Incidental Captures of Plains Spotted Skunks (Spilogale putorius interrupta) By Arkansas Trappers, 2012-2017

Arkansas trappers were surveyed following the 2012 and four subsequent trapping seasons regarding accidental captures of spotted skunks while attempting to trap other species. A total of 132 trappers reported capturing spotted skunks although further investigation confirmed the validity of only 42 reports from trappers that caught a total of 60 spotted skunks. Incidental captures were rare; only 0.35-1.29% of trappers each year caught spotted skunks and came primarily from the Ozark and Ouachita regions of the state

Nutrition in Central Uganda - An Estimation of a Minimum Cost Healthy Diet

This study makes use of linear programming methodology to design a minimum cost diet for the Central Ugandan region. We used a set of constraints on recommended levels of daily nutrient intake, recommended proportions of groups of foods, as well as preferences and food availability in Central Uganda, to design a minimum cost healthy daily diet. Several models were considered, each forcing at least one of the following frequently consumed staple foods: matooke, cassava, and rice. We found that the minimum costs of the optimal diets were lowest in the planting season of March and highest in the harvesting season of December.Central Uganda, minimum cost diet, malnutrition, linear programming, Agricultural and Food Policy, Consumer/Household Economics, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, Food Security and Poverty, Health Economics and Policy,

Thrifty Food Plan, 2006

The Thrifty Food Plan (TFP), a fundamental part of the U.S. food guidance system and the basis for maximum food stamp allotments, has been revised by USDA’s Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion (CNPP), with assistance from USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service (FNS), Economic Research Service (ERS), and Agricultural Research Service (ARS). The TFP provides a representative healthful and minimal cost meal plan that shows how a nutritious diet may be achieved with limited resources. The Plan assumes that all purchased food is consumed at home. The TFP was last revised in 1999. The newly revised (2006) TFP differs from, and improves upon, the previous TFP in a number of ways. The 2006 TFP: • Is based on the 2005 Dietary Guidelines for Americans as well as the 2005 MyPyramid Food Guidance System. • Uses the prices low-income people paid for many foods. • Uses the latest data on food consumption, nutrient content, and food prices: the 2001- 2002 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey and 2001-2002 Food Price Database. • Offers a more realistic reflection of the time available for food preparation, especially with increased expectations for work in assistance programs. Hence, it allows more prepared foods and requires somewhat fewer preparations from scratch. Although different from the previous TFP, the revised TFP is similar in one important respect: It is set at the same inflation-adjusted cost as the previous TFP. CNPP determined it was possible, for the 2001-2002 period, to obtain a healthful diet meeting current nutritional standards at a cost equal to the previous TFP’s cost.Thrifty Food Plan, USDA Food Plans, Diet Quality, Food Stamps, Cost of Food, Agricultural and Food Policy, Consumer/Household Economics, Demand and Price Analysis, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, Food Security and Poverty,

Consumption of, and beliefs about fonio (digitaria exilis) in urban area in Mali

The study sought to determine beliefs and practices about neglected crops in West Africa, using fonio (Digitaria exilis) as a model to understand how obstacles impede the consumption of this cereal in Bamako, the capital city of Mali. This was a crosssectional study on food ethnography in three steps: a market survey on availability of fonio, a food consumption survey on utilisation of fonio, and on beliefs on and attributes of fonio. The study covered the pre-harvest and post-harvest periods and involved key informants, food vendors, and women of reproductive age in households. Fonio, as all cereals, is available year-long on markets in Bamako, and is abundant from September to May before most of the common cereals mature. More than two-thirds (68%) of the women reported having consumed fonio one to three times a month. Fonio was more consumed as snack (djouka) on working days (62%) than on weekend and special event days, suggesting that encouraging the development of ready-to-serve fonio-based products would help increase the consumption of fonio among women in urban area. The average individual portion size of fonio was 152g/day, and the contribution to daily energy intake was 16%. A large share of the women was convinced that eating fonio was good for them (95%) and their family members (94%). Also, most of them thought that fonio had good cooking, organoleptic and nutritional qualities and could contribute to diet’s variation (91% to 100%). Decision by the women to purchase or prepare fonio in the household could be favourably influenced by factors such as media, household members suffering from anaemia, neighbouring people buying fonio and shortage of other cereals; whereas shortage of fonio products (77%), high cost of fonio products (69%), difficult cooking process (51%), and lack of knowledge about processing and cooking fonio (43%) were likely to limit fonio consumption among the women. Also, in the present study, fonio was perceived to be for rich people by more than half (58%) of the women. Improving cooking process and knowledge of the women about fonio cooking, as well as creating a demand for the women with the household’s head and others through media, social and health care services would help increase fonio consumption in Bamako. Key words: beliefs, fonio, women, Mali, ethnograph

The human ARF tumor suppressor senses blastema activity and suppresses epimorphic tissue regeneration.

The control of proliferation and differentiation by tumor suppressor genes suggests that evolution of divergent tumor suppressor repertoires could influence species regenerative capacity. To directly test that premise, we humanized the zebrafish p53 pathway by introducing regulatory and coding sequences of the human tumor suppressor ARF into the zebrafish genome. ARF was dormant during development, in uninjured adult fins, and during wound healing, but was highly expressed in the blastema during epimorphic fin regeneration after amputation. Regenerative, but not developmental signals resulted in binding of zebrafish E2f to the human ARF promoter and activated conserved ARF-dependent Tp53 functions. The context-dependent activation of ARF did not affect growth and development but inhibited regeneration, an unexpected distinct tumor suppressor response to regenerative versus developmental environments. The antagonistic pleiotropic characteristics of ARF as both tumor and regeneration suppressor imply that inducing epimorphic regeneration clinically would require modulation of ARF -p53 axis activation

Indigenous social and economic adaptations in northern Alaska as measures of resilience

I explored one aspect of social-ecological change in the context of an Alaskan human-Rangifer system, with the goal of understanding household adaptive responses to perturbations when there are multiple forces of change at play. I focused on households as one element of social resilience. Resilience is in the context of transition theory, in which communities are continually in a process of change, and perturbations are key points in the transition process. This case study of Anaktuvuk Pass, Alaska, USA, contributes to the understanding of cultural continuity and household resilience in times of rapid change by using household survey data from 1978 to 2003 to understand how households adapted to changes in the cash economy that came with oil development at the same time as a crash in the caribou population and state-imposed limits on caribou harvests. The research illustrates that households are resilient in the way they capture opportunities and create a new system so that elements of the old remain while parts change.Ye

Landscape History and Theory: from Subject Matter to Analytic Tool

This essay explores how landscape history can engage methodologically with the adjacent disciplines of art history and visual/cultural studies. Central to the methodological problem is the mapping of the beholder � spatially, temporally and phenomenologically. In this mapping process, landscape history is transformed from subject matter to analytical tool. As a result, landscape history no longer simply imports and applies ideas from other disciplines but develops its own methodologies to engage and influence them. Landscape history, like art history, thereby takes on a creative cultural presence. Through that process, landscape architecture and garden design regain the cultural power now carried by the arts and museum studies, and has an effect on the innovative capabilities of contemporary landscape design

Implications of India-Asean Fta on India’s fisheries sector

India and ASEAN signed a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) in trade in goods which came to effect from 1st January 2010. There were apprehensions on the likely impact of this RTA on some sensitive sectors of India such as agriculture, fisheries and plantation crop as large number of people depend on these sectors for their livelihood. India is a large consumer of marine products and export also export part of the catch to international markets (1.7 percent in total world export in 2007). Some of the ASEAN partners of India namely Thailand (5.82%), Vietnam (3.86) and Indonesia (2.14%) have larger presence in international fisheries trade and there is a possibility that they can export these products in to India in the post FTA period. In this context the paper looked in to the various provisions of India ASEAN FTA on fisheries sector and calculated trade complementarity and similarity using different trade indices. The paper found that India has taken adequate precaution to protect its marine sector from large scale dumping. The apprehension that India-ASEAN FTA will lead to substantial import of marine products in to India is unfounded