how their promoters try to tackle together sustainable transitions, food justice and food democracy, and thus make food system transitions not only sustainable but also socially just. They adopt on the one hand, an analytical stance on transitions to more sustainable food practices, on inequalities of access and on participation, and on the other hand, an experimental stance leading them to put to test specific mechanisms to support these transitions, to alleviate food injustice and to favour participation and thus also food democracy. We show that it is by combining these analytical and experimental stances that these social experiments succeed to different degrees in articulating sustainable transitions, food justice and food democracy.

Candida albicans, a ubiquitous opportunistic fungal pathogen, plays a pivotal role in human health and disease. As a commensal organism, it normally resides harmlessly within the human microbiota. However, under certain conditions, C.albicans can transition into a pathogenic state, leading to various infections collectively known as candidiasis. With the increasing prevalence of immunocompromised individuals and the widespread use of invasive medical procedures, candidiasis has become a significant public health concern. The emergence of drug-resistant strains further complicates treatment options, highlighting the urgent need for alternative therapeutic strategies. Antifungal peptides (AFPs) have gained considerable attention as potential candidates for combating Candida spp. infections. These naturally occurring peptides possess broad-spectrum antimicrobial activity, including specific efficacy against C.albicans. AFPs exhibit several advantageous properties, such as rapid killing kinetics, low propensity for resistance development, and diverse mechanisms of action, making them promising alternatives to conventional antifungal agents. In recent years, extensive research has focused on discovering and developing novel AFPs with improved efficacy and selectivity against Candida species. Advances in biotechnology and synthetic peptide design have enabled the modification and optimization of natural peptides, enhancing their stability, bioavailability, and therapeutic potential. Nevertheless, several challenges must be addressed before AFPs can be widely implemented in clinical practice. These include optimizing peptide stability, enhancing delivery methods, overcoming potential toxicity concerns, and conducting comprehensive preclinical and clinical studies. This commentary presents a short overview of candidemia and AFP; articles and reviews published in the last 10years were searched on The National Library of Medicine (National Center for Biotechnology Information-NIH-PubMed). The terms used were C.albicans infections, antimicrobial peptides, antifungal peptides, antifungal peptides mechanisms of action, candidemia treatments and guidelines, synthetic peptides and their challenges, and antimicrobial peptides in clinical trials as the main ones. Older publications were cited if they brought some relevant concept or helped to bring a perspective into our narrative. Articles older than 20years and those that appeared in PubMed but did not match our goal to bring updated information about using antifungal peptides as an alternative to C.albicans infections were not considered.

ABSTRACT Two Cerrado rust fungi, Phakopsora rossmaniae and Aplopsora hennenii, described in 1993 and 1995 and originally assigned to families Phakopsoraceae and Ochropsoraceae, respectively, were subjected to molecular phylogenetic analyses using fragments of the nuc 28S and 18S rDNA and mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit 3 (CO3) gene. Although both taxa were morphologically well placed in their original genera, they were shown to belong in a strongly supported new lineage within the Raveneliineae distant from the Phakopsoraceae and Ochropsoraceae. Therefore, we properly treated this lineage as the new genus Cerradopsora now harboring C. rossmaniae (type species) and C. hennenii. However, this novel phakopsoroid genus remains in uncertain familial position without support to be included in any of the families that share space within the Raveneliineae.

ABSTRACT Henosepilachna vigintioctopunctata is a cosmopolitan pest with few records in South America. Podisus nigrispinus is a generalist predator naturally occurring in Brazilian agroecosystems. The objective of this work was to evaluate the biocontrol potential of P. nigrispinus on adults and larvae of H. vigintioctopunctata. Predation of P. nigrispinus adults on larval and adult stages of H. vigintioctopunctata was experimentally evaluated under laboratory conditions. Podisus nigrispinus was able to prey H. vigintioctopunctata larvae. The present study constitutes the first experimental evaluation of P. nigrispinus as a potential biocontrol agent for H. vigintioctopunctata.

ABSTRACT This article analyzes how Scottish writer Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) depicts the relationship between science and morality (secular or religious) in his 1886 novella The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. For this purpose, I analyze the setting choice (London) and some characteristics of late Victorian Gothic fiction that constitute the negative aesthetics of which Stevenson’s characters are formed. Then, I analyze how the negative aesthetic juxtaposes with an order that is both scientific and moralist in a cultural context in which the reading public is obsessed with crime. Eventually, I discuss the theories of 19th-century philosophers and scientists, such as Herbert Spencer (1820-1903), Cesare Lombroso (1835-1909), and Francis Galton (1822-1911), in an attempt to understand Stevenson’s novella from an allegedly scientific point of view. I conclude that Hyde/Jekyll was “destined” to fail since both late Victorian science and morality were prone to condemn the “unfit”.

The discussion of crimes relies on a vast literature whose debates permeate several dimensions: social, spatial, economic, and demographic, among others. The objective of this article is to understand the spatial distribution of crime in Brasilia’s Integrated Development Region. It concludes that the crime rates in this region are not randomly distributed spatially, because an exploratory analysis of spatial data indicates the existence of spatial dependence. This means that the municipalities that border the Federal District are responsible for more than 80% of the crimes carried out in the period under examination. The main victims are young people, mainly black men shot by firearms, and the proportion of young people between 15 and 19 years of age was a determining factor in this positive correlation, among other significant conditions obtained by using estimates of spatial regressions using Spatial Durbin Models – SDM and data panels for the years 2010 to 2017. We detected a 51% incidence of spillovers for fatal crimes.

The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of a coating formulation involving whey protein isolate (WPI) and garlic essential oil (GEO) on the internal quality and microbiological and sensory attributes of quail eggs stored for 28 days at room temperature. Unwashed quail eggs (171) were divided into treatments of uncoated eggs (UE), WPI-coated eggs and WPI/GEO-coated eggs and analyzed during the study period. Eggs coated with WPI/GEO had 1.51 log10 CFU/mL−1 less aerobic mesophilic bacteria, 2.02 log10 CFU/mL−1 less Enterobacteriaceae and 1.34 log10 CFU/mL−1 less molds and yeasts on the eggshell when compared to UE. The Haugh unit (HU) in the range of 0–28 days of storage was significantly higher for WPI/GEO- (88.26 ± 4.83, grade AA) coated eggs than WPI-coated (86.55 ± 6.20, grade AA) and UE (85.94 ± 6.46, grade AA). The new coating formulation (WPI/GEO) can be an option to preserve the quality of quail eggs.

Increased meat and egg production leads to concomitant changes in poultry practices, including the indiscriminate use of formaldehyde to sanitize hatching eggs. Although this sanitizer aids in the increase in poultry production, its toxic potential for man and for avian embryos represents an obstacle to its long-term use. This review assesses whether essential oils fit into the context of hatching egg contamination, reviewing their antimicrobial efficiency, toxicity to poultry embryos and chicks, and their sanitizing effects on poultry production parameters. Studies have indicated that, because they are safer, most of the essential oils studied can be a potential substitute for formaldehyde for minimizing microbial exposure of hatching eggs and embryos. However, complementary studies on the microbiological profile of embryos and chicks hatched from eggs sanitized with essential oils need to be carried out and the economic feasibility of the candidate products should also be considered.