Nitrogen fertilisers with urease inhibitors reduce nitrous oxide and ammonia losses, while retaining yield in temperate grassland.

Nitrogen fertilisation, although a cornerstone of modern agricultural production, negatively impacts the environment through gaseous losses of nitrous oxide (N2O), a potent greenhouse gas (GHG), and ammonia (NH3), a known air pollutant. The aim of this work was to assess the feasibility of urea treated with urease inhibitors to reduce gaseous N losses in temperate grassland, while maintaining or improving productivity compared to conventional fertiliser formulations. Urease inhibitors were N-(n-butyl)-thiophosphoric triamide (NBPT) (urea + NBPT) and N-(n-propyl)-thiophosphoric triamide (NPPT) (urea+ NBPT + NPPT), while conventional fertilisers were urea and calcium ammonium nitrate (CAN). N2O emission factors were 0.06%, 0.07%, 0.09% and 0.58% from urea + NBPT, urea, urea + NBPT + NPPT and CAN, respectively, with CAN significantly higher than all the urea formulations, which were not significantly different from each other. Ammonia loss measured over one fertiliser application was significantly larger from urea, at 43%, compared with other formulations at 13.9%, 13.8% and 5.2% from urea + NBPT, urea + NBPT + NPPT and CAN, respectively. Changing fertiliser formulation had no significant impact on grass yield or N uptake in four out of five harvests. In the last harvest urea + NBPT significantly out-yielded urea, but not CAN or urea + NBPT + NPPT. Overall, urea treated with either one or both urease inhibitors significantly reduced emissions of N2O and NH3, while preserving yield quantity and quality. Therefore, changing fertiliser formulation to these products should be encouraged as a strategy to reduce GHG and air pollution from agricultural practices in temperate climate.

How to fill an application for accreditation of Continuing Medical Education activity in Allergology.

Continuing medical education (CME) is a critical tool as well as a generally accepted concern for physicians, while being both a commitment and an obligation for the Administration. In Spain, during the past decades, CME has been a constant concern of many groups; however, it was not until the end of the eighties when efforts at accreditation began to emerge. A significant step was the establishment of the Commission on Continuing Education of Health Professions of the National Health System, an agency of the Consejo Interterritorial (Inter-regional Council), whose accreditation system started in 1998, using the figure of Sector Conference, included in Articles 5 and 8 of the Ley de Régimen Jurídico de las Administraciones Públicas y del Procedimiento Administrativo Común (Law on Legal Regime of Public Administration and Common Administrative Procedures), as Senior Technical Body on the matter. Since then, various Regional Committees and the Spanish Accreditation System of Continuing Medical Education (SEAFORMEC) have been created. Although we earlier published a guide, in this manuscript we have updated the steps that must be taken to apply for accreditation of CME activity in Allergology, explaining the different items in the official application form, clarifying to whom the request should be addressed, and outlining the foundations on which the activities will be evaluated for accreditation purposes, in order to ensure that the training meets the highest standards for quality, so that the objectives that lead to achieving maximum performance and competence of health professionals may be reached.

Evaluation of different systems for the identification of Bacillus strains isolated from Spanish fermented sausages.

Sixty-nine isolates obtained during the manufacture and ripening of Spanish fermented sausages were identified to species level using the Vitek Bacillus biochemical card, the dichotomous key and table proposed by Berkeley et al. ((1984). In Methods in Microbiology, Vol. 16. Academic Press, London, p. 291), morphological and physiological tests and the API 20E miniaturized system. None of the tested systems was entirely satisfactory and the final identification was mainly done on the basis of cellular morphology and the table of test results. Our isolates belonged to the species: B. subtilis (37), B. megaterium (22), B. pumilus (5), B. circulans (3) and unidentified (2). Forty-five cultures (65.2%) were accurately identified with the dichotomous key. A similar figure for the Vitek Bacillus biochemical card was 36%. The results of the API 20E system were very reproducible, especially those of the Voges-Proskauer test. Most of the strains of B. megaterium were misidentified as B. subtilis with the dichotomous key. On the other hand, a high percentage of the cultures belonging to B. subtilis were misidentified as B. megaterium with the Vitek system.