Gender and cycling: Gendering cycling subjects and forming bikes, practices and spaces as gendered objects

Jennifer Bonham, Carol Bacchi and Thomas Wanne

Local political leadership and the modernisation of local government

Political leadership has been a key element of central government’s attempts to ‘modernise’ local government over the past decade, within a discourse that emphasised ‘strong’ and ‘visible’ leadership and the role of leaders and leadership in driving change within local authorities. In the context of such an approach, and also taking account of academic discourse, this article draws upon interviews with nearly thirty individuals in leadership positions in local authorities in England, Scotland and Wales to assess their experiences of leadership and their views of some aspects of the role and work of councils. It suggests that whilst there is broad convergence between the aspirations of government and the narratives that emerge from these leaders on some aspects of local political leadership, there are also differences, perhaps most notably over the relationship between changes to decision making structures and the loci of political power

Produtividade da agricultura: resultados para o Brasil e estados selecionados.

Este trabalho analisa a produtividade da agricultura nos anos recentes, em especial no período de 2000 a 2012. O artigo estima indicadores de produtividade não apenas para o Brasil, mas também para uma seleção de estados. Estes foram escolhidos pela sua relevância na produção nacional de grãos e carnes. Para isso, foram escolhidos os estados da Bahia, Minas Gerais, São Paulo, Paraná, Rio Grande do Sul, Mato Grosso e Goiás. Utilizou-se o conceito de produtividade total dos fatores (PTF) porque ele oferece uma definição mais abrangente de produtividade do que medidas que comparam o produto a apenas um insumo, como trabalho ou terra. Esta última forma de mensuração da produtividade é chamada produtividade parcial. A PTF considera, em sua definição, a reunião de todos os produtos das lavouras e da pecuária e os relaciona com todos os insumos usados na produção

Politics versus Policies: Fourth Wave Feminist Critiques of Higher Education’s Response to Sexual Violence

This article uses the lens of fourth wave feminism to examine media accounts of institutional and student responses in two cases of sexual violence at institutions of higher education. Competing discourses reveal a disconnect between what institutions say they do and students’ actual experiences of the institutional handling of sexual violence cases. When policies, actions, and values are not fully aligned, institutions of higher education are unable to respond to societal and institutional injustices. Hence, recommendations for better alignment between institutional values and actions are proposed

Initial prognostic factors in small-cell lung cancer patients predicting quality of life during chemotherapy. Swiss Group for Clinical Cancer Research (SAKK).

The question of whether initial prognostic factors in small-cell lung cancer patients have a predictive value for patients' quality of life (QL) during chemotherapy is addressed in the context of a randomised clinical trial comparing early and late alternating chemotherapy (SAKK protocol 15/84). The relative impact of initial tumour stage and performance status, previous weight loss, sex and age on patient-rated QL was analysed over six chemotherapy cycles in 124-130 patients (according to available QL data) with more than 400 questionnaires. Fatigue/malaise, personal functioning, emotional and general well-being were prospectively selected as QL indicators. Predefined summary measures (average QL score over chemotherapy cycles, 'minimum', 'maximum' and 'final' improvement) were analysed separately by scale in various patient groups. General linear models adjusted for treatment arm and response were used to confirm the univariate findings. Within the overall sample, the average QL scores over six cycles were predicted by initial prognostic factors. Patients with poor prognostic factors reported worse QL. Within a limited sample (with baseline QL), patients with poor prognostic factors reported worse QL at baseline and greater improvement under treatment. Graphical comparison of QL patterns over cycles showed permanent discrimination by levels of prognostic factors. The impact of initial prognostic factors was consistently confirmed in the three analyses. Levels of performance status and weight loss best discriminated QL. Initial tumour stage, performance status and previous weight loss can predict QL in small-cell lung cancer during chemotherapy, even after controlling for response to treatment. Our results may contribute to clinical decision-making with regard to the intensity of chemotherapy and QL outcome, especially in patients with extensive disease

Mathematical modelling of polyamine metabolism in bloodstream-form trypanosoma brucei: An application to drug target identification

© 2013 Gu et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are creditedThis article has been made available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund.We present the first computational kinetic model of polyamine metabolism in bloodstream-form Trypanosoma brucei, the causative agent of human African trypanosomiasis. We systematically extracted the polyamine pathway from the complete metabolic network while still maintaining the predictive capability of the pathway. The kinetic model is constructed on the basis of information gleaned from the experimental biology literature and defined as a set of ordinary differential equations. We applied Michaelis-Menten kinetics featuring regulatory factors to describe enzymatic activities that are well defined. Uncharacterised enzyme kinetics were approximated and justified with available physiological properties of the system. Optimisation-based dynamic simulations were performed to train the model with experimental data and inconsistent predictions prompted an iterative procedure of model refinement. Good agreement between simulation results and measured data reported in various experimental conditions shows that the model has good applicability in spite of there being gaps in the required data. With this kinetic model, the relative importance of the individual pathway enzymes was assessed. We observed that, at low-to-moderate levels of inhibition, enzymes catalysing reactions of de novo AdoMet (MAT) and ornithine production (OrnPt) have more efficient inhibitory effect on total trypanothione content in comparison to other enzymes in the pathway. In our model, prozyme and TSHSyn (the production catalyst of total trypanothione) were also found to exhibit potent control on total trypanothione content but only when they were strongly inhibited. Different chemotherapeutic strategies against T. brucei were investigated using this model and interruption of polyamine synthesis via joint inhibition of MAT or OrnPt together with other polyamine enzymes was identified as an optimal therapeutic strategy.The work was carried out under a PhD programme partly funded by Prof. Ray Welland, School of Computing Science, University of Glasgo

Utililização de resíduos de construção e de demolição reciclados (RCD-R) como corretivos da acidez do solo

Os resíduos de construção civil e demolição (RCD) são graves problemas ambientais, pois representam mais de 50% do resíduo sólido gerado nos médios e grandes centros urbanos. Por outro lado, a acidez do solo é um dos principais fatores capazes de reduzir o potencial produtivo dos solos brasileiros, pois provoca a diminuição da disponibilidade de nutrientes para as plantas. Este estudo teve o objetivo de avaliar a viabilidade da utilização do RCD-R classe A, como corretivo de acidez do solo, tendo como indicador a produção de matéria seca da alfafa (Medicago sativa cv. Crioula). Os resultados obtidos sugerem que o RCD-R cinza (origem de concreto) tem potencial para ser utilizado como corretivo da acidez de solos