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This study addresses the issue of assessing the functioning of farms in areas with diverse natural farming conditions by evaluating them using the latest version of the Agricultural Production Area Valorization (APAV) index. Analyses were performed on three types of farms: fully organic farms, organic farms with co-existing conventional production, and conventional-production farms. To achieve the research objective, 259 communes were selected depending on the level of their APAV. Assessments were made of their production potential, production organization, production and economic results in communes with average APAVs below, equal to, and higher than the national average (66.6 points) based on data from farms continuously keeping accounts for the Polish farm accountancy data network (FADN) in between 2019–2021. The Shannon-Wiener index (S-W index) was used to measure the degree of diversity of crop species in the farms’ sown crops, and determine what proportion of those were structure-forming plants. This research demonstrates that in order for interest in organic production to develop under current conditions, there must be sufficient financial support for agricultural producers, especially in areas with more difficult farming conditions.

In many distributed computing systems, aspects related to security are getting more and more relevant. Security is ubiquitous and could not be treated as a separated problem or a challenge. In our opinion it should be considered in the context of resource management in distributed computing environments like Grids and Clouds, e.g. scheduled computations can be much delayed because of cyber-attacks, inefficient infrastructure or users valuable and sensitive data can be stolen even in the process of correct computation. To prevent such cases there is a need to introduce new evaluation metrics for resource management that will represent the level of security of computing resources and more broadly distributed computing infrastructures. In our approach, we have introduced a new metric called reputation, which simply determines the level of reliability of computing resources from the security perspective and could be taken into account during scheduling procedures. The new reputation metric is based on various relevant parameters regarding cyber-attacks (also energy attacks), administrative activities such as security updates, bug fixes and security patches. Moreover, we have conducted various computational experiments within the Grid Scheduling Simulator environment (GSSIM) inspired by real application scenarios. Finally, our experimental studies of new resource management approaches taking into account critical security aspects are also discussed in this paper.

Organic farms should, by definition, place particular emphasis on the protection of agricultural soils, landscape care and activities aimed at producing high-quality agricultural products. However, when joining this production system, the farms face many challenges in order to make these contributions to society at the expected level. The main aim of the study is to determine the scale of disproportions in production effects achieved by farms between organic and conventional production systems, taking into account the quality of natural management conditions. An equally important goal is to determine the factors in Polish agriculture that determine whether to conduct this production system. The paper aims to indicate the direction of development of organic farming in the EU, including Poland, based on the Eurostat data for 2012–2020. It was noted that the current development of the organic farming sector in EU member states has been at different rates. In Poland, its development strength largely depends on the presence of ANCs. Nearly ¾ of organic utilized agriculture area (UAA) is located in communes with a large share of them. Organic farms achieve lower production effects in comparison to conventional farms, and their disproportions also depend on the quality of natural farming conditions. In Poland, the personal competences of farmers are also an important determinant in joining organic farming. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study addresses the issue of assessing the functioning of farms in areas with diverse natural farming conditions by evaluating them using the latest version of the Agricultural Production Area Valorization (APAV) index. Analyses were performed on three types of farms: fully organic farms, organic farms with co-existing conventional production, and conventional-production farms. To achieve the research objective, 259 communes were selected depending on the level of their APAV. Assessments were made of their production potential, production organization, production and economic results in communes with average APAVs below, equal to, and higher than the national average (66.6 points) based on data from farms continuously keeping accounts for the Polish farm accountancy data network (FADN) in between 2019–2021. The Shannon-Wiener index (S-W index) was used to measure the degree of diversity of crop species in the farms' sown crops, and determine what proportion of those were structure-forming plants. This research demonstrates that in order for interest in organic production to develop under current conditions, there must be sufficient financial support for agricultural producers, especially in areas with more difficult farming conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Author(s): Sofia A. V. Fortunato [sup.1] [sup.2] , Marcin Adamski [sup.1] , Olivia Mendivil Ramos [sup.3] [sup.4] , Sven Leininger [sup.1] [sup.4] , Jing Liu [sup.1] , David E. K. [...], A study of the genomes of calcisponges shows that they contain at least one ParaHox gene, adding weight to the 'ghost locus' hypothesis that Hox and ParaHox genes were present in the earliest animal ancestor, but subsequently lost in some sponge lineages. Evolution of Antennapedia-class genes in sponges (Adamska HG) The simple body plan of sponges belies the complexity of their genomes, which contain a variety of transcription factors involved in body patterning in more complex creatures, such as Antennapedia class genes that in bilaterians (animals with distinct anterior and posterior ends) include Hox, ParaHox and NK. The genome of the demosponge Amphimedon queenslandica contains a tight cluster of NK genes, but no Hox or ParaHox genes. This led to the hypothesis that Hox and ParaHox genes evolved after sponges diverged from the lineage leading to cnidaria (jellyfishes, sea anemones and others) and bilateria. Study of the overall structure of the sponge genome suggested, however, that Hox and ParaHox might once have been present and later lost -- the 'ghost locus' hypothesis. Maja Adamska and colleagues have studied the genome of two calcisponges, a distinct lineage from demosponges, and show that whereas the NK genes are not clustered, there is at least one ParaHox gene (Cdx). This adds weight to the ghost locus hypothesis and highlights the need to examine the genomes of many different sponge lineages in order to obtain a more complete picture of the ancestral animal complement of Antennapedia genes. Sponges are simple animals with few cell types, but their genomes paradoxically contain a wide variety of developmental transcription factors.sup.1,2,3,4, including homeobox genes belonging to the Antennapedia (ANTP) class.sup.5,6, which in bilaterians encompass Hox, ParaHox and NK genes. In the genome of the demosponge Amphimedon queenslandica, no Hox or ParaHox genes are present, but NK genes are linked in a tight cluster similar to the NK clusters of bilaterians.sup.5. It has been proposed that Hox and ParaHox genes originated from NK cluster genes after divergence of sponges from the lineage leading to cnidarians and bilaterians.sup.5,7. On the other hand, synteny analysis lends support to the notion that the absence of Hox and ParaHox genes in Amphimedon is a result of secondary loss (the ghost locus hypothesis).sup.8. Here we analysed complete suites of ANTP-class homeoboxes in two calcareous sponges, Sycon ciliatum and Leucosolenia complicata. Our phylogenetic analyses demonstrate that these calcisponges possess orthologues of bilaterian NK genes (Hex, Hmx and Msx), a varying number of additional NK genes and one ParaHox gene, Cdx. Despite the generation of scaffolds spanning multiple genes, we find no evidence of clustering of Sycon NK genes. All Sycon ANTP-class genes are developmentally expressed, with patterns suggesting their involvement in cell type specification in embryos and adults, metamorphosis and body plan patterning. These results demonstrate that ParaHox genes predate the origin of sponges, thus confirming the ghost locus hypothesis.sup.8, and highlight the need to analyse the genomes of multiple sponge lineages to obtain a complete picture of the ancestral composition of the first animal genome.